ABOUT ME

Where I'm from, where I've been:
I grew up in New York State in a town called Vestal which is a suburb of Binghamton. Since IBM, our one employer, began outsourcing, everything of importance left Binghamton, and my brother and I were eager to join in on the exodus. We studied music together for two years at Ithaca College, and my brother--the one with real talent--left for France. It is apparently the Mecca for classical saxophone performers. I dropped music and moved to Chicago to go to the University of Chicago and then I moved to La Rochelle, France--and then to Washington to join in on the grind.

Who I am:
I moved last year to an apartment with a small patio where we can have barbecues, which means that my main life goal has basically been obtained. I also want to do some other things like starting a business and/or moving to West Africa, but I think my raw enjoyment of life has leveled out at hanging out with a beer, grilled meat, and friends on the patio.

PHILOSOPHY

Why not?

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

When I was living in France, I took a couple weeks to bike to Provence and through Corsica. I mostly camped but the occasions when I stayed with couch surfers were some of my best experiences. Unfortunately, my place in Washington is a closet in a basement, so I can't host yet, but I am looking forward to a time in my life when I can give travelers the experience I've had.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I stayed with couch surfing hosts in Bordeaux and Aix-en-Provence for a couple days each. Both were really good experiences.

Interests

Collecting Music, Violin, Travel, Learning foreign languages, Arguing about the news, Tennis-Running-Hiking-Biking,

• beer
• running
• news
• traveling
• music
• violin
• cycling
• hiking
• surfing
• tennis
• business
• languages
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

Incomplete Lists:

MUSIC

The Beatles, The Band, Bob Dylan, Chris Thile / Punch Brothers, Féla Kuti, Ali Farké Touré, Orchestra Baobab, Of Montreal,

MOVIES

Best In Show, The Royal Tenenbaums, Percepolis, 8 1/2, Bella Strata, The 30 year-old Virgin, un long dimanche de fiancailles, Rounders,

BOOKS

You Must Set Forth At Dawn (Wole Soyinka), Les bouts de bois de Dieu (Sembène Ousmane), The Moon and Sixpence (Maugham), I am America and so can you (Steven Colbert),

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I had the good fortune to get to spend about 4 weeks biking across southern France and Corsica last year after teaching English for a year. I loved hitting the road every day without any fixed plans and everything I needed in a couple bags on the back of my bike. Corsica was the most beautiful place I've been to--with the Sahara dessert as a close second--and the roads were like movie roads cutting across the sides of rocky mountains dropping down into the ocean. Totally worth of utter exhaustion of biking those unreasonable roads.

Countries I’ve Visited

Egypt, France, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, Senegal, United States