CURRENT MISSION

to find the duck with teeth. it lives somewhere in europe and we will find it.

ABOUT ME

There are two of us included in this profile, so don´t worry i don´t like to refer to myself as `we´. my name is ursula and i´m from an island in washington state. growing up on the rock was pretty much the best--there´s all sorts of outdoorsie things to do. like take a walk on the beach or go swimming with your dog or go camping in the woods behind your house. plus, as an added bonus everyone from my town knows everything about everyone else! small town life.... i enjoy good food. there, i said it. i can´t eat gluten because i´m allergic to it, but sometimes i sneak a little piece of cookie here, a little bit of pasta there. gluten is wheat, barley, couscous, etc. but rice and quinoa are on my side. but enough about my dietary life. i like to make things with my hands. knitting, painting, making invatations/cards/valentines. i like animals such as but not limited to: dogs (i miss mine!), quail (actually birds in general), goats, and junebugs. i´m living in bilbao, spain for 4 more months and i´m taking art classes at a university here. i live with my good friend melissa (who´s description you will read next) and a really cool family. our host dad likes to cook so we´ve been eating things like baraja (i don´t know how to spell it but it kind of looks like celery), and ocean snails and cheese. i can speak enough spanish to generally get my point across, but it´s pretty painful to listen to. i´m a recent coffee addict. it started right before this trip while i was living the good life in portland, oregon. that´s where i´m currently living in the united states. i go to school there and will probably live there for a little while after i graduate. once i get a house i´d love to share my couch!

melissa: So I am the other half of the you that you are learning all about. Urs and I come as sort of a tag team, because I think we are secretly sisters that led the same lives on the opposite sides of the country, the US that is. While ursula was toddlin´around with her dogs on the beaches of the pacific northwest, I was crawling around eating live minows and digging in the sand on my small island in NY. Yes there is a small island off the coast of NY and it is not Mannhattan or Long Island. And I live there. Or used to. Now I live in Bilbao and next I live in Portland, OR. I am studying fine arts and biology, which means I have no idea what kind of career I am after. That´s actually a lie. I decided just now that I want to be an illustator of children´s nature books and i want to have a lavander farm and raise goats. So there. I´ll let Ursula be the talker from now on...

PHILOSOPHY

i´m trying to be more conscious of my daily habits and what effects they have on the earth and want to be active in the community when i get back to portland. i don´t know how, maybe work in the slow food movement or something? but oh, personal philosophy...right. i like to do a lot of observation before i come to any conclusions.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

we've hosted and been hosted and took a break and now that we've moved i think we can start participating again. please read the couch description/update!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

everything has added to our travel experience! yeah for couchsurfing! A+!

Interests

oh i thought i did this already. well i have an interest in perfume making. i don´t know how to do it but i´d be interested to learn. oh, and i love to eat gelato. love it love it! and chocolate. oh man, i love chocolate. i guess i´ve got a bit of a sweet tooth (my sister would scoff at that remark and call it an understatement). i´ve got an incredibly cute 1 year old niece who also resides in portland, and i can´t wait to see her again! she´s the greatest and we like to dance together to soul music. i love music and believe that there are good songs in every genre. lately i´ve been listening to mos def, tv on the radio, the distillers, dolly parton, gillian welch, mirah, common, cat power, outkast...ah, so many! i want more soul music in my life. i like to dance but don´t know how to do specific dances like salsa. i want to learn though!

• animals
• cats
• dogs
• chickens
• birds
• arts
• humanities
• books
• perfumes
• dancing
• dining
• cooking
• chocolate
• cheese
• coffee
• vegetarian
• vegan
• gardening
• boating
• tv
• traveling
• knitting
• painting
• music
• camping
• swimming
• biology
• beaches

Music, Movies, and Books

gah! i just did this! it´s under interests. but before i left the pacific northwest i started getting into more local music there. i saw karl blau & your heart breaks in anacortes, wa around the start of the new year. that´s a really cool town, you should visit. sleepy fishing town with lots of good music and hippie babies.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

i have no idea. this is way above my level. oh, once when i went boat camping in the san juan islands with my family, i slept in a little...not even a cave but an inlet? it was way high up on this cliff and you had to climb through other mini-caves to get there. i didn´t sleep too soundly that night because if i had rolled over i would have rolled off the cliff! i´ve also herded chickens in my younger years.

Teach, Learn, Share

learn: to drum, continue to learn to knit, cook, garden, spanish, make perfume, to mandolin (I think I just made up a new verb)

teach: minimal working knowledge of spanish and knitting, english, to cook vegetarian or vegan, where to stick in the clam rake in order to fill your bushel

share: chocolate?

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