CURRENT MISSION

Travel the world and learn about the life of other people and nations! And maybe one day move to another country...

ABOUT US

Half of our conversations are about the countries and cities we've been to and about travelling to new places. Our friends would tell you that we are always travelling but we would reply that we've seen so little of what the world has to offer. Some of our favourite countries we travelled to are Ireland, Mongolia, Japan, US (New Orleans! Oregon!), UK (Scotland, Wales, Lake district, London...) ...

PHILOSOPHY

Not all who wander are lost...

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

It all started by hosting a whole Folk Rock band from Mongolia for a week. We were a bit scared at first because there were nine of them, but it turned out to be an amazing experience.
Now it feels like we've been doing this forever! We've hosted wonderful people from all over the world and we also had the opportunity to live the experience from the other side as well. Our trips in Israel and Palestine would have been so different without all the great encounters we've made thanks to CS.

Interests

Next to travelling and meeting new people, we both like to cook, and try new dishes, work with new ingredients or explore a new cuinine. Japanese cuisine is our absolute favourite (think okonomiyaki, yakitori, yakisoba, oyakodon, everything izakaya-style), followed by Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean and Middle Eastern food, but it is equally hard to say no to things like tacos, sabayon, pulled pork, eggs benedict, tex mex, French cheeses, a 'full Irish' or some Belgians classics like shrimp croquettes and vol-au-vent. If you are looking for some cheap (or not so cheap) but oh so good restaurants, just ask us for advice.

Having the chance to live in the place were the best beers are made, we also know all the places you should go to enjoy a nice drink. And I think we can proudly say that we both tasted at least half of all the Belgian beers, which is quite a lot. Martin even tried brewing once.

Besides that we like to keep an open mind, explore new places (in our country and beyond) and learn about other ways of life.

In our free time we prefer to do some hiking, dwell the streets of Brussels, go to concerts or go to the pub with some friends. Or throw a (dinner) party at our house...

And recently, we also started gardening. We have quite a big garden (considering we live in the middle of the city) and we try to grow our own vegetables and keep the flowers going on. We don't seem to be very talented, so all tips are welcome.

Other interests: comic books, cooking books, all other books, photography, design, languages, history, decorating, music, christmas and oh yeah, boats, water, rain, oceans and sea gulls!

• humanities
• writing
• books
• design
• photography
• concerts
• dining
• italian food
• cooking
• chinese food
• beer
• japanese food
• mexican food
• partying
• drinking
• pub crawls
• gardening
• flowers
• news
• music
• hiking
• history
• languages
• philosophy
• travelling
• sea
• japan
• scotland
• mongolia

Music, Movies, and Books

We are both very into music, although we have a different taste that goes from hard rock, folk, world and classical music to jazz, blues and pop. Going to small concerts in for example a pub or small venue is what we like most. About that, we live 2 minutes away from the jazz pub Bravo, a great venue where you can enjoy several days a week all sorts of jazz concerts in their basement.

One unforgettable music experience was our trip to Louisiana (in particular New Orleans) and Texas, where there's cajun, jazz & country music everywhere you go. We came home with dozens of cds, and a lot of wonderful memories!

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

We travelled by train from Brussels all the way to Beijing. It was part of a trip of three months. We "did" the transmongolian express, which was a fantastic experience, spent two unforgettable weeks travelling in Mongolia and explored China for two months. As a result we fell in love with Chinese food and with the Mongolian way of life...

More recently, I (Stefanie) moved to Sydney, Australia for 7 months with three of my colleagues, as part of an agreement with my Belgian employer. We worked in Rhodes, in the newsroom of the Australian news agency AAP. Martin joined me there for three months. Great experience!

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Palestine, Portugal, Russian Federation, Scotland, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Belgium

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