Dead Account 👋🏼

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

Because there is more to life than the small town I've been living in for the last 25 years. I've managed to travel to a few places around the world but now is the time to explore and see as much as I can, meeting captivating people along the way.

I'm an aspiring writer and I'm always looking for inspiration. Through the act of travelling, seeing the beauty and tragedy of the world and at times - through failed romance.

One thing that does keep me going from day to day is an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and answers to whatever questions are on my mind. I realised one day that some of the bigger, eternal and existential questions I had take a lifetime to answer - and even after that lifetime has passed and the Earth has received you back into her arms, I may still not know the answer. After I thought about that, I decided that it would be hypocritical of someone who wanted to know as much as possible to then cut their journey short and run the risk of not being able to ever answer them. So from then I have been trying to live, see, discover, be inspired and - fundamentally - answer my own questions.

There are over seven billion people living in nearly 200 countries, stretched over 7 continents on our little planet. I simply must meet as many of them as I can.

Interests

• animals
• dogs
• writing
• books
• poetry
• walking
• movies
• music
• classical music
• opera
• philosophy
• deep conversations
• the beatles
• vinyl records
• existentialism
• foreign films
• classical literature

Music, Movies, and Books

I guess this is also one of those incredibly difficult things to answer, where do you start?

I think, at a push, I could say that I prefer old music and old books. I really don't want that to come across as pretentious. I just figured, being an awkward person, that there are so many good musicians and authors from the past - that I should get through those first and then start on the contemporary stuff? I mean, I listen to and have read plenty of recent-ish things but I'm still living in the past in terms of the majority of what I listen to and read.

I'm just going to go for a list of music, films and books that I adore. In no particular order and certainly not exhaustive.

Music:

1. Something - The Beatles (I'm obsessed with them. My Dad is from Liverpool)
2. Beethoven's 9th symphony
3. Liebestraum No. 3, "O Lieb" by Franz Liszt (most Liszt to be honest, but this one makes me feel everything)
4. Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy
5. "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" aria from Die Zauberflöte, Mozart
6. Ue o Muite Aruko - Kyu Sakamoto
7. All things must Pass - George Harrison
8. Lover, you should have come over - Jeff Buckley
9. Miles Davis - Blue in Green
10. Love me, please love me - Michel Polnareff

Films:

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Michel Gondry
2. Lord of the Rings trilogy - Peter Jackson (I love the books so much as well)
3. Melancholia - Lars Von Trier
4. Most Quentin Tarantino films - especially Pulp Fiction, Basterds and Reservoir Dogs
5. Blade Runner (original and the sequel is also SO GOOD)
6. Her - Spike Jonze
7. Lost in Translation - Sofia Coppola
8. Metropolis - Fritz Lang
9. Amélie - Jean-Pierre Jeunet (love love love love love love love this)
10. Most Ingmar Bergman films. Amazing movies.

Books:

1. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
2. A Grief Observed - C.S. Lewis
3. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
4. Stoner: A Novel - John Williams
5. Bonjour Tristesse - Françoise Sagan
6. The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann
7. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
8. Journey to the End of the Night - Louis-Ferdinand Céline
9. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
10. Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Kierkegaard, Descartes, Rousseau etc..

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

My Mum and I once walked to the top of a volcano in the Philippines with some of our family and watched the sunrise. I don't know quite how amazing it was in terms of human achievement, but it was certainly a special moment for me.

Teach, Learn, Share

I'm a native English speaker and lover of the English language, so I'd always be willing to help out with questions about the idiosyncrasies of the language.

Customers at a pub I used to work at called me "The Jukebox" because I know about quite a lot of musicians from across the decades! I found it quite funny. So I'd be happy talking about music :) I play some guitar but I wouldn't say I'm a virtuoso..

I love literature and film so let's talk about those, please please please! Always looking for suggestions (tip: I love melancholic books and movies)

Countries I’ve Visited

Bahrain, Belgium, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Philippines, Qatar, Scotland, Spain, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Wales

Countries I’ve Lived In

England, Philippines