My name is Andrew O'Donnell (the imported data from facebook uses the Irish spelling of my name) and I am a musician, writer, and sometime teacher of ESL (English as a Second Language), which was my profession living in Asia since 2003. I am currently based in Lancashire, England, and have been living here since early summer 2017.

I am also in the process of starting up an online publisher of poetry, and prose on classical and contemporary literature.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I am looking to base myself in Ireland in the next few months and am planning to do some music there later this summer, but may initially need a couch or a cheap hostel. I am also keen to meet new people as I have been out of the west for a long time, and figure couchsurfing would be a great way to do some new networking and socializing. I can return all favours if anyone similarly wanted to base themselves in England later this year or next year.

Being based in Ireland will also allow me to learn some Irish, which is something I've meant to get down to for a while.

Interests

• books
• literature
• poetry
• walking
• politics
• music
• live music
• cycling
• swimming
• economics
• playing music
• writing poetry

Music, Movies, and Books

Music; Ryan Adams, 13th Floor Elevators, The Dubliners, Planxty, Sweeney's Men, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Fionn Regan, Damien Dempsey, The Beatles, David Gray, Kate Bush, Rory Gallagher, Van Morrison, Morrissey, John Spillane, Sinead O'Çonnor, The Waterboys, Jackson C. Frank, Beethoven, Haydn, Scriabin, Small Faces, Ronnie Lane, Shostakovich, Mahler, Vagn Holmboe, Glen Hansard, The Pogues, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Trilok Gurtu, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Bismillah Khan, Toscanini, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, Django Reinhardt.

Movies; lots of different kinds but a lot of European cinema, particularly Italian films, and I love Tarkovsky's films.

Books; far too many to list very comprehensively... a bare-bones list of authors might be: Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, W.B Yeats, Dylan Thomas, William Blake, S.T Coleridge, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Goethe, Yukio Mishima, Rudolf Steiner, Alfred North Whitehead, Lau Tzu, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, Ovid.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Overland/ferry trip from Cardiff, Wales to Sokcho, South Korea.

Teach, Learn, Share

I'm not sure what this means but I can share anything that comes from the interests I listed above, teach ESL and play music etc

What I Can Share with Hosts

I have had a very varied life living in a number of different countries, so hopefully anything that has come out of those experiences can be shared. With a helpful dollop of humour!

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, China, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Japan, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Morocco, Nepal, Romania, Russian Federation, Scotland, Spain, United States, Viet Nam, Wales

Countries I’ve Lived In

England, Hungary, Japan, South Korea