CURRENT MISSION

Our current mission is creating the foundation of our growing family! We're all about defining ourselves as parents and individuals right now and surviving the sleepless nights! :-D

ABOUT ME

We're an up-and-coming family who have barely come out from our baby cocoon. Theo was born in October 2006 and Elliot was born in May 2008.

My name is Maria and my husbands name is David. We live in a flat in a collective building.

I'm the adventorous one, not even acknowledging a home town, having moved around most of my life.

But with the pregnancy hormones, stability and security became my lead words and now I am fully enjoying my still life as a house-wife and mother in the middle-sized city of Linköping... but not for long! Soon I'll hopefully start the tough education as I pursue to became a doctor.

Before my doctor-dreams I've tried many careers; I have had a pilot license, gone to art school, read two years of chemistry and biology at the university, been a vegan for 5 years (now I'm a vegetarian), worked with everything from dishwashing and bartendering to being a factory slave to environmental youth organisations to international businesses and marketing to being a Secretary under the Director General at the Swedish Aviation Authority.

I love comic books, art, sewing clothes, painting/drawing/making posters or otherwise being creative, nature (I know a few mosses and trees in latin!), interacting with people, cooking and baking, swimming and running, and I have a thing for Asia: punk and food from China, movies from Japan -especially Hayao Miyazaki (Studio Gibli) films. (Which David loves to!)

Traveling is still my foremost passion, and I look forward to show my kids the world. 'Cause life is what you experience - and I love to through myself out into the world, meet people, learn and just have fun!

David is the music lover who has an impressive collection of LPs in the genre of ska, reggae and oi. Although most of his life right now are cosy family evenings, he loves to attend punk music concerts when his friends arrange them.

He really likes his job as a bed salesman, and he'll happily answer any questions about which bed is most suitable for your sleeping habits and how to get the best value out of your money!

He loves clothes and has a superb sense of style, always looking smart in shirts and v-necks. Jackets is one of his passions; he owns 15 at the moment but is dreaming of 5 more classic coats.

I met David when we both where working as bartenders at a gritty rock bar in Linköping, I was working part-time to finance my art studies, David was working more than 60 hours a week (!) as the bar manager. David has also worked in a factory making ovens, as a cleaner, an au-pair and a carpenter.

He plans on working little more than necessary in the future and being a full-time family-father, taking care of the household and the kids, as soon as I start earning some cash as a doctor.

Both David and I are feminists, trying to have an equal relationship as possible. We try to split the parental leave evenly and divide housework and family responsibilty among us. I installed a dimmer to the ceiling light the other day and David is getting really good at cooking! Baby steps maybe, but we really try not to fall into the "Mummy-Daddy;Woman-Man Trap".

The kids are great; Theo is starting to talk a few words and attends a great Montessori day-care near where we live. Elliot is all smiles, hiccups and bubbly laughter, soon learning how to sit and roll over.

We live in a collective building. It means that you have your own flat, but with the oppurtunity to take part in activities with your neighbours. It is in fact Swedens biggest collective with more than 80 flats. Most of our neighbours are our good friends and we hang out together a lot. Many have small children in the age 0-7, so we do a lot off stuff together with our kids.

PHILOSOPHY

Maria has been a hardcore hairy environmental feminist punk vegan, but is now softening up and being more open to all kinds of philosophys and different politic views and interests. She thinks that Gandhi was one of the greatest people who has ever lived and loves his non-violence and tolerence philosophy and hopes that the world some day can come together in greater knowledge, acceptance and understanding.

David has evolved from a tough streetkid, smoking in café's and drinking strong coffee, to a loving non-smoking family father with a passion for finding non-discovered bands on Myspace and Rooibos Earl Grey. His foremost goal in life is his family and having fun. He secretly dreams of being a lead singer in a cool punk band, and hopes to pursue his dream soon.

We are both atheists (as most people are in such a secularized country as Sweden) and don't believe in anything supernatural. We respect religious believes that are personal, honest and questioning.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Maria had a friend of a friends friend from Canada staying for a week in her apartement in Linköping. He was quite young (18) and had been traveling Europe for a couple of months. It was all fun and laughs at first, but at the end of the week he was starting to act a bit weird. I think he was experiencing some kind of hubris, not being in contact with his "real" world at home, thinking he could behave in any fashion at all when surrounded by strangers he most probably never will meet again. I hope he landed back on earth before going home, 'cause he was starting to go a bit crazy.

Hopefully I'll have great couchsurfing experiences in the near future!

Interests

Family
Music
Movies
Art
Making stuff (Art, clothes, play-dough, cup-cakes :-)
Learning
Reading
Concerts
Festivales
Politics
Environment
Vegetarian cooking

• birds
• arts
• books
• fashion
• concerts
• education
• environment
• dining
• cooking
• recipes
• coffee
• baking
• vegetarian
• vegan
• running
• drinking
• aviation
• clothing
• flowers
• politics
• movies
• reading
• traveling
• socializing
• painting
• drawing
• music
• punk music
• swimming
• biology
• chemistry
• teaching
• history
• medicine
• au-pair

Music, Movies, and Books

Maria loves asian movies, even though she doesn't turn down funny american comedies. She can't watch scary movies, as she easily gets nightmares. Studio Gibli productions make both Maria and David passionate. Other films Maria like are Amelie from Montmartre, Juno, Houzhe, Starship Troopers, Drop dead Gorgeous, American Beauty, Spinal Tap, Blade Runner, Trainspotting and the old Star Wars movies. (The new Star War movies are crap!)

She has always loved skate punk and Swedish "Trallpunk". Other favourites have been Ani Di Franco and Tori Amos - but now she's kind of tired of them (though they still give her a tingly feeling) and she listens mostly to Jack Johnson, Nouvelle Vague, Amy Winehouse, Sahara Hotnights and Swedish singer Laleh.

Marias stack of literature is quite large: she has recently finished an enormous biography of Gandhis life by Zac O'yeah and highly recommends it! At the moment she is indulged in three books: Women and Shame by Brene Brown (a 6 year research study with interviews), "Den hemliga kocken" by Swedish journalist Mats-Eric Nilsson that reveals all the secret additives in todays modern processed foods and how the food industry profits of giving their customers food we think are "home made" when they really are more like plastic chemical compounds... also she reads "Hur man säger nej med gott samvete" by Jesper Juuhl, a Danish family terapeutht. Maria loves Jesper Juuhl because he advocates a new type of child upbringing, based on love and respect - very different from raising a child with violonce and hard voices, or letting all the leashes go and doing whatever the child wants: but instead being honest to yourself, your partner and your child.

David is all about punk, oi, ska and reggae. He is very old school, loving music from the 60's and 70's. His absolute favourite bands are Cocksparrer (Whom he was lucky to see at a festival in Blackpool this August). He also likes Desmond Dekker, Jimmy Cliff, Buzzcocks, and everything else from that scene.

He loves action and comedy movies and is a dedicated Studio Gibli fan (introduced by Maria!). His favourite films include Wallace and Gromit, Spirited Away, Blues Brother, Mars attacks and most other Tim Burton movies.

David reads for the moment "Blir man tjock av bröd?" a book written by a dietitian who answers the most common questions about food, fat-scares and nutrition. He loves comic books, especially Swedish anthology "Larson" which we get every month.

Theodore was really into teletubbies, but now he has moved on to Garfield and My neighbour Totoro and Kiki's delivery service. He really likes all Stina Wirsén children books and he loves to dance to all kinds of music, especially fast punk!

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach you great vegan recipes and the Swedish nature (birds, trees, flowers, mosses, lichens etc).

David knows everything about the history of ska, rocksteady and reggae and he can also tell you exactly which bed you should have at home!

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Morocco, Netherlands, New Caledonia, Norway, Portugal, Russian Federation, Spain, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom

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