final days: stuttgart, germany

my time in eastern europe came to end monday morning when i flew to stuttgart. my friend jordi is in his second year of playing hoops on a pro german team, so i thought i'd pay him a visit and see exactly what he's up to. the plan going into visiting jordi was to hang out, catch up, see the scene in stuttgart, and drink a few german beers. without too much effort all was accomplished.

so i had 3-ish days in stuttgart, and they went something like this. monday: arrive in stuttgart around 2pm. get back to jordi's around 3:30pm. hang out. eat supper. hang out. go to bed.

tuesday: sleep-in a bit while jordi is at work. visit jordi's place of work. hang out. pick up food along the way. watch the cold rain ruin our plans of walking about the city. hang out. go to bed.

wednesday: make pancakes for breakfast. take the train into stuttgart. drink a piping hot mug of glühwein. tour the city. eat a bratwurst and drink a heff. continue our wandering around the city. hang out. eat more food. hang out. hang out. go to bed.

thursday: wake up at 4:15am to make my 7:05am flight. fly to paris to make my connection to atlanta. arrive in atlanta and board a plane for south bend. arrive in south bend around 5pm. back in goshen around 6pm.

top of stuttgart train station


in-city vineyards


the man, the myth, the legend: jordi

so now i'm back in the states for the next month+ before the wwoofing continues. yes, wwoofing, not just traveling. the plane leaves from portland to honolulu on the 5th of january.

blog to be continued in early january 2009.

belgrade - sarajevo - zagreb - stuttgart

we arrived in belgrade around 7:15am and, like we've come accustomed to, we didn't have a place to stay. so our first mission was to find a hostel (we actually did do a bit of prior research), so we set out in the general direction of where we thought a few of the hostels were. to make a short story shorter, we found one in the downtown of downtown spots. we dropped off our bags at the hostel and headed out to explore city. belgrade is roughly 3 million people, which is the largest city we've visited, meaning there is plenty to see. we aimlessly wondered about the city, going through street markets and picking up a few pastries here and there, until we got to the danube river, and the belgrade fortress. we explored the fortress grounds for a while (it's huge), went back through the city toward our hostel, ate lunch on a street-side cafe, and returned to the hostel for a bit of relaxing. the second day we spent in belgrade was much like the first with a shift to a other side of the city; stopping for coffee in the morning, a pastry (or 3) while we were walking, lunch somewhere on the street, etc. this day, however, was the day levi was taking off back to the states. we said our 'good-byes' in the early evening and just like that levi was off to the train station, heading back toward bucharest to catch a flight. so we're down to 2; pat and myself.

danube river from the fortress

belgrade

the next day (wednesday) we woke up with the intent to get to sarajevo. we got to the train station with plenty of time before the scheduled departure, but after were were told to go to track 1 and then be told by a conductor it wasn't the right train, we missed it. luckily we got our money refunded, and luckily there were a few buses out of belgrade to sarajevo that day, so we hopped on a bus about a half hour later and were on our way to sarajevo. the bus ride was about 8 hours long, getting us to sarajevo around 7pm. we found our hostel, put down our bags, went to the grocery store, made sandwiches, watched champions league with other hostel-ers, and went to bed.

it seems that everyone's first thought when hearing 'sarajevo' is the war. of course. but usually the thought of a bombed out sarajevo is still assumed. this wasn't the case at all. sarajevo is great. minus the spattering of bullets holes here and there, you'd never know that a war was in the city. i mean, it's a city of 300,000; a lot of people are out and about just like belgrade, sofia, chicago, or wherever. the city is full of churches, mosques, and religious monuments, illustrating the religious diversity of the city. so anyway, there isn't much to tell about our whereabouts -- we wondered around the city, ate traditional food, visited historical landmarks, etc. the second day we were in sarajevo, pat went on the city tour with our hostel host and i took the day to figure how i was going to be getting to zagreb, croatia. after i had walked my legs to death and pat was back from the tour, we said our 'good-byes' and i took off for an overnight train to zagreb. pat was staying in sarajevo for another day before heading south to mostar and then onto southern croatia. from 3, to 2, to just myself.

sarajevo

sarajevo: cafes, shops, restaurants 

when i arrived in zagreb the next morning (the 15th) i had 2 days to see the city before flying to stuttgart. the first day was spent in the city, seeing all the sights, and the second was spent on a day-hike in the medvednica mountain range to the medvedgrad fortress. city: i was surprised how clean the city was, compared many of those we visited. i think it was the first time since arriving in bucharest that i actually saw someone pick up a piece of trash rather than throw it on the ground. croatia might be considered eastern europe, but it sure doesn't feel like. western europe comes to mind before eastern europe. the hike the second day turned out to be a bit longer than i was told -- maybe an hour more each way, but i was able to get there, eat lunch, and come back down before the sun went down. the next morning i woke up early and took a bus to the airport and got on a plane to stuttgart, germany.

i arrived in stuttgart around 2pm, met jordi at the airport, and headed back to his place.

ohrid to belgrade

the hiking and physical activity lessened a bit this past week. we started our week of more-relaxation in ohrid, macedonia, spending 3 nights around one of the most beautiful places i've ever been. we arrived on the 3rd, having less than an idea of where we'd be spending the night, and of course it was during the night that we arrived. as luck, or something like that, has found us several times while traveling, a private-room-street-hustler named kate nabbed us immediately off the bus and presented us with a place to stay. we followed her back to the house (private rooms are those connected to a house, sort of like a mini hostel with community shower/kitchen/etc.) and gladly agreed to her taking the task of wondering around a town we don't know off our hands. so the lake; lake ohrid. lake ochrid is a tectonic lake said to be one of the oldest in the world (some 3-4 million years old), is 300+ meters deep at its deepest point, and is so clear that you could drop a (as was told to us) a white dinner plate 25 meters down and still see it -- it really is unbelievably clear. the 2 full days we spent in ohrid weren't doing anything overly exciting; walked around the old city seeing the different historic and non-historic sites, and of course finding the local street cuisine and eating our way from place to place. the one short expedition we did go on was a day-trip to sveti naum monastery. we were told by our hosts that spending time in ohrid and not visiting sveti naum was liking going to paris and not seeing the eiffel tower. after we had walked around the monastery we decided he had never been to paris...

lake ohrid


old town, ohrid

so then on a bus to montenegro we go, or so we thought. the once-a-day train into tirana, albania, which would serve as our connecting point to montenegro didn't exist -- at least at the time we got there. it wasn't a big deal, we just had spend the night in tirana and headed out way early in the morning for a bus to the border city. and it's turns out that tirana is nice -- getting to spend a night there was a good thing.

by this time it's the 7th and we just arrived in budva, montenegro. oh budva -- what a great place; right on the adriatic sea with plenty of warm weather. once again we arrived without a place to stay and without knowing much more than what the lonely planet book had told us. and once again a place to stay found us before we went looking for it -- pat actually predicted that all we needed to do was go to a cafe/coffee shop and someone would offer us a private room. longer story, short: we stopped for a cup of coffee, were offered a room, took the room, and stayed in it 3 nights. budva is quite the touristy place (when it's not the middle-ish of november), luring people with the 'old town' right on the sea and the beaches; both which we indulged in. of the 2-ish days we were there, part of 1 was spending touring the city of kotor (about 30 km north), wondering around the maze-like streets of the old town, and doing no more than relaxing by the water -- and taking a quick swim. the original plan was to leave budva on the 9th and travel north to durmitor, montenegro, but decided we couldn't leave the coastal town after waking up to a perfectly warm and sunny day. so then on to belgrade.

budva, from old town


budva


kotor, from the fortress

we took the overnight on the 9th, arriving the 10th, and will spend a couple days around the city.

rila mountains to mt. olympus

after spending a few days in sofia, we headed to rila mountains, where were hoping to spend 2 nights and 3 days of hiking -- conditions permitting. bulgaria, as well as other countries and some US states, have these great hut systems set up where hikers/etc. can stay for the night and eat all meals during their stay. we hoped they would turn out as we had heard, and they did.

the first day in the rila moutain was couple hour hike; the majority of it trying to hitch a ride to the trailhead in a small town just below the entrance into the mountains. anyway we made it to the lona hut, which is at about 1600 meters. the person running the hut was an older-ish guy name gorosch, whom we later found could hold his own singing traditional bulgarian tunes. so we stayed the night and ate supper and breakfast with him. we took off the next morning for the 7 lakes hut, which we heard was about 4 hours away. ...it's kind of annoying that all trails are marked with hours rather than a distance. we woke up early to a beautiful blue sky (the kind we were hoping for in romania) and headed to the 7 lakes. the 7 lakes area are exactly that, 7 lakes scattered in a fairly small area, considering the size of the mountain range, right in the middle of the mountains. they were amazing to say the least. by the time we reached the 7 lakes hut it had only been a fraction of the 4 hours which we were told it took to get there, so we put our packs down at the hut and headed out for the day to see the different lakes. after reaching about 2600 meters, and seeing all the lakes, we looked down the opposite side of the range and noticed another hut in the far off distance. we knew the ivan vazor hut was somewhere semi-close, but not as close as it actually appeared to be. so we sat around, resting and whatnot, when we decided to hike back down to the 7 lakes hut to grab our packs and hike back to where were, and then onto the hut we saw in the distance. well, we made it, but not without being absolutely dead tired. we stayed at ivan vazor, ate a few meals, and then headed off the next morning to our final destination: rila monastery. ...another early morning, another day of hiking, and another day of being absolutely beat when finally crawling into bed -- after a bus ride to thessaloniki.

levi chopping wood at lovna


random


several of the 7 lakes

seeing ivan vazov in the distance

we stayed in thessaloniki for 2 nights without any specific plans other than wanting to see the city. and we did just that. and for the bonus, we stayed with someone we met when we got off the bus arriving in thessaloniki, giving our accommodations budget a bit of a boost. after the 2nd night we heading to litochoro, which would be our starting point to climb mt. olympus.

we woke up the 1st morning on litochoro with clouds and endless fog in the mountains -- reminiscent of romania. our morale took a hit. so we bummed around the town trying to find out about the conditions on the mountain, etc. no one knew anything. then around 2pm or so we saw some hikers and asked them where they had been hiking and what the conditions where like. so had summit-ed the mountain and said the sun had actually been out above the clouds. morale was on the up and up. we packed up with food and headed to the trailhead. the fog didn't allow us to see everything we wanted to, but it didn't rain and the sun did actually shine through the clouds. we made it to the area we wanted to and setup camp for the night. when we woke up sunday morning it was nothing but blue sky. we were on the trail before 8am and had reached the summit around noon. it was up, up, and then a bit more in that direction. the views/etc. were like those on the postcards you can buy around litochoro. so anyway, we ate lunch at the summit and then headed back down to the half-way point where we had started that morning. since it was the weekend and the weather was so nice there were loads of people sightseeing and hiking around -- we were sure our hitch-hiking skills would get us back to town. and they did.

not happy with the weather


campsite


the throne of zues


nearing the summit

right now we're likely in transit to macedonia.

traveling: week 1

all the traveling from conil to bucharest to chisinau went well. i met levi at the bucharest airport, we hoped in a taxi, got on the train, and rode 13 hrs to chisinau -- the train was definitely a soviet area beauty. and we actually had to switch wheels when we got to the moldovian border to fit the different tracks -- this consisted of unhooking the wheels, hydraulically lifting the train cars, putting the new wheels on the track, hooking them back up, and continuing on our way. we then spent 2 days in chisinau with pat, exploring the city, and after that took a mini-bus to brasov, romania. brasov is a fairly touristy city, being in the transylvania region with lots of historic churches and castles. our plan was to spend a night there and then go on the to bucegi mountains, which happened, although the 2 nights we were planning to camp in the mountains didn't so much happen.

the morning we set out it in bran was drizzling and uber foggy. by the time we got to 2700-ish meters there was snow on the ground, and snowing, and foggier than when we started. at that point we were about 3 hours into the 5 hour hike, daylight was not on our side, and conditions were getting worse. we had contemplated turning around a couple times, but kept thinking it would get better, but it didn't, so we finally decided it was the smart decision to turn around. turning around sucks, but we didn't so much want to be caught in the mountains. so we went back to bran for the night, and after waking up with almost worse weather, decided we would take the extra day weren't hiking in romania, since we abandoned the hike, and add it in somewhere along the way. we left that morning for bucharest, where would catch an overnight train to sofia, bulgaria.

we arrived in sofia at 6am yesterday morning, found our hostel, and then set out exploring the city. turns out that sofia is sweet! we hit a few markets, tasted the local cuisine, and mainly tried to get a bit of a feel of the city -- which we feel like we did. this morning we took a bus out of the city into the rila mountain; our extra day gained from leaving romania early will likely be used here. weather permitting, we'll spend 2 nights in the mountains around the fish lakes, and then head to mt. olympus in greece. but who knows what will happen.


and here are just a few pix i'll throw on here:

chisinau, moldova


brasov, romania


the dirtbags


foggy drizzle


pat not impressed with the decision to turn around


sofia, bulgaria

wwoofing: to be continued

by the time this has been posted i'm either on a plane to bucharest or waiting for a train in bucharest to moldova. i'm taking a bit of break from wwoofing for some traveling around eastern europe with levi and pat. levi had been planning the trip for some time, and i just kind of invited myself after hearing how great sounded. so pat, levi's good friend from high school is finishing up 2 years of peace corps. work in moldova and has planned this eastern european fantastica. we'll be here and there over the next month, doing a lot of camping/hiking as well as city-visiting.

should be great. blogging will continue. you know kind of like a weekly surprise of where we are and what we're doing; a bit like "where in the world is matt lauer," or something like that...

geography check

"it never rains here"

...that's what i heard from my hosts when arrived. and they were right, for the first few weeks. now it's tuesday afternoon and it hasn't stop raining/storming since friday. okay, it hasn't been going non-stop, but everyday it's been on-again/off-again from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed. the worst of it all came friday night. i woke up around 2:30am and thought the roof was going to blow off our little casita. ...and 2 hours later i was still awake and it was still doing the same thing; pouring rain, high winds, thunder, and lightening. i looked out the window at one point and thought, "this must be what a hurricane is like." i've never seen anything like it. noela (new wwoofer) and i managed to keep dry. a lot of my clothes that were below a leaky window didn't. luckily the gardens and citrus trees held up fairly well. some unripened fruit was scattered on the ground and a row of tomatoes took a pretty hard hit, but we didn't lose anything in it's entirety. well, except for the new raised-beds that were last week's project. after planting beans and peas on thursday, they are now flattened and look like a river ran right through them. so all the planting will have to be done again, and the beds reworked, but that all can be done again.

other farms and houses we're quite as lucky. entire fields were flooded and crops lost. cement walls surrounding people's houses (as is done in spain) were completed knocked down by the rivers of water that flowed across the roads. the streets in the city were flooded and the sections of beach showed noticeable signs of erosion. someone told me it was the worst storm, destruction-wise, in 20 years. i'm sure clean-up will continue for weeks and maybe months.

what does this mean for working in the garden? it means our work has been extremely limited. when it rains as much as it has it's better for the plants and soil to dry a bit before working in them. we've been able to get in a hour or so of garden work each day, but then it's odd jobs inside the house that take up the rest of our time. and do go with the lack of work outside that we can do, the hosts are gone for the week, and almost all of the work on the to-do list is outside. ...and we're almost done with everything on it and it's only tuesday (they return saturday). so it's kind of weird week around here. there isn't a ton of work that needs to be done this week, but the work that does need to get done can't because of the weather.


the rasied-beds:

before

after (pic quality is lacking)

sunday is my last full day here and then monday i fly to bucharest to meet up with levi noodles kropf.

day in conil

it's almost been two weeks since i arrived at casa luz in conil. and after that amount of time i feel like i've got a pretty good handle on the schedule. let's see...

7:42 am
my alarm sounds, which means it's time to throw on a hat, some warms clothes, and the feeding of the cats and dogs begins. that's right, we (the wwoofers) wake up before our hosts to feed the 7 cats and the 2 dogs, and then take the dogs on a short walk.

8:05 am
we're back from the walk with the dogs and it's time for coffee. so we sit around with jackie (host #1) for about a half hour talking about who-knows-what, drinking coffee or tea, watch the BBC morning show, and jackie goes through the work for the day.

8:45-ish am
coffee/tea might run over a 15 minutes, and it might just make it to 9 until everything is said and done. so then i head to the garage to put on my work clothes, complete with knee-high rubber boots. by 9 at the earlies i'm working. work could be anything from: weeding (surprising) around the lemon/orange trees, stacking wood, cleaning the title floor in the host's bathroom, planting califlower, picking veggies for their CSA-type thing, spraying various plants, weeding the yard, shoveling manure, getting beds ready for planting, digging holes, and lots of little random home maintenence type work that hasn't nothing to do with organic farming/gardening.

10 am
breakfast. i can only speak for my breakfast, but this is what is looks like. a cup of coffee, orange juice, cereal with yogurt on top, toast (with olive oil, tomatoes, cheese on it), fruit, and then maybe another piece of toast arranged the same way. some days will have eggs to go on the toast and maybe something i don't even know about.

10:45 am
work, as described above. and something that i think is a bit odd is that neither jackie or richard work/help with their organic "farm." richard works overseas 6 months a year, so when he comes back (from the looks of it) he does yard and house work that has been neglected while he was gone. jackie: i did see in the garden one time -- for about 25 minutes as she told us how to plant seeds from a packet, after reading the instructions off the back... the work enviornment is more of a "we need to plant onions today." ...and then we do it.

2 pm
lunch. jackie is a great cook, and i mean great. she and rich have lived and traveled all over the world so we all (those eating) benefit from her "worldly" cuisine. oh yeah, i forgot to mention something very important. whenever it's time to eat jackie steps outside and rings this handbell as a signal that we can all stop working and come and eat. i've been close enough to catch site of it a few times; it's halarious!

3-ish pm
the kitchen has been cleaned and everyone is about to hit the hay for an afternoon siesta -- the rest of the day is free. this could mean any of a number of things: riding bikes to the beach, going for a run, sitting by the pool, going for a swim, walking around conil, surfing, etc.

8:30 pm
supper.

10:30 - 11 pm
bed.

breakfast

garden #1

weekly veggie boxes

the afternoon

was that wwoofing, or is this?

hmmmm. well, i'm sure there isn't a right or wrong when it comes to one wwoof farm over another, but there sure are differences between the two that i've seen. let's say this "farm" doesn't exactly have the same feel as the one is aranjuez. it is similar in the fact that all veggies/fruit are grown organically, both require weeding, both have a separate house for wwoofers, and both have several cats and dogs. and i think the similarities stop right about there. for starters, we have a pool. not a natural pool that blends in with the surroundings, but the kind of pool you'd see at a resort. the "farm" as we'll call it is more like 3 extra lots that surround the house which holds the two veggie gardens and maybe 30 or so citrus trees (lemons, limes, oranges) -- and the whole places is cement-walled in; it's an estate. the work is a bit different as well; waking up early to feed the 2 dogs and 7 cats, trimming the bushes around the driveway, or sweeping flower petal up from around their pool don't seem to me like organic farming, but then again i'm just the volunteer and they're the farmers. the owners of this place are super nice people, and jackie is a great cook. they're originally from southern england and moved to conil about 5 years ago. they've been a part of wwoof for the last 3 years and have managed to make being here as a wwoofer quite luxurious. apparently their farm manager (yeah, farm manager) was in portugal last week and will be back to his 2-day a week work schedule starting on monday. i hear that is when the organic learning begins. i also hear surfing lessons start next week.

new casita

the "farm" house

conil with jackie & rich (and their dogs)

wait for the "day in conil" coming next week. the 6 hour a day work schedule is a bit different as well.

aranjuez to conil

that´s right, i´m leaving aranjuez on wednesday and heading south to conil. the original plan was to stay in aranjuez until the end of the month, but after receiving an email from the hosts in conil wanting me to come a week early, i decided to go with it.

as my day was described last week, this past week was about the same. ...like i mentioned it was "i" after wednesday when i was the sole wwoofer. and then last night two women from canada showed up. ...i didn´t realize how nice it was having the whole house to myself until i didn´t have it anymore. but anyway, they´re cool people and i only have another day or work before i take off.

but the real story of the week comes from an unexpected tuesday. i had been told that ana´s mom and aunt were going to make paella, but i had no idea it was going to be an all day event of extended family, friends, and whatnot. i was expecting us to eat somewhere around 8:30-9pm, in spanish fashion, and then ana´s mom and aunt showed up around 11am to get things rolling. i´m not even going to try and list everything that was peeled, cut, and added to the bubbling pot of goodness over the fire (go to wikipedia for a complete description), but after several hours (we ate around 3pm) of cooking we sat down to a table of about 20 and ate to our heart´s content. it was a beautiful thing. and then an extended siesta on the grass wherever there was shade happened next. but no that didn´t wrap things up. after we had all recovered from an afternoon nap, there were leftovers to be had. so we ate again, almost all 20 of us. and that pretty much ended us all.

ana´s aunt

paella

the meal

the aftermath

tip of the week: don´t fix your itchy contact with hands that have just finished cutting a chili pepper.

a day in the life

we all wake up around 7:30am to eat breakfast and do whatever before we start working at 8. breakfast usually consists of a grainy/fruity cold cereal, a glass of oj, and a cup of coffee. around 8 we head out to the garden and start weeding in an area that ana or juampa likely told us about the evening before. actually, i´m starting with picking the seeds off asparagus tomorrow. anyway, weeding could be for the entire day, but usually there are different odds and ends jobs that involve juampa or ana. it sounds like a like a lot of grunt work, which i suppose it is, but before/white/before we do whatever we´re set out to do during the day, juampa or ana will tell us more about whatever we´re doing it for, how it effects the plants, and that sort of thing. so it´s much more than "those onions need weeding. get to it." so then at 2pm we stop and figure out what we´re going to eat for lunch. most of the days, maybe all, we heat bread and cheese, with some sort of raw or cooked vegetable mixture. sidenote: the mornings are cool enough to definitely have a pair of pants with the possibly 2 layers of long sleeve shirts. afternoons usually hit 85-90 degrees, and then we´re back to long sleeves and pants in the evenings. and the sun has been out every day since arriving. aaaaanyway, after lunch, showers happen, and then the afternoon of whatever.

there aren´t a whole lot of options, really. and greg (brother), before you say, "rough life, dude." ...i know, okay. i´ve spent a lot of time in the hammock reading, taking afternoon siestas, and just hanging out/chatting with the other wwoofers. and then maybe we´ll wonder around the 2 pieces of land, checking out the animals or see what juampa and ana are up to. i´ve ventured into aranjuez (pronounced arran-queth) 3 times to just walk around and check out the scene, and/or get online. it´s only about 5km, so it´s an easy bike ride.

then it´s the evening and we figure out who is going to cook what for supper. we´ve (the wwoofers) eaten with juampa and ana once, but normally it´s just us wwoofers cooking for ourselves. supper can go on for quite a while, so depending on what time it is we either got to bed or read/talk/whatever.

and then we repeat. although now, the number of wwoofers has gone from a forcing-me-into-a-tent-for-a-few-days 5 to only one other and myself. wednesday will bring the number from 2 to just me. so then i suppose you can substitute "we" with "i" if you want to know what i´ll be doing later in the week. i hear more wwoofers are on the way...

the garden

i´d say the garden is about 6 acres total. outside of the garden is another 8-ish acres of farm land that surrounds juampa and ana´s place. our piece of land is includes the garden, wwoofer accommodations, and hangout area/whatever. and then the other 8 acres has alfalfa, feed corn, green house, pastures for the animals, and a composting area. between the 2 houses there are also 4 kittens and 2 dogs. so most of the work so far has been in and around the garden; weeding, spraying the veggies with bio-dymanic mixture, checking and picking off insects and such from plant leaves, loading and unloading the weeded weeds into a trailer, and then maybe some odds in ends jobs that ana or juampa need help with.

the veggies in the garden are: tomatoes, chili peppers, green peppers, zucchini, pumpkin-squash, egg plants, sweet corn, basil, strawberries, cauliflower, cucumbers, and asparagus. then surrounding the garden are a few pear, apple, plum trees, and then white grapes sort of hug our house and terrace type area. everything in the garden is fair game for wwoofer consumption.

chili peppers & green peppers

alon & amy weeding the sweet corn

the hours we work on a daily basis are flexible, as long as week reach the 6 hours a day, 6 days a week quota. since i´ve been here, we have all worked 8am to 2pm, which allows for a nice long afternoon to do whatever.

the scene

i made it. after a day of rest at the current homestead, my first day of work has been completed. a little wedding never hurt anyone, right. well that´s what i did under the hot spainish sun. so anyway, i´m 1 of 5 wwoofers at the farm: a woman from england, a young guy from israel, a 20 yr old from AUS, and a 30something year old woman from japan. the common language is english.

the place i´m living in is basically a room that has a kitchen in it. we all sleep on this wood bed type thing with our sleeping pads and sleeping bags. like i said, bed type thing, not cushion or mattress. our bathroom is isn´t attached to the main house, but quite lovely. the hosts, whom are maybe 30, have another separate house that they live in about a 1 minute walk from our digs. both houses, and water pumps, etc., operate completely on solar power. we have 1 installation at our place and the other house has 2.


the weather, food, company of the other wwoofer, and the whole "scene" has been great so far and i don´t see why it would change. here are a few pics...

our house

the lounge/solar installation/grape growing area

a piece of the massive garden

until next time...

i'm really doing it

although i have delayed and they delayed it again, my departure date has been set. i'm flying out of o'hare on friday september the 5th, landing in dublin, and then hopping on another plane to my destination of madrid; arriving on september 6th.

the first farm i'm working on is in aranjuez, madrid, which is about 50 km south of the city of madrid. i don't know too much about the farm, other than that they have a big garden, use alternative energies, and have some livestock; mules, chickens, horses, pigs, and sheep specifically. currently they have 2 other wwoofer's that i'll be living with in a separate home/room detached from the main house. i say room b/c that's all it is it is. so i've committed to this place for the month of september, before heading south to the province of cadiz.

the farm in cadiz is 10 km from the neartest town, conil de la frontera, and about 3 km from the coast. i actually had this farm nailed down before the one is aranjuez, but they were booked with other wwoofers through september, and october was the first they accommodate me. ...the first farm was a fill-in of "this is close to a main airport" and "transportation from madrid to cadiz is available." on this farm i'll be helping with their orange harvest, as well as their personal garden. and apparently if they have guests at their house i may be asked to "help out around the house." as they mentioned it... other than working, i'll hopefully be able to pick up surfing during my time near the mediterranean. one of the daughter's of the family i'll be working for runs a surf school, and apparently as a wwoofer i get a discounted rate. hey! i can't work all the time!

so that's the rough plan for the first 2 months i'm in spain. i'm sure it won't go as planned, and i'm sure the farms won't be what i thought they were, but that's part of the fun. who knows what my access to the internet will be, so new blog posts will come whenever the opportunity is there.