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