Au Revoir Paris

After a month in France, I am leaving for Thailand tomorrow. Finn and I spent three weeks in Thézan with Jimmy, Charlette, and Francisco. The two weeks were wonderful. We got to visit the winery where they made the wine from their grapes, go to the castle in Carcassone, go to the ocean, and more. They were so welcoming and brought Finn and I into their family. I plan to visit them again someday. Meeting Francisco, another woofer, was also very fun and it was interesting hearing all of his travel stories.

Finn and I arrived in Paris about a week ago. We took an overnight bus from Toulouse and met Zac Blachon at the bus station. In the past week we have seen the Louvre, gone to the Pompidou, gone to musee de l'orangerie, gone to the Eiffel tower, eaten amazing food, gone out to bars, and more. Paris has been amazing. I am sad that I had such a short amount of time here, but I will definitely be coming back, perhaps for a semester abroad. Paris is wonderful.

Tomorrow morning I fly out to Bangkok to meet Bailey. She and I will be traveling throughout Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Nepal for the next month or so. I'm excited to bring more updates.

Je suis à la ferme en France!

I am at the farm in France! Finn and I arrived two days ago after a long day of train rides. The ride here was beautiful with glimpses of the Pyrenees and a full view of the Mediterranean Sea. We are in a huge house in Thézan-des-Corbières, a small own outside of Narbonne, France. The house has been in the family of the Bardy's for a long time and was built by Jimmy's family. I believe they have had it since before WWI. The actual farm part is two kilometers away. They have a lot of land with different vineyard plots and different types of grapes in the plots. They have a 35 year old horse, two donkeys named Gringo and Picolo, and five cats. Jimmy and Charlette Bardy are the two owners of the house and they are great. Charlette doesn't speak any English so communicating with her is all hand gestures and the small amount of French I remember from middle school. It's surprising how much I actually remember! Jimmy speaks a small amount of English.

Finn and I have so far helped with feeding the animals, pruning the grape vines, and evening out some of the dirt roads by the vineyards. We have been lucky with the weather so far, everyday has been at least 18° C. Next week is supposed to get up to 22°! Today we worked on the roads in the morning and had a big lunch with Jimmy, Charlette, Charlette's mother, David (Jimmy and Charlette's son) and his girlfriend! It was really fun and delicious. After lunch Finn and I went for a walk through the hills outside of the town. It's magnificent here with blue skies, vineyards everywhere, blooming almond trees, lush green trees everywhere, and cracked red dirt. Towards the end of the walk the clouds rolled in and it started to smell like the desert in Arizona right before it rains, one of my favorite smells. 

I'm really happy here. The family is so welcoming even though there is a language barrier. Tonight another wwoofer named Francesco from California is coming to the farm, he's been here before, and speaks French fluently so he will be able to help. I hope I become sufficient in speaking French by the time I leave. So far the work isn't hard and I'm looking forward to more hikes, trips to the beach, and trips into town.

Night in Milan.

Finn and I woke up intending to make it all the way to the farm today. We had a lot of transfer trains to make and because one of our trains was late, we missed all the following trains. After a lot of research on different ways to get to the farm we decided it would be cheapest to spend one night in Milan and leave tomorrow, bright and early. We are at a nice hostel about fifteen minutes away from the train station. On the bright side, Finn found a delcious restaurant/cafe on yelp. It was a middle eastern restaurant with falafel and burrito-esque things. It was quite delicious. I love falafel!

Last night in Venice.

Finn and I have been in Venice for four days now. Today was our last day. Venice is beautiful and makes me a little homesick because the whole city smells like the ocean. Yesterday we went up into a tower that looks over all of Venice. From up there you can see all the way to the horizon over the water, the mountains in the opposite direction, and all the different islands that make up Venice. The pigeons here are very aggressive. They flock to pedestrians like ravenous zombies and I'm always afraid I'm going to get pooped on. Today we went to an amazing mask shop that my uncle David recommended. It's a tiny shop, but full of colorful, unique masks. The mask maker was in the shop painting a devil mask at the time of our visit and he talked to us for awhile about all the different celebrities he knew. My favorite mask was a mask that my uncle actually has in his dining room, a moon mask with a small woman bordering the side. I'm glad we got to go to a shop that is authentic, unlike the hundreds of vendors all around Venice selling plastic masks. Tomorrow morning Finn and I have a 6:20 train, meaning we'll have to get up around five to walk to the train station. We'll be on trains from the morning until 9:30 at night! We are traveling from Venice, Italy to Narbonne, France where we will be picked up by the owners of the farm we are working at. The farm has another wwoofer working with them so we will (hopefully) make a new friend. I'm sad to be leaving Venice because it's smells so pleasant and Is gorgeous, but I'm excited for a new routine at the farm. I am really missing my glow in the dark stars that are on my ceiling at home, so if anyone is feeling loving and generous and wants to send me glow in the dark stars, or even a letter, it would be much appreciated. My address on the farm is 30 Avenue de la Mer 11200 Thezan des Corbieres France. Keep in mind it will take mail awhile to get there and I'll be there until the 27th of March. All is well!

Sunset on the water.

Last day in Rome, first day in Florence.

This morning I left Rome for Florence. Camille and I were in Rome for a week. On the 17th she flew in from Israel, where she goes to school, and came to stay at the farm for three days. After saying our goodbyes at the farm, she and I took the train into Rome and stayed at a hostel. In the past week we visited the Vatican museums, the Roman Forum, the Colliseum, St. Peter's, the Pantheon, and have been gorging ourselves on all of the delicious food Rome has to offer. The Vatican Museums were really amazing, I've been excited to see the Sistine Chapel this whole time, and it was actually the reason I decided to come to Italy. I sat on the floor for about an hour staring at the ceiling and walls, listening to the little audioguide I bought for the museum. It upsets me that lying down on the floor in the Sistine Chapel is against the rules because it'd be so nice to lay there and stare up at the ceiling. Camille and I accidentally saw the pope twice when going to St. Peter's on Sunday which was also pretty amazing. We listened to Sunday mass and saw him leave in a big bus-he even waved! I think so far my favorite thing has been the Sistine Chapel, it was different than I thought it'd be, but still it was beautiful. The Coliseum and the Roman Forum are a close second. Seeing these huge structures built so long ago and reading about gladiators and the people who used to live there is really interesting to me. Yesterday was Camille and my food day. We have been making cheap meals with supplies from the grocery store to save up for a feast day! We had pizza for lunch and after went to get gelato and macaroons. Then for dinner we walked to a restaurant nearby to have copious amounts of pasta and then to a bakery for tiramisu and chocolate gelato cake. The pizza here is delicious and the gelato is quite addicting. Aside from the hostel and historical sites, most of my money spent here has gone to gelato. Rome was really wonderful and I got really comfortable there, so it was hard to leave, but I'm excited to see Florence and go onto Venice and France. This morning I caught the train from Rome to Florence and am now in a hostel by the river with Finn. I've been gone for a month now, but it feels like I left three days ago. The trip is going by so quickly. 

P.S. I accidentally broke the escalator at the Vatican Museums.

                   The Colliseum

The Roman Forum

A delicious pizza place

Sneaky hot fudge disguised as hot cocoa.

Tonight after dinner, Michelle and I made hot chocolate from a well used recipe in her family. It has a ton of different, and obscure, ingredients that you wouldn't expect in hot chocolate. It has chocolate in it {obviously} and you put it in a cup, but other than that it's like eating a straight cup of hot fudge. Despite feeling my heart slow, it's quite scrumptious. The past few days Michelle has been training me on how to properly prune roses. I haven't quite gotten the hang of it, but I plan to be a rose pruning aficionado by the time I get home. On Tuesday I went into the city of Rome for the night. My first stop was the Vatican. I never really thought about how large the Vatican was until I saw it in person, looming at the end of the street. I waited in a long line, where I met a nice guy from Japan. When he found out I was from the United States the first thing he asked me about was if I liked the Seahawks. He then proceeded to ask me questions about every player on the team. Inside the Vatican is magical. Everything is trimmed with gold and there isn't a blank space on any ceiling or wall. I went all the way up to the top of the dome just in time for the sunset. The sunlight lit up all of the buildings to make them beautiful and gold. It was so pretty that I got really excited and started making weird noises. Safe to say all fellow Vatican goers thought I was insane. I spent the night at a hostel in the city and met a couple other travelers, two from the U.S. and one from New Zealand. Now I'm back at the farm! The weather has been amazing here the past few days, it's been over 60 degrees everyday. Gea and Mina {my canine and feline best friends} lounge around in the grass soaking up all the rays before the fog comes back. Now I'm off because Michelle and I are waking up early to make crepes and go to the art store!

My view from the top of the dome

Mina and Gea napping

A week in Bomarzo.

It's been a little over a week since I arrived in Italy. The weather has been very rainy so my days mostly consist of stoking the fires and galavanting around town to run errands with Michelle. Lately I've been teaching Michelle how to use her iPhone, it's quite entertaining. Two days ago Gaetana, a friend of Michelle and Claudio's, came over and taught me how to make Pizza dough. We let it rise for about 7 hours and Daniele and I made a huge fire in their wood burning oven. It was so hot I could wear a T-Shirt. He, Michelle, and I spent a few hours rolling out dough and experimenting with different toppings {almost all including bacon}. It was so delicious and very fun, I'm excited to bring home my new chef skills. We also went out to restaurant a couple days ago for Claudio's birthday, where I had the best ravioli of my life. It was spinach and ricotta ravioli, both fresh from that morning, the cook even let me come into the kitchen and watch her make it. I was originally planning on taking the train into Rome on the weekends, but I have had a slight change of plans. Camille has decided to come meet me in Rome for a week towards the end of February, so instead of going in on weekends I will just leave the farm a little earlier and meet her there. I'm so excited, I feel like I'm in a movie! Next week when the weather gets better I am going to take the train into Orvieto for a day or two. Claudio doesn't want me to go until the weather is better because he's afraid I'll get stuck there. Northern Italy has been hit with crazy blizzards and apparently they are headed south. Hopefully we get a little snow here! Also, I have successfully made Gea {the golden retriever} my new best friend.

The back of the house

The view at the end of the olive tree grove