Bri's Abroad

Farewell?

2010-04-22T00:03:00.000-07:00

After 41 entries and being weeks and weeks behind on updating, I'm throwing in the towel. Perhaps, if I feel so inclined, I will post something, but unfortunately I'm not getting paid for the job of recording my adventures while they happen (especially when my internet availability is sparse at best) and I would prefer to invest energy into more having more adventures. If you really must know what's happening then I imagine most of my readers have my email/facebook or some other way of contacting me to ask me where the hell I am and what the hell I'm doing. Love you all!

Granada!

2010-03-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

First I'd like to point out that while I know how to use paragraphs, blogger.com does not (thank you for pointing that out, Alex) Anywho, the epic of lost blog entries continues. February 10th to February 14th: After Leaving Málaga, I headed north to Granada! I wanted to stop back in Orgiva but had not heard back from Mathis about a visit, assuming that he had already taken his boxes to the frosty north. So I stopped through town anyway, donated some clothes to the women's group in town and said hi to Ananda's Mundo. Then continued on to Granada. I booked into Oasis hostel and was quickly enchanted by its people, activities, and services. I had hoped to find a slightly cheaper place or couch surf, but that didn't happen, which was really quite providential because I met some amazing people and had a wonderful time there. And it was in a beautiful area, the Albazin, surrounded by teterias and Moroccan-style shop-stands (only with less pushy sales people!). The receptionist, Eric, was very nice, and the crowd gathered in the common area were chatting away. I quickly started chatting with Diana, a Kiwi who works in London. She was very sweet and since the hostel was hosting dinner we ate together, along with Ricarda, a German girl who goes to uni in Scotland, studying abroad in Spain for the semester after studying in Brussels the semester before (whew, worldy, huh?). The dinner was delicious, the company pleasant and I turned in early. Free breakfast is the best thing ever. And I again shared it with my new friends. I had hoped to go on the free tour the hostel offered but was feeling lazy so I just hung out and sent Lauren (the girl I met in Málaga) a message about hanging out while I was in town. Dianna was playing a card game with some other guests and I asked if I could play. We moved the game to a close-by bar and got some beer and tapas and about seven us drank and played Presidente. After a while we got distracted from playing by various conversations. Three of the people were traveling together and were planning on going to the Alhambra that afternoon and invited me to come along. Ramon and Lucia were both Spanish but the other girl (whose name completely escapes me) was from Andorra! They all studied together in Barcelona and were taking a holiday together. The four of us walked up the hill to the castle, just a few blocks from the hostel (of course we had to walk pretty far around to get to the entrance). The outside was beautiful but once we got to the entrance they told us we couldn't go in because they would close soon and we wouldn't have enough time to see everything. Oh well, we walked around a bit more. It was funny listening to them speak to one another, switching between Spanish and Catalan and English. Once we got back down the hill they went off to a cafe but I wanted to head to the hostel for a rest. They were hosting another dinner and then a tour of the good tapas bars in the area and I was also supposed to meet Lauren that night. I hadn't had anything to eat that day except breakfast and tapas at lunch time and I was starving, along with a ton of other hostelers waiting in the common area. That's when I met Kelly, an Aussie, and Sophie, a Chilean-American, who were very amusing. We had an amazing dinner of Paella where I also met Ian and Sophie (another Sophie) who were Canadian. Then it was off to the tapas tour! The first place was delicious and had all sorts of organic wines, liquors, and cheeses! Kelly and Sophie were there and we had a lot of fun chatting along with Fallon, another Canadian. Kelly and Sophie had actually met in Seville at the same hostel and decided to come to Granada together. Fallon was just out of highschool and spending some time working as a nanny for some family friends in Paris but taking time off to travel around. By the second bar, Sophie and I discovered we both did belly dance! Then we met some other people from the hostel, Melanie, Mick, Wallie, and (shit! I don't remember his name either! damn my procrastination!). All except Melanie were also from Australia who was from New Zealand. We ended up going to one more bar but it was not a tapas bar and kind of lame, so we left. Of course by the time I remembered I was supposed to meet Lauren as well that evening it was far too late and I was already pretty tipsy. I made sure to message her the next day with my apologies and a new attempt to meet up. The next day I got up and ready in time for the free tour along with several friends from the previous night. The guide was a very theatrical Englishman who included several amusingly-told historical facts (my favorite kind). He talked a bit about the Alhambra, but mostly showed us around the Albazin, the Arab district of Granada, where there are beautiful gardens, bathhouses, fragments of the old city wall, and the caves where all the gypsies live! It was a lot of fun and lasted for about three hours! Afterwards several people from the group decided to go up to see the Alhambra and I was going to go with them until I realized I needed something from the hostel. Once I got there I decided I would just go another day and I would take a siesta instead. Considering it was raining and quite cold on the tour this ended up being a good idea because when people got back Kelly told me it had snowed! Dinner at the hostel again, this time homemade gnocchi and passatelli made by the local Italian! We had a drink with dinner and then gravitated to the hostel's bar for more drinks. There we met a Brit, Kerry, and another American, Brian, and we got three of the hostel workers to come out with us too! Some of the employees of the hostel were talking about a good club to go to but when we got there they had an entry fee so we found another bar to go to. We all chatted and danced the night away and didn't get back to the hostel until around 4:30am, after a drunken stop for kebabs and falafel of course. I hadn't quite gotten over the farm schedule and still woke up fairly early. Wally, Melanie, Mick and the other guy were all hoping to take a day trip to Cadiz on Saturday for Carnival but after our very late night they did not catch the 9am bus, and I think they mostly missed breakfast too, heh. I just barely made it but was feeling surprisingly chipper and enjoyed a morning chat with Ricarda. We decided to go to the Alhambra together that day, along with Sophie and Ian. Apparently they only let a certain number of people in the inner palace at certain times and Ian and Sophie had tickets for one time while Ricarda and I had tickets for another. Once we went inside Ricarda and I got separated as well, which I didn't mind since I was immersed in the beauty of the place, even if it was cold, windy, and raining a lot. In fact the poor weather I felt made it even more enchanting. I had no idea what time it was when I finally found the exit and figured that Ricarda was either still inside or back at the hostel but I found her waiting at the bus stop and we headed back together and stopped at a cafe for something to nosh. There was a free "Spanish lesson" early that evening at the hostel so I joined in. It was really casual and pretty much just playing games in Spanish. People of all different proficiencies joined in, we learned basic phrases and then played Spanish trivial pursuit with teams. Fallon and I were on a team with Kelly sitting off to the side trying to blend into the wall (she didn't know any Spanish at all and didn't want to participate but still wanted to be social). It was fun, Fallon kept trying to read Spanish with French pronunciation and there was a Slovakian guy who was practically fluent in Spanish that won, but Fallon and I were a close second. Then later that night I was supposed to meet Nicos! We'd been keeping in contact about his visit to Spain and meeting in Granada. He was supposed to be staying in town but ended up staying with some friends a ways outside of town, but we met up anyway briefly for a glass of wine. It was so great to see someone from Iowa City! And I think he felt the same. He asked me about everyone from Anomy house and how they were and I told him what I'd heard last from everyone and got him up to date and Alex's life and mine. We took a picture outside and then had to go our separate ways, me to dinner and he back to his friend's place. Back at Oasis everyone was already drinking and I joined in. Many people had gone to an Irish pub to watch a football game that afternoon (Ireland vs. France or something like that) and had already been drinking for quite some time. We stayed at the hostel for quite some time before going out. When we finally did I was actually quite tired and didn't stay long. I intended to leave on Sunday for Cordoba but when I got up for breakfast Kelly and Fallon said they were headed to Madrid and invited me along. I figured I didn't have any specific plans and thought, what the hell! So I packed my things and found Melanie was joining us as well! So we all hopped the city bus to the station and got on the next bus for Madrid, only a five hour ride.

After party in Dortmund

2010-03-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

March 8th to March 20th: Kim and I had hoped to do a little couchsurfing in Belgium, since we were passing through the country anyway to go back to Germany from France. Unfortunately we couldn’t find any hosts on such short notice and took the train right through back to Cologne and then back to Dortmund. We arrived quite late and Kim was relieved to be back in her own bed (or at least as close as she could get in Europe, considering she’d spent the last month Kaiserslautern and then Paris). We crashed right away. I stayed at Kim’s place for about two weeks making arrangement to go to Scotland and just relaxing. We kept saying we would go out and do things, but we were both pretty beat, so after restocking her fridge we mostly ate at her place and went out a few times with some friends of hers. I finally met her friend Nina, who I had heard so much about, as well as a couple of Nina’s friends who I didn’t know. Unfortunately, there was some tension because Kim and Mitch (the friend of hers I had met last time I was there) had a falling out but came out with Nina when we met her for lunch. Kim was kind of upset but we resolved that by buying some tea and visiting the yarn shop, I got myself a matté straw! Later in that first week Tammy came by and we caught up on her adventures, shared recipes, and made an amazing dinner of gnocchi and cheese sauce. Sebastian came that night as well to share the meal and chat a bit. Tammy had actually studied in Dortmund through the same abroad program that Kim was in so she also took the opportunity to rest and run some errands in a place she was already familiar with. She only stayed two nights and then was off to Turkey. There was one evening we planned to go out. I made banana bread and dinner in the evening and afterwards Kim and I got fancied up, had some drinks and smoked some shisha. Her friend Christina came over and had some drinks and banana bread with us. She was a lot of fun to chat with and we all sat and chatted for a long while. Christina didn’t want to go out because she had an early morning but by the time she left Kim and I were too tired to go anywhere either so we also went to bed. Another day Christian came by and we showed him Dr. Horrible. On St. Patty’s day we headed to an Irish Pub in downtown Dortmund and had a few drinks. It was nice to have some time to relax and even better that I had someone to enjoy it with. I got some things I needed to do done and was ready to go have another adventure by the time I went to catch an early train to London on the 20th.

Let's start with Paris

2010-03-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

Considering it's been over a month since I've written anything I am going to go in kind of a funny order. I'll be sure to put in dates. Paris was between March 1st and 8th. Here we go: Kim and I arrived to Paris Monday evening after taking the train from Kaiserslautern, Germany. The train ride went quite quickly and when we got to the train station in Paris we decided we didn’t want to worry about figuring out the metro to get to our hostel so we grabbed a cab. Kim had the address on her iPod and she just showed it to the driver and started through the streets of Paris. We were both quite amused that we couldn’t really understand any of the signs or communicate with the driver, but he brought us safely to our hostel, Paris Clichy, of course in the Clichy district in the northwest of the city. We checked into the rather grungy looking hostel and took our things up to our smelly room. Luckily the bathrooms and the sheets were clean and we had a four-bed room to ourselves. Stella was not due to arrive until later and Kim and I were starving so we decided to wander around after making our beds and find a place to eat. Clichy was a rather quiet area with two grocery stores across the street and a few small bars but not too many restaurants. But we managed to find a place that looked ok, although empty, and sat down. The only server there spoke a little English, asked us where we were from, and was excited when we ordered something he described as “typical Parisian” from his menu. After our tasty meal we asked if he knew where any shisha bars were and he directed us to a metro stop and told us they were everywhere around it. When we got there all we found was a lot of regular bars and Japanese restaurants. So we decided to just stop into a regular bar for some wine and happened to meet a man who spoke German. George was an artist from Monmatre, looked like he was in his 40s, and he and Kim spent most of the evening chatting in German while I listened and sipped my wine. Stella finally texted us and we left to meet her in the metro station at the stop nearest to our hostel, which George made sure to help us find (which we really didn’t need). I think both Kim and I were a little concerned about George’s intentions, but he was really nice and not terribly creepy or invasive and left once we got to the station. Once Stella arrived we all settled in, chatted a bit about plans and the shadiness of the hostel, then went to sleep so we could get up for breakfast the next day. The breakfast at the hostel was actually quite decent and afterwards we decided to find a place to purchase metro and museum passes since we’d heard we could get a good deal on these particular tourist passes and not have to pay for every metro ride and every museum or sight we wanted to go to. This took a good chunk of the day. When we were hungry Kim said a friend of hers had a favorite street in Paris, Rue du Ravoli, and we found it off the metro right next to the Seine: gorgeous. We found a little Bistro that had a nice daily menu and free wifi and had lunch: beef burgenyon(sp) and steak with some lovely wine. Kim had her iPod and Stella her iPhone and we hopped on the interwebs to check email and such, since our hostel charged for internet. Once we were finished we walked around a little more and then headed back to our hostel where we knew there were two supermarkets nearby and could buy things to cook for dinner. We also bought wine and spent the evening making baguette pizza, with the worst knives ever, and drinking wine which we widdled open with the worst knives ever. When we couldn’t finish our pizzas we took them and offered them to the hostel employees who were very grateful and went up to our room where we finished two more bottles of wine and got ready to hit the town… on a Tuesday night. Everything was pretty quiet but we stopped outside a bar near our hostel where we chatted with Jasyn, the Canadian hockey player, and Isabelle, a very sweet Frenchwoman, who both told us that Thursday was the night to go out and that everything would be closing early tonight. Then we took the metro to a random location looking for another bar, had a couple more drinks while Kim chatted with a bartender in German, and then took a taxi back to the hostel, since by then it was one a.m. and the metro stopped running at midnight. We got up the next morning and talked about what to do over breakfast. We decided it would be a good day to take the free tour around the city, which started at either 11 or 1, so we arrived at the meeting point a little before one after showering and getting ready, had a little something to eat and then found the girls with the sign for the free tour! Gabi, a Kiwi, was our guide around central Paris! She was very amusing and took us from St. Michael’s cathedral across the Seine to Notre Dame to the Invalides to the Louvre to L’Orangerie and most of the way down the Axis of Paris toward the Arc de Triomphe! It was a great tour, lasted the better part of three hours, and we chatted with the others on the tour from another, better hostel. We didn’t go inside any of these lovely places of course, but it was a good way to be introduced to the city and the sites that we would want to explore further. The same company also offered a tour of Montmartre, Versailles, and a Paris pub-crawl, all of which we intended to go on as well over the next few days. After the long tour we were spent but hoped find something to eat and then get to the Eiffel Tower by dark to appreciate its lights. However, after heading back to the hostel for some things and finding food we decided we were too tired to do anything else that day and turned in early. Thursday Kim had arranged to meet a friend of hers for lunch. Marie had studied at Iowa through study abroad but was now graduated and working just off the Champs Elysees. So after breakfast we went to see the Arc de Triomphe. The inside was not terribly impressive but the view from the top and the monument to the nameless soldier and the eternal flame were enchanting. Then we went to meet Marie, walked up and down the street looking for somewhere interesting to get food, found a bakery where we tried a chocolate éclair and macaroons. Marie got a sandwich but her break wasn’t very long so we chatted for a bit but didn’t actually have lunch and then she disappeared again. Kim, Stella, and I wanted to sit down for lunch and were famished. We walked up and down the side-streets hoping to find something reasonably priced. We sat down at a little bar-café but when we saw the prices along with the lack of a real kitchen we thought better. Deciding that eating at a fancy bistro on the Champs Elysees was not a frequent option, we sat down at a bistro called Monte Cristo. It was very crowded and took a while for us to get a seat. The menu of the day was actually fairly priced but our food was only so-so and the service was terrible. We had wanted to see the Eiffel Tower before heading to Montmartre for the tour, but it was fairly late by the time we finished our food and we wanted to get back to the hostel to rest for a bit. The tour started at 6pm and we arrived early. We recognized several people from the other tour from the day before and chatted with them. Most were American but there was also a girl from India and an Aussie. Colin, a Brit, was our guide. Gabi had actually told us he would be doing this tour and told us he was really into history, which made Kim and I happy to hear a passionate historical description of the area. We actually met in front of the Moulin Rouge (a place we considered actually going to if the seats weren’t over 100€ a show, not including dinner). We then went around to Moulin de Galette, the home of Theo VanGogh where Vincent stayed when he was in Paris, the Clever Rabbit where Picasso began his career, and the Sacre Couer. The Sacre Couer was beautiful and when I walked inside they were having a service and the choir was singing and outside you could look down on the whole city! At the end of the tour Colin realized he had skipped one of the sites, Les Deux Moulines where Amelie worked! So as we made our way to a bar for a free glass of wine to finish our tour, he stopped to point it out. I was apparently the only one who cared… what kind of people were on this tour that they hadn’t seen Amelie?! The pub-crawl was due to start about thirty minutes after the Montmartre tour ended so we all just sat and sipped our free wine and got to know each other before going back to the meeting point. Most everyone was female, American, and taking a break from studying to visit Paris, Carolyn had just graduated and was taking a break before grad school and Rachelle and Katelyn were studying in Italy, and then there was Andy the Aussie. Colin was also our guide for the pub-crawl and most of the people on the Montmartre tour stuck around for the festivities. We went to four different bars where we got drink deals at each one and a free shot with our drinks… needless to say I was pretty far gone by the time we made it to a lame club at around 1am. We were also joined on the tour by a few new people, José, the Portuguese-Frenchman, and Leonardo the Mexican, as well as some creepy old Frenchmen who were very drunk and quite at of place. It was a lot of fun until we got to the club. Stella and I were both really tired and we made sure to take Kim and her new friend José with us so we caught a cab back to our hostel. We were really tired the next morning, Kim hadn’t really slept at all, but we still got up for breakfast. This was the day we were determined to go to the Eiffel Tower and we did! It really wasn’t much to look at up close, the crowds were long and there were men everywhere who walked up trying to sell you stupid key chains and I got really annoyed with them. The lines to go up were long too and we didn’t really want to bother too much, not to mention Kim had an ear infection and wasn’t about to go up several meters just for her ears to pop, leaving her in agony. But Stella wanted to at least check out the first floor so we waited in line and went up. The view was really nice though. To think I almost didn’t go just out of defiance of the typical tourism of Paris! Afterwards we went back to the nice café with internet and good food from the first day and putsed around on the internet for a while. Again, the food and service was marvelous. Then we went back to the hostel to nap. Kim’s friend Tammy was due to arrive at the hostel that evening and we figured we’d just chill until she got there. Incidentally we ended up napping for about three hours and were woken up by Kim’s phone ringing. It was Tammy, a friend Kim had made back at Iowa who had gone to Urbandale and was living in Bloom County Co-op before she left to travel Europe! She said that when she came in the hostel she said she was joining some friends and they said “Oh! You’re Kim’s friend! The room is already paid for, this is their room number, head on up!” This meant that she did not pay for her two nights at the hostel. We weren’t very hungry so we stayed in, chatted and made sure to get up early. We had originally planned to go on the Versailles tour but I mentioned that there were a lot of things inside the city I wanted to see and I wanted to use my museum pass, so Saturday we all split up to do our own things. Kim and I happened to both go to Notre Dame first thing. The inside was crowded and people had no respect for the worshippers. The line to get to the bell tower took forever so it was nice to have Kim’s company. After the tower Kim moved on and I went down to the crypts where the archaeological museum was and read all about the history and development of the city. Then I went to the Middle Ages History Museum! I intended to go to at least one other museum but before I knew it was six o’clock, all the museums were closing and I was due to meet everyone back at the hostel. By the time I got back it was nearly seven and everyone was hungry. We decided to cook at the hostel again, this time with the help of, and we made some amazing pasta and shared another two bottles of wine and a bottle a rum. Then we headed out for the evening, first stopping at Le Colbert, a bar we passed by every time we took the metro. We were the only women there besides the bartenders and seemed to attract a lot of attention from the maybe ten local guys there. We each ordered some wine and sat down. Tammy decided she really liked the glasses and decided, as she had been doing throughout her trip, to take one. She deftly slipped it in her pocket and as a distraction the four of us did a conga line out of the bar with great applause from the locals. It was epic. Then we took the metro to Montmartre where we thought we would check out some of the bars we’d gone to on the pub crawl. But first we wanted to check out he Museum of Erotica just down the block from Moulin Rouge! It was really fascinating. Unfortunately, going to Montmartre on a Saturday night at around midnight is guaranteed to get four young ladies a lot of unwanted attention. But we still had a lot of fun going to a few different bars. Kim and Tammy also concocted the most brilliant plan to get rid of unwanted attention: they only spoke in German! Guys kept coming up to us and trying to speak English and the two of them would just look at them confused and keep speaking to each other in German. It was great! Sunday we had set aside to visit the Louvre… for the whole day. It was free entry (first Sunday of the month I believe was the reason) so we all got up, ate breakfast together, said goodbye to Tammy, who was off to visit Léon, and Stella, Kim, and I left for the museum at our leisure. I almost couldn’t believe how crowded it was. I didn’t have any particular plan for what exactly I wanted to see but I went to the areas I thought sounded interesting – the greek and roman sculptures, medieval art, French and Italian paintings – and basically lost myself wandering through the exhibits. I stumbled upon the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa, and made sure I saw Cupid and Psyche. After several hours my feet were sore and I was hungry and tired, and it still wasn’t time for me to meet Kim and Stella! I actually was planning on heading out but the exits eluded me, but that only meant I got to see even more amazing artwork. The whole experience was quite overwhelming, especially when I just wanted to admire the artwork but had to continually watch out for other people and worry about getting in their photo shots. And when people are all crowded in FRONT of a statue, taking pictures and such, they give you mean looks when you want to walk around the work… which, really, if you’re going to come see three dimensional sculptures that have literally millions of two dimensional images of only their front view, don’t you kind of want to see the other sides? Anyway, when I finally escaped I went to find a place to eat and then meet with the girls. We went back to the hostel and had another low-key evening. We were all so tired from wandering the museum so we went back to the hostel to relax. Then, for our last night in Paris, we went to a restaurant across the street from the hostel with bad food, and then went back and went to sleep. Monday, our last day, we had planned to have a shopping day. Stella’s flight didn’t leave until late that evening and Kim and I didn’t have anything reserved. But that morning we got up and just after breakfast Stella got a distressing phone call... her grandfather had died. Poor Stella was so upset and spent a long time talking to her mom on the phone and trying to get a hold of her brother who she had to break the news to. That took most of the morning, poor Stella. But eventually we went to the train station where Kim and I got tickets for a train at 6pm and locked up our luggage at the station. Then we went to the airport to leave Stella’s luggage there, unfortunately we got on the wrong metro to the wrong airport. We were so distracted by Stella’s news that we didn’t realize it until we’d been on the metro for probably half an hour. Then we had to take it back and by that time we were all hungry. We found a sweet little place by the Seine and ate, but by the time we finished it was close enough to 6 that we rushed to the station and gave Stella big hugs goodbye and wished her the best and were on our way.

Quick update

2010-02-23T09:12:00.000-08:00

I know I have been terrible about updating. I'm too busy having adventures. But here's a quick update to let everyone know what I'm doing. I'll fill in the details later. After leaving Málaga, I spent one night in Órgiva to try and visit La Jimena before leaving Spain but without any luck. I had emailed them before and not heard from them and I didn't want to arrive without warning. So I donated some clothes and my old luggage to the women's community, packed everything in my new backpack (much easier to carry around), and headed to Granada. There I stayed at an awesome hostel in an awesome part of town and met some awesome people, went to the Alhambra and had a great time. Then, on a whim, I went with some of the people I had met at the hostel to Madrid where we stayed for a few days and visited the Reina Sofia. It was in Madrid that I lost my camera, which means there are no pictures of the Alhambra or anything since Málaga. Then I spent the night in the Madrid airport after missing my flight to Frankfurt. But I eventually caught my flight, called Kim, and met here by train in Kaiserslautern where we spent the weekend. Monday I met Nici in Munich and spent the next day touring the city, which is beautiful! I also think I have cold and haven't been feeling well but am still having fun and look forward to meeting Nici's family in Memmingen. Then I'll be heading back to meet Kim and we'll go together to Paris with our friend Stella!

Last week and a new start in Málaga

2010-02-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

Tuesday was Mike's last day of work. We went through all the lemons again and picked more. I did learn that lemon trees produce all year round, they grow very quickly (sometimes the branches faster than the fruit), and one day can make all the difference, so after two days off there were more to pick. That evening a new wwoofer joined the farm, Sanders, a Harvard literature undergrad from New Jersey who was also fluent in Spanish. He seemed very nice but I spent the evening just listening to everyone chat in Spanish, most of which I picked up on quite easily, but being the chicken-shit I am, I did not contribute. I was also quite exhausted and not in the best of moods. It was the end of the week I planned on leaving, heading first to Torre del Mar and then up to Granada. The rest of the week was really quite pleasant. Sanders is a nice guy and was good company after Mike left (he headed for Morocco Wednesday morning). It rained one day and we stayed inside and cleaned in the morning and weeded when it got nicer in the afternoon. I tried my hardest to stay positive and talk about pleasant things so as not to sour Sanders' experience. My last night I got a few travel tips from Jeannette, had a nice time playing with Alicia, and packed my things and cleaned my room in preparation for departure. Saturday morning I said goodbye to everyone and Poli dropped me off at the bus stop where I hopped on to Torre del Mar. I found an internet cafe and plopped down with all my luggage with the intent of finding a place to stay in town. Unfortunately there were no hostals and no couches to surf (I am a member of couchsurfing.com and had looked earlier in hopes of finding a friend or place to stay), and after a lonely lunch I decided I would probably have better luck in Málaga. So I hopped on the next bus and found a beautiful, cheap hostel right next to the coast! There I met Lauren, a plucky American studying for the next semester in Granada, and enjoying a little vacation before her classes started. We hit it off and walked down the beach together, grabbed some drinks, and together enjoyed my first taste of paella! And let me tell you, sitting in a sea-side café watching the Mediterranean waves roll in, eating delicious paella, and getting quite drunk on sangria, it was a fantastic start to some new adventures. The next day Lauren and I went and chowed down far too much churros con chocolate. Then I went on my own to the center of town to look around. That day some of the historical sites had free entry so I went to La Alacazaba, my first actual castle! Again, I took a lot of pictures, but unfortunately Gibralfaro was closed by the time I got there, but I got a lovely view of the city and could even see the inside of the bullfighting ring (I find the whole sport disgustingly intriguing to tell the truth but I don't think I will pay to see the actual event). After a long wait for a bus that never came, I walked the long, long way back to the hostel where I met up with Lauren and we went out for dinner. Now here I am, sitting in my hostel, trying to make plans for the next month. After not hearing back from La Jimena or Nici I have given up on them, imagining that fate has decided that those places and people need to remain a beautiful memory. But Lauren has headed back to Granada after telling me about all the wonderful places to see and things to do there, and after hearing my old buddy Nicos from my brother's co-op will also be in Granada soon, I will be heading there within the next week!

Lemons and caves

2010-02-08T13:00:00.001-08:00

By the end of the week we finally got to pick lemons! All the weeding and bad weather had been leading up to this epic event... that lasted all of two days. Poli's brother, Cristobal came to show us the ropes and after maybe two or three hours of work we had gone through all the lemon trees in the campo. We couldn't really do anything else until Poli came with the van to load up the lemons and take them to the warehouse to sell so we... sat around. I explored some waterways and took a nap in the sun. The next couple days we had off and Mike and I both took our computers to town to do some travel planning on Saturday night. We walked all the way back and stayed up until about 2am just chatting, sharing beer and chocolate, and I fell asleep in the guest house. The next day I woke up late and went back to town for more planning. That evening I went back to the guest house to hang with Mike and we tried "miracle fruit," which is actually a berry made into a pill that is supposed to change the flavors of certain foods. I was quite disappointed, probably because I eat whole lemons anyway, but Mike said he thought they tasted much sweeter with the berries. *Shrug* Monday we decided to head to Benamargosa and catch the bus to Nerja, a little coastal town not too far away that we had heard has gorgeous caves. We stopped in Velez-Malaga for some tortilla española and then continued on our way. We were surprised to be dropped off at a rather built-up, touristy looking entrance with a lame gift shop and a rather high entry fee. But we had ridden all the way and wanted to see some damn caves! Oh... my... gods! I don't know how long I was walking through those caves but they were phenomenal! Huge and lined with the most intricate formations that Mike appropriately compared to draping fabric. I took so many pictures and had to stop several times just to sit or touch or write. For me it was more divine than visiting a cathedral and as orgasmic as any sexual encounter, it was the essence and inspiration of primitive, earth-bound religion that is more beautiful and spiritual than anything else I've experienced. I was completely overwhelmed. By the time I got toward the end I could barely breath and I rushed out for fresh air and sat looking out at the sea, alone, until the bus came to take us back to bitter reality.

Drama

2010-01-31T10:31:00.000-08:00

So, things have gone a little sour in these parts. There have been some confusion and conflicts with the work schedule, particularly between Jeannette and Poli and Simone and Åsa. They had argued several times about what each expect from the other and not come to any consensus after two weeks. And because of rising tensions between the two families Jeannette suggested that it might be better if everyone leave because she didn't want to deal with the conflict anymore. This being after I had not said a word about my own opinion, I was just trying to go with the flow. So the next night, after another day of work Mike, Simone, Åsa, and I played Spanish scrabble in the guest house, drank beer and cremed whiskey and ate flan and generally had a wonderful last evening together before they left. Mike and I were left alone and after much consideration decided that maybe we really should leave. After much consideration and a lot more weeding I decided that I should stay a little longer and then move on. I know I had agreed to stay the whole year but I felt that after the conflict things had gotten uncomfortable for me and for Jeannette, and even before this incident I felt like I was intruding and that, besides the language, I would not be learning much about farming or sustainability. In fact, with Poli taking trucking classes he was gone all day and we could not even do much work and certainly couldn't ask questions or learn much of anything. It didn't take long before I had to explain to Jeannette how I felt (it even woke me up a few times one night and an extra hour earlier than usual that morning once I had made my own mind up about it) and I started making plans to leave. As some of you may know, Kim (the friend studying in Germany) proposed going to Paris with a group of friends including Mitch and our friend Stella (a Danish girl who I met over the summer who studied at Iowa). So I decided that I ought to see more of Spain, try and visit La Jimena, try to make it to Munich to see Nici, then head to Paris, and eventually end up in Scotland where I'd like to do more wwoofing. It was quite a relief to make such a decision and eased the tensions of the next week or so of work. Mike and I agreed that we were thankful for the other for keeping us sane.

Gaudy God

2010-01-20T11:42:00.000-08:00

As we drove home from Benamargosa after the Fiesta de San Sebastian I thought about the similarity in sound between the noun god and the adjective gaudy and wondered about the origin of each and any possible connection. Today I had my first real taste of Catholicism in the pueblito of España, and actually my first Catholic mass, oddly enough. Several times during the sermon I closed my eyes and imagined away the benches and saw the people standing on straw in ragged tunics and baggy frocks. Really it didn’t seem that far off to me. I had been warned several days before that the 20th of January was the official day of Saint Sebastian, the patron saint of Benamargosa, and that we would have the day off to go the fiesta. Jeannette tried to emphasize the size of the celebration, the biggest of the town all year. And it certainly was. We all got together around 11am for a small breakfast and chat before heading to town at noon. The evening before a friend of Jeannette's, Marie, had arrived. She is about twenty years old and is actually the daughter of one of Jeannette's friends from Berlin and is fluent in German and Spanish because her father was Chilean. She came just in time for the festival and left again the morning afterward but is planning on coming for another visit in about a month. Poli started truck-driving classes at the beginning of the week (which will last for at least a month) and still had to attend that morning but would meet us later, Jeannette, Marie, Mike, Alicia, and I. Simone and Åsa had gotten up much earlier to take the bus to Torre del Mar to spend the morning on the beach. We first met some of Jeannette’s friends who had gathered in the street and were shown into the church where Poli’s mother was attending mass. I was so thrilled to stand and listen to the barely audible sermon in Spanish and admire the people, the décor, the music, the smell of frankincense, and the ritual of it all. The image of the saint sat near the entrance where it would later be taken around for a procession through town. I then met up with the others at a bar where they were already drinking and chatting and I played my usual part of listening. Eventually we wandered to a tent that had been set up with a stage and a counter where free food and beer were served. The live band was amusing and just below was a small gathering of mostly older people dancing, it was charming really, and we found Simone and Åsa and sat with them to eat. I had seen some younger girls dressed in flamenco dresses and was ecstatic to see them get up on stage after the band. There were several performances by different groups of young ladies from probably age 5 to 18. It made me hopeful about finding dance classes near-by but I was too distracted to ask after the performances. It was beautiful but Marie informed me, after learning that she studied Flamenco music, that these dances were far from traditional, which I could tell even from my own experience. It was still delightful to watch and looked challenging to learn. We then went to another bar, Paco’s, and sat down with the aunt of one of Jeannette’s friends, Encarna. She was very friendly and really wanted to buy us a drink. We tried to chat but the language barriers were too much for me and even Mike had a hard time understanding her. At 7pm the procession was to begin and as the hour drew near the church bells began to ring. I skipped to the crowd that had gathered around the church entrance and grinned as people walked by with candles, ready to follow the saint through town. Someone came out carrying a big fancy cross and not far behind came the image himself. What a spectacle! He was of course tied to a mandarin tree (I’m not sure why that’s obvious but apparently it is) and had an expression of agony as drops of blood adorned his arrow wounds. I love how morbid Catholicism is! He was surrounded by a platform covered in red candles and carried by about 30 people and followed by a band playing somber marching music. The crowd shouted some inaudible cantations as the saint made his way down the street and many, including myself, began to follow him. Saint Sebastian made several stops in front of the houses of those who had made promises to him, including Poli’s mother, where he would be set down for a moment and a huge cross would spark and pop with a very flashy firework show. It was amazing! I was grinning the whole time. It must be one of the coolest experiences of my life, I’m not sure how else to describe it. I would have followed Saint Sebastian and his adoring masses all through town but it was getting late and I had to meet everyone to get a ride back home. We finished the day with a cup of tea and some stimulating religious conversation before I turned

Introducing Finca del Rio

2010-01-18T11:43:00.000-08:00

So, after another epic journey on train, ferry, hostel, and bus, I arrived in Cútar on the evening of January 11th. Antonio, who everyone calls Poli, picked me up at the station in this tiny village drove me the few kilometers back to the finca. The short drive consisted of us finding out that we each knew about the same amount of the others' language, which I found surprising but positive since it meant that communicating with Poli would require me to practice more Spanish. I was so excited to arrive that when I walked into the house and was introduced to Jeannette and gave her a big hug just because I was so happy to finally be there and not dealing with the stress of travel. The house was lovely and very modern and I met Jeannette and their daughter Alicia and sat down for dinner. The TV was on when I arrived and stayed on for the rest of the evening. I was shown around the house and up to my room, the only room upstairs complete with shelves, dresser, closet, and plenty of books! The first book I noticed was one entitled Conversational Spanish and I asked if I could grab it to study. We sat down for dinner and I mostly chatted with Jeannette who is German but is fluent in English and Spanish as well. It was interesting to hear her go back and forth between the three languages with Alicia, Poli, and I. Jeannette explained that I wouldn't have to work the next day as she had a shopping date with a friend that I would accompany her on. I also briefly met one of the other wwoofers, a Swede named Simone who was staying in the rental house next door with his family. Shortly after dinner I headed to bed wanting to get plenty of rest after my travels. The next morning I got up around 9am to a gorgeous view of the valley from my window. Downstairs Jeannette offered me some bread and jam and a cup of tea for breakfast and we chatted some more before heading out. While they live near Cútar, the family is more connected to Benamargosa, a slightly larger village at the bottom of the valley. There we picked up Josí, a good friend of Jeannette's, and drove to Vélez-Málaga where there was a shopping center. I wasn't terribly interested in shopping and spent my time watching after Alicia. We headed back for a late lunch and rested for evening, again with the TV on. Jeannette pointed out that watching the news in Spanish would be a good tool for learning the language and this was when I heard about the disaster in Haiti, eating dinner with the family. Simone's partner Åsa also stopped by in the evening and I met her as well. The next day I got up earlier and spent the whole day helping Jeannette clean the house inside and out and learned more about how things work around the house and the farm. That evening the whole Swedish family came over for dinner and I met Simone and Åsa's sons, Juwar who is three, and Elis who is five months. It was sweet to watch Juwar and Alicia play together despite the language barrier (Alicia knowing mostly German and Juwar speaking Swedish, they mostly communicated in screams). We adults sipped wine and Simone and I talked politics. Both Simone and Åsa speak English quite well but are here to work on their Spanish which is also quite good. The next day I finally got to work in the campo where Poli and Simone were working on pruning lemon trees. I followed and gathered the fallen branches into piles. It was nice to listen to Simone and Poli speak Spanish and I worked on understanding as much as possible, deciding that this was my first step in learning. I began picking up on the schedule and the dynamics of the farm over the next couple days. Anticipation was rising for the arrival of another wwoofer, another American named Mike who had worked before back in November when Jeannette was visiting family in Berlin. However, he did not arrive on the day he was expected. But we continued with work as usual and two days later, on Saturday after a day working in the family garden, they got a call that he would be at the bus stop that evening. I had already heard a lot about him, Jeannette told me he had studied mathematics at Yale and just graduated, he was from Oklahoma and so on. When he arrived he demonstrated his skill in Spanish and told us all about his travels around Spain and to Italy since he had been there last. Sunday should have been a day off but Simone and Åsa wanted to work and we set up the irrigation system on the mango trees that lined the mountain side down from the front of the house. That evening Mike and I went doen to Benamargosa with Jeannette and Alicia to Pub Paco where they spend every Sunday evening socializing and where I brought my computer for free wifi! Wednesday, January 20th, would be my first day off when Benamargosa celebrates the Fiesta de San Sebastian, the town's patron saint and the biggest festival all year.

Morocco in Words

2010-01-13T12:03:00.000-08:00

As if putting this experience into words has been easy… why do you think I haven’t published anything in the last nearly 5 weeks? I have been through a lot in these weeks since leaving Germany. It starts with a mix up with my flight back to Spain and then flying later than expected but with the national Dutch soccer team (I sat next to one of their trainers, Henri, who was chatty and fun). When I did arrive in Málaga, Abbie was waiting patiently at the bus station, confident in my eventual arrival. We had no idea how we were going to get to Morocco but were determined. We set up at a hostel and decided to leave the next day when we found a bus to Algeciras, a ferry to Ceuta, another bus to the border, a taxi to Tangier, and finally a train to Marrakech. The most memorable part of this epic was almost certainly crossing the border. Ceuta is actually a Spanish city and you have to cross through the border guard before entering Morocco. It was disorganized, thousands of cars were lined up to make the cross and hundreds of people on foot, including us, lugging our baggage between cars and trying to find the right line to get our passports stamped. And upon crossing we were bombarded by pushy taxi drivers. Luckily we found one that rushed us to the train station in Tangier so we could take the night train to our destination, where we spent the night. Abbie and I arrived in Marrakech at 9am and quickly found the closest (and supposedly only) hostel in the city. Once we dropped off our things we started out looking for food and a market. The hostel was on the touristy side of the city surrounded by fancy restaurants and hotels and we grabbed some nosh and relaxation at a nearby café. We found a map and headed toward the center of town where we hoped to experience some local markets. We first came across a park and decided to check it out. The flora was beautiful and photography from around the world was on display and we enjoyed observing the people as well. When we finally found a market we watched some men make filo dough and were given a very tasty, free pastry that they made for us. We were then taken to a spice stand where we were shown the flavors and beauty products of the Atlas Mountains. We wandered more through various markets and found a nice plaza to sit for some tagine where we were quickly surrounded by begging cats. This was quite a difference from the begging dogs I remembered from Spain and rather amusing since they were everywhere and I don’t remember having seen a cat beg like this before. For a while Abbie and I wondered if there were any dogs here since we didn’t see any the first two days. But we enjoyed our cheap and flavorful lunch before heading to the main market. We got a bit lost wandering around the narrow, winding roads but enjoyed taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of Marrakech. We also got our fair share of pushy salespeople but easily resisted buying anything since neither of us wanted to spend or carry much. We watched a man carving wood figures with his feet and admire some gorgeous rugs and tapestries. The whole day was quite overwhelming and exhausting. We also found an amazing bakery/juice shop and sat down for date juice! It was so good. As it began getting dark we found the center square where huge crowds had begun to gather and tents of food set up, musicians played and peddlers set up, and we were about to get some fresh grapefruit juice when a couple women grabbed our hands and began scribbling on them with henna. I tried to pull my hand away and said no several times but the woman had a tight grip and when she finished she asked for money. I didn’t want it anyway but gave her the little change I had but this was not sufficient and she became aggressive and as Abbie grabbed my arm to pull me away they cursed us both. I was quite shaken, as was Abbie, and having had a full and tiring day we rushed out of the square. It was much quieter several blocks away and we grabbed some ice cream and then headed back to the hostel. We had breakfast at the hostel the next morning but it was raining so there was not much we could do. I think both Abbie and I were exhausted from all our travels and the previous day’s intensity and we decided it was the perfect day to find a nearby café with wifi and spend our day sipping tea and computing. It poured all day and we just sat in the warm lounge area of a café where we had lunch and worked on future travel plans and updating our friends and family of our adventures. Eli had sent me a long message about what all to do and to watch out for in Marrakech so I shared it with Abbie and we thought about what things we would like to do for the next few days. Once the rain stopped it was fairly dark but we decided to head back toward the market to search for some local flavors. We found a friendly place and had some kebabs and then searched again for the juice shop we had enjoyed the day before and sipped more date juice and had some delicious pastries. The third day we decided to find a hammam (bathhouse) and asked the man at the hostel where we should go. He directed us in the opposite direction of the town center where there were almost no tourists at all and we experienced a real, local hammam. I’m sure we looked quite out of place but everyone was friendly and helpful. It was just three open shower chambers and a young woman who was just finishing up and spoke a little English showed us around and told us what to do and even gave us her name and number if we needed more help! We stripped down and filled up our buckets and find a place to sit among the other women soaping up and scrubbing down who also helped us make sure we were doing things properly. There was a woman there who would scrub you down for a fee but we didn’t have any cash and decided to do it ourselves. It was hot and lovely and refreshing. Afterwards we went back to the hostel to change and went back to the markets where Abbie wanted to invest in a nice leather bag. I waited for her near the mosque, people-watched, and walked around the rose gardens of a nearby hotel. I had the intention of finding some of the other sights but enjoyed what I saw. The last day I decided to make sure my flight had been confirmed and went by myself to the café with wifi only to find that it had not gone through and spent another couple hours trying to find another one that was fairly priced, but found it impossible. So I decided not to worry about it and take the train and ferry like I had on the way there. Abbie met me and we walked up to the north side of town, had some more juice, some lunch and chatted with the waiter. He was nice and invited us out for the evening to a bar with live music. We then looked for a garden we were recommended to go to but it closed just as we arrived. So we headed back again and relaxed for a while at the hostel and chatted with some of our roomies. We decided we were tired and again and wanted to take it easy so we went to a nearby café with great tea and crepes and spent my last night staying warm and relaxing. At 6:30am I got a wake-up call so I could get to the train station for the 7am train and said goodbye to Abbie and to Marrakech. It had been an exhausting experience and I hope I have another opportunity to go because I know there’s a lot that I missed out on. But I loved seeing the diversity of people and learning and exploring without any type of guidance besides the kindness of strangers. On the twelve hour train ride back to Tangier I realized how generous most of the people really were, especially when they weren’t trying to sell you anything. I certainly hope I have another opportunity to go back and experience more of the beautiful country.

German reminders of home

2010-01-07T04:23:00.000-08:00

Germany was wonderful! It was definitely the right decisions to go, spontaneous as it was. It was nice to be in a foreign country with someone who new the area and the language and could show me around. I loved spending time with Kim, meeting her friends, and being reminded of home. Honestly we didn't do a lot of site-seeing but rather had a relaxing time catching up and being lazy. I arrived rather late at night but Kim was waiting for me at the airport to take me back to her place. We intended to get a bus back to her campus but it stopped around the corner from the actual stop and we missed it and had a rather cold and exciting time trying to call a cab. We eventually had to wave down a car that called a cab for us, oy! But we got home, warmed up, and went to bed. The next day we awoke rather late and decided to have a chill day exploring Dortmund, starting with Kim's campus. We then went downtown and had some curry wurst and glühwein, pleased that the Christmas market still had some stands up. We stayed up watching movies with Kim's friend Mitch. He was another American student and an absolute delight! We woke up late again to go to Düsseldorf where I got to see the Rhine! We walked around and found lots of Spanish restaurants, which threw me for a loop, having just left Spain. But we ate at an Argentinian restaurant and had steak, yums! That was New Year's Eve and we had no definite plans but decided to go to Bochum where there was a bar district called the Bermuda Triangle. We got ready and waited for Kim's friend Jose, a Mexican student, had some wine and headed to town pretty late. As soon as we got off the train people were lighting off fireworks all around us! We had another bottle of wine which Jose masterfully opened without a bottle opener and stood outside and passed the bottle around as the clock struck midnight, watching the beautiful amateur fireworks display explode right above our heads! After watching for probably thirty minutes we went to a salsa bar and ordered more drinks. They did not, however, play salsa music as we had hoped, but we were not going complain as they played American 80s music and even some 50s/60s twist music! We danced the night away and got really drunk. It was an amazing night and Jose got us home safely. The next morning Kim realized at some point she had lost her purse, so we got dressed and looked for it to no avail and then decided to just spend the rest of the day watching movies. Later her friend Christian contacted us to hang out and smoke chi-cha so we spent the evening there. Kim had been wanting Christian and I to meet because she knew we both like gaming. He happens to be a LARPer, which turned out to be a really huge and fascinating culture that I was not aware of. So we geeked out over chicha while Kim listened with a smile. The next night we went out for a bit and had sushi for lunch, then went grocery shopping. I made bruchetta and spaghetti for dinner with Mitch and Sebastian, another of Kim's friends. Sebastian is German but had spent a lot of time in Iowa, eastern Iowa, and speaks English very well and was wearing a Hawkeye hat and sweatpants. If I hadn't been told I might have thought he was an international student from UI just like Kim. Another day of relaxing and movies as the snow fell outside. That evening Mitch, Kim, and I grabbed some dinner and ice cream and then watched Firefly. Christian joined us later and he and I exchanged some music and movies on our harddrives. I now have the audio of several Terry Pratchett novels! It was a lovely last night and a chance to regain some composure before meeting Abbie in Málaga and heading to Morocco! More on that next time!

My short affair with Barcelona

2009-12-29T18:01:00.000-08:00

My plan, after leaving Orgíva and La Jimena, was to meet my friend Kim in Barcelona to celebrate New Year's. Nici was also going to be in the city after me and we all were to have an epic time ringing in the New Year together! I got to the city after an all night bus ride from Granada where, as the sun began to rise, I looked out the window and caught my first glances of the Mediterranean Sea. Ooo, that was exciting for me! When I got to the city I found a hostel and booked for the night and got online to see where Kim was and when and where we would meet. She was supposed to arrive the next day in the evening and I would meet her at the bus station. Then I set out to get to know Barcelona... Abbie had been staying in the city for three months before going to La Jimena and suggested things to see and places to go. But I decided I would just wander until I had company. My hostel was right in the middle of the center of the city and it wasn't long before I found La Rambla, a beautiful street famous for its markets, art, and living statues. I didn't wander too far but, using a map, saw some nice shops and beautiful buildings and generally scoped out the area. In my adventures I met Sollo, a Nigerian artist who talked me about his art and wanting to live in the states. I went to bed fairly early in anticipation for more adventures with Kim. In the morning I had my complimentary breakfast and then went to do my laundry. It is rather amusing that I was in one of the most beautiful and famous cities in the world doing my laundry, but it had to be done... I checked up on Kim and found a message from her saying that she wouldn't be able to come to Barcelona at all and that she would explain later, much to my disappointment. But I thought I ought not to waste my day in worry so I posted some cards and continued my wandering around the city. I walked all the way up and down La Rambla. The living statues were sensational but most of the shops and stands looked expensive. I also found La Bocquería, a food market just off La Rambla, which had stands packed with beautiful, vibrant arrangements of fresh fruits, nuts, vegetables, meat, fish, candies, and anything almost anything else you can eat! I knew that once I was hungry I would find some bites there rather than going to a restaurant. As I continued down La Rambla I met another Nigerian who followed me around and chatted with me... it was a little strange how many Nigeria I seemed to be attracting in Barcelona... But once I got rid of him I grabbed some cheese, dates, and coconut from the market and headed back to the hostel. Upon my return, I got online, and that's when all my plans turned upside down. It turned out Kim was all ready to come meet me when she discovered that her passport and boarding pass had fallen out before she could get on the plane... And without a passport she couldn't leave the country until she got a new one, which would certainly take money and time. And without a second thought I said "Well, I'll find a plane to Germany as soon as possible then and come see you!" And that's what I did. I didn't particularly want to stay in Barcelona alone and I really wanted to see Kim, so I found a flight for the next day and got everything ready. I still can't believe how quickly and drastically my plans changed and how comfortable I've been with it... But my flight didn't leave until the next evening and I had one more day to enjoy Barcelona alone. I left my luggage at the hostel and let my feet take me all over the city. I had hot chocolate and churros and walked all the way to Parc Montjuic! As I walked I thought about my general impression of big cities and how I enjoy visiting them but am definitely more of a small town or country girl. Really big cities look very similar when you are just walking around them, although I haven't visited that many, really. And I certainly appreciate the wonder that arises in me as I walk out and see an epic piece of architecture or art or sculpture or even just people. Also, Barcelona has an interesting mix of Spanish and Catalan, both spoken and written on signs and shops. I never knew what to expect but for the most part my limited Spanish got me by and the languages were similar enough that I could decipher the signs, although the Catalan certainly caught me by surprise at times. Parc Montjuic was particularly beautiful and I walked all the way through it, which was quite a task, but very enjoyable. I even got close to the sea and tried to follow my wandering feet toward it but it somehow eluded me, always being just beyond one group of buildings and then the next. Eventually the time and distance caused me to surrender and I headed back to the hostel to get my bags and go to the airport. I would describe the park and other sights in more detail but words won't quite do. I will make sure and post pictures though!

Christmas, more rain, and farewells

2009-12-26T17:40:00.000-08:00

A lot has been happening. So much so that I haven't been able to get online or write. The rain continues to hinder the harvest and work has been switched to repairing holes in the nets. But things have certainly been interesting thanks to the holidays. We still had Thursday off, but it was pouring rain. I tried using internet in town but got very wet rather than very online. That night we decorated the Christmas tree, one made from an olive branch of course! We set it up in the guest house where we sang, shared our hopes for the coming year, and opened presents, ate cookies, and drank mulled wine or cider. It was yet another magical evening of celebration. As we had been playing Wichtel, we revealed our mortals and opened our final presents! I gave Birta a choker I had made and Nici gave me a beautiful string of beads, kitty soap, and her favorite German children's book as well as her contact info so I could visit her in Germany! I was very touched and thankful that I had made such a good and thoughtful friend. Christmas day we had our late breakfast of sweet bread and muesli, like we usually have on Sundays! I was very happy because it was my very last Sunday breakfast at La Jimena. Then we worked, mostly as usual, and had a late dinner of homemade gnocchi! The table was set beautifully and while everyone enjoyed the holiday we still worried about the weather. We had gotten more than the average annual rainfall for the area in just a week. The river had flooded and taken some caravans with it and there were mudslides everywhere. Mathis said there were already 800 reported accidents due to flooding or mudslides in the region. The roads were treacherous and terraces and mud buildings threatened to collapse. How typical of Christmas! But we still managed to enjoy our company and our food and made the best of it. After dinner we watched Michel, a Danish film that is traditional to watch on Christmas. It was in German so I didn't really follow it. Then we ate Milan's lovely, homemade gingerbread house with a lovely fruit pudding Mariann had prepared! Afterwards, Nici, Abbie, Guillaume, and I went down to the yurt and watched "La Vie En Rose" on my laptop. That was my last night at La Jimena. Saturday we worked half the day. I planned on leaving after lunch but worried about mudslides blocking the roads and making it night impossible for me to leave. But I read some stories to Florina, packed my things and had my last lunch with the Rosenbusch family and my fellow wwoofers. We had potato pancakes! When we finished the sky had finally cleared a bit and I said goodbye. It was still hard to believe I was leaving. I'm so grateful for my experiences and my new friendships and it was hard to say goodbye. I made sure to give everyone big hugs and Mariann and Abbie drove me to the bus stop and saw me off. I amde sure to get contact info from everyone so we could reconnect someday. I've learned so much and gained so much over the past six weeks and can only hope I gave as much as I received. Farewell, La Jimena. May we meet again someday.

Spirals: The beginning of an end of a beginning

2009-12-22T17:16:00.000-08:00

Luckily things went well at the coop mill and Mathis cheered up in time for Solstice! He had been looking to celebrating the holiday as well and we got our day off for it even though it was probably the last sunny, nice day for the rest of the week. Technically it was Solstice Eve but we wanted to celebrate on Sunday anyway. We had our usual tasty Sunday breakfast of sweet bread, honey, and muesli and planned a ceremony for the evening. I had a few traditional foods in mind for the occasion and Mariann had the wonderful idea of setting up a spiral to walk at sundown. The whole day was a delight! We set up the spiral on the ground with olive branches and then went to Grete's to give her some homemade sheep's milk cheese and bread where we of course were introduced to one of her daughters and chatted over juice, coffee, and muffins. The rest of the day Abbie and I worked on baking some treats. As the sun began to set we grabbed some lanterns, drums, and songs and headed to the spiral we'd set up. Mariann explained to everyone that people could sing and play music and each person, when they were ready, could take a lantern and walk in meditation into the spiral. At the center was a little altar set with water, rocks, a lantern, feathers, and angel cards which had words of wisdom for everyone. Then you walked back out the spiral, contemplating your angel card and the return of the sun in the coming weeks and months. It was enchanting and fulfilling. Afterward we walked back to the house and everyone sat down while Abbie and I served homemade egg nog! No one besides the Americans (Abbie, Will, and I) had tried it before but the kids didn't like it as much as the pumpkin pie. Then we served some left-over soup and Yorkshire pudding! I almost didn't make the pudding because I had never made it before but it turned out beautifully and everyone love it, which made me very happy. It was a nice taste of home, even without the roast beef. And, of course, there was pumpkin pie for desert. The next couple days were wet, windy, and cold. We worked inside and helped French/Spanish David on his building project. It was a nice change of pace but it didn't take long for people to begin missing the sun and the olives. People have also started leaving. Will left on Monday to possibly meet a friend in France for some snowboarding and then to Germany to spend Christmas with his family, visiting from American. F/S David left on Tuesday for France to be with his family again and won't return until February. It was rather disheartening to be reminded that soon we'll all be leaving for one reason or another, but exciting to see what was in store for the next part of my journey.

Living in a Cloud

2009-12-19T17:03:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago (four to be exact) I got my first exposure to the celebrating of Advent. Florina has been especially cute about checking the Advent calendar at breakfast over the past month. So last week, in preparation for the coming holiday, we decided to play Wichtel. This is the German version of Secret Santa only better! It actually means Angels and Mortals, and you play by drawing a name of the person who then becomes your mortal and you their angel and you leave them little gifts or do them favors and things. Everyone is playing and people have been finding little treasures from their angels daily and been trying to figure out who is getting gifts for who. But not all has been cheery at La Jimena. Mathis has been increasingly anxious due to the weather. It is forecast to be rainy and windy for all of the coming week. This makes it very difficult to work and he's been worrying about changing work days and times to accomodate for the weather without upsetting us wwoofers. I think he's also worried about having so many workers to feed and no work for them to do. I certainily want to make sure I'm earning my keep, whatever the weather. However, today was supposed to be miserable but we had some suna and worked all day and got a lot done. And the local cooperative mill opened and Mathis took a full load of olives to be processed there! Hopefully that will ease his anxieties. Personally I found the weather for the day to be enchanting. It was continuously changing. At one point a cloud rolled over the mountain and we couldn't even see the short distance across the barranca (the little valley that cuts through Mathis' land). I got rather giddy about being inside the cloud where it wasn't actually raining. Our day off for the week did get changed and we went to town on Friday rather than Thursday. As you may recall, I had met with much luck at the little internet cafe in town, in particular for a Dutchman who allowed me to continue surfing the net during siesta and gave me a bite to eat. I had been working on a little knitted potholder for him and I finally finished and gave it to him. I also got a ride from a sweet local named Sonya who even invited me over for a drink and was surprised hear that my home had snow but was not very far north nor in the mountains. I thought it was quaint. I have constant reminder that if you put positive energy into the world it always comes back to you.

A week of fun and excitement!

2009-12-14T01:23:00.000-08:00

I'm sure many may notice that I'm posting fewer entries. I'm over the initial shock of everything and things aren't so new and I don't have to share every interesting detail here. So the number of entries will decrease I think, until perhaps I go to Barcelona in two weeks and everything is new again. I also have some spelling clarifications. The fruit I was raving about is actually called caqui in Spanish, persimmons to us English speakers. Also, the oldest daughter of my host is named Birta, the wwoofer from France is Guillaume, the German wwoofer is Nici... I'm pretty sure that's it. Cinja (Sinya), the German wwoofer who already left, has emailed a few more times and is not planning on coming back. Apparently her experience at the other host was bad enough that she just wants to distance herself from that place (which is only over the mountain from here). Everyone is very disappointed, especially Mathis. But there's not much we can do. Oh, and Abbie, that's the other spelling correction. Time is going by quickly here and it seems like the time we have off is long and often. Last Thursday we went to the market and found more books. There was also a special Christmas market where Abbie and I bought some chili chocolate and some chili sauce to share at breakfast. Friday night Marianne sang with a local choir at an outdoor fundraiser. There was a Scottish/Irish group dance afterwards. The food was tasty and the music was beautiful but it was very cold and there were too many people so I didn't join in the dancing. Saturday was hard work planting in the garden and most everyone went to bed early. Then Sunday we were invited over to Grete's, the elderly Danish neighbor who broke her ribs. She's a difficult person to say no to and she insisted on having all twelve of us over for dinner. It was lovely! She is such a sweet, generous, spunky lady and she served us a huge, delicious meal. Course after course we stuffed ourselves silly and then we all watched Dances with Wolves! The subtitles were in Danish which made the Lakota difficult to understand but because it was French David's favorite movie he explained to everyone what they were saying (he'd seen it that many times). I didn't get to bed until after midnight, which is very late for me these days. During that night there was a huge storm with thunder and hail! It was very loud but beautiful. Mathis had told me it only storms once every few years here and I was honored to witness one. Abbie and I were quite excited by it but mostly slept through it but everyone else complained that they didn't sleep and were worried about the freshly planted vegetables and blown down olives. Whoops.

Good and bad news, mostly good

2009-12-08T10:38:00.000-08:00

German lessons have been going well. Nici is a firm and thorough teacher, quizzing me whenever she gets a chance. So far I have found the lesson on telling time to be most useful and I try to check and read it in German if I remember. So much for Spanish! We did get some not so good news this week. For one thing the mother of Nici's boyfriend had to go into surgery on Tuesday. Then we found out that Cinja's new wwoof host didn't work out and rather than coming back here, which was a given option, she went to Málaga. We've become very much like a family so everyone has been concerned. Luckily Nici's boyfriend's mom had a successful operation. However, we haven't heard anything more about Cinja. We also got another wwoofer today. We are now fifteen strong! It makes meals very crowded but there is always something to do and people to enjoy and lots of work that gets done. The new arrival is also named Will. He's from New Jersey but just finished a semester studying business in Belgium. It's hard to believe the family can manage to fee and shelter us all but the diversity of people is very enjoyable and I think the family appreciates it. A note for future entries: I have plans to meet Kim (a friend from Iowa studying in Germany) in Barcelona after Christmas. So I'll be here for the holidays, yay!

Birthday Mayhem!

2009-12-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

Sunday was Milan's birthday! He turned thirteen. Saturday night we worked all evening making a cake, which Nici intended to do but we learned that Abby, the new wwoofer, is a trained pastry chef! Cake-making more or less, shifted hands but lots of people helped and it turned out beautifully. I was also asked to make more pumpkin pie for the occasion, which I did. So Sunday morning we had our usual Sunday breakfast of müesli and sweet bread and we sang happy birthday in, I think, five languages, different versions as well (I like the German one best). Afterwards we went to town for the first day of a three day fiesta and had meat platters and bounce fights! Abby and I stayed in town a little longer than everyone else and hung out at a cafe and then walked all the way back. It was a difficult but nice walk and nice to chat with someone. Abby and I have become fast friends. When we got back we joined the inside table as people filtered in and we had mulled cider and our amazing cake! We stuffed ourselves with cake and had no room for pie, which I was not surprised about at all. And the Scots invited us over to the guest house for games: Hunters and Gatherers of Carcassonne is tons of fun and encourages creative and cooperative efforts. It was a lot of fun to see everyone's playing style and fun to spend time with the Scottish guests. Even Milan had to admit he had an awesome birthday and everyone else enjoyed the day as well.

Language News

2009-12-05T10:10:00.000-08:00

Frida was a day filled with new faces. I already mentioned that Cinja left and David arrived (who was actually born in France but to Spanish parents). But on Friday Abby arrived, another American wwoofer from Eugene, Oregon! As well as three guests from Scotland, Will, Sue, and Marion. I didn't even notice until recently but behind the family house is an adorable, cozy guest house. So the Scots work four hours a day and pay a small fee for a vacation from their cold, wet home to enjoy the Andalucian sun. They also live in an agricultural community in Scotland and are very helpful, interesting and friendly people. So now the vast majority of people here speak English. While this is useful, it is not encouraging me to learn Spanish. However, Nici (I've learned this is how Nicky spells her name) has decided to teach me German! As I may have mentioned, I am getting good at vaguely following the conversation in German but not well. I am very enthusiastic about learning another language, even if it's not the one I expected. And for those who don't know, this will help for my next destination as well because one of my hosts for next year is also German! I'm having a lot of fun now, learning new things and meeting lots of interesting new people. And have I mentioned the amazing food...

The Olive Cycle

2009-12-04T04:51:00.000-08:00

Thursday, as some may have noticed, I traded my day of internet for a day at the olive mill! After breakfast I gathered myself and hopped in the lorry with Mathis. We drove into town to grab some nosh for the day and headed first to Johan's farm. This is the olive farm we harvested when I first arrived and Mathis and I rolled there. Rolling is done to pick up olives that have fallen on the ground and because of strong winds over the past several days many olives had fallen. We spent an hour pushing around these little contraptions with rollers covered in little spikes and a basket to catch the olives stabbed by the spikes. Very dull work. As we were packing up everything we helped ourselves to a whole crate of fresh oranges! Johan was gone and we grabbed the nice oranges that had already fallen down. Then it was off to the mill! The ride was much shorter than I expected but we had to wait because the mill is first come first served. So we munched on bread, chocolate, and oranges until our turn. It was fun to chat with Mathis and have some one on one time with my host. When it was our tuen we backed the lorry up next to the chute and dumped our boxes in. We must have had around fifty boxes! Then the olives were conveyed up to the washer that had a fan to blow out the leaves and then rinsed them with water. They were then taken up again to where they were weighed (ours were nearly 1700kg, which is how you are charged). Then they sit in another machine where they are heated and ground, pits and all. The heating takes a while and I wandered into town alone to explore. It was about four in the evening and everything was closed for siesta so I sat in front of the church and read for a while. I went back around five and watched as all the hard work I'd been doing over the past two weeks was churned and separated and made into a beautiful river of tasty olive oil. I even tasted it as it flowed into a large vat. And I sat and filled all seventeen, five liter jugs with our finished product. It was really profound. So, batting trees I made olive rain which I watched form into an olive river: the olive cycle!

The Gentleman Farmer

2009-12-03T04:42:00.000-08:00

So maybe I haven't given the impression that Mathis is much of a gentleman. What I mean is that even though Mathis is living the hard rugged life of a farmer he is very well educated and informed, and learning more about farming as he goes. Obviously living the most sustainable life he can requires a certain knowledge and ideal. Mathis spends a lot of time reading news online and rambling about politics. As I've said, I don't mind and quite enjoy discussing it with him. He even complimented me the other day for being so informed and having similar politics. I of course gave my mother credit and he asked me to thank her (Thanks, Mom!). He also loves the Earth Children series (probably my favorite book series ever!) and I recently learned he studied bio-dynamics. Mathis is very opinionated but it seems to me that his opinions are well grounded and he tries not to push them on others. He said to me recently that even if he feels very strongly about something he also doesn't like to be dogmatic. It seemed like when I first arrived he was very stern about rules and about the environmental problems facing the world and anyone who doesn't agree is stupid and irresponsible. However much it may seem like he is trying to shove his political/environmental agenda on people I have realized that this is only because I am living on his land and by his lifestyle. When it comes to people in general he is accepting of the fact that others live differently and he's not going to tell other what to do or how to live. He instead leads by example and knows it is the best and most important thing he can do. Mathis is quite the admirable gentleman.

A little change

2009-12-02T03:47:00.000-08:00

Tuesday we said goodbye to Cinja. She's going away for a month and then coming back in January. I may never see her again so I hugged her and said it was lovely knowing her before going to work. When I came back someone new had arrived. New David had apparently been here about a month before. He's a real Spaniard! So conversation at the table went from mostly German to mostly Spanish! With plenty of English conveniently mixed in. Spanish David actually lives in France and comes here to work on building a group home for troubled French youngsters. It's an inspiring project. Other than that, life here is getting quite comfortable. I've become very at ease with life and while I still miss everyone at home a lot, I don't long for home like I did at first.

The rain is Spain does Not fall mainly in the plain

2009-11-30T12:01:00.000-08:00

It rained Sunday. The first since I have been here. So I spent most of my day bundled up, reading. When it began to clear in the late afternoon a gaggle of neighbors began flooding in. It was music night and people crowded into the tiny music room to play. Tea was brewed and wine was mulled and much revelry was had! Among the guests were two other wwoofers from the States. And better yet, they were from around Chicago and went to school at Grinnel! We talked a bit about home. Their names were Dan and Sarah and Dan mentioned he had been in Iowa City during the homecoming game. So had I and we reminisced about the snow that day, the last snow either of us had seen. It was a lovely reminder of home. I played drums a bit, sang some Beatles songs, drank some homemade wine, and ate some raw fig truffles! And as we played it continued to rain! I was absolutely beautiful. There were about ten people in that little room. As it got darker we went back to the house for mulled wine and bread. I spent the rest of the evening chatting with Alex and Joel (I know, weird, right!?). They were staying with some friends of Mathis and Marianne and traveling with Rainbow, a group of hippie nomads. Alex was from Austria and was heading toward Morocco, Joel was from southern Germany and had done the pilgrimage to San James de Compostela! Everyone there was either German or English. It was a really fun evening and I enjoyed meeting new people. Monday I woke up with numb toes. Despite bundling up, the strong wind chilled me and I did not want to get up. But I did anyway and got blown around in the tree tops during work. I have decided Milan is one great kid. He knows a lot about the farm, is very curious, and enjoys everything in life! I overhead him ask Guillame one day what could be better than work and the only thing he could come up with was food. I got to meet his sheep Emma and her lamb, and his goat Flor. I even watched him milk Emma! We also went to visit another neighbor, Grete, who had fallen and broken some ribs. She is a pensioner from Denmark and we help take care of her horses and cats and made sure she had enough firewood. Milan was very helpful and Grete was very grateful. She invited us in for muffins and sparkling cider and she and Milan told me about rebuilding her house after a mudslide. She also said she loved the States and had a relative who studied in Davenport!

Giving thanks for New Homes

2009-11-28T11:48:00.000-08:00

Not long after I arrived Guillame and Mathis were talking about homes. Cliches were exchanged like "home is where the heart is" and such. But Guillame said those without a home have many. While I will always feel my home is back in Iowa, I have a better sense of feeling at home in many places. Now that I have been here for about two week my head has finally stopped exploding. I was so overwhelmed by all this newness and really very anxious. But now I have gotten more comfortable with people, the routine, and the place, and my place in all of it. Apparently that takes me about two weeks! With that said, I shared a lovely Thanksgiving here on Friday! I came in early from work and Marianne and I fixed a big feast! I had prepared pie crust the night before and made pumpkin pie (the crust was perfect! I am awesome!). And we had mashed potatoes, stuffing, and sort of green bean casserole. And salad of course. Before we ate I explained a bit about the holiday, to the best of my ability, and its traditions and we went around the table and gave thanks. Then we stuffed ourselves silly! We did not, however, watch American football afterwards, but I wouldn't have done that at home either. I did have to explain what American football was to the kids though. And they have all insisted that I make more pie before I leave and teach Marianne to make it too!

Haven

2009-11-26T09:43:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to include another quick post about my internet café. I have spent all day here today and need to rave about how wonderful it is. It is run by an Eritrean woman who is very sweet (she helped me get home last week). And there's a Dutch man who works here as well that has been attentive and helpful. I got here just before open at 10am, paid 5€ for internet service for the whole day, was given a place to sit and continue to use during the three hours of siesta when it's usually closed, given bread and chocolate and tea during that time, and given a free refill of avocado juice this evening! Ananda's Mundo is a café, shop, and a hostel as well and is really great. I realize I sound like a commercial but they've been so generous I just can't help myself. I feel very comfortable here, it's like my Spanish Red Poppy or, dare I say, House of Aromas. :-D

Missing Home

2009-11-26T05:23:00.000-08:00

It may seem hard to believe but I really miss home. I know I'm in this amazing place doing new and exciting things and meeting new and exciting people but I can't help but think about the place and people I've left behind. I've been dreaming every night about all of you and about Iowa. I even had a lovely dream about mom's Solstice cookies and candies, boy am I going to miss those. So I wanted you all to know that I miss you, all of you, a whole damn lot! Today is Thanksgiving back home and I just so happen to have the day off. And I discussed it with Marianne and on Friday we'll make pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes and some other traditional fare, although I'm the only American here. So I explained at breakfast this morning a little about what Thanksgiving is and how we celebrate it. I got some snide comments from Mathis, David, and Marianne about the absurdity of pilgrims and native americans feasting together, which I certainly agree with, but I know that's not why I want to celebrate. It makes me feel a little more welcome that they are willing to celebrate with me. I also feel more welcome because Florina gave me a string of beads that she made! Last night she spent the evening trying to climb all over me and doing flips in my arms. I also got fully introduced to the music room. I had been shown the door but had no idea what was inside. But the other night I heard music as I was about to go to bed and I followed it into the room and found Marianne playing the piano. The room itself was enchanting and Marianne's playing was absolutely gorgeous so I sat and listened for a while.

Cold nights and new fruits

2009-11-24T05:10:00.000-08:00

While many of you are probably jealous of my current climate while Iowa gets colder and snowier, you may be grateful for one thing: indoor heating. On average the days here may get up around 70ºF, although it feels a bit warmer whacking at olives on top of a tree in the midday sun. However, nights here are frigid. I bundle into flannel pants, a sweater, socks, all under three woolen blankets and still wake up chattering my teeth. Needless to say my accommodations are not heated. And so it was Monday, the whole day was crisp and crystal clear and quite cool. We went down to Orgíva again. I found some lavendar in the garden there and put some in my hair and down my shirt and spent all day getting pleasant whiffs of it all day. If you know how much I love lavendar I don't need to explain how much it really brightened my day. And after a hard day of work we were welcomed home with real Swiss fondu! Marianne and Florina brought back all kinds of goodies from Switzerland, mostly chocolate and have been sharing them with everyone. Before I forget I have discovered an amazing new fruit since coming here, I think they call it quika. Every snack time at the farm in Orgíva we gather fruit from a tree that stands amongst the olives. I thought it looked like a tomato at first but after biting into it... wow. It's so juicy and sweet and has strange jellies inside. It's been a wonderful addition to our noon snack. However, Tuesday we started work at La Jimena on Mathis' trees where there are no quika trees. There is a horse and more sun.

Truth: Wine and chocolate are just better in Europe

2009-11-22T03:46:00.000-08:00

I've been rather reclusive lately, disappearing as soon as lunch is done. But last night I finished my book and have no more excuse. So Sunday come and I attempt to break out of my box! Marianne and Florina have returned and we had a wonderful, large welcome back breakfast this morning. I slept until about 9am and breakfast didn't start until 10. Florina, who is four years old, is quite shy and doesn't speak English. She spent breakfast chatting in Swiss-German and periodically glaring at me from across the table. Marianne is older than I expected but seems sweet. We even ended breakfast with chocolate banana cake! It was very tasty. Afterward I went with Cinja and Nicky to Pampaneira, a touristy village on the other side of the mountain. Cinja called it one of the "white villages," which also include the nearby towns of Capileira and Bubión. The trek uphill (well, up-mountain, to be more accurate) was exhausting but once we reached a major road we hitched the rest of the way to town. The whole day was beautiful. It was mostly just wandering through shops but it was fun bonding with my roommates. And everywhere I looked I found some trinket or another that reminded me of someone back home! I wanted to buy everything: earings for Eliana, necklaces for Maeryn, hair clips for Qi, shawls for mom, mirrors and whole sets of rainbow ceramics for Jenn, bizarre T-shirts for Mike or Trey, cool teapots and cookware for Eric and Pat, maps for dad and Alex, even hand-made baby clothes and shoes for Missy's twins (I didn't see a flag for Robbie though), and so much more! It gave me a warm feeling to be reminded of everyone. But I spared my wallet and settled for some post cards. Cinja explained that a particular type of tiling and ceramics is unique to Alpajurra and there were plenty of examples. We sampled some amazing chocolate, sat at a café and sipped tea, and had lunch over looking the town church and a beautiful view of the valley. Cinja had the most amazing brownie I'd ever tried! It was like a molten chocolate cake only with the richest, darkest, most amazing chocolate I've ever had the privilege to experience. We also tried shaved jamón; it was a little nutty and a little smokey but like most ham and pork products I wasn't a huge fan. It was still quite an experience. I think what I liked most about the day was spending time with Cinja and Nicky. They tend to speak German to one another and I've begun to understand a little from their tones and gestures and the homynyms between the languages. They have also been good about speaking English in order to include me. Poor Cinja switched between German, English, and Spanish all day and was getting a little confused. Honestly I was just impressed. On a side note, Nicky pointed out the serious lack of attractive young Spaniards. Like me she had been warned about the lecherous young men but we realized that there really aren't any in Orgíva or Pampaneira, at least not that we've seen. Ha!

Hoes and almonds

2009-11-21T03:08:00.000-08:00

Friday we were back harvesting olives. Unfortunately the car broke down part way down the mountain. Luckily a kind neighbor with a giant 4x4 pickup truck towed us back up and we went down in the lorry (truck, everyone who speaks English here uses the British terms, I'm beginning to adopt them). Riding in the back of a closed truck on bumpy, winding roads is not good for the stomach, and also illegal, but we didn't have many other options. On Saturday we went up to the garden where there grows a large variety of vegetables. We did a little harvesting and weeding. But we spent the majority of the day sitting around an unfinished building sorting through almonds. You see, Mathis runs a kind of CSA (community supported agriculture) but rather than selling his produce around here he takes it up to Scotland once a year. In order to maintain a standard of quality we had to pick out only the nicest almost for his patrons and we did so for nearly five hours. It wasn't so bad though, we got plenty of wwoofer bonding time!

The Day Off: MARKET DAY!

2009-11-21T02:46:00.000-08:00

Once again I thank David for his wealth of helpful information. While Mathis did give me a run down of the daily schedule, he neglected the weekly schedule. David was kind enough to fill me in: Monday through Wednesday and on Friday we harvest olives, Saturday is gardening, Sunday we relax, and Thursday is MARKET DAY! So, I got up as usual on Thursday and had breakfast with everyone but afterward I walked with Guillame down the mountain of Cerro Negro to Orgíva. The walk down was fairly long but Guillame and I chatted most of the way. When we got nearer the bottom we hitched a ride with Kev, a Brit who lived up the mountain as well. In town Guillame showed me around a little and then left for Café Baraka where all the foreigners hang out. Apparently Orgíva is a hub for hippies from all over because of a nearby commune called Beneficio, or so I understand. I found an internet café, Ananda's Mundo, and stayed until they closed at 2pm for siesta. This is mot likely the only time I will be able to stay in touch and the reason my blogs come in big chunks. So, once a week for the next month or so. I thought maybe I would go back in the evening when they re-opened so I planted myself on the steps of a nearby church and read. There was a girl sitting next to me playing guitar. I found out her name was Sofie and she was Swiss, she shared some wine and wrote a song about me. Other hippies joined her, one yelled at me in Spanish about reading in the street and having money and brains... I was amusing but distracting and I remembered how quickly it got dark after about 5:30 and how long a walk I had to get home. So... I tried to figure out how to get back. As I wandered through town I was propositioned by a man from Sierra Leon and given bad directions by a Spanish shop owner. I went back to the internet cafe to find a map and asked the clerk for help. She was from Eritrea and spoke English well and gave me clear, simple directions. From there everything started looking familiar and I knew I was headed the right way so I stuck my thumb out and got a ride to the bottom of the mountain from a nice young Spaniard who made conversation with me in Spanish! I was quite pleased that I could actually carry such a conversation. Then I started the long ascent toward La Jimena. I wasn't a mile up before an older man on a motorbike stopped to see if I needed a ride. So I hopped on and watched the lights of Orgíva get smaller and smaller. The man's name was Steve and he was a neighbor of Mathis'. He was British and we chatted a bit before he dropped me off right in front of the farm. So that was my first day off. I'm sure my mother especially is gnashing her teeth over my risky behavior, what with the hitchhiking and wandering around alone in a strange town in a strange country. It's true, it's irresponsible and crazy and quite honestly I've been terrified since the moment I stepped through security at the Chicago airport. But that's why I'm here, that's why I'm doing this: to face my fears, to take chances and try new things, test my own abilities and limitations. And when I come back in tact I'll have a life-time of stores to come back with me!

Routine

2009-11-20T02:14:00.000-08:00

Mathis explained the routine to me the first day: Get up, go to breakfast by 8am, to work by 9am, work until noon, snack break, continue working until 3pm, lunch, then free time. And even by the second day of work I felt the routine setting in. It's quite easy to follow and gives me a feeling of serious productivity. Breakfast is always bread with choices of fresh avocado, garlic, cheese, jam or marmalade, and a variety of other things to top it with. And tea - which to almost everyone is a mild, almost flavorless herbal tea, but David makes real black tea and shares it with me. Once you've had your fill you make sandwiches for noon snack and head to work. Right not, Mathis, Guillame, Milan, David, and I all go to another farm in Orgíva owned by a Norwegian couple and help with their harvest. For those of you who don't know, harvesting olives is less picking and more placing huge nets down and whacking trees with large sticks. Sometimes, if a tree is large enough, which it most often is, you climb up with your stick so you can reach the tallest and farthest out branches. Olive trees are practically built for climbing, with several low limbs and others that shoot out in every direction, but sometimes I still find climbing a challenge. Guillame and Milan have it down to an art of which Mathis is the grand master. Once we've knocked the olives out of several trees and the work day is almost through we gather up the nets, get the olives in a big pile, pick out the bigger branches and leaves that we've knocked down, and put the olives into crates. Then drive home for lunch. Cinja and Nicky work on the olives on Mathis' farm, La Jimena, but quit early to prepare lunch. Lunch is usually a salad of mostly carrots, then one other vegetable dish and a starchy entree, and occasionally dessert. The very first day David baked apples with raisins and nuts smothered in custard! Yum!

Dynamics and support

2009-11-19T02:37:00.000-08:00

I've gotten quite a lot of amusement from the people here. First of all I think I would never have survived my first few days here without Cinja and David. David in particular has been very nice about explaining things I might not otherwise understand. He told me one day that Mathis has a special way of doing things and doesn't really explain things (obviously), he just expects you to pick up on things. It was nice to hear that it wasn't a personal test and I don't have to struggle alone. I find a lot of the relationships between people here very revealing. The very first day of work I noticed that Milan and Guillame behave like brothers, teasing each other and competing. Mathis and David are like old friends or colleagues and they talk a lot about politics and history. This, of course, is endlessly fascinating to me. There are even times when Mathis asks me about what I think of this event or that politic. He's very opinionated and I get a daily dose of criticisms and wisdom on global warming, immigration, globalization, agro-business, and so on. Every morning before starting work David tutors Milan. I am assuming it is because his usual teacher, his mother, is absent. But David used to be a teacher by profession and Milan goes on and on about how good of a teacher he is. Bertha is kind of reclusive. She goes to school until lunch time and often doesn't join us for the meal. But she's also fourteen and definitely acts it. Sometimes she reminds me of me at that age. It's no until later in the evening when we really get to interact. Usually when the sun goes down everyone goes inside and sits about the indoor dining table. Bertha does her homework and everyone else reads or chats or does some kind of craft. This is the time when we get to see the real sibling interactions between Milan and Bertha. I shouldn't be surprised but they are such typical siblings in the way they tease and bicker.

Such Great Heights

2009-11-17T03:51:00.000-08:00

Perhaps I ended my last post on a rather sour note. Mathis has really been quite nice generally, he explained that he just doesn’t like dogs and sees them as pests because they are everywhere here, and to be honest he isn’t wrong, though I don’t think that merits running them over. I thought I ought to explain that incident as it was rather bizarre. Anywho… I am now a wwoofer on Cortijo la Jimena on Cerro Negro outside of Orgíva. When I arrived with Mathis and his fourteen year old daughter Bierta (I’m not sure if that’s the proper spelling) I was introduced to the rest of the clan over lunch. Mathis, Bierta, and Milan, Mathis’ twelve year old boy, are a German family that have lived on the farm for I think four years or so. They all speak fluent English with British accents because they had been living in Scotland. I have yet to meet Marion, Mathis’ wife, and Florentina, their four year old girl, who are visiting family in Switzerland. They are apparently coming back Saturday evening. There are four other wwoofers besides myself. Sinya and Nicky are both German as well, are around my age, speak some English but not much, and are my roommates in a yurt (wooden structure) downhill from the main house. Nicky also introduced me to our other roommates: three geckos! Sinya has been very sweet and helpful and does a lot of the cooking; she gave me a tour of the farm. Guillame is twenty, I think, and is from southern France and David is in his fifties or sixties and stopped here after biking all the way from his native England. Guillame and I are the only ones who don’t speak German and most table conversations are either in German or English. So much for practicing my Spanish. Sinya did explain to me that the neighbors only speak Spanish and would probably be happy to chat with me. The farm itself is gorgeous, but very rustic. Mathis explained that we are “off the grid”: any electricity is gas, battery, solar, or wind, and water is from a spring for drinking and a creek for washing, the only toilette is a pit and used from composting. But the shower is warm if you use it at the right time, the food is filling and home grown, there’s plenty of water to drink, and at night the light is shared by everyone for reading, crafting or socializing before bed. When I arrived I chose my own cup that I’m responsible for while I’m here. We eat on a deck overlooking a beautiful valley. The view is truly amazing and as I sat and ate my first meal I couldn’t believe I was really sitting there with such a diverse group of people, in this self-sustaining, breath-taking, mountainside olive farm, in the Sierra Nevada of southern Spain… so far from home. There wasn’t anything to do the day I arrived and I was told I could do as I pleased. I felt kind of awkward but figured I could use the time to absorb my surroundings and recover from traveling. Since I didn’t have a flashlight I would have to make sure I got down to the yurt before dark because the trek down was rather treacherous so I went down by myself and read until it got too dark. I continued sitting outside for a while, looking down the valley into the town below until I decided to turn in… it was probably only 7pm.

Mountains twisting

2009-11-16T03:30:00.000-08:00

Monday I woke up in a very dark hostel room. Time to get up and get on the road to Orgíva! I paid for my stay and headed back out to the bus stop. I like to think I have a good memory for direction and in this case I remembered exactly where the bus stop was. Walking through Granada during the day was much different than it had been at night. The city was gorgeous and I was quite tempted to wander around for a bit and enjoy the sights, but I was expected. I had noticed in Madrid as well as in Granada and everywhere in between that Spain has a plethora of graffiti and litter… mostly graffiti. I’d like to think this is because of some Spanish tendency for individual expression and self-importance, but it’s more likely that they just don’t have any laws or regulation regarded defacement of property. I got back to the bus station easily, bought my ticket to Orgíva and immediately went out and found my bus. Sometimes I think they try extra hard to make things difficult here because even though my bus ticket had a number and seat assignment, the buses themselves are not clearly labeled. I asked a woman for help and it turned out she was going on the same bus! We even sat next to one another and she helped me make sure I got off at the right place. The ride through the mountains was quite exciting, a large charter bus twisting around narrow mountain roads. I don’t know how the drivers do it, however, they must do it with a lot of ease because at least once I caught our driver on her cell phone. Finally I was at my destination! There was a phone booth right outside the bus stop: unfortunately it didn’t work. An American man found me looking rather confused and directed me to another working one about four blocks up the road. I called my host, Mathis, and waited for a little less than an hour on a bench near the police station. A funny little truck that looked like it belonged to an electric company pulled up and a grungy man in glasses and a visor with a feather in it squinted at me. This was Mathis, my host for the next month. We greeted one another, got my suitcase loaded and were to pick up his daughter from school before heading to the farm. As first impressions go, he came off as rather cold, but attempting to be friendly, and then proceeded to purposefully hit a dog that ran into the road, saying “got ‘im!” Needless to say this was not comforting…

Arriving in red

2009-11-15T03:14:00.000-08:00

Wow! So here it is, my first blog entry. For those of you who didn't know, I flew out of Chicago last Saturday, waving good-bye to my parents as I started through security. It's hard to imagine all the faces I won't see for so long. On the drive to Chicago mom counted nineteen red-tailed hawks and one blue heron, which she took as very good omens. The long flight across the Atlantic was uncomfortable but I did watch an episode of Flight of the Concords and most of Julie and Julia before we landed (it took me a while to figure out how to use my personal TV, so I finally asked my neighbor, who didn’t speak much English). My first sight of Spain was from the very center seat of a very full flight looking out the window over someone’s head. The earth here is red here, iron rich. I landed in Madrid and had to find a bus station to get me to Granada which would then take me to Orgíva. My limited Spanish has been mildly useful in the need to find transportation but I continue to start most conversations with “¿Habla Ingles?” I’ve always been kind of chicken-shit about language in the first place, primarily because I’m not really confident even in my native tongue, so I figure if a Spaniard knows even a little English it will help. It is true that most people here have very limited English if any, but I haven’t let it get me down! Waiting for my bus in Madrid for about two hours was fruitful. I made friends with a lovely old English woman, a teacher who had just come back from Bangladesh and gave me the advice to keep moving forward and never regret. I also had my first meal in Spain! Un bocadillo de tortilla española! It sounds fancier than it was: basically a thick, cold potato cake in crusty bread. But it was filling and satisfying and lasted for two meals, and besides a tiny airline Danish, all I ate that day. The bus ride to Granada was long but I watched the sunset over the rolling foothills of the Sierra Nevada after stopping at a roadside villa to stretch my legs and finish my bocadillo. I admit I did sleep for most of the bus ride but woke up frequently to admire the scenery (sorry, Mom, no flowers, but I did see a raptor of some kind). It was plenty dark by the time we got to the station, about 8:30pm, so I thought I better call my hosts and let them know I wouldn’t be able to come until the next day, which meant I had to find a place to stay over night. Luckily there was a kiosk right inside the bus station with a lovely young man who spoke English quite well and showed me not only where to find a hostel but also where all the hot spots of Granada were. After a long bus ride through the city – a bus ride that offered no visual or audible indication of what the stops were – I found my stop and continued to wander the streets with my map, trying to find any street signs at all… I was unsuccessful. I found another hostel and asked them about staying but they cost nearly twice as much as the one I was directed to, so I pulled out my map and asked them how to get to Posada de Colón, and wandered a little more. By the way, wandering around heavily cobbled streets, walkways, and alleys is especially not fun when wheeling a fifty pound piece of luggage and carrying another maybe twenty pounds worth of purse and messenger bag. Just when I was about to give up and ask someone else for help I got a wave and the question “Are you Brianne?” The hostel turned out to be almost completely unmarked, but the hostess, who knew my name from the guide at the bus station, welcomed me in and got me a room right near the door. I shared a room with Christina, a young Swiss woman who was taking a short vacation. I took a shower, hopped online for a while and then went to bed, in a horizontal, real bed, with a pillow and blankets! It’s amazing how just two days of travel can make you appreciate the little things.