Sicilia

We arrived in Palermo at 1am this morning and have just enjoyed our first day in Sicilia. The city is wonderful; old, warm, scuffed, and colorful like no other place we've been. The streets are narrow and noisy, the sidewalks and bars are crowded, and everything is a magical mixture of Greek and Arab-influenced architecture against a dramatic backdrop of green mountains falling directly into the ocean, leaving just enough room between them for a cheerily busy city. Today we walked through the biggest street market we've ever seen, complete with leather boots, massive cross-sectioned swordfish, fresh canolis, and table after table of firecrackers. These endearing toys go off, without exaggeration, about once every five minutes throughout the city, bringing to mind mafioso shootouts that could just as easily be happening down the next block.

In short, every aspect of what it means to be "Italian" thrives and jostles around every corner in this city, but with such a relaxed small-community feeling that it is much more enjoyable and memorable (not to say amusing) than anywhere else. It is as if one day thousands of years ago, everything that makes "the Boot" Italian hopped lightly across the water and squeezed onto the tiny island of Sicilia, leaving behind only that charming Roman vanity (apparently couldn't jump in stilettos), and has remained there ever since, joyfully condensed and crowded and blissfully unaware of the existence of any other way of life.

We had delicious pizza for dinner and are back at our lovely hotel for the night, eagerly awaiting tomorrow's New Year's Eve festivities. Thank you again Pete and Drew for the accomodations!
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Congratulations to the Hotalings!!!

Congratulations to our wonderful friends Drew and Jess on the birth of Calla!!!!! We are so happy for you and can't wait to meet our little god-daughter!!!!
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Merry Christmas!

Reporting live from Starbucks in Barcelona, where we are celebrating our holiday amid mocha praline lattes, familiar red Starbucks holiday cups, and American Christmas music (currently Elvis, Blue Christmas).

Thinking of and missing you all - hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday!

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Adios from Barcelona

Lu again. We have just returned from our final dinner here in Spain with Marisa & Ed and we could not bring ourselves to leave the restaurant or return to the hotel because it would be the end of the trip. Obviously, we could not sleep on the street so we did finally come back to the hotel when we realized none of the stores were open so late on a Sunday night. One thing that must be said about my blogs is that I am a person of visual identification. I could get you from your desk chair to the Parc Guell here in Barcelona without missing a turn by describing construction zones, restaurants, buildings, or piles of dog poop you would see on your way and would mark turns. Marisa offered to provide the names of each of the museums/monuments/places we visited and posted about, but this is my blog and I do not function in such a way.

 

So, we left off with our departure to The Four Cats on Friday evening which was another delicious feast. This is the restaurant where Picasso designed the menu and completed many of his works. I ate veal. Veal. The reason is because even the mixed green salad at this restaurant had fish. I ordered the veal and I ate it all, quite a surprise! I really did enjoy it as it was juicy, thick, and melted in my mouth. It may become one of my new favorites, but probably not. I'm just on a food high right now I believe. Dad's fish came on a plate as though they had just taken it from the water and placed it on some rice. He OKed the filet then they removed the scales, eyes, and other parts one would not wish to consume and finally served it rather regularly. We were all a bit worried at first though. This was another 3-4 course meal that was enjoyed by all. A cute old man was playing the a combination of beatles and holiday music on a small piano as entertainment with dinner. The restaurant was beautiful and the front bar was all the original wood. We must admit that this restaurant, although delicious, was a lot of hype and not as good as was expected for the price. We would all suggest that if you plan to visit Barcelona that you definitely go to Le Quatre Gats but go for lunch or for a bar experience.

 

On Saturday, yesterday, we hiked hundreds of miles at about a 90 degree angle up hill. What was at the top? Gaudi. He created a weird park that reminded us of Dr. Suess and is where the famous mosaic spanish lizard lives. Apparently, this park was supposed to be a traditional english garden but we can assure you things went a bit wrong in that plan. Parc Guell is a definite visit though so I am very glad we went. We also bought some souvenirs on the way which made the trip up a bit easier! Instead of walking the hundreds of miles back, we took the metro to Barceloneta where we had been earlier in the week to visit some shops highlighted in our travel guide. Before walking until our legs became jelly, so earlier in the morning, we visited the Barcelona Cathedral and went to the top to take pictures of the city and ourselves. It was a very extravagant and they had a walk-through creche set up in the cloisters which we visited and Marisa used the bathroom which also appeared to be set up during Jesus' birth as well. The creche is very big here and the tree is not. The Christmas trees here are super tiny and skinny but the creches are huge. Almost the entire Christmas bazarre is filled with small and large objects that may be used in one's cresche. The scenes are very detailed including running water fountains, people going to the bathroom, bugs, stars, hay, elderly people in rocking chairs that are motorized, etc. It's very weird, but fun.  After walking around for the entire day we were all exhausted and came back to the hotel for our siesta. My favorite. I napped, of course, and Marisa and Ed made their plans for the following 5 days before they leave for Italy. They have decided to stay here as there is still so much to do and it will be somewhat familiar to them for their holiday. We went to a restaurant in our book but it was really just a bar including rolling papers, so we decided to find somewhere else. After passing on many restaurants and tapas bars, we ended up at this two story restaurant which has become one of our favorites (not surprisingly). We had a waitor from Florida whose Mom is British and his Dad is Cuban so he has all kinds of passports. He has been in Spain for a year and a half but he hopes to return to the states in the next few years. We liked him a lot and he only enhanced our already great experience. We ate LOTS of food and left feeling slightly sick, but it was worth it and I'd do it again.

 

Today, our final day, was very relaxed. We went to a few final landmarks and then spent the rest of the day shopping and buying Christmas gifts for family and friends. Much to our dismay, it was extremely hard to find "spanish" souvenirs or really anything that one would want to own in their life. Finding a simple shirt that says "Barcelona" was one of the toughest jobs all day! It was nice to walk around without a map as we have become very familiar with the city and it was fun to recognize places. We finally found churros which we thought would be easy as they are the "most popular breakfast food", but nobody we have encountered from Barcelona has even heard of them nor sold them. Of course, after we found them we saw them all over the place but ours were probably the best. We ate them by the water/harbor as today was a gorgeous sunny day. After shopping some more and stopping for pints of beer and coca-lights, we returned to the hotel for our shortest siesta by far. It was a mere forty minutes and I was unable to take a nap, how unfortunate. We were very hungry though since we shopped through lunch minus the beer and churros. We returned to Taller de Tapas which is where we ate the first night, but this time we knew how to order. 10 plates. 2 for Dad and Ed and 3 for Maris and I each. The best. If you visit Barcelona  you must visit Taller de Tapas which is a chain but the specific one we went to has the best service in the city, we think. For dessert this evening I had "chocolate sin" and I would never go to confession for it. I would repeat this sin till death without hesitation. We are sad that our trip has come to an end but are fortunate for the experience and look forward to seeing Marisa & Ed back in the States!

 

Some random observations of our trip:

-- When climbing the 3 flights of stairs to our room at least 3 times a day, we all file up in the exact same order. When we realized this about half way through our trip we made a point to climb them in the same manor though it wasn't hard since for some reason it was usually in order anyway! Lauryn, Marisa, Ed, Dad. This is sort of a bad order since Ed and Dad always carry the room keys which leaves Marisa and I waiting at the end of the hall for them to finish the climb.

-- Everyone speaks English if you give them the "I'm dumb" look when they say something in another language. Even when we sort of understood the language we would just sit and stare until they repeated it in English. Sometimes we would just say no or nevermind when ordering something that was not clear instead of going through the process of translation.

-- Spain does not serve Mexican food. Spanish food does not include salsa, burritos, "case-a-dee-as", tacos, or chimichangas.

-- People in Barcelona do not use their cell phones in restaurants or on the streets. We only saw a handfull of people on their cell phones during our trip, remarkable. I really liked that aspect and have actually survived without mine.

-- Americans are the only people who wear jeans and sneakers on a daily basis. Europeans, at least in Spain, get dressed every day.

-- Pattern black stockings are very popular, especially among the short old ladies in the city.

-- If you do not bring your own watch, you will never know the time as there are no clocks to be found in the city. There are over a million watch shops, but no clocks. Not even in our hotel room. Time does not seem to matter in Spain.

-- Even if pastries are on an open platter and are definitely the leftovers of breakfast, THEY ARE NOT FREE. We found this out after having "stolen" many pastries as a light snack and now there is a 24 hour guard in front of the platter. I have to admit that we did continue to take pastries even after being told twice that they are not free, but they are stale and nobody is going to pay for them anyway. They are simply wasting food and we see it as helping them out by eating them, regardless of their price. We made a comment about the pastries at the bar on our comment card, do not worry. If you come here hopefully the pastries will be free!

-- In order to work the lights and other power outlets in your hotel room, you must insert one of your room keys into a little doodle thing which turns on the electricity for your room. This is odd and since our heat does not work very well in this refurbished palace, we do not appreciate the maids taking our card out of the doodle everyday. We made a comment about this too.

 

Well, our cab will be here (it is going to drive right up pedestrian way since there are no "streets" near our hotel) very early in the morning to take us away. If you have the priviledge to visit Barcelona, I am sure you will enjoy it just as much as we have. We have not run out of things to do and are leaving wishing we had many more days to wander and experience the city. This is a city I will be sure to visit again. Be sure to check the pictures because we have now loaded almost all of them.

 

We love you Barcelona!

 

Farewell Spain and Marisa & Ed's blog.

 

Lu

 

 

(and Dad)

Hola from Barcelona!

Lu here reporting from our hotel room in the middle of "pedestrian way" (do not know the spanish/catalonian). Dad and I arrived very early Tuesday (12/18) morning and spent the day wandering the streets near our hotel and adjusting to life 6 hours ahead. We began our journey at 7am when Mom (Cathy) picked us up and brought us to the train station. We took the train to NYC, cab to JFK, and sat in the airport for close to 5 hours. miserable. Just so you know, we took AeroMexico to Spain, why? I am not sure myself. It was through Delta but gave us something to laugh about for our 5 hour wait. The 7+ hour plane ride went fairly well except for a few 50-100ft. turbulance drops in which an announcement was made to "buckle your seatbelts tightly and hold onto/secure all infants". We enjoyed Mr. Bean's Holiday as entertainment along with some movie called StarDust which I do not recommend.

 

Anyway, Marisa & Ed arrived earlier than we expected and surprised us at the hotel! They smell like Europeans and I'm pretty sure the smell of Ivan's house will be with them forever. Upon entering their room here in Barcelona, one is overcome by the smell of smoke/meat/horses. It's really rather remarkable the smell one can contract when spending a week in the woods of France. Marisa would like me to clarify that they do not have the body odor issue many true Europeans seem to encompass, rather smell differently than normal and right now mostly of a wood-burning stove. Just for clarification.

 

When Marisa & Ed arrived we were all tired and hungry from traveling so we walked until we found a place to eat and ended up at one of the best places we've been all week! It is a famous restaurant visited by hollywood megastars and we had our very first tapas! We were not sure how to order them and there was only one english speaking waitress, but we loved them and might even return to this restaurant for a second meal! This concluded our technical day 1 but we were satisfied to be settled and looked forward to our week.

 

Barcelona is an amazing city though not a great place to learn traditional Spanish. The language here is Catalan, from Catalunya which is the northern region of Spain, and is vastly different than traditional Spanish. We have been able to get along fine language wise, but Dad simply pointed to an item on a menu without any clue as to what he was ordering and it ended up being like chicken cordon bleu with fries, great luck! This luck was much appreciated when we realized there was a very large octopus in the front viewing area which could have been his meal. Whew! This was the only restaurant where nobody spoke any english and it was a struggle to make it through the meal. We are trying to speak the language but find ourselves speaking Italian or French more frequently than not, odd.

 

Our first day was cold but beautiful and we spent the day in Barceloneta which is an area of the city surrounded by harbors. You will never imagine the number of boats we saw docked but we have some pictures to give you an idea. After finding the bathroom and looking at lots of jellyfish on the surface of the water under a boardwalk, we moved on to visit a beach and walk through a weird circus I could have lived without. For lunch we ate at the oldest tavern in the city and everyone had a fantastic meal, me especially with a simple green salad without dressing. This was the ONLY item on the menu that did not have seafood or some part of an animal I'd rather never know people actually consume. Dad and Marisa split a paella which is a seafood extravaganza! It was served dramically and enjoyed by all, except me. I should mention that lunch is a big deal here and is eaten around 2-3pm as dinner is 8-11pm. Many restaurants are not open for dinner until after 8pm and most shops are closed from about 2-5pm. After lunch we walked to a large park equipped with it's very own Arc de Triomf. It looks a lot like the original only it's pink! After taking glamour shots, we went to the Picasso museum which was very interesting spanding Picasso's entire life and works. We tried to get into a cathedral and a music hall but both were closed for siestas so after sitting in a cafe and enjoying pastries and warm beverages, we return to our hotel for a few hours to rest. Marisa, Ed, and I watched YouTube videos and Garfield's Christmas to pass the time, very enjoyable. For dinner we walked to a restaurant that was recommended but ended up next door at another fantastic place that is a chain over here. It's called La Quinze Nits and it was one of our favorite meals (you will hear this a lot) in which we enjoyed 3 full courses of somewhat American somewhat Spanish dishes. I had pasta with meat sauce and a chicken and ham plate, but everyone else tried something new! The atmosphere was perfect and we spent a very long time just sitting and talking, a great night!

 

Thursday, or what we liked to call Wednesday due to our lack of ability to retain any sort of time reference, was another great day in the city. I forgot to mention that we have a very large buffet breakfast included in our hotel rate which usually takes us about an hour to consume and is the time we spend planning our day. So as I was saying, we had a great second day taking a gondola up to the highest point in Barcelona which features a large castle. It was fun to take the gondola ride up and Ed commented that it made him want to go skiing and Marisa responded by exclaiming that this ride made her never want to ski again. When we reached the top we took a right which brought us all the way around the castle when we could have gone left and been right at the entrance, silly Americans. It was a nice walk though and we had great views of the city throughout it. When we finally arrived at the front of the castle, we were able to play on some war machines and paid 1 euro each to go up to the roof of the castle for more pictures. It was amazing and we were able to see where we had been and where we wanted to go. After coming back down on the gondola, we walked up another hill to see the Olympic stadium and area that was used during the '92 Olympics. We decided to go to the Olympic museum and were all glad we had. We took pictures inside the stadium then went to find out what this very grand, breathtaking building was that we had seen from the mount. It ended up being an art museum which was not something we were interested in but we took funny pictures infront of the palace and continued on our way. For lunch we ate at the previously described non-english speaking, giant octopus eating cafe/restaurant/bar for lunch. Need not discuss this experience any further. We walked back to the hotel exhausted and got cleaned up for dinner. Once again, we were not able to get into the place we wanted to go but we went to our second choice, LA FONDA, for obvious reasons. For those of us who do not know, "La Fawnda" was the girlfriend of Kipp Dynamite, brother of Napolean Dynamite, of the box office smash hit thriller that bears his name. Many pictures were taken and added to the joyful experience of the night. I should mention that on our way to this restaurant Maris and I found many stores we wanted to shop in but are now unable to retrace our steps down the few of a million tiny streets that graph Barcelona. La Fonda was another hit and 3 course meal.

 

This morning we decided to revisit the music hall we had tried to tour previously and booked ourselves for an English tour at 2pm. This gave us enough time to visit the most repulsive cathedral, if one can even refer to it as such,  built by Gaudi. Gaudi is pronounced "gawdy" which gives you, the reader, a clue to his style. His work decorates the city but this structure is by far the most dynamic to say the least. He died before he finished it so the entire inside is scaffolding, but the 14 spires he wished to have are in the process of being completed. We will upload pictures of this place so all can enjoy its grotesque qualities and frightening expression. George Orwell was quoted saying he wished it had been demolished in the civil war and was astonished to see that nobody had demolished it themself since then. After spending more than half the day walking, we went to our music hall tour which has certainly been my favorite place so far. It seats upwards of 2000 people and is entirely tile and mosaics. We were not allowed to take pictures but will be returning to the shop to buy pictures, that's how incredable the hall was. I cannot describe it's beauty and refuse to try. When a preview of Bach's feud was played it was several notches above that of the glorious organ playing we fondly remember from our youth at St. John's. Similarity though, both scared us greatly but for drastically different reasons. This organ has over 3,000 pipes, I guess that's a bit larger than St. John's as well. We went to a cafe for drinks then a humongous outdoor food market with skin of sheep, body parts that should certainly NEVER be consumed, and other mysterious goods that made me want to vom (as in vomit). This place was on the Travel Channel as a highlight of the city. I was glad to get out of there but everyone else greatly enjoyed the experience, they have much stronger stomaches than I. Marisa and I enjoyed a fantastic experience at a small candy bar called "Happy Pills". You are given a medicine vile to fill with your favorite candies then can pick out your own label. It was cute and we loved it! We are now having our own siesta which typically includes checking emails, watching short videos, reading, showering, running, etc. whatever one desires and is a great part of the day. We are heading the Le Quatre Gats which is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in the city, it sure will be hard to beat our previous places! Picasso frequented this restaurant while living in Barcelona and designed the menu, so maybe it will be better. We are going to do a bit of shopping/wandering since it is still far too early for dinner, 6pm here currently. We had planned to go to the top of the Barcelona cathedral which is practically outside our door, but realize that it will be too dark for pictures and so I guess we'll do that tomorrow.

 

I should say that we had been planning on taking a bus tour every day but decided to wait and today the bus drivers went on strike until after the holiday. Great. Just our luck. We are better on our own anyway.

 

It should be noted that the forecast has been for rain everyday and we have only seen a few drops and the television has never been turned on for there is just far to much else to do!!

 

We shall see what the rest of the trip brings which can only be more great times and amazing places. I would recommend that each of you come to Barcelona at least once in your lifetime, if not for the highly attractive males then for the food/sights/people/culture.

 

Au'revoir, Adios, Ciao.

Lu

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enjoy!

Grande finale

Tonight we had a "petite fete" in honor of our last night at Cavalus, since tomorrow TS is leaving, too. It's our last night as "Hed" and "Madeesa" - we'll miss the accent. Ivan brought out a lovely bottle of champagne and some local wine. He was cooking some type of fowl for dinner (between a chicken and a duck - any ideas?) and all was well until he threw the entire pan of grease into the fireplace and started a chimney fire that extended into our bedroom, which is directly above the fireplace in the family room.

We threw water on it, of course, and managed to stop the flames within 10 minutes. Ivan said it's good when this happens because it cleans out the chimney for him, though "it is a little dangerous." We had a good laugh over that. It's a little smoky in our room now but luckily no damage done.

We had "French fries" with dinner tonight. Seemed appropriate for celebrating our last night in France.

After dinner, Ivan wanted us to burn our Cavalus pictures onto a CD for him, since we got some nice ones during this weekend's trek. That would have been no problem, except for the fact that we took a few pictures while cleaning the kitchen that we would have preferred Ivan not see. Miss Flora has this wonderfully chocolatey junk food cereal that only she is allowed to eat and we had a picture of Ed pouring the box right into his mouth. So, no problem, we thought. We'll just make sure to load the pictures while Ivan is not around. Unfortunately, Ivan not only wanted to be there while we burned the photos, he wanted to sit and look through 400 of them, starting in Greece, and with himself in control of the mouse - quelle horreur!! We had to grit our teeth during the "Hed is eating ze cornflakes of Flora!" comment but overall, it was fine. Lucky for us, Ivan was a bit tipsy by that time and couldn't be ruffled by much of anything.

So tomorrow morning we are up bright and early for our departure. We're glad that our final evening here remained true to form for Cavalus. We prefer to go out with a bang.


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Sunday at Cavalus

For your entertainment, we will now give you a complete run-down of our day. Did you know the word "absurd" is of French origin?

We got up this morning to a freezing cold house. The door had to be left open all day for a hose to travel from the bathtub to the water trough in the barn because the pipes in the barn froze again. Usually Ivan doesn't care when the pipes freeze because "they will thaw when the sun hits them" but apparently today he decided his horses should have water.

The light in the bathroom didn't work for a while so the door had to be left open, only an old curtain providing privacy from the entrance hallway. Spoiled brat Flora drew all over one of the bathroom mirrors with soap so it is hard to use; and there is no light in front of the other mirror.

We were supposed to leave at 10:30 to get the four horses we abandoned last night. Ivan said 10:30 would be perfect because that way there would be sunlight in the valley during the whole walk. So at 10:00 we and TS were getting ready to leave when Ivan came in to say that it will be too cold in the valley to walk, so we will delay our departure until noon. This ensured that it would be dark when we got back from the walk tonight since Ivan said it would be at least 2 hours each way and it gets dark early. Hopefully you recall that the extremely dangerous (and cold) idea of walking 4 horses through the woods in the dark was exactly what we hoped to avoid yesterday by splitting the journey into two days. It was also ridiculous to push back our departure because yesterday we set out at 7:30am in the dark, when it was surely colder than at 10:30am today.

Ivan has an ancient SUV that he can't drive off the mountain because it is uninsured and hasn't been inspected in years. It definitely would not pass inspection, given that the back door doesn't close and there is no glass in the rear window. While we waited to leave, Ivan wanted us to bring 2 horses to the higher pasture ("the plateau," about half a mile straight up from here) but then changed his mind because Flora said she and her friend wanted to ride them today (remember that, it comes up again). Instead, Ivan said we all needed to go up to the plateau to bring back hay for the horses here.

We piled into the SUV and started up the mountain. On the way, we passed the logs that we cut on Thursday, the pickets ready to be used for new fencing, the fence that we broke on Wednesday by rolling a tree trunk through it, and the weed-whacker that we forgot on Friday near the tree we cut down but haven't yet chopped up.

Then the SUV ran out of gas. For some reason, Ivan did not suggest that we run the quarter mile back to the house, where he keeps extra fuel. Instead, he actually put the truck in neutral and allowed it to roll backwards back down the mountain, through the switchbacks, stopping only for Ed to get out and pick up the weed-whacker. We had to be extra careful not to hit the horse that runs loose in the road in front of the house.

When we arrived, thankfully alive, Ivan put a few gallons of gas into the SUV from a watering can. But the car still wouldn't start because the battery was dead. (Time is ticking, it is now noon...)

Bobbin came over with his car and jumper cables. They got the car going again and Ivan took it to attach the trailer, which we would need to carry all of the hay back from the plateau. Why we didn't have the trailer in the first place is, of course, a mystery. Meanwhile, Bobbin found a crate of oranges in the saddle room (why not?) and began sorting out the rotten ones while he talked to The Spaniard. Bobbin offered his house to TS for the winter since he is living in the Mongolian tent, but during this morning's conversation he said his plans have changed and TS can no longer live there in January or the first 2 weeks of February. Like father, like son.

So we finally got to the plateau, where we loaded up the hay, and then returned to Cavalus. Rotten oranges left on the bench by Bobbin. Surprisingly, Ivan had not thought to clear a path to get the hay into the barn so we had to roll the 300-pound thing around the tractor and other obstacles to reach our final destination. Also surprisingly, Ivan did not actually assist with this process, just shouted out directions while the three of us pushed.

Then Ivan decided that he didn't want to set out on a long walk without eating lunch, so we all trooped inside and sat gloomily in front of the fire for 30 minutes while Ivan puttered around. Now 1:00. With no explanation, Ivan directed us to get back in the car along with a 15-year-old boy who for some reason had been allowed to sleep over in Flora's room last night. We gathered that we were going to drop this kid off at home but it was entirely unclear why we all had to go and when we would finally get started to get the horses.

We drove down the mountain, both of us and TS crammed in the back seat. Suddenly, with little warning, the entire sheet of glass in The Spaniard's window came out and we had to drag it into the back seat with us. The three of us laughed until we cried and the funniest part was that Ivan never showed any recognition of what had just happened, he completely ignored it. So we merrily put on our hats and gloves and drove the rest of the way in chilly, exhaust-fumed cameraderie.

At one point during the ride, a deer jumped out and ran down the road in front of the car. It was especially scary because it tripped and fell twice and we almost ran over it.

We dropped the kid off and then drove to the pasture where we left the horses last night. During the drive, Ivan kept pointing out landmarks for us to remember. Since we three would be walking the four horses back to Cavalus on our own. He dropped us at the pasture and sent us on our way.

So we each led one horse and trusted that the fourth would follow its friends, which thankfully it did. It was a nice day for walking and most of the trail was very nice, though we did have to go quite a distance along the main road. "Not much traffic here," sayeth Ivan. In fact, 30 cars passed us and each time the horses were nervous, and it was not easy to keep the free horse out of the road. Ivan was nice enough to follow along in the car while we were on the main road. We also had to pass through the center of a town with the horses, which was somewhat embarassing.

In all, the walk took about 3 hours and was quite pleasant. We got back to Cavalus at 4:00, cold, hungry, and tired. Of course, there was only one stall available so some of the horses had to double up (didn't go over too well with them) and one was left free in front of the house. Flora was very excited because one of the horses we brought is "hers." She oohed and aahed over it for five minutes, then put it into a stall (unfed, after walking for two days) and did not acknowledge that we three had trekked about 25 miles with that horse to bring it to her. Nor did Ivan mention that detail. When we went into the house, we were dismayed to find no fire (reminder: only source of heat), even though Ivan had been there all day. While we were feeding the horses, we found the kitchen mop and bucket, inexplicably left outside, frozen into one solid block of ice. We left it outside.

Apparently, several of Ivan's horses, who live in a pasture about one hour from here, somehow escaped during the day today. Ivan said it was probably because they'd had no food for several days, since the snow covered up their grass, and got out to look for food. That's probable. Ivan had to go find them, so we had to roll the same hay back onto the trailer so that he could take it with him. Luckily, he left at 6:00 and will probably not return until late.

While he was gone, Ivan wanted us to bring three horses up to the plateau. It seems he forgot that we had already walked horses around for him a bit this weekend and didn't want to ask Flora to do this small chore, even though two of the horses were only there because she wanted to ride them today. So we trudged up the mountain, three tired horses in tow. One of the horses came from the far mountain with us this weekend. He had a cowbell around his neck to make it easier to find the herd in the mountains. Of course, the buckle on the cowbell strap broke so Ivan couldn't get it off, so the poor horse is still wearing a cowbell. We stuffed a glove in it so that we wouldn't have to listen to it for the whole weekend, but that glove got lost somewhere so by tonight it was clanging away.

After depositing the horses at the plateau, we returned to Cavalus and were sitting in front of the fire when suddenly - what do we hear? Cowbell horse had somehow escaped from the pasture (we have passed by those new pickets exactly 6 times today) and returned to the house. The three of us decided that he could stay here overnight. We just put hay for him on the garage floor.

We recently received a phone call from someone a few towns over - about an hour's drive - to say that more of Ivan's horses are loose. They threatened to call the police, so TS called Ivan's cell phone to let him know. Who knows what he will do about that.

We're reluctant to post this blog because it's only 7:00 and who knows what the rest of the night has in store? Luckily, right now TS is cooking a lovely dinner and the fire is huge and Ivan and Flora aren't here to disrupt our quiet evening. The only sound is the gentle clanging of a cowbell....

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What a day

Today we walked over 20 miles for 9 straight hours in the ice and snow leading four horses up and down two mountains. It was probably the most dangerous day of either of our lives. Luckily Ivan realised (finally) that it was getting too dark to walk the horses through the woods so we left them in a field and took a cab back here. Tomorrow we think it's only 12 miles roundtrip to bring them the rest of the way. Ivan says it will take 2 hours. Ha!

Two days until we leave here...
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Cleaning and Noel

Today was a long day. We tackled the kitchen, which was at such an advanced state of dirtiness at the outset that it felt distinctly unsatisfying at the end. After 4 hours of concentrated scrubbing, there remain many grimy spots. As Ed put it so nicely, "it's like trying to clean out a puddle."

One big thing that we have forgotten to mention is our Christmas experience in Europe so far. Now that it's less than 2 weeks away we have of course been thinking about it, though sadly we haven't really had any exposure to the joys of commercial Christmas. We are trying to accustom ourselves to the idea that we're not really having a Christmas this year, since it will just be the two of us in a hotel and we don't even know where yet. We are okay with that though it is sad, too. They only have one little string of greens here at the farm; they're going away for Christmas this year so they aren't going to decorate. They have a very lovely advent calendar, though, which consists of small gold-wrapped presents dangling with red ribbon from the greens that are strung along the exposed beams in the ceiling. Very pretty to look at and every day the gift has a different person's name. So far Ed has received a truffle and a burned CD and Marisa has received chocolates and a special pen. It's a nice idea and was very thoughtful for them to include us, so at least our one and only Christmas exposure has been a good one.

Tomorrow, rumor has it that we have to wake up between 5 and 6 to drive to some place "in the high mountains" where Ivan keeps some of his horses and then we are going to walk back to Cavalus (all the way down "the high mountain" and back up this one) leading said horses. We can't get anyone to tell us exactly how far it is but supposedly it will take all day, which is why we have to leave so early. Considering that it will be us, Ivan, and The Spaniard, there is a good chance that the entire day will pass with fewer than 10 words spoken. So another fun day is in store. Though on the bright side, the weather has been incredible here lately - there was snow on Monday and every day since has been cold but bright and wonderfully sunny so it's fun to be outside where everything looks clean and sparkly - so it may be an enjoyable day after all.

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The French Connection

So much to say and we don't know where to start! We seem to have left the blackberry charger behind somewhere in our travels, so when the battery died last week we were incommunicado for several days until we received a new one from Cathy/mom - thank you!!

So now... Where to begin? We are still at the horse farm Cavalus in the French Pyrenees. They have a website so you can google Cavalus for pictures if you're interested. It has been quite an experience. In all honesty and fairness, we can't actually say that it has been bad. But we can make it clear that it has not been our favorite place to stay. On the upside, it is an absolutely beautiful location. 360 degree views of the mountains and a lovely rustic farmhouse and plenty of lovely horses. Based on location and ambiance alone, it is fantastic and we are glad to have been here just for that.

On the downside. If you look up "The Boonies" or "backwater" in the dictionary, you will find Cavalus. The greatest insult they throw around here is: "est-ce que vous etes un espece de parisien?" or "are you some type of Parisian?" The Pyrenees have no relation to Paris whatsoever. Ivan's son (we call him Bobbin; real name unknown) lives in a small house up the road (why??) and has no job. Apparently no one here finds it necessary to be employed. He asked us whether most people in Boston work during the week or not - and was interested to hear that the answer was yes!! We can't quite figure out how they survive up here, though it is quite clear that one requirement for the survival of the population is the death of the trees. We have cut down 3 trees in the last 4 days and chopped them up into firewood, which Nien says will last one week. We think she's exaggerating but since their entire (huge - functions as a guesthouse and sleeps 15 people) house is heated only by wood fires, it may not be too far from the truth. To give you a slightly clearer picture: Bobbin and his girlfriend are moving OUT of their house for the winter and into a "Mongolian tent" which they are buying and plan to set up on a hand-constructed wooden platform higher in the mountains, purposely accessible only by foot. Apparently the word for this neo-hippie-ism is "baba-cool". Our guess is that they'll be baba-freezing in January without a heater. Or baba-asphyxiating from trying to start a fire in their tent.

Aside from this slightly antisocial oddness, everyone is pretty nice, though Ivan prefers not to talk (we've sat through two painful lunches with him during which no one said a word) and Nien is, well, bizarre. She told us about her "very, very avant-garde" school in Amsterdam (of course) where she learned all about how to express her internal emotions through external movements and where they "did such intense body work" that she needed therapy afterwards. It's all a bit of a circus here.

The work has been fine, we just wish there was a bit more of it. We usually spend the morning busy; from 9 to 1 we have been either gathering and chopping wood, building fences, or tracking down horses that escape at least once per week. (Aside: why we don't just fix the broken fence that allows them to escape time after time is a mystery). This work is pleasant enough, though at times wrought with danger because Ivan wears no protective gear and swings the chainsaw like he's doing a do-si-do, and the ax broke today so that a hard enough swing would send the blade flying off the top of the handle, but we use it anyway. At 1ish we stop whatever we're doing to have lunch, often leaving wood on the tractor or tools in the pasture, and then we do nothing for 2 hours. The Spaniard has a siesta and Ivan disappears. We usually take a walk and feed the horses to pass the time. Some days we do work again in the evening, but lately most days we don't. We just leave the wood on the tractor and the tools in the field overnight and instead of working, have nothing at all to do. The bad part of this is that it is infuriating, since we have yet to finish a single project and the horses continue to escape while the wood for their fence sits by the side of the road half a mile away. The good part is that it gives us plenty of time to run every day.

In addition to that enjoyable farmwork, Nien has also delegated to us some household jobs. Sweeping and dishes we do not mind. It is, however, somewhat demoralizing to clean someone else's bathroom. And today she asked us to spend one day before we leave cleaning the kitchen. Like really cleaning it. As she said, "it's nice for this to be done at the end of every year" since it is never done otherwise. We have to pull appliances away from the walls to clean the backs of them, clean out the refrigerator (yuck), use a hands-and-knees scrub brush on the floor, and get "all those icky places way back in the corners that nobody ever wants to do." The crowning glory is that we also have to wash all of the walls, ceiling to floor, with soap and a sponge, including the grease-soaked untreated-wood window frames. She was going to have us repaint the walls and ceiling but luckily the store didn't have the right paint. And it's not that the house is dirty, persay, but this morning the cat caught a big rat in the living room. While we were sitting there. It then brought it up onto the couch next to Marisa. Now, we don't want to be ungrateful, since these people are allowing us to stay in their house and eat their food, but doesn't it seem as though they're maybe taking advantage of our inability to say no, just a little bit? We will clean the disgusting kitchen, but we're not too happy about it.

On a lighter note, here is a list of interesting foods we've eaten here so far - keep in mind that "interesting" can go either way: lots of quiches and tarts, escargot (chewy), lamb hearts (also chewy), "ze pizza" (love the accent), remarkably delicious butter, crepes with sugar, crepes with cheese, crepes with nutella, pate (on the table at every meal), and anchovies (Europeans love their anchovies). Quite a mix of good and bad, no?

Think that about catches you up on our adventures here in France. Looking forward to Barcelona next week!

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La vie en France

Three days have now passed since our late arrival at Cavalus. Thus far our work has included fence-making and repair, feeding of horses and the cleaning of their stalls. Since you only feed the horses hay and grains, the cleaning of their stalls has not been as bad as one might think.
Today we took a hike in the afternoon with the Spanish wwoofer who is also staying here and whom we call "the Spaniard." This is because for the first two days we could not remember his name. Since learning his name we have gone from "The Spaniard" to a simplified version of "T.S." which lead us then to call him Elliot for literary reasons and then finally to his real name Harry (pronoinced with an accent as guttural eeh-ree). Anyway, he led us on a beautiful hike through two peaks of the Pyrenees. He has been here with this family for over two months so he knows a lot of the trails.
Aside from the hike we've been pretty bored here so far and with bad weather scheduled it seems like this might not change. Our funniest entertainment has been convincing a stray donkey to eeehhh aaawwwe. As if it's not funny enough that there is a stray donkey to begin with. Oh it should also be noted that our host's wife is a Marxist interpretive dancer of some sort. We can only hope for a lesson or demonstration at least.
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And just to make it a little longer...

We missed ourtrain stop in Boussens (Marisa wrapped up in emails, Ed in "For Whom the Bell Tolls"), ended up getting off 2 stops later in the town of Saint Gerons, to find that there is no train back to Boussens tonight and even if there were we wouldn't make it in time to catch the bus to St Girons, where Ivan would be waiting.

So, we are now sitting in a comfortable room at the Hotel de la Gare in Saint Gerons and we will catch a 7:30 train then bus to St Girons tomorow morning. It worked out well, Ivan actually seemed relieved to not have to pick us up that late tonight. And we get our own bathroom and shower for one more night!

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Long travel day

Travel days are the worst. Today we caught a 6:30am bus to the Dublin airport, 9:20 flight to Carcassone (France), bus to the train station, train to Toulouse, 4 hour layover, train to Boussens, bus to St Girons arriving at 9:15pm, where (finally) Ivan, our new farm host, will pick us up and drive us home. That's 2 buses, 2 trains, one airplane, and one car. Luckily we managed to fit in a movie in Toulouse, My Blueberry Nights, a mediocre movie but the only English one playing. That was a nice break in the middle of the day.

France is country #6, if you count one day in Austria, and we agreed that it has become a bit of a blur. There's a "wait, where are we now?" aspect every time we arrive in a new place, especially since we see mostly countryside and they all look pretty similar. We'll be here in France for a little over two weeks and it sounds like the place will be fun. We'll see!

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Cead mille failte (a hundred thousand welcomes)

It's been such a fun, relaxing week in Ireland. Wednesday morning we drove up to Dublin to take the Crowleys to the airport. They're in England now for a few days visiting some friends and hopefully having a wonderful time. On the way back from Dublin we drove down to Wexford and walked around and had lunch - pretty little town with a nice harbor. Yesterday we went to the Rock of Cashel, which is a medieval fortress-turned-cathedral and then tried to go to the Swiss Cottage which is a pretty hunting cottage from the early 1800s made to look like a Swiss chalet. It was closed for the season and under construction but we managed to climb over the fence and through the woods to see it :) Didn't get any good pictures, unfortunately; couldn't risk the noise and the flash so close to the construction workers. Today we tried to go to the monastery at Kells (birthplace of the Book of Kells) but that was also closed. Still it's always nice driving through the countryside.

Random fun Ireland trivia:

On the west coast of Ireland they refer to Boston as "the next parish over." Isn't that cute?

Right now in Ireland they have a funny (if oddly intense) anti-littering radio campaign that we love. It goes something like this: "Littering is disgusting and so are those who do it. If you act like filth, you'll be treated like filth." We get a kick out of that every time.


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Blarmy!

Someone has stolen 180 kegs of Guinness (worth 64,000 Euro!) from the Brewery in Dublin!
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Happy Thanksgiving!

It's been a long time since we've posted! We don't remember when we last wrote but we think it was before Frankfurt so we'll start there.

Frankfurt was great - it was nice to be back in Germany (seemed so familiar and easy after Greece!) and the city was one of our favorites so far. We went to the zoo last Tuesday, which was fun.

Wednesday we flew to Dublin where we met up with Cathy/Mom! We were so excited to see our parents and be back in Ireland (we were here for 3 weeks in 2004). We LOVE Ireland. We went straight to Galway from the airport and had a fun bus ride of chatting and catching up. Friday we had a really great day. We rented a car and drove down the lovely west coast to the Cliffs of Moher then stopped in Lisdoonvarna for a fun lunch on the way back.

Friday we went back to Dublin and met up with Kathy/Mom and Pat/Dad and it was just so fun to be all together. We went to the always-entertaining Guinness Brewery and to Temple Bar for dinner, then out to a fun pub that had a great guy singing some good old-fashioned drinking songs. Saturday we took a bus tour, saw the Book of Kells and the Old Library at Trinity, did some shopping and enjoyed all of the lovely Christmas lights strung in the streets.

Sunday morning Cathy/Mom had to leave early from Dublin and then the rest of us drove down to the nice place we're staying at the Knocktopher Abbey. It's a lovely little apartment in a small town only about 20 minutes from Kilkenny. The city of Kilkenny is pretty and fun, with lots of little shops and restaurants. We stopped in a pub that, according to legend, used to be the residence of the only woman ever burned as a witch in Ireland. True? Maybe. We had fun either way.

Today we went down to the Waterford Crystal factory, which was really interesting. Waterford is also a nice town, they're all so pretty and charming.

It's been so fun to have our parents here, we wish they could all stay longer. So nice to see some familiar faces after being only with each other for so long! And it worked out really well that we could meet up in Ireland. It's such a wonderful, magical place and every time we're here we want to stay. It was also a good place to come because the Crowleys are from Ireland, of course, so it's an extra special place to visit. Unfortunately, we only know that the family came from County Cork, nothing more specific, so we weren't able to track down a home town or anything. That will have to be saved for another trip!

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EasyCruising the Peloponnese

So, while we were very glad that our cheap sketchy cruise did turn out to be on an actual cruise ship, it does turn out to be true that you get what you pay for. We have a tiny stuffy room, the meals and drinks are grossly overpriced, the staff are quite frankly rude, and the DJ last night played a full Madonna album with no breaks. Despite these things, we have been having quite a lovely time!

Yesterday we were in Corinth. We learned some interesting things, such as the book of Paul's letters to the Corinthians in the Bible is documentation from St Paul's visits to Corinth during which he was disgusted by the wealthy, privileged Corinthians' gluttony and lasciviousness (they were very wealthy because they controlled the narrow isthmus between the Aegean and Ionian Seas). It was settled in the TENTH century BC!! We also learned that the fruits called currants derive their name from Corinth; they used to be called raisins of Corinth.

We can't afford to go on all of the expeditions so yesterday we wandered the city on our own. Of course the boat drops us off in the dirtiest, shadiest section of town so it's not too fun to stroll. But we did find a litter of newborn puppies in a parking lot - very fun - and we had our own wonderful little "back door" experience buying lunch. We were really hungry and looking for a cafe where we could get something safe like gyros but we came across this tiny shop where they were roasting whole chickens and decided to go in. There were only a few locals inside and one guy, after hearing us speak English, assured us that this was "very special chicken." There was no menu so we were a bit lost but all the servers and customers joined together to help us get our food. A few people spoke a little English each so they were all trying to ask what we wanted and we were just pointing and saying "thank you" over and over. Everyone just seemed so friendly and genuinely excited that we would come into their tiny little shop and we were all happy and enjoying the experience. The old guy doing the cooking spoke no English at all but he seemed especially excited to have us there and he insisted that we take some free fries right out of the cooker - he brought the whole tray out to us so we could pick our own. It was just really fun and nice, and the chicken was delicious! Last night we went to a wine tasting on the ship that was fun and then we decided to go in the hot tub since it was abandoned; seems like most of our fellow travelers have even earlier bedtimes than we do... and that's really saying something!

Today we are at the island of Ithaki (Ithaca). We were so close to renting a car for the day but in the end it was just too pricey. Unfortunately it's not possible to rent scooters at this time of year - they only get insurance coverage for high tourist season. So we went for a hike to the "Cave of the Nymphs" instead, which turned out to be utterly abandoned and very dark and scary. But it was a beautiful walk. The chain of islands is so beautiful; it's just mountain after mountain stretching up out of the water for as far as you can see. We played Trivial Pursuit this afternoon because it got pretty windy and chilly. There was actually one clue under history or something that said "budget cruise company founded in the 1990s" and it was easycruise, the one we are on right now!!! What a coincidence! Then had a lovely dinner at a taverna in town and had ouzo, a fun anise-flavored Greek drink, and sat around for a few hours before coming back to the ship. At 9:30 tonight is a disco-dance contest that we're looking forward to, but only if other people are dancing too! And Ed has vowed that he will not compete unless the winner gets a prize.

Tomorrow and Thursday we are doing the guided expeditions: one to Olympia for the original site of the Olympics and one to Delphi to learn about the Oracles! Should be fun!

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It's all Greek to me

Imagine waking up to find yourself in a strange land where they draw diagrams of the solar system to write words and they speak by clucking like chickens. That is approximately how baffled we are by the Greek language. There is no hope of communication while we're here.

But it is very beautiful and luckily our sketchy cruise is actually a cruise, on a big ship, with other passengers and bars and Greek night and salsa lessons! Who knew that would really work out?

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Athens

We arrived here in Athens a few hours ago after what we agreed was the scariest plane ride of our lives. This was due to the incredibly gusty winds combined with our little tiny plane. Reminiscent of the WildMaus rollercoaster at Oktoberfest. You know it's bad when everyone on board starts laughing and clapping loudly when the plane finally touched down, after ten minutes of complete silence when everyone was contemplating what their last words should be. Terrifying and we've never been happier to step inside an airport.

At the moment we're in some cafe and are waiting for a more acceptable time to eat. It seems that Greeks do not eat dinner until around 10pm. Tomorrow we're setting off for our cruise and hopefully will have time to do a little self-guided tour before we leave.

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Quite a busy few days! Yesterday morning we went to the Accademia and (finally!) saw the David and the Slaves. Absolutely even more breathtaking than we even expected, and we had pretty high expectations. We also went to San Marco and saw all of the Fra Angelico frescoes, including Marisa's favorite version of the Annunciation. That was all a wonderful start to the day. Then we had to pack up and leave Florence, which was sad. Such a magical city. We said goodbye to our charming (if slightly manic) hostel guy, Fernando - who also ran Chicago and Boston but the opposite years we did! Did we mention that already? - and took a bus to San Gimignano.

There's not a whole lot to do in the village of San Gimignano besides climb the towers for spectacular views, which we did. Then we sat on the church steps in the square and people-watched for an hour. Saw an adorably funny gathering of old men and women who all congregate on the square (bringing their own folding chairs) at dusk and sit there for a few hours, probably every night. Men in one row, women in another. What do they talk about every day?? We liked the town very much and stayed with a lovely old woman who spoke no English. Not sure whether we liked it better than Rothenburg in Germany, they are very similar.

This morning we got up early and took a bus to Siena where we spent an hour walking around with our 40lb packs looking for the train station. Ended up taking a bus. We did get to visit il Campo, where they have the famous horse race the Paleo, and that was something we had wanted to see so that was fun. Siena is beautiful, wish we'd had more time there.

We are now back in Roma for just one night and tomorrow morning we fly to Athens! Very excited for the cruise!!

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Firenze

Lovely day today in Florence. We had a 10:45 reservation at the Uffizi Gallery this morning and spent a few fun hours there: Michelangelo's Doni Tondo, Botticelli's Birth of Venus (interestingly, a misnomer since it actually portrays her landing at Cypres) and Primavera, da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi and Annunciation.... Wonderful things. Like walking around in an absorbing art textbook for three hours, but probably more fun.

We had a bit of an altercation with the audioguide-seller woman at the entrance because the denied us the rental of an audioguide. We NEEDED the audioguide - we are huge audioguide people. But apparently at the Uffizi you must have either a drivers license or passport to rent the veverable audioguide. A credit card with your photo on it is "not possible." We begged. We pleaded. We offered other valuables in the passport's stead. (We didn't have our passports on us, erroneously believing we would have no need of them since we were only going to the Uffizi and not to another country. Apparently the prestigious Uffizi holds its audioguide renters to the same gold standard as international border control). If the purpose of this deposit item is to ensure that you will return the audioguide machine and not run away with it, we realized afterwards that we should have offered to leave our shoes with the woman. Obviously we couldn't leave the museum without shoes. We ended up buying a guidebook instead.

We also visited the Basilico San Lorenzo in the afternoon. Tonight was our one dinner out of the week and we thoroughly enjoyed it at La Giostra (thank you Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob for the recommendation!!) It was beautiful and the food was delicious and we got free champagne and a free bottle of limoncello as a "digestive." We spent over three hours there and had such a great night. Though we're quite sure it was also our most expensive dinner out ever - but well worth it!


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Small setback

Tonight we encountered the first legitimately negative part of our trip so far. We were trying to upload our photos to the internet and, to make a long story short, seem to have deleted about 390 of our 430 pictures. The only ones remaining are from the past few days. We are most upset about losing our Oktoberfest pictures... those are the hardest to replace.

On one bright side, we still have four months of pictures yet to be taken.

On another bright side, a couple of Munich pictures and the remaining Tuscany ones are up at http://edandmarisa.shutterfly.com

If anyone has photos of Munich, Schnepfendorf, Fuessen, Rothenburg, Salzburg, Venice, Verona, Bologna, Rome, or the Cinque Terre that you would like to donate to our future album, we would sincerely appreciate it.

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Grassing

Our primary job while Guido & Co. are on vacation is to weed the vineyard. Don't be fooled (as we were) by the simplicity of that description. This is a very, very bad job.

When Guids (pronounced "Gweeds," as we like to call him) asked us to "weed the vineyard," we went out to have a look at it. We saw 14 rows, each about the length of an Olympic swimming pool, and we said "No problem. We can do that in one day." We were a little bit concerned by the steepness and rockiness of the hill upon which said vineyard resided, and by the gusting winds assaulting that hill, but we still felt pretty confident. Our confidence was largely due to the weeds we could see, which were indeed thickly overgrown. They were those wonderful tall, leafy weeds that completely cover the ground. They probably take the cake for the best quality weeds on Earth: they easily accomplish any ambitious weed's top priority, which is to annihilate the beauty of a garden, but they are also quick and easy to remove. Thus, both weed and weeder are happy at a job well done. We think that combination makes a weed very high quality.

Once we began weeding, we realized very quickly that the weeds were not the true adversary. Oh no. The real problem was much deeper, underneath those innocuous weeds. To best explain the challenge we faced, you'll need a bit more backgound.

The *root* (bit of gardening-pun humor) of the problem was that the vineyard borders Guido's lawn on three sides. Due to the fact that Guids neither mows, weeds, nor edges with any regularity, the vineyard and the lawn have surmounted their respective barriers to become one. After we merrily pulled up a patch of weeds in the first row, imagine our dismay to see that archenemy of weeders everywhere: a healthy bed of grass. That had to be pulled up. By the roots. By hand. For 14 pool-length rows and wearing gloves we suspect are ancient Roman relics (Guids is nothing if not authentic). Today we did not weed. We grassed.

We have completed 8 rows and hopefully can finish the rest by the time they get home tomorrow. Luckily tonight it started getting dark and we had to feed the idiots (aka foul fowl aka chickens) so we had to stop.

The upside to this story is that now the word is out: for the most authentic Tuscan experience any time you need a little escape from daily life, you don't need cypress trees, wine barrells, clay roof tiles, or even rolling hills. Just a nice healthy patch of grass. Preferably on a rocky hill. And maybe a strong fan; the influence of those gusting winds can't be ignored.
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Happy Halloween!

So we've now been at our new farming position for a few days now. Our host family has left us to finish their olive oil orders and vineyard weeding since they have gone on holiday in the Alps.

Now we are drinking their wine and contemplating dressing up as them for this auspicious occasion. Since we have have no tricker-treaters though, I think we have decided not to do so.

At this point we have realized how lucky we are to have had our first host family, since it's been a little more difficult with this current family. Guido is just a little bit too snobbish. As a consolation though, he is not here so now we're just enjoying the Tuscan countryside and pretending that we live here.

We are also trying to download some pictures but for some reason, this upscale family has dial-up, so you all might have to settle for about 4 pictures.

We have also spoken to our parents today and would like to tell them again how much we're looking foward to seeing them this month!

Love you all and posts are appreciated!



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Tuscany

This morning we were very sad to pack up and leave our cozy apartment in Vernazza, it is just such a beautiful place. We took a train to Pisa where we had planned a 2-hour stopover to see the tower and it was a lovely day out today so that was fun. The only disappointment was that we forgot the camera (left it in our checked bags at the station) so we won't have any of the requisite holding-up-the-tower pictures. Quite a shame. Our train ride took us straight through Carrara so we got beautiful closeup views of the marble-laden hills, that was exciting. Wish we could have gotten out to take.a hike there - it would be so fun to find a rock somewhere in the hills that would be an actual piece of Carrara marble. 500 years ago could have been right next to the block that became the David or Pieta! That would be a great souvenir; hopefully we'll have a chance to go back.

We got to our final destination, a town called Empoli, and Guido was there with his daughter Hanna (age 4ish) to pick us up. His wife, Rebecca, and one of his daughters (age 13) are away this weekend and we haven't met the other daughter (16) yet but she'll be home for dinner.

Guido seems like a pretty interesting guy. He was born in Florence and studied there, in Paris, and in NYC to earn a PhD in archaeology. He specializes in the Middle East and throughout the past decade while he's been trying to get the farm up and running, he has made most of his living writing journal articles. We have a bedroom in their house and in it there's a chest with about two dozen artifacts that are a mixture of things he dug himself and a copy of an artifact that he made during his time working at the Louvre! His wife is from the Boston area originally (funny coincidence) but studied in Paris - we assume that's where they met. Guido is also a painter and our room is full of his paintings. Most of them are pretty good.

Guido told us a lot about some of the scary and surprising things that are commonly added to wines during production. Ever notice that there is never a list of ingredients for wine, even though it's required on everything else? He said sometimes the list of ingredients would fill the whoke label. Kind of gross. He was telling us that a lot of what he and his neighbors learned about cultivating grapes and making wines comes straight from old Roman texts - washing out the barrels only with salt water, etc. So interesting to think about how long the traditions have been passed down!

We went for a little walk this afternoon. It is so gorgeous here, it feels like being in a movie or a novel, wandering the gently rolling Tuscan hills all full of olive trees abd lined with lovely cypresses. The most exciting part of our day was when we turned to head back from our walk and a PACK OF WILD BOARS ran right across the road in front of us. There must have been 12 or 15 of them, all grunting and snorting. (All larger than our favorite little pig, Stella, at Schnepfendorf but smaller than our least favorite, Big Ugly Dinosaur). So that was an experience. Guido said they're kind of a problem here because there are so many of them.

Guido made a delicious dinner, with bread soup (fresh pressed olive oil poured directly on top after it's served) that he said is traditional to this area, some kind of yummy meat and roasted fennel. Then of course biscotti and homemade orange-cello for dessert (I made up the name orange-cello, but it's limoncello made with oranges instead of lemons because none of his limoncello was cold).

Two loud-and-clear signs that this house is inhabited by a New Englander: LLBean winter catalogue, USA Today with the Red Sox on the front page.
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La dolce vita

We thought it would be an appropriate time to write another post as we sit in our little kitchen eating a delicious pizza dinner. Our diet here in Italy has consisted almost entirely of carbs (perhaps not surprisingly) with the occasional addition of extra-large gelato waffle cones, which is quite a welcome change from the 70% saturated fat meals we had every day in Germany.

One other totally random thing we noticed that is every different here than in Germany is the attitude towards jaywalking. In Germany, to walk when the little green man was not visible was strictly forbidden, on pain of audible tsking from those on the sidewalk (who of course know better) and immediate branding as a culturally-insensitive American tourist. In Italy, the rule seems to be as follows: jaywalk as often as possible, even if it means crossing the street when you have no other reason for doing so, and preferably at a time which poses the maximum safety risk to you and everyone else in the immediate vicinity. This is possibly the best-loved sport in Rome after football. Upon reflection, we think this may be due to the Germans' national reverance for their cars (explained to us by Tobi), which may result in them avoiding any behavior, such as jaywalking, that could potentially result in damage to an automobile.

Our time here in the Cinque Terre has been just wonderful. We hiked through the other four towns and everything is so postcard-beautiful. Today it rained all day and, as it is expected to rain the rest of the week and there is little to do inside here, we briefly considered spending the rest of the week in Pisa or Siena but decided to stay put instead. It's so relaxing and we love our little apartment so we don't want to leave any earlier than necessary. Tomorrow we may take the train into the nearest city (or at least large town) to see War and Peace (in Italian) at the movies! Ed is especially excited.

Our only real challenge here has been grocery shopping. We're trying to save money by shopping instead of eating out so we stock up on cereal, bread, fruit, nutella, and other essentials at the tiny (only) neighborhood groceria. The problem has been in attempting to order sandwich meat at the deli counter from a disgruntled woman whom we suspect does in fact know how to speak English but chooses not to. We've encountered this situation with her twice so far and it usually goes something like this (please imagine a line of people already waiting behind us as we try to figure out names and prices of mystery meats):
Us: buon giorno
Disgruntled woman: hm.
Us: uhhh... Prosciutto cotto (cheapest thing we can find)
DW: si (starts slicing). Quanto? (How much)
Us: uhh... Half... Er, um, mezzo kilo
DW: mezzo?? Un mezzo kilo?!
Us: um, si
DW: mezzo kilo?? For two people?? (Her only English phrase so far)
Us (now embarassed since apparently no other two people in Italy would think of consuming that much prosciutto cotto): uh, si
DW (shrugs): ok... (Lays 0.25 kilos on the scale) Ancora? (Or something similar meaning "more?")
Us: si, mezzo kilo
DW: (adds a few slices so it is 0.32 kilos) ancora?
Us: si
DW: (makes it 0.39) ancora?
Us: no, grazie
We have yet to make it all the way to a half kilo, though we request that every time, since we eat ham sandwiches for two meals a day. At this point we dread going back, especially after two other embarassing incidents, one of which involved a pile of apples accidentally rolling on the floor at the front of the cashier line, and the other an accusation of attempted theft from an 80-year-old man (for the record, we were not trying to steal chickpeas).

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Vandal turns water in Rome's Trevi Fountain red

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5228889.html
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Venice to Bologna to Rome to Vernazza

It has been such a busy few days! It seems like our last post was forever ago, so much has happened since then. To get up to date:
We spent Tuesday in Bologna, thanks to Julie's recommendation, and had a fabulous time. We agreed that it wsd our best day in Italy so far, we just loved the city. It is beautiful and romantic with lovely arched porticoes on all of the buildings, most of which are bright yellow or orange so everything is so cheery and pretty. We did a tour and they said there are 23 miles of porticoes in the city, so they really are everywhere! We had a fun time walking through the university district - it's the oldest university in Europe (or the world?), dating from the 11th century. There were some outdoor markets and we explored one of the school buildings, which was all old stone with an interior courtyard, it's hard to imagine gping to class in such a beautiful place! It was just a great day and we would highly recommend Bologna to anyone visiting Italy.
Wednesday we took the entire day "off". We spent the whole day at the campground except for taking a walk through the neighborhood nearby and going out for pizza. Did laundry, etc. It was actually a pretty fun day.
Thursday we were up at quarter to five to catch our train to Rome. We had an unfortunate incident on the bus to Venice involving bus tickets (we didn't have one - oops), a crotchety driver, and public humiliation but otherwise our trip to Rome was fine. The trains are so easy to use.
That afternoon we met up with Aunt Linda and Uncle Bob at the Spanish Steps and spent the rest of the day with them - it was great! They were leaving the next morning after 3 weeks in Italy so we were so lucky to be able to meet up and it was fun to swap travel stories. It was also kind of nice to have some other English speakers and familiar faces for a few hours! We had a lovely lunch and then went back to their room, which was at the home of a really cute old couple named Luciano and Maria. It seemed like such a nice place to stay! We were going to head out to a cafe for some wine but Luciano and Maria insisted that we all stay there for their "vino della casa" so we had snacks and chatted abd it was really fun, mostly because the four of us spoke English, Luciano spoke only a little bit of English and otherwise Italian, and Maria spoke no English but Italian and French and I speak a little bit of French so there were lots of approximate translations and hand gestures going on! Then we went out for dinner before we had to catch a bus back to our hostel. It was a wonderful night and we were sad that they had to leave the next day but so glad we got to spend some time together.
Over the next two days, we went to the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peters and then the Colosseum and Roman Forum, all of which are of course magnificent and amazing. When we were at the Trevi Fountain all of the water was red for some reason and there were lots of police officers and TV camera crews there so we suspect it was not red on purpose, but we have yet to figure out what happened. We had planned to stay in Rome for over a week but actually ended up being there only two nights because our hostel was awful! Very icky and in a scary part of town and we couldn't find another place to stay, so we decided to leave. It was a little disappointing because we both really liked Rome a lot and would have enjoyed being there a few more days just to wander and take it all in. Also a little disappointing because we had a goal to see all of Michelangelo's work in Europe while we were here but since we left Rome early we missed two frescoes and one palace facade, but hopefully we'll be able stop over in Rome for a few hours at some point to see those.
In the end, it seems to have all worked out for the best because tonight we are in the breathtaking town of Vernazza in the Cinque Terre and we are staying in a small apartment! We haven't had a chance to explore because it was already getting dark when we got here but we're excited to see everything tomorrow and enjoy the next week here before we go to another farm!

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Venezia

We spent Saturday and Sunday wandering around bella Venezia. It is one of those places that in reality actually does look as beautiful as in movies and paintings, if not even more so. Saturday we really just walked all day and got lost way back in the side streets away from the main tourist area. Maybe it's just because we've been out in the boonies for the past 3 weeks, but Venice struck as us almost overwhelmingly touristy and crowded. It was hard to move in the Piazza San Marco and the lines were too long to visit any museums. When we were exploring the backstreets and little neighborhoods, though, it was beautiful enough to make up for the congestion of the main square. Sunday morning we got up early and went to mass at the Basilica San Marco, which was incredibly beautiful. Listening to the service in Italian, in an enormous gilt church feels like you've gone back 500 years in time.

Today we took the train to "fair Verona" for the day and had a lovely time. The city is picturesque, the weather was perfect, and we visited an art museum in the old castle as well as "Juliet's house". Verona was the setting for Romeo and Juliet, and in the 14th century there were feuding families named the Capulets and Montagues (or something very similar) so this was an old house that belonged to the Capulets and has a lovely balcony and all that. Okay, very touristy, but still fun.

It should also be noted that we've been eating pizza at least once a day and the pace does not seem to be slowing in the future.
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Auf wiedersehen, Deutschland and Buongiorno, Italia!

We left Schnepfendorf this morning and are on our way to Venice! The morning was a little stressful because the German regional train conductors union chose today to go on strike! So we had to wait a while for a train back to Munich and were a little worried that we'd be stuck for another day or so, but it all worked out fine. We got to Munich in plenty of time for our 1:30 train to Italy.

This train ride is great, we're really enjoying it. We're on one of those trains with individual seating compartments (you know, a Hogwarts train!) and riding straight through the Austrian Alps. It's pretty magical.

Yesterday we went with Tobi to the butcher where we processed (for lack of a better word) an entire cow. It took all day to go from the cow just quartered to dozens of sealed packages of all different meats. Sorry it sounds a bit gross, we weren't sure we wanted to go except that Tobi needed the help, but it was actually a very interesting experience. The butcher, William, just has a small shop and all of his meat is organic. He was very nice and it really was amazing to watch him work. Butchers have to be such knowledgeable anatomists! I wonder whether a butcher knows an animal's anatomy and physiology better than a veterinarian. We saw all of the huge ribs and bones and not a bit of the cow was wasted, except for some pure fat. We even got to help making wursts which really felt like being part of a German tradition.

Leaving the farm was a little bit sad this morning. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone and think that we may not see them again, though hopefully we'll stay in touch. And we are excited to move onto a new place - it's hard to believe we've been in Germany for almost a month already! We just heard our first announcement in Italian; we must be getting closer! It is SO different from German, it will be fun to be surrounded by a completely different language for the next month. We have some fun plans for our time here, and thank you to the lovely Juliana for sending some great recommendations!

In other news, we heard from a woman named Anna in Sicily who would like us to house-sit for a couple of weeks in January while she's on vacation in Australia! We're definitely planning to do that!

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Home alone for the weekend!

Lots of things to talk about and we can finally do it because Tobi, Susi, and the kids are away for the weekend visiting Grandma in Munich so we have the house (and computer) to ourselves! Very nice. We've done a bunch of laundry and got to sleep inside for once! We also spent several hours this morning trying to upload at least some of our photos but finally gave up. This computer is way too slow, it was going at a rate of 15 minutes per picture and we just couldn't wait. Hopefully we'll find some other opportunity to do that. Tobi and Susi said that we could have whatever we wanted to eat from their kitchen or the store. So, faced with an entire store filled with fresh produce and organic goodness all for the taking, we chose to have canned ravioli for dinner. At least it was organic.

We only had to do potatoes that one day last week and we were surprised that we weren't too sore afterwards, though we found out that between the two of us and Tobi we harvested a little over 3,000 pounds of potatoes in one day! The rest of the week we harvested some leeks, picked tomatoes, and learned how to feed the pigs. We really like the pigs. We also played soccer since, naturally, they have a soccer field in the backyard. One of our very favorite chores this past week has been catching runaway chickens and returning them to their coop. They somehow manage to get out no matter how much fencing is put up, there is one orange one that gets out almost every day and it's great chasing it around the yard. We actually just saw it walk past the window so when we're done writing this we have to go catch it again.

We have figured out a lot more of our itinerary for the next few weeks. We plan to leave here on Friday and go to Venice for about a week, then to Rome for 10 days before our next farm in Tuscany. Exciting!

Before we leave here, we have to cook one dinner for the family and we still haven't figured out what to do. We are open to suggestions! Something "American" that's easy to do.

There are some interesting things that are different here compared to how they are at home. The fridge for instance is the same size as a normal college dorm room fridge and it's for a family of 5. There's no freezer or microwave, and you have to pour the water out of the dryer after every cycle. They use a broom, not a vacuum (that seems to be just a toy for the kids, they like to suction it to their skin) and the milk and eggs are not refrigerated, though the cheese is. They also have a very interesting system for strengthening the local economies in small towns that is too complicated to explain here but that seems like a good idea. On the other hand, some things are the same, most notably the constant soundtrack of Beatles music and the radio playing almost exclusively American pop music (the first song played at Oktoberfest was Gwen Stefani's Sweet Escape).

We're off to chase the chicken now, hopefully we'll be able to post one more time this week, otherwise auf wiedersehn/arrivederci until Italia!

Update

After a couple of rainy days at the farm, we have just now had our first FULL day of harvesting potatoes. It was very hard work but very rewarding at day's end.

Another fun activity we enjoyed today was seeing the new baby sheep that was born yesterday. Needless to say it was very cute and Marisa took several pictures.

Also this weekend we visited the nearby town of Rothenberg, which you should visit for a day if you can. It's just beautiful. We went to the criminal museum, ate some Schneeballen (some special pastery ball) and walked along the castle walls that surround the city.

Sunday we went to Tobi's friend's Harvest Fest and it was gorgeous outside and a really nice day.

I'd say that as of now we're enjoying farm life and are hoping that it will somehow be a part of our life in the future. Both Tobi and Suzi have been great with entertaining our curiousities and handling the language barrier. We both really feel like we've become part of the family here after only one week. We've spent a lot of time sitting up chatting with Tobi and Suzi and their friends and it's nice because they're not all that much older than us, just six years or so. It's a lot of fun being on the farm and learning so much about the crops and animals; we're enjoying it very much.
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Life on the farm

Instead of detailing all of yesterday and today, we'll just give you some highlights. In the past 36 hours we have:
- attended the 14-year-old neighbor's birthday party;
- been onion harvesters, potato sorters, and tomato pickers;
- received a gift of dried butterflies from the collection of 8-year-old Jakob;
- learned about the benefits of Montessouri schooling;
- jarred and labeled leberwursts;
- been witnesses to and accomplices in the capture, beheading, plucking, and gutting of ten chickens;
- babysat five children under the age of 12 with whom we could not communicate at all (not easy!);
- discussed genetic engineering, American vs. German politics, Harry Potter, and pros and cons of stay-at-home parenting with Susi;
- watched an entire movie with Tobi and Susi that we could not understand;
- shivered through 8 hours in our unheated wagon;
- learned fun Bavarian phrases like "that cheese is eaten" and "it's all sausage" that can be used at appropriate times throughout the day

And probably more but those are our favorites!
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Schnepfendorf-our first farm

Before we got to our farm we spent the morning in Olympiapark where the '72 Olympics were held. The stadium and surrounding park were beautiful and really cool to see. Unfortunately, we could only get so close to the main stadium because The Police had performed there last night so they were cleaning. It was a lot of fun though and the weather was great.
After we checked out we made our journey to our first farm. It is just outside Rothenburg, which is a beautiful old walled city about 100k southeast of Frankfurt. We are staying with the Breit family: Tobi, Suzi and their three boys Jacob, Michl, and Paul. We already had the chance to work a bit because the potatoes have to get in the barn before it rains. Marisa also had her first crash course in driving a stick shift, an old van in a rutted potato field no less. We also saw a cat kill a mouse in front of us. In addition to potatoes we're looking foward to dealing with their pigs and sheep while we're here.
The family is extremely nice and they really have made us feel welcome in their home. We all had dinner together and that was great. We had some great homemade wheat and rye bread with cheese, fresh tomatoes, and salami. We talked (Tobi and Susi speak English really well) and tried to talk to the kids (8, 6, and 2; who only speak German). We were trying to teach each other how to say body parts in different languages and when we said "eyes" the kids got a huge kick out of it because it is like "eis" in German, which means ice cream. It was all just fun and silly.
We're sleeping in our "waggon," which really is a wooden wagon. We think it might be a renovated horse trailer actually. There are two beds, a dresser, and some shelves set up. It's cozy and Tobi ran some electricity out here for us so we have a light.
This will be quite an experience. It's a little awkward to be living with another family, especially when we can't join in their conversations, but it seems like it will be a good time and hopefully our German will get better!
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Prost!! (cheers!!)

Day #2 of Oktoberfest. We had a great time. Today was much less crowded than yesterday so we werw able to find outdoor seats and get our massen (liters!) in no time. It was a beautiful day out so lots of fun to sit in the biergarten. We also got ourselves some half-meter wursts so that obviously made it better. We also found nice seats outside another brewery and got to talk to some people from here. The woman had lived in London for 10 years so her English was perfect but Ed spoke to them in German and they taught us to say the equivalent of "enjoyed your company" (something like gutte geshunte, not sure of the spelling). We went on a crazy rollercoaster called the WildMaus; that only cost 8 Euros (about 12 dollars) for 75 seconds of fun. Some fun things we got to see were barbecued fish on a stick, fish sandwiches with the slimy silver scales all hanging out, and an ox roasting over coals! Get excited for pictures of all those. Unfortunately we haven't found a place to upload our photos yet but hopefully we will soon.
The hotel we're staying at tonight is at the Olympiapark, where Munich hosted the Summer Games in 1971. It's actually the same hotel where the hostages were held that year! We didn't know until we got here yesterday and recognized it from old news stories. Hopefully tomorrow morning we'll have time to tour the Olympic grounds.
We leave Munich tomorrow for our first farm; hopefully we'll still get internet service there. We've really loved Munich and are a little sad to leave but the farming is what we actually came to do so we have to get going!
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Octoberfest!

Well needless to say Octoberfest is amazing. It is hard to get in to a beer tent if you want to see the parade but you can still get a liter somewhere. Tomorrow we're doing it again and I'm sure we'll have just as much fun. We waited in line for 2 hours at one piont and got our necks burned to find out waiting was a lost cause. We did end up finding a tent and a place to sit thanks to a nice guy who said we could sit for an hour. His wife wasn't happy but we were. Now we feel spoiled at our hotel after the hostel and we're pumped for both tomorrows festivities and our upcoming farm placement! Pictures are coming that will provide a good visual image of our first week!
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Day in Salzburg

Today was a lovely day. We got up early and took the train from Munich to Salzburg, Austria and spent the day there. Salzburg is a beautiful city. We did a little hike up to the fortress above the city, from which there were some breathtaking views of the city and of the mountains. Then we pretty much just wandered for the afternoon until it was time to come back. We didn't get a chance to do any of the Mozart museums because they were a bit too expensive so that was too bad but we had fun window shopping and checking out some cathedrals. Had some wursts and sauerkraut for lunch and apfel streudel for dessert!

Some random observations: It's pretty amazing how prevalent both beer and cigarettes are here! They sell beer on the train and all over in the streets, though we've been hard-pressed to find a diet coke! And everyone smokes. Everyone. That's the one thing we haven't liked; all the restaurants are smoky.
We've also been pretty impressed by how environmentally-friendly they are here. There are separate recycling bins for paper, plastic, etc all over the city and on the train rides we noticed that in the country some of the houses and most of the farms have solar panels on the roof! That's pretty cool.
We also saw graffiti that had George Bush's face and the word LIAR in Salzburg today.
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Thursday-Donnerstag

Today was both exciting and deppressing. On top of our usual trips to a beer hall and walking we went to Dracheu which was the biggest concentration camp made. I don't know if I could ever express what it felt like to be there. The train stop that we got off was the same station that all other prisoners got off and we walked the same route as they did. We were goin to go to a movie at the memorial meuseum but we had had enough by the time the showing was. There's nothing else I can say besides how horrific of an event this was and how unimaginable it was.
Tomorrow we are going to Salzburg for the day so get excited for that post!
As far as the food... We've been eating a lot meat, beer (which can be purchased by the liter), and lots of pretzles.
Also, we'd like to mention how great or bags have been already. So thanks to Cathy (mother in law) and Ali (great friend) for helping us with that.
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Die Alpen

Our first venture into the Alps today - just breathtaking, even on a foggy day. It really feels like being in a fairy tale in these tiny red-roof villages in the clouds. We visited Neuschwanstein Castle which is spectacular. Try googling it for pictures; it was actually the inspiration for the castle at the Magic Kingdom!
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Guten tag vom Munchen!

Today was our first full day in Munich. It was great; the city is beautiful. We did a (free!) walking tour that was wonderful so now we feel like we know our way around a little better. One of the most fascinating parts of the tour was hearing about which things had and hadn't bee rebuilt after WW2. Only 2% of the buildings here were unharmed during the war so a lot of the city looks pretty new. I was disappointed about that at first because I like my European cities to look old and feel like they're full of history; but of course the very fact that much of this city doesn't look particularly old is an important record of its history. We also toured the Residenz, which was the palace of the Bavarian kings for about 800 years. We went to a beerhall which was a fun place to listen to live music, drink local brews, and eat sixteen-inch pretzels with five hundred other people. We had a good time hanging out there, especially since it was really cold and rainy today. We're getting a little more confident about trying out the language and Ed remembers a lot more than he expected to. My favorite word of the day was Munchnerkindel - someone who has lived in Munich their whole life. Try saying it, it's fun!
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About to set sail...

Welcome to our blog! We'll post as often as we can to keep everyone updated on our whereabouts and adventures. The blog is set to list time and date by Paris time, which covers pretty much everywhere we plan to be. You'll see our little tentative itinerary over to the right - that is subject to change and we'll be adding more to it along the way. Feel free to post your suggestions if you think there's a place we shouldn't miss!
Enjoy!