i looked down at the squished snail on my thumb as i was taking down the borrowed tent, and thought, "oh". i had been thinking that i would get a tattoo of a snail on my hand recently, partly because i love snails, partly because i am a snail, with my home on my back, and also to remind myself to slow down, and take things one moment at a time. But i guess i don´t need one, as long as there are enough snails around for me to absent-mindedly squash, although he was mostly intact, so it was more of a pinch.
i was leaving the dragon festival because my festival buddy had abandoned me for madrid, and i had just spent the last night feeling a little sick, very uncomfortable, and wishing that i were out dancing to the awesome, and really loud, irish music that was played live for st. patty´s day. i met some irish people, and they told me they don´t waste time worrying about what color to wear on a day like this. every minute is needed for a day made exclusively for getting as pissed as possible.
people came from all over europe, england, portugal, czech republic, france, germany, holland, probably more to come to this free festival with so much music, good people, and in such a beautiful river valley in southern spain. after two good nights, and one sick night, and my new friend gone, i decided to hitchhike back to the valle de sensaciones. this is the beautiful place i had been wwoofing at for the two weeks previous to the festival.
the first person to pick me up was the guy who had taken all of us wwoofers to the festival in his van. mathias used to wwoof at this place a few years ago, and still lives in the area, so he visits a lot. he was on his way back to the festival, so he dropped me off at a better spot to hitchhike from. 10 minutes later, a nice man from barcelona, picked me up and took me all the way to where i needed to go. it is so nice to know spanish well enough to carry on a conversation with someone. no uncomfortable silences or sign language, although that can be fun sometimes too, but not after this weekend.
so the snail, which i apologized to and then sleepily flicked onto the wet grass, the snail reminded me that i don´t have to see the whole world in one year, or even all of europe in one month, or the rest of spain in one week. i had been trying to decide whether to go to this beautiful beach called san pedro, which is in a beautiful national park near here, where some people are living in caves, or whether to go to a rainbow gathering in northern portugal, or the rainbow community near the dragon festival, or walk the GR-7 from southern spain to greece, or go to another wwoof farm in northern spain, or go to a raw food ecovillage wwoof farm in southern spain, or just go home and hug my mommy and get a job, letting it drive me crazy. So when i got back to homebase, where i had left a lot of my stuff for the weekend, the people there reminded me what a horrible situation this is, to have so many wonderful options in my life.
In the end, i decided to stay at the valle at least until the end of march, which is when i am hoping to meet up with another american wwoofer i met, the festival buddy who left me, and we can hitchhike to vienna to meet the two austrian wwoofers we met, and we can ride bikes down through italy.
So, this... along with gardening, falling in love with funky the cat (sorry sebastian), living in a circus caravan and a hexagon house, eating really good birthday cake for my birthday, meeting really great people, climbing mountains, helping to build living houses, wondering if i can really grow a chair, planning to wash my clothes tomorrow on the bicycle-powered washing machine, learning new constellations because i can see so many stars every night, finding myself surrounded by people speaking german and wondering how this happened, eating knudel, running out of money, wishing i had all of my clothes, missing all of you, and thinking about finally learning how to play chess but probably not but maybe... is what i´ve been doing since i last wrote on this blog, which i´ve recently updated to the new version. hopefully you can tell the difference.
oh, and the invitation still stands for anyone who wants to come out and join me on my travels. you don´t need that much money, because i´m alive and happy without it, which means you could be too. but join soon because the offer may end--who am i kidding, i could be doing this for years. especially if i get that tattoo, or stay away from catalunya where they were eating all those snails.

spoons in the compost, knives in the swimming pool:

i´ve learned that chickens do kiss, especially when you save their rooster from being stuck in the net.
i got to eat the last mango of the season from the farm today...mmmmmmmmm...
i´m growing lots of broccoli at the farm, which reminds me of our three brave little broccolis at 2039 Pine Street, who survived that crazy hailstorm the day Andy and I went to see Widespread Panic.
Sitting on the couch on the porch with Mathias also reminds me of 2039 Pine Street. It really is one of my favorite places on the world...a couch on a porch? or 2039 Pine Street? well the two of them combined are fantastic, but i´ll take just one any day.
Carnaval is better than Burning Man. I´ve decided. It´s free. It´s in the city, people are dancing in the streets, wearing their costumes and I saw Pac-Man being chased by those scary ghosts that are always chasing him, but this was real life. And it was all night. So the alcohol wasn´t free and there wasn´t any drum´n´bass, but there were plenty of guys wearing short skirts and art cars everywhere.
I´m leaving this farm soon, maybe to go to another island, or maybe to go to another wwoof farm in mainland Spain, or some other option that has yet to present itself.
Okay, well, keep thinking about this community idea guys okay, i´ve already got 1 or 2 people who seem to be interested. I´m so far away from everyone i know, and i am technically homeless, but i am serious. One day, it´s gonna happen.

an american girl in tenerife

i am in this weird world. where everyone is speaking my language, but then i realize no one speaks my language. i thought i spoke english, but it´s not true. the english people speak english. even australians speak more english than i do. i thought i was in spain, or at least islands that belong to spain. but there are so many tourists here and english people living on the island, that i am lucky if i get to practice my spanish at all in a week.
and these people who supposedly speak the same language as me, they don´t eat eggplants, butternut squash or zucchini. they eat aubergines, pumpkins, and courgettes (spelling?). they don´t eat dessert either, they eat pudding.
oh, but it is strange, to be the only american on this island. it´s highly possible. i don´t know why it´s strange, but it is. just believe me.

life on the farm is still nice. the family is on vacation in england, so it´s really just me and matthias, the other wwoofer, running the place. there are 9 parts of the farm, separated by concrete walls, on different levels, because the farm is on a big hill. but we talk about turning #1 into a labyrinth, #2 is going to be the miniature golf course... what was #3 going to be?, oh, and #4 is going to be a field of violets. that one was my idea. or we might just have the biggest party on the island. or we might just keep feeding the chickens, eating bananas, and grow some vegetables.

it´s really nice to help other people with their farms and their businesses, and learn a lot in the process, but i am realizing every day how much i really would like my own land, or my own land with other people. i want to build treehouses in the forest and grow lots of gardens, and fruit too. and so much more!! the way that we want to do it. and i am telling you all this, because i am wondering if any of you want to come and be part of this we, or know of anyone who has land already and wants to start something. Yeah, that´s the hard part. Land. Money. Where? How? Who? I am hoping that it will be easier than it sounds, but until then, i am just going to be writing down all my ideas, and taking people´s names down who might be interested. It would be nice to find some land with a castle on it. but i guess that might be a little out of my price range, not that land without a castle on it is in my price range. but a river would be nice too. and we could have a bamboo forest and goats and ducks. does anyone feel me on this one? okay, well we don´t have to have goats, but there have to be at least 2 ducks...

oh, and i´m still looking for someone to go on a canoe with me to row, row row our boat gently down the stream. and i think i still want to go down through mexico, central america, and probably south america too. i mean why not? okay, well, because there´s still africa to cover, and eastern europe. anyone want to ride a camel with me from morocco to timbuktu? my sources say it takes about 52 days. that´s less than 2 months.

okay, well, there´s my little advertisement. you have some time to think about these things because i´m probably not going to be done with spain until summer, or after summer, and really, i have no idea what´s going to happen in the next month. Except i´m going to the Festival of the Green Dragon on the 16th of March, which is a free music and arts festival in orgiva, in granada.

LOVE!!

and then there were 2...
so now there are only 2 of us wwoofers left at this farm. there is a wonderful woman that lives here, with her 2 children, a 7 year old boy, and a 9 year old girl. Now that there are only 2 wwoofers, we are all eating together, and it feels more like the other wwoof farms i´ve been at. before, all of us wwoofers were a lot more separate from the family.
so, still getting to know the chickens, maybe a little too well. i caught two of them in a little box that i didn´t realize they could get into, which i now call the love shack. oh my, were they embarrassed when i caught the hen and the rooster in there together. and i have also been getting to love this family of black cocker spaniels, mama dog, papa dog, and 5 little puppies, oh, they are so cute, even if they do make caca all over the house. i was taking care of them, feeding them and cuddling them and loving them for the last week while their mama was gone to england. did i mention how cute they are!
last weekend, 5 of us, wwoofers and friends of wwoofers, rented a car, and drove up to Mt. Teide, which is a dormant volcano, and actually the highest point in all of Spain. we didn´t go all the way to the top, but pretty close. there was a lot of snow on the mountain, and we went for a hike down below the snow line. it´s really a beautiful place.
what else what else? well, i´ve decided to stay at this farm until around the 24th of february, but i think i´ll still get a chance to go to carnaval for a couple days. i´ve gotta start working on some costumes. i´ve got lots of palm leaves, birds of paradise flowers, and some red prickly pear cactus juice. hmmmm...now what can we do with these?
i´m still missing all of my good friends and family, but now that it´s been 4 months, i´m starting to feel farther and farther away. but this is what travelling is all about.

greetings from the funny farm...
so i´ve been here on the island of Tenerife for about 2 weeks now, wwoofing of course, at what i have just begun to call the funny farm. i wouldn´t say it´s bad here, just kinda funny. there are 4 1/2 other wwoofers too. How can there be half a wwoofer? Well, Willow doesn´t do that much work, but he does do some, he feeds nitrogen to banana plants all over the farm, and he´s really good with a hammer. But the thing is that he´s not even 2 years old yet. I´ve been having a really good time hanging out with him, and he reminds me of my little friends from the Elm Tree, and i am remembering how much i love to be with children. But unfortunately for me, he and his parents left today for the next wwoof farm, leaving just 3 of us.
But it doesn´t make the funny farm any less funny, well maybe a little, he is a pretty funny guy. I can´t really explain why it´s a funny farm, but let me just emphasize that by funny i mean crazy. I think of the song Manic Monday, even on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
It´s nice though, there are plenty of avocados from the farm, and bananas sometimes. These are the 2 main crops being grown. We have a nice big salad everyday, all grown on the farm. And i´m making friends with the chickens, and planting seeds, and the other wwoofers are cool, so it all balances out.
wwoofing is just so awesome. you call someone up and ask if you can come, you ask a few questions, talk for a few minutes, and then all of a sudden you´re living together for a month, and you barely know each other, but 9 times out of 10, it really works out. Okay well 8 times out of 10 it really works out, 1 time it doesn´t work at all, and 1 time it´s just a little weird, but good. These statistics should not be taken as fact.
So, 2 more weeks here, and then i don´t know, Carnaval. Yes, i think i will take a vacation from wwoofing for about 10 days to put on costumes and party. Well maybe not all 10 days, but until i get tired or realize that i should start saving my money so i can get off this island in March, which is when i think i will go back to the mainland of Spain.
who knows though?

welcome to the wonderful world of whims. here in the land of christy, we get an idea of what to do, and we just go. forget about research, planning, reservations...what fun would there be in those things? in my world, it is easier to go somewhere hours away by bus and ask in person how much the ferry is, instead of calling someone or looking up on the internet how much it is. or even what time the bus leaves.
so i got to the bus station in alicante around 10 in the morning, but the bus didnt leave until 3. so a little waiting. then a bus ride where i watched some movie with julia roberts and hugh grant in spanish. i get to granada, halfway, and find out that i have to wait 7 hours, until 3 in the morning, for the next bus to cadiz. it ends up being a good thing, because i get to cadiz in the morning about 24 hours after i left the farm. i get off the bus, and head to the hostel my lonely planet guide told me about. oh, and in the world of christy, we dont take taxis, even when we have money, and the taxis are right there across the street from the bus station. so i walk for about fifteen minutes with my backpacks, and finally find the hostel, which isnt a hostel anymore. mierda! so i find the next cheapest hotel in the lonely planet, get there and it says cerrado, closed. one down the street, closed as well. mierda! mierda! mierda! but in my world, i know there is always something good that happens next. so i walk a little bit to find a place to sit down and think. and after a couple blocks i see the banyan trees. ohhhh how i love banyan trees. it is my favorite tree. so it must be a good sign. i am about to sit down on a bench underneath it, when i look over to the left, and i see the tourist office. i figure at least i can ask when the ferry leaves. maybe it will be leaving today, and i can just get on it now. the guy tells me about casa caracol, the snail house, the youth hostel in town. not in my lonely planet guide. i get there, and nick the owner tells me to get myself a rough guide guidebook. but anyway, i can relax now.
later that day, i find out that the ferry is 260 euros to the canary islands, and doesnt leave until saturday. 5 days away... no way.
so tomorrow, i will take a bus to seville, a little backtracking, but only an hour and a half away, and then i take a plane to tenerife, the island where i will be for at least one month, probably 2. one month at the wwoof farm, and then there is carnaval and a rainbow gathering.
i am happy that i came here to cadiz to this hostel because there are so many great people staying here. i feel like i am on vacation. i am not the one sweeping the floor, folding the laundry...and i dont have to wake up at anytime, so i can stay out until 4 in the morning. which is what i did. i went with 5 or 6 people to reggae night at this bar. we danced, drank a little beer, and met some other travellers. i actually met a guy from colorado there. crazy.

so, this is how i do it. and i like it. tomorrow i have no idea what will happen. i know there is a woman, with 3 kids, and 2 other wwoofers. and a 1 hour time difference. i have directions to get to the farm. i dont know how it will be, what i will be doing. but i think i will be warm, and i know i will be on an island. thats all i need to know for now.

well, i was finally going to give you some pictures, but this computer hates me, so you are all just going to have to use your imaginations. which is what i've been doing. i've been building castles out of firewood, rescuing princesses from dragons, and casting spells of invisibility. as well as some sea kayaking, where i realized that it is harder than it looks. oh, and of course, we celebrated the new year. here in spain, there is no ball dropping, or anything like that. once the bells start ringing, you know the ones that ring 12 times for midnight, the bells in the church in the village across the valley, you have until the bells stop ringing to eat your grapes, 12 of them (which is actually easier than it sounds). so there was a group of about 15 people here, mostly all from Spain, and after an incredible dinner, a few drinks, and some bad dancing, we went outside, and waited for the bells, once the bells were done, and the grapes eaten, there were fireworks, which were pretty awesome. And then a lot more bad dancing. Well, i guess it wasn't bad enough to say that twice.
So a few days ago, the whole family, got in the van with all their camping gear, which includes surfboards and a kayak, and mattresses, to go to Portugal for about 8 days. i have been here with the grandmothers and grandfather, doing a little cleaning, and a little help with plowing the fields, but mostly just relaxing, reading, playing with the cats, watching movies, and some walking. i have also been planning where i am going next. i thought this time for sure i would go to ibiza, but i changed my mind. and it's my adventure, so i can do that. i've decided to take a bus to Cadiz tomorrow, which is all the way on the other side of the country, the western side in the south, just below Portugal (which really means i should have figured this out before they went to Portugal, and gotten a ride there, but oh well). I will stay in a hostel for a few days, and then i will take the 48 hour ferry to the Canary Islands. I am actually really excited about this, and i hope that i find a wwoof farm that i can stay at there. i've written to 3, and there are like 10 more as well, but i figure, even if i don't hear from them soon, it will be warm there, warmer than here, which is pretty warm, so i can just camp for awhile on the beach...or some other kind of craziness.

oh, and i guess if you want to see some pictures of where i've been the past few weeks, you can go to www.aqua-ventura.com

hola mis amigos!!!
so, i hope everyone had a nice christmas or hannukah or winter break, whatever you had. and i hope everyone is planning wonderful new year's parties! and wishing i was there....sometimes i wish i was there, and other times i wish all you people were here, and mostly i'm just having a really good time.
now, i'm in Sella, which is about 10 minutes inland from La Villa Joyosa, which is about an hour north of Alicante, which is pretty far south on the eastern coast of Spain. So i've been here for about 2 weeks. This place is called La Huerta de Gloria. I am living with a family, on their farm. They grow olives, mostly, and other fruits, like oranges and avocados. They also have a guesthouse, hosting people who want to go climbing, sea kayaking, or hiking. We are in very beautiful mountains, not too high, but there are lots of high mountains around us. About a week ago, there was a big storm here, raining at the house, but it snowed up on the tops of the mountains. We drove up there, and played in the snow, throwing snowballs, and we made a snowman, until the snowplow came, and we had to save it as fast as we could by moving it to the other side of the road. There are 2 kids here, Dylan is 3, and Isabella is 5, and i spend a lot of time hanging out with them, when i am not helping with the guesthouse, cooking, cleaning, and serving meals.
When i first got here, they had already finished the olive harvest, which they told me was a good thing, because it was hard work. But i helped them finish the last of the filtering of the olives because there's a lot of leaves and branches and other stuff. They harvest olives by putting nets on the ground under the trees, and the wind knocks them all down, and whatever doesn't fall, they hit the branches with sticks, i think.
That was the first day, and the only day i've actually done any farm work. Except tomorrow, i think i will help sow some garlic with Violeta's father (the kids' grandfather).
A couple days after i arrived here, a group of 8 guys from England came to go climbing and kayaking. I got to go climbing twice, which was great, because i had never climbed before. And now i don't know why since i was in boulder for 3 years. But anyway, the first climb i did was a 5, and it was really hard but i did it. The next day, i tried a 5+, just to see if i could do it, but i couldn't. I kept falling and slamming against the rocks (for those of you who don't know anything about climbing, there were ropes and harnesses involved, don't worry) The guys told me they would have been really surprised if i had been able to do it on my second day climbing.
I didn't go kayaking because there weren't enough boats, but that's okay. Now, Johnny and Violetta are on a 3 day kayak trip up the coast with a group of people. So i'm helping the grandparents watch the kids, and getting the place ready for a big group that's coming on the 30th for the New Year.
My first time away from home on Christmas was actually really nice. Papa Noel came, and even i got a few presents. I helped the kids make presents for their parents and grandparents, and i made some toys for the kids too.
It is really beautiful here, and the weather is a lot better here than the last place. I am not speaking as much Spanish here because Johnny's from South Africa, and Violeta and the kids speak really good english, so we always speak english. Violeta's grandmother only speaks spanish, so i speak to her sometimes in spanish, and i practice my spanish sometimes with the kids as well, but they speak english to me.
I will be here for one more week, i think. And then i'm going to Ibiza for the rest of January. Ibiza is an island of the east coast of Spain. Anytime i tell people i'm going there, they ask, "to party?" because Ibiza is famous for raves and tons of all-night clubs and parties, but i think that's mostly in the summer. I'm going to a farm, with goats. i love goats. but maybe i will party one night or two. After Ibiza, i think i might go all the way to the canary islands, because i heard from a nice guy from holland with a backpack and speaking english, that there is a rainbow gathering there. i missed the one in colorado, so i think i'll try to go to this one. anyone wanna come?
So, Happy New Year everyone, i love and miss you all. i wish i could write e-mails to all of you or call you, but that is impossible. that is why i have this blog. but if you e-mail me, i promise i'll write back. hi-cee@wildmail.com
oh, and i learned how to juggle, but i need to practice. all we have to juggle are oranges, so i haven't practiced in while because i got tired of eating oranges after i dropped them too many times.
oh, and one day i promise i'll put so many pictures on this thing, but not this time.

SO...
oh, i feel like i have so much to say, but not much time...not enough time to really say everything that is happening here...well, i am still really loving wwoofing. everyday is different, and everyday, i can´t believe that i am here, living with this family in spain. okay. well, i´m not really in spain. people keep reminding me of that when they are speaking catalan, and i don´t understand. i tell them i speak a little spanish, and then they tell me, ¨but you are in Catalunya, not Spain¨ okay, well, then i am going to spain in a few days. but until then, i am soaking up as much as i can of catalunya, even though it is really starting to feel like winter is coming.
i have a little chant i sing at least a few times a day:
hace frio
hace frio
no me gusta
hace frio
(it´s cold
it´s cold
i don´t like it
ít´s cold) mas o menos

it is really laid-back here. i work a lot, but i like it because the family is really nice, and i´m having a great time. of course i want to give them something in return. it is an exchange. i laugh a lot here. there are parrots landing on our shoulders while we eat. they are eating octupus, snails, and rabbit, amongst other things. they took one of the other wwoofers and me to the olive museum which was fun. we got to see all different kinds of olive presses for making oil, and saw some really old olive trees, one (dead) was 2000 years old.
the other 2 wwoofers and i went to a movie a week or 2 ago, called The Take. It is a documentary done by a couple Canadians about the people who work in factories that get closed down or abandoned. They take over the factories to run them themselves, cooperatively. I was really inspired, and sometimes depressed by the way the goverment/police try to stop them from doing this. The people just want to work in good conditions. Anyway, you should see it if you can. It´s half in english, and half in Spanish with subtitles. of course, when i saw it, the subtitles were in spanish during the english part.
i think i mentioned before that i got to go to the circus, which i really liked, even though it was in Catalan. Usually it didn´t really matter what was being said.
On one of my days off, i went for a walk in the park which is basically right next to their house. There is a beautiful river, and ducks and egrets and other birds. Even though i don´t like the cold, i really love autumn, with all the different color leaves covering the ground. And Pusa (which means flea), one of the dogs, came with me for the whole walk.
I´m realizing that wwoofing in the fall and winter is not really the best idea, which is why i´m making my way south. But i do a lot of raking leaves, which is actually a nice break from this huge hole we´re digging (for the pyramid i told you about before). I have just found where i´m going next. It´s a place near Alicante and Valencia, an adventure center/guesthouse. I´ll be picking olives for a while, and helping with groups coming. And maybe, just maybe, i might get to go kayaking. we´ll see. and then i think i´m going to ibiza after that.
but it´s not time to go yet, and when i do go, i will miss el xop. hanging out in the kitchen, eating, or putting olives in jars with red wine vinegar for preserving, listening to Xavier´s favorite radio station, which luckily is classic rock/oldies. He was humming along to Cindy Lauper´s, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and i told him what the words were. He said, sometimes it´s better not to know the words.
if you want to see some pictures, since i still don´t have any to share with you, you can go to the website, which is www.elxop.com (i think). it´s all in catalan, so even if you know spanish, good luck figuring out what it says. maybe if you know both spanish and french really well, you´ll be able to figure it out.
so, that´s all for now. i wish i could give you all big hugs. i hope everyone is doing well, and healthy, and happy...
hasta luego

hey people...
i don´t have much time at all really to write this. i have been busy looking for the next farm i´m going to. i like it here at el xop, but the other wwoofers have left and it´s getting cold again. i have begun to realize that i am allergic to cold. but it is still beautiful here, especially the sunsets, and i am learning so much spanish, even though i´m still not very good. and Nuri took me to the circus the other night which was awesome. i think maybe i should be in a circus. too bad i don´t have any circus skills.
well, i promise i´ll write a really long one soon, but i can´t do pictures until i find someone with an adapter so i can recharge my camera battery.
hasta luego

hey everybody,
i´m here in spain still, at a place called el xop, which is catalan for the poplar. I am just outside of Lleida, a city in Catalonia, living with a family, Xavier, Nuria, and their 17-year-old son, Albert. I am learning so much Spanish, being here, where they speak Spanish almost all the time. Of course, it is still hard for me to understand sometimes, and very hard to speak in Spanish. It takes me about 5 minutes to say a couple sentences, and probably an hour to tell a story. Well, that may be an exaggeration, but let´s just say, i end up starting a lot of sentences in spanish, and finishing them in english. This is okay when i´m talking to the 2 other wwoofers, one who is from Australia, and the other who is from France. But if i´m talking to the family, i have to try to say it all in spanish. So, it is challenging, but good. i really like it here.
This weekend, a bunch of other wwoofers and friends came to the el xop for an exhibition by one of the wwoofers. She was showing parts of her journals from her wwoofing/travelling experiences and a bicycle trip from germany to northern spain. It was a lot of fun, fiesta, music, dancing, eating...and her drawings are really nice. This is what i really love about travelling, you meet so many people, especially other travellers, and exchange so many great ideas and experiences with each other. I am meeting people from Germany, France, Holland, Quebec, Brazil, Australia, and of course Spain, oh, and even a woman who grew up in Boulder, even though she´s been living in Puerto Rico for the last 8 years. I love it.
So, other than partying, i´ve been working pretty hard too, weeding, raking leaves, other garden work, and laying down stones for a patio. We are also working on this pyramid project. They found this pyramid, saw it on the side of the highway, and found out whose it was, and they said they could have it. So they are going to put this pyramid, 6 meters by 6 meters on the edge of the garden. It is going to teach people about sustainable sources of energy. Now, i´m not exactly sure how. This is part of the problem with not really speaking the language of the people i´m working with. Anyway, i´m sure it will be wonderful, and right now, we are just working on preparing the ground where it is going to be put, digging a hole, and moving plants, etc.... I hope before i leave, i will be able to learn how to make soap too, since this is something they like to do here.
A few days ago, Nuria´s aunt got lost. This is a very old place, and she is the last one of the original family that lived here who is alive. It was a little scary, but in the end we found her, but i wrote a little something about it because the whole situation was quite surreal.

Oh(de to) Lola!
Where did you go?
You were sweeping only a few minutes ago.
Now we are calling and maybe you hear.
But you don´t care.
You have somewhere to be.
Maybe you told us yesterday at lunch,
you were planning a holiday.
But nobody listened, said
"oh Lola, she just talks:
habla bla bla bla"
Everyone is worried
searching searching searching
the neighbors were all here.
the police and their dogs.
Even a helicopter deployed from Barcelona.
You were in the newspaper.
Lost woman. 88 years old.
Almost 24 hours you were gone.
We all knew everything would be fine,
but then it started to get dark, cold...
But we still thought everything would probably be okay.
I thought, but i wanted to take a picture of you,
with the parrot on your shoulder,
puppies at your feet.
I dreamt they found you,
sitting under a tree.
In the morning, someone found you
with dirt all over,
talking your talk.
You were fine, of course.
And now you´re back sweeping.
sweeping and talking and laughing.
You just went for a walk.
No pasa nada.


So, i don´t know where i´m going next yet, but i´ll be at el xop until at least the end of the week.
I love you guys, and feel free to comment, even just to say hi, just so i know people are reading this thing. Love you all...

HOLA!!!
yes, i´ve made it to spain, and i´m quite happy about this. i got here just last night.
hmmm...i haven´t written since i left la cite des insectes, so let me tell you about la sorga, and my short time there. my hosts from the first place gave me a ride. on the way, we stopped at lascaux, which is a prehistoric site with cave paintings. it was pretty cool, and you couldn´t even tell that it was a replica of the real thing. La Sorga, which means the source in a dialect of French, is by the Dordogne River, which is a really beautiful area. It looked like a perfect river for canoeing on, but alas, as has been my fate until now, i could not find anyone to go on a boat with me and row, row, row, gently down the stream... Foie gras is really popular in this area. It has something to do with geese and fattening them up a lot, but supposedly it´s really good.

At La Sorga, only 2 of the members were there, Liam and Aymeric. The others were all off on vacation, or living somewhere else for the winter, or studying in another country. Even Aymeric left after a week to go work in Algeria, leaving Liam, and another wwoofer and i there. Oh, and there are even more kitties at this place, 8 or 9 i think, and three of them blind. Even though i was only there for a week and a half, the place changed a lot while i was there. They built an extension onto the caravan, where the kitchen and main communal area are, making it twice as big.
I helped a little with the extension, mostly just putting up insulation. I also did some work in the gardens, and collected some walnuts and huge squashes. I did a lot of cleaning too. and wood collecting, moving, and storing.
They all have their own separate houses built out in the woods...yurts and houses built from wood and lime/straw. They have built the foundation for a main living space that is going to be quite big compared to the caravan, and it´s going to built with straw bales. I would really love to go back there in the spring or summer because there are a lot more people there, and kids running around, and abundant gardens.
Again, i didn´t have to worry about not speaking french because Aymeric spoke really good english, and Liam is from England, so only when some other friends came over occasionally did i have to sit there and try to figure out what was going on. I was getting quite good at participating in conversations without knowing what´s being said. I just had to make sure sometimes that they weren´t laughing at me. They said they weren´t.


So La Sorga was cool, but it was cold, and not Spain, so i decided to leave yesterday. I hitchhiked from Le Muscle, France to Figueres, Spain. Oh, and they don´t call it hitchhiking here, they call it autostop. So i got a ride from La Sorga to the bottom of the hill from a woman and her daughter. Then a guy from Belgium, who is a roofmaker, gave me a ride to Sarlat. Then, Fred, a truck driver drove me to Cahors. He didn´t speak much english, so it was a little hard to talk, but we did anyway. Then a guy who looked like he could have gone to Naropa picked me up and took me to the motorway to get a better ride. Another truckdriver took me to Toulouse, and he didn´t speak English at all. We spent a lot of time looking at the map and pointing and smiling and saying things that the other didn´t understand...then my last ride, another truckdriver, Julio from Barcelona, took me all the way to the campground in Figueres. He spoke pretty good English, and even bought me some coffee and potato chips at the gas station. I was actually amazed at how easy the day went. I never waited more than 5 minutes for a ride, and made it to Spain before dark, so that when i was rigging up my little tent out of tarp and rope and sticks, i could do it in the light.

today, i am going to the Salvador Dali museum here in Figueres, and then maybe taking a train or bus to Lleida, which is a little bit west of Barcelona, to go to my next wwoof farm, el xop.

hasta luego

So, my two weeks is almost over here. My hosts have been gracious enough to offer me a ride to the next place i will be wwoofing at since it is only an hour or so away. 2 weeks has seemed to go by quickly, but i also felt at home very quickly too, and it is a little sad for me to be leaving.
As far as my work here goes, i have been mostly working in the gardens. I rescued an apple tree from honeysuckle vine, which is quite strong, and blackberry brambles, which are quite thorny. Before i started this job, i had no idea there was even an apple tree in there. Other than the biting and scratching of the blackberry, i have been really enjoying this work. I get to climb trees, be outside, see the beautiful view whenever i want, hear the birds singing.... sometimes it is so quiet here that if i open the window, i can hear the cows chewing their grass. i also get a lot of time to ponder how silly we humans are. We create so much work for ourselves when we decide we want to control nature. We like some plants, we don't like others. We want to save some plants by killing others. I'm not saying we should just let the invasive plants take over our gardens. These are just the thoughts that i have when i spend hours at war in the garden. The only reason it was so bad though is because the people who owned the place before Jim and Regine haven't been working on it. They only bought this place last March.
Since it is a holiday in France, i think mostly just for the kids (they get a week off from school), the museum was open on Wednesday. It was really nice to see it open, and people visiting. Because of the holiday, one of Regine's friends from Paris, came with three children on Monday, and are here until Friday. It's been really interesting these past few days, sitting around the dinner table with 6 people, who are all speaking French, when i have no idea what's going on. I still find myself laughing though because I'm realizing words aren't actually that important when it comes to communication, at least in this context.
On Sunday, Jim and Regine and I went on a little day trip around the region. We drove through all of these small villages, where all the buildings are made of stone, and there's only one restaurant and one general store. We went to this one place with a bridge, which i have a picture of, and went for a walk, finding bugs and mushrooms everywhere. While we were driving, we came to a big flock? herd? yes herd of sheep. We got out and they were all baaaaaing at us, the lambs too. It was great! There were at least 50 of them. At the end of the day, we went to this really cool bar with local artwork and a shop, and they have live music there too sometimes. It kinda reminded me of Boulder. It made me wish i could speak French.




















Anyway.... i'm trying to figure out how to put captions on my pictures, but until then, you'll just have to figure it out for yourselves.
OH! I forgot. So Halloween. We didn't really get all dressed up, but i showed them how to make a jack-o-lantern, and we made one. I have a picture of that. And we had a music night. They have a million instruments: xylophone, drums, harmonica, guitar, violin, shakers, and lots of other cool noise makers. Plus Jim was on the computer playing with the sounds that people made into the microphone. So with 7 people and "a million" instruments, you can have a lot of fun. So, even though Halloween is not a big thing in France, we had a good one anyway. Jim told me that there's an organization in France that is trying to keep Halloween out of France because it is too American. I guess i can see that, maybe...but i like it.



If you want to check out the website, it's www.lacitedesinsectes.com

I love you all!

La Cite des Insectes

for those of you who do not speak french, that means, the city of insects. for those of you who are still curious, i am at a place that has an insect museum. Unfortunately, it is closed for the season, until spring, when the tourists come back. But there is still a family living here, Jim and Regine, and they still have work to do during the off-season, so i am here to help. So far, i've planted a lot of flower bulbs, and am working on cleaning out the theater, where they show short informational videos about insects. The whole point of the place is to show how important insects are, for biodiversity, the health of the earth, and our gardens, so there is a lot of information about the relationships between insects and plants. The museum is really great, and the gardens are beautiful.










i found this place through an organization called WWOOF, willing workers on organic farms. you can check out the website, www.wwoof.com --- as you can see, i probably couldn't do anything without the internet. if you don't know about it, you should. you can find people all around the world who will host you (feed you and shelter you) in exchange for work. Each place is different, so you can find pretty much any kind of experience you want. Anyway, i think it's really cool, and that's what i'm doing out here in europe, with practically no money, and lots of time.
Here, i am staying in the house with Jim and Regine, and 5 cats, 3 of which are little kittens. awwwwww. i love it. luckily it is okay that i don't speak french because Jim is from the UK and Regine is from France, but she speaks very good english. we eat really good food, including, since it is france, good bread and cheese all the time, and sometimes some good wine. one day, the three of us went for a walk, and picked mushrooms and gathered chestnuts, which we ate later that day and the next day. We are right near the center of france, in the region of Limousin, which is in the middle of nowhere (kinda, the nearest town, is only about 1o minutes away, and a big city, Limoges, is about an hour away). But i'm glad we are in the middle of nowhere because it is so so so beautiful: rolling hills with fields, trees, cows, the sky, clouds, and a house here and there, nothing else. It is quite nice to be out of the big cities, and in the countryside.

i met another wwoofer already, when i arrived here, keiran, who is from santa fe. but he left a few days after i got here. i know i will meet a lot of travellers as my journey goes on. i do wish i had a travelling companion, and hopefully i will find one. there are positive aspects of travelling alone as well as travelling with someone, so i am having a great time, but if any y'all homebodies wanna come over here and get your hands dirty, learn another language, meet some cool people, learn some stuff, you're welcome. i'll probably be here for a while, y'know.

so i am here at la cite des insectes for another week and a half, and am then off to another wwoof farm about an hour or two away. halloween is coming soon, and there is talk of a halloween party, but i don't know if it will happen. I said it would be cool if we turned the museum into a haunted house. The french don't really celebrate Halloween, but of course they know about it.
anywho.... life is good and kitty cats are cute. i love you all.

Berlin to Paris, in 3 days
please read disclaimer before reading if you haven't already :)






some people are into the architecture of churches and other buildings. i'm into the architecture of playgrounds. a playground i found in berlin....


....right down the street from this apartment building. i saw the pirate flag, the tibetan flag, some cool graffiti, and thought i would probably like these people that live here. too bad i don't speak german.


























some pictures of the East Side Gallery, i think the largest section of the Berlin Wall still standing, but don't quote me on that


after 3 days of getting used to being on my own, having to carry my own bags, figure out what i want to do with my day and where i want to eat all by myself, and e-mailing farms to see if i could come and work, i left the Sunflower Hostel in Berlin to follow the directions i had gotten from a girl in Berlin.
If you do not know about couchsurfing, you should really check it out, whether you are travelling yourself, or want to meet people that are travelling. www.couchsurfing.com . it hasn't actually worked for me yet, but i think the more people that do it, the better it will work. anyway, a girl from this website gave me very specific directions on how to get to the best place to hitchhike from berlin.
I almost took the train, but realized that would have been out of laziness, no other reason. I had also looked at this other website: www.digihitch.com , where people discuss hitchhiking experiences, and found that a lot of people said that it had worked for them. So with this support and the directions, i stuck out my thumb at this gas station/restaurant/rest stop.
After about 15 minutes, i got a ride from a nice German trucker. Unfortunately i speak no German, and he spoke no English, but we were able to communicate the basics. So he dropped me off a couple hours down the road at another rest stop like the last. A lot of nice people were stopping, but not going where i was going, towards france. I ended up sitting up all night in the 24-hour restaurant, which was really nice actually. Except that i had no bed, and could not speak the language of anyone there, it was fine. I read Mrs. Dalloway, ate when i was hungry, and was safe and warm the whole night.
Once it got light, i went out again, and stuck my thumb out. This time a really helpful Greek trucker picked me up, and he took me about 3 or 4 hours in the direction i was heading. We stopped at the trucker stop and had free coffee, and he dropped me off at another perfect place to get a ride.

This time, after about 45 minutes, a young Italian businessman in his speedy Mercedes picked me up and took me to Stuttgart. He dropped me off right outside the hostel, and told me where the best place was to get ice cream, as well as a general orientation of the city. a lot like the bus tour. only this time i got to experience the lack of speed limit on the autobahn. we were going

about 200 km/h when there was no speed limit. it was awesome!
once in stuttgart, i decided to stay the night in the hostel, and then take the train to Paris the next day. By the way, if you're ever in Germany, don't go to Stuttgart. But if you have to go to Stuttgart don't go to the DJH hostel on the hill. It was so institutional, with lights going off when there is no movement, and long hallways that i kept getting lost in. And if you find yourself having to go to that hostel, don't go there after no sleep the night before.




The train ride was really nice, but boring, compared to the last couple days. I got to Paris and found a great hostel, the Aloha hostel, where i met people from Australia, Greece, Italy, Canada, and Uruguay.




yay! i made it to Paris! i know, i know, of all things to take a picture of, why the eiffel tower? well, i was only there for one day, and thought i should at least go there.

So:
a bus tour through Germany. a very nice way to begin my journey.
who? : me, my mom, my grandparents, 3 aunts, 3 uncles, and 2 cousins. oh and about 30 other people.
where? : Weisbaden to Baden-Baden to Munich to Weimar to Rothenburg to Dresden to Berlin. In 14 days.
Highlights:
in weisbaden, some of us went to the circus, and not just any circus. This was Flic-Flac. Not that i've ever been to a circus before, but this is not what i usually imagine. You could go to the website and look at the pictures to see what i mean. www.flicflac.de (don't be thrown off by the german, go to aktuelles program).

in Munich, my cousins... who, by the way, are the coolest cousins ever, Stephen and Erin, and i couldn't have done this bus tour without them... so we went out to learn about nightlife in Germany. We walked a long time, almost gave up, until we found this place where all the clubs were. They are not mixed in with other stores and restaurants, but all in these certain areas, like a food court, only it's a club court. well, we were there around 10 at night and some of the clubs were not even open. We did not party all night, but we could have.

of all the cities, dresden was my favorite. it was not too big, and we didn't look like slobs compared to the rest of the people. i felt like i could have lived there pretty easily, if i knew german, which i don't.

berlin...
was cool. we tried some absinthe. i was expecting something a little more. and i spent a lot of time riding the underground and surface trains around the city.

I drank a lot of beer, ate a lot of food (although it is a little hard being vegetarian in germany), stayed in really nice hotels, and had a good time with the family. thanks mom for bringin me along.

(pictures coming soon)

Note: obviously this is just a little taste. maybe if you e-mail me, i will give you more details. i like to get e-mails.

DISCLAIMER:
if unconvential modes of travel make you uncomfortable or upset, and you do not want to think about it, then i should advise you that you may not want to read this. i contemplated not including these pieces of my adventure, for the sake of some people's peace of mind, but part of the reason i do it this way is because i know i can and i know i can do it safely, and also to show other people that it can be done and done safely. if i wanted to travel in a different way, i could have, but i chose to do it this way.

inspiration

here is a quote from a book i just read that pretty much sums up why i am travelling, and especially why i am travelling the way i am, a little bit differently than most people do:

"this is what it means to be an adventurer in our day: to give up creature comforts of the mind, to realize possibilities of imagination. Because everything around us says no you cannot do this, you cannot live without that, nothing is useful unless it's in service to money, to gain, to stability.

the adventurer gives in to tides of chaos, trusts the world to support her -- and in doing so turns her back on the fear and obedience she has been taught. she rejects the indoctrination of impossibility.

my adventure is a struggle for freedom."