Tree Houses, Bike Riding, Dog Houses, Gardening.....and Running

Well I've spent my entire time here in Ireland not writing in the blog and barely writing in my journal, but I guess that's a good thing and means I was enjoying my last couple weeks in Europe quite a bit. Today is my last day here in Castletownshend and tonight I start on my way to Cork to go to Scotland on Saturday. I've had quite a bit of fun here and I can honestly say that life here is quite a bit like living at home, except the scenery is way better out here.

For the most part daily life around here is pretty relaxed. I wake up about 8 or 8:30 and make myself some breakfast of whatever, usually eggs since the chickens seem to shoot out quite a few. Barbara's up then too and Reuben is up a little bit later and goes to school around 9:30. So we don't really start working until 9:30 or 10. I'll work about two hours, have some lunch, and work about 2 hours more after eating until 2 or so. Most of the work has been in the garden making boxes for vegetables and such and also preparing the land and making it level. Also weeding, I'm really good at weeding now. Also mowing the lawn and getting the cottages ready for guests and such. That's pretty much about it for work around here.

Most of the other time is spend just somewhat exploring on my own and playing with Reuben. I help him with his homework when he comes back from school and then either go to work on his tree house or whatever he feels like doing at the time. On Monday I actually taught him how to ride his bike! He was pretty proud of that (as was I) and now he's riding around like a madman! We're also in the middle of building a doghouse that probably needs to be finished today or else it never will be...

On my own I've done some exploring, but mostly just hung out since we didn't have a bike pump until early this week. The other day I went up to a place called Lough Hyne. It's a reservoir connected with the ocean that has strange tidefalls and gets different marine life because of it. There's also a huge hill you can walk up (takes about 30-45 min) and get great views from the top! I took a few pics to try and make a panorama so we will see how it turns out. Most of my time exploring though has been while I'm running and didn't have a camera, which was quite a shame. I've run between 60-70 miles while I've been here in Ireland and have had some of the most amazing views at different places, especially on the coastline. It's just too bad I didn't have my camera!

I've had quite a good time here though and can honestly say I'd come back in a few years or really recommend it to anyone who's looking for a place to stay in Ireland. Barbara does a fantastic job with her cottages and I told her that if every hotel/B&B kept their places as clean as she does I'd stay in hotels much more often!

I'm heading off tonight though to Cork, and to Dublin to explore there a little bit tomorrow. Sleeping in the Dublin airport on Friday night for an early flight to Edinburgh on Saturday morning. Train up to Inverness takes me to Loch Ness and the Loch Ness Marathon on Sunday morning!!! Very excited for this race because it's actually the first race of any kind that I've had since my surgery last year on October 10th. It's taken a year but I'm definitely ready again! The forecast is for a low up in Scotland of below 30 degrees though, so it'll be quite interesting.

Monday morning I take the train back down to Edinburgh to explore there for the day/night and on Tuesday I come home! I'm excited and sad at the same time I guess you could say. It's been a fun 4.5 months here, but I miss not having to live out of a bag the size of carry-on luggage and also miss biking and Mexican food! The first thing I think I'm going to do when I get back is go for a bike ride and then head to Chipotle....Or maybe take a bike ride TO Chipotle!

Hope everyone is doing well at home...might get another chance to post but I might not. Take care and see ya soon!
Monday morining I'm

Green, green, green.....and gray.

Alright so I've been in Ireland for about 5 days now and couldn't have asked for a better place to stay! My travels from Portugal started Tuesday the 15th with my sleeping in the Lagos bus station because my host wouldn't take me there in the morning at 6:15. It was too early for her despite her having nothing else to do that day so I slept in the cold at the bus station. Took the bus to Sevilla though, and then a train to Madrid. Camped out at the Madrid airport on Wednesday night and flew to Dublin Thursday morning. After a train to Cork and a bus to Skibbereen I finally made it!



My host here is Barbara and her 8 year-old son Reuben. Barbara runs Barbara's Cottages (www.barbarascottages.com), which she built herself over the last four years. Quite an accomplishment to do all on her own and the cottages are definitely well put together. Check out the website for pictures!







Barbara and Reuben are great though. Work here is pretty light and involves mostly a few hours in the morning and then helping Reuben with his homework after he gets home from school. So far here I've mowed the lawn, dug up some potatoes, strimmed the tall grass around the garden, and worked in the garden quite a bit just in general.



On Friday Barbara's nephews came over from Scotland for a couple nights and I hung out with them over the weekend. We went to a few pubs and a nightclub on Saturday night and each time I go out to Skibbereen I like it more and more. It's really a cool little town. I've met quite a few people here, definitely more in the first 2 days than I did my entire trip in Portugal.

Barbara's friend Joe took us fishing on Sunday, caught quite a few Mackerel and some nice, big Pollock. Had a great time though and got some amazing views while on the boat! I've been running quite a bit here too for the race and I've been getting to go some amazing places that I keep stumbling upon just by accident. The scenery out here is so fantastic with just endless green!





More to come later!

Portugal Recap

Alright then here are a few of my Portugal pictures for those who want to see...make sure to check out the Spain ones below too!







First one is of sunrise one morning. Second is a view of the beach we lived near from the cliffs above. Third is of the great little dog Lucky, always ready for someone to throw him a ball and never gets tired! Fourth is of a beach in Lagos, the nearest town, and fifth is of the great unspoiled beach we lived near, hardly any people whatsoever! Kind of a shame, but I didn't really take many pictures from Portugal. I've got a good video of where I stayed at, but can't post it. Ireland update coming soon!

Recap of Spain, Portugal

Alright so where to begin....Ireland is absolutely great! It's much more than I thought it would be and certainly more beautiful. In case anyone wants to look me up, I'm in a tiny town called Skibbereen in the very southwest of Ireland. It's a really nice small town where everyone in the area knows EVERYONE. No street names or street numbers here, the post people just know who lives where. But I'll get to Ireland in the next post (hopefully tomorrow, no promises). First I'll try to post up my pictures with some short descriptions from Spain and then Portugal. Hope you like them!






So as for Spain from top to bottom, just a quick description. 1) Kristian and I at the beach condo in Almerimar, 2) Kristian getting attacked by Serena, 3) Me eating snails, 4) Maja and Pjuskiis, and 5) Part of the great view from where we lived in Spain in the Alpujarras. I'll do the same thing with Portugal, then a little about Ireland!

Well......

I'll keep this short because I really don't like posting without pictures and I'm sure most of you don't enjoy reading as much without pictures.

Today is my last day in Portugal, and I'll save the details for when I get back home I suppose. My time here has been nice...but interesting also. To sum it up though, I was here about 4 days, my host Susie had to go to Spain for 5 days, and I have been here another 4 days before I leave tomorrow. The area here is beautiful with the great beaches and perfect weather everyday. Overall I think this HelpX left a little something to be desired though, like I said I'll save the details for back home. I have had a good time experiencing it all though. Nothing is ever a mistake in my book, only a lesson to grow and learn about myself.

Off to Ireland tomorrow! Staying with my host Barbara and her 8 year-old son Reuben in a tiny town called Castletownshend on the south coast. Leave there on October 2nd and then to Scotland for the Loch Ness Marathon! I've been training pretty hard for that and it should be a good one.

While this post is pretty short though, I'll try to list all of the cities I've slept a night in just to get a feel for how I've been traveling around and the places I've seen. I figured it'd be interesting for all of you to see as well...

Pisa, Italy (Couch of apartment)
Florence, Italy
Rome, Italy
Orte, Italy
Venice, Italy
Purbach, Austria
Budapest, Austria
Frankfurt, Germany (Train Station)
Damiatte, France
Carcassonne, France (Car)
Avignon, France (Soccer Field)
Montpelier, France (Train Station)
Girona, Spain (Airport)
Tutzing, Germany
Malaga, Spain (Airport)
Lobras, Spain
Figueira, Portugal

I think there may have been a couple cities I left out, but it's been quite the ride! Hope everyone is well at home, pictures for sure from Ireland!

Back to the Stone Age

Alright here's the quick low down while we still have the sun up for power.

1) I'm here in Figueira, Portugal on the south coast inbetween Lagos and Sagres.
2) There is a secluded, untouched beach here in a national park just 5-10 minutes walk away with no hotels, not a whole lot of people, and it's absolutely BEAUTIFUL!
3) We're running on solar and wind power. I haven't asked (Susie doesn't like questions) but I don't think we're able to run more than a combined 100 watts at a time...think about it and you'll understand how little that is. The computer plugged in is about 60-65 watts. I think I'm back in the stone age.
4) Also have rain water here with gravity doing the work for pressure. Bottled water for drinking, but everything else is from stored rain. My shower is a camping bag that you put on the roof and it comes down on me. Also using the good old-fashioned compost loo.
5) Susie, my host, is an amazing cook, one of the best I've ever met. She knows so much about different foods that it blows me away. We eat only organic vegetarian and it's delicious.
6) Didn't know this before I came, but the south coast of Portugal/Spain is one of the windiest places on Earth as far as I can tell. There is a constant 20-30 MPH wind blowing all the time.

That's it for now, if I tried to post pictures the house might explode, so I'll wait until Ireland. Having fun here, hard to believe it's already been 3.5 months though.

Hasta luego España.....Olá Portugal!

So this kinda sucks not being able to post pictures and it definitely makes this blog less interesting, but I guess I have to deal with it....hard to describe what's going on here though without really seeing it.

Kristian and Maja have a place that they own on the coast of southern Spain in Almerimar, very close to Almerìa. Last weekend we went down there for a couple days and it is absolutely great. Right next to the beach and on a clear day you are able to see the mountains in Africa! The only thing not great about it was the humidity...take 95-100 degrees and add in 85-90% humidity and it's just ridiculous. It was nice to be there for a couple of days though and enjoy it all. Kristian and Maja even took me out to a nice restaurant to celebrate their anniversary with them. They are absolutely some of the nicest hosts I've had while in Europe.

This past week we worked really hard on getting the infrastructure for the electricity installed. Right now we are on solar and generator power and Kristian and Maja finally got the papers for electricity after so many months and so we worked on building a house for the circuit breakers and also digging trenches for the cables and everything else that is needed. Hopefully they will have real electricity here in a week or two!

I've had a great time here in Spain though and I'm sad to go. What's interesting is that I'm starting to really not care about the main tourist attractions and big cities and instead I'm more focused on really living how people do out here and seeing what it's all about. I'm really only like an hour away from Granada here but I never got to see it because I was really having so much fun in the mountains. I'm sure I'll be back to Spain and to "Cortico Medico" to visit the mountain bike hotel when it's finished and I'll see the big cities, but for now it's really great to just take everything in like a local would.

Next up is southern Portugal where there is even less luxury. I'm staying with a woman west of Lagos in a national park very close to an unspoiled beach, definitely a change of pace from the mountains. She uses wind/solar power and rain water but everything seems to have been established for a few years and I think I'll be helping with smaller jobs around the place. Internet will be limited I'm sure so I'll post if I can, and hopefully some pictures this time!

Take care everyone, be home in a month!

Fiestas and Friends

I figure the day after a big fiesta is as good a day as any to update the blog. My hosts here are Kristian and Maja and yesterday was Kristian's birthday. We had a big fiesta here at "Cortico Medico" with lots of friends, it was quite a lot of fun.

I had quite a journey from Germany to London to Spain, quite a whirlwind of travel. From Germany to London it took about 13 hours from start to end, and London to Spain it was 25 hours. Many things happened in between Germany and Spain, including staying with a work friend of my Mom's and he took me to what is regarded as best restaurant in London (Scott's) for drinks and dinner. Turns out Leonardo DiCaprio and director Ridley Scott were sitting a few tables away discussing their new movie they are working on. Definitely a fun night, but the next day I was back to traveling and got to Spain on the 13th, the middle of August when every single day here is hot as hell between 95 and 100 degrees with total sunshine...

Spain is fantastic though! My hosts are Kristian and Maja, a Scandanavian couple who live here at "Cortico Medico". They have been here for 4 years and a lot of that time has been waiting for permits to get permission to build and also put electricity in. The Spainiards are extremely casual about everything and never in a rush to do anything, sometimes it can definitely get annoying if you aren't used to it. But Kristian and Maja purchased the 36 hectares here with over 4,500 almond trees and now they are ready to start building their house and everything else. The plan here is for a house and also a hotel based around mountain biking. This is a perfect place for it and plans for everything look really good!

So far here I've done quite a bit of cementing, built a new dog fence area for the puppies (there are two), helped out around the place in general, and also seen quite a bit of the Sierra Nevada Mountians here in southern Spain.

Not so much time here to really type because we always seem to be busy doing one thing or another, and when we are just relaxing the three of us are always sitting around the table outside with a beer having conversations. I'm having a wonderful time though and a week left until I set out to Portugal. Hasta luego!

For some reason I can't post any pictures while I'm here in Spain, so maybe in Portugal I can post them up...adios!

Still More Germany

I’m trying REALLY hard to update as much as possible, but I think I’m just having too good of a time out here! Right now I’m in Spain, but I think I left off in Germany and I had just visited Salzburg. Well I finished off in Germany by mountain biking in the German Alps for almost 5 hours, going to Munich, and having quite a great time around the farm!


About a day or so after my last post (the 5th) I headed to Garmisch, Germany to do some mountain biking in southern Germany. Some of you may have heard of it, Garmisch hosted the 1936 Winter Olympics and is very well known for its winter sports and outdoor activities. It’s very close to the Austrian border and absolutely beautiful! I was just blown away by all of the great mountain scenery….it was fantastic! I headed over to the Trek pro shop that they have there and rented a mountain bike, not really knowing what was in store for me. As it turns out after three hours of climbing up the mountain and a straight hour and a half of rocky downhill, it was one of the best times I have ever had on a bike! I was dead tired and covered in mud, but I couldn’t care less because those 4.5-5 hours were absolutely some of the best I have had in Europe. Just makes me miss home a little bit more though so I can get back on a bike!
One of the funniest parts of the bike ride thought was at the hut I turned around at after climbing up the mountain. I sat around for 20-30 minutes before going back downhill, but as soon as I sat down a helicopter came up to drop some supplies off. Then another came, and another, and another, and finally one more! The rest hut/oasis is so isolated that the only way to get supplies is a helicopter and when I was there it was just a constant stream of helicopters every 5-10 minutes dropping off supplies…..and of course the only supplies you need in Germany (as you can see from the picture) are kegs of delicious beer!


Two days later I headed to Munich to see the sights and was actually pleasantly surprised by all it had to offer. I honestly didn’t know what to expect but after walking around the city, it’s really a good-looking city that has a lot of character. There’s one main pedestrian street in the center with tons of shopping and everything like that where you find plenty of tourists and on the outer edge of town are the main sights like some of the churches and historical buildings. I don’t have much money so I didn’t go into any places except a church or two and some gardens, but I really liked Munich, too bad I wasn’t there for Oktoberfest!


Very close to Munich, only about a 20-minute train ride to the north is Dachau. At Dachau is where the Nazis had the first and largest concentration camp during World War II. Being there and seeing how large it was for myself, walking through the museum and memorials that have been set up there was a very humbling experience. I learn about all of these things in school about American history and the history of World War II and the Nazis but seeing it in person up close really turned everything I learned into reality and showed me how the war really was. The museum at the camp is in one of the buildings at the camp and all of the information and artifacts that are inside were just too much to look at with the time I had. To really see everything there I would say I needed at least 3-4 hours, but I only had 1.5-2. Dachau place I wish I had spent some more time at, but the time I did spend there was definitely worth it to see and put things into quite a different perspective.


The rest of last weekend Marlene and the kids had gone to northern Germany for a family thing and so for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday it was just Martin and myself on the farm with a little bit of help from the friends of the family. What made it an interesting weekend is that Martin speaks about 5 words of English and I speak about 5 words of German. So needless to say it was an interesting 3 days. Still lots of fun though as he took me to the beer garden in Tutzing and also a festival that was happening on Sunday. As long is I understood “Bier in Keller” (Beer in the cellar), it was all good.


Monday was my last day in Tutzing and I was truly sad to go. I had a great stay and met many people, but I’m starting to realize that two-three weeks at a place is a perfect amount of time and I was also excited to head to London for a night and also to go to Spain. Germany overall was fabulous though and I will definitely be back one year for Oktoberfest!


I’ve been in Spain now since the 13th of August, high in the mountains of the Alpujarras. It’s fabulous and the projects for building here are really incredible. I’ll post more in a day or so. Take care all!

Germany, Part Zwei

Alright, so here after a rainy day in Tutzing I can finish my update. Wednesday was fishing, Friday was the big party, and Sunday was Salzburg. There ya go, finished. Really though.....

About half of the riding done at Greinwaldhof (the farm) is therapeutic riding for kids with learning disabilities or behavioral problems. There is a school down the road called Tabaluga, which is where most of these kids go. Friday (the 31st) was the last day of school for all kids in Bavaria, they have a crazy school schedule. But now they are all on holiday and every year Martin and Marlene throw a party for the kids and also so that some of them can show off their riding that they have been practicing over the year, usually about 150-200 people come for the party. It's a really cool event for the kids, and was a really great event for me because there were tons of homemade German cakes and tons of grilled pork, sausages, and fish.....and a couple barrels of beer also! Me and the other helpers, Richard and Nina, helped with a lot of the setting up for the party and the drinking of the beer, good times all around.

Sunday (yesterday) I went to Salzburg, Austria for the day and have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the city. I wasn't expecting too much but it's a nice place to be for a day. They have some nice gardens and it's also where Mozart was born so the whole city has somewhat of a musical theme centered around Mozart. It was able to sucker 10 euro out of me to see the house where Mozart was born and also the house where he grew up. The best part was at the end of the day I was able to find the Augustiner brewery and have a nice, big 1L stein of beer in the beer garden.

So it's been a good past week here in Germany, I've really enjoyed my time here. The area around here is so beautiful too that I've gotten plenty of good running in also. For those who don't know, I'm going to be running the Loch Ness Marathon in Scotland on October 4th before I fly home, so I have plenty of training to do! Tomorrow I'm hoping to go mountain biking in the German Alps and later in the week head to Munich to see the city. Then off to Spain! Hope everyone is doing well at home!

I'm Still Alive!

I'm sure some of you have been wondering what I've been up to, maybe thinking I'm lying in a ditch somewhere on the side of a road. It's been 3 weeks since my last update and I'm happy to say that I'm doing just fine. I made my way through France, saw the Tour de France twice, hitchhiked with quite a few different people (most interesting was a charter bus full of French boy and girl scouts), found out how great Girona, Spain is for a day, and finally arrived here in Tutzing, Germany!

For those of you wondering about France, I've got plenty to tell and it was great but I'll try to fit it in some other time to keep this short.....so on to Germany!

I arrived in Tutzing, Germany on July 27th and when I got here I was absolutely amazed. Tutzing is a small town with about 10,000 people and it sits on Starnberger See (Starnberg Lake) about 30 minutes south of Munich. Looking at the lake from the train and the farm is just an amazing view with the blue water and the mountains in the background. The farm isn't on the lake itself, but driving up a road with lots of normal looking houses you come up to this huge farm on top of a hill that can see everything looking down, it's great!



I'm staying with the Greinwald family, Martin is a fisherman and Marlene takes care of the horses on the farm. They have two daughters about my age, Kati and Sophie, and Xaver is their 11 year-old son. So far everyone here has been really welcoming to me and has made me feel like a part of the family. It's hard to think that I've been here a week already, the time has really flown by! Anyway, there are about 30 horses here on the farm and the land they live on seems to stretch forever. Martin's family has lived here on in Tutzing for the past 500 years or so (not exaggerating) and everyone in Tutzing and around knows the family.

There were two other helpers here, a couple from England, but they left on Saturday. It's never lonely here though, people are always coming and going on the farm....from horse trainers to the kids' friends to all of the kids that ride to the owners of the bigger horses. Very busy here. My daily routine is pretty simple....we have breakfast around 8:00 and then bring in the ponies from the fields (They are really big ponies actually). We then have to muck out the stables of the ponies and if the big horses have been in the stables then we clean those as well. After that just make sure they have food and water and do whatever small jobs there are until about noon. Then in the evening we bring the ponies back to the fields (horses are always in the fields) and clean up their area. Pretty simple and not as bad as it sounds with the cleaning up shit part.

Wednesday the 29th I got up early to go fishing with Martin. He only has one net and usually puts it out the night before. Woke up about 5:30 and left the house for the boat. Oh, and they also have a boat house on the lake! Could it get any better? It's a really simple operation though...Martin has a small boat and one net about 300-400 yards long. What's funny though is that he barely speaks a word of English and lots of times you try to talk to him and end up using hand gestures and making sentences with one word, he's great. Our day fishing caught us about 120 fish, which is a great catch! Afterwards we brought them back and scaled, gutted, and cleaned the fish to bring to the shops and restaurants around the lake to sell. Crazy to think that a fish I caught in the morning is going to be eaten by someone for lunch or dinner! It was a ton of fun though and I'm sure I'll be back fishing a couple more times this week!














Almost time for breakfast now, so I'll make another post this afternoon.....I promise.

Austria to Hungary to France

Well....the past 10 days or so have been kind of a blur but I'll try to sum it up best I can.

4th of July was actually one of the best I ever had even though I was in Austria. Had two BBQs, first with Tascha's family nearby and the second one at night with some Hungarians from Budapest. Tascha hosts couchsurfing (some of you may have heard of it) and for the night was hosting 5 Hungarian girls and 1 guy who were biking around the lake that she lives by. We had a big BBQ and drank a bit and they offered to see if David and I wanted to bike to Hungary on the last part of their trip. So the next day we took some bikes and finished the trip in Sopron, Hungary. All in all it ended up being about a 100km (62 miles) bike for David and I going there and back. We ended up making pretty good friends with them though and they offered to let us stay in Budapest with one of them if we were to go....so on Tuesday, my last day at Tascha's, we decided to head over to Budapest. Start of a lonnnng couple days for me, I was awake for almost 65 hours straight....





Trying to keep things as cheap as possible, David and I tried our hand at hitchhiking to Budapest. Tascha dropped us off at a gas station on the highway and I said goodbye and we were holding up our signs for about 2 hours before we were able to get a ride from a Romanian guy. He was actually really nice and bought us both a 3-course lunch once we were in Hungary.


Budapest was fantastic though, I think it has to be one of my favorite cities in Europe so far, but maybe it was just the people we were with. David and I were only there from about 5pm to 11am but it was awesome. We stayed with our new friend Veronika and she and our other new friend Angi showed us all around the city until sunset. They seemed to know pretty much everything about Budapest so it was like we had our own personal tour guides telling us what everything was. Then we met up with the rest of the biking group at an outdoor bar and ended up staying out until about 4am or so. At this point I had been up for about 22 hours...





Before I left Budapest though, I had to see the thermal baths that everyone raves about though. Budapest is known as "Spa City" from all of the natural hot springs in the area, and some beautiful baths were built here over the past few centuries. I woke up at 6am and ran a few miles Gellert baths. I got there and just had to laugh...I was easily the only person under 45-50 there. It was full of old Hungarian men either naked or wearing cloth coverings. No wonder I was getting so many strange looks as I walked in. The baths were great though. It was cool to just sit and relax and take it all in, and walking out was the most refreshed I had felt in a long time. There wasn't any way I was taking pictures in there, but here's one I found with it all empty. Got back and it was time to start my journey to France... (awake 28/30 hours)

Boarded to train to go back to Vienna for a few hours, hung out in the park before taking my train from Vienna to Frankfurt, Germany. Got to Frankfurt about midnight, but had to take a 2-hour bus ride to the airport at 3am. My plane flew into Carcassonne, France and I took a couple trains to Toulouse, and then to Damiatte, where I am now. Arrived at the house at lunch time to see 13 other helpers at the table (still awake for about 52/54 hours) ! I've got plenty of stories from the past 4 days in France, but I'll save them for tomorrow...

Here's my list of cities so far that I've visited in Europe so you can get an idea of my route:

Florence, Italy
Rome, Italy
Orte, Italy
Venice, Italy
Purbach, Austria
Vienna, Austria
Budapest, Hungary
Damiatte, France

Take care everyone.....bonne nuit!

Austria Pics

Well I'm in France now, Damiatte to be exact, and I'll make a few posts to get up to speed with everything. Here are a few of my favorite pics from Austria before I sum it all up...






The pictures are of....me with my greased up food at the music festival, Tascha serving beer at the festival, my awesome new haircut before we shaved it off, me destroying stuff, Tascha's dad grilling out for the BBQ, our BBQ with the Hungarian girls before the bike ride the next day, and biking through Austria on our way to Hungary. Then it was off to Budapest!

Purbach!

Since I have limited Internet here in Austria I can’t upload pictures but I suppose I could give an update of what’s been happening here in Purbach. Like I said before, my host is Tascha and for the most part it is Tascha, David, and myself hanging out and fixing up the house. I’ll post the pictures once I get to my next place, but right now just too slow to upload.

Tascha got the house from her grandmother and has restored the entire house so far except for two rooms at the front end of it. During my time here David and I have taken up the flooring in the unfinished part and have prepared the electricity to be finished by the electrician, and also prepared the floors for cementing. We are going to pour the cement for the floor any day now, just waiting on a few things to get finished. We are (mostly David) also turning the floorboards into benches and cabinets to use around the house, knocking down/removing a brick room attached to the house, preparing the walls for plastering, doing general work on the house, and also cooking lots of great food and seeing the sights!

I have learned so much about construction that it almost makes me want to buy a run-down, foreclosed home in Chicago and fix it all up myself. I can see how satisfying it is to Tascha to restore this house into a home and I think it would be a great thing to do if the right situation came up.

I’m also continuing to learn about great food and cooking. Austria is mostly known for its fatty, heavy, greasy, and delicious foods, more specifically sausages, schnitzel, cakes and pastries, and wines. I never knew Austria produced so much wine, but everywhere we go all I see are fields and fields of grapes. Tascha’s grandfather actually owns a farm and produces a very good wine for the region and I saw where he makes it and everything…..very cool stuff.

Traveling-wise, we went to a three-day music festival called Donauinselfest last weekend. It’s a festival on the Danube River in Vienna that was pretty big with lots of artists from all over the world. There were only four that David and I recognized though…Daughtry, Razorlight, Snow Patrol, and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. Tascha and her friend Kati worked at a food/drink stand for the festival so David and I hung out and got free food and beer while we were there walking around.

So I’ve been to Vienna (Wien) and seen a little of the city, but mostly I’ve seen the area around where Tascha lives. Purbach is a small city of about 2,000, but it is connected with other small cities that surround the lake called Neusiedler See (Neusiedler Lake). It’s an area where locals from Vienna come to take vacations and relax….very beautiful, old and also very Austrian. I’ve been running on paths around here and it couldn’t get any better. Neusieler See is actually one of the largest lakes in all of Europe, but what’s interesting is that it is only about 6 feet deep across the entire thing! The best part about this area though is that the combination of the giant path around the lake (about 80 miles) that is completely paved along with the shallow lake makes for a perfect place to train for running races/triathlons. It really makes me wish I brought my bike here, but only running is still fantastic.

Not sure what else to say, I’m only here until July 8th before I head to Damiatte, France for a couple weeks. It’s a small town in the southwest of France, and I’m staying in a big house owned by an English woman. I love help exchanges, however I don’t necessarily like staying at a place for only 2.5 weeks at a time. But it’s really the only way if I want to see places while I’m here. I’d much rather spend a month like I did in Italy and get to know people and places that much better, this is still wonderful though.

That’s all for now, I’ll keep posting updates but no pictures for now. I’ll do all of those in one post once I get to France. Happy 4th of July everyone!

Tschuss!

Venice & Austria

Hey all,

Quick message here to let everyone know I am alive.....Right now I am in Purbach, Austria after spending a day in Venice on June 24th. I got to Austria on the 25th and everything has been great so far. My host is Tascha, she is 23 and right now in the process of restoring her house that was given to her when her grandmother passed away. There is another helper, David, here and also another guy, Tom, living here.

Internet is limited and slow so not many updates or pictures until I move on to my next place. I´m actually not even on my computer because it does not work with the internet. In a week or two when I go to my next place I´ll post an update with pictures and about Austria. Hope everyone is doing fine, take care!

And Happy Birthday Dad!

Arrivederci Italia!

I'm happy to say that I can now drive a car with a stick shift! Throughout my time here I have been slowly learning how to drive Elisabeth's Fiat Panda. It's a 5-speed and Elisabeth took me out once to show me how it works and after that she's sent me off on my own the rest of the times. Since I started I've gone to pick up the new helpers and also just run errands around town. It's something I've always wanted to learn and I did it! Since my last update on Wednesday I've gone to see a movie in Rome with Elisabeth, Catherine and two other people, had two other helpers come here, went to visit Perugia, and cleaned out a well.



We went to Rome to go see "Total Denial". It's a film about the conflict in Burma between the people of Burma and Total/Unocal Oil companies. Very interesting film made by one of Elisabeth's good friends, Milena Kaneva. The theatre was in Campo di Fiori and afterwards we all ate dinner in the middle of the square, it was a ton of fun.





Two other helpers also came here Thursday night, and I'm happy to say that they are still here and doing just fine, unlike Camilla. Their names are Katie and Emi, and they both go to school at Bennington College in Vermont. Katie is from Boston and Emi from Washington D.C. Very nice girls who should fit in just fine here I think.

The three of us went to Perugia yesterday (Sunday). Perugia is a international university city in the middle of Italy. All four of Elisabeth's children went to high school there and Timothèe, her son (17 y/o), is there now. After visiting there for a day, it makes me wish I studied there. Perugia is a awesome city with quite a few international students and just seems like a great place overall. Emi's cousin is currently there and we met up with her from the train and she showed us all around the city. If anyone reading this is thinking of studying abroad, check out Perugia!



Today Timothèe and I cleaned the well that filters the water from the river. It was about a meter deep and filled with dirty water and rocks about 1.5 meters high. Quite a job but it ended up being somewhat fun for some reason, not really sure why. I also learned today how to siphon from a hose. Pretty simple, but I'd never done it before (dirty/sandy water does not taste good by the way). We got it all done by 11am in about 4 hours.




Finally, as some of you may know, tomorrow is my last day here in Orte! I'm happy and sad at the same time. I've had quite a bit of fun here, but I am excited for my next place.......Purbach, Austria! In Purbach I am staying with a woman, Tascha. I'm not sure how old she is but she was a former HelpXer, and now she is trying it out as a host. I think for most of my stay I will be helping to restore a house that she has. Different than here at the farm, but should be fun nonetheless. She also lives right near an awesome lake!

The rest of my trip is planned out like this for those who are curious......June 24/25 - July 10th in Purbach, Austria.....July 10th - July 27th NOTHING.....July 27th - August 10th in Tutzing, Germany...August 13th - August 31st in Almeria, Spain.....August 31st - September 17th in Vila do Bispo, Portugal....and finally September 17th - October 5th in Castlehaven, Ireland!!!

That's it, if anyone has any good ideas or suggestions for countries to visit between July 10th and July 27th I'm open to visiting anywhere and checking if there is a help exchange. Let me hear your ideas! Have a great nice everyone, talk to you next from Austria!!!











Oh, and today we also made bread, plum marmalade, and nocino liquer. Here are the plums before the marmalade...

Planes, Helpers, The Beach, Water Bottles, & Parties!!!

Well this update is way overdue, especially since I said I would update more often. Starting NOW I will! The problem with not updating is that I don't even know where I left off. I usually have to go back and look at the picture to remember. The few days after my last update I hadn't really done much besides regular work around the house, but on Friday is when a bunch of stuff started happening.

Friday morning (the 12th) Elisabeth's friend Renato (we call him "The Plane Man") took me up in his single engine airplane and flew me around Orte and the surrounding towns, it was so awesome! I didn't know I was going to go until the day before, but we got up early and drive over to the "airport", which was really just a small hanger for 6 planes and a grass runway. You can see in the pictures what I mean. But it was so cool to fly up in a small plane like that. As far as I can remember I only had been in a helicopter once before,

and never a small plane. It was much quieter and much more relaxing than I had thought it would be, almost made me want to take lessons! Renato used to be a pilot for Alitalia airlines and now he just flies once a week. But I got great views of Orte, the surrounding towns, and even Elisabeth's house! The pictures are of the airplane, Renato and me, the runway, Elisabeth's house from the air, and Orte from the air. We were up in the air for about 15 minutes total and I saw quite a few things though. I think Renato has taken

everyone in Elisabeth's family up in the airplane at one point or another. He lives about 20 minutes away and has a farm of his own that he takes care of. He usually comes over for lunch or dinner once or twice a week, so I've gotten to chat with him before. Very nice of him to take me up in the plane though and definitely an exp erience I never would have had in Italy if I had just stayed in hostels in the big cities the entire time!



That was Friday, and on Thursday night we had another helper come here, the one I said was cute in the picture Elisabeth showed me. And while she was cute, she was definitely not cut out for working on a farm. Notice how I said "was"....we'll get to that later. Anyway though, she got here Thursday night and didn't wake up for breakfast until AFTER I got back from my plane ride, which was like 10:30-11:00. Not a good start, which she compounded by making excuses for it. Usually we work from 8-11 or 12, then rest and work a little in the afternoon. And yes I knew she didn't know anything about the house right away, but Catherine was there to give her some simple jobs if she would have woken up. It was all pretty much downhill from there. Camilla and Elisabeth are just different people and everytime Camilla wanted to help she would do it her own way and act like she was in her own house. I figure that going to someone's house to work is like a recipe....at first you follow the recipe and how it's done, then after you're used to it you make changes to do it your own way. Camilla didn't realize that and whenever she would do something wrong she would just make excuses and not admit she was wrong. On the other hand, Elisabeth didn't treat her very well and didn't give her much of a chance to let her learn. It was just a bad situation that didn't work out. She ended up leaving on Sunday....I can explain more at home if anyone wants to hear it all.

Sunday though, Camilla left with a friend of Elisabeth's son, Simone, and he had to drop her off at the beach on the Mediterranean Coast at Santa Marinella. I went with to check it out and it ended up being pretty cool. We ended up being there 5 hours while Simone was sailing. The water was great and the beach was pretty good.





Monday/Tuesday were simply work in the morning and then sit by the pool in the afternoon, pretty relaxing. Today Catherine had a party for the end of her school year with 8-10 of her friends over. They are all about 7-8 years younger than me and all only seemed to speak Italian, so I just hung out helping cook and sitting by the pool. I also had an interesting conversation with Elisabeth about water bottles. I'm against bottled water, it's simply bad for the environment. I've got one of those unbreakable Nalgene bottle that you just refill from the tap or a water fountain. I kept it in my bag until today since it was really hot outside so I filled it up and put it in the freezer. Two things wrong with this apparently: 1) Cold water is bad for your health and 2) Any type of plastic container is not allowed in the house, even if it's reusable....

Correct me if I'm wrong, but how in the hell is cold water bad for your health? Water is naturally cold in the mountains and from spring where people drink it. Sticking it in the refrigerator uses energy to make it cold, but there's no way it could be bad for your health. But please, someone correct me if I'm wrong. And secondly, I find it ridiculous that I can't use my own container that will never be thrown away. I use it to drink water simply because I have a lot at a time to drink that way. It's not really a big deal to live with at the house, we just have discussions about it all, but that's just an example of life here. Some stuff seriously just doesn't make sense.

I'm still having fun though, despite some different views and beliefs Elisabeth and I have, and there are two girls coming tomorrow from Boston. It will be nice to have some company, hopefully they are actually prepared to work and end up staying longer than 3 days.

This time I'll REALLY start to update more often. Thanks again for all of your comments and e-mails everyone! Ciao!

P.S. To make any of the photos bigger just drag them into your address bar at the top of the screen.

Life Lessons

It's been a week since my last update, and I'm happy to say that I'm still enjoying everything there is here in Orte! Last week I visited a few different towns around Orte, learned a few new skills around the farm, and just enjoyed being in Italy.

On Wednesday I went into lower Orte (there are two parts, upper and lower) with Elisabeth's friend Patricia into town. Patricia drove me around to some of the surrounding towns just to get a feel for everything that is here. We did kind of a loop to the north and saw places like Montecampano and Amelia, just driving through so I could see. Life is definitely much different out here, but not really comparable to back home. There are pros and cons with both styles of living. Elisabeth also has a beautiful apartment in upper Orte. Most towns in Italy are built into the highest point of a hill/mountain so they can overlook everything. Her apartment is just wonderful and has a great view of the countryside, if I ever came back here on a vacation I would definitely think of renting it out from her!


Thursday I went with Elisabeth on her way to work and she dropped me off in Tarquinia, a few miles from the Mediterranean coast. Tarquinia is an ancient city that used to be the main home of the Etruscan people, who live around 500-300 BC. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site and most famous for the Etruscan Necropolises. The Necropolis is a site where many ancient Etruscan tombs were discovered. There are over 6,000 tombs scattered throughout Tarquinia and many of them are pretty sophisticated and built into the ground with staircases and such. They also have paintings and artwork on the walls of the tombs, of which only 20 are open to the public. It was definitely pretty neat to see. There is also a museum that I went to in town that had quite a few artifacts. I like that type of history so it was pretty interesting to me, I just wish I knew more about it. The pictures are of shelters that were built to protect the tombs (they are all over the place) and also of inside one of the tombs underground.


There were a few guests at the house this weekend so I spent a lot of time making sure everyone had everything for meals and such and didn't do too much yard work, just kinda hangin' out and doing a few hours work per day. A new helper comes on the 11th and two more on the 15th, so it'll be fun to have some change in the house, especially since all three of them are girls....

Anyway though, I am learning quite a bit here in Orte, about simple things and about life in general. I've learned to drive a stick shift, or I should say learning. I drove once with Elisabeth so she could teach me and after that she sent me off on my own...talk about throwing me into the ocean! I've also learned how to make a great salad, bake loaves of bread from scratch, that olio (olive oil) is good on everything, and that alternative medicine can discover foods that are bad for my body. I'll have to go into that last one in more detail later.

But I suppose I should describe life around the house for everyone that's curious. I should start off by saying that it's extremely different and words aren't enough to describe it, you really have to live it to experience it. As I said before, Elisabeth is very in touch with nature and believes that nothing should be wasted if possible. Energy, water, food, materials, anything and everything gets put back into use in one way or another. The water is solar powered so it's best to take showers in the afternoon when the sun has been out. There's no garbage disposal, food scraps go to the chickens. Every meal is finished or turned into something else for later. The only scraps are from preparation. Milk from cereal and spoiled milk goes to the cats, water from washing the salad goes to the plants. Paper cartons are into the fireplace to start a fire. There are no plastic water bottles here, no big bags of garbage. Clothes hang to dry outside, no dryer. Everything we eat is either grown here or bought organically. The overall rule is that because everything comes from nature, we should try to return everything to nature without destroying it by burning or burying our garbage.

It's really hard to describe without experiencing it, but all in all I completely agree with her. Even after only being here at the house for two weeks, my whole way of viewing the world has been thrown upside-down. I hope that when I get home I can start to implement some of the things I have learned here into my own life, not only personally but also in a way where I can help spread the word about trying to protect nature.

I'm going to try to post updates more frequently so they're somewhat shorter. I hope everything is going well for everyone at home, keep the great comments and e-mails coming, I love to hear from people! Buona sera!