A New Direction

Well maybe I should change the name of this blog....I'll get to that in a second. But as for where I'm at now, here's the scoop.

Since my last update I've stayed in a few different hostels in Florence (got bed bugs in one), and in the last one I met some really cool people. I walked around and saw most of Florence that I hadn't seen the first time I was there three years ago. I went up to this once church that was quite a hike and went inside just to look around and there were monks doing Gregorian chants in the crypt below the presbytery. It was quite an experience just to sit and listen.

My first hostel in Florence though I met this guy Jesse who was heading to Rome in a few days. I was going to head there to see the UEFA Cup Final. It's the biggest soccer match in all of Europe and the championship for every club soccer team. It's way bigger than the Superbowl in the US. It's so big that they put a ban on selling alcohol from 11:30pm the night before the game until 6:00am the day after the game. About 36 hours of no alcohol anywhere in Rome. So anyways, Jesse was looking for a place to stay his first two nights in Rome, so we decided to split a place at a B&B which is actually pretty decent for the price. We saw St. Peters and the Vatican Museum with the Sistine Chapel and we ended up watching the game tonight in an Irish pub where the most popular drink in the bar the entire night was Coke. Not rum and coke, straight coke. Fun stuff, huh? It was still a good time though and afterwards (Barcalona won 2-0) we headed to the Trevi Fountains and Spanish steps to check out the (sober) party going on. I'm not joking either, all of Rome was sober for the biggest game of the year.

Now for the big news....I've pretty much thrown my plan for the entire trip out the window and started on a different path. When I first got to Florence, it was difficult setting up meetings with people for apartments and also the places I did ask about jobs were telling me no. And a few things happened:

1) People I kept meeting told me about all of the fun and interesting places they had seen all over Europe.
2) I stayed in a hostel my second night in Florence that was just like a college dorm.
3) I realized that Florence was just packed with tourists and there was no escape.
4) Jesse told me about helpexchange.net

I realized I didn't want to limit myself to just one city in one country in Europe. There is so much to do while over here and I don't want to waste this chance. I also don't want to party all night and be packed in a city with a bunch of tourists, I want the true cultural experience of the places I go to. HelpExchange.net is a place for travelers and hosts to sign-up and exchange working on farms throughout the world for a place to stay and three meals per day. I checked it out and it seemed pretty awesome. I decided this is what I'm going to do for my time here in Europe.

After making an account and e-mailing 20-30 hosts to try and find a place to work that could take me immediately, tomorrow afternoon I'm headed to Orte, Italy to work on an organic farm/bed and breakfast!!! This is the farm: http://www.hortensiae.it/Home.html. I'm staying there until June 15th and then heading to the mountains in Northern Italy to work on another organic farm. I'm hoping to see the true Italian lifestyle as I work and live at these places for a few weeks at a time. There are usually other workers at the farm, so I wouldn't be alone and all of the hosts speak English. I'm actually really excited tomorrow to get out and experience what it's really like to live like an Italian.

That's the great thing about living day-by-day. You never know what opportunities are going to come along and change your life. So far I have been moving to new places every night not knowing what I'm going to do or where I'm going to go the next day and it's been pretty great. Now that I've got a plan for something I'm excited about is even better. I gotta get to bed though, big day tomorrow. Buonanotte!