Two Weeks

I can't believe that I've already been in Italy for two weeks! The time has just flown by! I've got a little bit of down-time right now so I'll give a short little update. Right now I am still in Orte and everything is still wonderful. People are always coming and going, though I'm sad to say that the two other helpers that were here have both left. But Elisabeth always has friends and people she knows stopping by and there is another helper, a girl from England, coming on the 11th. Elisabeth showed me a picture and she's pretty cute too! I plan on staying here until near the end of June, but then moving around a little after that.

My routine here is pretty simple and somewhat relaxing. I wouldn't even call it work, just helping out. The "farm" is very small, only a few acres, and mainly used to sustain food for the family and guests. There really isn't enough to sell to others, and so it's hard to call it a farm. One of the best ways to describe it was my first day here when we were preparing lunch. One of Elisabeth's friends was preparing lunch and told another helper to get some basil. She asked where, and right outside the house is an herb garden with the basil. Amazing! Elisabeth is a big advocate of self-sufficiency, growing organically and not being wasteful. It's amazing to see all of the ideas come from her head about how to re-use things and not waste anything. Everything gets put back into the environment or used in a way that isn't harmful to the Earth. Living here less than a week has already been a life-changing experience and is most definitely going to change the way I live when I get back home. I am learning so much about many different things.

Sunday I went into Rome to see the finale of the Giro d'Italia. We went a little bit late and so I just got there when they had started the presentation of the awards. However, I was able to make my way through the crowd to the front of the fence where many of the racers were waiting after the race. I'm not sure why they were there, but many of them were just hanging out. I got to take a ton of great photographs and even shook hands with Yaroslav Popovych and Jani Brajkovic!!! They are two riders from Lance Armstrong's team called Astana. I was so close I could talk to these guys and touch the $10,000 bikes that they ride!!! The pictures are of the winner, Denis Menchov, being congratulated after receiving his final "maglia rosa" and the trophy, and of how close I got to the bikes leaning against the fence. Cool stuff.

It's been a rainy past few days, but still fun. There was a German family that came to stay here for two days and today I went with them to Viterbo to the hot springs. There are natural hot springs that have been formed over thousands of years. Just like a hot tub in the open, but there is definitely a sulfur smell that comes up from the ground. Still very enjoyable though to relax in the naturally hot water!

Today is also Italy's independence day and everyone has off school and no one is working. It is called the Anniversary of the Republic that marked the fall of Fascism on June 2nd, 1946. After WWII on this day Italy abolished the monarchy and became a republic.

My plan now is to stay here for a few more weeks and then travel all over Europe using help exchange. I hope to visit Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, and Ireland, all by working on farms and helping people out! I already have my one in Cork, Ireland all set up, but I am still working on the ones in-between. Then I will fly home from Dublin at the beginning of October. I hope everything is going well with everyone back home! I miss everyone and hope to hear from you all. Thanks for the comments people have been writing, I changed the settings so that I think now anyone can post a comment, even if you don't have an account. Also you can e-mail me at matthew.harris12@gmail.com. Take care! Arrivederci!

Casale Hortensia

Well I made it to Casale Hortensia in Orte and what can I say, there are no words to describe how beautiful this place is. I uploaded some pictures, but they just don't do it justice. The farm is about 15 minutes from the train station and on top of a hill. When I say farm I don't mean giant farm like you would find in Iowa, I mean cherry trees, vegetable garden, raspberries, chickens, herb garden, and olive trees. Here it is a self-sustaining organic farm where almost everything eaten is grown here. There is a solar powered water heater and very little waste. It is not really a farm but more of a large house with everything else on the side, I don't know what to call it, but it's good! My host is Elisabeth and her daughter Caterina. Right now there are two other helpers here, Lauren and Keenen, but they are leaving in the next few days. Everyone is fantastic and there are really just no words.

I got here yesterday at 1:30 and had a great lunch with everyone and then dinner was great as well. I'm learning so much about how to cook and eat healthy, and just tips and tricks around the kitchen. In between Keenan and I painted an old bedroom and cleaned it up quite a bit to make it actually a place to sleep in.

Today we have been picking cherries by hand from the cherry tree, getting up on ladders and just picking and eating cherries all day! Quite the life! Just relaxing now on the patio, it feels good to sit and take it easy and do something different after walking and going non-stop in Florence and Rome. I'm definitely enjoying this way more than I thought! Buona giornata a tutti!

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!

Quick Facts

Hey all, I'm in Rome right now but I figured I would share a few quick things and update with a longer post a little later.

- In Italy everybody smokes, doesn't matter when or where but people just light up when they need a fix.
- Vespas are like mosquitos around here, bikes (actual bicycles) and vespas are just about equal to the number of cars here and there are absolutely no rules of the road. Running red lights, perfectly acceptable. Weaving into the opposite lane, no problem. 50 MPH in the middle of downtown through pedestrians, who cares? I think I would be scared for my life if I ever drove with anyone around here.
- Italian women are hot. All of them. It's just a matter of which ones are more beautiful since they all are.
- The train system here and throughout Europe is great. If they had something like this back home I bet people would travel much more, especially in the northeast.
- It's freakin' hot here. 90s everyday and no clouds. I got an instant tan after the first day.
- Wine is fantastic here, and I don't even really like wine. Too bad there's no way to bring any home.
- Finally, most all of the people I have met have been great. That's definitely one of the best things about traveling by yourself. There are so many oppotunities to meet new people and make great friends from all over the world.

Take care everyone! Ciao!

Crazy but Beautiful

Well, I finally made it to Florence! A plane, bus, plane, plane, night in a kitchen, and a train later and I’m here! I don’t know how to really update this briefly, so excuse me if it’s a little long.
I took my flights/bus from Chicago to London to Dublin to Pisa and just barely made my flight to Dublin from Pisa after having to go through security twice and paying a 40 pound fee to check my bag when in reality I didn’t need to (long story). But I did make all of my flights and got to Pisa around 11pm.
So I got to Pisa, arrived at the B&B and rang the bell. And rang, and rang, and rang. I went to the bar next door and the guy there said (although I could hardly understand him) that he didn’t have a key. I called the number I had for the place but my SIM card in my phone wasn’t activated and calling from my US phone got me no answer. I was prepared to go find a park to sleep in somewhere when two girls walking by helped get me into the building the B&B was in. I made it into the building, but not the apartment for the B&B. Still no answer when I knocked, so I decided to wait out the night on the stairs in the 3rd floor outside of the door, but a family coming back for the night felt bad for me and let me into the B&B. There was just a kitchen, bathroom, and three bedrooms. It turns out that although I had my reservation and showed it to people staying there, they overbooked the place and the three rooms were all occupied. So far no one I had met spoke any English by the way, I had been using my broken Italian to talk. After the people staying there talked about it, they felt bad for me and said to just sleep on the loveseat that was in the tiny kitchen. Went to bed at 2:30 and left 6 before the owner of the B&B came in the morning. Quite a first night!

Took the train to Florence in the morning (Friday) and stayed in a hostel with some cool guys. One of them who was from Montreal went with me to see the Giro d’Italia, which was AMAZING by the way. It was a few kilometers away from town so there were hardly any tourists and it was Italians just loving their sport. The Giro d’Italia is the second biggest cycling race in the world besides the Tour de France for those who didn’t know. I saw Lance Armstrong and everyone else that I watch on TV back in the states.
Another one of the guys in the hostel from Utah had been traveling for 3 months already, and I am actually staying with him in Rome for 2 nights next week so I can be there during the UEFA Champions League championship game, a very big soccer match for all of Europe. Then I’ll come back to Florence and start the search for a job!
I’m in a different hostel now since the other one was full for tonight, but tomorrow I am meeting with 3 different people to see apartments and places to live. Hopefully one of the three works out.
So far I’ve just walked around and taken it all in. Saw the bike race Friday, which was a good 4 hours on my feet, and today I just walked around to different parts of town. The food is fantastic and cheap if you aren’t in the touristy areas, most everyone is very friendly, and my Italian is definitely coming back to me! I’ve got my phone working now, the number is +39 366 3439532 just in case anyone wanted to know.
My next update won’t be nearly as long, but hopefully I’ll have found an apartment by then! Hope everyone at home is well, take care! Ciao!

A World of Change

Welcome to my blog! Now that I'm officially a graduate and don't start life in the "real world" until October, I've decided to take a trip to a totally new place without bringing much money, not having a place to stay, not having a job, and knowing absolutely no one.

I chose to live in Florence, Italy for a few reasons. First, I chose Italy because I took some Italian at Iowa and still know quite a bit. In any other country I'd be completely starting from scratch. Second, I've already been to Florence for a few days during spring break of 2006. I did all of the "touristy" stuff like see Michaelangelo's "David", the Uffizi Gallery with "The Birth of Venus", the famous Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio bridge. I'm sure I will still be enveloped by all of this during my time in Florence and experience it again, but because I've seen it all before I can start looking for a job and a place to live right away without being overwhelmed with excitement.

I leave at 9pm on Wednesday, May 20th from Chicago to London. Then it's London to Dublin and Dublin to Pisa, where I get in at 11:45pm on May 21st, Italy time. I'll either take a train or a bus from Pisa to Florence and let the adventure begin! The real reason I'm in a rush to get to Florence is to see the Giro d'Italia cycling race. It's the second biggest bike race in the world and also the 100th anniversary of it this year, so I'm pumped to see that come through in the afternoon on Friday the 22nd.

After that the real challenge begins. I have been talking to a few people on kijiji.it, which is like an Italian version of Craigslist, about a place to stay and I am meeting with a few during that first weekend I am there. Hopefully it all goes well and I can get settled in an apartment somewhere.

I'm also going to keep track of how much money I'm spending on my trip and update it here, so that I can if I've truly "made it" in Italy. My definition of making it and surviving would be finding a job and not ending up in the red in terms of money spent. Should be fun. So far with my one-way plane tickets, Italian SIM card for my phone, and ISIC student travel card, I've spent $358.65.

My Uncle Tom and Aunt Kathy are also working hard and contacting some people they know in Italy to try and help me find a place to work, I'm crossing my fingers that something works out. I am really free to go anywhere, even if it isn't in Florence. So if anybody knows anyone in Italy, hook a guy up!

That's it for now! I'll try to keep this blog updated every three or four days that I'm there and include a few pictures along the way. Next update I should have many things figured out as well as some great pictures of the Giro d'Italia and Lance Armstrong! Take care everyone!