Italy

I spent a lovely 5 days in Venice where I met some fabulous people.
After Venice I wwoofed on a vineyard outside of Florence for a week and a half. Ah vineyard life in Tuscany... soo difficult. On the vineyard there were 7 other wwoofers all working together. Our main task was tying up the vines so that when the grapes swell they would not be on the ground. This also involved thinning the plants and organizing the vines. Everyday Valentina, the owner would cook massive amazing meals. I have never eaten so well in my life. Huge huge fabulous home cooked Italian meals- it was a dream come true...especially after working so hard on the vineyard. And of course being on a vineyard we had all the Chianti we could drink!

Most nights the wwoofers would all cook together.. mostly influenced by Dara a woman from LA that is a fabulous cook. So I basically ate massive Italian meals constantly and had to be rolled away from the vineyard.
On my day off I went to Lucca and Pisa with two of my fellow wwoofers- Susanne from Alberta Canada and Aya from Israel.


The vineyard life was tiring and I felt the urge to get out of Schengen.
I went back to my favorite hostel in Venice for one night so I could arrange travel plans to Croatia with my friend Rosie. I met a girl, Kelly, from Austin, Texas and together we took the ferry over to Croatia. So now I have officially began my exile in Croatia and I'm going to the beach!
Will upload pics as soon as I can!

Governmental drama

Since my last blog I have been to Luzern, Zurich, Milan and Venice.
Luzern was gorgeous despite it being extremely windy. I spent a lovely day by the lake in Zurich with a friend Carlee from Canada. Milan was my first stop in Italy and I was thankful to have lots of good, cheap food at my disposal after expensive Switzerland.
Venice was awesome in every way. I met a bunch of amazing people and enjoyed several days of wandering the canals (aka getting lost) and constantly being impressed by the scenery.

In Venice I also discovered that my entire trip is going to have to change dramatically due to stupid governmental travel restrictions that I was unaware of until two days ago.

Here goes:
Schengen = most of the European Union not including UK, Ireland, Romania, Bulgaria and Cyprus

Apparently I am only allowed to be in the Shengan region of Europe for a maximum of 90 days within 180 days. That means once I have been in Shengan turf for 3 months I have to leave for 3 months before I can come back again.

On July 27th I will reach 90 days. Which would mean I am not allowed back until October 27th.

As this would completely screw up all of my plans for meeting up with Alli, Maya, Katie and Lauren... I am going to leave the Schengen region soon. Therefore I will have 25 days to spend in the Schengen region before October 27th.

I am hoping that I can leave long enough to be able to come back and meet up with each of my friends without breaking the law.

If anyone knows anything about this law or anything I can do to get around it... please let me know!

Since I will be exiled from Europe for awhile I will now be traveling to Croatia, Turkey, Israel and who knows where else. Kind of a blessing in disguise because I would love to visit all these places and they were not on my original itinerary... but it also means I will have to cancel several flights and will get to spend less time in Italy, Spain, Germany and several other countries.

Other than the stress of all this ridiculous crap I had no idea about until 2 days ago... things are going well. I'm working on a vineyard in Florence and it's lovely.

Just trying to stay optimistic and make the most out of the time I have despite the obvious downsides.
More to come soon!
Ciao!

Switzerland

(the mountains from left are the Eiger, the Monch, and the Jungfrau-the top of Europe-4158m)

I LOVE SWITZERLAND!
It is incredibly gorgeous here.
I had to skip Geneva and Luasanne because of no vacancies but that was alright with me because I wanted out of cities. I spent my first two nights in Iterlaken. There I was surrounded by people going skydiving, hang gliding, canyoning and every other extreme sport you can think of. I opted out doing anything extreme because it was incredibly expensive. I did enjoy walking around the town and the lakes. I met some awesome girls from Canada- Jenene and Melissa and we had an excellent time together.
After some fun and sun in Interlaken I went up the mountain to Lauterbrunnen (population= 2,480) where I spent three nights. With Lauterbrunnen as my base I spent 4 days exploring the the Jungfrau region. On my first day I walked to Trummelbach falls. It's these series of waterfalls inside a mountain, so it was like being in a cave with water flowing everywhere (reminded me of cave stream in NZ). Along the walk to the falls there were wildflowers everywhere and cows with bells that sounded like windchimes. The next day I hiked to two tiny towns: Murren (pop 440) and Gimmevald (pop 120!). The views were incredible along the hike! I was also very lucky to have such good weather.
On my last two days in the region I explored the other side of the mountain including the town Grindelvald (pop 3,840). I walked to the Balchapsee Lake which provided more amazing views. So basically I did was hiking hiking hiking.

Now I'm in Zermatt (Matterhorn area) enjoying.. more hiking! It's not quite as beautiful here as the Jungfrau region, but still very impressive.

Today I'm off to Luzern then Zurich, then Italy!

Here are some new pics!
http://www1.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2610708017/a=138185395_138185395/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Interlaken