Croatia

Exile is heaven.

Pula, Croatia

I have been in Croatia for almost 20 days now and I am thoroughly enjoying myself. I have spent most of my time here on the beach. Actually I purchased a raft and I have spent most of my time floating in the Adriatic Sea. I started in Pula and traveled around with Kelli for a week. We went to these cute towns: Porec and Rovinj and then spent a few days on Island Rab. Kelli went on to Slovenia and I went to check out Island Krk before heading back to Pula.

Kelli and I with some silly Austrians we met on Island Rab.

In Pula I met up with my friends Rosie and Quentin whom I met in Venice. We have been traveling together for the past two weeks. After another few days in Pula where we met lots of new friends, Rosie, Quentin and I made our way to Novalja on Island Pag. It was kind of a last minute decision to go to Island Pag so by the time we arrived it was 9:40pm and we didn't have a place to stay. Luckily in Croatia renting apartments is simple because there are always locals around trying to rent them out. So we found an amazing apartment with two rooms, a kitchen, living room, tv and balcony overlooking the sea.
On our second night in Novalja we ran into two of our friends that we met in Pula- Christian and Matias from Argentina. Since our apartment was big enough for 5 people, they moved in with us. Novalja in known as the 'party beach' because a bus ride away from where we were staying is a beach lined with several clubs. We checked it out one night, but ended up having more fun just hanging at the apartment.

Quentin, me and Rosie on our balcony.

View from our balcony in Novalija.

After almost a week in Novalja the 5 of us headed to Split where we split ways. The Argentinian boys went on to Montenegro and Rosie, Quentin and I spent a few days in Split. Two nights ago we did a pub crawl which was run by a girl from Downey (in LA) and a guy from Wyoming. Our biggest incentive for doing the pub crawl was the 20% off discount at a Mexican restaurant the next day! The Mexican food was alright and I am traveling with a bottle of Tabasco but I really really just want a Nopales Burrito from La Cabana and some Tapatio. Today Rosie and Quentin went to England and I am going to the lavender scented Hvar Island.
Ciao for now!

pictures of Italia: http://www1.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2699771017/a=138185395_138185395/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

pictures of Croatia: http://www1.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2724193017/a=138185395_138185395/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

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

Seafood Sagas

As a newbie to the world of seafood consumption I have been stumbling a bit lately.

Mussels Mania:

I took myself out to dinner to celebrate the end of my wwoof experience and being back on the road. As I was in Montpellier I decided that seafood would be lovely. As usual the waitress came to take my order too early so I had to make a quick decision. She didn't speak any English. On the menu was a section "Moules & Frites"- I knew that frites are fries so the question is what is Moule? There were three options: Moules Maritime, Moules Fromage, and Moules something else. I didn't know what Moules was but I was sure that Moules Maritime involved something of the ocean and I went for it.

To my surprise... Moules turns out to be Mussels. Duh. And not a few mussels... a huge boat of mussels and fries. I was a little self conscious and felt that people were staring at me as I dove into this massive plate of mussels. I've eaten Mussels only 2 or 3 times and always when part of another dish like seafood pasta or risotta (Bonnie masterpieces). As I did when I ate the mussels with pasta... I carefully and dilligently forked out each little piece of mussel. It was a little difficult... but I made it through. As I was almost finished two other couples sitting near me ordered mussels. I was happy to see that they each ordered their own massive boat but I soon realized that the reason they were all staring at me was probably because I looked like an idiot trying to fork out my mussels when they just slobber them up with their hands. Whoops.

Shrimp Scandal:

Today I took myself out to lunch. As I am being frugal and self-catering most of my meals I am not really trying local cuisine that much because I want to save money. But alas I gave in and as I'm in Nice... I had to get seafood. So I ordered "Shrimp Basket." I figured that would be safe... not much you can do to shrimp to screw it up. First off... there was no basket involved. The shrimp were on ice and yeah there's not much you can do to screw up the shrimp especially if you don't do anything to them! Their heads were on them as well as their legs and everything! Again... wtf? I really didn't know what to do because I've only ever seen shrimp prepared without the heads and all that jazz. I managed to eat them after lots of struggles...but wow... another shock... another embaressing eating episode and a lot of shrimp head and shell mess.

Other than my interesting food interactions lately, everything is going fabulously. I have been in Nice for 3 days and I love love love it! It's beautiful, it's warm and it's the Mediterranean Sea.. what's not to love? I am pretty much just lounging on the beach and wandering around town everyday. Loving it. Met some awesome people at the hostel and last night we decided to go to Monaco to get a drink. Monaco is the second smallest country in the world.

Tomorrow I am going to Lyon and then over to Geneva, Switzerland!

Au revoir France!

WWOOF WWOOF and beyond

Overall my experience wwoofing was fabulous. The family was great and I got to do a lot of different tasks so the work was great as well. On one of my days off I walked 5km to a lake where I spend the day sun bathing and reading.

I cooked a few meals for the family... most notable would be the spicy Mexican dinner! I made really really spicy (almost too spicy for me) cheese enchiladas, guacamole, and tacos (red beans that i mashed and cooked to be similar to refried, mexican spiced rice, cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, creme fraiche aka sour cream, red peppers, tabasco sauce... basically the whole shabang). They loved it! The boys weren't incredibly fond of the spicyness but the girls loved it! It was pretty fun. They also looooved my chocolate chip banana bread.
I left the farm yesterday and I must say I am going to miss those fruits and veggies! It was a dream come true having all that produce at my finger tips!

Last night I spent the night in Séte. It's a cute little port town on the Mediterranean. Now I am in Montpellier and going to hit up the beach tomorrow. Then I'm going to relax in Nice for a few days and soak up some much desired sun. It's finally warm and I have been too cold for too long!
Au revoir!

a few new pics but no captions (sorry mom): http://www1.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2482770017/a=138185395_138185395/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

WWOOFing in the South of France

For the past 4 days I have been working on my first farm abroad. The farm is located near Cazeres which is near Toulouse in the Pyrenees mountains in the south of France. The farm is about 7 acres and run by a family. Stella and Granville are the parents to Cia (23) and Richie (19) and together the 4 of them do almost everything! They also have another son that is off working elsewhere. Cia and her boyfriend live in a different part of the house made into an apartment. They have a 6 month old daughter named TARA! The family has two dogs, Cashew and Paille (means straw in french and is pronounced like 'pie') They also have 9 friendly horses that roam the surrounding fields. The whole place is surrounded by trees and it is quite beautiful and serene.

So far I have done a lot of sowing and planting. I have sown several different types of lettuce and I have planted beans, beets, celery rave...I have also done some harvesting of beans, peas, spinach, romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce and cilantro. They are very kind and like to give their wwoofers nicer jobs since we are volunteers. My second day on the farm was Sunday- market day. We got up at 6am, drove into town and unloaded 2 van fulls of veggies and fruits. After setting up for two hours, the market lasts most of the day, from 9 to 3. We were extremely busy the entire time. Since I can't really understand what people are asking for, or how to say high numbers in French, I helped by keeping the fruit and vegetable boxes stocked up. It was quite hectic.

The internet cafe is closing so I must go. I'll try and update soon if they take me to town again.