Travel Like us!

I'd like to give a homework example for everyone to try this in your own town.  You don't have to go far away to get a sense of what it feels like.  I highly recommend you take a week to do this.  It will refresh all the things in your life that you enjoy and help them feel special again.

If you work you can just modify your schedule to do this while your working (i.e. take the bus/train or bicycle/walk to work and then do this with all the rest of the day/night).

Traveling Constantly
I'm not sure we have properly described how much different our travels really are from most peoples "vacations".  Think of this;
every 2.5 days you pack up everything you own into as small and lightweight as you can fit on your back. you venture off to the train or bus station to figure out what bus/train to take to your next destination. You travel for anywhere from 1 to 4 hours to arrive at your new town.  you get of the train/bus and get a gps lock to find your way to your new home.  You meet a brand new person/family and introduce your self.  We have brought many things to our couch surfer hosts, wine, chocolates, alcohol.  you get situated with them, put your things down, get situated in  your bed/couch and talk about the schedule ( dinner, plans to go out, what they want, what we want, how tired they/we are). hopefully decide on some sort of schedule for the night, maybe domain (tomorrow).

Homework for those who want to try this at home:
-You can do this alone, or with a teammate.
-Pack a backpack (no suitcases! they are too heavy) with a weeks worth of clothes, and comforts (only what you can carry as you won't have a car).
-Make some plans with friends for staying there for 2 nights (it's better to ask friends your NOT used to staying at their house, the less you know them the better), alternatively you make a profile on couchsurfing.org and ask real hosts on CS.
Note: You will need 3 different sets of people to stay with.  Do the planning via email,phone,txt for setting up your week of travel for each place.
-No car!  Do your travel with bus/train/ or calling friends to come get you.
-Make sure to carry your stuff for at least 1-2 hours each day you travel(every 3 days). just go on a walk if they are going to come pick you up.
-If you speak any other languages your REQUIRED to first speak in them to your host, then translate to english if they don't understand.  This is HUGE.  even if you suck at your 2nd language you need to speak it 100% of the time.
-Then set off!

Some things to remember!
-Be respectful at all times
-Bring something for your hosts (this requires you go out and find a store by foot or locate one before you arrive. no bringing anything from your house!)
-Your not allowed to help cook or clean that is your hosts responsibility, but ask anyway so they can say no
-Your not allowed to cook by yourself while staying with them, if you go out by yourself or your teammate you can buy food, but you must carry it in a day-pack  Set your goal of spending to something reasonable (i.e don't go out each meal and spend $20).  I'd say you should be able to get away with no more than $12-15 a day average in food.
-try and make some plans with your host, and some plans by yourself/teammates so you have a spread of time spent with them and spent apart. this works well if you work during the day for example.
-Your not allowed to visit any other friends you know while your on your journey, you can meet strangers and ask them out for dinner and activities, but nobody you know except your host (if you know them)

buoni viaggi ( good travels )

A Sicilian Christmas

In Catania, Sicily - a Christmas tree made
out of real cactus leaves, then painted gold!

Christmas is huge in Italy. In America, we think we've got the prize for over the top Christmas celebrations, but I think it's even bigger here. Each city we goes to has displays of lights strung between the buildings on the main streets, and every shop has a Christmas display. Fortunately for us, however, the endless repetitions of "Rockin' around the Christmas Tree" and "Jingle Bells" is not part of it.

There are some very curious new twists to Christmas here - the decorations include little Santas climbing up ladders to apartment balconies; the juxtaposition of a picture of Santa near a palm tree in Sicily (there are still flowers and blue skies here); and stacks of traditional Christmas cakes near the registers of every grocery store. 

Parade of Santa Lucia

And especially, now that we are in Sicily, there are the sweets. Although we've been told that these sweets are available year-round, I suspect that the displays get even more fantastic for Christmas time. Sicily is famous for its cannola, a crispy shell of pastry which is filled with a sweet fresh ricotta, and often edged with chopped pistachios, which grow here. There is also an endless parade of cookies. We had thought we would avoid the over-abundance of Christmas-time treats by traveling this holiday season, but that has definitely not been the case. Carb and sugar overload - and how tasty it has been!

Right now, we are staying in a lovely B&B in Siracusa, on the island of Ortigia. On Thursday night, we watched the parade of Santa Lucia (Saint Lucy) as the statue returned to her alcove in the Cathedral. St. Lucia is the patron saint of Siracusa - she is also celebrated many other places in the world, especially in Sweden. In Siracusa, the statue leaves the cathedral on December 13 and returns a week later on the 20th. There was even a fabulous fireworks display, which we could see from the roof of our B&B!!

We return on Monday to Catania, to the home of a lovely couchsurfing family, Massimo and Paola and their two teenaged children. They have generously opened their doors to us for Christmas. Over and over again as we've traveled in Italy, we have been blown away by the hospitality and generosity of our couchsurfing hosts. We greatly look forward to seeing the holiday with our Italian friends, and we're thinking of all of you at home! Buon Natale - Merry Christmas!

It's harvest time for oranges - and they are plentiful,
juicy, and cheap - 0.50 euros per kilo! :)

Locorotondo & Mozzarella fresca!!!

For five nights in Locorotondo, we were hosted by a fabulous couchsurfer, Antonio. He and his fiancee, Paola, treated us to wonderful food and conversation. We ate local cheese and wine; his mother cooked a fantastic dinner; we had potatoes baked in the oven with melted fresh-smoked mozzarella (amazing!!), and Paola made us risotto with saffron. And, last but definitely not least, we tried Antonio's homemade cognac and mirto - a liquor made from myrtle berries.

The incredibly fantastic highlight of our stay was to go behind the scenes at a local cheese shop. We were able to see the whole process of mozzarella making, which they make fresh each day. There are actually five types of mozzarella, ranging from very small balls, to larger fist sized pieces.

To make the mozzarella, the curds are added to a large basin, and very hot water is poured in, along with a pitcher mixed with hot water and salt. The cheese-maker stirs the mixture around, and then stretches it on a traditional wooden paddle. Over about 15 minutes, he can get the cheese to stretch above his head. Then, they put it into an extruder machine, which allowed them to pull off manageable chunks to form the smaller mozzarella types.

The mozzarella was incredibly stringy, moist, and sweet - not anything like what we call "mozzarella" in the states. Really, the US mozzarella does not deserve the name - what we ate here was heaven. The shop also makes a smoked mozzarella and some other aged cheeses. 

At about 6pm each night, local restaurants and shops come by to pick up their portion to sell. The mozzarella is put into tubs of water to keep it fresh. This was mozzarella made using cow milk (instead of water buffalo milk, which is made more in the Napoli area where it's wetter).

We intend on passing on our knowledge of how to make the best damn mozzarella when we come back! Yum....

Growth

What is it to be friends?  What is it to help them grow?  How do you help someone grow?  This is the challenge I undertake everyday in my life with myself and others around me.

What is it to be friends?

For me this is an elusive term.  I've never treated this word like any other. For me it is more transient. I feel friendship is like two planets orbiting around each other. Each drawing in the other with their magnetic gravitational pull.
When they are close, they draw each other in, comfort each other with their presence, and influence each other in remarkable ways.
When they are further apart, they have less impact on each others lives.  I think we are always in a flux between states with our friends and love ones.
There is always this changing state the way I feel with my friends.  That is why I have a hard time pin pointing what the word "friendship" is at any given time.  Sometimes I feel like an acquaintance, others a best friend, and everything else in-between.  It depends on how close I feel to them and how close I feel they are to me.

What is it to help someone grow?

I've always found that in my life I grow best when I'm uncomfortable.  When I'm in an unfamiliar situation or something new to me I do not fully understand.  When I'm uncomfortable my mind is more open, I seek out others perspectives and ways of seeing the world.
Getting into this state can be challenging or it can be very easy, depending on if you seeks it.  I find, ever more this state of unbalance in my situations helps me learn faster, helps me make better long term decisions, and overall makes me a better person.
This is why it is my goal as a friend to help my friends get into these uncomfortable positions in life.  I find more often than not, I cross the line and end up going just over this invisible barrier between comfort and uncomfortably.

I seek out this state with my friends, always re-updating myself with where they are at.  I seek to know them, to comfort them, and to help them grow by putting them in places they feel uncomfortable.  I only find out what others feel is uncomfortable by being with them in many situations, and being observant to how that situation makes them feel. This is different for everyone.

I have found this true in my own life.

Sassi di Matera

Last week our rambles took us to Matera, home to the famous cave dwellings of the Sassi. "Sassi di Matera" literally means "stones of Matera" - the people here built their homes straight into naturally formed caves. The city cascades down the hillsides of a large gorge, with the roofs of many homes literally forming the streets above. It's fascinating.

Matera is one of the oldest cities in Italy, and one of the earliest human sites. Unfortunately, the area was poverty-stricken until recently, as a population boom in the 1900's had caused caves to be overcrowded, with large families, and the infant mortality rate was over 50%.

We saw one cave set up as a museum which showed the daily life of a family. There was only three openings into the cave: the door, a window above the door, and a small window in the kitchen. Not a whole lot of light. In one corner a donkey or cow was kept, roped off - and in the back cave was room for another animal and a laying hen. Small children (family sizes were usually around 6 children) slept in the bottom drawers of the dresser. A large loom was rented in wintertime to make clothing. (Photo Link on the Right for more photos).

In the 1950's, the government forcibly moved 30,000 of the residents, causing Matera to become a ghost town. Recently the government became more tourist-oriented, which brought more people back.

Water cistern

We also saw examples of water collection - rain water would run off of roofs and down gutters into underground cisterns. The porous rock provided some natural filtration. Under one church was a more recent cistern, where a huge reservoir was  built as a backup water supply for the residents.

With its history echoing in our ears, Matera is still an incredible place to visit. The houses and some churches spring straight up from the cliffsides, and the view down the gorge is an amazing panorama. We hiked down to the river below and up to into the national park on the other side, where we poked around into empty caves and ate our lunch looking across the canyon at the city.

Trulli Land

Alberobello, a city of Trulli

We've moved! We're now all the way east across Italy, in the region of Puglia, in a particular area called the Valley of Itria (or in tourist terms: "Trulli Land.") The Valle d'Itria is known for a particular architecture style, found only here: the trulli, pronounced "true-ly."

In short, this region is exceptionally beautiful and green, and has flatter terrain, which has been welcome after the hills of Napoli. We even were able to go out for a 10k run - on paved road - which was novel because we've been walking mainly on cobblestone or sidewalks for the last three weeks. :) 

Trulli il Castagno - our doorway is on the left :)

For the first three nights in the Valley, we stayed at a lovely place called "Trulli il Castagno" or Trulli of the Chestnut. It was a fantastically lovely and relaxing place, and we had it all to ourselves (this is definitely not the tourist season here). Our abode was a renovated part of four trullis - each room is somewhat round, and the ceiling slopes up to the cone at the top. We had a kitchen, center dining space, bathroom, and bedroom, all within the trulli walls.

Trullo are everywhere in the countryside

I've been looking forward to this region since I first began researching our trip here - it is an architecturally amazing place. There are trullo everywhere here. Stone materials abound here, so the people of this place used them to construct these unique structures, and they made them without any mortar, simply "dry-stacking" stones on top of another, and filling an inbetween space with rubble. There are also bizillions of little dry-stone walls along every road as well. 

Today, we also visited another unique place - Grotta di Castellana, or Grottoes of Castellana. It's the largest cave system in Italy, with a 2km tour open to the public, with the culmination of the tour at the "Grotto Bianca" or White Grotto - a cave with only pure-white stalactites and stalagmites. It was spectacular - walls made out of quartz, and unusual formations and huge spaces. But - don't visit it in August! We had only 12 people on our tour; in August, the caves get 1,000 visitors a day, and it's a one-way tour in a couple of sections. 

Tomorrow we are heading to Matera to see the Sissi caves for a few days. Then we'll be back in this area, staying with our CS friend Antonio, perhaps helping him harvest his olive trees, and then flying from Bari to Catania, Sicily on the 11th!

Ultra Light Engineering

I've always been a solution finder.  So when the mosquitoes(zanzara) started in on us at Megan's house I had to find a solution.  My solution?  $11 ultralight curtain and $1 of wire from the local hardware store.  Here is my ultralight mosquitoes net solution that packs down to a almost flat solution

Tamara ended up getting the bites that night! :)  If conditions don't improve she will be making one for herself.



We are in Naples for the next day or two and then we are going over to Bari on the east side of Italy.

Siesta Snafoos

As we've been travelling around Italy, one of the things which we often run afoul of is siesta. In Italian culture, siesta is a beautiful concept - it is the period of the day where people can relax, digest after lunch (lunch is often about 1pm here), and catch a quick nap. Siesta begins about 1:30-2 pm and ends at 3:30 or 4 pm, sometimes as late as 4:30pm. Generally, most shops close so that the owner can go home to have lunch and a nap. As the summertimes can be brutally hot here, it's also a chance to escape the heat. After siesta ends, shops reopen and stay open much later than in the US, until 7pm or later.

This major church in Napoli was closed for siesta when
we visited. We arrived at 3pm, but it was closed until 4pm.

But, what does the siesta mean for the foreign traveller? Mainly, lots of problems. Arriving in a small town at siesta time means that nothing will be open; we have sat in cafes literally waiting for two hours until things open up again. Or, it means not being able to get groceries - for Thanksgiving, we tried to head to the supermarket to get wine and chocolate, and we smacked up against siesta yet again; it was 3:30pm and all the supermarkets were closed until 4:30. (Luckily, a tiny store nearby was open and had good wine prices - but no chocolate).

It also means problems for touring a city; we like to go out touring all day, but with siesta, this can mean that large churches can be closed when we want to visit, or smaller museums may close down for thist time period. As siesta doesn't exist in the US, we often forget about it and are constantly surprised when we run up against it. It's a common sigh we utter when it causes problems: "Ah, damn, it's siesta time."

Even in larger cities like Napoli, it is quite common for many of the shops to close down. Add to siesta the fact that Sundays are basically a dead period (practically everything is closed, there are fewer trains, and buses may be nonexistent) and travel can be a bit difficult. We try to plan our major travel for non-weekends, but siesta is a commonly re-occurring issue.

As I am writing, siesta is on my mind as I'm waiting for it to be 5pm - the time when the little neighborhood grocery store will open after siesta ends. My stomach is growling. Siesta is good for naps, but bad for food shopping! 10 minutes and counting until siesta is done...

Thanksgiving in Italy

Our Thanksgiving in Italy, with American friends

A Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family back home! We are thinking of you. :) Of the things we are grateful for, tonight we were very grateful to be hosted at a Thanksgiving dinner made by some friends of our American couchsurfing host.

It was a fabulous meal, and to top it all off, the dinner was on a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean sea. Bellissima! It's quite an extraordinary thing, to be able to celebrate a US holiday in a foreign country. Our friends here are all navy or military-based, so they are able to get otherwise hard-to-find ingredients. In an Italian supermarket, cranberries, whole turkeys, and cheddar cheese are generally impossible to get. :) We were very lucky to be there tonight!

We hope everyone at home has a wonderful dinner - we are grateful for all of you, and we miss you. Hugs from Europe!

The sunset!

Napoli's Hype

Herculaneum

Napoli (Naples in English) is a major city south of Rome. For many tourists, it is the furthest south they will consider traveling in Italy - Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius are here. Napoli has a bad rep for tourists - we hear about muggings, camera snatchings, the mafia, etc. Our guidebook advised us to be careful.

Even the northern Italians believe the hype. Three separate people, all living in Italy, told us to be very vigilant when visiting Napoli. They said: don't stand out, hide the valuables (don't even wear earrings), and watch out for tall people standing behind you (they might try to grab something). I had already read all of this, but when three people repeat it to you, almost verbatim, it starts to get spooky.
Needless to say, we arrived in Naples ready to do battle with the hordes of muggers. We latched our bags down tight, hid the electronics deep inside, and wiped any trace of friendliness (hard for us west coasters) off of our faces. Scowls in place (or semi-grimaces) we quick-marched to get from Napoli's central train station to our Couchsurfer's place.

Napoli on a busy Sunday

The local train getting there was jam-packed; we literally had to take off our bags to fit in the doorway (or we would have smashed the people around us, as our backpacks are large). But, we had no issues. And, we have had no issues since.
Granted, Napli is a grungier, dirtier city than many in northern Italy. And the people are more enthusiastic and louder - but I have not experienced any "in your face" Italian-ness which we heard so much about. And no real danger. Sure, tourists are always faced with the normal big-city stuff - guys trying to sell you umbrellas, taxi rides, tours, iphones, etc... but it's not that hard to wave them away. If an expensive camera is around your neck, and you are not protecting it, then that is a risk you are responsible for. No exception, whether it's Paris, Napoli, New York, etc.

The pizza!

My message - don't believe the hype on Napoli. We've been here 5 nights now, and it's a good place to visit. It is dirty, but Pompeii and Herculaneum were amazing. And the pizza, the pizza... you can find decent (and when I say decent, it beats 98% of everything in the States) pizza at least twice on every block. Even the delivery pizza is awesome. Huuuuge carb overloads. So, to those wondering if Napoli will be "too intense" to go visit - don't believe it. :)

Heroes Quest!

Computer games are in my opinion an essential part of learning complex techniques for surviving in this world. Role Playing Games offer us a way to build a complex set of tools for problem solving. However, most of us don't always apply our computer games in literal terms to our life.

To all heroes out there, Take Heed!

What all true heroes need on their quest first is a "meat sac of holding", as my ex roommate called it.  A bag to carry your weapons and armor in.  These are commonly called "backpacks"  in laymen terminology.   These have a few basic properties, the important one is inventory size, how much weapons and armor can you carry with you.  As any true hero knows, having a big enough inventory to carry around with you. There exists a trade off between the amount of stuff, the size of it, and it's weight.
BEWARE - To much weight and you risk becoming immobile.

There are 4 basic categories of you carry around with you.  Weapons, Armor, Tonics, and treasure/loot.

Weapons -
In this day and age, you can find weapons anywhere, and in any form.  Some of them can be bought/traded for, others you have to quest to gain the knowledge to carry around with you.  Here is a basic list of weapons that we carry thus far.
-Computer,Smart Phone, Internet, Leatherman Juice(multi-tool), lots of scrolls of knowledge on our area, a map with blue blinking dot of where you are at.

Armor-
Armor is essential in protecting you from the enemies of the area.  Here, that is mostly the weather god.  He commonly spits fire and thunder at you, rain, and sun. You must be prepared for it!  Some armor is not used all the time, but is readily needed should the enemy present itself.

You need to protect yourself from:
-The Tears of the gods(rain), with a waterproof jacket and pants, and heavy boots.
-The Thunder of the gods, with noise protection so you can sleep when the thunder comes.
-The Light of the gods, with good light weight clothing to cover your body and/or godscreen to lather on you to stay safe.
-The Temper of the gods (hot and cold), with proper clothing of both light and heavy kinds.

Tonics-
Tonics can be found most everywhere, but the true hero knows how to find the hidden cave with cheaper goods.  Tonics are important to ones health and keeping his stamina up.  They come in liquid and solid forms, a healthy balance of both is needed.  Local tonics are special because they can be extra tasty, but are never found again.  BEWARE, if you run out of tonics on your journey you must immediately seek out the nearest cave and replenish them.

Loot-
Loot is very important to us heroes.  It gives us much pleasure, especially if we have earned it, or pick it up faster than the other hero standing next to us. :)  However with all loot, one must eventually find a treasure box to hold it.  For us, they come in international flat rate shipping boxes.  Each medium sized treasure box costs around $50 to safely get back to our lair.   
BEWARE - Ship  only expensive loot, as shipping cheap loot can result in more money spent on shipping than the loot is worth.

With every quest, us heroes are continuously finding better armor and weapons and crafting higher and higher leveled gear to carry around.  This is true in real life as well.  You learn what is essential, and discard/sell older gear that isn't useful anymore.

Questing-
Every hero knows that the amount of time a quest will take is unknown, and may entail mini quests or side quests.  Each side quest must be done in order to get to the main quest completion.  For example, we quests out this morning to get to Naples. Our quest had a couple mini quests.  First, get from the house to town via our feet.  Second, to catch a bus leaving for the next bigger town with enough time to get to the train to get to the next bigger town, and so forth.  Scheduling these mini quests and allowing enough time to complete them is tricky.  If you cut it too close, you risk missing a mini quest, and have to go back and start the quest chain again(take the next bus you find, and jump on the next train heading south).  IF you leave to much time to complete the mini quests, you are left standing around twiddling  your thumbs.
BEWARE - always leave yourself options.  If you miss the bus, do you have enough time to walk to the town?  DO you have enough money to bribe a transport wagon to take you?

For all us heroes out there questing, good luck and stay safe and flexible.

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Finished - In the nick of time!

Wow,

So we finished up Saturday Morning with the olives for a deadline with the oil pressers at 11am.  We drove 15 "cassettes" or crates over which took 2 trips in her tiny car.  We weighed in at ~250Kilos, or ~551 lbs.  Here is the pic.

The full gallery is here: Here

It ended up taking about 2 hours to get in and out with the oil.  We brought home the 45liters or so of oil back in 2 canisters and set them up to settle.  The process was very fun to watch.  My favorite was the water/oil separators, there was a 2 stage process with 2 separators setup to extract the oil from the water. We ended up with 17% oil from the base weight, which is pretty good.  Last year, they got 20%, but some people, like the person right ahead of us only got 13%.

This process they have here in Parrano is one of the only truly cold presses around.  People come all the way from Firenze (Florence about an hour away, which is a long drive in Europe!).  They patented this unique process several years ago here.  By the way, for all you cold pressed olive connoisseurs, be aware, we learned that not all cold pressed oil is equal.  Most cold pressed is still heated, but they move the thermometer around to cooler places in the oil process away from the heat so they can call it cold pressed! The settling process takes ~15 days to clarify the oil.  It's a wonderful color like nothing out of a bottle, and the aroma is fantastic.

Luckily for us, we finished just in time.  For today all day it's been raining and stormy and now the lightning strikes and thunder fill the air.   Our work here with the olives is fineto(finished), but our work here is not done.  Tomorrow we set out to find a wet sander to sand her marble sink so it won't have standing water in it, as well as other tools for other projects around the house.

Buona Notte!

--------

La Lingua-
Buona Notte (Good Night, as in good night I/We going to bed)
Buona Serata (Good Night as in have a good rest of your evening, and I won't be seeing you again today, but not good night!)
Buona Sera (Good Evening, as in have a good evening, we might see each other later so we won't say goodbye for now)

Food!!!

We have started another thread of our blog for just food.  It's on the right hand side called TnDs Food.  and there is a link on that site to bring you back here.  We are back tracking right now and getting it caught up, have fun and enjoy our new findings.  we will be putting them into categories, so you can quickly find recipies for new and exciting foods.

La Raccolta delle Olive - The Olive Harvest!

Looking over the olive orchard

Today we began the olive harvest - la raccolta delle olive! We have been preparing for it since we arrived - Devlin has been diligently cutting the grass around the trees, we have been fixing holes in the nets (and the parachute!), pruning, and cleaning out blackberries. The weather has finally become good - we had to wait at least 2 days to let the olives dry out from the recent rain. Too much rain and too soon to harvest, and you will be pressing water, not oil!

We have our deadline: by Saturday at 3pm, the olives must go to the processing mill. Before then we have 50 trees to harvest. Although it is an "off" year - there are very few olives this year compared to last, there is still plenty to be done.

The parachute positioned under the first tree

How do you harvest an olive tree?

Step 1: position the parachute/net (we used the parachute only today) around the base of the tree. There is often more than one trunk! Olive trees can have 3 or 4 main trunks from the ground. Make sure the parachute covers this gap - it's easy to lose olives there. Overlap the edges of the parachute on one radius from the trunks.

Step 2: begin to harvest! Either use your hand to pick the olives individually, which we do when a tree has very few olives, or use a special plastic comb to pull the olives off the tree. Mostly, the leaves slide through the comb, but you do get some other debris (sticks, some leaves) that fall as well. We harvest every olive (a few missed ones get left "for the birds"): Devlin was up on the ladder most of the day, while Giovanna and I used combs on poles to reach the higher branches.

Step 3: go inside the tree to double check for missed olives. A ripe olive is black, a green one is unripe. But, some varieties of olives stay mostly green! It depends on the variety of olive (and there are a zillion!) We pick both the green and black: a good variety of olives will result in a richer oil. (Giovanna says that some people say a few sticks and leaves also add flavor, but I think that is just from laziness!) 

Step 4: once all the olives have been picked, carefully begin to gather up one side of the parachute, letting the olives roll down and accumulate. About midway, switch and go to the other edge, and repeat. Once all the olives are in one pile, pull out extra sticks/debris. At the mill, there is a machine to blow off the light debris, like leaves, but sticks are often too heavy and get left. (They also weigh your olives, so fewer sticks/leaves is better for that reason also). 

Step 5: gather up the olives in the parachute and place in special green plastic bins. Everyone seems to use the exact same type of bin here.

Step 6: pull the parachute to the next tree, and repeat.

During the olive harvest, it's important to keep working throughout the day, using as much of the daylight as possible. If you wait too long to finish the harvest, and let some olives sit, they can mold and turn bad. Normally, when not harvesting olives, we work from 8:30 to 1pm, have lunch, and then we can have the rest of the day off. At harvest time, we break for lunch, but then go back to it until the light fails.

By 3:30pm today, the low-slanting western light began to make the olives difficult to see. Green and black began to fade together, and we squinted against the harsh light. But, we pushed through to finish a row of olives which is mostly in the shade in the morning. (Today, we started late - we had to wait until 10am for the grass to be dry enough to harvest. Too much wet grass, and you get wet olives, which = mold.)

The day's harvest!

Tomorrow we begin again!
Pull out the parachute... :)

Transported to an alternate reality

Dropped shipped into the middle of nowhere, you wake up and nobody speaks your language.  They look the same, and act similar, and speak, but you can't understand them.

They signal to you to come for a film at the theater.  You get in the car and jump onto a toll highway where you get a ticket when you get on, and pay when you get off.  Along the way they play some musica that you understand, Loreena McKennitt, all the while he is speaking to you in a strange language.  You get to what looks like a theater with adverts on the outside and head on in.  Inside at the ticket booth you manage to ask for 2 tickets for Skyfall (the new james bond movie) which you know they don't have subtitles for and is in Italiano.  Here is the Ticket:

The first thing you see is what look to you like row number and a seat number.  You aren't sure as you don't know what fila and posto mean.  Strange you think to yourself, why is that on there.  Comparing the two tickets you see that both are in the same row, but have different seat numbers.

Upon entering the main booth area, a man takes your ticket and rips off the bottom, meanwhile the man your with is ushering you onward with a little haste.  He can't tell you that if you don't arrive before the film, they lock the doors and you can't get in.  You start walking down the hallways looking for #2 Zaffiso, which you guess is theater #2 with the name zaffiso?  You find it and walk in.  Inside you see a stadium seating arrangement for about 16 rows down to the floor.  Unlike the theaters in the US where the seats go to about 12 feet from the screen, you see a vast space of nothing but floor for 50-60 feet from screen to the first row.  Sure enough you find your row, and seat number and sit down.  there are very few people in the room.  you guess maybe 10% of the seats are full.  Everyone sits in their assigned seat, even if that means kicking 10 people down 2 seats so they can sit in theirs.WTF crosses your mind, it's almost completely empty and these people "have" to sit in their seat?  As the film starts everything sets in place and you begin to watch a crappy film in another tongue.  About half way through, right in the middle of the film, it stops.  A screen with "Intervallo" appears and the lights come on.  Huh?  Intermission lasts for about 4 min, and then strangely people sit back down and the film starts again.  It finishes and you get up and leave the theater like normale.

Everything seems very similar all the time, and yet you feel like everything around you is always not quite the same as you know.  You have to use all your brain to understand peoples intentions and physical movements to get a sense of understanding.  You have to wait for the people around you to act first, so you can re-learn how to act and behave.  You watch with intensity the interactions around you to get some baring on how you "should" act.  And above all you have to have patients and be flexible.  For you have joined for a moment in time an alternate reality where you and you alone have to relearn to be yourself in this new and similar world.

Wine, work, and the dolce festival

What a great day.  I engineered a brand new water trench in the cellar next door to direct the water leakage safely outside.  Here is a picture of it (a destra - to the right).  I engineered a new trench design for next to the driveway and it's on it's way to being done.








We found wine in bulk at the local wine shop.  Only in the country where wine is soo good and so cheap can you buy it by the liter, 3 liters at a time to be precise.  Here is the picture (a sinistra - to the left) of the jug that you can refill as many times as you want.  Full jug costs ~4.20 Euro or about $5.41!  That is 4 bottles of wine for less than an hour of work at minimum wage.

Work is going very well.  Settling down in one place has allowed me to really focus well.  There aren't distractions here.

Tonight we were able to go into town and take part in a sweets festival - La Festa di Dolci.  For 2.50 euro entrance we could walk around and eat all the locally made treats.  Our favorite was a riso(rice) fried nugget of yummyness.  It's a 3 day festival, so we will be back to see what is going on tomorrow.

We are really enjoying the language; Tamara is picking it up really well, I suck but am trying.

Each day brings new promise of things of old, present, and future. I really miss the life I had at the beginning of this year and the friends in my life.  I am always looking forward to new opportunities as they present themselves.

Parrano - Olive Prepping!

We are in the midst working towards the olive harvest.  As it rains off and on, we are able to get out and cut the grass, and clean the equipment for the new olive oil.  We made tentative plans with the person who will crush the olives and make the oil for Saturday as Giovannas daughter will be here with her husband and 2 girls.  Here is what the olives we picked for doing pickled recipes look like. 








Map of where we are:
http://goo.gl/maps/YvpvB


It's been nice to start to be able to build habits again.  Here is a picture of our lovley pizza that we make with our host ieri sera( last night).

Buona Notte

Ricetta per i Biscotti

For all our friends who are cooks/bakers back home, here is a recipe you must try! We arrived yesterday afternoon in Parrano, a small Italian town perched on a hill. Giovanna, our wonderful WWOOFing host for the next three weeks, made this fabulous and tasy (tasty = "molto buono" in Italian) Biscotti recipe for us.

Last winter was very unusual in Parrano - the snow was a meter and a half thick! Almost 4'! Giovanna ran out of eggs, and as she lives outside of Parrano (20 minutes walking), she wasn't able to get to the village for supplies. A nearby friend taught her this minimal biscuit recipe (recipe = "ricetta" in Italian), which requires only a few ingredients: flour, white wine, olive oil, and sugar.

Biscotti con olio et vino Ricetta
"Biscotti with olive oil and wine Recipe"

1. Use equal proportions of flour, olive oil, white wine, and sugar. For this recipe, use about 1/2 cup of each, and mix together. 
2. Add flour to the wet mix until saturated - the dough should not feel sticky, and you should be able to roll a small piece into a ball without pieces sticking to your hand.
3. Take a ping-pong ball sized piece, roll it into a short snake, roughly 4" long
4. Shape the piece as desired - we shaped them into little ribbons, and pressed the tail of one end over the other. Then place on a plate dusted in white sugar.
5. Bake at roughly 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Please note that I don't know the correct oven temperature - this is my best guess. :) 

Optional ingredients & changes:

• Use brown sugar instead of white in the main recipe
• Substitute whole wheat flours or other flours, in equal proportions with the white
• Giovanna added chopped ginger (pretty large-sized cubes of ginger) to the recipe, which added a fantastic flavor.
• Use other spices as desired - cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, etc

Flexible@Padova,Rovigo,Florence...

What is the number one thing they tell you when packing for traveling? Number one, anyone know? Common ones include "have a good time", or "stay safe".

Nobody tells you to be flexible.

Being flexible will save your life more often than knowing everything there is to know about traveling. In the last week alone, we've gotten out of amazingly crazy situations where being able to be flexible and cool headed saved us.

Today's Example: We were in the train station needing to buy a ticket to Florence. We went to the ticket counter after looking at the express tickets to ask some questions. We found tickets that were 13€ that was a 4.8hr train, or 20€ for 2.1hr train. Which did we pick? the faster more expensive one b/c it was leaving in 10 minutes and would get us there 2 hours faster. What did we forget? Which train station in Florence was it heading to? As it turned out, the one we chose was not the one we needed for our hotel... :( So we stop in Firenze Rifredi just north of the main station. I look up from my movie on my tablet at Tamara, as it's close to the time we were supposed to get off. She looked back and said it was not this one, we needed the central station, and it should be a couple minutes. Half an hour later I look up from my movie, and we are in the country heading towards Rome. Uh oh!

Being flexible when things don't go as "planned," or when there is no plan, will save your life.

We stopped in Padova for 2 nights, one at a hotel, and one with our first couch surfer! She was awesome. She was a Polish woman with really good english who shared our love of the crappy world and it's going on's. I learned a great deal about how the relationship/Italian culture works.

We trained to Rovigo for a night and stayed with another CSer. He was really nice and we all went out for dinner and got some regional foods. Here is Tamara having some coconut hot chocolate - yum!

We wanted to get closer to Fabro (the town closest by train to Parrano, our next stop) so we headed south to Florence today so we could split the travel time up and get to our bus out of Fabro on time the next day (there are only two buses to Parrano each day, one at 5:30am, and the other at 3:30pm. We will be arriving in Parrano tomorrow and should be there for a couple weeks.

We are both really looking forward to a consistent place for a while. It will be the longest we will have stayed anywhere since October 1st. Olive harvest here we come!

Venice! by GPS

If there was only one thing you could take with you when you depart from a known location, to an unknown location, it's offline GPS!  I can't tell you how many people are wandering around, looking at paper maps, as we whiz on by with our phone towards our location.   We can find almost everything even with slightly outdated POIs (points of interest).  Turn by turn navigation by foot is the ultimate in finding ones' way and discovering new locations.

There are so many small streets to nowhere, or dead ends that it's like a maze of streets so intertwined that if you get off the beaten track you could be looking at the waters edge.













What does it take?
-android smart phone with an internal gps radio (most have them)
-Sygic gps navigation software downloaded and installed
-Download the maps before you leave for the countries you are to visit.

Venice is a busy place, but fun to see for a day or two.  So many people make walking around a chore, but the scenery is wonderful.

We are leaving Venice today for Padova( a small town 25 minutes by train towards Parrano.

Moved to New Blog Site

Hey,

We have moved to a new blogging site, so the looks will be a little different but now comments work, and our google analytics is working in the background so we can watch you watch us! :)

Skittles & Bavaria

We've had a wonderful time in Passau this week - we learned to play Skittles, which is bowling (not the American candy), and we ate wonderful Bavarian food. All the people we met were awesome and very nice. :) Here's what we ate last night! We went out to a local brewery (there are at least 4 big ones in Passau - the monks are apparently very good at brewing), and we tried at least five different types of beer.

The food we ate was fantastisch - there was a huge dish which had two types of pork, bread dumplings, potato dumplings, and cabbage. There was also a delicious sauerkraut made of pale radish, sprinkled with paprika - very mild and somewhat sweet, and gravy for the top.

Skittles has lots of games within its basic structure.  We played several types, and even made up a game of our own.  The ball has either 0 or 2 holes for your fingers and is much smaller.  Our Team consisted of us, Andreas, Isabelle, and Nicole.  We had a blast. 

Work went really well.  Devlin was happy to meet everyone here and got lots of good work done.

We are off to Milan tomorrow!  Bye Passau, we will miss you... :)

Hit Passu!

After 23 hours of straight travel, we have arrived safely in Passau, Germany!

Along the way we hit up a McDonalds for the first time in years! (I know, I know, but they are "better here").  Here is the receipt to prove it.

We arrived at the train station in Passau at 9:40 pm, groggy and disoriented, and after a bit of shivering outside in the cold, we hailed a taxi cab who took us to our hotel. It will be lovely to be in one spot for four days, to have a horizontal place to lie down, and a shower! And, we have free wifi here too - all the comforts of civilization!

Countdown to Europe

Meandering in Italy

There are less than 3 months to go before we leave for our six to nine month trip in Europe! It will be the longest we have ever been outside of Oregon, where both Devlin and I were born. As the countdown begins to our flight on October 15, we have begun to focus more and more on purging the house of our belongings, and we are dispersing them back into the world via cragislist, storage at my mom's house in Bend, and long-term loans to friends.

The overall premise of our trip is simple: to spend as much time as we can now, while we are young, whole, and hearty, in travels around the world and encounters with new cultures. Our goals are to WWOOF as we travel the world, and couchsurf when we aren't WWOOFing, as a way to keep our costs to a minimum and also to meet as many new wonderful people as possible. WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, which means we will work on a variety of farms in exchange for room and board.

Couchsurfing is a community network of free places to spend the night all over the world, but its focus is not just on a "free spot to crash" but on an intercultural exchange with the host. We have hosted a number of people in our home, and we met some wonderful people when we couchsurfed in Europe last year.

This year, we will return to one of the places we 'surfed: a little town called Parrano, where we met a wonderful woman named Giovanna. We will return to her beautiful home to help with the olive harvest in early November.

Parrano - a tiny village in Italy. We return there in October to harvest olives!

 Who knows what other experiences will occur! We could be harvesting citrus in Sicily by January, or herding goats, or with luck, learning to make buffalo mozzarella. Daydreams aside - I'll go pack another box.