Madrid no es como el Sevilla

To all my readers out there, I know I’m overdue for a blog post.  If you read my last one, you know why it was difficult for me to post while we were in Spain; and if you didn’t… well go back and read it then silly!

So my last post while I was in Toledo, I updated you on the majority of what we did while we were in Spain.  Our day-to-day activities really didn’t change much.  There were always weeds that needed pulling, things to be fixed, and a horse to take care of, which of course, it being crazy and hating its stable, ran off while the three of us were in Toledo, so when we arrived back to where she lives we learned that the Spanish can be incredibly stupid sometimes.  First of all, the horse went into Almorox, the little tiny village, and when we asked the police if they had seen her horse, they just replied saying they had… Wouldn’t it have been smart to try and contain the horse?  All sorts of terrible things could happen with a horse on the loose.  It or someone else could have gotten very hurt.  Second, her neighbor who caught the horse and managed to keep it said that it followed a man on horseback who has many stables, and yet he didn’t even think to hold it there until surely someone would start asking about.  Silly Spaniards.

So, given the lack of stimulating events around us, we spent a lot of our time in heavy conversation with our host.  I also managed to read a lot, which was nice and relaxing.  I found that the Spain that I had fallen in love with many years ago as a child varies greatly from one region to another.  Madrid and Toledo are nothing like Sevilla; the people aren’t as nice, the food isn’t as good, and the atmosphere just isn’t the same.  We didn’t see much of Madrid, we merely used it as a means of traveling since it was a bit far away to spend our days off there, but I got enough of a vibe to sense that it was completely different.  Things our host had to say about the difference between central Spain and Andalucía confirmed my hunches too.

That being said, I can’t say we didn’t enjoy our time in Spain.  Our host made for wonderful company, wonderful conversation, and great food.  Oddly enough, a huge chunk of our conversations were frequently about the crazy variety of food we have in America, both the good exciting sort, and the kind you can’t pronounce all the ingredients in.  We managed to teach her Jon’s mom’s “kitchen sink” cookie recipe, which is basically just a standard oatmeal cookie that you throw whatever the heck you want into: chocolate, nuts, dried fruits, coconut, caramel, butterscotch, all sorts of things.  It took some converting and a bit of a struggle to find something that would work for the oats (they aren’t common in Spain of course), but they turned out pretty darn close.  She really enjoyed them too.

Oh, one negative: our time in Spain fully reconfirmed every hateful feeling I have towards insects, and merely strengthened my severely irrational fear of spiders.  I know this is something I’m going to have to deal with at every farm, but I just don’t like them.  Ick.

Here are just a few more pictures that I managed to take after the ones I uploaded already.  I’ll post something about getting to Italy in a day or two, and try and keep you better posted on the events happening here.  The property here is huge, and there are 4 other HelpXers working, so there is a lot of stuff to do, and a lot of socializing to enjoy.  A good change of pace I think.

Adios!

Toledo

An escalator that takes you into historic Toledo. How neat.

Max

Our side of the house

Knut! (Pronounced Kuh-Noot) He wouldn’t look at the camera :(

Tiki!

Her power source

The house

The stable

No puedo creer que me olvidé de mi español!

First of all, I’d like to apologize for the serious time-lapse between this post and my last.  Though the farm we’re staying at in Spain does have Internet, its tricky business and very expensive for our host, so we prefer to save it for important things, like banking, and telling our mothers we’re still alive. That being said, I have so much do update you on, while sitting in the Castilla la Mancha Public Library of Toledo.  They have free WIFI here, and our host had a doctor’s appointment here this afternoon, so we took the bus this morning from her village to town, and then we’ll ride back in the evening with here.  Decent plan, since Toledo is quite beautiful, but very small (at least the parts worth visiting), so that leaves ample time to catch up on things like emails, blogging, Facebook, and the news (which has proven quite active given recent occurrences!).

First, getting here.  Flight from Nice to Barcelona- relatively easy.  Jon had to check his tripod; a little odd considering its just a tripod, but I guess you can hide anything in those expandable legs… Getting from the airport in Barcelona to the train station- piece of cake.  Getting from Barcelona to Madrid…. well that was a little funny.  You see, we were traveling on Monday, the Monday after Easter to be exact, and seeing as it’s a bank holiday in a lot of European countries, the trains were full with families doing traveling for the holiday weekend.  This meant that all the tickets for Monday and Tuesday were sold out; that is, except first class.  After doing some quick mental calculations at the ticket counter, we bought two first class tickets on the high-speed train from Barcelona to Madrid, dinner included (yes!).  We figured we would have spent that in hotel costs staying in Barcelona for two nights until the trains were no longer full, and though seeing the city wouldn’t have been bad either, we had arrangements with our host and were excited to get there.  After a wonderful train experience to Madrid, about an hour of going from one metro tram to another to get to the bus station, and an hour and a half bus ride into the little village of Almorox, we met the smiling face of our first host; a very nice woman in her early fifties from Holland.

I don’t think its necessary to fill you in on all of the things we’ve done around her finca, but I’ll highlight the major things; we’ve prepared a patch to start a veggie garden, got rid of a whole bunch of these pesky poisonous (only if you eat them) plants, and put up an electric fence to get ready for the horse she was given by a close friend.  Yep, given.  Long story short, the horse has been traumatized by something in its past, and the family that owned it felt a little overwhelmed.  He’s a very sweet horse, but very nervous.  She also has three wonderful dogs, seven cats, and a plethora of insects I hope not to take to Italy with me.  The little village she lives near is nothing worth visiting, so we spend all of our time on the finca, which is fine.  She’s also a wonderful cook. I’ve finally done a little bit of souvenir shopping, so Brittany and Cristina, if you’re reading, you’re covered! :)  Some things in beautiful Toledo spoke your names to me.  I hope you like them.  :)

First Class!

Jon didn’t look so excited, but he was.

As was I :)

Yep. This was a hot towel! ITS BEEN YEARS SINCE I GOT ONE OF THESE!

Delish. I can now say I’ve tried bull.

AHHH!!! :D I miss this stuff!

The same chocolate. We received the eggs from our French host. Haha.

Middle of no where can be really pretty.

Sun in the picture. But I like it.

Spanish sun, fields of daisies, and spider webs.

Jon thought he was neat looking.

The house from the field of daisies.

Jon standing on a rock.

My feet standing on the same rock. And my camera strap. Ugh.

Rainy day, but MOUNTAIN!

Very purple.

Love these!

I had forgotten all about the wild poppies! So cute!

We took a picture of the map of Toledo because, as you can see, its easy to get lost.

Pretty church of some sort thats now part of the university.

And the top.

Imagine having these as your neighbors!

Old and the not so old.

He’s upset because I found the sign fitting.

Don Quixote!

View from the top of the Alcazar, where they have the public library!

Difficult to read, but its a map of Toledo with points-of-interest marked. Neat!

EDIT: Pictures flipped! Finally! Tenga un buen día!

Hoy nos vamos para España!

So, if you’ll notice, the language of my title changed!  That means we’re off to some place new!

We will be in Spain by 1PM, and I cannot wait!

That being said, I should let you guys know that over the next three months, wonderfully fast Internet isn’t guaranteed.  I’ll be keeping a journal of everything I’d like to post, and I may have to do it in batches.  Either way, you won’t miss out on details, you may just get a lot to read all at once.

My mom asked me yesterday if I was nervous.  About the work?  Not a chance.  About traveling?  Of course, I’m always nervous about traveling.

So wish me luck!  Next time I post, you’ll have pictures of beautiful Spain to look forward to!

Adios!

Je mange beaucoup de fruits en France

Seeing as we haven’t been doing anything terribly special during the past couple days, I’ve had some time to do some real thinking.  I’ve noticed a few changes in my daily habits and routine here, mostly in regards to food, and wanted to share my thoughts.

I eat a lot of fruit here.

I know that probably seems like a silly thing to comment on, but let me also say that my pants were falling off my butt while walking up our daily two flights of stairs.  I haven’t eaten this much fruit on a regular basis since I lived in (you guessed it) Europe.  Spain to be specific.  So as I was sitting there eating a banana during our coffee break in class, I said to Jon “I really hope I continue to eat this much fruit when we get back to the States.”  This turned into a debate about why we eat more fruit here than we do in the US.

First of all, fresh food markets are very prevalent here, and the fact that there’s one on the same block as our school probably helps with our daily fruit habit.  But every single day, at the start of our coffee break, we walk to the little market, pick out an orange, maybe a banana, sometimes an apple or a pear, pay less than 50 cents for it sometimes, and go back to class.  In the US, if I wanted to have just an apple, I’d have to get in my car, drive to Publix, and then just buy an apple.  But with all that effort, shouldn’t I do more shopping while I’m there?  That brought us to problem number two.

In the US, when I do my shopping, I usually do so once a week, maybe once every other week if pennies or tight or I’m going home soon.  So I buy some snacks that aren’t so good for me, and some fruit, and various other food items to use throughout the week.  But the snacks that aren’t as good for me are supposed to be a treat, that I split up throughout the week and enjoy in small quantities.  The problem arises when that never actually happens.  I usually end up eating the snacky foods first, and then by the time I remember that I bought fruit, they’ve gone bad.  Not good for my health, and definitely not good for my wallet.  So when I get home, I plan on changing my shopping habits so that this doesn’t happen.

It’s impossible to go on a low-carb diet in France.

Home of the baguette, the French usually cringe at the prospects of a meal sans pain.  Bread is as much a part of French culture as pasta is to Italian, or potatoes are to Irish.  Nevermind the fact that it’s incredibly inexpensive; 40 cents for half a baguette from the little bakery on our corner.  I was genuinely worried about this, given the minor success I had eliminating carbs from my diet state-side before we left, and thought that the moment I get to France, I would swell up like Violet from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (minus the blue face, of course).  But as mentioned before, my pants are falling off me.  I think the amount of bread I eat is outweighed by the amount of walking we do.  Obviously we don’t have a car, but even if we did, it would be completely impractical, and mad sometimes, to use it.  With a public transportation system like they have here, even if you do take  a bus some place, you still have plenty of time to walk off all those carb calories.  But I don’t think all the walking explains the general “thinness” of the French.

People seem a lot less stressed here than in the United States.

Any of my readers who know me quite well know that I am a bundle of stress almost every day, regardless of whether there is an important deadline approaching or not.  But after watching the French, and listening to our professor speak about the general way of life here, I think the French just don’t bother stressing about much, unless its something seriously worth losing sleep over.  Anyone who knows a few things about weight loss would also know that being stressed is one of the best ways to keep weight on.  Obviously not for everyone; some  people can hardly thing about food while the GRE is near, while others find themselves at the bottom of their second box of cookies.  Aside from different eating habits while stressed, the presence of stress puts your body into “fight or flight” mode, resulting in the excess energy, shifts in metabolism, blood flow, and the production of excess hormones.  One of these hormone in particular is the culprit for many cases of stress-related weight gain: cortisol.

Basically, when you’re stressed, your body feels as if it’s about to be harmed; hence “fight or flight” mode.  With this comes the overproduction of cortisol, a hormone that slows down your metabolism and triggers fat storage in the tummy region.  So even if you’re one of the lucky few that don’t eat or starve your emotions, you can still find yourself susceptible to weight gain.

Translated into the French lifestyle, the absence of stress leads to not only the absence of emotional eating, but also wards off the unwanted boost in cortisol levels.  The way of life here is incredibly laid back, with plenty of time to relax, and a meager 35 hour work week.  I know that doesn’t sound like that much of a difference, but consider this: you get up and get to work at 9 AM, you usually get a very short lunch break, and come home from work around 5 PM.  The French, on the other hand, get to work at 9 AM, leave work at 11 AM for their two-hour lunch break, return to work at 1 PM, then work until 6 PM.  Sure, they technically leave work later in the day, but they got a nice two-hour break at lunch time to eat a proper meal, relax, even take a nap.  The schedule in the US does not allow enough time to eat lunch, resulting in both poor eating habits and fatigue.  Fatigue affects the quality of work, and a lack of quality in work results in stress.  Voila!

So what am I going to change when I get home?

Well, that’s kind of a silly question, but obviously all of this.  When I go shopping, I’m going to buy fewer “bad” snacks, and more fruits and vegetables to snack on, keeping in mind the amount of time I have to eat them before they go bad.  I’m going to find new outlets to release stress other than my terrible mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups habit and my Oreo habit (these were standard around exam time).  Obviously, I can’t control my work day (well usually, unless I reach a point in my life where I can work for myself), but I can control what I eat during my lunch break.  And I won’t let myself get stressed over enjoying a little bit a bread every once in a while.

Add that to the fact that I’m starting a new running program in an effort to prepare for the Sister Run, an Ovarian Cancer Awareness 5K (the significance of this race is that my mother is a very lucky ovarian cancer survivor), and I foresee a much healthier Caroline within the next several months.  I think it’s a little weird that after 2 months and a few days in France, these are the things I’ve pulled away and plan to bring home with me.  Obviously among some other things, but these are the things I’m most excited about, and most relieved to have learned at my young age, before the stress and poor eating habits get the best of me.

Until next time: Mange une pomme!

Vous allez faire quoi pendant vos vacances?

Alright, enough about my Italian adventures.  I hope you enjoyed something a little out of our normal routine!

Since we got back from Torino, we got straight to seriously working on booking all of our farms for the second half of our trip.  We had been trying for weeks to just focus on Spain, but that was proving to be extremely difficult to plan.  While planning our first destination is obviously important, I felt it was equally as important to start looking in the other countries before they all book up too.  So I took over the emailing and started with the smallest countries with the fewest farms.  We had to change our plans slightly; originally we planned to see Switzerland, but after emailing all 3 possible farms, we decided to start looking at other countries too.  For the Switzerland slot I also emailed farms in Belgium (all 4 of them) and then several in Germany.  I also emailed all the possible farms in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands (3 and 5 respectively), and simply crossed my fingers that one of them would respond positively.  I had the support of my two friends at home, Jenna and Cristina, along the way, each of them insisting I keep my chin up, thoughts positive, and emails will come.  Believing them, I asked for good vibes, and went to bed feeling optimistic, several emails later.

The next morning we woke up to no replies, but given that we leave for class a little before nine o’clock, I decided this shouldn’t worry me.  When we got home from class though at one, we had 3 emails in our inbox.  One positive, two negative.  I was excited, we had officially booked our dates for the Netherlands!  Thankfully, this farm is only an hour away from Amsterdam, and the family has lived in the city for the majority of their lives.  Nothing like insider information on what to do and see!  That night, along side my homework, I continued to send emails to farms in Germany, and then started looking into Italy and Ireland.  After a long chat with my mom about my planning for the summer, planning for the fall semester, and getting updated on things at home, I went to bed feeling the same as I did the night before; optimistic.

The following morning went exactly the same as the previous.  Nothing when our alarm went off, but we had a positive reply from Germany (a farm between Berlin and Hamburg) waiting in our inbox when we got out of class!  Two farms officially confirmed, we were a third there.  Given that we hadn’t heard anything from the Czech Republic, and how badly Jon wanted to return, I insisted he call the farm there that looked the most promising, one just a little over an hour outside of Prague.  After buying the minimum amount of Skype credits allowed, and waiting 15 minutes for them to apply to his account, he nervously called the farm, fingers crossed that they spoke English well.  It was a quick conversation, but all positive.  She would send us an email confirming the dates, and we were booked.  All in a span of less than three full days, we had half of our farms booked.  Now thats what I call progress.

The next day we were able to confirm a farm just outside of Madrid in Spain, and today we finally confirmed a farm in the heart of Tuscany, Italy.  I am ecstatic that this has finally come together.  At this point, all the gaps are filled.  We still have Ireland to plan, but thats our last destination, and therefore doesn’t worry me as much.  Since we don’t have a ticket home to Florida yet, should Ireland prove to be impossible to book, we just go home early; not preferred of course, but definitely better than having a two week gap to try and fill on a limited budget.

Needless to say, I’m relieved.  At least I can stop stressing for now; you know, until I have to magically come up with all the money for this, despite the fact that the exchange rate from the USD to EUR has NOT been moving in our favor?

Okay, I’ll take the good as it comes, and worry about the rest when I need to.

Until next time, passer un bon week-end!

Je suis toujours la toux

So thankfully, my fever finally broke, the body aches have slowly gone away, and so has the headache.  The cough has not though.  I think I’ve given up on cough syrup though.  We’ll see.

Jon and I were able to return to class the next day like I’d hoped.  The professor was sympathetic, and concerned that I was sick.  A change from what you get from your teachers at home.  Jon and I only walked far enough to get something to eat, and then again with Jerome to see if we could resolve our no Internet problem.  Turned out to be a bad router.  He replaced it, Jon installed it today, and voila!  Interwebs.  Thank goodness.

So, since I don’t have much to share from the past couple days, I’d just like to share some things I forgot to share in previous posts.

1. They are very blind-friendly in France.

When was the last time you picked up your box of cough drops, or tea, and braille was on the package?  I could probably say that I have only seen braille on a box of bandaids before, and only once.  I see it on a lot here.  Its really kind of neat.

2. Doctors make house calls.

So, unfortunately, I think Nicolas caught what I had.  Hopefully its just a coincidence, he’s definitely still running around with as much energy as ever, but regardless.  After dinner last night, the doctor came over, usually only a luxury for those willing to pay the large fine in the US.  Though I don’t believe the doctor came over for free, I do believe it was for a very small fine.  One of the benefits of free health care?  He came over, looked over Nicolas, gave his parents a list of things to get from the pharmacy, all well past 8PM.  House calls are whats expected from doctors in France, and probably most of Europe, maybe similar to the western medical ethics we’re familiar with?  Who knows.

3. Watch where you step.

No, I haven’t stepped in dog doo yet, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had the chance.  Yuck.  The Swedish girl (Zandra) in our class has a dog, and our professor was at first teasing her, upset that there are too many dogs in France!  Sandra assured the professor that unlike everyone in Nice, she picks up after her dog.  Basically, they think they’re too good to pick up dog doo.  I guess a few stereotypes remain true.

4. The bums are not at all different here than they are in the US.

Yes. They beg, plead, hold out cups for you to throw your spare change in, they’re loud, often drunk, and whenever they have a dog or another pet with them, they sure as ever make them look sad and hungry to get more pity out of you.  Now, I don’t remember all of the bums in Sevilla, Spain, but I remember some, and they’re similar to the ones Jon encountered in Prague last Spring.  In Prague, they do not beg, or anything.  They don’t even look you in the eye.  I remember this specifically from Spain.  They kneel down on the ground, put there head on the knees, and hold their hands out, cupped in front of them.  They do this because they’re ashamed.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I would be considerably more likely to help this sort of bum than the one who yells at me.

Jon looked over and told me I was writing a book.  We’re hoping to make it to the harbour today, so I could probably be on my way.