Through the back door

Right now, The Civil Wars is on shuffle and I’m on a train that is speeding through the Swiss countryside, soon to be German. Tomorrow is a new year yet I’m constantly thinking of the past. It’s beautiful country here; chalet style wooden houses, more often than not connected to barns, are covered in a fresh layer of snow and Christmas lights still twinkle in every town we pass. Coming into Switzerland on the train four days ago, Kristen and I were greeted by huge snowy peaks and sleepy little valley towns. But my favorite train ride backdrop was on the trip south from Prague to Vienna. The rural Czech countryside is reminiscent of the Northeastern forests I call home but more mysterious. You pass by endless stands of tall, skinny pine trees with forest floors carpeted in needles. There are soft rolling hills that go on endlessly like this broken up only by industrial looking towns and the occasional farmhouse. And every now and then a break in the pines comes in the form of a grass meadow. This is my favorite. It’s a welcoming space of green in the face of the stoic pines, like some magical sign of human life in all this silence. The meadows look like they are farmed but I haven’t seen any tractors. Maybe the agriculture in this country is like that of Romania, still worked by man and horse, or in some cases just man and woman. It’s a hard way to make a living, but in these beautiful woods I can understand why people persist.

France: Brittany, Normandy, Toulouse, Lyon, Angers, Bordeaux, Dax, Biarritz, the Pyrenees, Paris, the Loire Valley, the Dordogne, Burgundy, Carcassone

Spain: Spanish Pyrenees, Basque Country, Barcelona

Italy: Piacenza, Piemonte, Rome

Romania: Bucharest

Greece: Athens, Spetses Island

Czech Republic: Prague

Austria: Vienna

Switzerland: St. Gallen, Appenzell, Gossau

Germany: Munich

These are all the places I have been in the last seven months. The places I never found the time to tell you about between work and school. I want to write about each place separately; each had different charms and different experiences for me. Each was spectacularly beautiful and all I really want to do now is keep traveling. Because for some reason the more I see, the less I think I know about this world. Each new person I meet teaches me something else and every place helps build my perspective of how we rely on each other to make this life what it is. Like the Lincoln log houses I use to make as a child, I keep tearing down walls and rebuilding them, trying to make it all fit.

The most recent traveling has been in the past two weeks on my Europe trip with Kristen. First, we spent three days in Rome. She had been there all semester and served as an excellent tour guide. The first night we went to mass at the Vatican and stopped at an out of the way place for some pasta after. Although I am not Catholic, the Vatican is an undeniably impressive and awe-inspiring place. And just before Christmas, with a tree standing taller than my house all decked out in twinkling lights, Vatican square was just about magical. There is something about being in a city so old, with so much history and so many stories to tell, that is thrilling. It feels like every ancient ruin is speaking to you. Standing in the Roman Forum you can almost visualize what a bustling square it might have been thousands of years ago. Closing my eyes I heard the clatter of hooves on stones and felt the heat of the day settle into the carefully carved stone statues of various gods. The Coliseum, however, was my favorite historic landmark. So much death and suffering was brought about in this place for the sole purpose of entertainment and it reminds me how much people can change with enough time.

Prague was the goal after Rome. We found a cheap flight on a low budget airline to the Czech Republic and were in Prague after two hours on the plane. Prague greeted us with snow and a Christmas spirit like I have never seen before. Our hostel was on a quaint side street off of the Old Town Square, which had a Christmas market day and night. At night the Old Town Square was my favorite place to be. Shoppers wandered from stall to stall eating Trdelnik and buying handmade ornaments. Others sipped hot wine and took horse drawn carriage rides. The old astronomical clock always attracted a crowd when it changed hours and the twin towers of The Church of Our Lady Before Tyn were lit up like the Disney Castle. During the day, we made our way down Karlova Street and across the Charles Bridge, heading up to the Prague Castle. Unfortunately, we arrived in Prague just one day after the death of former president Vaclav Havel and most buildings in the castle compound were closed. However, given my love of food and cooking, it was only natural that I tried about everything on a Czech menu during our three days in Prague. All in all, it’s a lot of meat, potatoes, and bread in gravy. And let’s not forget the beer; it is the home of Pilsner after all.

We left Prague on Christmas Eve, arriving by train in Vienna, Austria that afternoon. We checked into our new hostel, dropped our bags, and went in search of Christmas Eve dinner. We found it at a small Italian restaurant just a few blocks from the main square and St. Stephens Cathedral. The place might have been Italian but they served apple strudel for dessert in true Austrian style. After dinner we hunted for a church that had either a midnight service or midnight mass and settled on the main tourist attraction of St Stephen’s Cathedral. Assuming it would be packed, we got there an hour early and found a line almost leading out of the church already. We did get seats however, right in front of the nativity scene, and by the time the mass started it was standing room only. The service was beautiful, the homily given in three languages, and the church was glowing gold from Christmas lights and candlelight. Because many sights were closed on Christmas day, we decided to dedicate it to food. Quite simply, we tried every regional or national specialty that Vienna had to offer. First stop was the Christmas market. Where we sipped hot mugs of gluewine and spooned goulash soup out of huge bread bowls. Dessert was several pastries we couldn’t pronounce and a pretzel filled with bacon bits. After the market we walked to the Hofburg Palace and through the gardens. We found the Spanish Riding School and decided to come back the next morning to watch them practice. Watching the Lipizzaner horses and their riders practice was like watching dressage on steroids. The horses are so powerful yet so controlled and their gait transitions are almost imperceptible. It was two hours of sheer awe. We also visited Belvedere in Vienna; an old palace turned art museum, on the outskirts of the city. It is a massive, three story palace with a beautiful pond in the front and gardens stretching to the stables behind.

After a memorable Christmas in Vienna, Kristen and I took a train to Switzerland, with beautiful views of the mountains the last two hours. Switzerland was our break from city hopping. Kristen has family friends, Werner and Monica, who live at Werner’s family home in the countryside near St. Gallen. This was probably the best part of the trip given the family atmosphere Werner and Monica provided for us. They gave us beds, fed us (A LOT), and took us around their part of Switzerland. It is such a beautiful and traditional country. Many people still farm, all small, family run businesses. Switzerland also prohibits new houses being built unless there was already one standing in its place, so much of the farmland and green space is preserved. The first night we arrived, Werner and Monica made us raclette; potatoes smothered in melted cheese with tomatoes, onions, and pickles. There was also a plate of Swiss chocolate in our room when we arrived… if that doesn’t tell you how well we ate there then I won’t bother to detail the “meatloaf” and beef stroganoff or nougat cake. We visited an Appenzeller cheese making facility and tried a very old, extremely smelly cheese that Werner ordered for us, not noticing the women warning us in German that we wouldn’t like it. Werner had a good laugh anyway. We also visited several small towns and poked around the Abbey of Saint Gall Library that has a mummy dating back to B.C. times and at least 2000 handwritten books. We walked part of the trail through fields and a forest that Werner and his brothers and sisters used to take to school every day and visited a dairy farm owned by his sister. Switzerland still has much to offer and I would like to go back with a backpack and a tent and hike for a few weeks. And of course visit my new friends again. Werner and Monica are a rare breed. They are kind, very well traveled and knowledgeable people. Every night, the dinner table was filled with discussion from politics to books to places we have and haven’t seen and what we’ve learned from other cultures. I miss them already.

It has taken me a bit longer than expected to post this update and the train that was carrying me through Switzerland in the beginning of this post made it to Munich, Germany yesterday. But I’m still listening to the Civil Wars. They’ve become my new writing playlist. New Year’s Eve in Munich was something to be remembered. Never have I seen so many fireworks in my life. You could turn 360 degrees and the entire skyline was lit up with fireworks, those of the city of Munich and private citizens alike. But Kristen and I turned in shortly after midnight in order to wake up early this morning and take the regional train out to the former Dachau concentration camp. That is a memorial that rivals the slave castles I saw in Ghana almost four years ago. I know no one needs a history lesson in the Holocaust but being at an actual concentration camp is not comparable to any written account. The horrors people experienced there are beyond reason and understanding. I am saddened by the things people have done to each other and was struck by the heavy feeling the place still has. It’s as if the ground has soaked up all of the death and still clings to the memories.

We now have three days left in Europe. Tomorrow we will pick up our rental car and drive, first, south to Neuschwanstein Castle and then north to Rothenburg. After that we will spend a night in Frankfort or Heidelberg and see the Eltz Castle. Then it’s still north to Hamburg where we will spend the night in the airport and catch a seven am flight to London and then home.

And if you were still wondering about the picture in the last post, it is Notre Dame, in Paris. It’s always more beautiful to me at night.

There are places I would like to go in life that aren’t easily qualified. As I start applying for internships for the summer it becomes increasingly clear to me that I’m not sure exactly what I want to do. My dog and I are inseparable and have tackled so many hiking excursions together: a mountain guide? I’ve always loved writing and photography: a career in magazine journalism? I grew up in an agricultural community and have seen the good it can bring to third world countries: field research in developing agriculture? I never want to stop learning: perpetual university student? College is supposed to help you narrow your focus but I’ve somehow managed only to make mine wider. Most of the time, my life feels like a jumbled mess of indecision. I’m constantly searching for things I haven’t discovered yet. I’m unbearably restless.

I also love reading (is there a job for that?). Last week I was rediscovering some of my favorite poems and came across a childhood classic, “Oh! The Places You’ll Go!” by the brilliant Dr. Seuss. If you haven’t read it, do it. Now. While it invokes many clichéd sentences about living life to the fullest, I take Seuss’s words as a nudge to never become stationary and inflexible in life. I’m not sure where he meant when he referenced the places I would go in my life, but I keep moving forward toward happiness and humor. I think if you can have a good dose of both, not much can go wrong.

As my time in France ticks by faster than I want it to (one month left… yikes), I try not to stress about the future. It’s more fun to put myself out there and see what happens. Seuss gives the best advice, “ You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left”. Who knows, maybe I can combine all of those things I love someday. A researcher in agriculture development who writes for a hiking magazine and takes pictures for her dog all while reading children’s poems she forgot about a long time ago.

I think Seuss would approve of that.

And now, because you just promised me you would read it,

“Oh! The Places You’ll Go!”

By the incomparable Dr. Seuss

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look’em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.

And you may not find any you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town. It’s opener there in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.

Oh! The Places You’ll Go!

You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t.

I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.

You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.

You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.

And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And if you go in, should you turn left or right…or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.

No! That’s not for you!
Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying. You’ll find the bright places where Boom Bands are playing. With banner flip-flapping, once more you’ll ride high! Ready for anything under the sky. Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!

Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all. Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don’t. Because, sometimes, they won’t.

I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ‘cause you’ll play against you.

All Alone!
Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.

And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants. There are some, down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.

But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl. Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. On and on you will hike. And I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.

You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Kid, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

Read on below for an update of the harvest season! In other news, Dad and Grandma Trudy were just here last week for a visit and I have also moved to the northern city of Angers for three weeks to take classes. In lieu of writing all about October now (don’t worry it will come eventually) I’m giving you a preview in pictures. Which might be more eloquent than anything I can write for you anyway.

Market day in the medieval town of Sarlat; the perfect place to find bread, cheese and sausage for a picnic

A thousand year old castle rises up out of the hill in the middle of the rural Dordogne river valley

The castle across the valley, seen from the view in an underground cave carved out by Magdelinian people, is now privately owned by an English family

Dad and I at the top the watch tower, overlooking the valley, at the chateau

The Maison Forte de Reignac is literally a stone house, with rooms and stairs carved into the huge cliff behind the first wall

The stony, cold, interior of the Maison de Reignac carves its way through three levels of rock

Dad and Grandma enjoying lunch at Les Jardins de Marqueyssac, high above the Dordogne river with exceptional views of the countryside

A covered passageway through the box hedges at Marqueyssac, the perfect childhood fantasy

The watchful companion of a farmer in the Pyrenees Mountians

Wandering goats on the hillside overlooking the village of St Lary Soulan

At 6000 feet, the view from the living room of our B&B high up in the mountains

In the Pyrenees National Park, Spain just behind us and a stunning view of the farming valley below

The epitomy of a rugged mountain horse: deep chested, short legged, hairier than a sheep dog, and eternally friendly

Family love

The fog rolls through the mountains on a fall afternoon heavier than the workhorses who live here

I want to take you back to seven am on a cool September morning. Leaves are crunching underfoot; hues of orange, red, and yellow pass you by. The air is distinctly colder than the summer months you just emerged from. You pull up the collar on your jacket and walk a little faster, trying to generate heat in the slowly creeping daylight. 3500 miles away, in a wine cellar in southern France, it’s one in the morning and I’m hungry. I found a half an hour for lunch earlier, but that was 11 hours and counting before. Then I hear what has recently become my favorite sound. It invokes in me almost the same happiness as the smell of a warm, cheesy, steaming, bowl of homemade macaroni and cheese. It’s the tractor coming in from the vineyard with the last load of grapes for the day. It’s working a little, sounds like second gear coming up the small rise before the cellar. Definitely hauling a full load, a few hundred tons, but that’s nothing compared to the volume we’ve seen this week. A half hour more at the sorting table, tops. And then I can go home and make dinner. Or is it breakfast now?

September in a vineyard is harvest season. We have 58 hectares of red grapes at Chateau La Garde, about 145 acres. We harvest three quarters of that by machine and the rest, the most expensive parcels with the highest quality grapes, by hand. The amount of time it takes to harvest depends largely on the weather. Last year it was four weeks for the red, this year we were cleaning equipment and putting things away by the end of two.

Working during the harvest was an amazing experience. It was an unprecedented number of hours, weekends included. Some nights we finished at two in the morning only to start again four hours later. During the white harvest, because we have only two hectares, all the full time employees help cut the grapes and we only hire about ten temporaries. The white harvest this year took us jut three days and for that I was in the vineyard cutting grapes and checking for botrytis (rot).

The red harvest was two weeks long and we worked both weekends in order to get the grapes in before the rain and keep the grapes from developing a vinegar smelling rot. For the red harvest I worked in the vineyard and in the cellar. In the vineyard I was cutting grapes with the manual harvesters when we were short on people or following behind the harvesting machine and picking the grapes that did not fall off the vine. However, the majority of my time during the red harvest was spent in the cellar. For the first few days, I worked at the sorting table. Here, I looked for any flaws in the grapes, like botrytis or stems and leaves. From the sorting table, the grapes go directly into the cuvee so you have to be sure only the best quality product is reaching the end.

The rest of my time in the cellar was spent working with the cuvees. I took the density and temperature of every cuvee twice a day and also did the pump overs, remontages, and added yeast and sugar when necessary. This was a great learning experience for me. I learned the chemical processes behind the winemaking and why each parcel is fermented separately. I also saw the many different ways of harvesting and fermenting. When the grapes are harvested by machine, we must be much more careful with sorting because the machine does not differentiate between good and bad grapes as well as a person might. We harvest by hand when we put the grapes into the cuvee whole (not de-stemmed), instead of crushing them first and pumping them by tube into the cuvee. This helps achieve better colors and minimizes oxidation.

My favorite part of the harvest was not the winemaking processes I learned and certainly not the lack of sleep or crazy eating habits I developed. But it was rather how close the team was during the two weeks. The people I work with full time at Chateau La Garde don’t just think of the vineyard as their day job, it’s their passion and creative outlet. They put so much energy into every day and have given me such inspiration to enjoy any job I might hold in the future.

So, when I leave the cellar at two am after finishing sorting the last load of grapes, we all check our watches, smile tiredly and say, “See you in a few”. And it’s ok. I’m too tired to make dinner, but I’m excited to throw myself back into work again tomorrow.

Now that two months have passed since my last update, I think it’s safe to say I have more than could ever be written to tell you all about. In order to break it down manageably, I’ll give you updates in pieces. I always liked suspense.

For all of August and September I was living at Chateau La Garde and interning there in the vineyard and cellar. I survived the four-day harvest for white grapes and the two-week harvest for reds (and I mean two full weeks, weekends included). Maybe without my sanity or any sleep, but harvest makes one big family out of people who normally just work nine to five hours. More on harvest later, it takes a lot of concentration to dig that far back in my memory and at the moment I’m distracted by the smell of my homemade, simmering spaghetti sauce on the stove.

The homemade spaghetti sauce is key to where I am currently. In my little apartment on the fourth floor of a building in the big city; Lyon, France. Every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday mornings there is a fresh produce market on my street where farmers from the countryside around Lyon bring their veggies and fruits at pretty good prices. One of my favorite farmers (who I always buy my apples from for my apple pies) gave me a discount on tomatoes yesterday morning and I couldn’t say no. Hence, the homemade spaghetti sauce currently simmering on my stove. And then, of course, I had to get some fresh parsley, cinnamon, potatoes, yesterday’s bread from the baker, and ground beef for the meatballs. My French roommates are never sure what I am making, or what they are eating for that matter, but I think they are just happy that they won’t have to cook again for the foreseeable future with me around.

I have been in Lyon for almost two weeks now, taking classes about viticulture and marketing in the wine industry and touring some of the wine regions of eastern France. Burgundy is hilly with more dairy farms than I expected to see, Beaujolais has vast, sweeping valleys of vineyards, and Cotes-du-Rhone has some of the steepest, most interesting terrace work I have seen. All of the wines are as different as night and day. The Beaujolais Nouveau is young, fresh, and exotic but they also have some outstanding Crus that I was not expecting. Burgundy never disappoints in the variety and uniqueness of reds or whites and Cotes-du-Rhone remains my favorite for an aged, toasted, oaky red. The city of Lyon is an adventure in itself. It is the third largest city in France after Paris and Marseille and has a beautiful old section with a network of pedestrian streets and small shops that I don’t mind losing myself in. The city is split into three sections because of two rivers, the Saone and the Rhone, running through it. There is a large park in the northern end of my side of the city called the Parc de la Tete d’Or. This has quickly become my favorite spot in the city, possibly because of the existence of a small zoo within its borders. On chilly October afternoons the park is quiet and I enjoy sitting on a bench next to the reindeer field and reading a book. I have yet to explore all of it so a full description will have to wait.

Paris is only two hours away by train and last weekend I met up with my good friend Kristen, from Cornell, for a whirlwind twenty-four hours of site seeing. She is currently studying in Rome and will be my travel partner for our three week European adventure after we both finish our programs in the middle of December. We stopped in at the Luxembourg Gardens, Versailles, and the Eiffel Tower. And, of course, tasted a bit of French cuisine throughout the day, finishing with crepes after the 700 stair climb at the Tower.

Kristen and I in the beautiful Luxembourg Garden

Fall bliss

Hall of Mirrors in Versailles

Probably the most photographed monument in the world

Going back to the end of August, I had another reunion with two very special people. Mom and Grandpa Dave came to visit for one week in between harvests and got an idea of life in France. We spent the last weekend in Normandy visiting the D-Day beaches and stayed in a lovely old stone house with an English couple who have a never-ending supply of hilarious stories about the British military. We spent our last day in the Loire Valley visiting Chateau de Cheverny and picnicking French style with goat cheese, duck pate, and baguettes.

Mom and Grandpa at Utah Beach

The view from a gun station at Pointe du Hoc

The Normandy American Cemetary sits on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach

Chateau de Cheverny

The sleepy hunting hounds of the Chateau

My spaghetti sauce is almost done and the meatballs are practically jumping out of the pan so I’ll save all of the details from harvest, Lyon explorations, quiet days in the park, and visits with friends and family for another time. Oh and just so you all know, I chopped my hair off yesterday. A good eight inches. Why? The window of the hairdresser looked inviting and it said no reservations required.

Another long overdue update; this is becoming a trend that I will try to fix… but France keeps getting in the way so I can’t make any promises.

Every morning my alarm blares in my ear at 5:45 am. And every morning I am excited to start the day. I make my coffee, black, and toast a piece of fresh baguette from the night before. I touch up on some survival French sentences, make a quick sandwich for lunch, and head for the door. Walking out of my front door in the morning might be my favorite part of the day. At six thirty the sun is just breaking the horizon and I have a half-mile walk to the garage of the vineyard where I get my assignments for the day. It’s rarely rainy here so I can always see the last traces of stars in the dusty blue sky and watch as it blends with sherbet shades of pink and orange where the sun meets the rise of vineyards. The air is cool and crisp and the dew on the grass splashes my legs as I jog lightly across the lawn to the dirt road ahead. I cross over it in favor of the grassy lanes between rows of grapes and take the back way to work, winding through vines. It’s a glorious start to the day.

The view out of my bedroom window on a Sunday evening

Work at Chateau La Garde, located in the Pessac-Leognon region of Bordeaux, is halfway through the third week. I can now drive a tractor and mower successfully through rows of vineyard with merely inches to spare. I can hoe weeds underneath the vines until the clay and stone see the sun again. I am well on my way to speaking a full sentence in French with the other workers. And I can whip up a homemade apple pie with Roquefort cheese in my mini toaster oven in under an hour after finishing work.

I am living in a three-bedroom apartment off the southeastern end of the Chateau with a French intern. We have a small kitchen where I enjoy being creative with our minimal cooking appliances. Having a washer and dryer also makes up for learning to cook gourmet with a hot plate and a microwave. We have a living room with a television that doesn’t work, but with the huge window that opens up to a view of sunny vineyards, you don’t need the channels. Internet only works in the kitchen and because my life revolves around doing laundry, cooking, and washing dishes, it works out quite well. Currently, I am trying to make an egg and wine sauce on the hot plate and bake a duck with mushrooms in the mini toaster oven. If it works, you will be the first to know.

Chateau La Garde, with my apartment on the left hand side. The rest of the building is now used for tastings and the office

The chateau is located about a ten-minute walk and two-minute car ride away from the nearest town, Martillac. It’s a walk I make frequently, down the crumbling paved road that will soon be reclaimed by dirt, past vineyards, and through one last shady lane in front of an old castle before reaching the town center. Martillac is a sleepy village with about 200 inhabitants, a pizza place, a boulangerie, a post office and, of course, an old gothic church in the center. On Saturdays there is a bus to Bordeaux at 12:42 in the afternoon. It stops at the stone bench in front of the church but you have to stand up and wave if you want the bus driver to stop. The past two Saturdays, I’ve been the only person on the bus.

So many picturesque walks that I appreciate getting lost every now and then

In the heart of wine country

My weekends have also been busy with trips to Bordeaux city, visiting friends, exploring the coastline in the seaside town of Arcachon, and experiencing the summer “ferias” held in the southwestern towns like Dax. The people I keep meeting in France exceed all expectations of friendliness. They love hearing about American culture, exchanging opinions on music and politics, and arguing about the price of a decent red wine.

The insanity of the Dax feria

Finally, an update! Long overdue, I know. But between Italy, Romania, Greece, coming back to France, and preparing to move to Bordeaux on Thursday… life has been outrunning me for about a month now. To really do the last four weeks justice I would have to write a book. For now, I’m settling for a few paragraphs.

We can start with Italy, the first country on the Master Vintage program’s tour. Keep in mind, the three and a half weeks I was traveling was with a group of about thirty five other students from a university in Angers, France. They are all studying various aspects of wine making from enology to marketing. Of the thirty five students, 17 different countries and close to ten languages are represented. Luckily, English is one of those languages spoken by all.

Travis, the other student from Cornell (and only American) joining me on the program, and I left Toulouse the morning of the 26^th of June. We took a train from the Toulouse station to Piacenza, Italy. I won’t take the time here to detail that day, but I will tell you it was twelve hours long involving three trains and playing charades with several Italian train conductors. Regardless, we finally reached Piacenza that night and met up with the rest of the group at our hotel. The next morning we were off and running with an introductory lecture at the local university on Italian wines and the commercial market.

The basic idea of the three weeks was to tour wineries in all three countries and compare and contrast operations, marketing, vine techniques, and management strategies. Wineries in all three countries varied in size from ten hectares to several thousand. So we would get to a country, get on a bus, visit a winery, get back on the bus, usually drive for an hour, visit another winery, drive a few hours, stop at a hotel for the night, wake up, get on the bus, drive another hour or so, visit another few wineries, stop at another hotel…. And so on. Although it was a lot of time on the bus, never staying in one hotel longer than two nights (except in Greece when we based our excursions for the week out of a hotel in Athens), I appreciated how much of each country we saw in a week. No day was similar to the one before and all the people we met astounded me with their generosity and willingness to share their life with us.

Italy was beautiful and by far the most similar to France in terms of culture, geography, and language. It was also HOT. Pushing 40 degrees Celsius everyday, I could jump in an ice cold shower fully clothed and 15 minutes later be completely dry. Aside from that, I loved Italy. The wineries and vineyards we visited that week were in the beautiful, rolling hills of the Piemonte region. We also saw bigger operations in the flatlands of Emilia Romagna and vineyards nestled into the foothills of the Alps in the north.

Vineyards as far as you can see in the countryside of northern Italy

My favorite spot, however, was not any of these wineries. One night, driving on the big highway that winds through the Alps just south of Austria and Switzerland, we stopped in a small, mountain town. After stowing our bags in our rooms for the night, several of us headed out to find dinner. The town isn’t very big, probably four or five hundred people, so we quickly found a pizza and pasta restaurant with menus in either Italian or German… needless to say we just ordered a plain pizza in broken Italian and enjoyed the views of the Alps surrounding us. After dinner we headed toward the center of the old town, containing a cobblestone square and a modest gothic church. After reaching it, we noticed a few side streets winding up the hill so we took one and decided we couldn’t get lost in a town that size. We ended up halfway up a small hill on the west side of the village where we could overlook the entire valley, bathed in the warmth of nighttime street lamps. The stars overhead were bright and easily visible in the emptiness of the mountains. If Thomas Kinkade had been standing there with us I don’t think even he could have done it justice.

At the eastern end of the town, before the road disappears into the foggy mountains

Next on the list was Romania. We hopped a plane from Venice to Bucharest and arrived within a few hours. If I had to pick a favorite country of the three, it may have been Romania. It was dirty and poor, there are more starving dogs roaming the streets in packs than people, and farmers still herd sheep and drive their crops to market with a horse and cart. Yet, Romania felt like home. They are hardworking people, living close to the land, with a fierce sense of nationalism. Their meals, if they are well off, consist of no less than three courses and the lay out for breakfast could be mistaken for dinner at a restaurant.

A Romanian farmer, probably wondering a) why we're crowding his road and b) how much more hay he could fit in our bus

On the Fourth of July, while most of America was barbecuing and lighting fireworks, we were on the bus in the middle of the Romanian countryside. With the nearest city more than two hours away in any direction, we opted to stay the night in a large house/gas station/bar owned by the manager of a winery we had toured earlier in the day. The bar happens to be off the left wing of the gas station and directly under where our rooms were located. Knowing we would not get any sleep with the sound of loud Romanians pounding their mugs of beer on the bar, out of tune with the lively polka-like music coming out of the ancient stereo, we decided to join them. And what a Fourth of July it was. We met several Romanian farmers, none of whom spoke English except for one man who spoke close to five words, which consisted of ‘jump!’ every time we were supposed to kick our legs to the music, ‘New York City!’ whenever he saw me, and ‘America!’ whenever he saw anyone else. His wife was also the one who spent the better part of an hour showing us how to dance like proper Romanian women, arms crossed, shoulders straight, bouncing in place, legs unhinged at the knee, kicking left, right, up and back at different intervals.

The church of a monestary we visited in rural Romania

After the mild culture shock of Romania, Greece was it’s own breed. Unlike the previous two countries, we stayed the entire week in one hotel in a shady part of Athens. Drug dealers openly sold their goods on the street, prostitutes cat called anyone within ear shot as soon as eight pm every night, and I saw more homeless people than Italy and Romania combined. Yet, I could walk for 15 minutes down the main street around the corner from our hotel and be surrounded by Americans in the square below the hill from the Acropolis. And the touristic part of Athens was stunningly beautiful with an old-world feel. Roman ruins dot the hills and if you close your eyes for a moment you feel like you will open them to an Athens run by the world’s oldest society once again. It was a strange dynamic.

Downtown Athens at night, with the Acropolis shining brightly on the hill overlooking the city

Our professor in Greece (we had a different one meet us in each country) felt that because Greece was a hot country and we had been virtually homeless for two weeks, we could use a break. So everyday he scheduled us two winery tours in the morning and an afternoon at a different beach. It was a relaxing week and a great way to wind down the three-week trip. We walked all over Athens, stopping in every little shop we found, and also visited the new Acropolis museum and the Acropolis itself. Coming from a relatively new continent such as America and being in Greece, so rich in history, was breathtaking for me. I could spend a year pouring over the old texts and studying the thousand-year-old sculptures in the city.

A supporting building on the hill of the Acropolis, overlooking Athens and the sea beyond

Our study trip ended on Sunday the 17^th of July. Yet, some of us weren’t quite sure we wanted Greece out of our system so fast. So we found a ferry to Spetses Island, off the southern coast of Greece, and decided to soak in the sun and ocean breeze there for a few days. Spetses, as I’m sure is true with most of the Greek Islands, is a little piece of heaven. It has one road, about an eight km circle, and most of the island is uninhabited except for the beautifully restored old mansions and vacation homes surrounding the port on the south side of the island. Spetses also has close to 15 beaches. Wanting to see all of them, but not willing to walk in the heat that was bearable only because of the ocean breezes, we rented motorized scooters. Scooters and quads are the only form of transportation on the island besides the taxis… horse drawn carriages. Unfortunately, even these three days came to an end and we found ourselves back on a ferry headed to Athens once again.

Nothing but clear blue

Taking a break to catch some shade during our island touring

At the Athens airport, I finally split from my new French friends and found myself alone for the first time in three weeks. Wanting to save money, I decided not to pay for a hotel room Tuesday night and instead pulled out a jacket and towel from my suitcase and bedded down against a wall near the Departures desk. You wouldn’t believe how many people opt for sleeping in airports; it’s a relatively safe option and totally free of charge. Next time, I’m bringing a sleeping bag and a pillow.

My flight arrived in Paris Wednesday afternoon and I wandered the streets, with my suitcase in tow, for a few hours before taking the night train back to Toulouse. After two solid days of travel, I moved back into the student dorms I had been living in three weeks earlier. I have a meeting with the French office of immigration on Wednesday afternoon and if that goes well, I move to Bordeaux on Thursday to start my internship. I’m so excited for this next adventure; Bordeaux is a wonderful region with rolling hills and 18^th century castles nestled into woods and vineyards around every turn.

Although this may have been the longest blog post in the history of blogging, I barely scratched the surface of the past month. It was a whirlwind of an experience, and I met so many genuine people. We are truly blessed to share this beautiful world together.

Last weekend was filled with tapas, lots of walking, and sand. Barcelona is a beautiful, lively city with much to offer. We got there Friday evening, checked into our hotel, asked for a map, and started searching. We walked to downtown (what I assumed by looking at the touristy map we were navigating by was that downtown was about a 20 minute walk)…. an hour later, we found ourselves strolling down the beach fending off scarf salesmen. Barcelona at night is also a beautiful sight. It was warm, with a light ocean breeze, and the sand under my feet couldn’t have felt better. We forgot all about dinner and just sat by the Mediterranean looking up at the stars until we got kicked off of the beach at two am by the cleaning crews.

The next morning, on Saturday, we woke up early and set out to walk the city. Armed with our touristy map from the night before (but slightly better sense of walking distances) we first went to the Segrada Familia. Segrada Familia is a church that has been under construction for close to one hundred years. It is a breathtaking sight, with large, intricately designed towers that block out the sun even at mid-day.

Awe inspiring attention to design makes the church a major attraction

Unfortunately, the line to get into the church was a few hours long and with only one weekend to see Barcelona, we kept walking.

Our next stop was closer to the sea and held the promise of tapas and cool drinks. Barcelona has a large park near downtown that houses a zoo, a large fountain the size of a modest, two story house, and their own ‘Arc de Triomphe’. The park is a quiet relief from the bustle and liveliness of Barcelona’s streets.

Horses are common around Barcelona; a ride in a carraige is a relaxing way to see the city

After relaxing in the park for a while, we walked still closer to downtown. Distracted by a sign for tapas and sangria, we stopped in at a small cafe on a side street and had lunch. While there, we met a women from Australia who was traveling with her sister. They will be driving across America this summer, from LA to NYC and wanted to know our favorite parts of the States. I told them to avoid Vegas and take an extra week to go hiking in Glacier.

Leaving the cafe, and saying goodbye to our new friends, we headed into downtown and the famous street, ‘La Rambla’. La Rambla could be a city in itself. It has extensive shopping (mostly tacky but some worth a look), entertaining street performers, and untold numbers of pick-pocketers. My favorite thing about downtown was not colorful La Rambla, but all of the side streets offering unique shops and funny locals.

Saturday night I called my good friend from Cornell, Caroline, who is living in Barcelona this semester. She met up with us for dinner at a great place off La Rambla and we filled in the missing pieces of our lives for a few hours. After dinner, Caroline took us to a few of her favorite local pubs including one that looks like a forest on the inside (complete with little waterfalls and rivers by the bar and mini trees for tables) and one whose entire menu consists of four hundred different types of shots (we tried one that the bar tender lit on fire….).

The next morning, having figured out Barcelona’s metro system and no longer in need of my touristy map, I set off alone for downtown. I went with the idea of grabbing breakfast at a little cafe, walking around some shops, and getting back to the hotel by noon in time to get on the bus with everyone else and leave. Instead, I accidentally found the Picasso Museum and spent my morning there (don’t worry I still made it back to the bus and didn’t get left in Barcelona). Not being the most cultured art history person, I took all the pamphlets they gave me and asked way too many questions. As it would turn out, the museum is home to much of Picasso’s earlier work so it was really interesting to see his progression from landscape paintings to his later interpretations of other pieces.

This week, after returning from Barcelona, we had intensive French classes and introduction to Viticulture and Enology lectures. We also visited a dairy farm and three different wineries in the Gaillac Region. Now, I’ve spent the better part of today packing and cleaning my apartment. I went to the train station this morning, got my ticket for Milan and scoped out the station so I know where I’m going in the morning. I’ll be sad to leave Toulouse, it’s a beautiful, clean, and charming city, but I’m also excited for the next three weeks. On to Italy, Romania, and Greece!

Nine to five class days and weekend trips hiking in the Pyrenees and wandering the streets of Barcelona don’t leave much time for blogging or updating, so I’m sorry the newest updates are so late! Also distracting me this week was news that my study tour of wineries for the next three weeks was changed from Spain and Portugal to Italy, Romania, and Greece… woah. So instead of posting pictures and detailed descriptions of breathtaking mountains, I’ve been googling Romanian wines.

In any case, two weekends ago now I was in the Pyrenees mountains. The Pyrenees are a range of mountains in the south of France, on the border with Spain. The Pyrenees are stunning. Stretching for somewhere around 300 miles, the range contains so many back door, hilly towns and interesting people; I could probably spend all seven months hiking there. The entire group from school went and we spent Sunday hiking to the Cirque de Gavarnie. This is a huge bowl in the side of the one of the mountains. Formed by glaciers, the cirque is at a high enough elevation to maintain snow all year and has amazing views of the surrounding valleys.

The cirque de gavernie, with another two hours of walking to go

The hike was easy and flat until right at the end when you had a steep ascent to the bottom of the falls; ten minutes of taking one step forward and three backward finally got us up the rocky slope. If I had a week in the Pyrenees it would definitely be a great place to backpack and get in some serious climbing.

Hardy, mountain bred horses are common in the Pyrenees

Justine and I at the cirque de gavernie, with a stretch of valley behind us

Sunday night we stayed at one of the Alpine Club’s (similar to the Adirondack 46ers Club) hostels in the mountains and enjoyed a three course, home cooked dinner. After, a few of us went for a short hike to the top of a nearby hill that overlooks the town of Gavernie. On the top of the hill you get a beautiful look at the town below and the peaks above. There is also a statue of Mary holding baby Jesus, keeping watch on the sleepy farms in the surrounding mountains. The sight from the top of that hill has been one of my favorites so far on this trip. So much so that I woke up at 5:30 the next morning and hiked back up to get pictures as the sun rose and cut colors across the valley.

The view from the hill outside Gavernie, looking north east through the Pyrenees

The statue in the mountains, keeping watch

Unfortunately, we did have to leave the Pyrenees and head back to reality. Before we got back to school, however, we stopped at a small dairy farm in the foothills. The farm is run by a man, Pierre (who speaks not a lick of English), and his wife who are regionally famous for the incredibly smooth and creamy yogurt made from their cows. Farms in France are much smaller than in the US and production is always done on a much smaller scale. Pierre has about 40 cows and 20 heifers; along with yogurt, he produces cheese and raw milk commercially. It was the first farm visit I’ve had in France so far and it was amazing to see how efficient and yet very natural the agriculture is here.

The milking, processing, and packaging of products is all done at the farm. From cow to food right before your eyes

After my weekend of back door experiences in the Pyrenees, we had a week of intensive classes and a few more farm visits, including a trip to the Roquefort cheese caves. Roquefort is a famous blue cheese in France that has been produced for a few hundred years. Also, last weekend, we went to Barcelona and had free time to spend in the city. It was a relaxing three days and I am in love with Barcelona’s carefree attitude. More on those trips soon!