Explorations around Europe and I am still alive!

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Hello dearies!
Ok, so there was an excuse for my late blogging coming back from Morocco, but I cannot seem to find a good excuse as to why I have not posted in over 2 months… ummm, sorry!

I am currently in Portugal on a farm near the small town called Carapateria which is in the South Western tip. Alison and I made it safely last night despite both of us being severely directionally challenged. The Small farm is called Cunca, so yall should try and look it up on the internet at some point because I think they have a web site. We came prepared with a tent, but it turns out they have a room for us, which was great because it rained last night… and this morning… and this afternoon! The day has managed to bring out some beautiful sunshine though, and so Ali and I walked up the huge hills around the house and got a great view of the ocean! Sounds like heaven right?- especially because Alison has already picked 3 ticks off of her!
The good news though (at least at the moment) is that the mosquitoes are not out yet because it has been pretty cool, but I have been told that it will warm up very quickly, so I am just wake up one day to find myself covered in mosquito bites. EEKKK!

So a bit more about the farm… it is owned by an Austrian named Klaus, and there are currently 20 other people from around the world working on the farm with us. Some of them are WWOOFer’s like me - but they are all in their 20’s and very chill people. They all seem really cool, and most of them speak English (amongst other languages) so communication is not a problem. My little bit of Spanish did help me out some in Spain, but it has not been much use in Portugal because I cannot understand the Portuguese accent when they speak Spanish to me! For the most part though, it has not been an issue because many people speak English, although I wish more than anything for me to be fluent because I feel so incompetent when people ask me simple questions and I do not know how to respond!
So back to the farm… the farm itself is actually quite nice. Basically it is a garden with lots of vegetables and just about every meal a salad comes directly from the garden. The onions and cabbage here are so fresh and good! There are also beehives around and the honey is so delicious. Every one on the farm seems to help out where they can, but because I did not know anything, I ended up helping cook lunch for the 20 people in the house. That is definitely a time consuming chore in itself cooking for so many people. I think it ended up taking 3 hours between all the cleaning and chopping and boiling of different things. It took forever, but it was fun- but definitely not something I could do every day!

Ok, so now that I have established where I am now, prior to arriving in fabulous Portugal I was finishing my time in London.
The last weeks in London were filled with last minute papers, lots of packing and organizing, and most importantly, lots of regretting I could not stay longer! I miss it so much already!!
The internship that I had in the Novas Art Gallery for the second half of the semester was a fabulous experience. I loved my boss, Liga, so much! She was only 25, and is going to have a baby in a few short months so it was funny to hear and watch her grow. I truly believe that she made my experience at my art gallery worthwhile because without her, I do not think I could not have enjoyed it half as much. Especially because I was working with only one other guy named Mark and he drove me nuts! To put it this way, the first day I met him I introduced myself as the new intern with my hand extended, and he looked at me and said…”you’re American… I hate Americans” and then walked out of the room.
Oh yeah, he was bundles of fun to work with.
But I managed to get by though because luckily my boss was right there with me in not caring much for Mark. Now, you may ask why doesn’t she just fire him… well, she would have liked to have been given that opportunity, but because a higher up hired him and not Liga herself, she had no authority. That’s another issue in itself… which should be saved for another day.
So because Liga was running four floors of gallery space and within that three different shows, she asked me if I could organize an exhibition for some of the art that they recently acquired for the permanent collection. I was totally stoked!
The opening was on April 4th and it was fabulous! Liga definitely helped me out a bunch, but it was a such a great experience, and I had so much fun doing it! I took some pictures of the completed gallery, but because I do not have my computer with me on the farm, I will not be able to show you them until I get back. -which stinks, but I promise to show you them in August when I get back and yall will have to pretend to be really really impressed to make me feel good. Deal?

I am still in disbelief that I will not be going back to London anytime soon. Like I said before, I miss it so so so much! AND- I even survived living with four other girls in my room and 9 people in my flat altogether!- I feel like I can accomplish anything now… haha. And a funny side note to that, Alison and I are sharing two giant mattresses shoved together over in Cunca, and people keep asking if we are doing alright because it is a bit crampt… but compared to our experience of living with 5 girls in a room in London, we feel like we have all the space in the world! -I do not think the people on the farm understand how tough our living situation was back in London.

For our last night together, we grabbed all the excess food from the fridges and did a makeshift dinner including some cheese and chocolate fondue. It was quite delicious! We listened to all the fabulous music that reminded us of London and we cried a bit and laughed a bit, and sang incredibly loudly to fabulous songs that reminded us of our London experience together like “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, “Sweet Dreams are made of these”, and “So Tired of Being Alone”. good times!

From London, Megan, Alison, Kip and Liz and I set out the next day to Amsterdam. I managed to squeeze 48 pounds of crap into my backpack despite my goal of 35 pounds… it was a nice thought anyway… and besides… I was packing for 3 months so 48 pounds is not too bad. -and that’s including a sleeping bag and hiking shoes. I think the funny part about that though is when I came to London, everything total managed to be just under 50 pounds… and now I have left behind an enormous rolling suitcase, a laptop and 2 jackets amongst other clothes back in London. I shall be an interesting sight when I will be trying to lug both my backpack and my huge rolling suitcase when I arrive in London and will head back to Raleigh when the time comes! Wish me luck with that one!

Ok so back to Amsterdam. -It was so beautiful!!! The first night we didn’t have a place to stay because we were not such good planners and forgot to book things in time. So once we got off the plane, which was about 9pm… we wandered around for a while, got lost, and eventually managed to find our way to a camp sight that had cabins. It was so cold when we arrived but Alison was determined to sleep in her tent so she pitched hers on a grassy field with a million other tents while the rest of us got a cabin to share. Like I said before though, it was freezing!- and the cabin that we had did not have any heating or insulation. I, fortunately, had my fabulous sleeping bag so I slept quite cozily until I was woken up by Megan at 1 in the morning tapping me on the shoulder and stuttering that she is so cold and begging me to share my sleeping bag. I felt so bad for her, but I could not stop laughing because she looked so pathetic! After all, she only had a damp towel covering her while she slept!! We did end up sharing, although for the rest of the night I was not as cozy because Megan and I were fighting for the warmth. Not to mention… Megan’s body temp was close to ice so every time her feet touched me I freaked out because they were so cold! Luckily, we only had to deal with the camp sight the first night- after that, we had a hostel booked for the rest of our time.

We were in Amsterdam for only a day more so we just walked around tons and took it easy. We went to the Anne Frank Museum, which was where her and her family and others hid during WWII. I think my favorite, and most heartbreaking part was to see Anne’s room where glued pictures of Cary Grant and other famous actors that she had glued to the walls remain. I definitely recommend it if anyone ever gets around to going to Amsterdam.

I also went to the Van Gogh Museum, which I thought was great, but wayyy over crowded. It was really interesting nonetheless, I saw so many paintings that I had never seen before. I noticed that for me, some of his unknown work is my most favorite of his stuff by far. I guess that’s the way it goes though.

After Amsterdam, we went to Antwerp, Belgium. We had originally planned to go to Brussels, but we were told that Antwerp “is very different than any other part of Belguim,” but what we didn’t realize is that “different” really stood for “nothing to do”. The city is known for its Hesidic Jewish population and specializes in diamond shops. To be fair, we were in the wrong part of the city, but there was not much to see in Antwerp anyways. Luckily, we were only there for a night because then we went to Paris.

Paris was also a bit of a whirlwind tour, and I have a feeling that is why I did not like it very much. First of all, when we arrived at our hostel, the owner said that a sink was broken so he had to find us a new place to sleep. We ended up in a bit of a sketchy hotel room, but it was a roof over our heads, and that is all we really needed.

I do have to say that there were some absolutely beautiful parts of Paris. We climbed up the stairs of Montmarte, went to Notra Dame and did the Louvre. These things were highly touristy things, but I really enjoyed them! Although I was a bit disappointed that every single place smelled like pee around Paris. -And also, the Mona Lisa was not that impressive to me. What impressed me more was the queue to see the famous Divinci! To be honest, I was more excited that I was standing in the room of the opening scene in the book The Dicini Code, than the actual piece of work that is priceless.

After Paris, we took another train to Madrid. Originally, we had planned on staying in Barcelona for a day or two, but we decided that we wanted a more relaxed end of the trip. I am so glad we did that because for the next 5 days in Madrid we did not have to worry about packing up and checking out and etc. I do wish we could have made it to Barcelona though because I have heard some absolutely amazing things about that city. I will go on my next European vacation!

We did lots of wandering around Madrid because it was such a beautiful city, and we did do a day trip to Cordoba. Cordoba was absolutely gorgeous as well! - Its funny because I did a huge final paper on the Mosque of Cordoba my freshman year, and to finally see it in person after looking at it in so many pictures does not even compare. It was such a beautiful space to walk around- both the inside and the outside. The history behind the building is just as incredible as well. I think the way it goes is that parts were originally built in the second half of the 700’s when the Moor’s ruled over Spain. It was later expanded and even later converted into a church after the Christians took over during the 1200’s.
It was such a beautiful sight! - it’s a shame my camera does not do the space any justice what so ever.

Ok, so that is it for now. I do not have internet access on the farm, but there is a place I can walk every few days so yall can still e-mail me if you want!!

I miss yall so much!
-kels

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Photos

so cold!
megan with her damp towel before she crawled over to my sleeping bag!

so cold!
enjpying the fondue!
this one is of alison and andrew... but i am posting for mom's sake.
yes mom... this is the infamous andrew ;-)

EuRail time!
the really cool train station in Amsterdam!

Amsterdam rocks!
cool anne frank graffiti in Amsterdam!

EuRail time!
after we realized we missed our train stop in brussels to go to paris!

Paris!
in front of montmarte! too bad the person who was taking the photo neglected to get the actual church in the photo.

Paris!
of course... i had to get a picture with me standing under the Eiffel tower! we were literally there for only five minutes.

Paris!
in the Louvre! i love Egyptian art!!

Paris!
i finally made it to the Louvre!

Comments

[anonymous]

ahh i love you so much. just when i was about to start writing my fifth paper of the week i get a little email about your blog. and now i feel all caught up. it sounds like you have had such an AMAZING time. keep having fun, but come home soon- because everytime i tell people i'm eating queso for two they give me a funny look :( love, erin