Thursday, November 12, 2009
I would like to apologize to my enthusiastic readers for not having written to you all in so long. My reasoning? Life for the last month and a half for me, hasn’t been filled with one adventure after another (it was actually rather normal actually, and therefore boring) and I didn’t want to waste your time. Besides, you probably needed a break from me anyways.
I’ve felt almost as though I have been wasting my year off during this period home, but the unfortunate fact of life is that adventures tend to cost money (especially when you need to still buy the gear for it). So since I have returned home from Colorado, I have been working (unfortunately not as much as I’d prefer, but then I guess I can’t complain when I have a job I can return to even if it’s not a lot of hours and some people don’t have any job), saving, and buying gear for my next adventure: Chile and Argentina. Which by the way, I leave for this Saturday morning, at 5:17 from JFK. At 8:00 pm I’ll be landing in Santiago. I thought I should give you all an update before I head out, since I’m not sure how much time I will have to type up blogs and post them while I am gone. I promise though, that I will keep a journal of my time down there, and whenever I have the place and time, I will type it up and post it. It may, unfortunately, not be until I get back (they do have Wifi Cafes down there, but I may not be able to spend much time in them). So if you don’t hear from me until around Christmas (I return Christmas eve at 1:30 am at JFK-anyone know transportation I can get from the airport to CT at that time of night?), take it as a good sign-I’m keeping busy. But I really will try to post atleast one blog when I’m down there at like the transition point of the trip.
Now I’m sure many of you are like, so where are you going in Chile and Argentina? Are you going to Patagonia? What are you doing? Well, I’ll give you our itinerary of where we’re going, which I am sure will change, but to be honest, as to what we’re doing each day, that is not known. The weather, and the words of locals and other travels will influence this, though I have sort of a checklist of things we (Tom and I) want to do.
So as of now, the plan is to stay about 3 days in the Santiago area, six days around Pucon and Osorno in the Northern Lake District, and three days in and around Bariloche, Argentina. Then on Friday, November 27th, Tom will head back to Santiago for his flight at noon on Saturday back to the US. And I will head to El Bolson, Argentina to be a WWOOFer on a family farm. For those who don’t know, WWOOF is World Wide Opportunites on Organic Farms. I basically will be working on this farm 5 days a week, 6 hours a day in exchange for free room and board. Many people have asked me what is this a farm of and I couldn’t tell them exactly, because I had looked at 15 farms before I decided on this one. So, I looked back hrough my files at the farm description from the owners and for those who want to know:
City: El Bolson
Province: Rio Negro
Type of property: Organic farm and natural building center
Size (ha): 120
Cultivos: Fruits, vegetables
We speak: Spanish, english & italian
Description: We are an organic Farm, working in natural building sistems. Olso we work with bees,natural water harbing sistems and much more.
We are building a host center with sun shower, dry toilet, public kitchen, passive natural heating sistem and acomodation for 6 persons. Out door kitchen, out door dry toilet. Place for camping.
The hostel will be finish in the begining of january 2009, so it is important to bring until it is finish your tent and sleeping bag.
Accomodation: 6 beds in the host center in a common room, camping site.
We can receive 5 volunteers
Food: We have a cooking team so the food will be organiced for us with your help when it is necessary.
Vegetarian menu, very rich.
We are: We are 3 brothers, Gabriel, Gerardo and Leonardo. Gerardo is married with Paula. They have 2 childrens, Apolo and Lao. In the summer a lot of friends comes to help and enjoy the beauty of the land. We have 4 dogs and 4 cats.
We are developing a comunitary self sustainable eco village. Targeted in natural building, natural growing, renowable energy, art development and natural conscience development.
When to come: We can start receiving volunteers from december 20/ 2008.
We can receive volunteers until May.
Additional comments: Be happy and enjoy the life (I like their theory on life)
The one of the many great things about this program-I save so much money so that I can stay down there for so much longer and I still have plenty of time to go off on weekend or even afternoon adventures. Oh and of course I get to know the culture down there, and maybe, I will finally actually learn some Spanish (I’m sure you were all wondering that-no I can’t speak Spanish despite the CDs I’ve listened to the past couple of months and the 5 years of schooling in it-we just start teaching kids languages too late, if only they started me in Kindergarten and not 7th grade).
Now that you’ve heard where I’m going and what I’m doing for over half my trip, you want to know that checklist of things we want to do in that 2 week travel period. Well, some of the things on the list are to definitely climb Volcan Villarica and Osorno. Maybe sneak in a technical mountain like Cerro El Morado, or at least trek around it (really check out online pictures of these places-they’re pretty awesome pretty). Also on the things to see are some museums in Santiago (since I didn’t get to do Machu Picchu, this is my other way of seeing some ancient archeological findings in South America), and doing some other adventures in different areas like mountain biking, rafting, etc. I wont give it all away (especially since I don’t know myself exactly-sort of trying to go with the flow with this trip-and yet prepping for it still seems so stressful. Give me a break, is the first trip where I pretty much had to figure out and plan all the logistics myself, I didn’t use a travel agency-though luckily I’ve had some people who were excellent sources of info). Well wish Tom and I luck.
Ok, I suppose I should give you a rough idea of my weeks home. Unfortunately they were for the most part not as busy or eventful as the first. I wont bother telling you the details, but a brief update, since I did promise to tell you all about my “year” off (which incase I didn’t mention earlier, thanks to insurance has been reduced to a semester, but then I guess it’s better I go back, I may go insane if I spend much more time in CT, which is inevitable since jumping from one internship after another is probably not gonna happen).
My month summarized: I spent some time prepping for the trip-researching and buying gear, working with the catering business and spending the money I earn on my trips to NH (they were necessary for my sanity sake and getting things situated for next semester) and the necessary gear I bought. I visited a few friends from home and college, even making a trip to NY to visit a friend at Vassar. I was able to sneak in an afternoon at Rumney for sport climbing, some hiking in the Whites, a 65 mile bike ride in VT and some time in North Conway. Despite this though, I still had so much spare time. I even picked my clarinet back up. I did attempt to learn Spanish with the CDs from the library, but I’m afraid that was a loss cause. I do look forward to having more exciting things to share with you for the next five and a half weeks.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
The First Week “Home”
October 5, 2009
Well, the weather isn’t as good as Colorado, but I guess one shouldn’t be so picky and it builds character. And I’ve had a good week despite it all. Oh and seeing the colors of New England are a real added bonus.
Mom had people over for dinner Monday and Tuesday night so that I could show some pictures and tell some stories. Wednesday I actually got to work for the Krauses (the catering company I’ve worked for since high school).
Thursday though was when the real adventures started. I caught the commuter rail to Boston, met Tom there after just a little bit of difficulty finding each other (at one point he was driving in circles around the Boston Commons, while I stood on the edge cell phone to ear, watching for a car I’d never seen before). Then Tom and I went to meet his brother for dinner (another interesting time trying to navigate through Boston. Never again. I’ll stick to walking and the subway for cities).
Friday, I went to breakfast with Katelyn Dolan at the Big Bean in Newmarket (highly recommended by the way) and then went apple picking with her. That was actually rather exciting because we got to use the long pole with a basket on the end. It was quite the challenge to catch the apples from the top branches. Some apples unfortunately decided to commit suicide, but we couldn’t let our attempts go in vain and the apples to waste, so we sampled them anyway, deciding which apple was best. Critiquing texture, flavor, crispness, etc. I would have loved to make apple pie to reap the benefits of our hard work, but unfortunately there was no time. I did have the chance to meet and catch up with Sarah Nelson, before I went for a run and made a stop at the registrar’s office. In the afternoon, I talked briefly with Mark and then met my old roommate Jill for lunch at Pauly Pockets, to hear of her adventures in Ireland. She also caught me up on how things were with the Outing Club, whicj I’m happy to find out is doing much better than last year-mainly probably because of the new SAFC funding.
After that, Tom and I left for VT to stop by his uncle’s place to see his giant legendary haunted corn maze, and his cousins. I had a blast scaring people, though I ended up sacrificing my voice. I had the chance to with talk and meet with the relatives afterwards.
Late that night we drove down to the Tuft’s cabin in Woodridge?, We ended up taking a slight detour (this seems to become the theme of our weekend), arriving there at 1:30am. We managed to drag ourselves out of bed (which was the back of Tom’s car with the back seat put down-we were far to lazy to set up the tent in the rain) at 5:00, for the big outing club relay race at 6:50. The weather was just a bit wet, windy and cold on Franklin Ridge, but the traverse was fun anyways. It’s crazy when people disappear in the fog just 100 ft in front of you, blank whiteness engulfs the surrounding scenery, and every flew steps the wind pushes your foot sideways, causing a few missteps. I like though despite the weather and wet rocks, I didn’t have any big wipeouts until the very end of the trail. In the cover of the trees and on the easy section of the trail, my back foot sneaks beneath a hidden root when I’m in almost full stride, sending me into almost a full split. Needless to say, my groin was a little sore after that.
No news yet who won, but it was a close one. I think I ended up hiking 16 miles total that day, about 12 miles actually racing (and so I fully enjoyed the donut and ice cream Sunday at the fair the next day). On our drive back from the race, we made a stop at Tom’s mom’s house and then finally made it back to Portsmouth for at least a few hours of sleep. We were up early the next morning then to head to the Berlin fair in CT. This is where the detour theme continues and we arrived maybe 45 minutes later than originally planned because we got on 395 instead of 84. Oops.
After a fun afternoon at the fair, some delicious pizza for dinner, Tom headed home and I crashed in bed. I do hope my remaining weekends can be just as exciting, though I think a little more sleep would be a nice addition.
Well, the weather isn’t as good as Colorado, but I guess one shouldn’t be so picky and it builds character. And I’ve had a good week despite it all. Oh and seeing the colors of New England are a real added bonus.
Mom had people over for dinner Monday and Tuesday night so that I could show some pictures and tell some stories. Wednesday I actually got to work for the Krauses (the catering company I’ve worked for since high school).
Thursday though was when the real adventures started. I caught the commuter rail to Boston, met Tom there after just a little bit of difficulty finding each other (at one point he was driving in circles around the Boston Commons, while I stood on the edge cell phone to ear, watching for a car I’d never seen before). Then Tom and I went to meet his brother for dinner (another interesting time trying to navigate through Boston. Never again. I’ll stick to walking and the subway for cities).
Friday, I went to breakfast with Katelyn Dolan at the Big Bean in Newmarket (highly recommended by the way) and then went apple picking with her. That was actually rather exciting because we got to use the long pole with a basket on the end. It was quite the challenge to catch the apples from the top branches. Some apples unfortunately decided to commit suicide, but we couldn’t let our attempts go in vain and the apples to waste, so we sampled them anyway, deciding which apple was best. Critiquing texture, flavor, crispness, etc. I would have loved to make apple pie to reap the benefits of our hard work, but unfortunately there was no time. I did have the chance to meet and catch up with Sarah Nelson, before I went for a run and made a stop at the registrar’s office. In the afternoon, I talked briefly with Mark and then met my old roommate Jill for lunch at Pauly Pockets, to hear of her adventures in Ireland. She also caught me up on how things were with the Outing Club, whicj I’m happy to find out is doing much better than last year-mainly probably because of the new SAFC funding.
After that, Tom and I left for VT to stop by his uncle’s place to see his giant legendary haunted corn maze, and his cousins. I had a blast scaring people, though I ended up sacrificing my voice. I had the chance to with talk and meet with the relatives afterwards.
Late that night we drove down to the Tuft’s cabin in Woodridge?, We ended up taking a slight detour (this seems to become the theme of our weekend), arriving there at 1:30am. We managed to drag ourselves out of bed (which was the back of Tom’s car with the back seat put down-we were far to lazy to set up the tent in the rain) at 5:00, for the big outing club relay race at 6:50. The weather was just a bit wet, windy and cold on Franklin Ridge, but the traverse was fun anyways. It’s crazy when people disappear in the fog just 100 ft in front of you, blank whiteness engulfs the surrounding scenery, and every flew steps the wind pushes your foot sideways, causing a few missteps. I like though despite the weather and wet rocks, I didn’t have any big wipeouts until the very end of the trail. In the cover of the trees and on the easy section of the trail, my back foot sneaks beneath a hidden root when I’m in almost full stride, sending me into almost a full split. Needless to say, my groin was a little sore after that.
No news yet who won, but it was a close one. I think I ended up hiking 16 miles total that day, about 12 miles actually racing (and so I fully enjoyed the donut and ice cream Sunday at the fair the next day). On our drive back from the race, we made a stop at Tom’s mom’s house and then finally made it back to Portsmouth for at least a few hours of sleep. We were up early the next morning then to head to the Berlin fair in CT. This is where the detour theme continues and we arrived maybe 45 minutes later than originally planned because we got on 395 instead of 84. Oops.
After a fun afternoon at the fair, some delicious pizza for dinner, Tom headed home and I crashed in bed. I do hope my remaining weekends can be just as exciting, though I think a little more sleep would be a nice addition.
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