Random Walk Through Campania

Hey Family and Friends,

Its been awhile since I have written in this blog thing. Joe and I have safely and happily left the Abruzzo region of Italy and now are west of Naples in Avellino. We are staying with a wonderful family that run a farm here. They grow hazlenuts, walnuts, almonds, figs, saint fruit (my new favorite fruit), and WINE. They grow an old sweet grape called fjana, and its super old from like the 11th century. They make wine and everything else organically. Somehow they skip the femermeation process...still unsure how that works...
The daily chores range from cutting and burning wood, gathering walnuts and chestnuts, and cooking. Ieri (yesterday) we baked hazelnuts and made REAL LIFE nutella!! It was more poignant than the store bought kind, but Joe made it snazzy but adding Miele (honey). These days I think in Italian, especially by myself. I think my learning curve is pretty logarithmic at this point and I need to get out a dictionary and learn some new everyday words. This may not be that useful down here in Naples, because many people speak Napolitan, which is a whole new language mixing greek, spanish, latin, and italian. It reflects well the stormy past of the city. The weather is lovely down here! Today I spent the day in Northern Naples selling fruit and nuts at an organic farmers market. For those that know me well it isnt that far from my volunteer job at school, but selling to boisterous Napoliteans instead of the Princeton Upper crust is a little different...as you can imagine.
At Rosas farm, we eat really healthy food everyday, and my body is healing from the jabs that travelling can dole. Joe and I have a new record of 4 weeks of time spent together! Our previous record was three when we went to Peru. I think I will load pictures sometime soon or our trip so far. We have to capture one of these amazing sunsets over Mt. Vecuvius.


So the past week, we spent time in Rome with two lovely couchsurfer hosts, Stephanie and Annie. For those who have not surfed, you HAVE to. Its without a doubt the best way to see a city, and its free. We spent three days exploring Roman night life, museams, fontanas, and cathedrals. St. Peters Basillica was OUT OF THIS WORLD. It was one giant statement that hey, we may or may not be the foremost relgion in the world, and they guy leading us...may be the spokesperson of god. It was very cool. Religion here is sort of neat, its very reminiscent of a polytheistic religion. Catholicsm in my mind, mabye from history classes has always been a grim and unyielding set of rules...but here I realize more than ever it is super colorful, and truly had to be in such a colorful place! Saints here are very reminiscent of polytheism, and probably had to be from Italys Roman roots...okay i am done speculating...
The Sistine Chapel and the Popes Museam of Art was truly breathtaking. We almost didnt pay the moeny to go, because we are truly poor, but came out so much richer.

This evening Joe and I snuck into a soccer stadium and kicked the ball, (who we named Claire), around. These are the small highlights of these beautiful days. It might have been the chocolate covered fig I ate earlier...unsure.

For the adults that might be reading this, do not worry! Joe and I think of grad school almost everyday and get more and more excited to go. It is the glorious stable light at the end of this crazy tunnel.

Our future plans go so far: We leave Italy from Rome on October 18th for Barcelona. We plan to swing through Granade, Toledo, and finally end up in Madrid for Halloween to see Ryan Corces. Then on November 3rd we fly to Cairo to meet my love, Jess, who will hopefully guide us through Egypt and the holy land(s). Finally we will buy a ticket to South Africa at the end of the month from either Tel Aviv or Cairo. Need to do that soooner than later :)
If anyone reads this, can they send me an email telling me what in the world is going on over in the US right now? I really dont want to be stuck in Europe because the dollar doesnt mean anything anymore!! Just kidding thats probably not the case at all.

Alright Thats all Folks! Ciao Belli!
Namita

L'aperegina

Alright. So its dark outside...and raining...I think its about midnight. This farm is rediculous. Our LIVES have been rediculous so far. After being shown an amazing time in L'Aquila with David (he works in an underground mountain fortress...science doesn't get any cooler) we figured that our cushy vacation was about to toughen up. I just reread Nams post about "manual labor" HA.

So far my manual labor has consisted of painting a pot, picking blackberries and playing with a goat (more on Nina later). If we were on vacation before, now we are living in a resort. We actually kind of literally are living in a resort. L'aperegina is a small organic farm but primarily functions as a bed and breakfast. There are all sorts of nicely manicured and decorated rooms that the guests stay in. Me and Namitas job is to be something between a curiosity for the guests and a servant. At least thats what we would be if there were any guests here. We missed the high season though which means our chores are just to feed the ducks, donkey and goat. And to set and clear the table. Everynight there are about 2 or 4 friends of Marino and Eliday who come over and regale each other with what sound like fantastic stories but becuase they are in Italian I can only guess.

Actally, my Italian is comming along a bit. I would say I catch about every 5th word that is said, which is just enough to get the gist of what everyone is talking about. Mostly it seems to be about food.

(to be continued)

We are actually Abroad Finally.

It's kind of crazy to think that 6 days have past and we have literally countless more to go before our 9 months is up. We are in Abruzzo Italy with our friend David who works in the National Nuclear Physics lab in L'aquila, Italy. Our Italian is coming along nicely as we spent the weekend in Bologna at the beach with 12 guys and girls from David's basketball team while living in a camper.

We visited David's family to get the camper and was priveleged to taste grapes from his garden as well as FIGS, which besides the minor allergic reaction I had to them, are my new favorite fruit. The grades tasted like something between champagne grapes and basil; two of my favorite things.

Besides being able to do laundry last night, the highlight of the day was stopping at a rocky secluded beach and were able to see the sunset while swimming in a perfectly blue ocean.

We are getting into the groove of traveling and have found that if we want to make it work, we are going to have to spend less that 15 dollars a day for our entire trip in Europe. That sounds difficult but between getting free accomadation through WWOOF and couch surfing I really believe it is possible.

Our Italian is coming along quickly, and we are almost able to be conversational...but severely limited to the present tense.

We leave on Wednesday to go to our first WWOOF farm, L'aperegina. We will check in soon with how difficult manual labor REALLY is. The gist of our future plans are as follows:

Italy, Naples Oct 1-->15th
Spain Oct 15th-->Nov 1
Egypt (to see Jess) Nov 1-->Nov 15th
Botswana and South Africa Nov 16th-->January 1st...

Then who knows!

Well, ci vediamo presto, CIAO!
Namita