The end of the harvest is so close! More like two days tops! We are at the top of the hill, where the terraces are getting deeper and deeper. Yesterday we were on the second to last terrace, which has three rows of about 20 trees each. The last one is a lot deeper, more rows, but it's the last one! It is very exciting to be able to finish already. We started on the 15th of November, and just might finish the 15th, maybe 16th of December. Our previous record was somewhere around 4700 kg, and as of last night we were at 5800 kg! We are definitely hitting the 6000 mark! And this is especially good since for the past week we only had one day of rain! And we weren't even working that day. Every day has been so nice and sunny. I missed the sun. During pausa, our break time, I always try to be in the sun. Oh, how good it feels to have sun on your face!
Other news. Raymond left, Drew came (back). Raymond left us on the 10th, also Friederike's birthday. He spent two night in Rome alone, and flew home on the 12th. He made it home safely and is happy to be home. We spoke to him via Skype when he was home, so everything is all right with him. A few days before he left, Drew came back. Drew was a volunteer here before I came (actually he left the day after I arrived here). His plans were to go to Germany, but things didn't work out there, so he came back here. He's from the States and wants to be a chef, which is awesome because we can talk food! And he eats meat! So I am looking forward to exploring dishes with him and making Hungarian food that I can share with someone! Yay! He also makes amazing fires which make the heaters super warm. (The heating in the Colonica works by making a fire in the fireplace which heats up water that is sent to our heaters. Unfortunately even the heaters are really hot, our rooms aren't. I mean, it's not freezing in there, but it's not super warm either. The hallway is always much warmer. How cruel.).
I only have one week left before I go home!! You have no idea how excited I am! It's the longest time I have ever spent without my parents, nearly 5 months! I have most of my gifts ready, now the problem is, will my things fit in my bag? Goodness.... The fact that Christmas Eve will be like when we were little, is very, VERY exciting! In addition to the seven of us, there will be two wives and one and a half grandchildren! For the rest of the holidays I have no idea how things will be, but I'm not really worried about it; I'll just go with the flow.
On Sunday we went into Florence. Rike and I went to church, the first in this Advent Season, and saw (well, heard. A column was blocking our view) the baptism of an adorable little baby. After church we met up with Kelly, Drew, and Clara (Rike's friend who is from the same organization as she is) and went to Santa Croce where there is a Christmas Market. There are many stands from around the world, but mostly European, two from Hungary! One of them sells these pillows that have some herbals in them that you can heat up or freeze and put on sore muscles, stomach aches, etc... But the other one is the BEST! It sells kürtöskalács!! Iris told me about them, so I just had to find them! People were crowding around this stand, so I stood in line as well. When it was finally my turn to order, I ordered in Hungarian. The guy was in shock for a moment, then made me my cinnamon and nut ones. When I paid, he said that he wanted to give me one as a gift, so I got one for free! It pays to Hungarian! :) I shared my sweets with the rest of my friends and they all enjoyed them, especially the cinnamon ones, which of course are the best ones. (For those of you who do not know what kürtöskalács is. It is a Hungarian delicacy that is usually sold at markets and bazaars. A yeast dough is rolled into about a finger's width of a roll and wrapped around a thick wooden log. This is then put into an oven which turns these logs and bakes them to a golden brown log. When it is done, the log is rolled in a mixture of either cinnamon sugar, ground walnuts, powdered sugar, cocoa, etc... and than eaten. Simple deliciousness. This might be a better explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCrt%C5%91skal%C3%A1cs)
After exploring the rest of the market and seeing German meat stands, Austrian strudels, a pig roasting, French foods, Dutch cheeses, French soaps, and many other things, we headed back to the center of the city and found Drew's favorite gelateria and had ice cream in the middle of December. How awesome is that? Very! Florence is very nicely decorated for Christmas. By the Duomo there is a huge Christmas tree that has the Florentine lilly in red hanging from the branches and lights. Simply decorated, but still beautiful. On some of the streets the Florentine symbols are also hung in the middle. I definitely do not miss the immense amount of Christmas decorations in the States! Simplicity is the best for me.
We took a risk and followed the schedule Paul made for coming back from Florence. It worked! A first. The trains are usually right, but somehow, the bus schedules never seem to match. But it did this time! We were very happy.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Thanksgiving in Italy, goodbyes, rain, Advent season!
The past few days have been quite eventful. We had an international Thanksgiving, said goodbye to many people, had lots of rain, and the Advent season started! (Duh, the title basically explains it all!)
Thanksgiving
Here at CC there are quite a number of Americans, or at least, there were when it was Thanksgiving. Zack and I have talked about having a Thanksgiving meal for quite some time. When Tony came back from the States in the beginning of November, he brought back a whole bunch of typical Thanksgiving stuff, like pumpkin pie filling, cranberries, craisins, etc.. It made everything seem possible, since I have not seen those things around here. There is a tradition to have a big meal at the end of the harvest, but since 1. we don't know when that day will arrive 2. it was almost Thanksgiving 3. there were a lot of people around from all over the world, we decided
to have Thanksgiving dinner! We had a day before, since the appointment to take the olives was on the actual night. It was such a fun night! The tables were decorated with nice napkins and fancy glasses that are usually reserved for the guests. The people who were making all the food were feverishly cooking and baking all day. Tony took charge of the main
meals, with the help of Elisa and Zack. Since Tony is a vegetarian and is lactose intolerant, the foods were altered a bit, but everything still tasted delicious. I don't think I have eaten that much since I got here. I was barely able to finish my plate. We had turkey, tofurkey, cranberries, potatoes, a delicious soup with chestnut pieces in it (how brilliant!!), roasted vegetables, and dessert thanks to Rike, Kelly, our South African volunteer, and myself. Rike made a German Apple Crumble, Kelly a Malva pudding (similar to a sponge cake, but it has apricot jam in it and some sort of sauce with cream in it) and for the first time ever, I made aranygaluska (which happened to turn out to be one of the best ones I have ever eaten. I am so proud of myself!)!
After doing all those dishes (we had about 25 people eating here), and cleaning up, Antoinette presented us with a game. Two teams, each player with a number. A asked questions about CC related things and then called out a number. The people with those numbers had to run to the "yes" or "no" chairs, and whoever sat down first, their team got a point. It was 'The Best' vs. 'Pink Olives.' Unfortunately, I was on the loosing team, but I think it was because Zack had the same number, and I am afraid that Zack might hurt me (things got pretty intense while fighting for the chair!). Zack used to play football and is quite bigger than me. I would rather loose to him than loose an arm.
There is a game called "Sardines" that we have been wanting to play for months now. We never got around to it, so we decided that that night would be perfect! The object of the game is the one person hides and everyone else searches for him/her. If you found that person, you hide in the same place with them. It's best to play with a lot of people, so you really do end up like sardines in a can! Paul hid first, and of course he knows every crook in this house, he found a pretty good place (I am still not saying where...); I found him first, than Ethan and Raymond. The four of us were in that little place for some time, and than we tricked the others are came out. Zack hid next, finding possibly the dustiest place in the house. There is a loft in one of the rooms and he climbed up there. Ethan and Raymond did too, so I was like, what the heck, why not! It definitely wasn't easy getting up or down! But so much fun! The night finished around this time, and we probably ended up watching a few episodes of 24 afterward (we have Season 3-7 here in the Colonica, and we all got hooked on it. Watched it every chance we got.).
Rain
There really isn't an update on this, but the fact that it has been raining almost nonstop. Well, today it was a better day; it didn't rain for the most of the day!
Advent Season
As you all know, Advent began last Sunday. This is exciting, because that means Christmas is a bit over 4 weeks away! We have a wreath, but no candles in it, haven't gotten around to it yet... On the first of December, when I stepped out of the hallway from my room, I saw that a little Angel, called Rike, dropped a few presents for me. She left me an Advent calendar and some delicious German cookies. Rike and I also made Cecilia an Advent calendar, with 24 little packages in a shoebox. She was so happy, and so were we when we saw her reaction.
Goodbyes
This is the saddest part of the blog for me. During the harvest we had several people come and go. We had the Swiss family with two little boys who seemed to make everyone's days a little bit brighter, Steven, the Dutch man, who went crazy with the chain saw and made pretty amazing tortillas (I rolled, he flipped), and several others. We still have Michael from San Diego and Kelly from South Africa, who are staying almost until Christmas. But the worst goodbye was Zack and Ethan. Their time here at CC expired and they flew back to Kentucky. It was not easy to say bye because we becam
e such a tight-knit group and they felt like brothers to us. We became very close, so seeing the first part of our group leave was quite upsetting. Raymond leaves in 8 days, Dennis in 16. I even had a dream that Rike is also leaving, which made me sad, since it's only going to be the two of us after Christmas (though, there might a British guy named Adam coming!).
The last night The Klemme Boys were here was fun. We played a round of our favorite game, Apples to Apples, with Iris-o and Kelly. Took some pictures, remembered all the good times we had and said our goodbyes. Our group is missing a piece now, but glad that they home happily with their family.
By the way, bought some awesome Twinnings Infusion teas. Amazing! Currently I am sipping on a Raspberry-Echinacea cup. And, 19 more days!
That is all for now!
Thanksgiving
Here at CC there are quite a number of Americans, or at least, there were when it was Thanksgiving. Zack and I have talked about having a Thanksgiving meal for quite some time. When Tony came back from the States in the beginning of November, he brought back a whole bunch of typical Thanksgiving stuff, like pumpkin pie filling, cranberries, craisins, etc.. It made everything seem possible, since I have not seen those things around here. There is a tradition to have a big meal at the end of the harvest, but since 1. we don't know when that day will arrive 2. it was almost Thanksgiving 3. there were a lot of people around from all over the world, we decided
to have Thanksgiving dinner! We had a day before, since the appointment to take the olives was on the actual night. It was such a fun night! The tables were decorated with nice napkins and fancy glasses that are usually reserved for the guests. The people who were making all the food were feverishly cooking and baking all day. Tony took charge of the main
meals, with the help of Elisa and Zack. Since Tony is a vegetarian and is lactose intolerant, the foods were altered a bit, but everything still tasted delicious. I don't think I have eaten that much since I got here. I was barely able to finish my plate. We had turkey, tofurkey, cranberries, potatoes, a delicious soup with chestnut pieces in it (how brilliant!!), roasted vegetables, and dessert thanks to Rike, Kelly, our South African volunteer, and myself. Rike made a German Apple Crumble, Kelly a Malva pudding (similar to a sponge cake, but it has apricot jam in it and some sort of sauce with cream in it) and for the first time ever, I made aranygaluska (which happened to turn out to be one of the best ones I have ever eaten. I am so proud of myself!)!After doing all those dishes (we had about 25 people eating here), and cleaning up, Antoinette presented us with a game. Two teams, each player with a number. A asked questions about CC related things and then called out a number. The people with those numbers had to run to the "yes" or "no" chairs, and whoever sat down first, their team got a point. It was 'The Best' vs. 'Pink Olives.' Unfortunately, I was on the loosing team, but I think it was because Zack had the same number, and I am afraid that Zack might hurt me (things got pretty intense while fighting for the chair!). Zack used to play football and is quite bigger than me. I would rather loose to him than loose an arm.
There is a game called "Sardines" that we have been wanting to play for months now. We never got around to it, so we decided that that night would be perfect! The object of the game is the one person hides and everyone else searches for him/her. If you found that person, you hide in the same place with them. It's best to play with a lot of people, so you really do end up like sardines in a can! Paul hid first, and of course he knows every crook in this house, he found a pretty good place (I am still not saying where...); I found him first, than Ethan and Raymond. The four of us were in that little place for some time, and than we tricked the others are came out. Zack hid next, finding possibly the dustiest place in the house. There is a loft in one of the rooms and he climbed up there. Ethan and Raymond did too, so I was like, what the heck, why not! It definitely wasn't easy getting up or down! But so much fun! The night finished around this time, and we probably ended up watching a few episodes of 24 afterward (we have Season 3-7 here in the Colonica, and we all got hooked on it. Watched it every chance we got.).
Rain
There really isn't an update on this, but the fact that it has been raining almost nonstop. Well, today it was a better day; it didn't rain for the most of the day!
Advent Season
As you all know, Advent began last Sunday. This is exciting, because that means Christmas is a bit over 4 weeks away! We have a wreath, but no candles in it, haven't gotten around to it yet... On the first of December, when I stepped out of the hallway from my room, I saw that a little Angel, called Rike, dropped a few presents for me. She left me an Advent calendar and some delicious German cookies. Rike and I also made Cecilia an Advent calendar, with 24 little packages in a shoebox. She was so happy, and so were we when we saw her reaction.
Goodbyes
This is the saddest part of the blog for me. During the harvest we had several people come and go. We had the Swiss family with two little boys who seemed to make everyone's days a little bit brighter, Steven, the Dutch man, who went crazy with the chain saw and made pretty amazing tortillas (I rolled, he flipped), and several others. We still have Michael from San Diego and Kelly from South Africa, who are staying almost until Christmas. But the worst goodbye was Zack and Ethan. Their time here at CC expired and they flew back to Kentucky. It was not easy to say bye because we becam
e such a tight-knit group and they felt like brothers to us. We became very close, so seeing the first part of our group leave was quite upsetting. Raymond leaves in 8 days, Dennis in 16. I even had a dream that Rike is also leaving, which made me sad, since it's only going to be the two of us after Christmas (though, there might a British guy named Adam coming!).The last night The Klemme Boys were here was fun. We played a round of our favorite game, Apples to Apples, with Iris-o and Kelly. Took some pictures, remembered all the good times we had and said our goodbyes. Our group is missing a piece now, but glad that they home happily with their family.
By the way, bought some awesome Twinnings Infusion teas. Amazing! Currently I am sipping on a Raspberry-Echinacea cup. And, 19 more days!
That is all for now!
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