Farmtivities, Food Poisoning, and Italy

It's catchup time at my favorite youth hostel in Nice after a fun daytrip to Italy. Here's the DL on life for the past couple of weeks! First big news, the farm is way better now! There were seven wwoofers there and it's been a great comunity :) Here are some pictures of life on the farm before Italy.

Pitchforking cut grass into a big ol pile is easier 'umbrella style.' Just remember, stab it, don't scoop it.

The sign in front of the farm entrance. I snapped this on one of my hikes. Cute!

The bell tower that chimes every half hour so I know what time it is (but mostly just counts down till lunch!) not in an annoying way :)

I sat on the wall there and ate an appl while watching the grass flow in the breeze. It's like a green ocean!

After I hiked through the little town of La Penne, I got up the mountain some and had some pretty great views! I'm sure you're sick of seeing all these gorgeous views...

So here's me! This is my begrudging acceptance that this farm is pretty alright.

My favorite shady spot to snack on my way back to the farm.

A pic from another hike when I went with Hazlett, another wwoofer. We went higher and it was great!

A few days ago, all the wwoofers went to the river and we swam, floated down river, and jumped off a big rock into the water! I couldn't bring my phone because it would definitely get wet...but it was great! The water was clear and cool. There was a scary dark cave/hole in the rock that I swam through. Terrifying! But I jumped off that rock a hundred times, so fun. One of my favorite memories is of Amy, a wwoofer from New York, jumping from a part of the rock that is about two feet out of the water and screaming bloody murder! I'm fairly certain the couple relaxing on the other bank did not appreciate it. Hilarious. All in all a GREAT day! And all while I worked on my ankle tan, which is a priority, obviously.

I finished that day with a relaxing time on the hammock looking at the mountains and a great dinner with all the wwoofers.

And then I got food poisoning.

Which tainted the fond thoughts of the farm, but I digress.

I found this great little spot that's right outside my window! I didn't know you could climb out, but it's great and had the best view of the mountains on the farm. 

My computer basically brought everyone together. Here are Dalila, Maria, and Marco.

Some nights we'd have cool French music from Marco and Cassandra #2

We finally snapped some shots of different work we do :) Yesterday I cut some grass.

We had sawing races while cutting wood (my favorite job besides working with bread)

Took a break for arm wrestling

I won. 

Then I Tom Sawyer-ed Maria into cutting wood for a bit because, "You said you wanted to try and you leave tomorrow, right? This is your last chance!" Yeah, I'm good.

The trip to Italy! International travel round trip, from farm to Puget Theniers to Nice to Ventimiglia, Italy. Cost? 3 Euros. Here's how!

We hitchhiked from the farm to the bus stop in Puget at 7am. The bus is an hour and a half to Nice, 1.5 euros. Tram hopped to the Nice gare and met up with Maria and Dalila. We couldn't buy our tickets because half the gare was on strike! (Gare is train station in French and it's shorter. Plus I forget to call it train station sometimes...) so we had to run to the train and 'buy our tickets onboard' or as I like to call it, train hop!

Maria took blurry photos of dark tunnels on the ride.

We walked through this cool market and I tried to haggle with someone for a cool shoulder bag...I don't have the bag...it's hard when you can't speak Italian! 

You have to have pizza in Italy! It was one of my goals and man was it DELICIOUS!

After, we all bought water and went to the beach for a bit. I promptly plunged my head in the ocean because it was hot and I made the terrible decision to wear jeans today...

Then annoying men tried to get us to buy everything from hats to jewelry to glasses to coconuts. We bought some coconut and it was pretty good. But those guys were ANNOYING.

Then we walked up to the top of the city to make room for gelato. 

It was cool.

At the top was this cool old church, know, I know, of course I went in... Some kids played soccer out front and hollered loudly in Italian. It was a fun atmosphere.

Of course, I loved the church. It's old, it's Italian. What's not to love! 

Especially this cool downstairs museum part that showed the really old relics of the church. You could see paths to it through clear floors above it.

The view from just past the church

Where we had to have a selfie! Me, Maria from Greece, Dalila from France, and Hazlett from Kansas, USA!

I had three goals when going to Italy. Pizza, icecream, and coffee. Needless to say, I'm an ACHIEVER.

I'm going to the beach in Nice tomorrow before returning to the farm (for 1.5 euros) and then I go to my new farm on Friday! Today is the official 2 months in France, and I'm glad I had an adventure with friends (and food).

FISE: Montpellier, France

There haven't been many posts lately for two reasons. The first is because not much has happened...I work a bunch and then it rains. It's not interesting stuff! And you can't take pretty pictures from the inside of a little house :( The other reason is because when it rains, it cuts out the internet. So even if I did want to kill time on the internet (I do), it is not possible! Fortunately, I went to civilization for the weekend :)

I like the lunches, delicious! A lot of salads. But really tasty salads!

One of my walks after work and before the rain :)

The mountains are a nice backdrop while we work!

This is their pet rabbit. He just mills around the grass. I call him Fluffy, Brandon called him Chocolate. I forgot the real name...

Brandon started the Rainy Day Olympics. His record was 4 levels. I CRUSHED HIM!

A look at my dinner most nights (and potatoes a lot)

On our way out. Brandon was returning to Canada and I was going to FISE. The family said if we didn't get a ride in an hour, then to call them. Walk an hour with our heavy bags! I was very surprised that they wouldn't drive Brandon to the train station on his last day. He even emailed them and asked and they said they would in the email. Anyway, we got super lucky! The first car stopped and gave us a ride. And even better! He bought us both coffee at the cafe and said bon voyage! Super nice guy.

I had just enough time in Nice to get a Croque Madame at the Nomad Cafe. Soo good. A man laughed at me for taking this pic...

FISE! So amazing! There were 400,000 people there watching these events over the weekend. It reminded me of the US Surf Open in Huntington Beach.

They had courses all over for Bmx, skate,  inline, wake boarding, and mountain biking. They also had fun sections for slack line and pogosticking.

And this giant may to practice big airs.

This is the rollerblading park. Huge and deadly! I was there for five minutes and then Amandine does this HUGE backflip to shin crusher on the launch ramp. She went to the hospital because they thought she broke it (bad sprain, phew!). But she had the name of her friend I was going to stay with and I had no way of reaching her now! Fortunately, I look to my right, and there's Rosie, a rollerblader from Scotland that I knew through Facebook! She hooked me up with a place to stay within minutes. I love how rollerbladers help each other out! Thanks, Rosie!

She also invited me to dinner with these peeps. They're all from the UK so it was nice to speak English for a bit! 

This was the room I stayed in for two nights :) 

During some exploring, I went to a mall and went to the bathroom there. I felt like a runway model, just look at this place!

I officially want to learn wake boarding after watching the women's comp. it looks so fun!

There was a tent selling inline stuff! When does that ever happen!?

Tons of people!

Not a great place to get around on crutches though! I didn't get many pictures for a chunk of time because I was super sick. I'm not sure if it's because I eat basically like a vegan at the farm and then ate meat when I arrived or if I just ate something that was bad. Either way, I was sick! Getting to the hotel took forever that night because I had to keep getting off to be sick :( fortunately it was only for the night! The next day I didn't eat anything, but at least I was it getting sick anymore! And I got to watch the cool spine comp and street battle! I met Lauren (also from Scotland) and she watched the spine comp with me, and bought me soda! Thanks Lauren! We'll definitely skate when I go to the UK :)

This was one of street spots. We had to stop abruptly because someone busted the door on the box and it started hissing. That's when we realized that it was a gas line thing! We all got out of there quickly!

And all took the team to the next spot. Needless to say, we didn't all fit...

Amandine tried to get creative for a faster way to travel. This carriage was broken, alas, so it was a long hobble uphill to the last spot.

This rail! What a great community!

Now I made it back to my favorite hostel in Nice and I'm going to the beach tomorrow before going back to the farm life :) Next blog post will probably be for Italy in a couple weeks! Till then!