Planet Olin

You know you're working too hard when the janitor walks in and tells you to go home.

I'm just getting over my cold. I have this persistent cough that hasn't let up for the past two weeks and I'm acting like a freshman in my musings about why I could have possibly thought Olin was the right place for me. I can't hack it. But sticking it out is the only way to ever hack it, so even though I am completely out of pants and wondering what this sleep thing is, I think I'll stick it out. Pass, no graduate, right?

My friends are creeping me out a little. Two friends engaged and one set of friends married -- all in one week!!!! People keep telling me it's that time in life. I guess. People are going separate ways. It makes sense to commit now, so you can plan to be in the same general area or at least feel confident that you will keep in touch. Still scary as anything. I want to live my life. This probably includes doing some crazy single-person things after college. (Although a talk last night really hit home the fact that I've been doing crazy things all along.) I also see myself getting married some day. Still no kids, but I guess I could be persuaded. Maybe. But when the heck would marriage happen? Now I say late 20s, early 30s is good... (I guess? How does one even plan for that kind of thing?) but when I'm that age, will I doubletake and think the same thing I do now? That it's way too early? I don't know. It's darn scary and I'm freaking out a little.

Senioritis strikes again. Vitamin C's "Graduation" and all that crap. I'm both ready and not ready for the real world. Scared? Of course, a little. I think next semester will make me miss school more, because, if all works out, I'll be taking fewer credits and my schedule will be more free-form. Can't wait. Until then, I've got work to do. At the very least, I've got secure some clean pants.

Ok so since I haven’t been posting much about my adventures, let me try to sum them up.

Some highlights of the last couple weeks:

• Stomping grapes with my feet while booty shakin to my iPod (well deserved after spending 2 days straight hand-destemming them)
• Visiting St. Emilion, a very quaint and picturesque little French town with 1 wine business for every four inhabitants.
• Couchsurfing in Valence
• Going wine tasting in the the Northern Rhone, particularly at Chapoutier.
• Seeing the one 1000 acre hill constituting the whole of the hermitage appellation where wines sell for $300 a bottle or more.
• Getting on a bike for the first time in years and riding 20 miles round trip to the top of Mt. Balsiac. (Okay, I mostly pushed the bike up the mountain part but I did ride 20 miles).
• Becoming so covered in sheep manure I felt sick.
• Eating barbequed duck for the first time.
• Receiving an 11 euro bottle of wine for free because I made an effort to speak to the shopkeeper in French (or maybe he thought I was cute?)

On Friday I go on to my next place in the Languedoc (south-west of France). Lots of pics up on Facebook.

10/6/08 – 10/23/08

Recommended.

Work

Hours: Generally 8:30am – 5:00pm with a 1-2 hour lunch break. We often had impromptu afternoon breaks and an occasional unscheduled day off so even though the hours were a bit longer than normal for WWOOF, they were not at all harsh.

Jobs: Painting, Weeding the vineyards, Hand picking, Hand destemming, Grape Crushing, Pump overs, Emptying and filling the wine tanks, Digging, Gardening, Manure spreading.

Conditions: For the winery work we would work alongside one of the owners who was very patient and knowledgeable. For most of the other work we were given our tasks to do and then left alone to do them. Very relaxed pace.

Atmosphere

Accommodation: They have a very nice self-serve accommodation that the WWOOFers stay in when it’s not being rented out. Otherwise there is a trailer that is also quite cozy.

Food and drink: The responsibility for meal preparation rotated evenly between the owners and the WWOOFers and meals were eaten together. Their winery is focused on small-batch quality production and the wine was quite good and plentiful.

Social: They usually only take 3 WWOOFers maximum so it’s a fairly intimate environment. They also have two little girls who provide endless entertainment. Family-style living, not a party place.

Overall

Recommended. Very nice people who are passionate about what they do and willing to share what they know.

9/11/08 – 10/5/08

Not recommended but could be a good fit for some. See overall.

Work

Hours: Generally 9:00am – 1:00pm. I was there during harvest so there was a lot more work to do so many people ended up working longer than this but the owner was very clear that we didn’t have to work more than four hours a day on average and that if we worked more during harvest the time would be made up afterwards by extra days off.

Jobs: Pre-harvest: Painting, cleaning, general manual labor, potato harvesting.

During harvest: Grape picking.

Conditions: We were generally given our tasks to do and then left alone to do them. Very relaxed pace.

Atmosphere

Housing: The main WWOOFing place is a separate house with a few bedrooms and one small bathroom. Rooms are shared single-sex as needed. The house is old and thus prone to dustiness, etc. but generally very decent. There is fireplace for warmth and a stove and fridge for meals WWOOFers need to prepare themselves.

Food and drink: Usually, a 3-4 course lunch (salad, main dish, cheese and light dessert) was prepared by the owner’s mother. Normally WWOOFers are responsible for preparing their own dinner (general ingredients are provided) but during harvest a full dinner was provided as well. We had all the wine we could drink but the Beaujolais style is not for everyone.

Social: There were a lot of WWOOFers when I was there, between 6 and 15+ and I was given to understand that this was the norm. This makes for a lot of socializing, drinking, etc. Lots of free time due to the relaxed work schedule. The owner, who is in his 30’s, would hang out with us quite often as well. Not a good place to practice French as most of the WWOOFers speak English.

Overall

Not recommended. Due to an unfortunate incident involving the owner and one of the female WWOOFers that occurred at the end of my stay, I cannot recommend this place to anyone, nor would I choose to return myself though I did enjoy the majority of my stay. However, as described above, the work conditions were very relaxed, the food and accommodation was more than adequate and the atmosphere was pleasantly social so it could definitely be a good fit for some people if that was not an issue for them.

:(

Boston Bike Film Fest = cold. HPV should submit a film next year.

Collision on the dance floor. My mouth kind of hurts.

"Wooo! You are asleep. :("

Make-outs.

Hungover.

Maybe I should actually do homework now.

Apparently starting senior year means I don't blog. Oh well. The last post I was working on (that you can't see, neener neener) was about Michael Phelps and the Olympics. I started before the Olympics and kept updating Phelps' medal count until the thing was over. Sigh. I should probably work on posting faster.

Note to add to my list of things I will miss from the summer: Watching dry erase marker dry instantaneously in the sun. It looks really cool.

My apologies for my complete and utter negligence of everyone's blogs. I tried to catch up this morning, but mostly skimmed.

Senior year is crazy. I'm overloading, of course, but this time I either need things to graduate, need things for after I graduate, or am not at all willing to give them up. Next semester could be a lot more relaxed. Maybe.

Today the Olin Bubble drove me a little crazy. I really need to get off campus and do something social. I haven't hung out much with some of the people I like to hang out with very often. You probably know who you are -- I miss you! I'm a little sick (second serious cold of the semester, darn it) and have been overworking, so I haven't done a lot of getting out. Gah!

I woke up at 5:30, worried that I might miss my alarm. I double checked my phone to make sure I had set it properly, and went back to sleep.

I woke up again around 15 minutes later, and again, and again. My phone was still set to go off.

My phone went off. I hit the snooze button, and went back to sleep.

Two minutes after that, I sat up in bed breathing fast, panicking about how I had just slept through the entire test. I then looked at the clock, turned off the alarm, and lay back, attempting to calm myself down.

A half-moon against a dark blue sky stared back at me through a dirty window. Reassuring.

Off I go.

Miracle Berries

The Femme Show

Crushing on a specific cute girl

Welding for HPV

Doing homework with Kelly over Skype (like we both get on Skype and sit there and do our homework - but it's kind of like hanging out)

Also - I really need plans for Winter Break. Kelly is ditching me. :(

One of the sources of some of my most rewarding experiences thus far in France has been hitchhiking. When I studied abroad in Sweden roughly two years ago, I had grand plans of hitchhiking my way across the country as a cheap means of travel. However when I got there, some combination of my having just enough money for it to seem inconvenient, my sense of the Swedish people as being standoffish, and just plain old cold feet led me to never follow through on this plan. I vowed yet again to try it on this trip to Europe but in the back of my mind, even I suspected I might not go through with it and I ended up buying only a fold out country map showing the major routes instead of the $30 comprehensive atlas that I could really use now.

This time around it wasn’t just the inclination to save money that was motivating me but rather a sense of adventure and my desire to practice French. With this in mind, my first hitchhiking trip was from Bully to Lyon –a roughly 40 minute ride that only saved me 2 Euros. I figured it was a good choice to dip my toe into the world of hitchiking since it was a fairly straightforward journey and there were plenty of bus stops along the way if I really couldn’t find a ride. After meeting ‘Patrick the black’ and being invited to hang out later that evening to go look at English speaking women with big boobs, I was hooked on the concept.

Since then, roughly, I’ve hitched over 20 times, travelled 700km, partaken in 19 hours of French conversation, been offered 2 joints (and countless cigarettes) and saved 125 Euros in bus and train tickets. About half of the people who have stopped for me have been men between the ages of 25 and 45 but a surprising number of beautiful women traveling alone and people with small children in the car have stopped as well. One time I also had an old couple go fairly significantly out of their way to take me all the way back home (a 2.5 hour ride) on my very first hitch of the journey because they said I was a ‘nice young man’. Other random anecdotes include getting picked up twice in a row by Algerians and riding in the ‘back seat’ one time with only the scruff of a dog’s neck for a seat belt.

So, in conclusion, not only is hitchhiking an economical and environmentally friendly means of travel, it’s also a fun way to meet people. It’s liberating to not have to rely on a schedule and it’s so much more interesting to have to make your own way rather than just be whisked off by a bus from point A to B.

Re: safety. I’ve been thinking a lot about gender dynamics on this trip for various reasons so I think I’ll write a post about chauvinism in France and include my thoughts on the safety of hitchhiking (w/ regards to women) in there.