WWOOF!

I'm alive! Living it up in BCN.

Sorry for the long overdue first update, but hey it's tough when you have limited internet access and you're trying to pack in as much fun and awesomeness as possible! Check out le facebook for more photos.

My itinerary for my travels from September - mid December 2008.
Barcelona, Spain - Sept. 2nd - Sept. 3rd
Pierry, France (via Paris) - Sept. 3rd-Sept.10th
Paris, France - Sept. 10th - 14th
Barcelona, Spain - Sept. 14th - Dec. 5th (with a week for travel around Spain in the middle)
Prague? TBD. Open to any cheap ideas. - Dec. 6th - 17th

WWOOF aka World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. For those of you who aren't familiar with WWOOF, it is an exchange between volunteers and organic farms/smallholdings/gardeners. Volunteers help out for a certain number of hours per day and receive room and board in exchange. Every country has its own WWOOF organization so you have to join each individual nation's WWOOF in order to see its listing of farmers which is kind of annoying and costly. However, there's such a wide range of opportunities whether it be a horse trekking ranch in Spain or a tiny farm in Australia. (I wish I could have done the horse one! Ponylove<3) style="font-weight: bold;">Traveling: Old Westbury, New York - Pierry, France
I managed to pack most of my summer dresses and scarves all in one big suitcase. (Scarf Girl is alive and well! I forgot my beautiful, NOT too big, hand knit red hat though, so Hat Girl might be dead in Europe. Sorry Roberta :( ) Then, Abba (my dad) dropped me off at the airport, but of course what Kang journey wouldn't be complete without forgetting something, losing a valuable, or being late? I inadvertently chose the first option and forgot my train tickets for Paris-Epernay at home, so then Abba had to go home, pick them up, and bring them back. Oops.
At least I didn't lost my passport again.

Bloop bloop bloop, off I went to Frankfurt, Germany for a short layover and then onto Barcelona, Spain where Pau, my cousin Bram's friend, had generously offered to let me stay with him for a night to break up the travel. HOWEVER! I did watch Made of Honor with Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan. Anyway, it was not a good movie. Definitely not up to par with Fever Pitch, one of my favorite movies ever. No laughing, I'm serious. I also watched Leatherheads which was kind of weird, but it had some laugh out loud moments. As you could probably tell, I couldn't sleep during the flight. All these banga babies were around me!

That first night in Barcelona, I slept for a couple of hours and then Pau and I went to this cool restaurant near his apartment called Madrid-Barcelona. I think Pau said it used to be the Madrid-Barcelona bus stop. I had my first taste of jamon serrano and pan con tomate and o-m-g it was quite the yummies! (okay, my first taste in Espana. Betty Confetti made it once with smuggled jabugo. Don't report her.) For the main course, I had paella and Pau had calamares. My paella was kind of salty, but it was pretty good and the portion was huge with lots of marisco tidbits. Pau's calamares were so tender. A mi me gusta! For dessert, I had crema catalana, which is like creme brulee, but...free form on the plate. At least, that's how it was in this case. It tasted too cornstarchy/floury and was too cold, temperature wise, for my taste. But still, thanks to Pau for a yummy dinner.


Jamon serrano at the BCN airport! What an awesome airport. Except by the time I took this picture, I had already eaten the jamon. Clearly, the ratio of jamon to pan was off and we all know it's always about the ratio.

Onto Paris! I took a Vueling flight to Paris and gosh, those low budget airlines are pretty cheap. I had to pay to check in my one bag and the seats/space between rows is miniscule. Also, apparently you have to pay if you want to go to the bathroom during the flight. Good thing I didn't have to go. From Paris, it was a quick 1.5 hour train ride to Epernay where Lady and her mother-in-law picked me up from the train station. I didn't realize it until I got there and saw all the people at the house, but Matthieu and Lady take in multiple wwoofers at a time and during my stay the number of people fluctuated from 5-13!

From Left to Right: gkan, Lady, and Matthieu - Merci pour los secretos de Peru!

A Typical Day of Wwoofing
-Wake up 8-10am.
People would wake up at varying hours, and these wake up times would fall into certain categories...
Frenchies/Belgians aka Veronique and Fanny - wake up super early and want to bike to work
British/Americans - wake up in the 9-10am range
Again, these are just generalizations.
-Breakfast 8-10:30?
The fare in general was vegetarian and 100% organic. Breakfast was always homemade bread, butter (except when we ran out...those were really sad times for me), homemade jam/conserves, nutella type spread, and tea. Of course, it was a languid affair that took place over at least an hour and a half as people filtered in and out. Oh, the life of a French household.


There would be tea at every meal made with a selection of herbs from the massive stock above.

-Work@Farm 11-2ish pm
The actual farm plot was about 10 minutes away by car and 25-30 by bike and is 1 hectare of land. The farm was started only a couple of years ago so the work consisted of clearing the land, weeding it, aerating it, etc.
View of part of the farm near sunset. (It's the green side with the tractor)

-Lunch 2-5pm
Meals were based around some sort of mixed veggies cooked in a big wok, a grain (quinoa, rice, or couscous), and a salad or fruit of some sort. We were always starving by lunchtime! Workers got to eat! Of course, lunch was always followed by a siesta for me. :) Other people did more productive things with their time like...check internet, write letters, take a walk, etc.

Typical meal: Veggies, Rice, and on some occasions my sworn enemy - lentils. I always tried a little bit! But I still don't like them. And then of course there was always dessert of some sort - but it was almost always fruit compote or quinoa or something along those lines.

-Back to Work! 5-8pm
If we didn't go back to work at the farm in the afternoon (because of rain, or in my case, I slept through it once....oops!), we would do work around the house which included, but was not limited to: building a ginormous outhouse, helping Lady with making bread/dinner, sorting a gigantic box of tools, fixing up the 10 odd bikes around the garage, cleaning the house.

Making bread!

-Dinner 10pmish
I was always hungrier for dinner because it was so late in the evening and it was kind of cold by then. Like ravenous.

-Misc. 11:30-?
Hang out, clean up dinner, play guitar, play cards, chat. There was a serious mix of language in the house. Lady (who was Peruvian) + Americans with conversational Spanish abilities + Jordi from BCN + Belgian + Frenchie + Brits = conversation that was always full of hilarious miscommunication....at least for me since I'm only fluent in English. :)

Saturday:
Day of Rest and Champers!
OH - EM - JHAY. A bunch of us went to Epernay on Saturday and went on a tour of the Moet & Chandon champagne caves where they store and age their stock. I could only afford the basic tour so I only got ONE glass of champagne at the end. :( But then we went to the tourist information office which has a free champagne tasting every Saturday! So I drank two more after that. Then we walked around town which was quite nice. Boulangeries everywhere! HOORAH.

Champers para mi!

After my first time as a wwoofer, I would recommend it to anyone who's on a budget and wants a unique experience off the beaten path. Of course, you should choose your wwoof hosts wisely, taking into consideration their location, type of work required, and expectations, but with research and some planning you can have a great time and meet lots of interesting people along the way!

Lady with my delicious mango nectar-French milk concoction. Creamy mango deliciousness.

Josh, one of the Brits. What a monster.

TBC with Paris trip...