Rosenhill update

Things have been quite well here at Rosenhill. New wwoofers show up every day. We now have one from Belgum, three from France, one from Canada, one from Irland, one from Sweden and two from Holand. Everyone has different accents wich makes things fun.

The nights are passed by playing games and talking until 12 am. We all get along well and make fun of everyones culture. Turns out the French do not really eat frogs, but don't mind we call them that. The Sweeds just want to be Americans, and the one from Canada does not have beedy eyes, but does have a flappy jaw. The girls from Holand sing American songs with a guitar and cute Dutch accents.



As far as work goes, we are still just pulling weeds and helping out in the cafe mostly. Some days we have other projects such as painting and making things.




On Saturday we do a pub night, and people come from all over the island to hang out. The farm normally gets some kind of musical entertainment on saturdays. This weeks music was relly nice. We had a guitar and a female singer, singing American and Swedish songs. Like in America, you still need a liquor licence to have a pub, wich we don't but some how get away with it. On Sunday night we have people come to perform plays. Last week the play was about the knights of the round table.



I have made good friends with a family that lives in a tee pee here on the farm. They are kind of mysterious and I seem to be the only one that frequents there home. Adrian and Tuva have two kids, Elnathon, 7, and Sailor who is 2. They both speak very good English, and are happy to speak it. They are here for the summer only and live elsewhere when not on holiday. The tee pee is very cool. It was purchased by Adrians father from a company in Washington state. For about two grand you also can have an authintic native american home. I ended up befrieding them because Adrian also loves fine rolling tobacco and got me a pack of "gul 3" from norway. Not to many places sell it here so he gets me some when he's in town.



This is the caravan that we have been sleeping in... Too funny. The Americans get the white trashmobile

Rosenhill

So we arrived at the farm that we will be working at for the next two weeks. Again, I was kind of nervous about meeting new people, but mostly for the work. No hiding in the cabin this time. We showed up and right to work we went. The first task was cleaning out the caravan that we would be staying in. No problem there. We got the caravan cleaned up in little time, and I cut a path in the field it is located in, to the front door. Even though it is a little on the wobbly side, it will suit us fine.

It turns out that the farm is amazing, and tons of fun (or maybe kilos of fun). Everyone here is super nice. The farm is owned by one family, Lars and Emelia, and their two kids. It is a small apple orchard, growing carrots, lettuce, chard, tomatoes, cherries and keeping bees. Incorporated into the farm is a cafe and community spot. The cafe is the main source of income, making it possible to put the crops on the back burner. If I had to guess, I would think that the cafe has about 75 to 90 people a day. The menu at the cafe changes quite frequently, but sandwiches and soup are the staples. There is a variety of baked goods that are displayed nicely in a case.

The farm it's self is made up of the cafe, a community barn, work barn, donation barn and about 6 houses and cabins, and a tee pee. There is a family that lives in the tee pee.

I believe that there are only two paid employees in the cafe, and the rest are wwoofers. Currently there are 7 wwoofers here. One from Seattle, three from france, one from New Zealand, one form Canada and one from Holland. We are all between the ages of 20 to 30. All the wwoofers are very nice, and are fun to talk to. We are all fortunate (us mostly) that english is everyones second language.

So our day starts out with breakfast and a short meeting to plan the day. We all chose what we want to do for morning duty. I favor feeding the pigs and hens. Morning duties take about an hour to complete. During breakfast we each pick our daily duty. We are asked to sign up for six, one hour time slots that include dishes for the cafe, weeding the garden, and any other chores that need to be done. We make elder flower lemonade in the cafe, so my day was spent picking flowers in the morning, weeding for a few hours and then dishes for an hour.

The day seems to fly by quickly. We all get along well, and enjoy the work we do. It is very neat how much pride people take in their work even though we are volunteers.

Dinner is around 8:30 pm and is up to the wwoofers to make. Cooking for 20 people can be challenging, but gets done anyhow. We all take turns with diner, and clean up.

After diner we all hang out together until we get tired. Many of the wwoofers are musicians, so we have lots of music in the evening.

The cafe is closed on Mondays, so most of us take that day off. Yesterday we went to go see a movie, but it was sold out. We ended up walking around the city all day.

In other news. We bought tickets to Spain. We leave August 4th for Barcelona. Looking forward to a change of scenery and a new farm. We already think that it will be hard to beat this farm. All the other wwoofers say this is the best one they have seen. So we'll see.

We have both been very healthy and happy. Sorry about not writing more. Just very occupied.

Guess that's about it for now.

187 on a Zoey




what does this sign mean? Take your kids to the street to play




Zoey in Sweden




Public bathroom. You like that Bizzle?

Wait is that a map behide you?

Dudes on bikes

Some New Pictures

Sorry guys... this might be all the pics I can post for a while...

Ox Tail and Bananas

Everyone was a hurting unit the day after the party. I think the average wake up time was around 2 pm. We veged out for some time then headed home around six o' clock.
We were so hungry when we got home, and the plan for dinner was pizza. Should be good. No one can mess up pizza. The menu was all in Swedish so that made ordering tough. Ana said she would not translate, just tell us if she liked that pizza or not. So I made the decision for us. A pie called Jessica especial was near the top of the list, so I assumed that it must be popular. That it was. But not so much back at home. Ana said it was an excellent choice. Turns out was we got was a pizza with bananas, ox tail, and a sweet curry sauce.

This was the first food I had tasted that I had to honestly choke down. Warm, mushy bananas are not that good of a topping. Ox tail is ok, but kinda flavorless. The sweet curry had such a strong banana flavor it kind of ruined everything. The crust was way thin, making this pizza impossible to eat with out a fork. Not to impressive. I wouldn't eat most of the bananas and zoey hated the ox tail. So we managed to get it all eaten as a team.

I can't imagine what thailand is going to be like. Hopefully there will be some sort of english translation, or at least english letters.

After dinner we went to bed kinda early. Another journey to endure in the morning.

The next morning we got ready to go visit Ana's parents, who live eight hours south of Stockholm. Ana has a car, but it's a very small one. Something called a Ford KA2 or something. It is only sold in Europe. It is a little two door hatch back with 13" tires. Very similar to my Suburu Justy (the incredible edible egg). The trip was not all that comfortable but we made it to a town called Simrishamn, pronounced Simitysam. It is beautiful here. We are right by the sea and the town looks like a typical European village. Cobblestone streets and sidewalks, cute shops and lots of flowers. I love it here.

We are only like an hour away from Denmark so we're going to make a day trip out of it.

We just found out that the EU will only let us stay here for three months. This shortens our plans by a month. So I think were maybe going to try to go to Morocco and New Zealand. But we'll see about that.

Fear and Loathing or The Bravery Snail

So I am feeling better now. Socially that is. We made the one hour trek to the birthday party, and it was neat to see all the new road signs and great landscape. The road signs crack me up. Common sense helps figuring out some, but others are a complete mystery.

Upon arriving to the party, we said hello to the few people that were there (we were early) and were shown our cabin for the night. Kinda laid around for a while then Zoey headed out to the party. I on the other hand was not doing to well with being around these strangers. It was very odd. As you know I normally thrive in situations like this.

I was now making up silly reasons not to talk to anyone or even leave the cabin. I could hear people laughing outside. I was sure some of them were laughing at me. I knew they were all going to be rude if I did come out. So that wasn't happening. I was sure one of them had some kind of appetite for human flesh, and I was sure to get bitten. Five hours I sat there. Alone. Zoey did come check on me, but I just told her I wanted to stay put.

I had to pee something awful, and needed a smoke. After deciding that there was nothing in the cabin for me to pee in I sunk ever so quietly out the cabin door, and quickly darted around the other side where no one could see me. I peed, lit up a smoke, and like a spy I peeked around the corner of the cabin. I saw the most terrible thing. People having a good time. Still under the impression that Nate in the cabin was the topic of conversation, I crouched down to finish my cigarette.

Then I found the biggest snail I had ever seen. Yellow in color and so beautiful. Into the cabin I went to fetch the camera. When I came out another tiny snail was there too. The tiny snail crawled onto the bigger snail and this made my day. Shit I said. Now I have to go find Zoey to show her this.

Taking a deep breath I braved my way to the party. Like a coward I avoided eye contact with the two men that were in front of Zoey. Hello they said. Hey I said. Hands came out, and I was sure they were going to jump me. Not the case. A handshake was all they wanted. How American I thought. We get to talking, I explain very meekly what I was doing at their party and they ask me what kind of music I liked. Well there was a pointless conversation. What would they know about music. I respond with everything. Abba, ace of base, hip hop. They laugh. What kind of hip hop? I explain. Turns out they know a lot about hip hop. Everything we listen to in the states. They speak with perfect english. Not even an accent. They went to American schools. Come to find out a lot of them did. Everyone speaks English.

Sensing how uncomfortable I was they got me a drink and some snuss. Turns out everyone is super nice and very polite.

I made my way around to meet everyone else at the party, and ended up having a blast. We ate a great dinner, sang songs, and drank lots. The girls decided that Nathan and Satan sounded the same, so they called me Satan all night. Very silly. The party lasted until three or four.

Culture shock maybe? Not quite sure what was going on in the cabin. It was very weird to see that side of me. Over all I'm glad that I did come out. I'm also glad that there is nothing to really be afraid of. People should not scare me. As long as I try, I should be fine, no matter what happens.

Bye America

Returning to Brooklyn was great, although we only stayed there one night. Crashed at our friend Nancys house again. I really like Greenpoint. That's the neighborhood she lives in. Being the last night in America for a while I headed to a bodega and secured myself a six pack of good old PBR thinking if I did find it in Europe it would be an import and expensive. On to the stoop I went for one of my favorite ways to kill time. Beer and people watching. The one thing that reminds me that I'm in NYC is nobody returns my greetings.

Zoey and I decided to get some champagne and found a great vegetarian restaurant that let us bring our own bottle in. We ate some hummus and pita celebrated the start to the European part of the trip.

Nancy returned home about the same time we did, so we made some dinner and visited. Thank you to everyone who called that night. It was nice to hear so many voices.

We called for a driver to take us to the airport the next day and had a bunch of time to kill. Ever had the option to do some duty free shopping? Pretty rad. Super cheap booze and smokes. $90 for four cartons of camels. Full gallons of Jack Daniels for $30. Amazing. I didn't buy any booze because Iceland doesn't let you bring booze in. Whatever you purchase gets brought on to the plain for you so you don't get to use it in America. All the cigarette packs say not for consumption in America.

The flight was all right. We left about 9 pm so the sun had just set. All the seats in the airplane had tvs in the headrest with choose your own entertainment. Get this Becky, Romeo and Juliet, Mulan Rouge, and Australia were all options. I got to see Man Under Fire, Night at the Museum, and Slum dog Millionaire.

That was the shortest night I have ever seen. Since we were flying east the sunrise was only about four hours after we left. Kind of messes up you day. The ocean looked very cool from that high.

It was about five hours to Iceland. They make you go through customs when you arrive from a non European country, because their security is different. Or so they say. It seemed the same to me. Right after that we hopped on the airplane to Sweden. That flight was about two and a half hours.

We arrived safely, with Zoeys cousin Ana waiting for us. No customs to go through in Sweden. So no passport stamp. :( bummer.

Stockholm seams nice. I was very tired by the time we got here. I think I lost like six hours or something. So yesterday all I did was watch tv and play on the blackberry. This was nice. Haven't had a tv day in months. Went out that night. No so sure how I feel about that yet. I was very shy and uncomfortable.

Today we are going to another Ana's birthday party about an hour away from the city. Should be a good time.

Happy forth of July to all. Take pictures and email them to me. And have fun.