WORK
We have helped with the harvest every morning starting at 7:30am. We even worked in the rain. We are working along side the Hungarians, who drive every morning to earn €5 per hour. Heidi, I know I will never really be able to fully understand Hectors life in Mexico, but I now think I may now have a better idea of what he went through. We work when they say we do, yesterday we left the house in such a hurry that we did not bring our rain jackets. Of course, it rained most of the day. We were cold and wet. We also take brakes when we are told. Monday we worked 10 hours with one brake! The Hungarians have to do the hard work though, as they are the ones getting paid. The have to take the wheelbarrows up and down the ramp to the truck. It is odd how they work so fast even though they are paid hourly, but as the work if never done here they have job security. We now know that the work is very hard but has to be done by hand to maintain the quality of the wine. I earge you all to take a moment a think about all the labor and love that goes into making a good product next time you sit down to have a bottle of wine.
FAMILY AND FRIENDS
Every evening after harvesting, we are shuffled to another persons house. Most of them are somehow related to Ryan. We have looked at many photos, some people we know, some we do not know but they are happy to show them to us anyways. Sometimes their is an english speaking person there. Today we had lunch with Ann Koller, the wife of a cousin of Ryan's grandfather Joeseph. She speeks absolutly no english and our German has yet to inprove. I understood some of what she said but do not know enough to answer her questions. She made us a wonderful meal and walked us home too. This weekend we will do some sightseeing and go to a mini octoberfest for my birthday on Saturday. Check out the new photos!
we are in Mönchhof, in south-east austria. We are staying with the Koller family. They are very nice, although most do not speak english. we have been helping with the grape harvest. yesteday we cut grapes off the vine for 10 hours. that was not as cool. today we wimped out and took a half day. I (ryan) have many relatives here. each day, someone new calls and says they want to have us over for dinner. most people dont speak english though, so its kinda tough. mönchhof is very small, and there is not much else to do here (although we havent had time to do so yet anyway). we did gou out to the bars last saturday night with eric and marcus, and sayed out until 4:30 in the morning. that was pretty fun. we will stay here until monday, when we will travel to bratislava (again) to catch a flight to istanbul.
We arrived in Budapest after a cold and rainy day in Bratislava. We spent the first day getting oriented in this large city and enjoying a wonderfully tradition meal at Menza Restaurant. We noticed at least three different people peeing on the street in plan sight, odd. We are staying at a cute hostel called Enter Privates (he he). It is a converted apartment in the center of town that is one of the nicest places we have stayed in. Today we walked to the Museum of Modern Art, which turned out to be twice as far as we thought it was. They had a Keith Herring Exhibit and a fairly interesting permanent collection. Tonight we hope to meet up with a friend of a friend from Austria who lives here in town. It seems to be getting colder and colder here. Hopefully it will warm up as we head south.
Contrary to what the Germans say, we have found the people of Austria to be wonderfully friendly and welcoming. We have been staying with a friend of a friend. Not only did our host Niko give up his bed for us and sleep half way across town, they took the time to show us around town a bit. We even got an invitation to join the neighbor for lunch at an organic vegetarian restaurant, which was excellent. We stayed up late to talk about all types of topics; politics, travel, friends. The city is romantic, filled with parks and great views. It has gotten a bit cold so we have purchased fair trade wool hats from the neighbor at a great price.
We leave tomorrow for Bratislava which is only 65km away. We will miss our new friends!
check the flickr link to the left to see all the new pics.
We have left Al Ma'Awa and are back in the big city.
SALZBURG
We spent three lovely days in Salzburg, a wonderfully historic city with lots to do. Our Friends Erik and Meriaka (sp?) met up with us and took us on a grueling hike up a mountain. The views were worth it! We relaxed on the beach before a jam packed day full of sightseeing. We purchased a Salzburg Card, an all inclusive pass to sightseeing and transportation. We started at 9am when everything opened and went from one thing to another. It was jam packed but fun. Here I bought a new pair of sunglasses to replace the ones I left in Praha.
INNSBRUCK
Here the pair of sunglasses I bought just a few days ago broke. We only spent one day here so we are not sure that we truly experienced what the city had to offer. We relaxed a bit though and watched some CNN before bed in the hotel room that we splerged on. Innsbruck is nestled in the mountain which is deffinatly the best part of this city.
WEIN (Vienna)
We arrived in Wein last night. We are couch surfing with friends of Hannes, our friend from Al Ma'Awa Farm. We have only been here for one night and have seen the inside of the train station and the Cleasea Bar, so not much to say. We are here until monday or so. We will try to post photos later today!
We know it has been awhile, we are still alive and enjoying our time here at Al Ma'Awa Farm. I finally got the hang of milking goats, I would not call myself and expert though. We have been very busy, helping with the harvest and learning new things. We have done a bit of baking, we learned how to make bread, jam, nettles with buckwheat, a whole bunch of things. Ryan got a treatment from Leila, some body work methods (Craniosacral Osteopathy and SIB), which seemed to help his back alot. No new photos as of yet, we will take some before we leave though. The kids started school on Monday, it is quiet with them gone but not as exciting. We walked to a restaurant a little ways away and had a beer last night, it was very tasty. We were the only people in the place which I am sure does not see many tourists.
THINGS WE MISS - family and friends, bloody marys at Eagle Street, Football, Chiptle, Soccer, screens on windows to keep the bugs out, and holiday BBQs.
that's it for now, we will leave here on Monday. Hope you had a good 60th Dad!
