One week, two cities

Where have the days gone?

We left Fuerteventura, leaving the safe haven of our surrogate spanish family on a beautiful island into the big bad world. Yes we flew to Madrid last Wednesday, intending to spend a couple of days there when we got pick pocketed in the Metro on the way to the cit centre from the airport. Some champions league football game was just over and the metro was spilling with people. Shitty thing was that we just withdrew money from the airport so we literally lost the spending money we took out for the few days. So shitty we felt, honestly. We just felt like a couple of country bumpkins first time in a big city or something. We were not on our guard like we should be. Saavvy travellers we thought we were... NOT.

But we got to our hostel in Sol ... and the people there were really friendly, staff and fellow travellers. We settled into the noisy Madrid craziness really quickly and got stuffed with lotsa jamon bocadillos, tapas, gambas, tortillas, vino tintos and cervezas. It's easy to forget ones troubles in the flurry of good food, good drink and street buskers. Madrid was a little too mad for me. I think we're starting to discover really how the city life thing just always doesnt work out as well for us.

Anyway, after 2 museums, 1 palace, 5 tapas place and lotsa walking around, we left madrid for valencia to the east. The temperature rised a little, it was about 12 degrees in madrid and 16 degrees here in Valencia. Our room in Home Hostel was quiet, cosy and the beds are sooo comfortable. As a traveller, you just never know what kind of bed you are going to end up in when you go to someplace new. And here, its soooo nice and soft and the duvet is soft and cosy, and the sheets feel expensive.

We've had paella 5 times in the 2.5 days we;ve been here. Yes hardcore I know, but we freaking love paella - chinese people la, like to eat rice, what to do?. The food here is super. After being in northern europe - specifically the British Isles for so long, I've forgotten what its like to be in a country where food is a big thing to people. Its what I've grown up with in Singapore, eating to live. Its a given. 95% of people I know i Singapore are foodies (shout out to the 5%... I dont know how you guys can live with people talking about food all the friggin time if you guys are not into food!). There's a real connection when you meet people who love food too. At the cafes we've been, tapas bars,... when you bite into something, they wait for you to react to it. Coz they care what the food they serve tastes like. Its pride. Good food. My tummy is happy in Spain.

Tomorrow we're going to take 2 coaches to Balaguer, 150 km west of Barcelona to stay with Jordi Pedro and we're going to help him harvest olives in his orchard near by. No idea what to expect. One thing's for sure... they hardly speak English in Valencia. I think I speak more Spanish than they do English sometimes (scary). So in Balaguer, town of 15000 people, itwill certainly be more challenging. We'll see... the final section of journey part uno begins manana.

No words are needed - Our brilliant wwoof at Fuerteventura!

What a sweet November we´re having in Fuerteventura.
Despite the language barrier with our hosts, we´re being treated just like family, which is certainly living up to the Canarian/Spanish reputation of ´Mi casa su casa´culture.

Last weekend, we had one of the best weekends ever. No exaggeration. Silverio took all of us, Cati his wife and two kids Oma and Nora in their family caravan up North to a remote beach where we spent the day swimming, sun bathing, playing with the children, trashing in seaweed, looking for strange sea creatures and fishing (inlucing gutting and scaling and eating them!). And sweetest of all, we got to camp at night under the stars. Bjorn and I counted about 9 shooting stars during our first night of star gazing together ever.

The Lopez family has captured our hearts with their generousity and warmth. Its hard to explain how priceless these kind of experiences are. No money can buy being invited into a glimpse into a typical Canarian family´s lives. We´ve even fallen in love with this strange flour cereal type thing that they cook with milk. We have it for brekkie every morning its delicious!

Yesterday it was Bjorns birthday and Silverio baked a cake for him and we had a sing song and candle blowing and everything. It was really sweet.

Here are some pics again... of the weekend before we go.

Here´s Nora holding 2 little fishies shes about to scale and gut (terribly). I´ve never seen a tiny child so unqueasy about slimy fish before. It was impressive! Mommy Cati is on the right side of the photo.

Oma and his morbid collection of slimy seaweed to impress Gorgor Bjorn

Kids go crazy with fish!

Bjorn bathed in Sunset

Beach

Happy Nora posing!

Nora took this photo of Silverio ... U can see from the angle it was a little child looking up at her Papiii.

Oasis in the desert mountains

We´ve arrived in our new hosts´place and wow what a difference to the UK. Our friendly host Silverio picked us up at the airport with his 2 darling children and we drove into the desert mountains where they lived. We were delighted to find out that we were going to stay in the cottage usually reserved for his paying guests! Shiok la. Click here for his website to see our accomodation. Luxury!

The views - we can say is achingly beautiful and nothing I´ve ever seen before. And their house, simple, handmade and painted, what a real honest casa.

Our first job (and I think will be our main jobs for the next 2 weeks!) is picking up stones from the mountain and building stone walls around his garden. Trust chinese people to build walls! Its in our blood isnt it? Haha. But dont underestimate how hard it is picking up stones and moving them. Bloody hell, our bodies were screaming in protest after about half an hour. Not used to physical work after our almost 3 week rest. But today´s better.

Oh and it like doesnt rain here ever. Last year, it rained 3 days and I think it hasnt rained yet this year. Its a struggle to water his plants and prevent them from dying totally. In England, when the sun doesnt shine, the plants will still grow, albeit slowly. Here, no rain means no life literally. The whole house is powered by solar panels and wind turbine.

The conversations are a little more difficult because of the language barrier but we get by. And the whole family has just been super welcoming and hospitable. It feels a little like we´re in a Spanish foreign film in the desert. With howling dogs and random cactuses here and there. We wont be able to update the blog as often as there´s no broadband or wireless in this rural area. So we will try our best. Here are some pics for now!

Crystal building a stone wall thingie

Our little cottage and a tiny green oasis (that treats & recycles our waste water)

Chillout area with a view (excuse the unsightly mop)

Bjorn pointing to our very first wall we made in our lives!

Back to work!

Today, our wwoofing break comes to a close! 2 and a half weeks of eating anything we want, waking up anytime want, doing whatever we want, catching up and being hosted with great old friends are over for now. And we are on our way to Fuerteventura -to stay at Atalaya de la Rosa del Taro with our new host Silverio and his family for 2 weeks. Cant wait actually!

But before we leave - would like to say thank u to Lavina, Bharat and Shaira (And little snoopy) for being such wonderful hosts in the past week in their lovely home in Gran canaria. What a gorgeous island with gorgeous weather and people. Awesome.

Here they are at the beach yesterday. Thank u guys! Smoochies.

The canary Islandssssssssss...........

We're here in Gran Canaria for a week, staying with an old friend from Poly days and having a lovely lovely time in the hot weather! Here, we're able to go to the beach, lie on the sand in our swimming gear and when the wind blows, it isnt freezing. There had been only one week of this weather we had in the UK this summer, so this feels niiiice :).

Loads had gone on since we paused our wwoof adventure. We havent got much to report here on the blog simply because, despite the acitivity filled days, we dont have much to say about it really. For me, being in nature, the wild inspires me. And the concrete of Amsterdam and London has left us with not very much interesting things to say. Of course, it has been awesome to catch up with so many people. But in terms of anything inspiring or life-changing wwoof blog - worthy.

We did for a while, contemplate returning to London again to return to the rat race. Get a job, a flat, a life and all. There are so many people now we know in London. Its so so easy to just fall back into that. And just thinking of our own little space in the city again, makes me feel like we should totally do it. It will be our new Singapore. But do we really want that? Or was it just a distraction? What is the distraction?

And just to make everyone jealous, here's a pic of us bathing in the sunshine in the Canary islands where we'll be spending the next 3 weeks at, while we contemplate our future.

In transition....

After a slightly crazy weekend in Amsterdan, this week in London will be nice and busy! The whole world is in London these days. Meeting up with people from the past, the future, the present... all strange and true. For once, London feels a bit like singapore. Where having friends, means you have a life. Or does one really? Socialising every day outside work seems to be the most favourite past times people generally have. But over-socialising also means you leave little time for other things.

Anyway, it's just one week. And after this, we'll be in Spainfor 6 weeks, with 5 of those week again meeting new people, introducing ourselves over again and again. Then after, its back to Singapore!

Goodbye Phantassie, goodbye Scotland

And after 3 weeks and a bit, it's time to leave again. :( We really had a great time here. We're so happy that we had the opportunity to work with the local full time staff here. Liz the head gardener, who lives in a cottage on the premises as well. Rose, the assistant gardener also living in the caravan nearby. Tony, a part-timer and wwoof mom who just took care of all our wwoofers needs during our stay. He even got us extra pillows when we asked! Very grateful. And there's Fiona, & Louise, the stables ladies who pack the orders, Rory the very hilarious egg man, Luisa who does all the admin, Addie driver come cool music studio guardian, Cameron also driver come food forager (picked us some delicious mushrooms once!), Douglas our eccentric 70 year old chicken man who doesnt stop working, David who takes care of the grounds, James the handyman and mechanic... all wonderful East Lothian folk that we got to know and enjoy each other's companies. There's a lovely little comradery amongst everyone. A mutal understanding and feeling that we're just all in this together and let's get along and have a good time doing it. 'This'- meaning life in earth in general! Phantassie Organics is an unintentional community. And maybe that's the best kind, as it just grew out of different purposes and organically (excuse the pun).

Feeling sad we're leaving Scotland in general. It just dawned on me yesterday that we're leaving Scotland. Didnt expect that the land would have this affect of me. We'll be back.... we will.

This kind of completes our UK wwoof journey for this year. Started 15 June 2009, and wrapping up 22 Oct 2009. Started with the sun set at 10:30pm at night, and from next week, it will set around 6pm. The autumn leaves are stunning right now. And I feel a little bad for 'abandoning' this land we've been living on and travelling on for the past couple of months. I feel bad for not 'seeing through' nature that we've been following so closely for so long. And a little hypocritical to escape to Spain after this. Just when we were getting ok with the cold. Maybe thats why people don't plan ahead when they travel, but instead, just plan as they go. Then you will do what you feel like doing best. Next time... maybe next time.