I arrived in Bali Thursday evening, where I was met by the hotel manager, Putu. It was the first time I’ve ever come off an airplane and had someone waiting for me with my name typed out on a piece of paper. I’ve always wondered who those people were, who had people waiting for them at the airport with their names displayed on pieces of paper. I guess now I know.
It was about a 2-hour drive back to the hotel on the eastern side of the island. I could tell it was pretty, even in the dark. Trees 30 feet high lined stretches of the road on either side, their branches meeting in the middle to form a canopy overhead. There were lots of tall, slender, ornate-looking bamboo decorations along the way, which Putu explained were for a recent religious celebration.
One of the bamboo decorations that lined the road.
While Indonesia is the biggest Muslim country in the world, Bali is predominantly Hindu and known for its many beautiful Hindu temples. There’s a water temple here, which Putu has promised to take me to when I’m ready. I’m looking forward to seeing it. Putu, by the way, means “first.” Putu explained to me that, in Bali, children are named according to the order of their birth. After the 4th child, they start over again at 1st. When Putu told me this, I remembered that I learned about this once upon a time, but had forgotten it.
My room faces east, overlooking the ocean, and I woke with the sunrise on Friday morning. The picture above doesn’t begin to do it justice – it was inordinately beautiful, as I suppose most sunrises are. The hotel is situated about a 5-minute walk from the beach, surrounded by ocean from the northeast to the southeast, with a hill almost immediately adjacent to it to the south that eases up out of the ocean and continues to rise as it stretches west. The hillside is dotted with little houses – local farmers who tend small plots of terraced land.
How they work in this heat is beyond me. They all have chickens, it seems, and when one rooster gets to crowing, the entire hillside erupts in a never ending round of cock-a-doodle-doo.
These peculiar Indonesian chickens, with their dark feathers and long legs.
The roosters seem to especially enjoy this early in the morning and at night. It’s kind of amusing. At dusk, when the white lights of the houses speckle the hillside in the fading twilight, the scene is very picturesque indeed.
Still jetlagged, I slept for about 5 hours Friday afternoon and wasn’t able to get back to sleep until around 2am. On Saturday, I woke up around noon, got dressed, and headed upstairs for lunch. The little hotel restaurant is located just above my room. All the seating is outdoors on the covered patio, which has an incredible, unbroken view of the horizon from north to south and a delicious breeze. As I sat there, drinking my fresh ginger tea and drinking in the view and the warm breeze, a smile began to spread across my face and I was overcome by what I can only describe as a sensation of pure bliss. The last time I remember feeling anything like this was on my flight to Rio de Janeiro so many months ago. It took me by surprise and made me laugh that I should find bliss in this way and in this place. After all my fruitless clawing and grasping and clinging in search of exactly that…to find it here, alone, unemployed, on an Indonesian island…how could I not laugh? How could I not appreciate life’s mystery and beauty? How could I not be eternally grateful for my life? For this moment, and for every moment that lead up to it?
When I left Hungary on Tuesday, I still wasn’t sure where I was going to end up. I had a flight to Singapore thinking I would ultimately continue on to Auckland from there. I was hoping to find another farm stay somewhere in Oceania or the South Pacific along the lines of what I found in Hungary and was waiting for those plans to materialize to finalize my travel arrangements. The farm stay was not to be, however – everyone was already booked up through January, it seems. So, when I arrived in Singapore on Wednesday evening, I didn’t have any accommodation booked and I didn’t yet have a means out of the country.
Being unable to access either the airport wifi or data, I hit the reservations counter at the airport. I’ve never done this before and just the thought of using a reservations desk at an airport to book last minute accommodations in a foreign country was surreal to me. The women at the counter were very friendly, however, and soon had me booked into a very nice room at a price that seemed quite reasonable…that is, until I finally figured out what the exchange rate was…
Once deposited into my very nice room, I set about figuring out just where I was going to go. I thought Singapore would be a central hub for getting around the entire South Pacific region, but that was a poor assumption. To get to just about any of the South Pacific islands, you had to go through Australia, New Zealand, or both. And flights were expensive. One tropical island paradise stood out as the exception, with inexpensive, direct flights from Singapore still available less than 24 hours before departure and an outrageously low cost of living. I found a cheap room with an ocean view and that sealed the deal. More on this in my next post.
It took me ages to get all that worked out. By the time I did, it was rather late. But, I wasn’t tired. I had slept (poorly) on the plane and it was only early evening back in Hungary; my body just wasn’t ready for sleep. Making the most of my jetlag, I decided to hit the hotel gym. I was ravenous after my workout, so ordered some traditional (or so the menu claimed) Singaporean fare to sate my hunger.
Seafood Hor Fun, big fat rice noodles with egg gravy (that’s the gelatinous stuff you see) and seafood. Quite yummy!
I ended up getting to bed around 4am.
My flight the next day wasn’t until 5:30pm and I really wanted to get out to see some of the city before I left. My hotel was located conveniently close to the airport, but outside the city center and a ways away from what there is to see in Singapore. I was hoping my jetlag would wake me up nice and early so I could hop on Singapore’s world-class urban train system and get a quick tour around the city. Suffice it to say, that didn’t happen. I finally got out of bed at 1pm, which left me just enough time to pack up and grab some lunch before I had to hop my shuttle back to the airport.
I spent only a few brief hours there, but my impression of Singapore is a positive one. On the whole, I found the service workers to be friendly in the extreme and very pleasant to interact with. There’s obviously a lot of money in Singapore and, even from just the small bit I saw, there seems to be no end there to sensory delights to be enjoyed there. The city actually seems to exist to delight the senses, from the beautifully designed structures (no dull architecture there) to the world-class gardens, from the quality and variety of culinary options to the froofy bars and the raging nightclubs. It seems like a big playground for adults, kind of like Vegas but without the gambling…or maybe they do have gambling there, I don’t know. If you’re looking for modern convenience and creature comforts, Singapore would be hard to beat. If you can stand the heat, that is.
Would that I had even one more day to experience Singapore, but I’m not too chaffed about it. After all, creature comforts and sensory delights aren’t really what I’m after right now, though I do hope to get back there to properly enjoy it one of these days. I had my sights set on tropical islands, warm beaches, and solitude, and I wasn’t going to be taken off track by Singapore’s siren song.
TL;DR: Just passing through this time, Singapore, but I’ll see you again soon.
Well, an end, anyway. I leave Hungary today with many fond memories, new friends, a bit of sorrow, some trepidation, and excitement. I’ve been here so long now I’ve managed to grow a few tiny roots, and pulling them up again is a bit uncomfortable.
Village chic powder blue, faux fur-lined crocs – how I will miss you!
I’ve got a long couple days of travel ahead of me, so here’s a little story to hold you over…
We got our first frost the weekend before last, which killed off several of the summer plants in the beds that hadn’t been cleared yet. When that happens, they just wilt and droop and start to get all slimy as they break down, so I set about to clearing them out before they got too bad.
It was chilly that morning, though warming up in the sun. I squatted down to pull out my first plant, a physalis with brittle branches that break easily in your hands. As I was pulling at the root, the grip of branches I had in my hand broke, sending my flying backward into a metal stand, on top of which was perched a wide, shallow metal bowl of water with a layer of ice still floating on top from the overnight freeze. I felt the ice cold water splash on my neck and pour down my back.
I screamed and jumped up. Fortunately, I hadn’t toppled the bowl and only a bit of water had splashed down my back. The initial shock of the cold wetness on my skin and in my sweater passed quickly enough and, in the warmth of the sun, I turned back to my work. That was when I noticed the tingling sensation on my legs and butt – I had plopped right down into a patch of that damned STINGING NETTLE! My thin leggings provided only a modicum of protection – I felt the sting for the rest of the day.
The farm I’ve been staying at is called the Salubrious Project and it’s run by Cara Lomax. If you’re ever of a mind to learn about organic farming and permaculture, or just looking for a different kind of vacation experience, you’ll find a wonderful and patient host in Cara and a lovely and peaceful stay with her in Kaposhomok, Hungary.
Just a few short days left here in Hungary, still not sure where I’m going next. Can’t wait to find out, though!
It’s been another busy week on the farm, which saw three new additions to the permanent residents this week – these two sweet girls…
Crunchy and Chestnut. Crunchy, the little grey and white one, is super sweet – follows you around and likes to be petted. Chestnut’s a bit more skittish. The dog keeps trying to play with them and they aren’t having any of it.
…and a skinny little cat that showed up on the doorstep one morning with a deep, loud, horrible meow and wouldn’t go away.
[UPDATE 11/9] Coby the day she showed up on the doorstep. Photo Credit: Cara[UPDATE 11/9] Coby, day 1. Photo credit: Cara.She was starving, her body was all scrunched up and she had a funny walk, she seemed to have a permanent squint, and she showed up covered in dust and bits of stuff like maybe she had been locked up for a while. Cara took pity on her – feeding her, taking her to the vet, and getting parasite meds for her. She was in such a state I didn’t think she would survive. Cara was going to take her to the cat shelter in town but has decided to keep her instead. Her name is Coby, short for Yacoba, the Belgian girl who’s been doing the majority of her caretaking.
[UPDATE 11/9] Coby, day 5. She’s doing a lot better. Still very skinny, weak, and docile. She sleeps a lot.I got to do some more cooking, too. Ratatouille, mashed cauliflower, potato leek soup, tomato soup, and grilled cheese sandwiches with fried onions, garlic and mushrooms. Cara and Yacoba hadn’t had grilled cheese sandwiches before, so it was fun to introduce them to that iconic American dish. The leftover potato leek soup went into the bread dough for our bonfire stickbread last night – delicious!
Yesterday was spent finishing up a couple lingering projects before I leave. These were fun projects, a chance to be creative and make something new, unique, and useful.
Garden signs. I had to use red, yellow and white to mix that shade of peach for the peach sign. It was surprisingly satisfying.Jewelry display made of foraged wood and wire mesh. Design by Cara and Janet, construction by Janet.Jewelry display made of foraged wood and wire mesh. Design by Cara and Janet, construction by Janet.
In short, it’s been another lovely week. I love it here. I love spending my days working on things – making things, building things, growing things, transforming things, cooking things, cleaning things – together with others who are also working on things with the goal of sustaining ourselves and growing our little joint venture (well, Cara’s venture, really, but ours jointly for the time we are here).
It’s been so pleasant here, I can’t seem to be bothered about where to go next. It’s not that I don’t want to leave or am in denial or anything. On the contrary, I’m really excited about what the next leg of my journey will bring (which makes me nervous). It’s just that I’d rather spend my time enjoying this place – the people, the activity, the change, the newness of every day – than dealing with the logistics of planning a trip. I want to be there, wherever “there” is, I just don’t want to do anything to get there…or even figure out where “there” is, apparently. It’s as if the place were enchanted, tempting me to put off my planning and come enjoy any of the variety of delights to be found here.
And I’ve been okay with this up to this point. More than okay, really…comfortable in the thought that it’ll all work itself out. I’m going to go somewhere, after all. And it will be warm there. And the world isn’t going to end just because I don’t know where that is yet. And there’s always tomorrow. Now that I’ve written this all down, though…well, I just feel lazy, don’t I?
Right. Enough procrastinating, then. I have somewhere to be in two days. Time to decide where that somewhere is.
TL;DR: Probably overshot the line between waiting patiently for inspiration and procrastinating; enjoyed every minute of it.
Oh, what a week… The recent craziness around here came to a relative end on Wednesday as 6 of the volunteers left, leaving just myself and the Belgian girl. It was sad to see everyone go. It’s been such a good group and we’ve worked really well together, been really productive, and had so much fun. On Tuesday, we did a workshop day – a few of us prepared short workshops on some random skill or other to teach the others. Sam the kiwi did one on bookbinding, I did one on friendship bracelets, Cara did one on making walnut milk and kombucha, and the Spanish couple did one on making fresh alioli (basically garlic mayonnaise – it is ridiculously easy and even more ridiculously delicious) and Spanish tortilla – an egg and potato mixture fried up in a pan.
Workshop day. This one is bookbinding. Notice how engrossed everyone is.
The farm/garden (farmden?) has been transformed over the last few weeks. Most of the beds have been completely cleared out, raked, and covered with mulch for the winter. A new woven willow tunnel has been put in between two of the beds; the cuttings should root and produce new leaves, but it will also be overgrown with other greenery, providing a lovely shade spot in the garden in summer time and a shade bed for growing plants that thrive in indirect sunlight. The leaves are falling off the trees and the land is looking more barren. It’s getting colder and colder, predicted to fall below freezing on Sunday night. I went for a run the other morning and this was my scenery:
My Mizuna plants have finally started to grow, and we’ve even eaten a few leaves in salads this week:
The Mizuna and Bok Choi I planted several weeks ago.
I got to make lunch yesterday. I was both excited and imitated because, if I haven’t already written about it, Cara is an amazing cook and we eat so, so well around here. We usually have 5-6 different dishes every lunch. A few of the other volunteers have been really outstanding cooks, too, and I’m just not that versatile or skilled in a kitchen, where I just have to whip something up with whatever I’ve got handy in the house. We’re almost strictly vegetarian around here, so I planned a menu of freshly baked bread, mashed potatoes, vegetarian gravy, roasted vegetables, and vegetarian schnitzel, along with an appetizer of spinach rolls.
I started with the bread because that would take the longest. Sam the kiwi had just given us a tutorial on how to make bread (this guy can do everything – he’s an ecologist by education and profession, fabulous cook, brewer of fresh apple cider, captivating story teller, built a set of steps out in the garden, made the willow structure, and gave that bookbinding workshop) so I put my new found knowledge to work. Using absolutely no measuring tools, I mixed up my yeast and water, poured out some flour, a little salt and pepper, and some fresh rosemary, then sauteed up some garlic and onion to mix in. I mixed it all together, then left it to rise. Next was the mashed potatoes and roasted veggies – I cut up my potatoes and set them to boil, then cut up my veggies and set them to roast. Then I had to prepare my spinach rolls as they need to sit in the freezer for a bit before being cut and cooked.
The spinach rolls are supposed to be a paste made of mayonnaise, garlic powder, onion powder, and Parmesan cheese with spinach (and artichoke hearts, usually, but I didn’t have any) mixed in and spread along a puff pastry, rolled up, then cut into slices and baked. I didn’t have mayonnaise, garlic powder or onion powder, but no bother – I’d just learned how make garlic mayonnaise the day before. I’d just add some fresh onion to it et voilà – I’ve got my paste. I didn’t have any Parmesan, though, so I just threw in a mix of feta and halloumi. Because I used fresh, wet ingredients instead of dried ingredients, my paste turned out more like a creamy sauce, which made rolling the pastry up a bit tricky.
I popped my roll in the freezer, then it was back to the bread, which needed to be kneaded and left to rise a second time. By the time I got back to my mashed potatoes, they were overcooked. Do you let potatoes cool before mashing them or mash them warm? Never mind, I’ll mash them warm so they don’t cool down – how would I even heat them back up?! I put them all into the Cuisinart with some butter, salt and pepper and got them to a nice consistency, chunky like I like it. Then I decided to add some milk. I added too much milk and by the time I had it blended all in, it was practically a paste. Never mind, it still tasted good. I cut up one more potato and cooked it up to add a little texture back to the potatoes.
Back to the bread. It hadn’t risen as much as I had hoped and I was worried about it, but I stuck in the oven anyway. Then I turned to my veggie gravy. The gravy was new to me and I needed a recipe, which I found at allrecipes. I had no idea what nutritional yeast was (turns out it’s marmite or vegimite), assumed we didn’t have any in the house (we did), and used regular yeast instead. No dried sage, either, so I used fresh. I decided to add a splash of red wine, as well, which gave the gravy a really decadent flavor. I left my gravy to cook, whisking it every few minutes, as I got started on my schnitzels.
For my schnitzels, I ended up settling on this cutlet recipe from Chowhound, with substitutions, of course. Instead of just chickpeas, I used a combination of chickpeas and sprouted mung beans. We didn’t have any vital wheat gluten, so I used flour instead. I don’t have any measuring cups (Cara doesn’t need them) so everything was measured by sight with a dash of hope added in for extra measure. Cara also recommended I use an egg to hold it all together, which I did. The egg made the mixture rather liquidy, so I added some more flour to firm it up. It was still too sticky to shape or do much with, so I formed my cutlets by dropping them into the pan like drop biscuits and spreading them out in the pan.
In the meantime, my gravy wasn’t thickening. I added in some cornflour, but I didn’t sift it first, so I ended up with these lumps of cornflour in my gravy. I whisked and I whisked, but the lumps wouldn’t unlump. I ended up putting the whole thing in a blender just to get the lumps out.
Finally, it was time to serve lunch (and only just a little late!). I set the food out and hoped everything would be edible.
The potatoes were tasty, but pasty, as expected. The roasted veggies were…roasted veggies. They were cooked through and not burned, so I’d call that a success. The spinach rolls were a bit of a flop. They were tasty, but they had to cook extra long because the filling was so liquidy, which caused a lot of the oil to leach out of the mayonnaise and the bottoms to burn a little bit. The bread turned out really fantastic – smaller than I’d expected, but moist and flavorful. I was really, really pleased with it. The gravy was a hit, even with the wrong yeast – everyone loved the flavor. I have to say, it was quite delicious.
The chickpea cutlets really stole the show, though. They had a delicious flavor and wonderful, meaty consistency. I found the recipe through the vegetarian (maybe?) blog PragmaticAttic, which described it as “highly praised,” and I have to agree it is highly praiseworthy. They’re super easy to make, and if you’re looking for a vegan/vegetarian cutlet recipe, I highly recommend it.
Overall, lunch was a success. It felt really good to put that meal together all by myself, figuring out what I could make with what I had available, finding substitutes and additions where I could, using skills I had just learned this week, and putting a tasty meal on the table that was plenty to feed all four of us. I’m not ready to quit my day job just yet (wait – I already did that) but it was fun for a day.
TL;DR: Puttin’ my newly acquired skillz to the test and dropping the mic on lunch.
This place has been like a time vortex for the past week. Hours and days just seem to slip by with no accounting for where they’ve gone. There’s always something to do here – something to cook, something to prepare, something to clean up. We spent all day yesterday preparing for the kids’ birthday party, and then Cara (my host) spent hours cleaning up afterward.
I’m driven, day in and day out, by a never-ending stream of tasks that need to be done. Partially, it’s pleasant – work keeps you present moment-focused. When it’s creative work, I kind of get lost in the activity, enter a state of flow, I suppose. It’s a bit like meditation. And it’s not all work – a fair number of hours have been spent out at the bonfire socializing. On the other hand, it’s unpleasant, when you get a moment’s rest, to look at the clock or date and wonder where the time went – what about all those things you wanted to spend your time doing but didn’t, like working out, reading, writing, meditating, dancing? Then there’s the matter of having to move on from here and needing time to think about and research and plan that…
All of this activity, this never-ending and ever-growing list of things to do, begins to feel like a distraction. The constant noise of the children never gives you a moment’s peace in your mind. And yet, work is “love made visible,” as Khalil Gibran describes it; and idle hands are the devil’s play thing; and children are a blessing.
Perhaps distraction from our pesky minds is where happiness is found. I can’t say I haven’t been happy in my busyness this week. I’ve been very happy…or content, at least. I only grow distressed when I have to think about leaving – when I think about the fact that I have to leave in two weeks and I don’t know where I want to go yet and I need to spend some time figuring all that out. Lamenting the passing of time and worrying about the future are distressing happiness-sucks. Total absorption in – and acceptance of – the present moment is what brings peace.
So…what’s prevented that in the past? What’s prevented me from totally accepting and becoming absorbed in the present moment? From a purely work-oriented perspective, one huge element here is that I trust in Cara’s authority and in her motivations/purposes/ goals/objectives. In business, there always seems to be a conflict between doing what’s right for the organization and doing what’s going to profit you personally, by hitting financial incentive targets, adding to your resume, giving you more power and therefore more prestige amongst your colleagues/friends/family, etc. There’s none of that here. Growing the farm is Cara’s objective and there’s really nothing personal for the volunteers to gain outside of contributing to that goal. When business colleagues would pursue personal gain over organizational gain – which happened daily and which some could be counted to do exclusively – it was usually pretty transparent and I knew I couldn’t trust the “authorities” to be fair or objective in any of their decision-making. I couldn’t just blindly attend to my objectives with present moment focus because doing so would leave me vulnerable to the exploits of my more self-serving colleagues and make me complicit in their deeds.
That’s never going to change, of course. There will always be those – those I have to work with, those I have to work for, and (perhaps someday) those who work for me – who use their positions for personal gain at the expense of not only the organization but of their colleagues. The question, then, is how does one find happiness, contentment, and peace in this environment? How does one not worry about political intrigue and its effects on their life? How does one stay present moment focused knowing their work – and perhaps their job – could easily be thrown away tomorrow by others jockeying for personal political gain?
How do you do it?
In more serious news, Gosia and I performed the Tranky Doo for the kids’ party yesterday. I’ve never done the Tranky Doo before and I had to learn it for this party. Check out the video here, but keep in mind we only worked on this routine for a week before performing it.
TL;DR: You can’t stop the clock…but you can stop paying attention to it.
The weather has gotten nicer the last few days, which has made for a lovely time on (and off) the farm. Yesterday, we took advantage of the dry, sunny-ish weather to do some foraging. There were 8 of us in total, and we gathered loads of rosehips and pears, as well as a few apples and walnuts and some questionable mushrooms.
A beautiful day for foraging in the countryside.Foraging.More foraging.The harvest.
After the foraging, we were treated to a lunch of vegetarian goulash cooked over an open fire, along with stickbread and some veggie kebobs. Afternoon stretched into evening and our cooking fire became a bonfire. We had sing-alongs and played a few rounds of “guess that tune” as we took turns belting out ballads on a kazoo.
Goulash!
Today was another fantastic day. I spent an hour or two peeling and cutting pears for preserving, then the rest of the working hours out in the garden mowing. The weather was really nice so there were several of us out in the garden all working on different tasks. Because today is a holiday in Hungary and schools were closed, the kids were out there with us for a bit, too. The Spanish couple prepared an amazing lunch today: pasta, salad, a lentil and vegetable soup, and individually plated tapas of Spanish tortilla (a bit like an egg frittata and crazy delicious), bread toasted with homemade alioli (garlic mayonnaise), and a mushroom ragout-type thing. It was heavenly. We always eat well here, but this week has been especially fantastic, what with all the good cooks we have here from different parts of the world whipping up an incredible variety of delicious foods.
In fact, everything about this past week has been great. We have a huge group of people from 7 different countries who are fun-loving, easy-going, and who enjoy each others’ company. It makes everything we do here a good time.
Beyond that…I’m coming up on an important decision point, folks. I’m about to hit my 90-day limit in the schengen zone and I don’t know where to go next. Got any thoughts? Suggestions? Requests? Someplace warm, certainly. Daytime temps here are in the 40s and 50s and that’s already cold enough for me.
TL;DR: Really getting spoiled on the farm these days, and still learning something new every day.
It’s impossible to believe I’ve already been back on the farm now nearly a week. By the way, the two Gosias are, in fact, one in the same. This is a fantastically unlikely coincidence and I love it.
In addition to Gosia from Poland, there’s Sam the kiwi, Phillipa from Wales, Yakoba from Belgium who got in on Saturday, Maria and Jorge from Spain who just arrived today in a camper van with their two dogs, and Cameron the lumberjack from Canada (who just recently competed in a beard competition, btw, and arrived here in a flannel and trucker cap, so you know his lumberjack chops – like my puns – are legit) who also arrived today. All told, there’s 10 adults plus the two kids here right now, so it’s quite the circus! It takes nearly all morning just to make lunch.
The weather has been wet and dreary since I got back. In fact, it’s been raining practically non-stop since I left, which has depressed the growth of my lovely little mizunas and bok chois – they’re just tiny little seedlings still! Most of my working hours the last few days have been spent indoors helping out with making lunch and other household chores. I made my first fire in the wood-burning stove yesterday! It was fun – it caught on right away and was beautiful. It turned out to be a bit of beginner’s luck as my fire this morning didn’t go quite as easily, but I still managed to make it happen.
I also made my first ever batch of nut butter today – walnut butter:
Janet’s homemade walnut butter.
This is a big week on the farm because both the kids have birthdays this week. Carey’s birthday was yesterday and it was my job to decorate the cake:
Not exactly professional, but perfect for a 6-yo girl.
I also got to take part in some homemade apple cider-making.
The weekend was spent taking in some modern Hungarian culture (e.g. pubbing), foraging, and flea-marketing. Friday evening, after we finished making the cider, the other volunteers and I followed the train tracks to the next town over for a change of scenery at one of their kocsma-s (i.e. dive bars). We were clearly an unexpected distraction to the locals and the owner called his 20-something son, Mario, to the bar to speak English to us. I asked him how often they have foreigners in the bar and he said “never.” We drank and played pool and Foosball until about 2am – they kept the bar open extra late just for us – before heading home along the train tracks again.
I went for a run for the first time in months on Saturday. I woke up and just felt like going. The weather was perfect for it – cool with a break in the rain. After a much needed nap, it was time for some foraging. We all packed into the mini-van (the kids sat on our laps in the back and one of us had to sit in the “trunk”) and headed a few minutes down the road to some open and derelict land where you can forage for pears, grapes, and walnuts, mostly. We climbed up the hill to discover an amazing view overlooking two valleys – one on either side – and got to enjoy a beautiful sunset while we were up there. Saturday night was preordained as bonfire night. Gosia made traditional Polish mulled beer (yep – hot beer with fruit in it; it was tastier than it sounds), Sam made these amazing Earl Grey tea-infused vodka cocktails with a rosemary syrup, and I got to introduce everybody to s’mores. Can you believe they don’t know what s’mores are over here?! The only marshmallows we managed to find were sugar-covered candy ones with a berry flavoring and we had to use butter biscuits instead of graham crackers (they were a good alternative), but they went over like gang busters. We’re planning on doing it with the kids for their b-day party on Saturday.
Sunday morning, a few of us hopped over to the nearby town for some flea market shopping. It was quite the adventure. My host kept pointing out all these old tools and appliances that were being sold on the cheap because people still use them here, but which would go for hundreds of British pounds back in England as retro design accessories. There was a never-ending stream of fascinating things to look at. Things that struck me as particularly interesting: old cameras, old weight measure sets (like for weighing food and such), stenciled paint rollers, old carved leather purses, and this contraption:
Anyone know what this is? It was sitting with a bunch of other partially intact electronics and circuit board-looking things.
In the afternoon, we hit the forest for some mushroom foraging. We found loads and loads of different kinds of mushrooms. We didn’t know whether they were safe or not, but we collected a bunch just to bring back for identification purposes and to find out whether they were edible. Perhaps the most interesting fungus we found was the witch’s egg:
Witch’s Egg, the fruiting body of the common stinkhorn mushroom, aka Phallus Impudicus. The witch’s egg looks like a white ball and feels like a water balloon when you squeeze it. The mature mushroom looks like a penis, which may be why the witch’s egg is considered to be an aphrodisiac. Photo credit: http://ntb.wolfgang-schlegel.eu/Pilze/Stinkmorchel/Stinkmorchel.html.
That’s about it, folks. That’s been my life since I got back to the farm. It’s fun having so many people around – so much energy and variety. It’s supposed to be dry and even sunny for the remainder of the week, so we’ll see what fun new adventures the next few days bring.
TL;DR: Lots of different personalities and activity on the farm; enjoying being back.
My Balkans junket was a dream, but after nearly 2 weeks of city-hopping every few days, I was already getting burned out by the time I got to Dubrovnik. I had planned on meandering up the Croatian coast on my way back to Hungary, but by that point, all I really wanted to do was get “home.”
When “home” is Hungary and you’re trying to get back there from Croatia, it turns out it’s a little tricky these days. The train that ran from Zagreb to Budapest has been suspended temporarily, the border crossings shut down on account of the refugees. There are no buses between Zagreb and Budapest, either. I decided to try my luck in Sarajevo, which is closer to Budapest and more on the way than Zagreb. I knew I couldn’t get a train from Sarajevo to Budapest, but I assumed there would be some kind of bus service between the two capitol cities…
There was not. There was nothing, actually, that would get me even remotely closer to Hungary except a bus to Belgrade, where I could catch a train (or bus) to Budapest. Sarajevo has two bus stations – central and east. I got dropped off at the central bus station, but had to go to the east bus station to get the Belgrade bus. When I asked the woman at the ticket counter at the central station about the Belgrade bus at the east station, she couldn’t help me at all – she knew nothing about the buses at the east train station. I thought that was awfully strange. I hailed a cab to take me to the east train station.
My cabbie spoke pretty good English (or he spoke English well, for my fellow grammarians out there) and explained to me that we were entering East Sarajevo, which is its own city in the Republic of Srpska, and that it was very different from Sarajevo. I think I wrote about this before, but the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina has two federal entities, drawn along ethnic lines, that act almost entirely as separate countries save for a few common government services (military, money, courts, etc.) and open borders (as between U.S. States): the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (predominantly Bosnian Muslims and Croats) and the Republic of Srpska (predominantly ethnically Serbian and fought with the Serbian army against the Croats and Bosnian Muslims during the war). One of the concessions to end the war while keeping intact the existing borders of the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina was to create these two semi-autonomous federal entities as part of the Dayton Agreement.
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because the cab driver tells me that, when he drives into East Sarajevo, he has to take his “taxi” sign off the roof of his car or else face a steep fine. I guess where your taxi is registered – in the Federation or in the Republic – has an impact on where you’re allowed to pick up customers. That seemed really strange to me. I started to realize just how divided the city and the country still are. I realized the bus to and from Belgrade travels between Serbia and the Republic of Srpska, which is why it goes to and from the east bus station rather than the central station. Understanding dawned on me why it was that the woman in the central station could tell me nothing about the buses at the east station. When I used ATMs in Sarajevo, there were so many languages offered I didn’t even pay attention to what they were, I just picked English and went about my business, but in the Republic of Srpska there are only two options – English or Serbian.
The extremeness of the division between two halves of one country struck me as unsustainable. The majority Serbs in the area that is now the Republic of Srpska did not want to split from Yugoslavia when Bosnia declared independence and their soldiers fought to unite with Serbia as one country. As far as I can tell, this desire to be part of Serbia is still there. The rift that tore the country asunder is still there and it seems a lot of effort is devoted to keeping it that way. All of this made me very sad to see how, in this small way, the war still hasn’t ended but remains a present day reality for so many people.
When I got to Belgrade last night it was windy and raining. I didn’t have any accommodation arranged in the city – I had hoped to arrive early enough to catch the overnight train to Budapest. The thought of wandering around Belgrade at 10:30 at night looking for a place to stay – and potentially not finding one – is the exact fear that keeps me from being a more spontaneous and adventurous traveler. Strangely, though, once I was there I wasn’t too bothered by it. Perhaps my familiarity with the city made the prospect less terrifying. Still, not wanting to spend too much time looking for a place and knowing I would have an early train to catch the next morning, I popped over to an eccentric hotel I remembered from my previous stay in the city with an excellent location just across the street from the train station – the Mr. President Design Hotel.
Fortunately, they had a vacancy and the price was lower than I expected it to be. I did have to sleep with a picture of Nelson Mandela watching over me…
I woke up early this morning for the long day of train travel ahead of me: 8.5 hours from Belgrade to Budapest followed by another 3 hours back down to the farm. When I arrived at the train station it was dark and raining, just as it was when I’d taken off three weeks ago, almost like I never left at all.
In other news of the you-can’t-make-this-shit-up variety, my farmstay host tells me there’s a volunteer here right now who’s a swing dancer, a Polish girl named Gosia. It was a Polish girl named Gosia I met at Herräng that introduced me to the website I ended up using to find this farmstay. It turns out she’s here for Budapest’s big annual swing dance event, Lindy Shock. I’m guessing the odds on these two swing dancing Polish Gosias not being the same girl are significantly lower than 1%. Stay tuned to find out!
TL;DR: Fabulous Balkan getaway quickly disappearing in the rear-view mirror as I look to what’s ahead.
I arrived in Dubrovnik on Wednesday afternoon. I booked an apartment just outside the city walls with a rooftop terrace overlooking the old city and the Adriatic Sea. The weather was mildly warm, and my host set me up on the terrace with a beer, some chips, and some cake. I spent at least an hour up there just soaking in all the relaxing goodness after a week and a half of go go go.
We followed the curving coast of the Adriatic for miles as we approved Dubrovnik.The view from the rooftop terrace of my apartment. That’s the Minceta tower across the street from me and Ft. Lovrijenac in the distance to the right. If you watch Game of Thrones, perhaps you’re familiar with these landmarks.
It rained that night, but by morning had grown warm and sunny again. I decided to take the cable car up to the top of Mt. Srđ where the most gorgeous views of the city are said to be had. Despite the lateness of the season, Dubrovnik was still almost nothing but tourists. I can’t imagine what it’s like there in July and August. I waited 20-30 minutes just to get on the cable car, then it was a quick ascent to the top where there was a restaurant, a couple viewing terraces, and enough selfie sticks to make me turn around and search out a more remote viewing point.
View of Dubrovnik from the top of Mt. Srđ. That tight grouping of terra cotta roofs on the left is the old city.
There wasn’t much to do up there, so after a few minutes of taking in the view, I headed down the hiking trail in lieu of the cable car. I’d read that the trail was easy to traverse, took only about an hour to descend, and offered its own gorgeous views of the city. All of this was true, though I have to say the large, sharpish rocks that covered the path made it a bit more difficult to hike down in my sandals. Apparently, people like to make a pilgrimage up this path to the cross at the top of the mountain, and there are stations of the cross at several of the switchbacks:
A station of the cross along the Mt. Srđ hiking path.
Once down the mountain, I continued my descent into the old city, entering from the west through the Pile Gate.
One of the many lovely views I encountered as I descended into the old city.Pile Gate into the old city.
Dubrovnik’s old city is unrivaled in its unique beauty, no doubt. Its city walls and towers, some parts of which are as old as the 14th or early 15th century, are all fully intact. Inside the walls are centuries’ old churches, fountains, and other buildings. Much of it is stone. Narrow paths lined with towering old buildings stretch from the low center up, up, and up, stair after stair, to the high city walls to the north and south.
One of the many narrow, steep alleys of Dubrovnik’s old city.
But the tourists, you guys…And the tour hawkers yelling at me as I was trying to take in my surroundings…I couldn’t take it. I turned down a narrow alley between buildings and headed up, up, up to try to find some peace and quiet.
The Jesuit church of St. Ignatius of Loyola, built in the early 18th century.Inside St. Ignatius church.The Dubrovnik Cathedral. This building was built in the late 17th/early 18th century after the previous cathedral building, like much of Dubrovnik’s old city, was destroyed in a massive earthquake in 1667.Inside the Dubrovnik Cathedral.The stations of the cross inside the Dubrovnik Cathedral were unique and beautiful pieces of art.The organ of the Dubrovnik Cathedral. Croatia is predominantly a Catholic country.The historic Rector’s Palace where the Rector (basically a governor) lived and conducted government business. It now houses a museum.
After making my way around the southern half of the old city, I left through the Ploče Gate to the east and enjoyed a seafood lunch at a harbor-side restaurant. I ordered two glasses of white wine, and the 3rd was on the house 🙂 I was’t planning on paying to walk upon the city walls (you can walk the entire perimeter of the city walls, including all the towers that it contains), but figured what the heck. Once I was up there, I popped in my earbuds and blasted whatever music I happened to have stored in my phone. Walking around the Dubrovnik city walls, rocking out to Kayne and JT and Weezer and The Shins, feeling giddy off white wine…it was a party, let me tell you!
Oh yeah…that’s the stuff…Up the walls I go…View of the old city from the base of the Minceta tower. That basketball court must have the best view of all the basketball courts in all the world.A view of the city walls along the Adriatic and Ft. Lovrijenac.The problem with being surrounded by walls is that you don’t get to enjoy the gorgeous view outside them. This bar (those umbrellas on the left) sat just outside the city walls and had the best view of any place in the old city.
That night, I took in the sunset from the terrace before heading out to grab dinner at a wonderful little vegetarian restaurant in the old city.
A Dubrovnik sunset.
It turned out to be a wise decision to do the city walls in the afternoon, when there were relatively (objectively, even) few tourists – the next morning, as I was enjoying a nearly empty Fort Lovrijenac, I gazed in wonder across the water at the nearly unmoving, unbroken line of tourists I saw there. You Game of Thrones fans will recognize fort Lovrijenac, I’m sure.
Fort Lovrijenac.Inside the fort.The haunting stairwell of the fort.Spooooooooooooooky…My favorite view of the city was from the base of Fort Lovrijenac.
The walk up to the fort was lovely, through a small park with little walking trails and benches here and there to take in the city or Adriatic.
The littel woodland park at the base of the fort offered lovely views of the city.
After the fort, I walked over to the park just to the north. There was a gravel parking lot reaching from the park out to the Adriatic where I found a gorgeous and secluded outlook overlooking Fort Lovrijenac and the old city. It also happened to be facing directly east, and I took the perfect opportunity to meditate there, the sun warming my skin and the sound of small waves beating against the rocks below in my ears.
I walked through the little woodland park, then headed back to my vegetarian restaurant in the old city for lunch and an organic beer before hailing a cab to the ferry terminal. My ferry was ultimately destined for Split and navigated the channels of the Croatian islands to three other stops before depositing me at the tiny fishing village of Milna on the island of Brač.
Sidewalks of Dubrovnik showing their own battle scars.
I woke up Saturday morning in Milna, looking forward to a peaceful day of reading, writing and meditating on my private terrace overlooking the marina. This why I came to Milna – to experience the beauty of the Croatian coast in peace and solitude.
All that peace and quiet, yo! From my private terrace patio, of course.
I enjoyed a cup of tea on the terrace while I read from A Course in Miracles, followed by a pleasant meditation. I saw that my Kindle battery was low and got up to charge it. A certain realization dawned on me and my stomach began to sink. I saw myself on the ferry the night before packing up to exit the boat. I was using the power outlet at my seat. My plug came out of the converter, leaving the converter in the wall. I said to myself “Do NOT forget your converter, Janet,” then got off the boat. I searched every nook and cranny of my bags, but I didn’t find my converter.
My heart sank. My reading material is all on my nearly discharged Kindle. My writing is all on my computer, with its wonky battery and which doesn’t work unless it’s plugged into an outlet.
It began to rain. I sighed and got dressed. I put on my raincoat and galoshes and walked the few minutes down the hill and into “town” to get some breakfast and find out how to buy a bus ticket to Supetar, where I would catch the ferry to Split. There was a bus stop, but no station or information on how to buy tickets.
Already very frustrated over the loss of my converter and annoyed by the rain, the lack of info for the buses compounded my bad mood to make me irrationally angry. Nothing was going my way. I couldn’t charge my electronics, which meant I couldn’t read or write, the rain made it a miserable day to go sightseeing as an alternative (not that there’s much sightseeing to do in Milna), and I couldn’t get the bus information I had tromped through the rain to get and had no idea how I was going to get to Supetar the next day. The entire day threatened ruination if I didn’t turn my attitude around. I’d already lost a fair portion of my morning.
I found the tourist info office, the saving grace of a day that began on a down note and which was quickly gathering speed on a descent into hell. The lovely guy there told me the bus comes at 11:30 and takes half an hour to get to Supetar, leaving me enough time to catch my ferry to Split; I buy my ticket on the bus. Great.
Even though there’s hardly any tourists in town any more, all the restaurants were open with covered outdoor seating right on the water’s edge of the marina. All of them had a decent number of guests, too, mostly locals as far as I could tell. I had thought about eating at one of the places, but changed my mind on account of my bad mood. Instead, I bought a few basic groceries and headed home to my hermitage on the hill overlooking the marina. I ate pastries and enjoyed a cup of coffee on the covered terrace looking out out on the little marina, wrapped in a cozy blanket, while the rain fell gently around me.
I thought about the value of acceptance, of not letting what happened – something in the past and which I couldn’t change – interfere with my experience of the present moment. My options were limited, and I waited to be moved. I picked up my pen to write.
I grew tired and went inside for a nap. The kitchen and living room are combined, and a long couch faces the glass french doors that open onto the terrace. This is where I lay down to nap. I slept hard. I woke up to the sound of doors banging against a wall. I got up and saw that the storm had picked up and a strong wind was blowing outside. Even though I’d closed the french doors, the wind was blowing them inwards slightly, causing them to bang against the door jamb. The wind had blown rain all over the patio furniture, making it impossible to sit outside. “This day just gets better,” I thought. The wind continued to pick up strength throughout the afternoon. The rain had lightened up and I watched through the glass doors, sipping my hot tea, as the wind blew the misty rain across the water of the marina.
The great irony of my day in Milna is that, despite my frustration with the circumstances, I got exactly what I was looking for there – peace and quiet and solitude. I wrote by hand and was reminded just how much I love writing by hand. I read my Kindle until my battery died. I watched the storm from inside the comfort of my apartment overlooking the marina and enjoyed every minute of it.
TL;DR: Learning to love getting what I want, even if the wrapping isn’t as pretty as I had hoped.
