Munich, Strasbourg, and Namua's Farm!

Hello everyone! We’re in Cordoba, Spain having a bit of down time. The siesta sleep schedule allows tourists to become well acquainted with their hotel rooms. For those that don’t know, everything closes in Spain from about 2 in the afternoon until about 6 or 7 in the evening; there really is nothing to do between those times except wander around aimlessly and we did plenty of that yesterday. Given this, it’s been over a month since we’ve updated the blog last, and so much has happened! We’ve traveled hundreds of miles from Munich to the Iberian Peninsula. We’ll save Spain for another post, here is what we did in Southern Germany and France.

We left our WWOOF farm in hopes of reaching the small town of Burghausen in South East Germany, right on the border of Austria, to catch The Sun Ra Arkestra: one of jazz’s most notoriously weird ensembles. Burghausen is somewhat out of the way, and even though it is probably a 3-4 hour drive from Dresden, it took over eight hours to get there via train. Luckily, the Deutsche Bahn (German national train lines) offers a weekend pass that lets you go anywhere in the country for thirty or so euros. We arrived in Burghausen about an hour and a half before the concert was supposed to start. It took us about forty-five minutes to find our hotel due to unclear directions and then another forty-five minutes to find the venue. We were in a bit of hurry and forgot the camera at the hotel, so we don’t have any pictures from the evening. We arrived just in time to grab a drink and a seat. The band was on as expected! They played three fantastic sets, alternating between slower and faster songs, all of which accented by their fabulous costumes and charisma. The band itself has undergone significant changes since their inception. The original band leader, Sun Ra, died in 1993 leaving quite a legacy. He had his beginnings as a jazz musician in the 1930s. According to legend, he visited outer space in the 1940s, forever transforming his life. He claimed to have been sent to earth by extra-terrestrial life forms to bring black music to black people as a way to liberate them from white oppression. Musically, he was one of jazz’s most prolific artists, releasing multiple albums every year from the 1940s until his death in 1993. After his death, he passed the torch on to another band leader, whose name escapes me at the moment, who died in the early 2000s. The band we saw was the third generation of the Sun Ra Arkestra led by Marshall Allen. Many of the musicians had been with the band since the 1960s. Here is a video of Sun Ra from his film Space is the Place so you can get an idea of what we saw. Be prepared for weirdness; you've been warned.

 

The next day, we hopped a train to Munich. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon. We checked in to our hostel, and went out for a quick bite to eat. After dinner, we went down to the city center and took a couple of pictures. The city center itself has been over run with kitschy shops and outlet stores. However, The Rat Haus (what the Germans call their City Halls) was one redeeming factor. We snapped a few pictures, grabbed a quick drink and called it an evening.

 

The next day we set out for the Dachau Concentration Camp. This time we decided to bring our camera, but tried to be humble about when and where to take pictures. Dachau, of course was incredibly depressing. Like Auschwitz, I was struck by the industrial nature of Dachau. I find it so unbelievable that a massive industrial system was devised to slaughter millions of people. The cruelty of this place is truly unfathomable, and yet as soon as you walk through the gates, you’re struck with the reality of it. Here are a few pictures from our visit to Dachau.

 

"Arbeit macht frei" is inscribed on each entrance to each concentration camp. It translates to "work makes you free". 

The main camp area at Dachau. All of the prisoners would have to assemble here for a morning roll call that would last for several hours. This area was also used to make a public example of prisoners who did not follow camp rules. Thousands were beaten and/or murdered here.

This is a sculpture dedicated to those that died at Dachau.

We didn’t really feel like doing much after Dachau, so we cooked a meal at the hostel, did laundy, and took it easy for the rest of the evening. The next day, we set out for the Museum Brandhorst: a large private collection of one of Munich’s top collectors. This was one of our favorite museums of the trip. They had multiple pieces from Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst; the latter which we came to appreciate more so after this museum. He had one piece, the effect of which would be lost in a picture, titled Looking Forward to a Complete Cessation of Pain, which was a glass box containing four televisions blaring migraine medicine commercials; we thought it was hilarious. The top floor was dedicated entirely to Cy Twombly, an artist neither of us understand and would appreciate an explanation of, if someone could please provide us one. Here are a few of our favorite pieces from the museum.

This might be my favorite Andy Warhol piece that I've seen. We've seen so many, that I'm convinced that you don't have a modern art museum until you have at least one Andy Warhol.

An explanation for an exhibit that Ashleigh and I found hilarious. The exhibit was a bunch of enlarged plastic sewage. We thought we'd spare you a picture.

A piece by Damien Hirst titled In this Terrible Moment We are All Victims Clinging Helplessly to an Environment that Refuses to Acknowledge the Soul. On each of the little shelves is a different pill. As for Hirst's dramatic titles, I think they're all satirical; this piece does seem a bit more serious, though. 

We spent the rest of the day wandering around Munich, looking for an English bookstore and trying to find food. We snapped a few pictures here and there. We had a mug of Gluhwein in a park outside of a giant structure modeled off of Chinese tower. We’re pretty sure the park we were in is where they have Oktoberfest every year. We ended the day at a veggie restaurant, where I had a plate of veggie curry-wurst and had a fantastic glass of Bavarian lager. Ashleigh doesn’t recall what she had to eat but she does remember that there was definitely a Disclose poster on the wall! Hey Dan!

A square in Munich.

A square devoted to the famous sociologist Max Weber. 

Bon appetit!

The next day we set off for Strasbourg. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon, cooked a meal at our hotel and walked around for a bit. The next day, we set off for the modern art museum. The museum was really neat; they had a lot of stuff from artists we had never heard of. We particularly enjoyed the wood-carved pieces. Here are a few pictures.

 

This light platform was set up around an entire exhibit: beginning when you entered the exhibit, and seeing it's conclusion on the other side of the exhibit. It basically looks like this all the way around.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the area known as Petite France looking for a decently priced cheese plate. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful. But we were able to snap a few photos before the camera died.

 

We had trouble staying busy in Strasbourg. After the modern art museum, we were somewhat at a loss for what to do next. The next day, we wandered around some more and took some pictures. The cathedral in the middle of the town was particularly cool, but it was hard to get a good photo of it. We did our best with the fisheye lens. After this, we found a desert shop and had the best Crème Brulee ever, as well as an amazing cherry tart.

The fruit in France, and Europe in generally, is exceptional. It's a clementine with the leaves still on it.

The next evening, we killed as much time as we could before taking our night train to Peripignan, where we could catch a bus to La Roque Des Alberes, the small village our next WWOOF farm was located in. We killed so much time that we ended up missing our direct train. We had to take a night train that involved a 4:30 AM change in Avignon, with a three hour lay over at the station. We didn’t leave for Peripignan until 7:30 in the morning, arriving there around 10:30. We ended up missing our bus, so we had to wait until 6 o’clock that evening to catch the next bus. Groggy, and with five hours to kill, we worked on the blog in a coffee shop. We caught our bus to La Roque that night with no problems, and made it to our WWOOF farm where we would spend the next three weeks.

 Our host was named Namua. She lived with one of her son’s, named Ralph. Another one of her son’s, Louie, ate regularly at her house, but didn’t actually live there. Her and her husband bought their little olive farm about 15 years ago. She was widowed about two years ago. When we arrived Ralph was on vacation, and there were three other WWOOFers at the house: Sena, Darryn, and Oli. Sena was a Iranian-born Canadian, who was incredibly out going. Darryn and Oli were both English and considerably more reserved than Sena. Darryn was about thirty and had a master’s from Warwick (one of the grad schools I applied to); Oli was about eighteen, and we got along well from the beginning, largely due to a mutual interest in Black Sabbath. While we were there, Ralph would return from vacation, Sena would leave, and others would arrive. By the time we left, Darryn and Oli were still there, and Marie Claire, Lea, and Glyn had arrived, and would also still be there by the time we left. Marie Claire, originally from the Netherlands and currently residing in Belgium, was a free-spirit type, who was very interested in the spiritual aspects of permaculture and organic gardening. Lea was from Germany and taking a gap year before heading off to University. Like us, she was trying to travel cheaply through Europe. Glyn was from Wales, and was technically not a WWOOFer, but a Help-Xer. Help-X is a program like WWOOFing in that it provides laborers for those that need labor, but is not specifically geared toward farming. He had been to Namua’s before, and knew his way around more so than the rest of us. All of these people were incredibly friendly, and it was a pleasure to get to know them over the three weeks we stayed there. As for the farm itself, Namua did much to try and recycle her water usage. That means that anything that was put down a drain had to be biodegradable. We weren’t allowed to use any of the soaps or toothpaste that we had brought, but thankfully Namua provided some we could use. Namua used store-bought soaps, but made her own toothpaste out of clay and mint oil; it was like brushing your teeth with dirt, but surprisingly very effective. All of the water that was used was connected to pipes that would lead out into the garden to water her plants. Namua also made use of compost toilets, which was essentially like using a cat-box for our bathroom needs. Instead of a toilet-bowl, there is a bucket with a biodegradable plastic bag in it; after you are done using the toilet, you cover it with wood-chips. The buckets need to be taken out daily to the “shit-shack” (see pictures below, nothing graphic), where the plastic bags (the contents safely contained within… unless the bag breaks) are placed and covered with branches to keep the animals out. This of course was only necessary for the indoor toilets; their was an outdoor toilet, as well as a urine bucket for the boys, which needed to be taken out every month or so. It takes about a year for the bags to biodegrade before they are usable as compost. The compost is not used for any plants that will be directly eaten.

 

Given that it was just Namua at the house, we did a lot tasks that were not related to farming. This was no problem; we were happy to help. We had to do a lot of work related to the compost toilets, such as make more woodchips by collecting dried wood and running it through a wood-chipper; as mentioned above, taking out the indoor toilet buckets was a daily task. We had to water the garden and the poly-tunnel (see pictures below) everyday, too. A poly-tunnel is basically like a green house, except considerably cheaper to make and maintain, and more earth-friendly as you’re still making use of the natural environment. Basically, it’s just a plot of land that’s covered by plastic; it helps keep pest out, as well as moisture inside. This isn’t the first time we encountered a poly-tunnel; the WWOOF farm in Wales also had a poly-tunnel, they’re very common on European organic farms. Namua’s land was divided into two parts: the lower part, which is where the house and garden was located, and the upper part, which is where the olive trees were being planted. It should be clarified that Namua was in the process of creating an organic olive-farm: it wasn’t producing olives yet. When we weren’t doing work maintaining the house, we were on the upper part of the farm either planting olive trees, or clearing land for planting. About a week before we left, Namua purchased a hundred olive trees for us to plant; by the time we left, we had planted about sixty of them. For income, Namua sells books at a local weekend market, as well as online. We did some work related to her book business. Overall, the work was very light and pretty relaxed. We could work at our own pace. As long as we worked 5 hours a day, she wasn’t picky about how we spent it, or when exactly we did it.

 Namua is a practicing vegan and has been so for most of her life. All of the food we ate the farm was absolutely amazing vegan food. She was an expert in vegan cooking, and as such, all of the meals we ate were very well rounded. When we arrived initially, our sleeping arrangements were in the house, but as more people arrived, we were moved to the caravan outside. Besides people, there were a plethora of animals: four dogs (Ben, Freya, Ash, and Obie), 15-20 cats, and 8-10 chickens in a chicken coup. We had one cat that liked to hang out with us in our caravan named BC. We spent many of our off days lazing around the farm, reading or cooking. A couple notable exceptions would be a trip to Coullier, which is a small beach town, where Dali and Picasso used to hang out, as well as an eight hour hike up to the highest peak in the region, the name of which I can’t remember. We also went to the market in Ceret with Namua, where we bought some fantastic cheese. Here are some pictures from our time on Namua’s farm.

BC in our caravan.

The poly-tunnel

The "shit-shack": all of the plastic bags are stored in the compartments to the right. The left is used for spare brush.

The indoor compost toilet.

Clay toothpaste!

The view from Namua's back porch.

The back of Namua's house with Glyn to the left.

Our caravan.

Freya and our caravan.

A freshly planted olive tree.

The beach in Coullier.

Ashleigh and Oli in Coullier. 

That day, we found a rock to sit and drink a bottle of wine on. French wine is exceptionally amazing and inexpensive. 

The view from our rock.

Taken on our hike.

 Left to right: myself, Sena, and Oli

the view

Lea and Darryn on Namua's back porch. 

Namua with an armful of clothes. 

That’s all for now! Our trip is almost over! We’ll mostly likely do one more post (maybe two) covering our trip through Spain and Portugal. After Cordoba, we’ll head to Seville, then we’re off to another WWOOF farm in Portugal! Hasta luego! 

Czech Republic and the WWOOF Farm!!

Hey everyone!!

We're in the South of France in a small city called Peripignan, after a grueling 13 hour journey from Strasbourg. We're both incredibly tired and a little out of it, so forgive us if this blog shows it. We missed our bus today heading to our next wwoof farm outside of La Roque de Alberes, and the next one isn't for another 4 hours from now. It's about time to update the blog; we haven't done so, it seems, in far too long. So much has happened! Here is what we did after we left Poland. 

Our last night with Jack was quite an evening, and so hangovers and all, we headed to catch an early train to Olomouc, Czech Republic. We were attracted to this little town because of it's historic center, featuring one of two astronomical clock towers in the Czech Republic (the other being in Prague) and also a myriad of fountains in statues and churches. Other than that, it's a sleepy college town, where almost everything closes on the weekends, giving the empty streets kind of an eerie feeling when contrasted with all of the architecture. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon, found our hostel, and grabbed a quick bite to eat. The hostel recommended a small tea house, where we could find inexpensive vegetarian options. Little did we know at the time, given the exchange rate, everything in the Czech Republic is inexpensive. Ashleigh and I had two full meals, as well as two pots of high quality tea, for about ten dollars. The rest of the first evening we spent wandering around the city center and talking with people we met at the hostel.

The next day, we set out for two museums, which happened to be free that day. First, however, we had to go see the Astronomical Clock chime at noon. This Astronomical Clock is quite different from the one in Prague. During the Communist rule, it was rebuilt to reflect the ideas of the revolution. As such, there are murals of working people, like blacksmiths, farmers, scientists, etc. We have to say the clock's performance did not live up to it's reputation. The melody it played was dissident, the little figures moved too slowly to hold our interest. It was really an overall, very boring display that lasted a grueling five minutes; five minutes, we'll never get back. The clock show culminated with a golden rooster coming out of his housing, cawing and flapping pathetically, and then going back in again. Ashleigh snapped some pictures of the clock tower, as well as some of the architecture in the square. 

This contribution to the town square is recent, and quite controversial...

After this, we headed over to the Arch-Diocese Museum, which housed a collection of art pieces, as well as artifacts from the Arch-Diocese of Olomouc. This was quite impressive. There were some very ornate gold sculptures, as well as some very beautiful religious paintings, full of cryptic symbolism and imagery. After this, we headed over to the Museum of Modern Art, which housed a surprisingly interesting collection. It seemed to specialize in works from turn of the century "purists", who stuck to a more traditional format, while the rest of the art world made it's shift to more abstract pieces. That is not to say that there were not a healthy amount of works from their more abstract contemporaries. For some reason, we have almost no pictures from this museum; I guess we weren't in the mood to take pictures at the time. However, we do have some pictures from a viewing tower on top of the museum, as well as a few from the Arch-Diocese museum; the pics at the bottom are from said tower.   

An old well in the courtyard of the Arch-Diocese Museum.

The next day, we set out for some of Olomouc's famous church's. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Taken from the bell-tower of one of the church's

After these church's, we went out for a piece of cake. It was fantastic!

After our relatively, short afternoon, we went back to the hostel, finished up our last blog post, and then set out for a microbrewery for a couple of drinks. We headed to bed early that night to catch our train to Prague the next day. 

We arrived in Prague in the early afternoon, and made our way to the next hostel. After we got settled, we took around the city and tried to get ourselves oriented. We were immediately struck by the beauty of the architecture. It's really a fantastic place in every sense of the word. The next day, we set out for the Royal walk, which takes us by a number of fantastic sites. Here are a few pictures from that day. 

Eventually, we ended up at the castle. It was toward the end of the afternoon, so we were able to walk around and see a couple of things without it being too crowded. One of our most favorites sites we've seen this far was Saint Vitus's Church in the castle complex. It had some of the most intricate and beautiful stained glass we've ever seen. 

We left the castle complex as the sun was about to set, and walked across Charles Bridge. 

Taken from the Charles Bridge

The next day, we got a late start. We wanted to go back and try to see the rest of the castle, but by the time we had arrived there in the early afternoon, it was already so crowded with tourists that we decided against it. We walked through a couple of exhibits, all of which did not allow us to take pictures, and then decided it wasn't worth the time and the claustrophobia. By this time, it was late in the afternoon, and most of the day had been spent. We wandered around in search of Franz Kafka's memorial statue and then went for a meal in the square. 

Kafka's Memorial Statue

Here are some pictures from the square.

If you remember from our last post, we bought bicycles in Poland for cheap, expecting to use them for a while and then sell them. Well, my bicycle was broken by this time in our trip, so we decided to try to sell Ashleigh's while it was still in working order. We tracked down a bicycle shop and went well out of our way to try and get rid of it. When we wasted the afternoon trying to find this bicycle shop, we decided to leave it and make a lucky passer-by's day. As such, most of the afternoon on the third day was spent doing this, and there was only a bit of time to try check out the Franz Kafka's museum. When we arrived, it was on the verge of closing. The museum was kind of a let down. It portrayed Kafka as tortured soul yearning to be free in a world that is just oh so stifling. We can't help but have a different interpretation. As such, we thought the museum was a little much. The following is a sculpture outside of the Kafka museum.

The next day, we woke up early and set off for our next farm adventure in Germany. The Weber's live in a small town outside of Dresden called Barenstien. They are a family of four, Brita, Jens (pronounced "Yens"), Luisa, and Ana. The latter are eleven year old twins. We have to say, our week with the Weber's was absolutely incredible. They took us into their home, and treated us like we were family. We stayed in the attic above one of the barns. We had our own kitchen, where we ate breakfast before work. As far as the work was concerned, we had hard days and easy days. Jens is involved in conservation work in the southeast German region. Jens had mowed a couple of meadows in the area, which needed to be cleared of grass-clippings to allow rare species to flourish. On a couple of days, we worked in the meadows. This work would not have been particularly difficult had it not been raining and snowing while we were working. The excess water weighed down the grass, making it more difficult then usual to carry. The area was experiencing a-typical weather while we were there. A couple of days into our stay, it snowed heavily (about six inches if I remember correctly), which is extremely rare for that region at that time of year. The ground was covered with snow until we left later that week. One of our easier jobs involved moving hay from one room to another to make it easier to fill hay orders. The grass that is clipped from the meadows can be dried and turned into hay, which can then be sold. Our easiest days involved correcting grammar for the English version of Jens' conservation organization's website. The organization he is involved in is called the Grune Liga. From what we gathered, he is the head of the Sachsen Chapter of the Grune Liga. I know he is still working on the English website; we'll make sure to keep an eye on it and post a link when it's up so everyone can read about it. He takes amazing pictures as well, so even if you're not into the Green movement, the pictures are worth seeing in and of themselves. The family also took us out to show us the area. Brita took us to Dresden one day, where we got a walking tour of the city and visited a couple of museums. Jens and Brita took us to a castle, the name of which escapes me at the moment, that housed a museum featuring a history of the area (natural history included). Jens also took us to a museum in Pirna, which housed exhibits of everyday goods from the German Democratic Republic (the East German Communist country). Brita and Jens both grew up in during the Communist era in East Germany and shared fascinating insights into the everyday life of East Germans. As a budding sociologist, I just ate it up. It was really great to hear the perspectives of actual DDR citizens. Ana and Luisa were also charming children, with a amazing grasp of the English language, considering their age. We were utterly astounded by these children. Both of them are avid readers. Luisa is writing a crime novel. To date, she has written 140 pages of it. Ana does the illustrations. They're both very outgoing and ABSOLUTELY hilarious. We just can't say enough about this family. We had the best time here, and it was an experience I'm sure we're going to remember for the rest of our lives. We didn't take to many pictures while we were there, but here a couple we took in Dresden and after the show had fallen.

THE BEST HONEY WE HAVE EVER HAD!

Thats all for now. We have to go catch our bus to our next WWOOF farm. We will be on this farm for three weeks. Hopefully, we'll have time to do a short update on Burghausen, Munich, and Strasbourg in the next couple of days. Take care!!!