Corsica!

After my time in the largest city in France, arriving in Corsica was somewhat unexpected and refreshing. I landed at the Ajaccio airport, which is really tiny and my plane was mostly made up of locals, as it seemed. After waiting for my bags to arrive, I took the bus to the city center. But before the bus could leave, however, the driver-lady (wearing almost high-heel boots and scarf, no less) had to have her cigarette and so did a few of the other passengers. This should have given me and early warning about the pace in Corsica, which is unapologetically slow.


Jacky's apartment belongs to an older divorcee from Paris, which is very cute, small, and looks out on an extremely corsican view: into other apartments with lots of hanging laundry. Corsica overall looks a lot like Southern California. There are lots of oak trees, olive trees and shrubby plants. There are also a ton of fig trees, which is very good for people like jacky and I, that can't get enough of them and get looks from the locals while scouting out good ones.


Since it is a holiday week in Corsica, called "Toussaints" or "All Saints" day, which is Monday, Jacky and another "assistant" at the Corsican school were amazing enough to arrange a 5 day hike across Corsica. We met up at with another assistant, Sara, at her apartment in Porto Vecchio, which is closer to the trailhead. The trail that we chose to do was the "Mare a Mare Sud" which is a pretty popular one, but mostly during the summer. Now that it is towards the end of the season for hiking, we had to make sure that all the "gites", or small hostel/hotels were open. The Mare a Mare Sud winds from gite to gite with about 5 to 6 hours of walking in between each day. Once at the gite, the four of us girls were given a dorm/hostel room, and then immediately after we would shower off all the dirt and then usually compare how smelly our clothes were. Then dinner was served family style to all the hikers at the gite, usually around 7:30 (all the gites seemed to agree on this point, for some reason). Some of the dinners were amazing, like Corsican ricotta stuffed eggplant, chevre pop-overs, and local salads. Two of us being vegetarian, it was never a problem, except one time we did have to enjoy a main course of plain buttered pasta...but usually the gite owners were more than happy to accommodate us, and we never went hungry (or thirsty, there was always plenty of Corsican table wine).

Each day's hike was very interesting in its own right. Some days, there were many steep, winding uphill trails that really challenged our athletic ability ("well I thought I was in shape!"). There were also times that challenged our determination, as on the third day it decided to rain on us for the last two hours of the hike, on the longest walking day of the trail. Arriving at the gite that night, we all looked something of a mess! But luckily that gite owner had an inviting fire going for all the hikers to dry their socks and boots, and also served some amazing broth-y vegetable soup before dinner to warm us all up. Other days, we saw a dead wild pig's head, severed cow's foot, a cow that followed us down a path, walnut trees, and about a million chestnuts (I will never buy them again, they're basically carpet in corsica).


Hiking in Corsica is definitely something that I would recommend, as you get to see some really interesting towns and a slice of Corsican life that you would miss out on if you just stuck to the bigger cities. You also get to experience some really corsican and delicious food. My favorite is a type of cheese here called "tomme". A few gites would serve it with dried fig or locally made fig-compote after the meal. Somehow, now matter how much we had eaten for dinner we were always ready to have more cheese (and bread). There are also many locally made aperitifs and liquors, which include corsican flavors such as chestnut, myrrh, and ambrose. When we asked what ambrose is at the farmer's market, the corsican liquor salesman replied, "well its a fruit, thats from here" (in french), which seems to happen a lot in Corsica. Things are just very traditional, and you don't really ask why. Another tradition in Corsica is that everything closes at lunchtime, even sometimes the cafes that sell lunch. Maybe its my American capitalist attitude, but I just keep thinking how someone could make a lot of money in Corsica with a grocery shop that is open between 12:30 and 3:30pm...

trier and Paris

The last few days working in Obermmel at the Orea vineyards were quite, quite busy. Every day I woke up at 6:15 am so that I could "plunge" the grapes. This consists of taking a large upside-down metal bowl on a stainless steel handle and pressing down on the grapes in large 1000 L tubs, so that the "cap" becomes coated with juice and does not dry out. This is only for red wine grapes, and could quite possibly be done with the feet, depending on the ferment, a la I Love Lucy. However, for practical reasons this is usually not the case. Also, some of the grapes dye your hands red, so I can only imagine what your feet would look like. Then, after plunging, I did tests on each ferment, which included finding the specific gravity, done with a hydrometer, as well as testing the temperature. As the red wine ferments, its specific gravity goes down, while the temperature increases. Don't ask me to explain why this is scientifically, it just is. There were six ferments to do, which usually took about an hour.

Then, after that, Herve and the other WWOOF'ers and I would get together the things that we needed for harvesting. This includes about a bunch of boxes that have pretty much specifically designed for grape picking. Then, at 8am we would all get in the car with boxes in tow and make our way to the vineyard. Many of the vineyards in Germany are steep (the steepest is a 68% gradient), which is actually a good thing when you have to drag a box down each row full of grapes. On the other hand, this is problematic for ones lower legs, as you usually rest the box of grapes on your shin so that it does not go sliding down the mountain and ruin all your work. I think I would take a photo of all my bruises I have collected over the month, but no one really wants to see that.

But don't worry, it wasn't all picking and bruises. There were many breaks which included wine and "breakfast beer" which I had made weeks earlier. Having lunch in the vineyard was always really beautiful because of the great views in the Saar region. The only bad thing about having lunch in the vineyard were the wasps. Its really unclear why, but Germany has so many wasps. I think I saw one bee the whole time I was there, and everyone knows that wasps are the more evil versions of bees. Therefore at lunch, it so happened that several times some one would get stung, as a matter of course. Luckily, I was never one of those people, probably due to my lack of eating meat (not a scientifically based statement).

After lunch, it was back to work, usually packing up boxes or dragging them down hills, as well as some more picking if it was not all done before lunch. This could be an easy or hard process, usually dependent on how much alcohol was consumed during lunch (This probably lead to all the bruises?) After the trailer was packed up with a tarp, etc (in Germany, even if it is a five minute drive you must make your trailer look like it could survive a hurricane without loosing a grape) we would go back to the cellar and process the grapes. If they were white wine grapes, this means that they get put in a presser and then the juice if pumped into a tank to ferment. If they are red wine grapes, the stems are taken off with a machine and then put into 1000L tubs to ferment. Then everything must be cleaned, and at 7pm the red wine must be plunged again.

However, since I took the early plunge duty, I usually went back to the house to work on dinner for all of us. Most people that know me know I love to cook, but Germany and I did not get along on the subject of food. Luckily, Herve was from France and at least knew that German food was terrible so we had probably the best stocked kitchen in Oberemmel. However, I feel that now i am a fairly decent flammenkuchen chef, so when I get back to the states I bet that will be the next big thing in LA (just saying).

The last full day in Germany, the three of us WWOOF'ers decided to go to Trier, which is the closest city to Oberemmel that is big enough to have an H & M, if you understand. Luckily for Mahanya and I, they also sell dirndls in Trier, which are German dresses that people wear to Oktoberfest. And since Oktoberfest was already over, this meant they were all on sale. I picked up a fetching red and white one (that my mom says I should wear to Thanksgiving dinner...?) and Mahanya got a brown and pink one, which is also a common dirndl color scheme. Trier also included a visit to Cafe Asterix, which my Lonely Planet guide book said we must visit while in Trier. Of course, it was nothing impressive, although I was so amazed that they had a tequila sunrise on their menu that I had to order it. We ended up being much happier with the traditional German wine stand in the middle of the main square in Trier, which included a bottle of sparkling wine produced in the region which we ordered (as well as more wasps).

However, in life all good things must end, so therefore the next day I left Oberemmel for Paris. But, as the fates would have it, I left my iPhone and some clothes at the house (also due to mimosas at breakfast?), which could be mailed to somewhere where i will be staying in the future. However, not trusting the Corsican postal service (where I will be headed next), as well as already missing my life in Oberemmel, I decided that I will just have to get my stuff in person.

The train to Paris was uneventful and I was able to amuse some Asian tourists by constantly nodding off every five seconds. I found the Ines' apartment successfully as well, for which I credit my improving skills at navigating subways, as well as her good directions. The next day, I tried to tackle as much as I possibly could of things that one "must see" in France, like the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc De Triomphe. To be honest, the Mona Lisa at the Louvre was overrated. Overrated, as far as you can barely see it. Not being the pushy type, as well as wanting to see other things, I got as close as about 15 feet away before I was overwhelmed by all the tourists and moved on to some other paintings that I really liked seeing, such as the Wreck/Raft of The Medusa, which anyone who was in Art History at Cleveland will remember well. Also its huge and you don't have to fight to see it. There were also a million other great works that I loved seeing, but after 4 hours I saw how pretty it was outside and really wanted to go see le Jardin des Tuileries and enjoy some fresh air. Of course, being the food-centric person that I am, I was just happened to stumble upon two macaron shops that I had really wanted to go to, as well as a fancy food store where I bought a very delicious goat cheese and tomato tart-like pastry as well as a baguette (duh, its paris). After a very long day of walking around, I made my way to the rue des champs elysees, where I was very excited to find a sephora, since I had run out of makeup three weeks ago, and was disappointed to find the Germany does not really sell any (fact based on science). After stocking up, I hit a few more stores, still excited due to the fact that I had not been shopping in so long. However, after a full day of walking around, I decided to  head back to the apartment, but not before stopping to buy some cheese to go with that baguette (once again, when in paris...).

More photos to be added when I recover said iPhone!

Saarburg

Now that I have been in Germany for 20 days, I feel that I can make some assesments about Germans, and German culture, little of it that I know.

First, outiside of a major city, there is nearly nothing open on a Sunday (monday is a crap shoot too). When it is a bigger city, there are restaurants/cafes open, but no bars, and certainly no apotekes, which is like a pharmacy. And of course, the day I usually want to buy something from a pharmacy, it is a Sunday. Also, pharmacies here are not like the ones in the US. They don't sell chips, and wine, and really cheap shoes as well as hair products and Tums and actual medicines. So there you go. I think I could make big money in Germany opening a 24 Rite Aid.

Two, "paprika" is pepper flavored. There are "paprika" flavored chips and stuff, and I kept trying to figure out why the Germans were so obsessed with this one spice. They also don't have weird flavors of Lays here, like in the UK and Greece. They have paprika flavored pringles. So I think that will be my second line of business in Germany.

Third: If Germans are going to do something, no matter in how amateur a fashion, they are going to buy all the f-ing professional equipment they can. This leads to the German hobby of: Nordic Walking. This means, you are over 55, you go "hiking" and you have your two ski poles with you. Well, two high-tech walking sticks. And you will use those two damn sticks no matter how flat the ground is. I also think that German  hiking is pretty tame, also, because everything is labeled. Its not like in the US or other places, where you go "Well I think this trail loops back around..."only to find yourself backtracking at 7 o clock at night. Germans label every single road, track, pig path, etc. There must be a national sale of signs. This tendancy of high professionalism in ameteur sports leads to a big problem with the second largest German hobby: biking. The problem is, in the US, if one wears those bike clothes for "real" cyclists, you  usually are, you know, a real  cyclist. More to the point is, you are on the thinner side, cause you bike so much. In Germany though, the unwritten rule does not exist. Every large, beer-bellied German man who has a bike wears his skin-tight clothes on the bike in every color of the rainbow. This leads to much giggling whilst hiking.

Four: Misc: you can only shoot an animal while sitting down. black beans must be special ordered from the store. eggplant = aubergine. germans love sparkling water. no window screens. dryers are uncommon.

Saarburg

these are walnuts and hazelnuts we foraged

This weekend we came home from the other vineyard we have been working at, in Rech. The Rech vineyard belongs to the friend of Herve. Its a really nice place, and we basically live in a winebar. The problem there though, is that they only serve bread and cold cuts and stuff. Oh, and flammenkuchen. So thats just kinda like pizza. So by the time we got home on Saturday, we all really, really wanted veggies. The only vegetable I has seen was tomato. Maybe there was some leek on one of the flammenkuchen. I had fried eggs on toast for three nights in a row. Don't forget the health layer of butter on that toast, thank you. So for lunch on Saturday back in Oberemmel, we had a vegetable feast.

gondola thing

The next day, Derek (the other WWOOFer here now) and I decided to do the 12 km trek to Saarburg. Saarburg is a big tourist place, but they dont have any metion of it in my lonely planet guide, so it must be not that cool in the big scheme of Germany. They hike was super flat the whole way, and mostly on a bike path, so we got "ding-ding" from a lot of bikes the whole way that thought we were going to somehow veer into the very wide bike path. In Saarburg, we decided that doing the most touristy things would probably be the best. So after wine at one of the cafes, we paid three Euro to go in a gondola thing to the top of the mountain. This was basically a chair lift, which had very impressive views of the grass directly below, and (!) in front of us. And the road below, full of BMW's. At the top, there was a cafe and many, many children. In a touristy mood, we naturally decided to ride on the bobsled ride that was also at the top. So, for only a couple more euro, we were able to see how German children are educated on driving. In Germany, it is only natural that a ride would have real, actual, accurate road signs and a speed limit (you can have fun, but not too much!)

After a hike back down the mountain, and some more wine at a cafe (where we met some floridians, who asked, since I am from LA, if I had a reality show. I said yes), we were thankfully picked up by herve. having not eaten anything for lunch, except for a banana, we were naturally fairly starving and the wine definitly got to us faster than usual (well that's a way to save money!) For dinner we made some gourmet flammenkuchen with green onions, creme, and salmon lox (here it is called lochs). I would have taken photos, but we were too hungry. The beer to the left here is from a local brewery. Its not too strong of flavor but it has grown on me.

Also, since today is "Unification Day" in Germany, it was only natural that we should have a BBQ. We went to one of the vineyards and it was amazingly beautiful, with nice afternoon sunlight. I made a salad for everyone, and our German/Polish neighbour was very suprised by my creation. I told her it was "very california": lettuce, pear, mozza, and hazlenuts with a light vinegar dressing. I don't think anyone at home would have been suprised by it, but I guess in Germany putting fruit in your salad is really crazy (those americans...)