First Days

Okay so I was supposed to leave LAX to Dallas/Ft. Worth then Frankfurt, starting at 6 am on Tuesday the 13th. Well, thank you American Airlines, for not telling me you changed my flight that morning to 9:30 at night. The good news was that the flight they changed me to was AA's partner, British airways, who is I think a little bit better than American, and gives you wine with dinner. Who will say no to that? So then it was LAX to Heathrow to Frankfurt. Then from Frankfurt to Wiltingen (Trier) via D Bahn train, which is like the main train around here.

Sleeping only fitfully on the plane from LAX to Heathrow, I arrived in Wiltingen extremely tired. However! It was 5:40 am, which is basically when we were expected to get up anyways for the day. So after Herve, the main vineyard man picked me up at the station, we grabbed the other kids working here, and hit the road. We drove two (sleepy) hours to Rech, which is where a friend of Herve's has several vineyards. After having a quick German breakfast (read: rolls, cheese, some cream-cheese like thing, cold cuts, jam, coffee) we were off to pick grapes. Rech is just about one of the most beautiful places you could pick grapes! It has very pretty sloping countryside and everything is GREEN! Unlike the LA area. Then we had lunch of a slab of meat (ham? I don't pay enough attention, I just avoid it) and some potato mush stuff, with spinach and onions. I ate the mush and  avoided the slab. The read question is, how long can I be here and avoid eating meat? I think it will be a personal challenge, before I turn white and pale from all the bread and potatoes and cheese (non-meat German food).


After lunch, we loaded up the grapes and then "processed" them. This means like sorthing all the grapes from the stems, rinsing, and then mush-ifying them up to juice in another machine. We sampled some of the grape juice while it was mush-ifying (technical wine term) and it was delicious! So I have no doubt it will be good wine.


After the processing, three of us WWOOF'ers went on a hike through Rech, ending in this very interesting castle like place the I think used to be a fort in 1100. It was very high up but had lots of picnic tables. After stopping at "ein biergarten" for some drinks (duh) it was time for dinner back at the vineyard, which was...more cold cuts. I see a patten here. They also gave us a cherry danish, which I ate only out of the nutritional value of the cherries, I swear.

Then we drank some wine while I attempted to understand German TV (even the people who speak german could not comprehend it...). After this soporific pastime, I went to bed at the very late hour of 930 pm because my body told me that I had not been asleep properly in two days. I feared that it would be my ultimate demise to fall asleep and hit my head while showering, which made me take the fastest haven't-showered-in-two-traveling days-shower in the world. How sustainable!