I do not have a lot of time to write, and this will take me longer than you can imagine as I am doing so on a French keyboard, but I want to just recount a bit what the Ferme du Collet is like where I have been for the past three days and where I will be for the next eight.

It was an abrupt transition, to say the least, from gorgeous Annecy to the valley of the Var, an hour and a half North of Nice. I left my host family's house early on Tuesday morning, and boarded the bus to bring me into Annecy. I had over an hour to kill in Annecy to I mailed postcards and sadly plodded down the sidewalks of my home for the past two months. I finally boarded the bus to bring me to the Geneve airport. I bought lunch and flew out around 3 PM. I flew on EasyJet - how incredible! Very easy, very comfortable, and just like Southwest where you choose your own seat. I got a window seat, which was quite fortunate as I remained glued to the windoz nearly the whole flight as we flew over Annecy, the mountains I had ridden over on my bike only a few days earlier, and then flew right next to Mont Blanc. I watched as the Alps became Italy and then tumbled down to the sea. Before I knew it we were in Nice, landing at an airport surrounded by palm trees and other tropical vegetation.

I took a bus from the airport to the Nice train station where I had to walk ten minutes to the very small train station where the petit train for Puget-Theniers leaves from. It was two cars long and rattled along a very narrow track surrounded by gigantic rocky mountains - nothing like the lush landscape I have become so accustomed to. I got off the train in the village, having really no idea how I would get to the farm as the woman, M-T, had really said nothing in her email. I called the number she had given me, and she suggested I faire du stop to get to the farm (faire du stop means hitchhiking). I was quite uncomfortable with that, particularly because I was not in the mood to be abducted in the final weeks of my several month long travels, especially with Cameroon right around the corner.

I ended up waiting nearly an hour and then calling her, asking her to come pick me up. Wooops. We served around switchback after switchback as we climbed to the top of a 860m mountain before descending down the backside toward a very little village called La Penne (perhaps you can find it on Google Maps). The farm is located just outside the village limits, but we can look uphill and see it perched on the mountainside.

The first evening I arrived was the last evening for two young German WWOOFers who had been here for a week. They were 17 and extremely full of life and laughed the entire time. We ended up sleeping on a cliff above the village. We hiked up with our sleeping bags and pads before going to sleep. I fell asleep to the stars twinkling overhead, and expressive conversations in Spanish and German dousing my ears. I awoke several times in the night, but ultimately slept alright. I awoke to a bizarre sound at 7, a bit later than we were supposed to wake up. It was some sort of mountain goat that we then saw take off running up the hills. Perhaps he was surprised by the seven sleeping humans on the side of a mountain.

I quite like the schedule here. Our days begin a bit after 6 in the morning. We eat breakfast with M-T (by we I mean the two other WWOOFers I am currently working with, a boyfriend and girlfriend from Seattle), and then get dressed. We typically begin working by 7 so as to avoid the heat of the day as much as possible. We work until around 11 or 12 - it is different each day - at which point we prepare lunch. We eat between 12 and 1 and then we have a sieste until 3, at which point we can go on the computer, shower, or just generally make noise. Except it is really too hot to do anything, and so I have just been sitting outside in the shade writing and reading. The afternoons drag on a bit, but I am also treasuring this time I have to read as much as I want and to spend three hours writing, like I did yesterday afternoon.

We eat dinner around 8, usually later, and then head to bed. We go to sleep between 10 and 11, only to wake up when the rooster begins crowing, not 40 meters from my tent, at 6 AM.

I will just explain that this farm is somewhat of a collective. There are four family units living here (although no one is ever sure) and they all cultivate their own part of the land in an attempt to live independently. Of course they do purchase some things, but for the most part they are able to live off the land. Every week one of the families wakes up at 1:30 in the morning to begin baking bread - using flour from wheat they grow - which they then bring to Nice to sell.

M-T, the woman I am WWOOFing for, is somwhere in her seventies (I only know this because we had an interesting discussion today about her memories of WWII as a child) and used to be a housekeeper for a wealthy family in Cannes. She has lived here for the past 5 years. She has 5 children and 11 grandchildren.

Everything is an adventure here and nothing goes to waste. M-T uses homemade soap which, while not really cleaning the dishes (which surprisngly doesn't bother me as much as it could because we eat only vegetarian), is great for the garden where we dump the dirty water. The toilets are two pots in a sukkah-like booth, complete with a sheet as a door. The ''pipi'' bucket as it is called is located underneath a wooden chair whose whicker seat has been removed. The ''kaka'' bucket is under two slats on which you can rest your legs. After one does their business, they toss a handful of woodchips into the bucket to mask the smell. I find that it is the ''pipi'' bucket that smells the worst.

Just to give you an idea of the scenery; each time I walk outside, I have a sneaking suspicion that I am on the set of Jean de Florette. From the sound, to the scrubby mountains around us, to the oppressive heat and the unforgiving sun, to the perpetual drought in the summer, I cannot stop thinking that perhaps the source here is simply clogged with cement.

I don't want to take up too much more time as I should go take a bit of a nap before I descend into town with M-T this afternoon. I am unable to post pictures as I did not bring my computer with me, but I will be sure to post them when I arrive home.

A tout à l'heure.

Waiting in Vienna

I'm sitting in Wien Westbanhof, one of Vienna's train stations, taking advantage of the internet as I wait for my 22:26 train. There is so much to catch up on! It has been ages since I wrote, and yet it feels like yesterday that I left the Priory early in the morning after sleeping only four hours. (This is likely because I am still recovering).

This trip has been productive, to say the least. And busy. And the defining characteristic? Sweltering!! After the pleasant temperatures of the Annecy area, temperatures consistently above 30*C are a shock to the system, especially when that system is already prone to hot flashes and serious inner temperature imbalances. I have grown used to sweating constantly - and I mean dripping. Many people in Warsaw and Krakow - where AC is few and far between - carry shmattes with them to mop up the sweat. I attempted it with y skirt a few times.

As if the heat itself weren't bad enough, my body will not let em sleep more than seven hours MAX. And I have very little appetite. What?!!? you ask, SR not having an appetite??? Well yes, it has finally happened, but this is really not a good thing, especially coupled with the fact that I have spent the last eight days or so walking from around 9 or 9:30 in the morning until midnight most nights. This means that I have seen a lot, but it also means that I have melted down several times and thought that I was unable to go. Unfortunately this happened the worst while I was at Auschwitz on Thursday.

I was preparing for the worst in terms of my reaction to the camp, but instead I got what felt like bonking, a sensation common to cycling when one has simply run out of calories. Except Auschwitz was clearly not an ideal location for this to occur.

I was walking through the blocks, staring at pictures of men and women my age whose lives were cut short and my legs wouldn't move. The other thought that kept running through my mind was regarding "Zeitoun," Dave Eggers' book about Katrina which I read last month. No matter how many times we say "never again," the simple truth is that undue undeserved unregulated violence continues to occur. And on very large scales.

The other issue was that I have always imagined Auschwitz in black and white. However the colors in Osweiçim that day were vibrant. The blocks are red brick with bright red clay roof tiles, reminding me of the houses in Holland. The grass was bright green, and obviously well cared for.

I don't mean for this short reflection to offend anyone; I would never imply that the Holocaust was not a grievous and horrific event, but I think it is important to continue to contextualize it and to ask one's self how genocides can happen. I keep thinking about Agamben's State of Exception, and the implications of the Holocaust in the face of his theories.

But on to less upsetting items.

Since I wrote the first part of this post, I have arrived back on the shores of Lake Annecy and spent now three wonderful days here. But before I get ahead of myself, I must write a bit about my seamless journey from Vienna to Annecy. (If only we had public transportation like that in the US).

I boarded the train in Vienna just after 10 PM with a scheduled departure time of 22:26. It was quite easy to find my wagon and then my compartment after that. I slept on the middle bunk on the right side. Unfortunately they kept the shade closed the whole time so I didn't really get to see much of the countryside, but it was dark out, so I guess I didn't miss too much.

We passed through Germany, Czech Republic, and Liechtenstein on our way to Switzerland; I received a notification on my cell phone each time we entered a new country. Although I had imagined this to be impossible, we arrived in Switzerland about a half hour late. I still managed to make my 8:04 train, however, where I sat down and promptly fell asleep. I slept for the first two hours or so, and then watched the countryside pass by - Lake Geneva on my left and castles and vineyards on my right - until we arrived in Geneva. The train took me straight to the airport where I got on the 11:15 bus to Annecy and before I knew it, I was back home.

V and the boys met me in Annecy and after accompanying them to a few stores, we headed back to Menthon. More to come later - and I will definitely try to post about Poland!!

A Brief Jaunt

And so begins the second phase of my brief jaunt to Poland and Austria. I have only a few minutes to write - although there is so much to say. On today, July 4, I am finishing up my time in Warsaw and preparing to head to Auschwitz and Krakow tomorrow. I will take a train through Krakow to Auschwitz, and will then head back to Krakow and to the hostel where I'll be staying for the weekend.

This country has been just incredible and I look forward to discovering more. I promise the next entry will be more eloquent.