Hey all,

Today I write from the home of our dear friend Karine in Aix En Provence.  We finally got here after a 36-hour struggle with the French railway system, who was on strike during our travels here.  We have been here for two days, REALLY enjoying have a base and a place to unpack and do laundry.  Not to mention how nice it is to see a friend. 

We have been really lucky during the past couple of weeks.  We have been taken care of a lot.  A friend that we met on the farm took us out in Madrid, where we ended up staying an extra night at her house!  Then she had a friend who put us up in Barcelona.  He also took us around and really made sure we had a good time.  And now we’re with Karine, a great friend from our time in Peru.

So after Lisbon; we took the overnight train to Madrid, where we ended up staying three days, four nights!  We really loved it and it was so nice to be speaking Spanish again.  We went to the Palace, the Gran Via, Puerta del Sol, the Prado, Reina Sofia and dancing in Chueca.  It was a really beautiful city.  Then we took a train over to Barcelona, where we now only had one day and two nights.  We had a really nice walking tour of Barcelona during the day and then cooked dinner for our hosts that night.

The next day, we left for Marseille to meet Karine.  We didn’t know that the French railway system was striking that day.  We went from trains to buses all day long until we finally stopped in Toulouse, where they told us we would have to spend the night.  They left sleeping cars in the station for people to use so we just slept in the station.  The next day, we were FINALLY on our way.  We arrived in Marseille very late and we were so happy to see Karine.

Since we’ve been in Aix, we have just been realxing at the house, having delicious homemade French food and walking around the nice town area.  We have really enjoyed ourselves here and will be a little sad to leave tonight.  Not too sad though, because we are off to Venice!!  Ciao!

XOXOXO Kati and Liza

Hi all,

Sorry it has been so long since we´ve written.  We have been living on a farm in remote Portugal.  We got to the farm about two weeks ago.  Our role there was ever-changing, going from farm hands to kitchen girls to gardeners.  We built a chicken run, made a marble pathway, cooked for ten, and tended to the chickens.  We were in a tiny tiny town in eastern Portugal, right on the border of Spain.  Sarah was our WWOOF master and we want to thank her for putting us up and feeding us!  There was an interesting cast of characters in this town who just couldn´t seem to get over their fascination of the two new American girls in town.  One old man, named Jose Maria, would drop by during the day just to watch us work.  People would also ride by on their motorbikes just to see what was going on.  We were informed that it is very odd to have three single women alone, without a man, so that piqued everyone´s interest I guess.  There were also two male workers from Bulgaria who learned their English slang from watching Borat.  That was interesting.

Today we left the farm and arrived in Lisbon.  So far, we really like Lisbon.  It´s a really beautiful old city with lots of charm.  After not having computer access for two weeks, we have really been taking advantage of the free internet that comes with our hostel.

After we finished up at French camp, which was SUCH a blast, we headed down to Avignon to meet Auntie Susan for a girl´s night.  It was so wonderful and we had one of the BEST dinner ever.  The place we stayed in was so cute and the whole thing was just a dream.  After that, we had a 48 hour trip to Portugal which included a day-long layover in Madrid.  We just got a taste of Madrid, but we loved it and can´t wait to go back on Thursday.

Anyways, we are off to enjoy Lisbon!  Miss you all!!

XOXOXO Kati

Hey guys,

So as of today, Liza and I started work at our English Immersion camp in France.  As many of you know, I am a camp person with lots of experience with my camp, so obviously there was going to be a slight camp-culture shock for me.

First of all, Liza and I were hired as activity staff.  This means that we would organize daily life and activities for the kids, not be in the classroom.  Upon our first planning session today, it was decided that we would now be language staff, meaning we are TEACHING ENGLISH to these kids, not that much younger than us.  Needless to say, we were not prepared for this.  So we had today to get our lesson plans together and stuff.  It was very different and kind of stressful, but there is this great guy that reminds me of Neil who helped us out a lot.  I think it will be okay, but it is definitely not the camp I am used to.

We had a really nice weekend in Paris.  We had a wonderful dinner with the Van Dams on Saturday night, which was definitely a highlight of Paris for me.  Sunday was pretty much spent traveling to camp.  We are only here for this week and then it’s off to Avingon with Susan!  This week might be a little rough, but we have some really great things to look forward to.

XOXOX Kati and Liza

Hey all,

Sorry it’s been so long since we last wrote.  Things have been so crazy and it’s a bit harder to write since we don’t have regular computers.  So we arrived in Paris on Monday and spent the first day just walking around and taking in the sights.  Very nice and relaxing after a lot of traveling.  On Tuesday we went to the Rodin Museum and the D’Orsay.  We also spent a lot of time just walking around and we finished the day with Nutella crepes in the Latin Quarter. 

On Wednesday we took the early train to Colmar; where we ended up being stranded without a place to stay.  We ended up meeting this guy from LA who has been living there for the past 20 years.  When he heard our situation, he invited us to stay with him!  He is a pastor and all three of his kids go to school in the US.  We were so grateful and the fa,ily was SO wonderful.  He showed us around and his wife made dinner; the whole thing was lovely.  We are so fortunate to have met them.

The next day we headed off to Tours, in the Loire Valley.  Pretty much the entire day was spent traveling.  But today was amazing!  We rented bikes for the day to ride around the valley and see the chateux.  We started our going to the gardebs of Villandry and with to directions we recieved, we ended up getting ont he highway.  With our bikes.  Think I-94.  It was very scary and really funny at the same time.  We finally got right and just ended up with a nice day of bike riding.  Then we had to run, actually run, to catch our train to Saumar, another town in the area.  After walking around there for a bit, we read the french signs wrong and missed our train back Tours, which is where our hotel and luggage was.  And it was the last train of the day.  We finally found another roundabout way to get back and are safely home.

Tomorrow we head back to Paris to see Versailles and then Sunday we are off for our week of work at French camp!  Can’t wait!  We will try to keep you updated.

XOXOXO Kati and Liza