movin' on out

So, I'm not really sure where to begin here...there's so much to tell...so much news. So be warned, this is going to be a long one:)

I'm going to start with my recent weekend warrior escapades to the continent. In April, my friend Robin and I went to Belgium for the Easter long weekend -- an appropriate place to have an easter egg hunt! We stayed in Brussels, but also visited Bruges and Ghent. Robin drank lots of Belgian beer and we both had our fair share of chocolate...I was amazed to see just how many stores there are selling chocolate -- I thought it would be just one or two main brands, but it seemed every other shop window had these amazing displays of easter eggs and bunnies. We thought it only fair to sample a good portion of them:) Bruges is totally gorgeous, just like it looks in the movie, except the main square in front of the bell tower was unfortunately full with a traveling fair, complete with rides, cotton candy machines, and bright flourescent lights...was a bit incongruous with the centuries old cathedrals and churches surrounding it. The architecture of Bruges reminded me a lot of Amsterdam -- the rooftops and the canals. It was definitely the highlight of the weekend.

Robin and I also went to Barcelona for the first weekend in May. Her parents took a cruise from New York to Barcelona, so we went to meet them. I think the city may be my new favourite European capital. It has everything -- sunny beaches, fantastic architecture, crazy publin art, great food, plentiful sangria... I think sangria is my new favourite drink too! We visited a lot of the Gaudi buildings, including the park he designed, and just cruised around Las Ramblas and the old city, enjoying the sun, the markets, and the aforementioned sangria:) I don't have my pictures posted yet...as much as I loved Barcelona I found it a difficult city to capture on camera
-- the size and grandeur of the buildings are just too much. Especially some of the Gaudi stuff -- you feel like you're just getting bits and pieces of it.

So my really big news is that I was laid off from my job in April, so things are changing for me. But I have a new plan, that I'm pretty excited about.

I've known for a while now that I wanted to get out of technical writing, as it's never been a satisfying profession for me. I would like to do something more interactive to feed my extoversion, which I now accept as a prominent element of my personality:) And I'd like to do something a bit less corporate and more meaningful... Anyway, I can't work in Ireland without a visa, and given the current economy here where every second person I know is getting laid off, the chances of me getting sponsored are slim to none. And I'd have to get sponsored as a tech writer and I can't face another year of doing that work. But, I decided that I didn't want to leave Ireland right away. However, I certainly can't afford to live in Dublin if I'm not working, and I don't want to be in Dublin anyway. I like Dublin, but my favourite part about Ireland has always been the countryside and the small towns. There are a lot of places I haven't seen yet, so I decided that I'd go and do some volunteering on various farms in the country, which can be done in exchange for room and board. This is known as "wwoofing," for those of you who are familiar with that term (www.wwoof.ie). You can do this all over the world, and it's a great, cheap way to see and experience a country.

The two counties I focused on were Donegal, the most northern county, and Cork, the most southern county. I have spent a week in Donegal and am already in love with it. It's raw and wild and just endlessly gorgeous. I'm staying with a family who run a small organic vegetable farm, and they're so lovely -- very welcoming and generous and they're just a bunch of characters who make me laugh all the time. It also feels like a really authentic way to experience the country, to live with a family and meet the neighbors and do local things like go on historical walking tours, or visit farmer's markets. I'll put up some pics of the farm in a couple weeks, but the web site is here, if you want to have a look: http://greenhill.weebly.com/

I'll be in Donegal till the end of May, and then I'll spend the month of June in west Cork, on two different farms. People rave about west Cork and how beautiful it is, and I've never set foot in the county, so am also looking forward to that. I'm going to continue wwoofing through July and August, but will go to Italy to a farm in Tuscany. Suffice it to say, I'm pretty psyched about that! I'll go by myself for July, and then Robin will come for August. My aunt and uncle will be in Tuscany for August and September, and the farm is very close to where they'll be in August, so hopefully we'll be able to get some visits in!
This is the site of the farm in Italy: http://www.poderelapiana.it/en/

In September Robin and I are planning to do the Camino de Santiago trail in northern Spain. This is something I've wanted to do for ages and I always thought it would be something neat to do when I left Europe/Ireland, sort of to mark the end of my time here. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's a pilgrimage trail through the Pyrenees from Pamplona to Santiago. There are a few different routes, and you can walk for a week or ten days or twenty days -- whatever you like really. The whole path is almost 800Km long, and that's what Robin and I are planning to do. So, the training starts now!

I'm going to come back to Canada after we finish the trail (likely early October), because I'll probably have no money left by then:) Though, living as a wwoofer is extremely cheap -- my only costs will be moving between farms, so I'm making it stretch a long way! I don't really want to come back to Canada (permanently) just yet though, so I'm going to stay just long enough to arrange the paperwork to go
overseas to teach english for a year or so. I've been thinking about teaching a lot, and there's a ton of work in Asia -- namely Korea and Japan -- so it seems like a good option in this economy. I can go and make some money and try out teaching, see how I like it, and continue to travel. I've already been offered a job with Berlitz, a private english language company, but I can't complete the paperwork for them until I get back to Canada, so we're trying to work out the timing. There are plenty of jobs there anyway, so I'm not worried.

Anyway, I know this is a lot to digest, as it's a lot of news, but I feel good about it all. I'm excited about being outside on farms all summer, instead of stuck inside in front of a computer being sedentary and bored. My internet access in Donegal is limited, so please be patient with me and my response time to emails!

That's all for now:)
Love me