Where I'm at

Nothing to see here, just posting for the purposes of updating my location -->

Spagetti Westerner

I'm in a rural valley in the region of Puglia in southeastrn Italy. This is another farm listed on the WWOOF network. A little more than 2 weeks ago I left Greece to see a new place. That, and they kind of needed some extra space there because they had too many volunteers there at once. So I took the opportunity to relocate. I got in touch with a family of 3 that has a house in the country and about 2 acres filled with olive trees. It's Franco, Germana, and thier 2-year-old son Adriano. They invited me to stay for a while and do some work on their property.

The trip over was a bit difficult because of ferry workers on strike. (I found out that strikes are regular and casual in Greece. I've been told that if there is a holiday and workers get a 3-day weekend, they'll go on strike to stretch it to a 4-day. Power to the people!) So I ended up taking a different overnight route to Bari instead of Brindisi, and took a train to the place we were originally supposed to meet. I called Germana and we finally met up in Ostuni.

The overnight ferry trip was an odd experience. They sell cabin rooms for sleeping in, that cost about the same as a hotel room. -OR-, you can get a "deck" ticket for 25 Euros, and sleep wherever you can. I ended up trying to sleep on the floor in a lounge with about 50 people passed out around me on the benches. I had a little fort of empty charis set up around me, and I would have slept ok if it weren't for the floor that was vibrating form the engines all throughout the night.

But as I said I finally met up with Franco and Germana and they took me to their place. They have a guest house that I have all to myself, it's actually rather awesome. It's called a trullo, which is a house with each room rising into a cone-shaped dome of white masonary. They are traditional and pretty regular out here and I'm told there is a village nearby of nothing but trullos. Mine has 4 domes, 3 are over really small rooms including the bathroom. The main room is bigger with a loft for the bed that I sleep quite well in. I generally work alone and at my own schedule every day. I prune the olive trees and "excavate" the stone stairs in the terraces that are about a centry old and completely grown over. Some days I help Franco with building projects for his new house.

That's about it, it's a bit boring really. But I have plenty to read and this is a nice area to go running in. I'll be here 2 more weeks, then I'm heading back to Texas. It's been a great trip but I've missed the Rangers in the World Series (!!!), Halo Reach, lots of friends and family, I'm flat broke, and it's time to call it a day, so to speak. It will be great to be home for the holidays. I have plans and backup plans for 2011 so don't consider this travel blog closed just yet.

WWOOFing @ Corfu

I know the updates have been scarce so far, but I've got lots more time on my hands now. I've arrived at my first WWOOF farm, so obviously that means things have slowed waaay down. Things are going perfectly according to lack of plan.

The first month with Lydia and Suzie was great. It was a bit draining financially, but easily worth it. We got a whirlwind tour of Prague, saw Das Beinhaus (bone chapel) in Kutná Hora, drank wine from an underground fountain in Budapest, tip-toed through radioactive Chernobyl, got chased by wild dogs all through Kiev, broke bread in Sighişoara, Romania (the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler), grinded an endless rail through Bulgaria, got a Turkish bath in Istanbul, and took a boat tour up the Bosphorous. We set foot in the Hagia Sofia and were entranced by the call to prayer.

Needless to say, I'm not going to make it much further traveling like that. I'm not a rich tourist, or close to it. Lydia and Suzie flew back to LA from Istanbul, I continued on to Greece. The night train to Thessaloniki was much more comfortable than the Bulgarian version. I finished off my rail pass getting to Kalampaka, the town underneath the monasteries of Meteora. Really spectacular place. The monasteries are on top of huge cliff-like rock formations. Some of them are just cylinders, high-up islands of rock. I stayed the night and climbed to the top of one of them the next morning. That afternoon I took a bus to Igoumenitsu, where I got on a ferry to the island of Corfu.

Here I am. The WWOOF farm here is a kiwi farm/horse riding center. I've been working with the horses for the last week and a half. I can stay here as long as my visa will hold out (as much as 2 months), bed and food are free for the work I do. I'm working 6 hours a day. It's a diverse group of people here. There are 2 other volunteers, one from Hungary and one from Kyrgyzstan. There's a Brit here who runs the kiwi farm and a couple other Brits who I work with at the horse stables. There's a few other riding instructors, Hungarian and Brazilian. The owner of the whole estate is a nice old Greek lady who really likes animals. This place is a zoo.

We eat dinner together each night, so I'm getting some good Greek home cooking. The island is a really nice place to be. They actually filmed a Bond film here at this very estate (For Your Eyes Only). The other day we drove out to a cliff-side beach that I enjoyed a lot. We swam out around the cliffs and found a flooded cave, swam through it and found another beach. It felt like some dreams I've had.

I spend most mornings shoveling out horse s--t, so it's not all wine and roses. But it's not a bad arrangement at all. I'm looking toward what I'm going to do next, but that's still very much up in the air.

People Misbehavin' on Trains

We had a charming 32-hour journey from Sighişoara, Romania to Istanbul. This included a 5 hour delay in the middle of the night at a rustic train station in Dimitrovgrad, Bulgaria. Hot sleeplessness and a conductor wandering the aisle in a wife beater and a cigarette hanging out his mouth, who's english vocabulary consisted of "money", "mafia", "internet", and "passport", defined the trip.

Istanbul is a lovely crossroads of East and West.

warning... obligatory Czech pun ahead

I made it to Prague, the Eastern Europe tour is underway. I've managed to join forces with some friends from L.A. to tag along with for the month, then things will start to get real. I found a community on the WWOOF network in Greece that essentially operates like a commune. Not to make any political statements or anything, but I think that would be an interesting thing to try out for a while. I haven't heard back from them yet, but I expect I will be spending some time there after I part ways with Lyd and Suz at the end of August.

But we still have plenty of places to hit up before then. It goes Prague, Budapest, Kiev, Transylvania, and finally Istanbul. So far Prague is one of my new favorite cities in the world. It's very beautiful, and almost more importantly, very laid-back. I don't know... something about it. I'll keep this one in the back of my mind as something to remember to do again in the future someday.

Czech Mark.

Into the Great Wide Open

...too many song lyrics are going through my head about Hollywood. Tom Petty, Eric Burdon.

I've decided on a slight repurposing of this. I'll only put big news here. Most of what I want to share will be at Facebook.

Call me Ishmael

I've been listening to Moby Dick again on audio since I've been out. Really digging it, much more so than the first time when it was required for a grade. I could have been Ishmael. He's basically me as a Nantucket Whaler.

Here's the narrative on what I've done since May 24. I'm on the road, but it's not quite yet the real trip yet. More of a "west coast trial run". I drove west, through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, into California. Accomodations were fun, I camped out of my truck at an interstate rest stop, a KOA campground, and on the shore of the Salton Sea in southern Cali. Then I drove int LA, and met up with my good friend from school, living in the city and practicing music. I met some of her friends and got a nice tour of Venice Beach.

The next day I started the Mexican cruise. Mi familia met me at the terminal (mom dad brother sister grandmother) and we boarded. Limitless good food, hot tubs, and a dark cabin to sleep in. We stopped in 3 Mexican ports- Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, & Puerto Vallarta. See pictures for the gist of those. After 1 week at sea and ashore in Mexico, we made it back to LA. Lyd got me back to my truck. Mom Amy and I are now touring Cali, camping, and seeing the sights. We've been through Sequoia National Monument and Yosemite... amazing places.

So that's it so far. Future plans are still baking (it takes a while). When I part ways with my family I'm on my own and the adventure takes on a new aspect. 

New Flikr account, pictures so far: Merced update

We're going to be doing some racetracks....

I made it out of Galveston, yet another former home under my belt. I'll miss that cranky island on the dirty coast.

I'm in Nacogdoches at Mom and Dad's for the month of May. I'll be heading to California at the end of the month. For now I have a number of "writing projects" that I'm "working on". (unfortunately I still have to point out my  use of "sarcasm"... we're not out of that forest yet)

So the Mexican pleasure cruise is a strange way to start a no-budget independent travel project, granted. But... I'll adapt, somehow. That's one of my mantras.

t minus 24 days

I think that today I'll just post a basic description of my plans. I'd like to get a little deeper into my motivations too, but that's for another time. I'm finding that both plans and motivations are very difficult to explain fully, but I am hopeful that both will become more apparent on their own, as I set out and start posting real updates.

I will be 'hitting the road' in early June 2010 to travel the world. (I've been targeting early May for quite some time, but in accordance with the whims of the Great Magnet, I will be spending that month in North America.) I made this blog to keep my wonderful family and friends updated on where I am, what's going on, what I'm thinking, and share some pictures. One of my guiding principles is to be flexible to the maximum, and as such, I don't have concrete "plans" at this point.

I consider this to be the third major decision I've made in my life. The first was in 2001 to join the Army, the second was in 2007 to leave the Army and go back to school. Well, I've finally finished my undergraduate degree and fully separated from the Army, so it is obvious that it is once again decision time. The idea was planted last September when I heard a presentation from my philosophy professor Darren Domsky (for the 3rd time). Since that time, I have worked hard to complete or otherwise eliminate anything that could be called an obligation. There's been a lot of things I've put to rest, but one by one, I have gotten to where I am now.

I could list the places in the world I would like to visit, but honestly, there is no place that I'm just not at all interested in visiting. I'd like to spend some quality time in Costa Rica, Cambodia, and Croatia. I may be away for a month before I come crawling back home, or I may be out and about for 10 years. Only time will tell!

I will be making extensive use of networks such as WWOOF and Couch Surfing. Here are some links to articles that I have taken guidance from:

8 Tools to Help You Travel Forever and Live Rent Free
How to Travel for Free
All About Teaching English in Japan
How to Travel the World by Crewing on Yachts
The last one is priceless... I'm definitely doing that.

And, to give credit where credit is due:
Where the Hell is Matt?

So, that's what I'm up to. This is the most rational and logical thing for me to do, and I am confident that I can say that objectively. Thanks to everyone who has expressed support for my decision. I can see that I have lots of people rooting for me. <3 you all!!

t minus 53 days

I'm just getting this set up so that people can follow me as I set out on my little adventure. Enough folks have shown interest, how could I not humor them? This post is essentially for my own familiarization with Blogger.

"But taking advantage of his windward position, [Captain Ahab] again seized his trumpet, and knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantucketer and shortly bound home, he loudly hailed - "Ahoy there! This is the Pequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters to the Pacific ocean! and this time three years, if I am not at home, tell them to address them to - - "
At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly, then, in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small harmless fish, that for some days before had been placidly swimming by our side, darted away with what seemed shuddering fins, and ranged themselves fore and aft with the stranger's flanks. Though in the course of his continual voyagings Ahab must often before have noticed a similar sight, yet, to any monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously carry meanings.
"Swim away from me, do ye?" murmured Ahab, gazing over into the water. There seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed more of deep helpless sadness than the insane old man had ever before evinced. But turning to the steersman, who thus far had been holding the ship in the wind to diminish
her headway, he cried out in his old lion voice, - "Up helm! Keep her off round the world!"
Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the time before us.
Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed. The cabin-compass is called the tell-tale, because without going to the compass at the helm, the Captain, while below, can inform himself of the course of the ship" 

-Moby Dick, chapter 52, The Albatross