Having finally finished my course and turned in my dissertation. (whew). I am taking some time off for travel before heading back to the states. I had a lovely long weekend in Denmark, stayed with my host family and caught up with some friends. I also visited York and stayed with a friend from school! Such a pretty little town and so much fun!
Now I am in Portugal, volunteering on an organic farm. Quinta de Cadafez is about two and a half hours north of Lisbon, up in the mountains. It is very remote, a forty five minute climb up the mountain to the nearest village, Cepos, which is so small that there is not even a convenience store there! On the farm, I have been staking tomatoes, watering the garden, weeding the stone wall terraces and cleaning the pool. I have also taken over the kitchen during a couple days to preserve the veg that comes out of the garden faster than we can eat it. This week I made fig jam, applesauce, pumpkin butter, pumpkin chutney and pumpkin soup.
There are two other volunteers just now, a Belgian girl was here the first week but now it is me, another American and a Swede. The owner does not spend too much time on the Quinta, so it is usually just us and any guests staying in the cottages. We are supervised by a very rotund rottweiler called Max, who looks terribly ferocious, but is really just a teddy bear. And there are five cats õf varying tameness. I have named my favorite kittten, Buddha.~
It gets really hot here during the days, often up to the mid thirties. I don´t know the conversion offhand, but it is HOT. So we siesta in the afternoons either at the pool or hiking to the waterfall to cool off. And it really gets chilly at night. (thanks for the sleeping bag, Lauren).
I will be here til the middle of October. I am hoping to get a bus to Porto and then head down the coast back to Lisbon before I fly back to Edinburgh and then it´s homeward bound by Halloween!!!!
I´ve been getting to internet about once a week! I would love to hear from you! xo.
