Monday, February 22, 2010

T: -1 week

Wow! One week to go before we start the trip. Just to let everyone know, Betsy has decided that overalls aren't for her- they are too one-use-oriented and take up too much room in the suitcase. (plus $50 for a pair of pants with a bib and straps is too expensive). We are having a lot of problems with this apartment rental in Paris for the month of May. All of our choices were not available for one reason after crazy reason. It seems that the explanations from ParisAttitude got more and more ridiculous. Our first choice was booked, then the owners of another are hard to contact, the next apartment does not usually get rented for less than 2 months, the next one is in a building that is being sold. Too many excuses!

On other fronts, we have secured a place to stay in Marseille for the first two nights before we head to WWOOF #1. We will be a block away from the Unite d'habitacion, one of Le Corbusier's more famous works. Our WWOOF plans have also been made until we head to Israel on the 23rd of March (Betsy's Birthday!) From there, you know the plans for Passover etc. That means that our trip is planned until April 13th!

We have also learned that my (Ben's) family will be visiting the last week in May and the first week in June. The tentative plans include heading West from Paris, through the countryside, and popping over to see Zurich and Bern in the land of the Sigismund!

We still have no real idea for our last part of the trip in the UK, except that we will be going to London for 5ish days and hopefully to Edinburgh. We might have to WWOOF there to save some money, but that is fine with us.

Hope we get another post before we go, but if not... We'll write from France!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Moving along

Pittsburgh, PA--We just finished emailing the first 12 WWOOF farms about the first three weeks of our trip. We hope to hear back from any of them so that we can start making some plans. We contacted farms that are pretty close (within an hour) of southern cities such as Toulouse in the west and Nice in the east. They sound pretty amazing and many have websites with pictures. It will be really exciting to finally get that nailed down!

Ben is working arduously to find an apartment in Paris, but we haven't found the right place yet. We might have to wait a month or so before listings for May are really available. The budget is pretty much in place, and we've booked up our time in Israel. Thanks to the Lowengrubs (Samson family friends) and Deb Bloch (one of my college roommates), we will be comfortable and have a kitchen for the week of Passover! Can't wait to see you guys! We also booked a hostel in Jerusalem and one in Tel Aviv for the remainder of our stay in Israel.

I found boots, but still no overalls yet, haha. Thanks for reading!

Monday, February 1, 2010

New Blog

Hey everyone, we have created this blog so you can follow us throughout our travels in Europe and Israel over our 4month journey. As of now, we have a ton of planning and packing to do. Betsy really needs to buy a good pair of working boots and some overalls so that she can look good while farming. We need to start revving up our living situations in Israel and in Paris for the month of May. Its all very exciting. So, to conclude the first post, we issue an invitation to anyone to come visit us in Europe or Israel whenever you get the chance. We hope to keep you posted.