Wow. It's really hard to believe it's been a month since I've last posted! I've wound up posting a lot more on face book, but I really should be doing this too. A lot has happened since Exeter.
Our host for our new farm picked us up from Exeter train station. (thank god! it was so much better than taking trains and buses) We headed off to our new home for the next 6 weeks, Embercombe. I wasn't really sure what I was expecting. Just another farm I guess. But when we got there, it was obviously not the regular wwoofing place. The main difference between our first farm and Embercombe was that there was a core team who lived there year-round. So we were always working with people, eating, and hanging out with new people. We ended up making a lot of good friends and meeting so many more people. We cooked meals together in a big kitchen and worked a lot in the main garden where most of the food was grown.
We learned how to make ratatouille! We had a lot of soups and bread, but it was really good. I loved having the close group of new people that we were able to spend a lot of time with. Cooking in the kitchen was always fun, and I learned some new recipes. Our friend, John, taught us how to make flapjacks! But there not like pancakes, there a kind of dessert, like a softer and much sweeter granola bar. You can put chocolate spread or marshmallows or fruit or really whatever you want.
Embercombe isn't just a place that wwoofers and volunteers come too, they also host groups that come for a program. During our stay we had a corporate group come to do team building activities. That was really interesting, they were dressed really nice and some lady actually had heels on... which was bizarre in the rural setting.
We stayed in a small cabin that had a wood burning stove and running water, but everyone else stayed in these things called yurts. They are these circular structures that can fit four mattresses and a small wood stove. They're really cool and we helped set up all the beds at least two times for the different groups that came through.
As far as the work goes, some was different but much was the same from the last farm. We dug up a lot of potatoes, we clipped the runners off strawberry plants, we weeded, planted lettuce, dug up onions, braided garlic, made compost piles, cooked, cleaned, and did a lot of things in the poly tunnel. I have no complaints about the work, but I really hated waking up early. Give me dirt and mud, but please let me sleep in!
During our stay it was also the 50th birthday of one of the permanent staff members, and he had a big birthday celebration. I have actually brought one dress from San Diego, and I finally got to use it! It was really strange though dressing up on the farm.
Embercombe also owns a lot of the surrounding woods, and it was so great to go explore and hang out. They have this swing that goes out over a hill, so when you swing out you're really high up. It's so awesome! We stood up on the seat part and we could touch the really high branches of the trees that were growing further down the hill. They also have these platforms built that are really cool for just sitting on and relaxing. We had a lot of fires by the main building and hung out in the big living room space with everyone. They also had a TV with a DVD player! We had a sleepover with our friend who's dad is a permanent staff member and our other friend who was volunteering for a while.
Our last weekend there was actually the few days that Embercombe hosted a huge story telling festival. 500 people came from all over to stay on Embercombe or come just for the day. We had bunch of food stands and us Americans were charged with the waffle making stand. Apparently Embercombe had been donated two waffle makers, and no one knew how to use them. So when they heard that we knew how to make them, it was great! We sold so many waffles it was just insane. And everybody hung out by our stand because the waffles took a few minutes to cook. There was live music during the festival, it was a great experience.
Beforehand though I was on the team that made all the signs for the festival. We made food stand signs with menus, directional signs, a big map, things like trash and recycling, urinals, and others. I think it was my favorite job the entire time! Our signs turned out really good, we used chalk paint that worked really great.
It was really hard to leave Embercombe, but just like every part of our trip it was really special because it was so short. It was definitely the people that made Embercombe so amazing. I mean of course the scenery and the work were part of the experience, but the people were the hardest to leave. There are so many good people out there, and we are missing the ones at Embercombe!
There's a lot more I could say about our time at Embercombe, especially talking about all the people, but moving on....
We were dropped off at the Exeter train station by our two new good friends, and were sent on our way to London.
I loved London, it was so amazing. It was also very strange to be actually standing in front of Big Ben and driving over the London bridge in a tour bus, but it was so awesome! We rented a flat for a week, so it was nice to have some time for ourselves and hanging out. We had to take the tube into the city everyday, which was really tiring, but it was fun people watching. We saw Buckingham palace and saw the guards withe big hats. We also went to an art walk in a neighborhood that was really interesting to walk through the street markets (that reminded me of Mexico) and seeing the local library. It was definitely a change from the farms, but it was great. If I lived there however, I would have to be in the middle of London and not on the outskirts. It's such a pain taking the tube to go anywhere!
I also went to the Volcom store, which was so cool to actually be in the store that I've always seen on the website! We also saw a theatre production called Warhorse, which was pretty sad but happy in the ending. We bought our tickets an hour before the show started, so they were really cheap, and even though we were all the way on the side, it was a great show.
It was also interesting to see the difference between the wealthy parts of London (like where J.K Rowling lives) and what would be called the hood back in SD. The people were also so much more diverse than what we've seen in the U.K. There were a lot of Indian restaurants and we ended up getting take-out twice from the Chinese place by our flat.
I love London's architecture, and even though most days it was overcast, it somehow felt light and spacious even though there was so many buildings and people. There were a lot of parks and greenery that also broke up the concrete.
We took one day to be tourists, and we rode on a tour bus all over. We saw a lot of things like Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, The Old Globe Theatre, Buckingham and Kensington Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, London Bridge, The London Eye, and a lot of not so famous but equally interesting sights.
On our own went to this place called Speakers Corner, where anyone can just stand at an empty spot in the park and speak to anyone who passes by. Basically it's a place where people can exercise free speech, and they often draw a crowd doing it.
Where I was loving London, my mom wasn't so happy in the city. I have to admit though, after running into a few rude people, it's hard to not want to live out in the country where people actually take the time to say hello and have a conversation.
From London we went to a place called Birmingham to stay with my old archery coach who is now coaching Great Britain's Olympic archery team. We only stayed a couple of days, but we got to go to the training center and a see a tournament . It was great and it really got me itching to start shooting again. My coach drove us to Nottingham where we are staying now, but about to leave in a couple days.
We're staying in a hotel right now, but the room is really small for five people. Nottingham is the home of Robin Hood, and there's a lot of things that have to do with him around town, but our sole reason for coming here was the Warhammer museum and head quarters is located a little ways from our hotel. For those of you who don't know what Warhammer is, it's a miniature figure war game that are played with huge boards that are set up with elaborate scenery and and terrain. Now, brother has explained to me a little about the game, and I've seen him play with his friends, playing battles that last for literally hours and having inch and half rule books. I've helped him paint some of his armies, and I knew that the figures you buy at the stores are so detailed it's to imagine a brush so fine it can do things like that. So even though I admired the artistic side, I wasn't expecting much from going to the museum.
I was proved wrong in my assumptions. When we first walked in there was a life sized figure of the head ork in Sauran's in Lord of the Rings, so real looking it actually looked freaky like it was going to come to life. So, that in itself was pretty cool. Then we went into this huge room that had shelves of metal casing with thousands of tiny figures that were amazingly painted. There are a bunch of different armies in Warhammer, armies called from Dark Elves to Space Marines. It was pretty impressive. While we were looking in the room and worker came in. We had actually come on the one week in the entire year where they deep clean their monstrous gaming room, the main part of the museum. So we asked the guy if there was any behind the scenes tours they give or something, he said no, but he told Alex he had the keys to all the cabinets in the room and that he could take some figures out to take pictures out. I think Alex was in heaven.
It turns out the worker was actually the head guy for the Heavy Metal painting team, and he had actually painted hundreds of the figures in the cases. it was pretty cool. We went down into the store, and we talked with workers a lot. It turns out there is this huge background story to each army and how there all connected and huge novels that explain in depth. It's really cool. So, by surprise, it was really a great time and we ended going two days in a row, hanging out in the pub that is connected to the museum and painting in the shop. Everyone was really nice there and really happy to answer all of our questions and talk about Warhammer.
So, that pretty much catches us up, I think tomorrow we're going to visit the castle from Robin Hood, so that should be pretty fun. We're on our way to Ireland next, I will try to write again soon!
-Olivia
