frankfurtfootbag.de they communicate a lot via the guestbook.
daniel "stängsen" meyer:
01636804271 is his cell. maybe you're lucky.
sounds like an eventful trip! haha
Ben Roscoe
-
krawallier
- Fearless
- Posts: 534
- Joined: 08 Oct 2003 16:24
- Location: berlinKREUZBERG
- Contact:
Hell yes, Jay Boychuk!! Can you come to Frankfurt? If we can get in touch with some Frankfurt footbaggers, a jam would be really sick. Jamie and I are at a hostel in the red-light district area, just a few blocks from Frankfurt Central Station. Like a 2 minute walk from where you´d be if you took the train into town.
If you cant make it into Frankfurt, we might be able to come to wherever you are tomorrow. Lemme know what works for you!
Thanks for the contact, Max. Hopefully something can get arranged!
If you cant make it into Frankfurt, we might be able to come to wherever you are tomorrow. Lemme know what works for you!
Thanks for the contact, Max. Hopefully something can get arranged!
Ben Roscoe
Nooooooooooooooooo- i mean yes 
.. when i checked your travel schedule,
i didnt see munich anywhere, and now you're coming down...
the reason for my whining is the simple fact that i wont be in town today,
how long will you stay - i will be back on friday .
i will pm you some numbers of my teammates tho.
take care and enjoy those :
www.lenbachhaus.de/cms/index.php?id=53& ... e15c0bceb5
http://www.olympiapark-muenchen.de/inde ... iapark&L=1
http://www.muenchen.de/Tourismus/Sehens ... arten.html
.. when i checked your travel schedule,i didnt see munich anywhere, and now you're coming down...
the reason for my whining is the simple fact that i wont be in town today,
how long will you stay - i will be back on friday .
i will pm you some numbers of my teammates tho.
take care and enjoy those :
www.lenbachhaus.de/cms/index.php?id=53& ... e15c0bceb5
http://www.olympiapark-muenchen.de/inde ... iapark&L=1
http://www.muenchen.de/Tourismus/Sehens ... arten.html
EASYKINKI
Ben,
Sucks that we couldn't work anything out in Frankfurt, as travel is busy and whatnot. Tomorrow I am going to be in Geneva, and then Vienna after that. 5th and 6th I'll likely be in good group-footbag shape, and I think that we could play with the crew there if we organize now.
Would you be going that direction for Prague?
Sucks that we couldn't work anything out in Frankfurt, as travel is busy and whatnot. Tomorrow I am going to be in Geneva, and then Vienna after that. 5th and 6th I'll likely be in good group-footbag shape, and I think that we could play with the crew there if we organize now.
Would you be going that direction for Prague?
Jay Boychuk
Thanks for the Munich numbers! We will be there probably sometime tomorrow night. I will try to call some numbers before we leave Luxembourg to give you more details.
Jay! We will be giong to Vienna after Munich. I don`t know anymore than that, so I don`t know how much planning can be accomplished... we`ll prolly be about 2-4 days in Munich. I`ll do my best to keep everyone posted, and hopefully we can work something out.
Jay! We will be giong to Vienna after Munich. I don`t know anymore than that, so I don`t know how much planning can be accomplished... we`ll prolly be about 2-4 days in Munich. I`ll do my best to keep everyone posted, and hopefully we can work something out.
Ben Roscoe
Get me a souvenir, Ben! 
Waylon Lew - maker of Wasabi bags
NYFA represent.
"Footbag can be pretty frustrating when it's supposed to be fun. I was partly driven by this forum - practice, practice, practice... As that is true, I think someone can be too focused on progressing and training that they miss the fun aspect of it." - Bander87
NYFA represent.
"Footbag can be pretty frustrating when it's supposed to be fun. I was partly driven by this forum - practice, practice, practice... As that is true, I think someone can be too focused on progressing and training that they miss the fun aspect of it." - Bander87
Well, left off in Singen, did we not? Did I mention our attempts at hitch hiking? Well, we failed anyway...
We got a cheap train ticket to Frankfurt. We've found that you can ask for special deals and get really cheap train tickets in Germany. Most often, they are only national deals, so it has to be from one German city to another, but if you can do it, you save lots of money. I think the ticket from Singen to Frankfurt was something like 30€ for both of us together. It took all day, due to all the transfers and the twisted route we take, but it would have been over 100€ each. When we got to Frankfurt, we ate at a McDaunald's (sady, we've been doing a lot of this) and set out to find a place to sleep. The hostel that we found was full, but we met up with an Aussie who was also place-less. The three of us made our way through the Red Light district and found a hotel. We explained that we were looking for a full night's stay, rather than the hourly rate he had in mind. We tried to trick him into letting us pay for 2 people in the room, and then we would sneak Daniel (the Aussie) into the room when he wasn't looking. He cought on humiliatingly fast, and we wound up paying the extra 15€ for a 3 person room. Next day, I played footbag for a bunch of hours and made another contact in the Circus. There was a guy asking me if I would play in an upcoming festival to celebrate the birth-day of the train station, but it would happen during the World Footbag Championships. He understood that I was busy, but he gave me his card and told me that he knew some people in the Circus. Hopefully this leads to the crazy circus stories that I'm so excited for... Anyway, the next day we did laundry for the second time and we managed to find a different hostel to stay in. There, we met up with Mike, of Manchester, and we all whent out to do some touristy stuff. We explored a bunch of Frankfurt that night and I had my first Guiness. It was thick, but not as bad as I had been expecting. Mike and I jammed on a guitar we managed to borrow from another guy at one of the bars we were at. He was light years ahead of me, but it was fun.
Next day we got a train to Luxembourg (another cheap one). We got there pretty late and wound up staying in the Red Light District again. Next day we managed to find a local hostel and we napped for most of the day, despite our having already slept past noon before getting kicked out of the hotel from the night before. That night, we met up with another Aussie, a Kiwi, and a girl from Québec. We manged to find some interesting night life in Luxembourg and Jamie and I managed to make our way into the first Night Club of the trip. It's easier for him not to get carded if we're in a big group. It was really cool and we danced (terribly... really, trully terribly) and made our way back to the hostel. Somehow, we managed to get up for breakfast the next morning, but we whent right back to bed after our frenzy of face-stuffing. We got up sometime in the afternoon and whent out again with Nick (the Kiwi) and the most steriotypical frenchman I've ever met: Pièrre. He was our least favorite. Anyway, we found our way into a tour of the tunnels beneath Luxembourg. The guide was very boring though, so we wound up exploring a bit on our own. I know what most of the oldies on this mailing list will think about this (especially you, dad) but we got out eventually, and it was lots of fun. We finaly wound crossing an intersection as one of the tour groups was coming in and, though we tried to hide, we got the boot. She was nice about it. That night, the gang from the previous night + a couple guys from Manchester (Jack and Tom) whent out to an open air film festival. We watched ''The Girl Can't Help It.'' It was hillariously awful. Next morning, we all got up for breakfast and we exchanged e-mails and such before parting ways. Jamie and I got on a train to Trier, and then managed to get another cheap ticket all the way to Munich for something like 36€. We slept in a hostel, and woke up late. Now I'm about to call the Munich footbag crew, and they've promised us a place to sleep, and tours of the city for the length of our stay. They Rock!!
More to come! Bye for now
-Ben
We got a cheap train ticket to Frankfurt. We've found that you can ask for special deals and get really cheap train tickets in Germany. Most often, they are only national deals, so it has to be from one German city to another, but if you can do it, you save lots of money. I think the ticket from Singen to Frankfurt was something like 30€ for both of us together. It took all day, due to all the transfers and the twisted route we take, but it would have been over 100€ each. When we got to Frankfurt, we ate at a McDaunald's (sady, we've been doing a lot of this) and set out to find a place to sleep. The hostel that we found was full, but we met up with an Aussie who was also place-less. The three of us made our way through the Red Light district and found a hotel. We explained that we were looking for a full night's stay, rather than the hourly rate he had in mind. We tried to trick him into letting us pay for 2 people in the room, and then we would sneak Daniel (the Aussie) into the room when he wasn't looking. He cought on humiliatingly fast, and we wound up paying the extra 15€ for a 3 person room. Next day, I played footbag for a bunch of hours and made another contact in the Circus. There was a guy asking me if I would play in an upcoming festival to celebrate the birth-day of the train station, but it would happen during the World Footbag Championships. He understood that I was busy, but he gave me his card and told me that he knew some people in the Circus. Hopefully this leads to the crazy circus stories that I'm so excited for... Anyway, the next day we did laundry for the second time and we managed to find a different hostel to stay in. There, we met up with Mike, of Manchester, and we all whent out to do some touristy stuff. We explored a bunch of Frankfurt that night and I had my first Guiness. It was thick, but not as bad as I had been expecting. Mike and I jammed on a guitar we managed to borrow from another guy at one of the bars we were at. He was light years ahead of me, but it was fun.
Next day we got a train to Luxembourg (another cheap one). We got there pretty late and wound up staying in the Red Light District again. Next day we managed to find a local hostel and we napped for most of the day, despite our having already slept past noon before getting kicked out of the hotel from the night before. That night, we met up with another Aussie, a Kiwi, and a girl from Québec. We manged to find some interesting night life in Luxembourg and Jamie and I managed to make our way into the first Night Club of the trip. It's easier for him not to get carded if we're in a big group. It was really cool and we danced (terribly... really, trully terribly) and made our way back to the hostel. Somehow, we managed to get up for breakfast the next morning, but we whent right back to bed after our frenzy of face-stuffing. We got up sometime in the afternoon and whent out again with Nick (the Kiwi) and the most steriotypical frenchman I've ever met: Pièrre. He was our least favorite. Anyway, we found our way into a tour of the tunnels beneath Luxembourg. The guide was very boring though, so we wound up exploring a bit on our own. I know what most of the oldies on this mailing list will think about this (especially you, dad) but we got out eventually, and it was lots of fun. We finaly wound crossing an intersection as one of the tour groups was coming in and, though we tried to hide, we got the boot. She was nice about it. That night, the gang from the previous night + a couple guys from Manchester (Jack and Tom) whent out to an open air film festival. We watched ''The Girl Can't Help It.'' It was hillariously awful. Next morning, we all got up for breakfast and we exchanged e-mails and such before parting ways. Jamie and I got on a train to Trier, and then managed to get another cheap ticket all the way to Munich for something like 36€. We slept in a hostel, and woke up late. Now I'm about to call the Munich footbag crew, and they've promised us a place to sleep, and tours of the city for the length of our stay. They Rock!!
More to come! Bye for now
-Ben
Ben Roscoe
-
hacksterbator
- Washed-Up Child Star
- Posts: 4141
- Joined: 12 Jul 2003 18:33
- Location: Winterpeg, Manisnowba
- Contact:
Forgot to keep posting these....
The week in Berlin was great!! In a lot of ways, it was way better than the World Championships. There was always something fun going on during the day, and there were parties every night at various clubs around east-Berlin. We all wound up with pretty funny sleeping patterns. By the end of the week, my legs were too sore to compete in the tournament, so I got to judge the event instead. It wasn't that hard. The next morning, Jamie and I left with a new friend (Nate, from Australlia) to Krakau, Poland. We took the bus. It wasn't half as comfy as the train, but it was a lot cheaper. We pulled into a truck stop around 1am for a break and everyone was having a big BBQ. There were a bunch of tents set up with grills in all of them and at least five people in each tent (probably about 6-8 tents) and truck loads of meet cooking... really wierd. Poland was full of stuff that was wierd like that! We had perogies and Polish Vodka -- a few classics. Both were kind of gross though, actually. We whent to Aushwitts (sp?) on our second day. Eventually, Jamie and Nate left for Amsterdam (where Jamie would be flying out from) and I hitchiked to Frankfurt. The first guy that picked me up was in a car, but he had a radio to talk to all the trucks. He set me up with a ride that would take me further than he could and I switched into a Truck. He dropped me off at a stop somewhere near Wraclaw and I managed to thumb another ride, this time with a proper transport truck. The driver didn't speak a word of english. We drove for a few more hours, but it was getting late. We pulled into another truck stop and he pulled out a portable DVD player. He played Hanibal Rising, in english, for me, gave me a beer, and he cooked shnitzel and koubassa on a portable stove and gave me more than half of it. He had two beds in the cab and he let me sleep on one of them. Next morning we were up and going by 6am and he drove me almost all the way to Frankfurt. He dropped me at another truck stop and I thumbed one last ride that would take me to my destination. The driver, however, was a bit of a jerk and drove me right past Frankfurt. I walked to the Airport (admitedly, only about a 20 minute walk) and took the train back into the city. I met up with my contact in Frankfurt, a guy named Oskar Mahler, and I ditched my stuff at his flat. It's an appartment shared by 4 other people, one of whom sleeps in the kitchen. It's not much, but he's letting me stay there for free. Also, on the first night, he took me to a high-society party at a hotel openning. It had free drinks and food and everything! Bad band though, and nobody was dancing. Anyway, he's helping me to get in with the circus. No real progress yet, but I'll stick it out for a few more days. Unless I can see it on the horizon, I'm headed for a farm/ranch in the south of France that will hopefully take me in. I gotta go! more later
The week in Berlin was great!! In a lot of ways, it was way better than the World Championships. There was always something fun going on during the day, and there were parties every night at various clubs around east-Berlin. We all wound up with pretty funny sleeping patterns. By the end of the week, my legs were too sore to compete in the tournament, so I got to judge the event instead. It wasn't that hard. The next morning, Jamie and I left with a new friend (Nate, from Australlia) to Krakau, Poland. We took the bus. It wasn't half as comfy as the train, but it was a lot cheaper. We pulled into a truck stop around 1am for a break and everyone was having a big BBQ. There were a bunch of tents set up with grills in all of them and at least five people in each tent (probably about 6-8 tents) and truck loads of meet cooking... really wierd. Poland was full of stuff that was wierd like that! We had perogies and Polish Vodka -- a few classics. Both were kind of gross though, actually. We whent to Aushwitts (sp?) on our second day. Eventually, Jamie and Nate left for Amsterdam (where Jamie would be flying out from) and I hitchiked to Frankfurt. The first guy that picked me up was in a car, but he had a radio to talk to all the trucks. He set me up with a ride that would take me further than he could and I switched into a Truck. He dropped me off at a stop somewhere near Wraclaw and I managed to thumb another ride, this time with a proper transport truck. The driver didn't speak a word of english. We drove for a few more hours, but it was getting late. We pulled into another truck stop and he pulled out a portable DVD player. He played Hanibal Rising, in english, for me, gave me a beer, and he cooked shnitzel and koubassa on a portable stove and gave me more than half of it. He had two beds in the cab and he let me sleep on one of them. Next morning we were up and going by 6am and he drove me almost all the way to Frankfurt. He dropped me at another truck stop and I thumbed one last ride that would take me to my destination. The driver, however, was a bit of a jerk and drove me right past Frankfurt. I walked to the Airport (admitedly, only about a 20 minute walk) and took the train back into the city. I met up with my contact in Frankfurt, a guy named Oskar Mahler, and I ditched my stuff at his flat. It's an appartment shared by 4 other people, one of whom sleeps in the kitchen. It's not much, but he's letting me stay there for free. Also, on the first night, he took me to a high-society party at a hotel openning. It had free drinks and food and everything! Bad band though, and nobody was dancing. Anyway, he's helping me to get in with the circus. No real progress yet, but I'll stick it out for a few more days. Unless I can see it on the horizon, I'm headed for a farm/ranch in the south of France that will hopefully take me in. I gotta go! more later
Ben Roscoe
I've gone to live on a farm in the mountains of Ardèche. It's in the south of France. It is amazing here. I love it! I waited in Frankfurt for a while to see if a job with the circus would land in my lap, but to no avail. I approached the circus KNIE (Swiss circus), but they turned me away. I might still be able to set something up with a tour in the new year, but we'll see. Now, I wake up every morning to the roosters' "song." I've been picking a lot of beans and potatos. I've harvested some corn, carrots, black radishes, and some french specialties (I dunno what they're called in english). I hearded cows, I help feed the sheep everyday and I'm helping to clean out the motor in the tractor tomorrow. I'm eating TONS (seriously, way more food than I normally eat at home) of organic, home grown/prepared meals. The farmer plays the diatonic button accordion, so we have nightly jam sessions and I'm learning lots of new songs on the violin. There are all sorts of new breads, cheeses and drinks to try and I'm learning lots about French culture. Also, it's all in French! Nobody on the farm, or in the entire valley, really, speaks english; so, I get to practise my french all the time! For the month of October we will be harvesting chest nuts, which, unlike the rest of the work I do here, is paid. Apperantly, I'm looking at a possible 500€ by the end of the season, on top of all the free food and shelter, depending on how many chestnuts I manage to harvest. I plan to stay here until I leave to meet Heather for christmas. Any idea where we're meeting, btw? That'll be a totall of about 4 months on the farm. I'm learning lots, working hard, and having a really really really great time. I don't know how often I will be able to write, because I'm really busy here, eveday; but I'll be sure to let everyone know of any new developments. 'Till then!
-Ben
Dear Andrew: I lost your shorts, prolly the day after you left.
!! I have no money right now, but I will surely be able to get you a new pair; hopefully before I get back to Canada. Sorry!
-Ben
Dear Andrew: I lost your shorts, prolly the day after you left.
!! I have no money right now, but I will surely be able to get you a new pair; hopefully before I get back to Canada. Sorry!Ben Roscoe
-
hacksterbator
- Washed-Up Child Star
- Posts: 4141
- Joined: 12 Jul 2003 18:33
- Location: Winterpeg, Manisnowba
- Contact:
aaw fuck.RawSko wrote:Dear Andrew: I lost your shorts, prolly the day after you left.
okay, planet footbag shorts, size small, white with a green planet footbag logo on 'em. See you when you get to winnipeg!
A.G.
UNACCEPTABLE!
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=t-3qncy5Qfk
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=t-3qncy5Qfk
-
mahhkohh
- Flower Child
- Posts: 1944
- Joined: 22 Feb 2005 08:36
- Location: near stuttgart,germany
- Contact:
LOLErik Chan wrote:UNACCEPTABLE!
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=t-3qncy5Qfk
great to hear that you savely made it to the farm.
sounds like a real fun place there, make some pics when you can! do you have time for hacky bag?
come get your mÃcrÖ¶ bag today
buy one of my bags and help finance my guitar lessons
mäcrö hartig
buy one of my bags and help finance my guitar lessons
mäcrö hartig
Friday was the last day of the chestnut harvest. It started 4 weeks ago and now it's finaly done. I managed to pick about 900 kilos of chestnuts and I worked something like 26 hours of sorting, earning (after expenses) around 370€ -- a little better than I had come to expect by the end of the season. I'll walk you through an average day in the chestnut harvest.
I share a room with Dada (in french it doesn't mean Dad; it's a nickname for a hardworking horse. His real name is David) and I wake up at 7am to his alarm clock. It's raining... it's always raining. Put on the same clothes as yesterday (I did laundry right before the season started and I haven't done it since), scarf, hat, boots (that had been lent to me) and then I go down stairs to eat some bread and honey for breakfast. Lunch is the same size as dinner, which is nice and big, but breakfast is rarely anything more than a few pieces of bread. Around the table there's Marie, Agnes, Dada and me. Every day I was the last one out of bed, I ate the most at every meal, and I picked the least chestnuts... Sorry to let you down, Canada. But anyway, then we all pile into the front of Agnes' truck (sitting on each other's laps) and wind along the mountain roads. French drivers really are all the same... even in the mountains they drive crazy crazy fast. However, most mornings we're late anyway. We put on rain coats, rubber boots (the other's put on rain pants too, but there weren't enough for me until Agnes left). We hop on the trailer behind the tractor and make our way up the mountain. The back seat of a car has been ripped out and we use it as a bench to sit on in the trailer; however, it's not attached and it's a bumpy ride, to say the least, so we tend to slide around a bit. Denis (the farmer) picks a spot and we get out to start picking. Everyone puts on their little finger-condoms (protection from the spikes), grabs a big bucket, a little bucket, a sack, and we start picking. The chestnuts are all just laying on the ground, but you have to dig through the leaves and the spiky chestnut-cases to get at them. This is worse after a lot of rain. It is worse still after snow (luckily, that was only one day). The finger condoms are a little tight, so fingers tend to get colder faster with less blood flow. We pick for 4-5 hours, then we head back down the mountain for lunch. Example: Several salads, lamb sausages (raised with love, here on the farm), polenta (a weird corn dish), green beans (grown here), and bread. Then we eat chunks of cheeses, drink some wine, and then dessert. Often chestnut cream (delicious), or sometimes a pie or a pudding or something. Then it's nap time (20 minutes - half an hour), and then coffee time, and then we put our rain gear back on and head up the mountain again. After another 4-5 hours, it gets dark and we head back down for dinner. We weigh the chestnuts everyone picked, I'm usually between 60-80 kilos, but there were days when I picked less (I picked 108 kilos on my best day). The others are anywhere from 70-120 kilos, sometimes more... We eat dinner, dessert, and then usually Marie and I play some music with Denis (2 violins and an accordion, or a violin and 2 accordions -- Marie being the variable). After some music and dancing and stuff, we head back to the suite across the valley where we (the harvesters) live.
Some days, when we need to prepare an order, instead of going back to pick in the afternoon, I stay to help the farmer's son, Baptiste, sort the chestnuts. We put them through a calibrating machine (a big spinning metal cylinder with different sized holes in it to let certain sized chestnuts fall out into intended crates). I feed the chestnuts into the machine, and Baptiste keeps the crates from overflowing. After that, we float the chestnuts. Put a crate of chestnuts into a bucket of water and the chestnuts that float to the top are food for the sheep. If there's a worm or some problem on the inside of the chestnut, it has an air pocket, so it will float up and tell you it's no good. So, the journey of a chestnut goes as follows: you sort through the muck and pick out the nice round chestnuts that aren't too small, those chestnuts go into your small bucket. When that bucket's full, you dump them into your big bucket. When it's full, they go into your sack. When your sack is full, it goes into the trailer. At the end of the day, the trailer is pulled back down the mountain and all the chestnuts go through the calibrator. Then they all get floated. The good ones are put on the table and we sort through them by hand to take out all those that aren't quite as good as they should be. Then we put them into another machine that weighs them into separate 5 Kilo portions and we put them either into bags or boxes, and they are sold. When they arrive at somebody's home, or if we don't sell them, the chestnuts are then put into yet another machine that helps to peal them. It's an old drum taken out of a washing machine and hooked up to a rack and it spins. To peal a great deal of chestnuts, one would put a couple kilos of chestnuts into this machine, set it spinning, and then take the metal fire-gun that's hooked up to a tank of propane, and blast away. Most of the chestnuts come out pealed; those that aren't, you peal by hand. Yet again, you take out the bad chestnuts that managed to make it this far, and then you take the rest to make cream (more like jam, really...), or to put into storage.
So it's been a while since I wrote everyone, but things have been going well. I'm on the lookout for more work, hopefully not too far from here. The plan is currently to spend christmas here on the farm with Heather and then we'll head up to Amsterdam for new-years. Hopefully I can earn some more money between now and then.
Anyway, that's all for now.
-Ben
I share a room with Dada (in french it doesn't mean Dad; it's a nickname for a hardworking horse. His real name is David) and I wake up at 7am to his alarm clock. It's raining... it's always raining. Put on the same clothes as yesterday (I did laundry right before the season started and I haven't done it since), scarf, hat, boots (that had been lent to me) and then I go down stairs to eat some bread and honey for breakfast. Lunch is the same size as dinner, which is nice and big, but breakfast is rarely anything more than a few pieces of bread. Around the table there's Marie, Agnes, Dada and me. Every day I was the last one out of bed, I ate the most at every meal, and I picked the least chestnuts... Sorry to let you down, Canada. But anyway, then we all pile into the front of Agnes' truck (sitting on each other's laps) and wind along the mountain roads. French drivers really are all the same... even in the mountains they drive crazy crazy fast. However, most mornings we're late anyway. We put on rain coats, rubber boots (the other's put on rain pants too, but there weren't enough for me until Agnes left). We hop on the trailer behind the tractor and make our way up the mountain. The back seat of a car has been ripped out and we use it as a bench to sit on in the trailer; however, it's not attached and it's a bumpy ride, to say the least, so we tend to slide around a bit. Denis (the farmer) picks a spot and we get out to start picking. Everyone puts on their little finger-condoms (protection from the spikes), grabs a big bucket, a little bucket, a sack, and we start picking. The chestnuts are all just laying on the ground, but you have to dig through the leaves and the spiky chestnut-cases to get at them. This is worse after a lot of rain. It is worse still after snow (luckily, that was only one day). The finger condoms are a little tight, so fingers tend to get colder faster with less blood flow. We pick for 4-5 hours, then we head back down the mountain for lunch. Example: Several salads, lamb sausages (raised with love, here on the farm), polenta (a weird corn dish), green beans (grown here), and bread. Then we eat chunks of cheeses, drink some wine, and then dessert. Often chestnut cream (delicious), or sometimes a pie or a pudding or something. Then it's nap time (20 minutes - half an hour), and then coffee time, and then we put our rain gear back on and head up the mountain again. After another 4-5 hours, it gets dark and we head back down for dinner. We weigh the chestnuts everyone picked, I'm usually between 60-80 kilos, but there were days when I picked less (I picked 108 kilos on my best day). The others are anywhere from 70-120 kilos, sometimes more... We eat dinner, dessert, and then usually Marie and I play some music with Denis (2 violins and an accordion, or a violin and 2 accordions -- Marie being the variable). After some music and dancing and stuff, we head back to the suite across the valley where we (the harvesters) live.
Some days, when we need to prepare an order, instead of going back to pick in the afternoon, I stay to help the farmer's son, Baptiste, sort the chestnuts. We put them through a calibrating machine (a big spinning metal cylinder with different sized holes in it to let certain sized chestnuts fall out into intended crates). I feed the chestnuts into the machine, and Baptiste keeps the crates from overflowing. After that, we float the chestnuts. Put a crate of chestnuts into a bucket of water and the chestnuts that float to the top are food for the sheep. If there's a worm or some problem on the inside of the chestnut, it has an air pocket, so it will float up and tell you it's no good. So, the journey of a chestnut goes as follows: you sort through the muck and pick out the nice round chestnuts that aren't too small, those chestnuts go into your small bucket. When that bucket's full, you dump them into your big bucket. When it's full, they go into your sack. When your sack is full, it goes into the trailer. At the end of the day, the trailer is pulled back down the mountain and all the chestnuts go through the calibrator. Then they all get floated. The good ones are put on the table and we sort through them by hand to take out all those that aren't quite as good as they should be. Then we put them into another machine that weighs them into separate 5 Kilo portions and we put them either into bags or boxes, and they are sold. When they arrive at somebody's home, or if we don't sell them, the chestnuts are then put into yet another machine that helps to peal them. It's an old drum taken out of a washing machine and hooked up to a rack and it spins. To peal a great deal of chestnuts, one would put a couple kilos of chestnuts into this machine, set it spinning, and then take the metal fire-gun that's hooked up to a tank of propane, and blast away. Most of the chestnuts come out pealed; those that aren't, you peal by hand. Yet again, you take out the bad chestnuts that managed to make it this far, and then you take the rest to make cream (more like jam, really...), or to put into storage.
So it's been a while since I wrote everyone, but things have been going well. I'm on the lookout for more work, hopefully not too far from here. The plan is currently to spend christmas here on the farm with Heather and then we'll head up to Amsterdam for new-years. Hopefully I can earn some more money between now and then.
Anyway, that's all for now.
-Ben
Ben Roscoe