I have to say that the best part about living with the host family is that they always seem to keep me busy! On Saturday afternoon, my host dad asked me if I wanted to go grape picking with him. Turckheim is the beginning of the wine route of Alsace, and there are grape vines everywhere you look. I thought it would be a fun and new experience. Now, most people who have vineyards have a machine that does the work for them, but apparently my host dad's friends still think that we are living in the middle ages. We actually made fun of them for about an hour after this little experience, but I won't go into detail about that.
So, I'm thinking that we'll go pick grapes for about an hour, drink some wine and call it a day. Oh no. These people were intense. We were picking grapes for about 4 hours. You don't realize how hard of a job it is until you try it yourself! It was fun for a little while but after the first hour my back hurt, I was sweating, and there was NO wine in sight! We did have one coffee break for a little while. I also used "taking pictures" as an excuse to escape for a bit. We picked about 10 barrels full of grapes, and I had some interesting conversations with the other grape pickers, who actually try to make a living off of this. All and all it was a great experience, but I would not highly recommend it if you are as lazy as I am!
On Sunday my host parents took me on a bike ride through the wine route of Alsace. I didn't realize how long it has been since I have ridden a bike, so doing a 10km bike trip to get started again probably wasn't the smartest choice. I was pretty proud of myself though, especially since I only thought I was going to throw up one time during the trip! We had to pedal uphill for 20 minutes, and lets just say that I ended up walking the whole thing. It's sad when a 60 year old is way more in shape than me! I felt great after the trip though, it felt to me like I lost 10lbs. But all in all the trip was SO worth it, all of the leaves here have started to change and all of the towns we went to look like they are out of a fairy tale. Here are some pictures from the weekend:
Don't they look friendly..
"the wine route of Alsace"
3 comments:
Hey Girlie...your dads given me your blog address...everything looks beautiful there...so lucky to have all these experiences...miss doing the crosswords together...but I'm actually getting really good at them..lol...ok lets get this straight you went hiking, and bike riding...that's awesome...help you stay in shape so that you can drink more...lol jk jk But sounds like your having a blast...everyhting around here is about the same..had our company golf outing which was alot of fun my team won!!! Oh yeah and Brownies beating the Giants on Monday night football how great is that!!! Well here's my e-mail jessicapatricy@yahoo.com/ Have fun and I'll keep in touch:)
Way to be active! I drank beer and watched TV this weekend. :)
Welcome to the world of blogging! I am so excited you decided to blog about your France experience...can't wait to keep up with it! Happy Blogging :)
Post a Comment