as ordered

why don't i tell you guys a little more about what's going on these days.

i just spent a lovely weekend here in the south of france. saturday i was home chez Bassoul, sunday in Avignon hanging out with my mom! we had a real nice time, pretty much eating our way through town: cafe, spring rolls, sausage, strawberries, another cafe, paella, ice cream. the best part is i get to see my folks again in just a couple weeks ;-)

the vineyard is going real well. the family is not hosting me, which turns out is for the better because i ride my bike to and from and it takes 15-20 minutes, which is eeeeeaaasy. i've been getting there by 9:00 and normally staying till 5:00. at the vineyard, i would put my activities into 4 categories, in order from least to most favorite.

1/ working in the vine. lots of moving around of cables that support the vine. sometimes slow-going when cables are tangled or broken. some pruning. i get pretty solid allergies out there, pollen is in the air. i rubbed my right eye this afternoon, not even that much, but its been REALLY swollen since. dammit.

2/ errands. i don't spend toooo much time doing this, but Bernard, the father of this wine-making family, likes to take me with him when he goes on errands - mayor's to renew his I.D., to storage to organize palettes, to other vineyards nearby, this and that. i like talking to Bernard, we get along really well.

3/ bottling! one good activity that i've gotten to do a few times is filling up boxed wine. machine hooked up to big vat pumps a precise (kinda) amount of wine into the bag i hook up, then i get the air out and plug the little spigot in, the put it in the box and close it up. i feel pretty cool doing this. the main bottling event we have is the once-a-year Mis-en-bouteille that we did last friday. they bring in a semi truck full of machinery, and they pump wine into it, and it fills up bottles and labels and corks and everything, and then we put the bottles into boxes and move boxes onto palettes and wrap the palettes in plastic and storing them (i was working on those last 3). we worked pretty hard at this most of the day, it was pretty fun. i took pictures with Bernard's camera, i'll get them out eventually.

4/ lunch. lunch rocks. i get to eat with Bernard and his wife and 4 kids. pretty cool because all the vegetables come from the ground within a few hundred meters of the house, and because there's always wine. and very often family friends there, who all seem to get pretty excited about me, which i think is because i'm american and polite.

anyway, thats what i've been up to. i'm taking a long weekend starting thursday (don't worry, its a french national holiday anyway) and going to Valras again with Alex and Nico, my french besties. 4 days on the beach shouldn't hurt :-)

much love, i'm going to bed.