I’m sitting in a bright, but slightly run down laundromat in Cabbagetown, watching my laundry spin around, and listening to the live blues music wafting in from the street party outside. In a brief 24 hours, I’ll be crammed into a tiny seat on a charter flight making its way over the pond.

It appears that when one makes plans, they occasionally happen. Even while I was making reservations for rooms and planning what cities to visit, I didn’t entirely believe it was going to happen. How it’s starting to dawn on me, but I don’t think I’ll completely believe it until I’m actually there.

The general plan is to work on a farm in Germany for 2 months, then go travelling for a month. Hopefully by the end I’ll be able to communicate a lot better in German, be in somewhat better shape, and have learned something about a new culture.

The specifics involved in getting there seem a bit daunting now that I know that I’m actually doing this tomorrow. My plane leaves Pearson at 7pm and lands at Gatwick 7 hours later at 7am, GMT. Bleary eyed and Jet lagged, I collect my luggage and navigate my way to a train. This train will take me across London to Luton airport in about an hour, where I’ll catch a Cheap Ass Flight™ at 7pm GMT. So 20 hours after departing Toronto, I’ll land in Bremen, Germany. Fortunately, I only need to take one streetcar and walk a couple hundred metres to get to the hotel where I’ll undoubtedly fall into bed and sleep for 12 hours.

The plan is to hang around in Bremen for three days, hopefully getting over my inevitable jet lag, and maybe getting used to hearing German spoken on the streets. On Friday, I’ll hop on a train for a speedy 1h trip to meet the farmers who have hospitably agreed to take in this clueless city slicker.

I’m really looking forward to meeting them and learning about the farm. I’ve wanted to learn about farm work for a while now. I know it will be physically hard, and functioning in my (distant) 3rd language will be a challenge, but I’m ready to put in the effort. What has my engineering education taught me but how to deal with a challenge that seems insurmountable?

I’ll try to keep in touch with folks back home though this blog and through postcards. I will likely have very limited computer time, but I do have my notebook with me, so I can write things down as they occur to me and transcribe them when I get the chance. Hopefully I’ll be able to update this page more often than once every couple months…

Ok, I should really try to get some sleep tonight.

I’ll write again soon!

-Adina

Posted in Learning, just one more eurotrip blog |

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