Ah, sweet Riviera. After a long weekend exploring Florence and Siena–and a week living on an Italian farm (yes, that’s right, a farm)–we’re back in Grasse. The sun is shining, it’s at least ten degrees warmer than it was in Tuscany, and all of our clothes are caked in mud. Laundry ahoy! What more could we ask for? Well, maybe that French supermarkets open on Sundays so we could get something to eat…

After a low-key Christmas here at home (fuzzy slippers, lovely perfumes, and general present happiness had all around), and some adventures in Nice, Monaco, and Menton with assistant friendlies, we headed to Siena on Wednesday. 17 million (i.e. 5) train connections later, we arrived to find our hotel was 3 kilometers outside the city walls. Oops! We celebrated our eventual arrival by hugging the heated towel rack, watching bad French TV, and stealing extra cheese from the continental breakfast.

Hostel life makes sleeping in an actual room feel so decadent. Good thing we didn’t get spoiled. After seeing the Siena sites (the first of many old palaces and marble-lined cathedrals), we took a train to Florence, where our hostel room had 23 beds. Eek! Unfortunately, it also had a group of rambunctious Italian boys. Needless to say, we spent most of our daylight hours out and about, exploring museums (we saw Renaissence art, but we also saw Galileo’s finger in a jar), churches, and more palaces. We also met up with my friend Laura, who kept us in good company while we tourist-ed and ate lots of pasta.

On Sunday we rode the bus out the farm where we were WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms-ing). That means we put in five days of actual labor–a very curious idea for internet workers–and in return we get a place to stay and food to eat. We weren’t sure how things would go (I had visions of chasing farm animals across open fields) but we ended up having a great time. We helped build fences and picked rosehips (ow, the thorns!) and Scott got to carry a new-born lamb down a mountain. Like, it was born five minutes before, and it was sticky. Amazing!

The family we were staying with was super sweet. We got fed tons of Italian food! They use so much olive oil they keep it in what look like gasoline drums. Yummy. Oily and yummy. Also, the farm’s main product is, well, pork products (ironic for the vegetarian, I know). So after staring longingly at the many pigs that roam the fields, Scott was able to finally fulfill his meat quota at dinners. Normally he survives off tofu, the poor thing. Also also, there were sheeps and dogs and cats and jam-making and we got dirty and we were cold and we learned Italian and we took a million trains home and we had a really good time!

Woot!  Now back to work…