WWOOFing

My last day of work is this Friday (woo-hoo, end of harvest!) and Ryan and I are embarking on a WWOOFing adventure. For those of you unfamiliar with New Zealand backpacker culture, WWOOF stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms (www.wwoof.co.nz). There are hundreds of WWOOF hosts around the country, and WWOOFers e-mail a handful of them and then go stay with them on their farms to learn about organic farming/sheep shearing/bee keeping/house cleaning/whatever. We work four and a half hours per day (usually five days a week) in exchange for food and housing.

Our first stop: Allan at Gay Stay NZ (http://www.gaystay.co.nz/balcluthafarmstay.htm). We're required to work a little bit more than usual - six hour days - which should be nothing after twelve hour shifts at the winery during harvest. In exchange, we get use of the sauna, hot tub, billiard room, alcoholic beverages, etc. Should be a really fun adventure, updates and stories to come.

On a completely unrelated note, during the harvest party I left my car at the train station (our meeting point) and a train hucked a rock and my windshield and completely broke it. So, now I have to get a new windshield. I dropped my car off today to get it fixed and it turns out there is rust damage that must be fixed before they can fix the windshield. It's pretty nerve-racking to have all these expenses piling up right before I'm about to stop working for 3 and a half months...

Oh yeah, and I bought a car a few weeks ago. Don't think I mentioned that. His name is Moncho (José, my Chilean co-worker sold it to me and named him), which is the Chilean word for an old man who dresses well and hits on ladies. He's an 1989 Toyota Corona and aside from having a broken windshield is awesome.