On October 9 I made it to Italy! I flew into Venice and took the train to a small village about an hour north called Latisana. Here, I was met by my host family’s oldest son, Francesco.

Well, it wasn’t until that evening, after asking multiple times and ways, that I began to understand that his family was not here and would not be living at the house with us… so it was me, Francesco, and the family dog Birba in the big yellow house on the orchard. The rest of the family lives in Trento, about 3 hours northwest, and the orchard house is their summer home.

So, this was not going to be the family experience that I’d expected and wanted out of Workaway. Though Francesco was accomodating, that first night was a bit strange, awkward, and quiet. It was then that I found myself surprised to be missing my incessantly chatty, laid-back family in Ireland and realized how easy it had been to feel at home with them.

Latisana and the life on the orchard

I spent about two and a half weeks in Latisana, with a couple of excursions in between (following). Though it wasn’t a completely perfect fit, I found my way in a nice routine quite quickly. My typical day included the all-sugar Italian breakfast followed by apple harvesting from 7:30-12. Then, enough pizza or pasta for lunch to feed an entire family [living with and being fed by Francesco felt a bit like being taken car of by a 12 year old]. After this I was free for the rest of the day. Since Francesco was one of two people working on the orchard (there were a dozen or so locals who work on the orchard year-round) who spoke English and the town of Latisana is quite small, these afternoons were sometimes a bit more lonely than I would have liked, but I usually spent them going for runs (though on flat paved roads, which is not my favorite terrain) or biking to Lignano to swim in the Adriatic Sea!

And of course, the best part: EATING APPLES! I ate at least 3 apples a day on average. And they were truly the best apples I’ve ever had; that coming from the land of Honey Crisps! At this time, we were harvesting mostly Fuji apples, which I’ve found to be the perfect combination of sweet, crisp & crunchy, juicy, sweet, and just slightly tangy. After every run I went on, I’d walk through the orchard on my way home until I found the biggest, most perfect looking apple I could find, and carried it home like a prize.

I really enjoyed harvesting the apples, and this was definitely my favorite part of my time in Latisana. Although I didn’t learn as much about horticulture as I’d hoped, as the father was not at the orchard with us [but if you’re interested, he’s quite renowned in his field and has invented improved crop strategies!], it was still exciting to experience and be a part of the harvesting process. We picked literal tons of apples each day, and each apple, even if very briefly, was inspected by hand and either laid gently in the crates of good apples or tossed into a scrap bin. The scrap bins would later be picked up by the lorry and taken to be turned into apple juice!

The weather was good and still quite warm so it was also nice to be outside all day, and whenever I got hungry, there were endless snacks literally right at my fingertips! I often harvested with the Francesco and the only other English-speaking worker, Daniele, who was born in Germany, lives in Italy, but enjoys traveling the world. Francesco and I got along fine but I found him to be a bit obnoxious and aloof (maybe he looks in the mirror too much..), so it was nice working with Daniele as we talked about traveling most of the time or listened to music.

On my last day in Latisana I got to go into the giant fruit freezer to load crates of pears! In the summer they grow these, as well as peaches, apricots, and plums and store some of these as incredibly delicious jam. The family is also very excited about their new ‘tattooed’ apples! I spent a few hours working on these as well; can you guess how they’re made?

Trento

I loved Trento!

Francesco and I drove to his family home in Trento twice while I was there. If the orchard had been in Trento, it would have been about perfect. I finally got to spend time with the family, the city is bigger and quite beautiful, and it is in the mountains! I was absolutely stunned by the city itself, as it is everything you would hope to imagine of the historic and beautiful romanesque architecture, from the cobblestone streets to the brick buildings filled with cheese and salami!

While in Trento, I got to experience my first big Italian family meal, with grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and courses and courses of food—homemade pesto pasta, risotto, prosciutto, cheese, salad, tomatoes, etc.—followed by coffee and cake all around.

I really liked Francesco’s parents Alberto and Chiara, as well as his three younger brothers Fabio (22), Gabriele (18), and Lorenzo (11; my favorite). The whole family are very dedicated tennis players! Which made me think of Bapa and how he’s shared his love for and knowledge of tennis with our whole family. It was fun to go with them to watch their matches and even some semi-pro tournaments, at which I took pride in following the game and keeping score in my head as all the announcements were made in Italian.

Limone sul Garda//LimoneXtreme

One weekend in Latisana I took advantage of European public transportation to make my way to Limone sul Garda for a 20K trail race! I got fellow Bowdoin skier Noah, who is studying abroad in Bologna, to meet me there as well. This weekend was incredibly refreshing to be with a familiar friend running in the mountains. While trying new things, adjusting to different lifestyles, and learning to find comfort in discomfort have all been goals for this year, this is what I really love to do. And despite having sub-optimal running for the past few weeks, I felt really good during the race, ended up in 6th for women, and even beat Noah!

Race highlights:

• Croissants for breakfast: a never-before had pre-race meal!
• Following a fast dude down the rocky descent, feet flying with no room for error. When I began to fall back he turned around and said “come on” with a smile, and off we went!
• Trading hugs and congratulations the finish my above friend and one of the women I ran with. Meeting and making finish line friends has always been one of my favorite parts of races.
• Swimming in the lake in the rain as racers ran the final 100 meters past us towards the finish line!
• FINISH FEAST! Always race in Italy. They feed you tortellini, prosciutto, chocolate, grapes, pizza, and so much more.

The towns of Limone and Campione, where our hostel was, were also quite idyllic! I can only imagine the tourism there in the summer, but on our late October day it was perfect. We ran through the narrow cobblestone streets up into the mountains overlooking one of the largest lakes in Europe.

Venezia

Well when you’re an hour’s train ride from Venice, you go to Venice. It is of course a beautiful and unique city that has been completely taken over by tourism. I truly cannot imagine what it looks like in the summer; how can any more tourists possibly fit!?? But I arrived early enough and wandered around for long enough that I found my way to the little back alleys far enough from Piazza San Marco (St. mark’s Square) to be rid of the hordes of people.

I walked for nearly 10 hours that day and found about every bridge and alleyway in Venice (even taking a few selfies to fit in with the crowds). For a city built on the water I thought it was much bigger than I expected!

Finally, I had my first Italian gelato and learned that I have in fact never eaten gelato before in my life. In the evening I treated myself to a glass of wine on the water and decided that mom is the one person I would want to spend another day in Venice with. While I was happy to have gone, city tourism is not my favorite way to experience a new country anyways, and by the end of the day I felt it to be a bit more of a reminder that I am traveling alone. But, it is something I never thought I would do and is all part of the experience! Already I am excited by what it has taught me.

Verona

On my way from Limone back to Latisana I stopped in Verona for a couple of hours. As the city of love and Romeo & Juliet.. well I found it to not be everything you’ve dreamed of. I was surprised at how big the city was, and though still beautiful, I was overall rather unimpressed. So much for fair Verona.

Next..

On October 28 I took the train from Trento to meet my next family in Torino (Turin) in the Piemonte region!

After saying goodbye to mom and dad in Scotland I flew to Dublin, Ireland and took the bus a few hours south to Cork to meet my first Workaway host family. [Workaway is an online site, similar to Wwoofing, that hosts and travelers from around the world can join and connect with each other. Hosts post any type of project they want help with, including farming or gardening, building, “child minding”, working in their local restaurant, or even just coming for a chat in English. Travelers pick where they want to go and what type of work they want to do. In exchange for their help, hosts give travelers a place to stay and food to eat!]

My host parents Marie (pronounced Mary) and Dave picked me up at the bus stop in Mitchelstown, a short drive from their home and foaling farm. Upon arriving at Ballykenly farm, I was greeted by the four dogs: BB, Polly, Daisy, and Fenton (endearingly named after this viral video).

As soon as I arrived I was in heaven! I was surrounded by four dogs, 22 horses (including 5 foals), and the nicest family! In those first few minutes I thought I’d be moving in permanently.

I soon found a few things about rural Irish life that weren’t quite the perfect fit for me, but overall I had a great time and felt quite lucky🍀 for my first Workaway experience.

Liked-

• The family! And the animals
• The Irish accent became quite endearing to me, especially all their unique sayings and colloquialisms
• Irish culture and chattiness
• Food

Liked less-

• The weather
• The cold (note sleeping bag under the covers)
• Lack of hiking or running culture and location
• Didn’t get to ride a horse:(
• Light workload + non-American lifestyle = a bit slow paced some days
• Couldn’t get anywhere very easily [was a bit stranded on the farm]
• Food

Normally they host Workaway travelers or vet students to help with the horses and foaling, but because this was their off-season, I spent most of my days in their new vegetable tunnel. It felt a bit reminiscent of mom’s new favorite movie, Biggest Little Farm, as the family is thinking of transitioning to organic farming. So, we would head out to the tunnel in the morning to collect basket-fulls of tomatoes as well as cucumber, courgette (zucchini), potatoes, beetroot, cabbage, and more tomatoes. This would occupy us until dinner, trying out new pickling recipes and looking for jars and space in the refrigerator to store more vinegar-soaked vegetables than one family could possibly eat.

This made for amazing lunches in which I’d pile every single pickled vegetable on top of some of their fresh lettuce with a slice of ‘bacon’ from dinner the night before. Which leads me to the general topic of food. Their diet consists of:

• milk
• tea (in the milk)
• butter
• potatoes

Supplemented of course with extremely large quantities of meat and bread. They eat meat for every single meal, and not sparingly. Potatoes may usually be saved for dinner, but they are such a staple that one night we had baked potatoes from their garden for dinner… with a side of frozen baked potatoes. Good thing I was there over national potato day! Butter goes on everything in slabs so thick you’d think it was cheese. Finally, tea is more a cultural necessity than a beverage. In between any activity, usually lasting from 10 to 30 minutes, would be a good long break for tea, as well as following every meal. Tea would always be black and and a minimum of 1/3 of the cup was saved for Irish whole milk. And sugar. Along with tea came biscuits (store bought shortbread cookies) and lots of chatting, as the Irish do. These were some of my favorite times, as it was interesting to hear all about their perspectives on politics, culture, history, and BREXIT. The whole family was fun to talk with, though I gained enormous appreciation for our exchange students Megan and Simin, as I found myself exhausted from trying to understand the thick Cork accent despite the fact that all of us are native English speakers!

Dave was by far the most difficult to understand, but he was my favorite. He is a jolly man who loves to chat and joke around. I always thought he and dad would get along great, especially since I’m not sure who is more in love with their lawn mower!

Unlike Katie, Dave simply will not eat pasta or rice, so when it was my turn to make dinner this posed a bit of a challenge. I decided to make him my homemade bread, which was quite rewarding because he ate nearly the entire loaf and likely a whole stick of butter for dinner. I also made an olive oil-based bean dip for the bread, but god forbid eating bread with olive oil instead of butter! This was much too adventurous for Dave to try, but the other family members seemed to think it was a great idea.

During my week or so with the Corbertt family I learned a lot about horses and foaling, the troubles with Northern Ireland and the implications Brexit has on this, how to properly play a game of billiards, pickling, and how to enjoy a nice long cup of tea without the American-famed sense of urgency.

On my last weekend, I got to venture away from the fields a bit to visit my friend Katie whom I also studied abroad with in New Zealand! She is currently halfway through getting her PhD studying the microbiome in Cork City. I got a chance to see the city a bit and she also took me to the Irish mountains!

In Kilmacthomas- I was so happy to finally be out in the mountains again, and to see my favorite sheepies! I even got a tuft of fluff!

As I got on the bus to take me back to Dublin, I found myself ready to Ireland and see another country, but sad to say goodbye to my incredibly sweet and friendly family.

That night in Dublin before I flew out I stayed in a hostel and met a 60-something year-old woman from Shanghai who immediately took a liking to me as I ‘look like her’. In the typical Chinese way she not-so-subtley took pictures of me as I FaceTimed Katie, then asked if we could take a selfie. She said I was very open and happy, unlike the other girls in the hostel who didn’t even say hi to her. She asked about my parents and for the first but not the last time I learned it is difficult to explain adoption to people who speak minimal English. Finally I saw in her face that she understood, as she suddenly looked serious and nodded at me. “Ah yes. I know your story. You are very lucky”, she said. At 4am as I left the hostel to catch my flight she got up and took my hands telling me “you learn Chinese words” and wished me luck on my travels.

Thanks again to the wonders of standby (and 20+ years of flying), mom and dad spontaneously made it to Scotland! We spent a week after my race exploring the hilly countryside, castle ruins, highland cattle, and sheeeepiiiess!

From Kinlochleven and Glencoe, where the race was held, we headed south to Oban and Isle of Mull in search of whiskey and seafood for dad’s birthday!

Dad’s seafood dinners in Tobermory on Isle of Mull

I think all of our favorite day of the trip was exploring Isle of Mull by driving around the north end of the island. We visited Glengorm Castle and hiked through the cattle fields down to the coastline. Dad got to relive his apparent rally car glory days (ask him about the 2-way, SINGLE LANE, windy countryside roads!), mom got her castles, and I got to swim in the ocean!

Interestingly, the area we hiked in are all all private lands that are part of the castle estate, but visitors come and explore these areas the way we use public lands in America. Thus, among the castle teashop and gift store is the conservation center, which works year round to do research to protect these areas and their inhabitants while keeping them available to visitors like us.

Before taking the ferry back to the Scottish mainland, we visited Duart Castle. The current living descendent and clan chief of this castle, Sir Lachlan Maclean, has put his life’s work into restoring and maintaining it, and lives there today. In fact, his family name is of the same heritage as our friend and neighbor in Stillwater! We were lucky enough to meet and chat with Sir Lachlan, who told us that he keeps warm in the damp and drafty castle thanks to a certain Mr. Bean out in Maine – L.L.Bean! This friendly old chap also not-so-subtly shared his opinion with us that the next chiefs are always the firstborn son (his son has an older sister); a tradition he thinks is due for a change.

After leaving Mull, dad drove us north to Mallaig, where we caught the ferry to Isle of Skye, the most famous and popular island in Scotland. Not surprisingly, this part of the trip was a slight let down due to the extreme tourism after our time on Mull, which had a more local, small town feel. Skye is still beautiful, and highly visited for a reason though. We also appreciated having our own little home to cook in after all staying in a teeny one-room bed and breakfast!

In the last few days of our trip we drove up to Inverness, through Cairngorm National Park, Dad left his phone on top of the car upon giving mom a hug after she handed him a cracker, stopped at the cutest little riverside cafe mom found, and headed back to Glasgow.

(Above) Bought and tested out dad’s new waterproof hiking boots so he could be a big time hill-walker in Cairngorm National Park.

(Below) We drove through the cute little waterside town of Pitlochry and mom navigated us to this historic Port Na Craig Inn for lunch. Here, we had my favorite classic scone served with fresh jam and cream, the best chocolate cake I’ve ever had, and met some new friends. As 89 year-olds, Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald live outside of Edinburgh, spend the summer in their caravan (camper van) near Pitlochry, and annually visit Glencoe to honor their clan, which was almost destroyed in a massacre in 1692. Mr. MacDonald informed us that he would not be here if a few clan members had not escaped the attack. The couple was incredibly friendly and chatty, exuberantly sharing stories of their lives and travels. They reminded us to live in the moment and make the most of life. Before we left, they toasted us to friendship and openness, two characteristics I admire in my parents and hope to emulate.

Mom has a knack for finding the most lovely little hole-in-the-wall places, and dad has one for meeting friendly strangers and coming away as best friends.

As Mr. MacDonald said it, cheers to friendship and good people who still know how to have a face-to-face conversation.

Happy to have the best parents and shoutout to Katie in Colorado!! Both of us had our first parents-only vacation this summer! Hopefully a sisters only one is up next??..

Some context:

In 2016 while I was studying abroad in New Zealand, a mutual friend and skiing teammate Rachel introduced me to Penelope, whom she’d grown up with in the mountains of Anchorage, AK. We also met up with another former nordic skier from Middlebury named Britta. The four of us spent a semester literally running across New Zealand together, and in short, I was introduced to the world of ultra running!

Since then, Penelope and I have become close friends fueled by a shared addiction to mountain running; “adventure junkies”, as she calls it. Penelope is a few strides ahead of me (literally, she has twice as long of legs and is wildly fast) in the running world as she is and has been training for an *ultra running career of sorts for years (*ultra race, loosely defined as distance longer than a marathon and all on trails or in the mountains). So when her last race of the season this year was in Scotland and she invited me to join, I said yes before I’d even looked it up.

Scotland, September 2019:

First impressions- I LOVE Scotland! 
Last impressions- I still love Scotland!
Current impressions- Scotland >>> Ireland (more to come later)

Penelope and I spent a few days in Scotland before the race to sample small sections of the course, reset the jet lag, and enjoy the area. The race itself was incredibly exciting and at times difficult and at other times purely amazing.

Race day highlights-

• At the start jumping around with everyone as the sun started to rise
• The first few miles of the race while everyone was still packed together and running out into the sunrise over the hills and valleys; 8-14 hours of unknown ahead.
• Of the 4 massive climbs, mom and dad were waiting in 3 of the valleys below. Climbing up each one and down the other side I thought of getting to see them sooner the faster I went.
• Reaching Aonach Eagach ridge: this was atop the final climb, and was the most impressive ridge line I’ve ever seen. My most emotional moment of the race was running this ridge, looking into the valley where I’d last been and seen my parents, seeing the last steep mountain I’d just climbed up for the past 1.5 hours, and eating my dark chocolate Milky Way.

Very thankful for such a spectacular, challenging, and stunning first ultra experience. I learned a lot and am excited to see what’s next! Especially thankful for my parents for coming to watch and cheering me on for the entire 10 hours.