I am so excited I can't see straight! As some of you may already know from the Twitterverse and FB, I'm running off to Europe for a month! (More if I get my way!) I've been invited to work harvest at a small, family-run winery in the Piedmont region of Italy
while I do some research for a wine/foodimentary and some wine/travel projects I'm working on. (WAIT till I can tell you about THAT! Oh... it's gonna be GOOD!) Anyhow...being the francophile that I am, no trip to Europe is going to happen on MY watch without working my way into France somehow. So, I am (of course) flying into Paris and taking the train over to Italy. God Bless Eurail.Get ready to follow along with me as I rediscover my beloved Paris after a (gasp!!) 6 YEAR!!! absence. Oh, how on earth could I let so much time pass before visiting again? I think this will be my 10th visit and 2 of those were 3 months at a time. Le sigh... I am so very happy to be going back. I'm also going to try to use Couchsurfing for my Paris visit if I can. Still haven't heard back from my requests.
After a few days in Paris I'm off to Italy to visit friends in Cuneo in the Piedmont for a food and wine festival and then to the winery where I will toil among the vines for around a month! This is where the fun should really begin. I barely speak Italian and to top this off, my host speaks only a Piemontese dialect!! Who is up for an adventure?! (raises hand and flails it wildly about, bouncing up and down... Think Arnold Horshack) Should be a barrel of monkeys!!
Cross your fingers for me and do dervishes and stuff! And let the "wild rumpus" begin!
Cheers friends!
---Wine Ophelia
aka Raelinn Doty Schmitt
