My time in Puglia!

Ciao tutti!

Happy weekend, I hope you are all happy & well.  I am having fun in Rome, catching up with friends, running errands in the city, walking around to all my favorite spots.  It has been excellent!  

I have finally firmed up some plans for the summer!  I had been having some strong moments of indecisiveness during my planning stages...  I have definitely decided to go to Montenegro to teach yoga for the summer.  I will be staying in Herceg Novi, which is a resort town on the beach in the north of the country near the Bay of Kotor, not far from Dubrovik, Croatia.  Sounds cool, right??  My "work" situation will be to teach one yoga class a day in the morning.  I will live with a couple, one is a reiki practitioner & the other is a physiotherapist.  They are starting a wellness center in Herceg Novi to offer services to the tourists & locals.  So, I will also be helping to get organized & promote our business.  Apparently the place is full of english speaking tourists in the summertime & there is currently no good option for yoga.  I will fill this niche!  Herceg Novi is sort of a health resort type of town so, we think that yoga classes will be hugely appealing.   Wish us luck!  English & Montenegran are spoken there so I'm sure I will have fun picking up a new language.  I will be sad to not be able to use Italian, hopefully I'll find someone to do a language convo exchange with so I won't lose my skills!

I won't get to Monte until the 22nd, between now & then I will make a return to the amazingness of Puglia!  I will meet up with my friend Erica, that I met in Sicilia, at a farm she is staying on down there & we plan to tour around some beaches for a day or two.  Then, I have found another farm for me to stay on to do a bit of WWOOFING until I leave.  I can't say enough about WWOOFING, my friends.  It is such a cool way to see the country and meet new people!  Highly recommended.  If you want to find out how to do it, it's easy! 

http://www.wwoof.it/en/  check it out.

This time around in Rome I am feeling so much different than while I was living here, it's like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders!  I was always so stressed about that crappy work situation I wasn't really able to enjoy my life.  What a shame!  Again, I am feeling fortunate to have turned my attitude around.  I can now look at operation Italy as a smashing success.  Yay!

Here are the photos of my time in Puglia.  I was staying at that olive farm in the country & then travelled to Lecce with my Japanese pal.  We made a bunch of friends there & had a killer time!

this is where I stayed.  notice the fabulous multi-level rooftop for doing yoga & watching the sunset.  this type of old house in the country is called a masseria.

when my hosts bought this place it was abandoned, they did an amazing job of restoring the place.   

my lovely friends, the olive & almond trees...  

i miss you guys :)

fuzzy almonds.  everything looks so pretty in evening light.

they run the masseria as an agritourismo  with a restaurant &  four rooms to rent.  oh, we had such good food...

red bougainvilla

last of the season's carciofi

figs are everywhere in south italy.  they are one of my favorites, sadly they will not be ripe for a couple months.

This is what it looks like all over Puglia.  Olive trees everywhere.  also, the whole Salentine peninsula is pretty much flat.

I peeled about a million of these bitter oranges to make a marmelata.

Ah, my friend the ZAPPA.  When I first started my farming work the zappa & I were enemies but as time went on we became friends.

We had a good time experimenting with falafel.  For some reason my hosts assumed that I was a falafel expert because I told them I make it often.  Meaning I add water to a mix.  Making it from scratch is pretty easy, using fresh, uncooked ceci.

Mariko & I had fun picking chamomile & the flowers are adorable. 

getting a bit arty

we ventured into the small town of Carovigno where there is not much to do .  

We rode some old & heavy bikes to this beach & nature reserve one day, Torre Guaceto.  It was deserted & beautiful.  Unfortunately, minutes after we lay our towels down on the beach a big storm rolled in.

ciao Carovigno!  we are off to Lecce

Lecce is famous for it's Baroque art & architecture

Yippee!  We found it to be an enchanting city!  This is the duomo (cathedral)

duomo in the evening

it seems like i am wearing this outfit in every photo

porta di napoli

one day we went to the beach near the small town of Gallipoli 

meno male

i like this photo, especially the people fishing

on the old timey train back to Lecce

our friends took us to this sweet spot where you are able to do some jumps into the sea & swim into a cave.  wow!

also to this gorgeous spot, Torre del Orso.

What a good time!  Can't wait to get back down there.

I am reading a good book, Last Night in Twisted River, by John Irving.  He has always been one of my favorite authors, ever since reading the book A Prayer for Owen Meany in high school.   My Rome friends & I are having a little dinner party tonight, should be fun!  I found some black beans at a specialty shop yesterday & plan to make some cuban style with coconut milk,  I haven't eaten black beans in about 10 months!  Simple pleasures, it seems my news today is not too exciting...  I hope you enjoyed the photos, take care :)
xoxo