more prep

so it seems that finding farms to work on is a bit more of a difficult task than we'd initially assumed. right now the only solid bookings we have are for hostels - our first four nights in vienna, then two in zagreb, and our final four in istanbul. other than that we have the little miracle of a free week in a posh apartment in rome, which is no small thing, of course. in fact it's rather amazing. that's october 4th to the 11th, so we've been trying to arrange farms for before and after that. as of yet, however, we've only gotten tentative positive feedback from about three farms, one of which would be staying in a tent and using the facilities of the main house. i found this goat farm in tuscany which sounds kind of awesome, but the guy hasn't gotten back to me... i've email about 30 people and gotten about 7 responses as of yet. it turns out farmers aren't too keen on checking their email. go figure.
in any case, i'm excited about the bookings we do have, and like having at least a skeletal outline of the trip. my aunt gretchen will also be in italy throughout the time we're there and has offered us a stop at her place near san genesio, so it looks like we will probably head that way for a bit sometime after rome. i think getting to explore as many different areas of the beaten path will be a positive thing. especially free ones. i'm reading this book called "on persephone's island," by a woman who went to sicily in 1962 with the intention of staying for a year and wound up never coming back to the states. it's a great story, mixing bits of her life with the history of the island into a sort of journey through a calendar year. it's really making me want to go explore there, which alex is of coure all for. so hopefully that will work out as well, even if we don't find a farm there.
there are so many places to go and so much to find out about all of them... right now my head is sort of spinning...