19th
Just another day in paradise…
Yesterday was yet another eventful day here at the Villa. We awoke early to harvest our very own olive grove. HUF owns 250 trees, but fortunately, we only had to pick from a portion of them. We divided into smaller teams and competed to see who harvested the most. My team lost, but we had a lot of fun trying. For each tree, we placed a parachute (real chutes that were used in WWII) around the trunk, then raked olives off their branches. Some of the trees are rather tall, so across the grove at any point that morning about 20 Harding students could be seen scrambling around the wispy branches reaching for the more elusive olives. After a tree was cleared, we gathered up the parachute and emptied it into large buckets. We worked for around 3 hours, with a hot-chocolate (made on the stove) and oreo break somewhere in the middle. After lunch everyone hurried back to their corners to finish homework assignments and work on last minute travel plans.
Right after dinner, we dressed up and went into Florence for a ballet. It was the first professional ballet I’ve ever seen, and I was mesmerized. The movement and music was very moving and easy to understand. Despite the stress of all the unfinished work we left at home, the evening was fantastic.
We arrived home around midnight, and Logan and I stayed up a little longer to finish travel arrangements. We are traveling along the Italian, French, and Spanish Riviera, stopping in Milan, Nice, Marseille, and finally Barcelona. There are four total in our group, 2 boys, Josh and Blake, plus the 2 of us. We finally finished our itinerary, found the directions we needed, and confirmed hostel reservations around 1 am. Our train leaves Florence today at around 3 pm, and we’ll return late Thursday night. Its going to be a very exciting but incredibly full trip.
