Thursday, July 15, 2010



its our last day:(
Johann and Dominik keep telling us that they are going to miss us so much. i was just working in the kitchen, dicing some cucumbers for the gazpacho, and Johann and Emelia began to say how they have been talking about us Americans and how we bring so much happiness to Rosenhill. it was so flattering and all Hanna and i could do was smile from ear to ear. Johann was in love with a WWOOFer before us named Margot (little to her knowledge) and, after she left, he wrote and composed a song on the guitar about her. it has become famous here at the farm and Hanna and i joked with him about making up a song about all three of us. we laughed but he was serious and said, "I just might. If it happens, it happens." so we're crossing our fingers! hahaha.

MoMo update:
this morning at breakfast MoMo had the wonderful idea to fill up a bucket with water and soap and soak his feet in it. well, the bucket had a hole in it and as soon as he put his feet in, water began pouring through the porch. the way he looked up with his huge, serious eyes was priceless. i couldn't help but laugh.

its getting rather hot here so not much field work is getting done. we are chopping, picking mint leaves, etc. so lovely. i am dreading packing! Annabel and Edward, if you read this, text me what you want from Sweden. Ok? love y'all. thanks for being good sports and following!
-virg

Tuesday, July 13, 2010



Oh haaayyy ya'll!!!!
Today was yet another great day at Rosenhill. It was very lax today- pretty hot and not alot of tasks, so we found ourselves picking cherries and blueberries. The cherries are right next to the house, and the blueberries are up in the woods all around the lake and road. I had a verrry difficult time not eating all of the cherries, for every cherry i put in the basket, i would plop one in my mouth. I don't mean to brag but i definately made a world class shot into virginia's mouth with a cherry. I was high up about fifteen feet in a tree and she closed her eyes and opened her mouth and BAM! money shot. haha. We spent the last two nights in stockholm at my mom's friend Gunilla's apartment, which was great because we could see a bit of stockholm and not have to take the bus from Rosenhill, but would instead just hop on the subway and head over to T centralen and gamla stan. We went to a pub called strand to watch the final game of the world cup- i was rooting for spain of course ( winnahhhh) and it was nice because at the bar, there were definately more Spanish fans than Dutch, so it was a good night for sure!
I would like everyone to know that i have probably gained about 7 or 8 pounds in the last week and i am LOVVINNN IT! oh girl, the food here is too good to be true. The chef, ingrid, has lived and ran her own restaurant in india for the past 10 years, so alot of her food is indian inspired, but she varies it up alot- for example we had the absolute BEST pesto pasta i have ever had in my entire life today. WOW. all of the ingredients I either helped to plant/pick/water so it was very cool to see our work go to use.
Elizabeth is leaving tomorrow morning and it is so sad to see her leave, but i know that V and i will continue having a great time at Rosenhill, Stockholm, and in Malmo/Ljunghusen. We had a great last night for elizabeth and another wwoofer, Meribel tonight. We had a great dinner, had a cherry spitting fight, played some volleyball, and headed to the lake for a twilight swim. GREAT night. I am really looking forward to heading back into stockholm and seeing more of the historical sights of the city, such as the Vasa Museum, the Palace, and some of the other museums/parks.
Loving this life, I am so lucky!



sorry i havent written in a while. things here have been pretty busy and I have honestly been too lazy to fight for the internet here.
we have already been to stockholm for about 36 hours for our day off and s
tayed in Gunila Nillson's apartment. that night we watched the world cup game at a bar. we painted our faces and yelled "viva espana!" the whole time .. good times! here at the farm we have been playing a little soccer with some other WWOOFers and visitors. some nights everyone gathers in a circle and some people whip out their guitars and play some crowd favorites. we have actually made some good friends here, mostly guys though. the girls are German and are more introverted than the three new American chicks.
have you heard about our roommate, MoMo? he is German and his real name is Moritz but his accent is so strong that, at first, we had no idea what he was saying. but MoMo fits perfectly. he is in the picture to the left, awkwardly standing there. this photo perfectly describes MoMo. we were completely surprised when he told us that he is 28 years old. who knew... we sometimes walk in our little shack and see him peeking behind the privacy curtain at our stuff. this is awkward. thank goodness he chose to move out because 'he wanted more privacy.' PPSSHHH. he snores and some nights Hanna and I wake up to Elizabeth clapping her hands and yelling "MOMO!!!" hahahah priceless.
he gets offended when we cant understand his English.

we have been running about 2.5 miles a day and ending up at the beautiful lake where we strip and dive. it feels amazing.

in a few minutes Hanna and I are going to attempt to cut Erik's hair. Erik is the 20 yr old son of Lars and Amelia (pic at top) he is very sweet and such a genuine guy, but has frosted hair tips and its getting a little annoying. sooo gotta go! love y'all
-virg

Thursday, July 8, 2010


where to start? I feel like I have been at Rosenhill for 2 weeks now, yet only one day has passed. you have heard about last night’s events so I dont need to explain our complete exhaustion today. nevertheless, we all attacked our daily activities with such enthusiasm, you would never guess we were jetlagged.


we woke up at 8 and ate a breakfast of homemade bread and butter, cheese, cucumbers, and turkish yogurt and granola with great conversation on the side. the people here are so insightful and opinionated about what they think is best for Sweden and the world. No need to worry about apathetic citizens here. so then we have morning chores to get ready for customers visiting the cafe. the cafe has a lot of sweets and is well known in Sweden for its apple cider, which is alcoholic. after chores there is another meeting where we decide what everyone will do for the day. hanna, elizabeth, and I started out picking wild strawberries on an overgrown pathway. it was hard to find them, but we picked so many. Ingrid, the cook, will use these strawberries to make jam. YUM. after a successful strawberry trip, we began to weed the onion and carrot fields. let me tell you, that is a back breaking job. but we got a whole row and a half done! then the bell rang for lunch, which consisted of pureed cauliflower soup, bread, and this potato and bean salad. eating like this makes me feel so healthy. then we took a break to swim in the chilly lake just about 600 meters from the farm. we laid out on the deck and relaxed which felt so nice after a days work. Lars, the part owner of the farm, along with his wife Amelia, boated up to the dock with a worker from the farm, Johann. they jumped in to swim ashore. they got out and, to our surprise, they were both wearing white tighty whiteys. no big deal. Valkommen till Sverige! after the lake we weeded more then went in for supper which we helped cook with Lars. had a few cups of apple cider then played badminton! my first game ever and we all laughed so hard. I looked around and noticed that we were playing with people from Germany, Sweden, and Ireland. I love it. soooo sorry this has been so long. I just have so much to say! basically, it is amazing here.

- Virginia

p.s. this is a picture of us picking strawberries:D


Oh what a day. Woke up at 5:30 this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I decided to take a walk on the grounds and explore. It is so beautiful here! There is a bus that two of the wwoofers are staying in that looks just like the bus from “into the wild”. It’s furnished with hardwood floors and three beds, SO GREAT! we started off the morning doing routines after breakfast- my chore was to sweep the staff room and separate the dry laundry. After this we headed out to the field and elizabeth, virginia and I picked wild strawberries. It was just like at our summer house in tjastviken where we can go hiking around and pick wild berries. we had some lunch and headed to the lake for a quick dip! oh wow. almost forgot. it should be illegal to skinny dip in the public lake. especially if you are overweight, have chest hair like austin powers, and have a handlebar mustache that would make hulk hogan proud. im just saying. elizabeth and i caught this charming sight on the way to the lake this morning. we were half way through the wide open dirt parking lot before we realized our horrible mistake. we tried to make a run for it, but there was nowhere to hide. caught in the act. im sure it looked great that i had my camera in my hands taking a picture of the lake. now it looks like i was taking glamour shots by Deb . yikes.


enough about this inappropriateness and onto the more interesting things. There are ten wwoofers here on the farm, they are from germany, holland, sweden, ireland, another american, and argentina. they are all so different yet so interesting and its great to get into discussions with them and just goof around. There is a woman here who comes to watch us wwoof and talk with the owners all the time, because she is a member of the Green party of sweden, and she is trying to find a way to bridge the divide between the government and the people like Rosenhill who are trying to do their own part to make the country and world healthier. She said that everything evolves around food. Food is the glue that holds the world together, so she believes that Rosenhill can give her a better insight on how things run in an organic environment and how self-sustaining solutions could potentially lead to a dramatic improvement in the world. very interesting. I spit out a few stupid probably untrue facts i seem to have memorized about Ethanol production in brasil and bragged about how my brother is very politically active and called it quits. needless to say they were impressed? we played a feisty game of badminton and all gathered in the common room to watch an internet broadcast of the world cup game. GO SPAIN! the five germans in the room were not too pleased about this, but they were good sports.


The farm reminds me of some sort of hippie compound. Everywhere you look there is some small detail like a painting or a trinket that makes this place the most unique and special place i have ever seen. One of the wwoofers told me that Rosenhill was in a magazine a couple years back for a high fashion shoot, and was dubbed sweden’s best
“hippie style wedding spot” . aDUH! definitely in my element. in my tevas and tie dye shirts i was born to be here :) well thats all for now. I’m sure i have bored you to death. Ta ta!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010


Day two of our euro adventure! We usually won't do a morning post but events of last night cannot afford to go without mention. OH MY GOD. what started off as a normal night quickly turned peculiar. From the words of Elizabeth at 2am. We awoke to her giggling so hard we couldn't sleep.

"Guys. The most embarrassing thing just happened to me."

"what? what's going on?"

"i just pissed the bed."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHHA.

" I had this dream that i was peeing and it felt SO good, and then I woke up.... uh oh."

" I don't think I even peed the bed when I was six. EVER."

CLASSIC.
We are about to start off our first day, Elizabeth and Hanna went on an early morning hike down to the lake where we plan to spend a large chunk of our time soaking up some rays after a couple hours of working.

We'll post again tonight just thought we would share this gem of a story with you. Enjoi
wow fancy seeing you here !!! so we have officially just spent our first day at Rosenhill farm. and wow. it was nothing like what we expected! after a long long LOONNNGGG day of travelling and worrying that we weren't going to be able to find eachother in the airport we finally arrived at our destination. there was alot of cheese doodles, ice cream, and salami involved along the way, which made it all the more thrilling ! there are a total of ten WWOOFers living on the farm at this time, with more expected to drop by. they are here from so many different countries: Argentina, Holland, Germany, Sweden, and America. Tonight we had a lovely Swedish dinner cooked by 4 of the workers here (we have to rotate every night). what will the three American girls cook? maybe lasagna, maybe macaroni, who knows. sorry for the short post, we are very sleep deprived. talk to you tomorrow.