Thursday, July 10, 2008

Tour de Fleece Update II: The Plan, The Burn, and The Language

Hooray! I finally got the Intertron to work in my favor, and was able to force-feed some photos down its wiry gullet. Here's a shot of my Tour de Fleece spinning, at the end of Day 2 (I am still about three days behind on photos).

Tour de Fleece Day 1

The colors are not that great in this photo, because I am working off a foreign laptop and at this point, I'm just happy I have photos at all to show you. Behind the drop spindle I have spread out roughly half of the yak locks, in a vague color order. I'm spinning darkest blue to lightest (grayest) blue, then the dark brown-ish ones, then increasingly light tan. I will either navajo or andean ply, based on whether I can get enough yardage from a 3-ply. My bet is that my singles won't stay as thin as they should, and I will end up doing a two-ply. If I get a two-ply, I'm not sure what I'll do about the color changes. We'll have to wait and see. But the goal is to spin fingering weight.

I've been spinning about two locks per day, mostly in the mornings right after breakfast while our traveling companions finish getting ready for the day, except for yesterday. Yesterday I spun in the evening with a glass of rose wine out on our hosts' tiny but incredibly charming balcony. This has become one of my must-haves for a living space. Right now the list includes easy parking, clothes washer/dryer (or at least hookups), dishwasher, and a balcony. Can you tell I live in a big city? :) Anyway, yesterday I didn't spin in the morning because we decided to go to the beach and wanted to get out there for the hottest part of the day, so the swimming would be nice. The Mediterannean was a gorgeous clear blue-green, and both of us got pretty sunburned. After I cleaned all the sand off and put on some aloe vera, the wine and spinning helped immensely to take my mind off the sunburn.

It's amazing how much French I'm remembering here, considering that it's been 9 years since I took any French classes. One of our hosts is French, and I think he was a bit impressed at how much I understood our waitress at dinner two nights ago. I shudder to think how much more I would have remembered a few years ago. But my understanding is still good enough that I can pick up tiny snippets of other peoples' conversations, like the dad at the beach asking his son what sound a horse makes. My German is nowhere near good enough for this, and I never realized how disconnected one can feel when you don't understand any of the random conversation around you. My trip is about three-fourths over, and while I'm enjoying myself, I'm interested to see what it will feel like when I get back home and hear people speaking American English everywhere. I wouldn't say I'm homesick yet, but it will be nice when communication takes a little less effort.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know how you feel about the language. I have had that same experience when I was in Isral and in Italy. I makes you feel very alone
R

knittingdragonflies said...

What fun! Glad to find another spindler, good luck with the language.
Vicki