Barn party! Hippies! Germans!

Chris, an American WWOOFing (World-Wide Opportunities Organic Farms) program, invited the UGA students to a party last night at his farm on the outskirts of the city. €10 for hot food, wine, and live music. About six of us decided to go, so right after dinner we piled into our gardener Gino's car and rode down the winding road to the barn.

We arrived to find about 30 or 40 people sitting around in an old barn. It was lit with strung-up Christmas lights and was heated with a wood-burning stove in the corner. Two floor-lamps shone on the band—an assortment of German hippies—playing oriental music. The band, Embryo, consisted of two old men, one kid who couldn't have been out of high-school, two young hipsters, and a young girl. It seemed like they could have been jamming, but they picked up and slowed down with such synchronization that it sounded coordinated at the same time.

Chris introduced us to three more Americans who had just finished WWOOFing in Calabria—all of them art students. One of them, Annika, was from the Appalachians and had just finished at a school for folk-arts, in which she studied storytelling, music, etc. all in the traditional Appalachian style.

The band finished up their first set and took a short intermission and came out into the crowd to eat and drink with us. I talked with one of the older men named Wolfe who insisted that when I travel at the end of the program I stay in Munich. I walked outside and found a circle with some Italians and some Americans talking to the bass player. People were asking him questions (rather basic ones), like "Where are you going after Cortona?" Nearly every response was "I don't know, ask the professor," referring to the oldest of the band, with shoulder length hair and large, thick glasses.

We stepped back inside and the music began again. It was madness. They changed their style entirely from an eastern sound to energetic, jazzed-up funk. The people in the small barn all began to dance... shirts came off, arms flailed out, and from somewhere a bird-beak mask appeared and made it's way from face to face. They must have plated continuously for almost an hour and a half, resting only two or three times. The crowd began to do everything they could to contribute to the music. We stomped our feet on the old wooden floor, clapped our hands, whistled, and above all danced

When the madness was over, we stepped outside and made a fire on the gravel road. We grabbed some bread and tomatoes from inside and made bruschetta over the fire and Annika brought out her ukulele. We sang "Wolves" by Phosphorescent and of course the eternal American singalong, "Wagon Wheel."

When around 2:30 the fire had died and it was time to go, we started what must have been a 3-mile hike back up the mountain. It was the best walk home I've had. Under the full moon we walked down country roads, over bridges, and trough farms. Always uphill. At one pass where we stopped to rest, three horses came to the side of the road. We fed them grass and pet their noses for a few minutes until it was time to move on. We arrived back in the city bathed in orange light and we climbed up Via Santa Margherita to collapse in our beds.