Holy Woodstock Fruit Festival Fruitbats!

Hello dear one!

If you were not already aware, I just got back from the Woodstock Fruit Festival, that was held at Camp Walden in upstate New York. It was an AMAZING time, and I am super stoked to share my experience with you!

If you want to check out what the festival is all about, the website is here

Before we get started with the actual trip, a few days before we left, Kind Bars sent us a plethora of samples:

 

Those bars actually sustained him quite a bit, due to my laziness in the kitchen:

Thank you Kind for providing Marcus with food to eat, because I was so busy with other life things!

Most of their bars are vegan, and made with simple, whole food ingredients. He was really into the Peanut butter and jelly ones!

Now, onto the trip!

Our trip started with planes, trains and automobiles.

We took a bus to the train,

Then the train to the airport. Marcus opted out of the security scanner and got a nice pat down:

Then we hung out in the airport for a long time. Our flight was supposed to take off at 9:30, but we did not end up getting off the ground until closer to 11. We were getting pretty tired at this point, so everything was twice as entertaining as it should have been:

On the plane I munched on some cherries:

And watched some Alton Brown:

We woke up in time to see New York City as we flew over it:

We landed in New Jersey at about 6 am NY time, 3 am our time. We took a train from the airport in New Jersey into down town New York:

And it was CRAZY!  We had a 15 minute walk through downtown New York to reach the bus station to catch our bus. It was crazy how busy the city was that early in the morning.

We had a few hours to wait at the bust station, so we took some time to get some nourishment. I got a wheatgrass shot.

We then got on a bus, that was to take us to Warrensburg.

There we met some of our other volunteer friends and spent the bus ride chatting with them. When we arrived in Warrensburg we found out that there were no cabs, so we had to call one from a neighbouring city, from a convenience store that soled gasoline, spices, picked eggs, meat, snacks and live chickens I am pretty sure. Small towns are WEIRD yo! We all piled into one van and drove for about 20 minutes to get to Camp Walden!

Finally, after about 17 hours of travel, we finally made it!

We set up our tent on the campground:

And that was that! The first two days were a little touch and go - there was not very much food due to a truck mishap, and we ended up having to steal fruits and veggies from the boys at the boys camp that was finishing up during our first two days of being there. I don't mean we literally stole from them - the camp owner organized for us to have some. Can you imagine that news story? "Hundreds of hippies raid camp of fruits and veggies, leaving inner city boys with only hot dogs to eat."

The volunteers were at camp 2 1/2 days before the festival started - and to be honest those days are a bit of a blur for me. Mostly because we were really tired and hungry and COLD. It was SO COLD. But, it was really fun to start getting to know everyone, and it was fun to feel like we were a part of the festival - helping to set everything up and see people as they started arriving.

As a consolation for the no food situation, they did let us have durian early:

On Sunday night, the festival officially started with the Opening Ceremonies:

The food had also arrived at this point, so I was gorging myself on Lychees most of the time:

It was an awesome kick off to the festival, and on Monday we were really ready to get the party started!

For the first week, Marcus and I worked in the Dining Hall/Kitchen.

Marcus really took to the roll:

We worked everyday from 11-4 and we worked pretty hard! Our tasks included:

• Making sure the serverie was constantly overflowing with food
• Serving lunch
• Cleaning up things - all the things
• Helping out in the kitchen
• Generally bossing people around.

This is what the Servary looked like:

We also had fruit in the dining hall:

And this is what the dining hall looks like:

What I learned is this: People at Woodstock Fruit Festival LOVE to eat. A lot.

Our Shift leader for the first half of the week was Jonathan, who we of course affectionately referred to as J-Sauce:

He was SO much fun to work with because he knew how to get shit done, and then have a good time. He was equally fun to hangout with outside of work. He knows his stuff when it comes to business, and he really genuinely cares about people. I want him to leave the UK and come live with us.

In the second half of that week he was moved to the dinner service and I was made semi-leader. Mostly because I am SUPER bossy.

This is what the kitchen looked like 24/7:

Where we were making food all the time:

Feeding 400 people every night was no Joke. Head Chef Alicea killed it.

This is what making zucchini noodles for 400 people looks like:

On breaks there was plenty of this:

And also a million of these:

We needed those refreshment sessions because service was always nuts.

One day we served banana ice cream, and the machines were working a little slow so we didn't get it out on time. Everyone in the servery waiting in line started drumming and chanting. It was really scary to be honest:

The best part about being in the kitchen/dining hall was getting to see what fruit was the best, what was ripening, where it was (so you could sneak it when you wanted it...shh!) and so on.

Here is how many dates it takes to satisfy a fruit festival:

The only down side was that during the first week it was REALLY cold. I barely made it. I had to huddle next to the dehydrators before my shift just to re-establish blood flow:

For the second week I was on Admin, which was much more chill. I spent most of my time making signs, making lists and doing research for the Hawaii Woodstock Fruit Festival that is going to be taking place in April!

When we were not working, we were very busy doing a lot of hanging out with amazing people and doing really fun things.

Some of the amazing people:

I got to work with Anne in my second week in the admin office, and she is just the SWEETEST thing in the whole world. Ellen Fisher runs the Mango Island Mama youtube channel, and a super cool instagram. We did an interview together about The Perception Diet that will be out soon!

Ryan is a yoga god who encouraged me to teach at the festival - which was the best thing ever! We had some really nice talks - he is a wise, wise man. Stephanie is so beautiful and she is someone to everyone. I loved getting to know her.

I got to meet Shay, who you may recognize from Ted Car's videos and Fruitful Living. She is (also) literally the SWEETEST woman on the planet and I love her. I will make it a thing that I move to Indonesia just so that I can hang out with her.

We got to work with Miles, and I really loved talking to him. He has some amazing ideas about the world, and has spent much time meditating and studying meditation and spirituality. He had so many things to say, and I very much enjoyed listening.

Jon is an artist from the U.K, and I fell in love with him a little bit. But it is OK because so did Marcus. He is quite literally my smartest, most well traveled, most interesting friend. You can check out his work on his site here.

Joey, or Joey B as he is mostly called, and Marcus really hit it off. Joey is a film maker and one of the most talented, funny, fun guys we met at the festival. He was the reason for most of the game nights. He is Megan Elizabeths other half, and after spending time together we realized that we are in fact, twin couples.

Finally, I got to spend time with Kristina and Megan. It was so much fun to connect with both of them in real life, and to get to spend quality time getting to know each of them. I can tell you this - they are both just as beautiful, smart, funny and charming as they appear to be in their videos.

When I was not taking selfies with all my favourite people, I was out doing fun stuff!

One morning before work Marcus decided it we were going to go paddle boarding. I was pretty sure I was going to plummet into the water to my death. Also I had to wear a childs life jacket. So I was generally disgruntled:

Marcus was cool as a cucumber and confident in his abilities to survive:

We paddled out to a doc in the middle of the lake and back and neither of us fell in or lost our paddles. So I marked it a success:

 

At night we almost always participated in some sort of game night with our new friends:

 

So many games:

I mostly played to see Jons illustrations. He is an actual artist. And he is super smart:

We also did a lot of sprawling on the lawn:

I had my laptop, which I am sure is part of the reason I made so many friends:

Every second night there was a Durian party. What this means is - everyone eats durian then LOSES THEIR SHIT dancing.

One of the more special events was the wedding of Anna and Raini:

They met on the bus home from the festival last year, and this year got married at the festival. It was very cool and very full circle.

They had a fruit cake, clearly:

On Marcus' last night (and what should have been my last night too) there was the talent show:

Then, at 10:30 pm that night, Marcus decided for me that I was going to stay for the second week of the festival. I was not so sure it was a good idea, but he changed my flight before I could change my mind. So we spent one last night together, and he headed off on his way home at 8 am the next day.

In the next post I will show you all the amazing FOOD we ate at the festival, and show you what happened in the second week!

<3