Austrian Odyssey

I just heard on the radio that 2012 so far has been the hottest year EVER on record for the United States. From over here in Europe, though, it was hard to believe stories about no rain and weeks of 90+ temperatures. Paris, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria – everywhere we went rain seemed to follow us.

This past week has made me a believer. Ever since we entered Switzerland one week ago, clouds have cleared and temperatures have soared and teenyboppers have strutted around in their tiniest sundresses while Mark and I have hidden desperately in the shade. Global warming summer is here.

And so we're outta here. Right now, we're lounging in the air-temperature controlled Zurich International Airport. Little Pepper is gone, our belongings reluctantly shoved back into plane-friendly bags, and all that's left to do now is wait for our 3:30 flight to Edinburgh, Scotland. Aufwiedersehen sunny skies; 'ello rainy highlands. 

When Mark last wrote, we had just left Germany's rolling fields for the more dramatic slopes of Austria's Cider Quarter. This did not, however, stop Mark from saying we were in Germany for the next several weeks. “Hey Mark, what country are we in right now?” Panicked gaze into the distance, several seconds pause, and finally: “Switzerland... Nailed it.” *

Austria, once again, was amazing. To borrow a favorite word of Philip/Witiwati, it was probably one of the most amazingest parts of our trip. We hadn't even been there for 24 hours before we climbed a mountain, went swimming in their backyard pool, and helped Philip, Petra and their 16 year old friend put on a fire show for the local Tiki Bar. Kari Jones, I hope you are reading this, because Mark Wessels totally did Nyah Cat's fire poi routine as one of his acts. What did I do, you ask? Why, I held up one fire club to help illuminate Philip and Petra's partner acrobatic act. Nailed it. 

Petra, Philip, Me

Mark and me, really tiny in the distance

Mark's excellent poi routine and even better Tiki shirt

Our four days there were so packed with activities that I'm exhausted just remembering them. Philip and Petra aren't the type of people to spend their vacation days leisurely lounging around the house. Instead, we went on rock climbing trips, baked pies, worked on installing an elaborate porch awning, rafted in the freezing Ybbs, did handstands in the hills, and watched their backyard zucchini grow.

One rock climbing route had us at least 60 meters (180ft) above the ground, which was already part of a mountain. Looking out from the top, you got an amazing post-card view of Austrian countryside (assuming you could tune out your sweaty terror long enough to enjoy it). Another rock wall we attempted was much harder. I hung in my harness, defeated near the top, while Philip (holding the other end of my rope) yelled “Fight! Fight! Come on, fight!” and refused to belay me down until I had attempted the difficult spot at least 3 more times. It may seem supportive and motivational now, but at the time, all I wanted to do was drop a rock on his head. Mark, of course, attempting an even harder course to my right, aced it like a little monkey goat.

View from the top of the rock cliff as Mark and Philip wave goodbye.

On Friday night, a local party organizer (the same person behind the pool side Tiki Bar) hosted a fancy soiree in a club located in the town castle. The theme? The White Experience. In small town Austria, no one found this title the least bit offensive or ironic. Mark and I, however, cringed a little every time we heard about it. On the big night, P and P and Mark and I sat eating pizza, watching all the ladies in tiny white dresses and all the men in sort of white t-shirts parade past. We then went home and hosted the Mustache Experience, wherein we all put on fake mustaches and Mark and I taught everyone a classic American card game: King's Cup. Everyone was a winner!

Come Monday morning, we packed up our things once more and said our heartfelt goodbyes. Five minutes later, after Philip and Petra brought down the toothbrushes we had forgotten and found Mark and me eating chocolate on the bench by our car, we said them again.

It was wonderful to reconnect with them, even for that short time. Today, they're flying to San Francisco for a five week trip through Utah and Colorado, so if you live in one of those 3 places and want to dangle from a rope or be beaten ruthlessly in Dominion, let us know. We'll get you the hook up.

After leaving the now familiar Waidhofen hills, we performed for 2 days in Velden, a lake resort town in southern Austria. The shows were mediocre, but we went waterskiing, so there's that.

We had another 2 days to spare before needing to be at another festival, so we used them to drive south to Slovenia's Julian Alps. Swimming in Lake Bled, hiking through a gorge, and jumping into Europe's cleanest river were lovely. Driving up and down 1,600 meters in a tiny manual diesel car on a twisting mountain road with at least 60 switchbacks was not. “Mark, I don't know about this route – it looks like it goes straight up and down the mountain and might be a little crazy.” “No way, it's going to be fun.” Famous last words. Or at least famous last words before the equally famous words: “I told you so.” 

Slovenia, yo.

Thursday evening found us in Klagenfurt, a smallish town on the Austrian/ Slovenian border that was hosting a street performing/music festival. As a street performer, I generally HATE being at festivals with bands. They perform on large stages with huge sound systems, while we turn up our tiny Crate Street Cube to full volume and try to compete. Also, people tend to get drunk pretty early, which makes our final trick a little hard. So, once again, mediocre shows, but we got to ride the bumper cars with our friends from Scooby Circus, so there's that.

On Sunday we took to the road again, this time headed to Verscio in southern Switzerland to visit our friend David who does NOT go to clown school.

It's almost time to board now, though, so Mark will have to pick up the Swiss side of our story later. I'm going to start thinking about which complementary beverage to choose. Coffee is the classic choice, ginger ale is my go to, but we are headed to Scotland, so maybe...whiskey? Choices, choices...

*Also, for some reason, Mark has been calling our Swiss Francs “Marks” this entire trip. Like Deutschmark. Which are from Germany, not Switzerland, and haven't even existed for 10 years because of the Euro. He's unstoppable, though. “Where are we going to change all our Marks?” I don't know, Mark. Good luck to you.

Rock and Roll ob der Tauber

Where are we? A weird sports complex/motel on the German side of the Swiss German border.

And where were we? Right, Belgium.

Little Pepper Pilkington once again did us right and deposited us safe and sound in Koblenz, DE (with a lovely albeit rainy lunch stop in the beautiful medieval Dutch town of Maastricht).

Maastricht lunch spot, with old city walls.  We are just outside of the 11th century Hellport (Hell's Gate.)

Marya in front of the Red Keep at Kings Landing.  Wait, I mean in front of some church in Maastricht.

Lots of good artists at the Koblenz festival, but not a lot of opportunity to perform because of nearly constant rain. We did run into Joe Dieffenbacher, the new head honcho of the SF Clown Conservatory. His street show was scheduled immediately after ours!

Marya and I were sitting in the doorway of a closed business with our show, staying out of the endless rain, when our buddy Ronaldo (a clown from Argentina, now living in Spain) reminded us “This is a unique opportunity. For all of us to have a beer.” We immediately went to the beer tent (complementary for performers) and stayed to close the place. I mean literally, we helped them close the place. We got a lot of practice speaking Spanish, German, Spanglish, Alemañol, and other languages of the globe-trotting elite. Our shows in Koblenz were only mediocre, but the company was fine (that's international English for good.)

After a touching Skype reunion with our old street performing pals and adopted Austrian family, Witiwati und Rosa, we decided to visit them again in Waidhofen an der Ybbs, their small hometown. First, though, we planned to explore some sights along the Romantic Road, a winding country lane through some of southern Germany's most beautiful medieval towns. It was created after WWII to boost Germany's economy, and originally frequented by American tourists visiting their US Army husbands.

In true romantic fashion, Marya fell ill with a fever so we spent a day recouping in Wurzberg, the first stop on the Road. We checked into a nice little hotel where she immediately fell asleep, and I wandered the city seeking vegetarian soup (the recommended treatment). Despite having only the most abstract idea of how to say “soup” or “vegetarian” and absolutely no idea how to attempt “take-out,” my mission was a success. We holed up with some delicious Thai soup and our remaining Belgian beers, and found some time the next day to scope out the local castle before we continued down the Romantic Road.

Old fortress/castle above Wurzburg.

The 32ft tall wooden Altar of Mary, carved by famous German artist Tilman Riemenschneider in the late 1400s. 

Close-up.

Marya walks the ramparts at Winterfell. Roman's house pictured at left. Oh all right, she's walking the old city walls of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Its old town is still completely encircled by them.

By the way, if you ever want to visit the Romantic Road, I highly recommend this super bizarre mid-90s era website. We mostly stuck to the Red Frogs but if you get lost, you can always click on the animated wizard GIF. Also Every Word On The Site Is Capitalized, Which Just Rules. Check it out. http://www.romanticroad.com

When Marya and I reached the end of the Romantic Road (only the literal one, don't worry) we found ourselves within spitting distance of Waidhofen. Earlier that day, Witiwati und Rosa had invited us to meet them at a Rock Climbing Garden (at least we think that's what Klettern Garten means) in some tiny neighboring town. They gave us an address and wished us luck. “It might be a bit hard to find,” they warned us.

Several hours later, lost and without a phone, we followed our questionable google maps directions up winding, unlabeled mountain roads through Austrian farmland. We finally dead ended at a farm house. Deciding that this couldn’t possibly be our destination, we turned around and drove back to the nearest little town. But wait! At that moment of despair we received the following text message * from Petra (aka Rosa, aka Mom) :

Its quite hard to find. Continue on hintsteingraben. At the end of the street there is a farmer house you see our car. Afterwards its 15 min walk first on a path on the back of the house with stones then follow the way with the red stripes through high grass. Then you find our stuff at a hole. Good luck.

On the road to the farmer's house. We're only halfway up there at this point.

So we drove back up to the farmer house, ready to attempt a rendezvous. When we arrived this time though, we encountered an older woman who lived in the house. She spoke no English, and I speak no German. But she grabbed the nearby 10 year old boy who studied Anglish in schule, and Marya took full advantage of her Pimsleur German education. With a healthy dose of internationally understood hand signs, we reached a tentative understanding. We had arrived too late at night for the rock climbing garden, if we wanted to sleep (hands folded under head) we could put up our (hand sign for tent.) But if we went to the rocks, then (hand sign of a shotgun) So we should instead come back (10 year old translational triumph) “next day.” With that warning, we decided it might be better just to meet our friends in Waidhofen.

(In case you're worrying about Austrian farm women running us down with shotguns, don't. After successfully reuniting with Philip and Petra much later at their house, they told us that hunters sometimes use the land around the rock walls. It can be dangerous after dark.)

We survived the Klettern Garten ordeal and arrived without further event in Waidhofen an der Ybbs. Our adventures in Waidhofen were many and varied, but that is a tale for another day, in another hotel room with another dodgy wireless connection.

Till then.

Ciao,

Marco

* - Yeah, OK, so we have a phone, it just doesn't work for anything except receiving text messages.

Where my hoes at?

Mark:

Between Bamberg and Koblenz street performing festivals, Marya and I had a two week window of free time. We decided that it would be nice to work on an organic farm somewhere in Europe. Before our trip, we searched around on Workaway.com, a site where you can volunteer to help with someone's project in exchange for room and board. There are a lot of small family farms on the site, but also house construction projects, hostels, daycares and all kinds of jobs. We found a couple promising organic farms and finally settled on a farm in Belgium, run by a 26 year old guy named Wouter. His farm supplies produce for his own CSA which has 120 members, they make Belgian fries and pizza once a week, and he reminded me of my brother, David. Boom.

So, post Bamberg, still aglow with our success, we made the 6 hour drive to Sint Katelijne Waver and started our new life as farmhands.

The typical day of a volunteer worker on this small organic farm in the Belgian suburbs starts at 5:30. You roll out of your bed, make coffee, eat a bowl of muesli, pull on your rain boots and rain coat and head out to the field. For the next 6 hours, you harvest produce (butter beans, potatoes, tiny carrots) or you hoe. It may or may not be raining. At noon, or sometimes at one, depending on the day, you put your hoes down and troop into the farm house. On your way in, you choose some fresh vegetables from the garage to eat for lunch. You then prepare lunch for 10 or 12 people, serve it, eat it and clean up. By 2 pm, your work is done, but by then you are generally too exhausted to do anything but lie on the floor until it's time to make dinner. After dinner with the whole gang, you drink a delicious Belgian beer, play a game of whist, and crawl into bed.

Harvesting carrots, I think.

Marking dinner. The guy on the right is NOT Mark's brother, just his Belgian twin.

Mark loves taking pictures of food.

Marya:

Needless to say, the glow of our success faded pretty quickly. But it wasn't all dirt and toil (well, not entirely). There were 2 other people around our age also doing workaways on the farm. Jenny, a 19 year old from England making her first solo journey and Xander, a 21 year old from Scotland who was biking around Europe. You can get pretty close to someone pretty quickly when the only thing you have to do for 6 hours is hoe, and the only thing that makes hoeing bearable is talking.

Jenny kept us entertained for hours with stories from her recently completed first year of university – stories that I cannot repeat here, but you definitely wish you knew. The one about zombie Snow White was one of my favorites. She was also the slowest hoer in the entire history of human agriculture, so Mark and I used to secretly hoe some of her row too, just so she could keep up with us. How else could we find out what happened after David (who she's secretly in love with even though he seemed like kind of a jerk to us) confessed his love to her for a girl in his lazertag club, and she fell tearfully into the consoling arms of Jeremy (David's best friend, and just a good friend to her too she said, even though he seemed like the perfect guy and once even took off her shoes and brushed her hair before putting her to bed when she was sick)? See, thrilling!

Xander was a unique spirit. He's the kind of person who sets off for an international bike trip with one backpack, one pair of pants, one shirt, one sweater, and absolutely no money. When we harvested, he saved all the rejected tiny vegetables in his pocket, and once he tried to convince everyone that the wax part of cheese was completely edible. When we discarded it anyway during our dinner prep, he rescued it, chopped it into tiny pieces, mixed it with raw chopped garlic, and served it as a side. He was the only one who ate it. 

There were other characters at the farm, too: an older surly Scottish man (is there any other kind?) who would sneak off into the shade for hours when Wouter wasn't around, and another older Belgian man who was a friend of Wouter's and lived in a van out back. He had long curly hair and many lady loves and meandering stories and I think he was also totally insane. Ask Mark – they talked for hours sitting on the front porch. Kindred spirits, perhaps? And of course there were others – workers, visitors, friends – who dropped by, baked some bread, picked potatoes, ate dinner, and left, generally before it was time to do the dishes.

Mark and I also found some time for travel. One weekend, we drove up to Amsterdam, pitched our tent, and explored the city. We rode bicycles with hordes of clueless tourists and angry locals, toured Rembrandt's house (beautiful) and Anne Frank's secret annex (sad and strange), and did not learn how to speak Dutch. We also spent an afternoon in Ghent, a town in Belgium. It was one of the largest and most powerful European cities during the Middle Ages because of it's cloth industry. Now, it has beautiful architecture, a cool student population, and more vegetarian restaurants per person than any city in Europe. We gazed at the Van Eycks' famous Adoration of the Lamb altar, toured a castle, and ate a mountain of Belgian fries with vegetarian gravy. Perfect. (Mark: "Boom.")

Our lunch spot in Amsterdam.

Biking along the canals.

One sunny afternoon, Mark, Xander, Jenny and I picked up some Belgian beer and chocolate and biked to a moat around an old fort to go swimming. There weren't enough bikes, so Mark took a cargo tricycle and chauffeured me around in it.

Lounging by the moat.

Mark surrounded by Gent architecture.

Before

After

 At the end of our two week stint as farmhands, we put away our tent (that's right, the mosquitoes were so bad at night that we slept in our tent on a mattress in our room), packed up our car, attempted to clean two weeks of dirt out from under our fingernails, and said our goodbyes. I was sad to leave the people and place we had become so comfortable with, but I was looking forward to days of 9am wake-ups and never picking up a hoe again (insert juvenile joke here).

I pick my last weed.

Once again, the sun sets behind our car (this time an old wooden jalopy, with a mattress for Gran strapped to the back). A ragtime soundtrack soars as the wheels kick up dust onto our faded overalls, and we wonder: how will Marco and Moxy Mae fare in that big German city, Koblenz?

Tune in next week, folks, ya hear?

Our Fifteen Minutes

Well folks, Li'l Pepper has carried us safely to Waidhofen an der Ybbs, Austria where we once again rest easy in the home of our Austrian parents, Philip and Petra (also known as these guys: www.witiwati.com). We've trekked up and down a mountain, explored a cave, eaten ice cream sundaes, swam in their pool, and picked apples from their backyard tree – and it's just 6pm of our first day! It seems like it's going to rain now, though, so we might have to spend tomorrow drinking coffee and playing Dominion. Poor us...

Mark left us in Freiburg, Germany, headed to Bamberg Zaubert, our first festival this year. We set off early in the morning in order to check-in with the festival before 1pm, but a 6 hour car trip quickly turned into an 8 ½ hour lesson about the differences between American and German highway exit signs (a lesson that Google maps should also learn).

We eventually made it to our hotel (and I got to make use some of my German audio lessons to ask directions to highway A6!), where it turned out that being late was only a problem for our sense of calm. First hotel check in, then a meeting with festival organizers and participants, followed by charge our electronics get our costumes together load everything on the shuttle did we forget something oh scheisse, then unload get dressed - take a break to sip some complimentary mineral wasser mit gas – then parade! With all the other performers, we strolled through the historic downtown, juggling, dancing, shmoozing with the public. We eventually reached a marching band, which I thought probably marked the end of the parade. My sigh of relief was cut short as Mark and I soon realized that the parade was actually about to start – the whole first part was just a short-cut to the beginning point. Again, scheisse. Find me the person who wants to wake up at 6am, be lost on various autobahns for 8 hours, then march in a parade, and I will eat my lederhosen.

Mark and I plastered on our pageant smiles, though, and bravely soldiered forward. Parade #2 – check. A little rest and more complimentary snacks before our first show - check.

In lieu of actually rehearsing at all before our first festival, we had just talked through our show over and over, so we were a little nervous about how our first show EVER would go. When we arrived at our spot, though, we already had a crowd 2 rows deep looking up at us like little baby birds. It was a piece of cake. Mark's crazy dances were truly inspired, and our final trick (performed only one time before and never on the street) actually worked! Superstars.

Mark attempts to fit his considerable frame through a tennis racket. He succeeds.

Getting the audience volunteers ready for our grand finale.

The whole festival went like that for us – great spots (even 2 times on a stage with someone running sound for us), no rain even though it poured on others, and happy crowds. The festival provided hotel rooms, catered food every day, beer every night, and a luxurious breakfast buffet every morning. We really felt like superstars. As we walked back to the performer dressing room after a show one night (wearing mostly street clothes, not costumes), a father recognized Mark. “Marco!” he yelled, beaming at us. “Marco!” Marco yelled back. His family crowded around us and we all took a picture together. Superstars.

We left Bamberg after waking up late Monday afternoon and drove to Sint Katelijne Waver, Belgium, basking in the happy glow of our stardom. The camera zooms in on our laughing faces, sunglasses in place and scarves blowing in the wind. The sun sets behind our speeding car. Cut to one day later, 6am, pouring rain: Marco and Moxy are squatting in the mud picking butter beans. Oh, Fickle Fame...

Squattin' in the mud pickin' butter beans.

Freiburgermeisters

Hello readers!

Thanks for your patience in reading our blog. We apologize for our tardiness in publishing the chronicles of our ongoing adventures. I expect we should be more forthcoming with updates now that we are reentering civilization. So where did we leave off?

Ah yes, we were traveling from Paris, France to Freiburg, Germany. We had our shiny new car, the wind in our hair, and a good stock of road snacks. What we did not have was a map, directions, or GPS navigation. Still, we set out with (naïve?) optimism. The plan was to stop in in Strasbourg en route and check out the old town. We wanted to get a feel for Alsace.

Leaving Paris went pretty smoothly (only one minor run in with a condescending cop who insisted on speaking to us in French) and we were soon on the highway, following signs to Strasbourg. We pulled right into the center of town and drove down increasingly narrow streets until we saw a single parking spot in which I (Mark) gallantly parallel parked. It turned out that our parking spot was a perfect starting point for a stroll through the old town where we walked by the river, picked up some typical beer of the area and a nice Riesling and scoped the delightful cathedral. Strasbourg was beautiful, but packed with tourists. After a week on Paris, Marya and I both took a very Parisian attitude toward the loud American tourists.

Eiffel Tower from our car window

Mark, a vision of cool

That's the Strasbourg cathedral poking up in the distance. Even Victor Hugo mentions how beautiful it is in Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The Strasbourg to Freiburg leg of our trip was a little less smooth... navigating Autobahns, country roads and finally Freiburg itself, using only roadside maps of the tram system. We finally stumbled across our campground by dumb luck or by dead reckoning. I'm still not sure which. We were very relieved to set up our tent, have a picnic dinner with a nice Abby beer, and go to sleep.

The view of Alsace en route to Freiburg.

We enjoyed two days in Freiburg. We climbed the tower of town's famous Munster (cathedral), watched a performance in the main square by the local youth circus, had excellent Thai takeout with the college kids at Augustinerplatz, and met up with our friend Steve who we met last year performing on BuskerBus in Poland. Marya took a little day hike up into the Black Forest while I rested in our tent and recovered from a cold. We could have spent a week in the cute little college town, but we had a date to keep. A date with Bamberg Zaubert...

View from the Munster.

The beginning of Marya's wanderweg, looking down on Freiburg. Our campsite is at the end of the meadow.

Kiddy circus.

Our little tent.

Marya's Two Cents:

1 - Our car's name is Little Pepper Pilkington. Sometimes when our gear shifting is not up to snuff, we call her Chugalug.

2 – It IS possible to stall out on the highway. Just sayin'.