Paris, je t'aime

(note: This post was written on Sunday, July 8. We didn't have Internet to post it until now.)

Bonjour readers!

The Bombastics are in France! Well, technically, in the street performing world we're now known as Circus Van Champ (had to avoid running afoul of these tough fellows: www.thebombastics.de). “The Blogtastic Circus Van Champtics” just didn't have the same ring it, though, so we decided to keep this old blog. 

The obligatory "before" shot. Note our bikes hanging from the ceiling.

Anyway, the flight over here was easy as apple pie, or whatever the French equivalent is... apple croissant? It was dramatically underbooked, so after 1 hour of sort of watching Candid Camera and 1940's Looney Tunes cartoons (both dubbed in French), Mark claimed 3 seats in the middle aisle, I claimed 3 seats in the window aisle, and we spread out. We slept like giant babies all the way to Paris.

Paris is lovely and unbelievably full of interesting sights and small enough to walk around with only the mildest of footsores. Every day, it's threatened to rain, and so far, every day it's carried through with the threat. Paris don't play. But the rain has never lasted, and when it finally stops and the clouds part and the blue peeks out and the beams of light shoot down to illuminate Gothic spires, it's pretty okay. And it hasn't kept us inside. So far, we've visited the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Sacre Coeur, the Eiffel Tower (just from below), Musee Rodin, Notre Dame, the cemetery Pere Lachaise, a few gardens, and a million sidestreets. Today I made Mark drink overpriced coffees with me at Les Deux Magots, a hang-out of Lost Generation artists like Hemingway and Picasso. I bet they're turning in their graves – 4.50 Euro for an espresso? Incredible! Make sure you said that like you were a French cartoon character.

The Pere Lachaise cemetary, home of Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison and Moliere, among others. It rained and we hid under a tree.

Let's go Louvre! We followed some secret tips and got in right away.

Mark wears the crown jewels of France. Tinier than we expected.

From left: Marya, Eiffel Tower/Japanese tourist, Mark.

Our plan was to be in Paris for a week before picking up our car and driving off into the sunset (assuming the sun sets over Germany every other Tuesday). Paris housing is expensive, we discovered, really really expensive, so we were really really lucky to find 2 great hosts though couchsurfing willing to let us stay at their places for free. Our first host, Naoki, greeted us warmly in his tiny 5^th floor apartment and treated us like old friends for the 4 nights we spent with him. He showed us around his neighborhood's daily farmers market, took us to the local bakery, taught us whist, and even brought us along to his friend's birthday picnic.

Resting on the click-clack.

My favorite time we spent with him was Friday, his day off. We rented bicycles using Paris's amazing Velib network and took off north through the busy streets of Aligre (his neighborhood in the 12^th arrondissement). He was determined to show us real Parisian neighborhoods where real struggling artists live on real cobblestone alleys, not just over touristed places like Montmarte or Montparnasse where people go to look for remnants of old genius. Cool, like us, is always on the move. We explored the neighborhoods of Menilmontant and Belleville, which are full of graffiti, murals, urban gardens, art squats, warehouse bars, and dollar stores. It was like Mission Street mixed with Oakland. We were right at home.

Paris or the Mission? That's Naoki in the blue plaid up front.

Later, we ate cheese sandwiches sitting on the banks of the canal, sheltered from the rain by a tree (bet you Mark will be able to ID it in a second, I'm asking him now... “It was a horse chestnut.” Zero hesitation. Pro status. New test: I just asked him what we did yesterday. 30 seconds of hesitation: “Uhh... we slept late. Was yesterday the day that we slept late? I don't know, is this a trick question? We had oatmeal for breakfast and a falafel for dinner.” Oh Mark.)

We're in our 2^nd couchsurfing home now, but haven't met our host yet. He was at a wedding all weekend, and left the key under the mat for us. We expect him home any minute now, which is sort of weird. From a close examination of all his books and posters and 6 guitars, we think we're going to be friends, though.

Tomorrow, we're going to head to a famous flea market, maybe go to the Medieval History Museum that houses the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, maybe pay 4.50 Euro to descend into the Sewer Museum, which is located in a real working sewer. Incredible! (Still a French cartoon character, but this time, you're really excited.)

Tuesday, we pick up our manual transmission car and head to Freiburg, Germany for 3 days to camp in the Black Forest before going to our first festival in Bamberg, Germany on Friday. Maybe we'll practice our show before then, maybe we'll just drink wine and talk about politics. We love Paris.

Au revoir! 

We took this popular tourist shot just so we could later take this one...

Marya holding tourist holding tower.

Two street clowns fight for prime busking spot. One with a fishbowl on his head. With fish in it.

Feeding sparrows at Notre Dame.

Quick update: Never met our host. Basically had our own private apartment in Paris, but we couldn't walk around pants-less because we were constantly awaiting his arrival. Also, the sewer museum was awesome. Like, super awesome. Highly recommended. And we somehow made it to Freiburg (details of our journey to come.) Also, look out for the Facebook album with the rest of our Paris pictures in it.

They have the same signs underground as they do above, so sewer workers know where they're at. 

These giant balls are used to clean "hybrid mixture" out of dangerous sewers using water pressure. Hybrid mixture = exactly what you're thinking

The Adventure Continues

We spent our last four days in Barcelona. We knew we would return to catch our flight to the states. But more importantly, returning to Barcelona felt like closing the loop. So much of this trip has been uncertain, unplanned and unfamiliar, but when we returned to Barcelona everything suddenly became easier. We knew where to catch the train from the airport, how to get to our hostel, where to find food. Hell, I even basically speak the language! It felt good to be in a familiar place, somewhere easy.

We spent our last days in Europe relaxed. Waking up late, eating delicious breakfasts and drinking our coffee slowly. Taking the train outside of the city to go to the beach. Walking down the narrow, winding streets.

Sipping mojitos in El Raval, we remember the trip's highlights and low points.

After two days of this, we were both ready for some adventure. We very nearly went kitesurfing and then almost went on a kayaking and cave snorkeling trip, but in the end settled for renting some bikes and riding around the city. As the sun set on our final day in Europe, we parked our bikes next to the Barceloneta beaches and went for one final Mediterranean swim. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to Barcelona, and to Europe.

We celebrated our last night by having dinner at Juicy Jones in the Gothic Quarter. Juicy Jones is a super funky little juice bar and vegan restaurant. It has a little storefront on a side street off La Rambla with a diner style bar and a narrow kitchen. There are a few tables down some stairs in the back.

Marya and I got the menu del dia. Starting with an insalata mista and a hummus plate, we then demolished a delicious seitan filet with patatas bravas and homemade red wine gravy and an Indian thali plate with basmati rice, three curries and some delicious little pakoras. We even got a small glass of white wine and two weird but delicious vegan desserts. It's the kind of restaurant we would frequent at home. Comfort food in a comfortable environment.

Yeah, it was that good.

The next morning we rose early to start the journey home. After six weeks, nine cities and fourteen bedrooms; trains, planes, buses, boats and automobiles; performing our show in English, Spanish, Italian, Polish and German; eating the finest vegetarian delicacies and the foulest most desperate falafel sandwiches, we were ready. So we said goodbye to Barcelona at sunrise and chased the sun for nearly twenty four hours back to San Francisco.

The next morning I went to Circus Bella rehearsal, getting ready for a weekend gig up in the wine country. Of course I was sore from 24 hours of traveling and a little jet-lagged, but it was great to see everyone and to jump back into the show. After rehearsal, driving across the Bay Bridge I was struck by a strange feeling. I am so lucky to be visiting this beautiful city. And I am excited to go up to the wine country tomorrow! Wait a minute, I am still on vacation! The adventure continues.

The Bombastics an der Ybbs

3....

2....

1....

And we're back, ladies and gentlemen, here in Barcelona where the sun always shines and the party doesn't start until 2am and almost everyone wears these weird sandals that come from the island Mallorca, and which Mark and I have seriously considered buying more than a few times (the sandals, not the island).

It's an interesting sensation to be here again at the end of our trip. I feel as if I've traveled back in time, and we're really just beginning our trip, but I mysteriously know all the experiences and friends I have to look forward to. Or sometimes it's like I'm looking back on the me that was here 5 weeks ago, a little jealous, but also a little smug. I've been on a boat to Rome. I've hiked through Cinque Terre. I've turned 26 in Poland. I've eaten vegetarian schnitzel in a beautiful home in Waidhofen an der Ybbs, Austria. What do you have to say to that, 5-weeks-ago-me, hmmm?

She says that my flight back to the US is in just 2 days, which means Mark and I have to get the blog up to date NOW or it will never ever happen and I'll feel guilty about it for weeks, repressing the feelings eventually until someone mentions it to me again.

Wow. She knows me exactly as well as I know myself.

So when we left off last, Mark and I had just exited Poland and were headed to Austria, snuggle-crammed together in the back seat of our friends' car. As you might know, we hadn't planned to go there at all. Instead, we thought that after Poland, we would head to Berlin, then Amsterdam, then Paris, then back to Barca. Typical tourist plan, I think. I'm so glad Philipp and Petra presented us with the opportunity to do something different.

snuggle-crammed into the backseat
Outside the castle during our speed-tour of Prague.

Some background: Philipp and Petra do a street show as "Witiwati und Rosa." Dressed in typical Austrian garb, they juggle and do partner acrobatics, and present a grand finale wherein they pass clubs while Philipp rides a tall unicycle and Petra balances on a slack-rope held up by volunteers.

The best thing about street performers, I've discovered, is getting to know them past just what they do in their show.

Petra works as an interior designer, about to go back to school for architecture, and Philipp is a doctor who speaks English, German, Spanish, and Danish. He's also the kind of person who when he says, "Let's do it!" he means, "Let's do it right now, no excuses, why aren't you moving already?" Which is why when I mentioned needing a post office in Brzeg, we spent 30 minutes following him as he asked random Polish citizens, eventually figured out the word for Post Office is "Poczta" (pronounced "Pochta") and found it several yards from where we started.

It's also why when he said that we should come to Waidhofen because we could perform in a festival with them and hike in the mountains and eat his mother's home-cooked meals and go to Adventure Park in the Trees, he didn't mean "Someday." He meant he had already emailed the festival organizer and we already had a spot and here was our confirmation email and his mom already knew we were vegetarians and she was already thinking about delicious traditional Austrian meals that she could modify.

Austria was amazing, mostly because of these two people and the people they introduced us to.

WAIDHOFEN:

We arrived in Waidhofen on Thursday, September 1st, unfolding ourselves out of the car into the cool mountain air. Petra and Philipp live in a lovely (mostly) renovated apartment near the center of the (mostly) small town. Mark mentioned in a previous post that sometimes we call them Mom and Dad. This is not just because we rode in their backseat for 9+ hours. It's also because they absolutely took care of us, whether it was taking us through Prague on a 1 hour rest stop or teaching us about Austria or feeding us delicious food or guiding us to wonderful places.

For example...

The first day, after a delicious breakfast of eggs and eierschwammerl (chanterelle mushrooms bought in an absurd quantity from a roadside stand in Poland) and bread, they showed us around town (which was cute), then took us to Philipp's parents house (also cute) to eat the first of many spectacular meals. We ate so much good food in Austria that we had Philipp and Petra help us make a list of it so we could remember it forever. You, too, will benefit from this list, oh yes, you too. That first lunch, we had nudelauflauf gemuse (noodle casserole with vegetables), zucchini soup, and zucchini cake (it's zucchini season in their garden) and cucumber salad. This gave Mark a chance to practice one of the only German sentence starters he knew: Wir lieben______(We love _______.). In this case, “Wir lieben Zucchini Kuchen (cake).”

Later that day, we performed our show two times in the Shopping Night Festival. It did NOT go well. Bad spots, bad luck, bad audience, bad voodoo. I don't know. Our first show in a new country never goes smoothly. Let's not mention it again.

Breakfast spread.

The next day, we went swimming in a beautifully clear and breathtakingly chilly river, the Ybbs. Happy and sundried, we headed to Philipp's parents' house (again) where we ate vegetarian goulash and more zucchini cake and drank the finest Austrian wine with Philipp's dad (a connoisseur). In the landscaped back yard, we practiced feats of acrobatic skill and juggled with our hosts' friends and played games with some curious neighborhood kids (who thought my attempts at counting to 10 in German were unbelievably hilarious).

Jump!
Fording the Ybbs on the way back to the car.
Passing in two-high. Total success on 2nd try. We're pros.
Our crowd.
Mark's idea of what to do with all the extra adults and kids.

The next day, hiking in the mountains, hangin' with some cows, and drinking delicious white beer in mountain refuge restaurants near the peak (giving Mark another opportunity to practice: Wir lieben Weissbier. Also, for some reason at this point, he learned to say “Mein Kopf ist gross” or “My head is big”). After hiking, Mom cooked us dinner of semmelknodel (bread dumplings) in eierschwammerl sauce, finishing with tiramisu, and Dad set up the movie Pumping Iron for us to watch, because he said it was “part of our culture.” (Pumping Iron is a documentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger and other body builders in the 1970's.)

More Austrian friends.

And the last day, delicious palatschinken (crepes) with an array of jams, all made by various moms. Since it was raining, our Adventure Park in the Trees plan was canceled, but instead we played the card game Dominion that Philipp had taught us the day before. Mark and I lost two games in a row to a dangerously caffeinated Philipp.

Before we caught the train to Vienna, we went one last time to eat lunch at Philipp's parents'. This time: kurbiscrèmesuppe (pumpkin soup) topped with toasted pumpkin seeds (also from the garden), breaded zucchini cutlets (vegetarian schnitzel!), and potato arugula salad. With the one remaining schnitzel, Philipp made us a to-go sandwich and packed us a train lunch complete with cookies and a napkin. We safely stowed it in Mark's backpack, along with homemade mothers' jam.

Lunch!

Packed lunch!

Sad goodbyes to our adopted mom and dad at the train station, and then we were off into the wide world, alone and scared....

Until Philipp's sister, Barbara met us at the train station in Vienna and welcomed us into her home and fed us bread and cheeses and kept us wonderful company for the next 5 days until she walked us to the train station again to see us off. And this is why we love Austria.

VIENNA:

In Vienna, things happened (as they tend to do).

Thing #1: We downloaded an audio-guide to Vienna (called "Your friend in Vienna!") for my iPod and wandered around the city listening to our friend tell us stories about famous buildings and people and mispronounce words like "marriage" ("marry-age"). With her in the lead, we visited the beautiful St. Steven's chapel and drank coffee at Cafe Hawelka, a Viennese coffee house famous as a hangout for poets and artists. And us. Booyakasha.

Espresso and melange and Klimt.

Thing #2: We practiced handstands in a park overlooking the Danube (that's right, the blue one).

Thing #3: We toured Schonbrunn Palace and surrounding grounds, summer home to the 17th-20th century Hapsburgs. Best things about this place? There's a maze built out of hedges and a glockenspiel you can dance on.

Mark hangs at the palace.
On the platform in the middle of the maze.

Thing #4: Our first night at dinner, Barbara's friend Ingrid came over. Barbara works with elderly patients in a nursing home, and Ingrid works at a neurological hospital for people of all ages with psychological diseases. After hearing about our street show, Ingrid invited us to come perform for the patients on Thursday afternoon. Never ones to shy away from totally bizarre opportunities, we agreed. Thursday afternoon, we performed our show the first time for a non-street audience, and it was a huge hit. After the show, we hung out and ate cake (another opportunity for "Wir lieben Kuchen") and showed the younger kids tricks they could do with one club. Some kids were happy just throwing and dropping the club over and over. One kid did every trick Mark showed him to total perfection, all while wearing a jaunty backwards baseball cap. At the end, Ingrid gave us a box of chocolate. All in all, it was a pretty awesome experience.

Thing #5: We toured a crypt underneath a church where the conditions are such that bodies naturally became mummified (picture bodies so well preserved you can see smooth cheeks and silken ruffles of their dresses). We were the only English-speaking members of the tour, so after giving a long speech in German to the rest, the guide would turn to us and say it again in English. It was half embarrassing and half like having our own personal tour guide.

Things #6-Whatever: We wandered through the Hofburg under the threat of rain and were introduced to the wild artist Egon Schiele in the Leopold Museum and posed with bizarre naked sculptures by the Danube and watched the Circus Roncalli tent go up in front of the Rathaus (Vienna City Hall) and walked through the Prater, Vienna's amusement park, and most wonderfully of all ate lovely meals with Barbara (and sometimes her boyfriend Florian) in her apartment talking about culture and language and why no one in Austria has ever seen The Sound of Music. It was a little sad to fly to Barcelona, wondering who would make us breakfast and tell us what part of town to visit and pack us typical Austrian treats...

Weird naked statues....and Mark!

Freak show statues at the Prater...and Mark!

All our stuff plus us plus Barbara crammed somehow into the tiniest elevator in Austria.

But we pulled through somehow, and now I'm here again in the Yellow Nest Hostel. It's 11pm and the spacious lounge area is filling up with people revving up to go out partying again. Mark is watching the movie Sherlock Holmes in an otherwise empty cinema room and I'm furiously typing in the corner.

We know how to party.

See you on the Stateside!

Viva la Polska!

Hello dedicated readers! We have just passed our one month in Europe mark and we are happy to still have you here reading with us. It is becoming customary to acknowledge that this blog is not entirely up to date and I will take this opportunity to do so. We are currently on the train from Waidhofen, Austria to Vienna. We have just taken leave of our dear friends and companions of the last two weeks Phillip and Petra. A detailed account of what we did (and what we ate!) in Austria will follow shortly. For now, let me take you back to our first day in Poland. Let me begin by bellowing in a baritone, “BUSKER BUS!”

We arrived in Brzeg, Poland on August 23, haggard and stinking after 24 hours on the road. We were delighted to find that the hotel we were staying in was only a few blocks from the train station. Our room was small but charming. Two narrow beds, a small table, a shower and a closet. We moved our personal stuff in and made a lunch of couscous and lentils with hummus, which we ate with tortillas and fresh vegetables. After an hour's rest, we set out to see if we could catch some of the other performers and maybe meet our host, Romuald.

Brzeg is a small town, so it didn't take us long to find the main square. We saw a group from Japan called Ojarus performing and some musical acts. It was delightful to see a pretty weird and experimental group from Tokyo performing for a rapt Polish audience. We decided we should try to find out where we were supposed to eat dinner. We learned from another performer that Romuald was an older guy in a straw hat and a white jacket with blue stripes. We spotted him outside a restaurant and introduced ourselves. There was a tense moment when he thought we were a group called “Las Bombas” who had also applied to the festival but who he had not invited. Once he realized that we were the Bombastics, from the USA we greeted us with hugs and tickets entitling us to bizarre, vegetarian Polish meals three times a day for the next week.

The next day we had no assigned spot on the schedule, but we talked to Romuald and he gave us a spot at 2 pm. We were quickly discovering that BuskerBus runs a little differently than most street festivals. It's not so much all work and no play, with international artists trying to play great shows to huge crowds and make lots of money. It's a much more loosely organized affair. There is a rag tag family of performers from all over the world who, despite their generally high level of eccentricity, perform surprisingly diverse and delightful shows. For a week, this family of performers (and it really is a family) will travel together, eat together, perform together and drink together all over Poland.

Get on the bus! Romuald is in foreground below.

We decided to stop for lunch before our two o'clock show. Breakfast and lunch in Brzeg were served in the Milk Bar. Milk Bars are an institution left over from the communist period, which serve simple food at very low prices. Our usual milk bar breakfast consisted of a cup of instant coffee, a few slices of bread, two slices of cheese, half a tomato and a bowl of cottage cheese with dill. A little unusual at first, but not a bad breakfast if you can stomach it. Lunch was much the same.

Milk bar.

Our performing location turned out to be no more than a street corner two blocks from the center of town. It would have been a decent spot for a guitar player, but for a circle show it was just about impossible. Fortunately, our buddies Philipp and Petra who we met in Ferrara stopped by and scoped out the situation with us. Philipp gave us a killer pep talk, which is becoming a tradition, and encouraged us to just set up and do a show and to block the street if we had to. This put the fire in our blood and we ended up playing a great show on the street corner. By the end of our show we had blocked the entire sidewalk and had a crowd standing behind us in the street. Needless to say, we were glad we tried it. Thanks, Dad.

Much of our time in Poland followed the same pattern. We would wake up, eat breakfast together, go play a weird show in a weird spot, have dinner together and then all go to the “Festival Club” (read “bar”) for the particular city where we would spend our hard-earned zloty on Polish beer and vodka.

Dinner at the "festival club" Left side of table speaking German, right side Japanese.

Instead of listing everything chronologically, I will instead give a brief account of some of our unforgettable shows before I proceed.

Kiddy spin from overtime show (see below)

Amp show: We built a huge crowd on a great pitch in Wroclaw and just as we were about the start the show, our amp quit. We performed our entire show unamplified and without any music, including an eerily quiet juggling act. UPDATE: Part of this show was filmed and put on Polish TV (or something). Find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_jjynyNvIU

Sprinkler show: We showed up to our pitch to find a sprinkler soaking the entire area. Philipp arrived on the scene and then went to talk to the authorities. Nobody knew who had installed the sprinkler or how to shut it off. Philipp failed to issue his usual pep talk and instead shocked us by saying, “It's not worth it.” We immediately decided to give up.

Overtime?: We played a show in the main square in Wroclaw. We were a little late to get started, because Dan Marcus got hassled by the police, so Philipp and Petra gave him their spot and played a bit later, but then they had to wait for Valeria and then we had to wait for them. The end result: we finished at 7:07 rather than at 7:00. This apparently made us some lifelong enemies out of the couple of clowns who were supposed to take over the spot at 7. I think they had some serious beef with Americans. Interesting to be stereotyped...

And then....a show where it threatened to rain the entire time, a show where we started out with a great crowd and lost half of them before the finale to Djammal's sound system, and our wonderful final show in Wroclaw where we had a hilarious translator pretending he was a presenter from the home shopping network (unbeknownst to us of course.)

Oh, remember when Marya got locked in that kebab restaurant bathroom? I had my turn of being locked in a bathroom for the trip. I got locked in the 40 degree (around 100 degrees Fahrenheit) shower room of our hostel for over an hour while the staff tried to find a locksmith. Don't worry, the humor of the situation wasn't lost on us.

Another momentous occasion: Marya turned 26 in Zielona Gora. We celebrated at the Piekarnia, a huge bakery turned bar (and that city's festival club). She had happy birthday sung to her in over 12 different languages. We had her traditional birthday watermelon as well as a delicious little cake with fruit and nuts and a large bottle of champagne (Thanks Philipp and Petra!), which magically seemed to serve everyone who gathered around.

Family portrait at the Piekarnia (Philipp and Petra pretend to be our parents)

The day after Marya's birthday was our last day in Poland. We also celebrated Romuald (the organizer of BuskerBus) and Buskerbus's birthdays. Romuald turned 60 and BuskerBus 15. It was a great night and we said our farewells to many wonderful people. At the end of the night we returned to our hotel where we shared a special Polish vodka that tasted of nutmeg with Romuald at 4 AM. It was the perfect final moment of our Polish adventure.

They are not big on cake in Poland... Vodka (60) and honey wine (15).

The next morning we all piled into Philipp and Petra's car and set off. To Osterreich!

Our cozy ride to Austria.

For our own reference, some people we want to never forget: philip and petra, sheishei and mai, nozomi, ojarus (masa and haruki – japanese ame and the pompon dance after their whip trick), stripey (and his mosquito bites and accent and the time he sang us all of “Billy Austin” in Wroclaw), romuald (and when he sang the song to Marya on her birthday), trickster circus (and their sweet dance moves), dan marcus, djammal (uh-huh), daniel mays, blond polish drummer (who said “say hi to your mom” when I told him my family was polish), fred/charley, tahmour, duo ruach, martin (our german friend – and how he sounded like Jan Damm doing Hans), christiano (his story about how the border police thought his friend's kazoo was a pipe, so the friend had to play it to prove that it was an instrument), qian lan (bicycle helmet) the danish musicians (we danced polka.)