A Blossoming Journey

Gotta love it.

Hey folks, its 2 am in Swwwwitzerland, the land of milk and honey (and a great deal of cheese, and more cheese, and cheese fondue....), so what you get is Austin in sleepy, joyful rambles recounting the last two weeks.  Soooo...the answer is yes, we are STILL in Berner Oberland, having moved from wild campsite A in the valley to campsite B in alpine land Murren to cozy Mountain Hostel in Swiss classic small village Gimmelwald, then back to campsite B, and now, finally, in warm bed A of our new friends Doris and Ed.  Wait?!  You're transitioning a lot, you say.  Yes, we are.  To tell it all to you straight would require skype and a glass of wine.  But since this is a blog, I'll have to keep it to some highlights intermixed with philosophical conjectures.

We are loving life.  I don't say that as gloating, or as a fake, glossy cover, just simple feelings.  The last few weeks have been unreal.  Unreal in the kindness and generosity of absolute strangers, unreal in the abundance of fun, genuine friends,  unreal in the views and experiences and laughs.  Unreal over pourings of love.  It is a season of finding and thriving in who we truly are.  We are creative.  We are silly, laughter filled people.  We love to sit with people who are different from us, to learn from them, to enjoy what they uniquely contribute to humanity.

We are finding ourselves.  I have spent A LOT of time connecting with the absolute coolest people, and it has rebirthed my love of people.  Or rather, my love of connecting with people, of circulating social circles, of rallying people to a cause and encouraging them, of having deep, honest conversations on the most important topics to myself and Kindra.  Conversations about food politics, imbalanced health care systems, backpacking, the relevance of God in a post modern age and the deeper "religion" of love, the pains of our past, the dreams of our future, the laughter of the present.
 Kindra is finding her passions for guitar, jewelry making, and world issue awareness expand and evolve, as well as her love of meeting connecting deeply with people.  It is so unreal how you can form a genuine and deep relationship with a new friend in an evening, one that is more honest and intimate than people you have known for years.  Take our time with Doris, a Swiss native who grew up in Canada before returning to Berner Oberland to run a hotel at eighteen and fall in love with an awesome English dude, Ed. 

Doris approached us from her group of friend sBBQing in Murren one evening to offer us some wine (cool already in our book!).  We start chatting with her, and she invited us to come hang with her and her crew.  Within an hour or two of talking just with Doris, Kindra and I had shared some of the deepest details and feelings our trip, and it our blew our minds how accepting and at the same time honest Doris was.  She extended an invitation for us to stay with her and Ed, and here we are now, four days in hanging out with such cool people.  Never on this trip have we felt so welcomed into a home, so a part of the culture of that home and free to be ourselves.  It has inspired us to pay it forward in every generous way possible on our trip and beyond, and I am mentally chewing on thick morsels of the meaning of love, on the deepness of generosity that exists in this world, and the freedom we were meant to have as people, to actually feel alive and happy.  And I am wanting to blog another time on how Kindra and I have become so "unchristian" or unreligious in our lives, yet the abundance of God and the realizations that his heart is so so deeply love and acceptance are clearer each day to us, and the crock of thinly veiled judgmental religious performance that trumpets a conditional view of God becomes more clearly the garbage that it is.  Again, more on that later.

Also, Kindra was pretty sick, but has recovered!  We stayed at the coolest place ever, the Mountain Hostel in Gimmelwald, to help her recover for a few nights (ironically, camping alone for a night was what really healed her).  I met many incredible people, especially some super cool outdoorsy guys.  We hiked together, we rallied a bonfire together, and we swapped life stories and fun moments.  I wish I could tell each story of the song filled nights or strenuous hikes with epic views, but my eyelids are getting weighty.

Stay classy you guys, and follow your dreams!

Pics: https://plus.google.com/photos/117860913937238604610/albums/5913822296556787505?banner=pwa

Another Heaven on Earth

We made it Switzerland!

Thats right, we finally worked up the courage to leave our beloved Cinque Terre, and now we camp peacefully a stone's throw from a four hundred foot cliffside waterfall and a view away from God's version of Renaissance art: the Swiss Alps.

Right now I (Austin) am sitting restfully in the dense green forest that we temporarily call home, watching my wife of three years twitch and turn through dreamworld in our tent, even though it's almost one pm. Now call us lazy, but afternoon sleep ins are not the norm, she has a lasting cough that needs less hiking/adventure and more rest (I hope my herbal tea concotion of garlic and honey does the trick!).

Yesterday was adventures aplenty, we hiked the ridgeline above our sleepy waterfall valley, with drool inducing views of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau, three famous alpine peaks. It was like stepping into heaven. We yodeled and laughed on the trail, ate wild raspberries next to us, and went snap snap! with our camera aplenty. The mountain view looked just like my dream of the Alps; it was powerfully surreal and confirming, it felt so right to be in this place.

Our amazement expanded to bursting as we entered the small, picturesque Alpine village of Murren, where the tourist information desk attendant was the kind, older Swiss MC from a folklore music show we saw the night before! He gave us the inside scoop on the best local hikes, and to out delight told us wifi was free there. Free wifi?! It's the little things that make this trip, and a TI center with free wifi and a power source for charging our wimpy MacBook battery is like winning the lottery for us. We smiled big and plotted moving our campsite to Murren. As if things couldn't get better, we met a young engaged couple, Stephanie and Tyler, in nearby small town Gimmelwald who happened to be UCSB alums and attendees of Reality Carpinteria, our old church. This is unreal! We had dinner with them and exchanged stories and laughs. They not only share our Alma mater and faith, but are also super passionate about healthy eating and responsible agriculture. Tonight we rendezvous with those two again; I am on overload at how amazing this time in Berner Oberland is turning out.

Kindra is awake now and full of garlic breath from my herbal tea, it's time to make something of this day!

Ciao for now!

Goodbye Cinque Terre

It's been three amazing weeks since we arrived in Vernazza as sweaty backpackers, then unsure of our plans and skeptical of Italy. Now we have a whole new appreciation for the beauty of this nation and its people, and our love of these five small coastal towns has exceeded most places of our trip so far. Here we were transported to a world somewhere in between college life and our travels of the US national parks. In college we were able to meet people and make new friends without batting an eye, in the national parks we felt free to roam and explore trails and hidden beauties, to be adventurous. Cinque Terre had both, a melting pot of relaxed and friendly vacationers from across the globe, and endless adventures. I (Austin) remember the first time we took the train between villages without paying. I remember sneaking through hillside vineyards to avoid the outlandish coastal hiking fee booths. I remember all our chats with Brittany at the Internet shop. I remember our romantic evenings eating out of this world good take out pasta and watching the sunset.

The memories go on, like meeting Ines and Muhammed, the Moroccan couple who shared their wine and olives. The Grindwald family who told us of cliff jumping in Manarola.

There was swimming long, lazy strokes before the heat of the day. Listening to the mother daughter team at the local market argue and laugh in Italian. Breathing it all in and wondering if I am dreaming.

Right now we ride the train to Milano, to catch our connecting ride to Switzerland. This morning Kindra gave me for my birthday a beautiful cork necklace that she hand carved into a water drop shape, so I could carry a symbol of the tranquil Cinque Terren waters with me. It makes me think of our Gelateria buddy Powell, a local who said dreamily to us, "Vernazza is in the blood." He is right, Vernazza is now in our blood, in our hearts. Goodbye for now, Cinque Terre. Thank you God for the gift of this place, a temporary home where our hearts expanded and our souls rested.

I hope we return.

Still in Cinque Terre

That's right...the McRobbies are still here.  I (Austin) have personally fallen in love with the place.  Like mad high school crush in love.  Don't call the moving truck yet....unless a Mexican food stand opens nearby.  But still pretty amazing.

In fact, we even tried to leave last week.  That's right, we packed up our tent and heavy Deuter bags, found a helpx host in Tuscany, and caught the graffiti covered trenitalia headed towards small town Montepulciano.  Our hostess, a middle aged Italian woman, picked us up twenty minutes late from our arrival station and took us to her gorgeous property up in the hills.  She seemed nice enough initially, and left us at our room to settle in.  Waves of loneliness crashed on us in the room; despite our hopes, leaving Cinque Terre and our beloved, friendly Vernazza was growing into a stormy looking choice.  Oh well, I thought, let's make the best of it.  We settled in, and then strolled around the property, and found a cool outdoor bookshelf and dining table.  Perusing the books, we hardly noticed our hostess making dinner, except for her request to set the table.  And then the storm hit, as she expressed strong disapproval at our not helping with dinner (oops, I guess we could have offered, our bad, first night and still finding our bearing I suppose).  Ok, not a big deal, I could see someone being upset, let's move right?  No.  She continuously mentioned our lacking in helping our dinner, pointing to the fact that this is not a B&B, and we are there to help.  Ok, point made, our bad, we will help, water under the bridge?  Umm, no.  She then made utter mince meat of just about every purpose or dream in our trip, finding details to criticize and challenge.  Neither of us have ever felt so directly insulted or demeaned, it was almost comical.  Almost.  We tucked our tails and put up with it all dinner, as each flung remark furthered our regret of leaving peaceful Cinque Terre and hardened our resolve of leaving this God forsaken farm of forgone human compassion.  Needless to say, we promised each other we would work the next day to be polite (perhaps we are too polite?) and then declare our departure.  The next day was worse, starting with more insults about starting late at 9 am (the night before she insisted we start when we want), and constant putdowns our farm capabilities.  Kindra finally said, yeah we are leaving, which she readily accepted.  We packed our bags, happily walked down the road (no way she was gonna give us a ride), and hitchhiked back to the train station (nice older guy picked us up, some redemption to our temporary fuming contempt with Italians).  Sweating and wounded, we connected on the train ride back with each other and God, reevaluating our trip values and swearing never to helpx again (that will probably change). 

So, we are back!  It's different here in Vernazza, but still our beloved Italian escape.  I am learning the deep needs of my heart to rest, to relax, to feel, to enjoy, not to add more guilt or checklists to my life.  So many stories to share, but I guess I can't type them all (well, I could, but that wouldn't be fun), so you'll have to ask about them when we return :)

We are probably headed to Switzerland next, I had a dream about Interlaken the beauty of its nearby Alps, and it inspired me to consider getting there for my birthday.  What a place to wild camp and hike and breath fresh Alpine air, and eat chocolate and drink fresh milk and....ok I don't know about you but I ready to head there now!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this, smell the roses and enjoy something you love!

Switzerland, the land of happy dreams.

Beautiful Italy...Breath It In!

Waving from our favorite swim spot!

 Hi there!

Austin bloggin at ya from Cinque Terre again, we just can't seem to get away from this place!!  It has captured our hearts, not only with its lovely beaches and grub, but the friends we have made here as well.  Example: Brittany, the Texas girl married to a Vernazza local ( Vernazza is the village that we make our humble adobe of the five), who helps at the internet cafe we frequent; her kindness and helpfulness with getting to know Cinque Terre has been amazing.  Then there is Andrea, a Roma local vacationing here at his past away grandmother's mom, who makes us smile and feel so important.  And, of course, the local shopowners, who remain genuine and friendly despite the mass tourism present.

Enjoying our three year anniversary dinner.

Another layer of depth in our experience hearing stories of the flood that hit Vernazza and killed three locals.  It was October 2011, and what assumed to be just a few inches of flooding in shops became within moments a ten foot high water surge through the main street, dragging cars, debris, and even people into the ocean.  One powerful story is the sacrifice a local Gelateria owner made by holding the shop doors shut against the rising water while his family climbed to safety.  He was swept away in the surge; the full story in English is here: http://savevernazza.com/testimonials-2/.  Kindra and I were in tears just reading about it.

Other stories include numerous close calls and absolute miracles that resulted in lives saved.  The shopowner of the Internet Cafe was in her brother's wine shop across the way, and they for some odd reason chose to keep the door propped open during some of the flooding, which later gave them an unexpected escape.  Another woman was hanging on for dear life in the flooded street, when the water level dropped for a few moments, enough time for her to float down to the square, where she was rescued by those on higher ground.  Here is a video of the flood:


In the aftermath, the Vernazza townspeople had their hands full clearing loads of debris, but were able to get open for the following tourist season.  Locals are more united from the event, but uncertain whether is would happen again (this kind of flood hadn't occurred since the middle ages).

Tomorrow, we may leave for Tuscany to pursue a wwoofing option.  In the meantime, we release the uncertainty of the our future plans and instead play in the sun and enjoy the adventures and lessons that God has for us here.  :)

More photos:  https://plus.google.com/photos/117860913937238604610/albums/5905291286111365617?banner=pwa

Kindra leaps into the smooth Mediterranean.