Goodbye Europe

After ten amazing and special months in Europe, we say goodbye. As I write we are bus riding our way to Istanbul, to Turkey, to a place we have called home many years ago. It is surreal to travel to Turkey as vagabonds after so many months of wild camping, hitchhiking and simply living in the present. We will be mostly staying with friends, who have showers and warm homes. Turkey seems tame, mild. Well, especially compared to Albania, but we'll talk about that later.

For now, I want to let you into some reflection of mine. For the last three months, we have put off WWOOFing and volunteer work for a more spontaneous, adventurous way of travel, one where we wake up each morning and ask, want do we want to do today? Where do we want to go? What are the deep desires of our heart that we want to pursue today? Maybe it's learning woodcarving, or fishing. Maybe it's going for a swim. Maybe we have no plan and then suddenly God brings something incredible to bless us and grow us (bad experiences have often turned into the biggest blessing, never judge a mishap until it plays out).

This way of travel has brought about a lot of patience and frustration, but also countless beautiful relationships with fellow travelers and locals. Kindra has mentioned the French couple, Esteban and Zihya, that we have traveled on and off with. They have become some of the closest friends of our trip if not our lives. Our most recent rendezvous in Montenegro with them was the sweetest. Esteban and Zihya, or as we lovingly called them "the Frenchies," found an abandoned bar on the Montenegrin coast to wild camp (it had a covered terrace, great for an approaching rainstorm), and they invited us there (we had taken a detour to the Croatian island of Mljet while they continued onward). It was such a beautiful time of laughter, card games, wine, a bonfire on the beach, deep conversations, impromptu dance party, etc. We wandered the local city together, sharing a kilo of spiced cooked meat (cevapci) while waiting out the rain. A local stray kitten befriended us and became our temporary adopted friend, which we adoringly named Cakuhaut, French for peanut. Cakuhaut was a lover, it simply wanted pets, belly rubbing, and to be with you. He slept in our tents and stole our hearts.

Then came our collective move forward to Albania, a wild and chaotic country that we knew nothing about, but were drawn to visit. Hitchhiking there didn't work, so Esteban negotiated a cheap deal with a taxi and across the border we went. Our driver, a character of a guy from Shkoder, made for an unforgettable ride. When we hit the Montenegro Albania border, he offered the border guard a cigarette (which he took) and got out of the car to chat it up. I was half expecting us to be invited to coffee or have a drink with the guards! More like a social club than a border, it was such a refreshing contrast to every other crossing. We were then led on a whirlwind tour of Shkoder, meeting the taxi driver's girlfriend, acquaintances, fish salesman, and finally ending in coffee. Kindra and I had a quick decision choice to stay in Skhoder or continue to Tirane (the capital) and on to Istanbul; we chose to say goodbye to the Frenchies and move on. We miss them!

We had the craziest bus driver to Tirane, and along the way we gawked at beautiful mountains and donkeys on the main highway. The next morning we left for Istanbul via bus on the shittiest road you could imagine (though with warm people and unbelievable scenery, Albania is at the top of our visit again list). The border to Greece was, as expected, very slow. While our bus waited in line, locals outside sold barbecued meat and newspapers; I went to chat it up in my nonexistent Albanian and hope our superlong overstay of our visa in the EU wouldn't result in a ban or huge fine. But a few hours and one bag search later we had our entry Scotch free into Greece.

Greece turned out to be a beautiful nightmare, our connecting bus to Istanbul was to be overbooked due to Turks on holiday, and since we had a ticket but no seat reservation we were told it would be a three day wait! We tried everythiiiing, other bus companies, even toyed with detouring to Bulgaria, but in the end a cheap hotel was a safe refuge until our stand by departure 24 hours later. The town of our temporary Greek prison, thessaloniki, turned out to be relaxed and social, and I stuffed down four pork gyros during our stay :)

There you have it! Turkey here we come! Il ginc yolculuk geliyor!

We Have A Bag For That

Writing a blog while you have to pee is certainly one way to try and distract yourself...we'll see how this goes! Austin is out looking for a wild camping spot near the old town area of Dubrovnik, which we have heard marvelous things about. Currently it is mainly windy and a bit cold, and we have our bags, but hopefully the marvelous bits will come soon.

Bags, bags, bags. The vagabonds sop. Our bread and butter. When a good sized, durable bag is worth it's weight in gold. After over a year of traveling, we have cone to some important conclusions: organization is key to our mental health, and bags are essential for organization. Our possessional lives can really be broken down to what bag they are in: essentials bag (always kept very accessible), liquids bag, general food bag, lunch bag, breakfast bag, papers bag, sleeping bag, tooth care bag, tent bag, misc bag, water filter bag, clothes bag, and of course, our back packs, which are really just glorified big bags. We have big and small zip lock bags, cloth bags, paper bags, and endless plastic bags. Any new item we obtain? We have a bag for that. And thus we maintain our sanity, after one too many "'where is the hand sanitizer?' 'I thought it was in your pack' 'well, I've emptied my entire pack into a confused mess on the dirty ground and it's not there'" moments.

Huzzah! A brief glimpse into our luxurious practical lives-We are learning as we go. We have also assembled a list of travelers rules which we pretty strictly adhere to now, which we now offer you at no charge! Ahem:
-never pass up a water source
-never pass up a bathroom
-never leave camp without headlamps and Swiss army knife
-always have extra fuel
-avoid getting into a new destination after dark if possible, ESP if it's a big city
-bring your passports on every mode of travel bc you never know when they will check
-and finally, if you are hungry and there is cheap good food available, just eat some

And there you have it! Not the shortest or most glamorous list, but it is our in process vagabond survival guide. And constantly being influenced by the amazing people we meet, who so often seem to be 5 steps ahead of us in terms of knowledge and preparedness. Like the Slovenians who kindly refused our offer of measly snacks, because they had caught fresh beautiful fish they were cooking. We do not know how to fish yet, but hope to learn soon! Or the American that showed us his amazing stove he made out of a beer can, as we blush at our expensive mass produced camping gas canister. Or the French that showed us how they made amazing food that made us cry-mushroom, chicken, rice, creme fresh, curry, spices, onion-makes our rice and veggies fare look pretty measly and theirs cost just as much as ours. But therein lies another grand truth of our journey: there are always people more prepared, more informed, with different skills than you. And it's a beautiful thing. It is through this reality of community that we can really learn from and teach one another, and there is not much room for pride in this lifestyle. Which is also a beautiful thing. It is one of the things that makes community so engaging and fun, and at times challenging. admitting your own limitations and inabilities, and finding the courage to try Sonething new (like the "special medicine" of the Slovenians for my cold- a big shot of nasty ass liquor, which actually did help a bit.)

Not to suggest that we have been just scraping by and surviving! We have been essentially hopping from one beautiful waterfront to another with views that rival a 5 star resort-for free :) although my recurring cold/cough friend has made things pretty rough at times over the past three months, and I think more people have seen me in some embarrassing state of humanity or another like peeing or shaving my bikini line than is reasonable.

In fact, we just left a recent favorite, the island of vis off of the Croatian coast. We scored an amazing camp spot right by a beach, and met a wonderful French couple who we are now loosely traveling with. There was a certain night that a lovely slovenian kayak group of five camped with us, (turns out Slovenian wine is fantastic!) and at any given moment you could hear English, French, Slovenian or Croatian being spoken-the Swiss couple were having a low key night, so no German dialect of Swiss that time. A truly international evening! Even yesterday on our nauseatingly windy but spectacularly beautiful 5 hr coastal bus ride to Dubrovnik we sat next to an Argentinian couple, bringing our daily language mix to French, English, Croatian and Spanish. Ow, my brain!

And here we are-enjoying the last moments of sunshine along the coast before the winter sets in, contemplating what to do for that chilly season. Should we try to work in turkey? Or head to Africa? Maybe get a cheap flight to Asia and enjoy their warm winters? Or fly all the way to Australia and find work there? Not sure yet, but hey, that's what prayer and the holy spirit is for-yahoo! What we know is it will all be well, because we are outrageously loved by the perfect lover and king, and there is a classical concert tonight that we will try and listen to for free with our frenchies before a group home/camp made Mexican dinner. I'd say we know enough :)

Seasons Changing

Kindra here! Man it's been a long time since I've written an entry-it's time to channel my inner grandma Mary! (She has already written one wonderful book about one of our ancestors called Yankee Warhorse and is writing another one right now! Pretty amazing!)

As I sit here on a warm Croatian beach in the Roman ruin stuffed town of Split, reflecting on how we got here from magic Murren seems as natural as the gentle waves crashing. It was 3 weeks ago that we said a final goodbye to our now dear friends there and we boarded the train for Vienna to celebrate my 26 bday. And about 6 hours, major train ticket confusions and $500 unexpected later, we stepped of hte train into a big city, after living in a town of population 500 for 3 weeks, to be greeted by friends we hadn't seen since February and had only met once. Quite the change of pace! Our friends Nate and Bethany were great hosts for our 4 days there, and their King Charles Spaniel 4 wk old puppy kept us all entertained! But most importantly for me, I GOT TO SEE MY OPERA!! Die Fledermaus was the perfect lighthearted, fun experience I was hoping and I was one happy duck =)
We then got a chance to stay with a friend of theirs, Janet, for 2 nights, who has lived all over the world, so we got to learn more about Africa and had all sorts of crazy story swapping! After exploring more of the city, the Wienerwald woods and sampling the joys of wine tasting with new friends, we had a decision to make.

At this point, we had a fork in the road decision: go back to our beloved Switzerland in Interlaken (the area we had so fallen in love with previously) to house sit for a friend for 2 weeks, or continue our journey east and head to Croatia. So, after realizing that either way would be amazing, we decided to continue into the unknown. To Croatia. Zagreb was such a cool city, with open markets and beautiful parks, but language like nothing we've seen so far on this trip. No more romance languages that we were kind of able to figure out-squiggles over letters, consonants everywhere-we had left western Europe for sure!

And entered the land we have been hearing and dreaming about for months. first on our list was Plitvice Lakes National Park, with waterfalls that Austin had pictures of hanging up in his corporate office! Any boy was it worth it! We camped there for a week and the waterfalls took on a new beauty and personality every day-rain, shine, afternoon, dusk...it showed us a new face every moment. And we loved it.

Now we are in Split, not sure where we are going but we are leaving tomorrow. It is continuing our new season of travel-following our hearts and going by word of mouth. Either Dubrovnik or the islands for us tomorrow, but who knows!!

I have noticed a definite season relationship of our hearts and the earth, and our summer season is coming to an end. The air has a faint chill, and we are in unfamiliar land. Fall is here! Another thing happening in me now has to do with my identity. God spoke over me awhile ago that I would be a warrior, and the time has come now for me to step into that and begin learning. Listening to a Graham Cooke serious and dwelling with the Lord more is bringing me closer to these truths, and I have a lot to learn! Which is really exciting for me, as I am "Ms. Accommodating and Everything is Ok as Long as we can Avoid Conflict so I just Don't Say Anything If I'm Hurt or Upset..." Needless to say, I have lots of room to grow =)

That's all for now folks-Internet is becoming less and less available, but we'll update as it's possible! Until next time, here's looking at you, kid!

Nouns

Today's bog is how I, Austin, grew up learning to approach nouns. This is a continuation of my recent learnings from 'the open road university of life,' but maybe it will take a different direction. Before I begin, I have to clarify some areas from the last blog, especially on love and Christianity. First, I worte the blog, not Kindra, and so a lot of the statements express solely my views, and not neccessarily hers. Second, when I spoke of the deeper religion of love and my journey of being less 'Christian' or less religious, I was not describing a crisis of faith. Rather, I meant that I am less focused on living out the practical life that most Christians live, which usually involves Bible studies, going to church, etc. not that these are bad, but my focuse has turned inward, to the heart, to teh deeper places where I believe God dwells within us. In this place I find the true motives of my actions, and I also find true rest. Because no amount of doin on the external will bring me rest, only an internal journey will. Hence how our trip is an external one across countries, but just as much internal as we cross our hearts.

Back to nouns. A noun is a person, place or thing. Growing up, I learnied to make various nouns that were a part of my life (such as friends, family, travel, countries, toys, electronics, etc.) into big checklists. Wanted a toy? Saved for it, bought it, check. Hadn't seen a friend in awhile? Called them, check. Another country to see? Go there, come home, check. On to the next. Now, nothing wrong with this intrinsically, and I am cool with others operating this way, but for me, I think I started to miss something. Life became a big "to do" list. I rarely spent time immersed in a moment, savoring it. Instead, I was off to the next task, next adventure, next relationship. I became a doer. I became restless. I couldn't sit in a moment, or be present to what was in front of me or be able to listen. And so, my newest life lesson is approaching nouns differently. Without the checklist. If is and will be a difficult struggle and imperfect journey, but one worth pursuing =)

Right now we are on a train to Vienna to meet some friends we met very briefly in North Ireland who happened to live in Austria's capital. Kindra's birthday is September 7th, so we will celebrate in one of her fave European cities =)

Cheers!

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.