The giant white bull in the middle of the way says that taking a break from deliriously snaking up the unlit back-roads is a good decision to make right now. That portable stove is handy for a coffee in the sticks after hours in the dark going up. The hair-pin hills are growing into wild mountains. The sun has hit the floor and the foot has hit the pedal in a bid to reach the top before the break of dawn. Motion sickness yields to the will behind the wheel – ready for its turn to take the driver for a spin, when they finally come around the last bend. Focus is a friend in the tired face of fear.
Why would you want to while away a week in Vienna when the whole wide world is waiting..?
Photos by Tessa Mythos
Those thrift shop trouser you got two countries ago, are still too long. The Eastern tailor at the bottom of Rennweg can fix it for Friday, he promises. He measures you deftly and questions you about your nation’s glorious economy. “40 years ago Wien was wunderbar, now it is ein Katastrofe!”, he sighs as he charges you a 10’er for his services. They include some lengthy lamentations: Rent is through the roof. Wages are a joke. Insurance is unreasonable. Police are targeting him in traffic. You untangle yourself from the harsh realities of his life and hit the street hungrily with a rumbling unease.
.
You are welcome in Vienna if you can get past the palace gates
I wake up smiling in a lunatic asylum, where every room is a work of art. People party on through the crack of dawn. Cucumber, cream-cheese and crackers for breakfast. In front of our tent is a wild-looking woman, sprawled out on the grass, with sand in her eyes, cursing her tobacco pouch, early-morning rolling skills, and her businessman boyfriend serving 3 months in some easy jail for his perceived right to personally enjoy free public transportation. Everyone in our camp shares a giant watermelon.
A painted prayer in progress
Last night, my beautiful partner and her circle of witches prayed for the mighty forest across the ocean, burning from human desire, and I learned that this place, where free spirits are right now celebrating life, once was a wicked way-station for some of the more than two hundred thousand disabled people, who were sent to the gas chambers during the eugenic Nazi-nightmare they call the ‘Krankenmorde’. Peace is a post-war phenomenon.
This is an approximately 8-minute read about my introduction to the beautiful art of timber framing. In my last post, I was just getting ready to join a workshop in Upstate New York, and here are some of my impressions and thoughts from that…
Show Me The Way!
It was a hot day for hitching in Saratoga County, and my tool-pack was getting heavier for every car that passed me by and disappeared in the heat shimmer. The humidity was oppressive and the tarmac stuck to my steel-toes, but I was, nonetheless, in high spirits as I held out my thumb, and prayed for someone to pick me up and take me to Christ the King.
The boring machine that I am using here, was made in the 40’s. Apart from being quite efficient, it also allowed me to listen to the birds rather than the whir and screech from power tools.
I had seen the light, so to speak, only a few weeks earlier – in the Kootenay Rockies, BC – when a dedicated brother had recommended me to take up this journey. But it wasn’t so much Jesus that I was in search of, as it was the secrets of his worldly profession. You see, Jesus was a carpenter too, and I was about to discover a way of wood-working, that has been practiced since long before he was born and our calendar begun: I was about to take my first steps into the world of timber framing. More
There is nothing like camping out for a full week at an unimaginably loud and dusty electronic music festival, to make you feel like relaxing by a nice and quiet hot spring, somewhere deep in the Canadian mountains. At least when you know it’s an option, it can easily become a semi-serious obsession as the party progresses and you find yourself peeling your sleeping bag off your grimy back in the mornings. I am speaking out of experience, of course.
A snapshot from the Shambhala Music Festival by the Salmo River
I had been volunteering my carpentry skills at the legendary Shambhala Music Festival in the Kootenay mountains of British Columbia, and it had been a most delightful and wonderfully intense week of hard work and elaborate partying, but now I was positively pooped and – as per usual – down to my last 100 dollars. More importantly, I needed a long, hot bath and a 24-hour nap. More
After a whole year in Denmark – the longest time I have spent there for about 5 years, I am now again on traveling foot and loving every minute of it. This time I have been granted a 1-year working visa for Canada, and although I am only a month into my travels, I already feel like it won’t be enough with merely 11 more! This country is just so incredibly beautiful and the people here are some of the nicest people I have ever met. Here is a brief account of my very first meeting with this great land and it’s awesome humans…More
I wrote this piece for a beautiful friend of mine who recently chose to end her life. I met her in Golden Bay on my first journey to New Zealand, and it was friendship at first sight. Cheyenne had a troubled background, and growing up she suffered severe trauma and abuse. Despite these hard odds, she was an inspiration and a joy to be around and I am honored to have known her. This is my tribute to a brief but powerful friendship that etched a strong impression in my being…
I could tell straight away that she was on a journey of sorts. Outside the nightclub, the fireplace in the cosy yard had caught her full attention. All around us carefree people were laughing and drinking, but as she sat on the ground and stared down the flames, her face was grave, with a strange hint of awe. I was a stranger in town and took my beer in a corner, observing the scene in silence. Suddenly she caught my eyes and fixed me with the most intense stare – piercingly hard and straight through me – yet it wasn’t aggressive but somehow almost pleading. Unusual. I could only return her gaze in hypnotic surprise. She was in a cosmic state of mind and seemed to be navigating a particularly rough patch of universe just then. A solitary psychonaut making her way home through a soulful storm.
The banana shake in my hand seems to have a scoop of strawberry jam at the bottom. My friend agrees after an eager sample and convincingly adds: ”Why not?” I try again and decide that it just isn’t right. I love exploring new cultures and their food, but I simply cannot embrace all customs, hard as I might try.
We are waiting for our parathas to arrive, a late lunch on our way to the barber. Outside the restaurant, a couple of boxes make up our chairs on the roadside. Under the glaring sun, in the dusty heat. Nobody sits outside, except two sun-depraved Scandinavian men.
It’s 3pm, an hour until siesta-time is over, but the old carpenter next door is back in his plywood workshop. In a country with no trees, laminate goes a long way. Two hijab-wearing women in a sleek black sedan pull up at his shop and honk for attention.
The old man goes to them and a slow-paced negotiation, probably about some furniture or other, unfolds through the half opened passenger-window. The locals don’t seem to like being outside much. More
Sultan Qaboos was staring right at me in full regalia, armed with a sable and a dagger. I counted 20-odd medallions on his wide and ribboned chest. He was looking sharp and merciful.
Next to him was another photograph of the Sultan, wearing army fatigues and looking 40 years younger. All shops in Oman hang pictures of their beloved leader on their walls, but this coffee-shop was more dedicated than most. All across its tea-stained walls, Sultan Qaboos was stepping in and out of private jets, shaking hands with world-leaders, inspecting parading soldiers and waving at his minions.
His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman
I was near the capital’s busy and touristy market, the Mutrah Souq, waiting for a round of instant coffee as it were. Made generously with milk and sugar, the way they take it, and the way I love it. From their halwar kameez dress, I figured the staff was Pakistani, but the customers wore mostly Omani dishdashas. I was definitely the blond one out…More
I recently spent 3 fabulous weeks in Ireland with some good friends – new and old. (If you are just here to see some sweet pictures from my latest trip, then scroll down to the gallery part). It was probably my 7th trip there in the decade that has passed since my first impromptu immigration to Ireland. This near-mythical island fascinates me with its resilient culture, at home and abroad. Between 9 and 10 million people have emigrated from Ireland since the 1700’s, and today the Irish People and their descendants count more than 80 million humans. This post is an introduction into the migration-happy Ireland that i have come to know and love.
Fáilte go hÉirinn – Welcome to Ireland!
Also known as “The Emerald Isle”, Ireland is indeed a very green place. Lots of old castles and rugged cliffs too. Just like the brochures really, except they don’t always mention the incessant rain…
Early Irish Impressions
When I was 20 years old, I was living in England’s “San Francisco” – the lively seaside town of Brighton – where young back packers and middle-aged party-addicts spontaneously get stuck until they run out of money or mental health.
I ran out of both after about a year of odd-jobs and shoestring-debauchery – but what a year it was! This was my first bit of proper impromptu migration, traveling alone and with nothing but opportunity and adventure ahead of me. Here I made friends from around the world, and one such friend was the Irishman Joe (Great Mystery rest his soul). More
Welcome and thank you for checking in! This is my humble attempt at conveying some of my travel experiences. I hope you enjoy it! Please feel free to comment...
And don't forget to Keep Dreaming out there folks, the world needs more than a good dream these days, it needs a Great Dream. All together now: Dream!
Impromptu Immigrant 