Seven Years Bad Sex

So, drinking, the tradition in Austria is to look each other in the eye and say, "proust." I asked at an inn to the innkeeper--what happens if you don't look each other in the eye? I expected the answer to be something like, I'll turn into a toad or not find the trail of bread crumbs. No. The answer is: Seven Years Bad Sex.

Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. As I hear the cathedral bells toll and echo across the valley, please don't let that be true, because I think I didn't make adequate eye contact on the toast...

Tanze Mit Widernde Hunde

The best I can figure it, the sign I saw while I was running this morning was some sort of advisory about wild dogs. It was early and only peeking light, misty with a wooly fog hanging on the mountains. The black pebbles on the trail were wet and black and the evergreens were dark-trunked and thick. Mud was cold and the whole forest smelled like wild clover, and that advisory sign was the type of creepy that you can feel brushing your neck hairs up.

I unplugged my iPod so I could hear any toe clicking or soft panting , and I kept looking behind me as I ran, got lost, backtracked and eventually made my way back to the hotel.

So, I'd like to give a shout out to all my wildernde hunde out there and say thanks for mot eating me this morning. Kibble's on me tomorrow.

And I must have been a bit bothered, because as I write this over breakfast, I just realized I put sauerkraut on my eggs.

Charles Lindbergh, A Thrashed Turbo-Deisel and David Hasselhoff

My driver, I swear he said his name is Charles Lindbergh, looks mild enough--late 40's, trim mustache, glasses--but he is absolutely flogging the little Citroen. We're hurtling from Munich to the Austrian border at about 180 kph. I'm a bit thrashed myself and fall asleep for a bit, waking up to the same hum of the motor, the speedo still riding high, and a little blue sign on the side of the road denoting that we are crossing in to Austria. He begins to talk to me about the big downhill ski race in Kitzbuhel--he builds the finish area for it--and as we slingshot past bicycles, trucks and fun-spoliers, he gives me a general lay of the land.

There's an inn that we pass (quickly) and Charles Lindbergh tells me it has been open every single day since 1750-something. I ask if they serve beer and his return look tells me he now thinks I'm an idiot. He says only, "Schnietzel." Then he asks about Sarah Palin.

The airline lost my bags, all of them, tools, jackets, underoos, so when the car stumbles to the curb of my hotel and gasps for mercy, I make the general stop at the desk and let then know to get the gear to me asap when it arrives. I say goodbye to Charles Lindbergh and find my room for a deep and drooling nap.

Now maybe it is the altitude, the travel velocity, or that I have a strange response to hearing the German language, but I dreamed of David Hasselhoff. He was dressed up in his Knight Rider issue and getting married. Who the lucky bride was, I don't know, but I was crying like a baby. Inconsolable.

So, I woke at about 5 this morning. The sun is on the mountain tops. I can see brown cows on the far hills. My bags still aren't here, but there is work to do. Tchuss.

Long Distance Travel And A 2.116305134e+14 Mile Detour

The universe is so big. You might as well walk out into it...

It is about a hundred miles out of Portland to make the way up to Goldendale, Wa. There you'll find a public observatory housing a homemade telescope with a two foot mirror. Enough to bring some wicked distant points of light into view.

Before it is even dark, Arcturus beams out, road weary and having started the trip long ago, flickering like tired eyes. Three years older than me, the event that I see through the eyepiece is hard to understand: This great bursting collaboration of nuclear fusion, time and distance is lost. As we see it happening now, it has really happened 36 years ago. It has only taken this long for the light to travel to us. It happens thousands of times simultaneously each clear night, each star is a different story, a different traveler from a different time. But here and there must not be so different. In fact, at night the horizon begins to blend with the sky: The stars blipping on, the red indicator lights on waves of wind turbines, the bare black landscape with occasional windows lit comfortably, clouds creeping from the south, and a warm, but far-away bed. It's all only distance and proximity. Filament and fusion. And it is worth the trip. If Arcturus is traveling over 2oo trillion miles to meet you, you might as well amble out an easy hundred or so.

Ich Liebe die Veloce Moto

Ahh, Italy and Germany... When I think of these places, I think smoky airports, lunchmeat for breakfast, men with high-maintenance hair, women with expensive handbags... The big M and Hitler sucked royally, but argue this down, Johnny: BMW and Ducati motorcycles. Yeah?

Enter my new badass friend Adrienne-with-the-hot-bike. (2006/07 Ducati Sport 1000) She invited me out on a ride and flat took me to school on some excellent roads yesterday.

Here's how the day went--

a- Straight roads, behind a line of cars, riding through towns, I could get close enough to hear the two-part harmony of our exhausts. Mmmmm. Very cool sound. Like two bee hives, only lower and louder. I'm not sure why I like this. I'm a dork, I guess. Shut up.

b- Winding roads. I'd do my best to keep up (not really, but still within sight) through the first couple of turns--matching lines, watching to see when she might be braking (nearly irrelevant given the two bikes' technological differences). Then she and the Ducati would be Gone-Johnson. They were Italianally fashionable, talented and way, way up the road as I lumped around turns on my old BMW with a big, stupid grin. 15 or 20 miles would go by and we'd meet up--Adrienne would patiently wait for me, and I'd pull up to see her with the helmet and jacket off, dozing, halfway through War and Peace already... I gotta work on reducing that lag-time.

c- Gas stations. Easy conversation, Coca-Cola and taking turns fielding compliments on the machines. And rightly so.

Don't get me wrong, here. I dig the Mighty BM' like nothing else, but there were times (many) when it felt more like a runaway John Deere--specifically when the road turned sharply on a downhill stretch. So, on top of doing my best to be a better rider, having an absolute blast all day and after eight hours wrestling the old lady, I find myself having lusty and transgressive thoughts about something newer. Italian perhaps?

Until then it's business as usual with me--Austria, Germany, maybe France. Hungary was called off, but I'll be in Mexico this fall. Yesterday did a good job getting my head out of the clouds and getting me excited about riding the moto back to the east coast in August. Route planning. Classes and oblivion... Who knows...

Ciao-Vroom