Mittwoch, 29. Mai 2013

A week already..

So we've spent a week in the woods. What happened?

We applied for lots of jobs. Yesterday I threw in my application for a job as activity assistant at a nursing home. Today I was asked to come in for an interview already. Wow. I hope I didn't talk myself out of that job when trying to explain my point on not wanting to do "puppetry" as entertainment at that job. It's so hard for me to talk to people about theatre here, because theatre here means something so completely different than in germany. (Like singing, dancing and musical as for what I experienced most of the time.) Even in germany it was hard to explain the difference between what I was doing towards "regular" theatre and towards what people thought of as puppet theatre. IT IS REALLY STUPID.

Whatever.
I'll hear back from them next week.
Apart from that: We went for a walk in the woods. Saw some huge tracks. You know, there are cougars and bobcats and coyotes out there. Bears, too. We have to go back there some time soon, to see if we can find more tracks with our new gained knowledge. (After our walk we searched a little bit more online about what it might be.)

Today after the interview we had a look at the local library and got surprised. They really do have some great books. And more people than we thought were visiting, reading and enjoying the calmness of the books. I took four books home with me. One about inuit art. I find myself stumbling upon inuit art recently and always being fascinated by the themes and looks of masks, objects and paintings. Another book about concrete (architecture) seemed appealing to me.
One book called "The Beak of the Finch" and another one "The rise of the creative class" that I just started reading while at the library and continued here at home. It seems to be pretty interesting and I'm looking forward to such a lot of awesome input.

Summary of this experience: Libraries = good places.
Which reminds me to thank my parents for taking us to the library and letting us read for hours and hours when we were kids instead of just putting us in front of the television. It seems like they did something right with that decision. Which doesn't mean that I didn't appreciate watching our sunday morning program ("Siebenstein","Löwenzahn" and "Die Sendung mit der Maus" or sometimes a fairytale or documentation, that definitely made me the person I am now, too). But you all know what I am talking about, I assume. Darum danke, liebe Eltern!


And last but not least, I just show you a couple of random pictures from our trip:

downtown in denver, colorado
empty buildings, empty streets, yellow houses and far away mountains, colorado

Sonntag, 26. Mai 2013

So here we are. Looking for jobs. Trying to keep up some good mood while applying for all those stupid chains and corporations that we hate. It might be a good lesson to work for one of them. It might built up resume. And give us experience in another field that we never actually wanted to have experience with. Haha. Like canvassing I think. And hopefully, as soon as we're back from germany at the end of september we can get a good job at either whole foods markets in Tampa or a vegan restaurant in St. Pete.. Squeeze your thumbs hard for luck!
In the meantime we just try to make the best out of everything.

Dienstag, 21. Mai 2013

Hello Florida

Just one hour divides us from our destination. One hour, a bridge and 338 miles. The water is green, emerald green like the coast is named. Miramar beach, the place where we spent our first night on our way to the West. Now we probably spent our last night on our way east here, too.
I found two dresses for two weddings I'm going to this summer. I couldn't decide. I took them both. It was the first thrift store out of many that we visited yesterday. Chilled day. Our mood is slowly going worse. Sleeping in the car... And the food is getting so frustrating. So frustrating! Whatever. Here we are. We enjoy a year in the sun. Hello Florida! How's it going?

Sonntag, 19. Mai 2013

Gulf coast and swamp land

We're heading towards Florida now. Left Houston yesterday evening and took the ferry from Galveston to Bolivar peninsula. We slept at the beach but sleeping in the car gets worse from day to day. And the beach was full with idiots that kept driving onto the beach and shooting fire works and stuff. We woke up early, chased for restrooms and went back to the beach for a giant watermelon breakfast. We didn't stay long because the beach was slowly getting more crowded. No one walked to the beach. We just saw people sitting in golf carts driving onto it, that's the modern way, eh? Or in their fat pick ups. It's really sad. And all the trash along the shore, too. So we left.
morning at the peninsula beach
Now we pretty much find ourselves on the same roads that we took on our way here. Just the other way around and at different times of the day. It's still hot and it's not too spectacular.
Louisiana bridge across swamps and wilderness

Donnerstag, 16. Mai 2013

Through Texas

Got another one of these bars in Austin, TX, where we're stationed until tomorrow. This time I at least made picture of the package. Bar was gone too soon again. Yumm..


The last days we went through Texas in small steps. Taking long breaks, and driving small roads since we had so much time. Unfortunately we both caught a cold and now our throats are itching and my nose is jammed. Sleeping in the car is less and less fun (when was it?) and so we're looking forward to staying in a Motel tonight and on our friends floor tomorrow. We're going to spent a lazy day in Austin, checking out raw vegan food. What else can you do in Austin?

Oh and before I forget: I totally fell in love with the beautiful part of Texas that's called Hill Country. We drove through the lushest and most colorful place since we left Oregon here. The sides of the streets are lined with yellow and red flowers, it looks like a wild flower bouquet.
It is so incredibly beautiful!

Dienstag, 14. Mai 2013

Two canyons, two state parks, Colorado and Texas, no time to write about it. It's hot. And we're heading towards Houston. Lots of time though. More about all that stuff hopefully soon...

Samstag, 11. Mai 2013

Denver II - food

We went to the vegan store and I actually found what I was looking for: punk rawk labs' raw vegan nut cheese. We got it and had a breakfast picnic on the street. This cheese was one of the best things I ever ate in my life. Oh yeah! Get it. We ate the whole thing wrapped in big hands full of spinach leaves. So good.
no picture of our meal, it was gone too quick, just the box was left and presentable..
I got a vegan "twinkie", too. Had it an hour ago. It was good, but I guess I'd rather get a vegan donut if I had the choice next time. And Sisto got a raw bar from bearded brothers, mango coconut, which was really good, too.
no picture of Sisto's bar, too, whatever...
I call that a yummy Denver day...

Denver

Oregon sunshiny day
Hey there, it's a nice and sunny saturday morning (here) and we're hanging around at the coffee place with the free wifi. Checking stuff and writing things.
Yesterday night Sisto and me both played Denver noise fest. It was a great evening and I was really satisfied with my set. No problems with the gear and the sound was huge. What a PA! I was so nervous.. Sistos set was great, too, though he again faced some problems with his equipment.
So tonight we'll just enjoy watching other people play and hanging out at the place.

Denver is huge. Now we know why everybody tells you Portland is a small city. Driving into town was a major adventure. So many lanes on the interstate. Big time chaos. We're happy about our gps. First thing we did when entering this town that's so far behind with seasons (it snowed two weeks ago, right? so for sure the trees not yet have changed their attire) was checking out "local organic lunch". A raw vegan food cart. The food was really good. Only the size of the portions was just for a snack. (At least for us.)

Now we're going to check out the vegan store, maybe a thrift store, head back to the venue to join the harsh noise toast (= potluck noise fest brunch) and see if we can make new friends.
Hopefully the weekend will be lots of fun!

Last rest stop in ... ? - Idaho
Utah
3 x Wyoming
approaching Colorado...

Donnerstag, 9. Mai 2013

Car

Here we are again. Our car is getting checked out because it hit the ground when we entered an unpaved road. We didn't see the road was unpaved. It didn't say the road was unpaved. The map showed it as paved. And we hit the ground. There was some oil leaking. And we're waiting for them to have it done. No major issue, they say. Nothing that comes from hitting the ground. Just eats a lot of oil and again we're worried about our car.

Yesterday evening, just after I posted everything was fine, we had some trouble with our tire, too. There were some stones stuck between tire and rim. The streets here in Wyoming are so shitty. So many holes. So many deep holes, lots of them on the freeway. So we checked that, had some mechanic at a tire shop that was luckily close by tell us his opinion. He put some stuff in there and we paid him 15 bucks. Alright. Please, no more stuff like this for the rest of the trip!

Mittwoch, 8. Mai 2013

Ogden, UT

First thing this morning was saying Good Bye to Oregon. We spent an awesome day with our friends in Eugene. Unfortunately the show wasn't as successful since the gear freaked out and after trying two minutes to get it working I just broke up. Sisto kind of got through his set before but it was already doing this and thats..

So after driving through the woods and the plains of eastern Oregon yesterday, today we made it through Idaho. Right now we're spending just a tiny little moment in Utah before we hit the road agin towards Wyoming. Taking the safe route, I 80, towards Denver. Hoping there'll be no snow. Hoping that we reach Denver safe and sound.

My neck hurts from sleeping in the car. A rough night. I really hope tonight will be more comfy, though I'm pretty sure we just have to adjust to that kind of sleeping positions, crouched behind the steering wheel, feet on the dashboard or whatever kind of experimental yoga positions we'll find that make us fall asleep for at least a little while.

We already set the time back one hour.
Over and out.

Montag, 6. Mai 2013

It's that time again


The time to say good bye. Tomorrow we'll hit the road. To Eugene first, playing a show. Then over towards Denver. Another fixed point on our trip. May 10th has been confirmed for quite a while. Sisto and me are going to play at Denver noise fest. And then a third show on our way to Florida in Houston, TX. That's on the 17th. So much about our plans. Apart from that we hope to see a bit more of the gorgeous landscapes and landmarks on our way than in our fall-apart vehicle. But since we kinda have to rush to be in the right places in time, we don't really know yet. Sleeping will be adventurous, too. In the car, in the seats. But apart from that, I'm kind of relaxed. We moved so many times and such big distances that this time it almost feels normal. It almost feels like something that you're used to. Like fixing a tire every once in a while. Or cleaning out you're once again too packed closet. I don't know. Like a task that you know you're capable of.

And even though I really like Portland, I don't really feel sad about leaving. I'm kind of happy about having some distance between me and the place where I had such a hard time for a couple of months. I'll happily come back again, but right now it feels like Goodbye is the right season. One thing that came to our minds:
We came to Portland at the worst time of the year (like when it's getting cold, dark and nasty - though we had a really pretty autumn and a mild winter and I never felt too bad about the seasons since I like them like this). Now we once again move to Florida at the worst time of the year (with the humidity of summer approaching slowly).

We'll just have to stay long enough to experience winter time in the south east of the country, when it's supposed to be perfect over there.
Well, that's our plan and so it be. First we gonna cross a hell lot'a states again..

have some vegan ice cream!

Samstag, 4. Mai 2013

Ecola State Park

Finally here's a little bit about our last day at the Oregon coast.
We visited Ecola State Park.

From our sleeping place in the unknown little Washington village we headed towards the south. Following the directions of the nice lady at Oregon Film Museum who had told us about the site of the giant rock.

We arrived at Indiana Beach early, the air was saturated with morning fog and the sun still was pretty low. Indiana beach looked stunning. A little creek was running over a bed of round pebbles and sand and further away we saw some giant rocks at the shore.
We went towards the end of the beach, crawling over rocks and stones and exploring the different kinds of stone that had gathered in this place. Seeing crowds of fat sea stars hanging at the side of the rock above the water. It was tide.
After walking along the beach, when it got a little more crowded, we decided to hike the trail to Ecola Point.
The trail was winding along the cliff and through the forest and mud made the hike at least not too easy.  After about a good half hour we arrived at Ecola Point and saw the rock. It just looked like in the movies. Huge. Majestic. Still far away since it's closer to Cannon Beach than the Park. But as we found out later the meadow that we had a picnic on a couple hours later was exactly the place where the shot parts of "The Goonies" and "Kindergarten Cop".

Now it's out. Haha. You don't have to wonder any more.

We hiked back and took the car and our provosions to Ecola Point to have lunch and take a break from mud and shadow. The sun was bright.
We had a great time and even saw a couple of whales for a good while out in the sea.
What a perfect ending for a perfect weekend!