Pierre the cat walks up a mountain.

So this story may sound unbelievable, but somehow it's not. I guess it starts out with Pammi and Al getting here yesterday accompanied by a desire to hike to the Guttenheute. This is an all time favorite for the family, and at 15 miles and 5000 feet of altitude gain it's pretty impressive and awe-inspiring. At the sumit, the tops of the mountains we wake up to everyday seem reachable and the view is expansive. So, that's pretty much the hike.

But, wait, Pierre! Pierre is about four pounds and mostly white, save for his black tail, ears and eye circles. I met him today at the trail head and made a bunch of gurggling baby sounds and scooped him up into my arms, where he purred for ten seconds and wiggled free.  And I thought "bye, cat!" He of course had no name at that point, and I expected nothing more than that feline touch and go affection followed by aloofness.

He wouldn't get his name for a mile more, while Al bemoaned the affection I gave the cat and Ben asked me my new friends name. "Pierre!!"

Al came around quick, cause how could you not, and was soon waiting for Pierre while he chugged around some switchbacks. When we ran into two cows at a lookout, we had to rescue Pierre as a calf chased him into the forest!

We attempted to drop him off at a hut half way up the mountain, promising to return for him, but the woman did not want the responsibility. She already had a cat, you see.

So there it was, the five of us still, and so we went. When we finally got to the top, Pierre was fashioned a leash out of a rubber band and my sweater (he already had a collar to which I attached the rubber band). We soon learned Pierre could walk up a mountain, but he hated leashes. We think also that despite his good temprament, the crowd was maybe too big and the grackles that were flying low spooked him. The service was bad, but felt longer due to Pierre's bad behavior. Pammi made the apt observation that there we were, no kids or time frame no nothing at all, feeling rushed at  lunch for a cat. A  cat that wasnt even ours. Eventually, he calmed and sat in Ben's lap, where Ben dutifully hand fed him kanoodle, which is sort of like a dumpling I guess. Who knew cats ate such things.

He followed us all the way down, though we carried him to the tree line as he was still a little nervous. I had fashioned a sling out of a sweater, where he rested for a time.

We brought him home -- he had an ID on him. The pet tags are cool, a little bell that rings against a metal capsule. The capsule unscrewed and a little rolled paper came out, almost like he was a messanger cat. Someone else must have found him recently, as something really explicit was written on the reverse side (we scratched it out). His Momma was sort of indifferent at first. She explained he roams, thinking we must be hyper-sensitive cat vigalantes patroling the hood for strays. But when we explained the  story complete with pictoral proof, she was aghast. Pierre ploped down immediately in a shady spot on the driveway, while she told us that Max (as she called him) is only four months old.

Uber Oktoberfest

Up bright and early for a day of celebration, we bused and trained from the alps to the flatlands. As our train neared Munchen (munich) it filled with folks dressed as morgan and I in dirdel and lederhosen, some already (by 10am) in preparatory stages of inebriation.
Our anticipation built as we pulled into the main station. Worries of being lost in the big foreign city were quickly assuaged as torrents of eager citizens showed us the way.

Oktoberfest is just like our american town fairs in many ways. Rides, games, food, family, teen antics. However the overarching theme is beer and its effects. Giant magnificent tents put up for three short weeks by Munchen's many fine breweries serve equally giant (only size available: 1 litre) beers of equally magnificent taste and headiness. Traditional live music, dancing on tables, roast beasts of air land and sea (we did not witness it but apparently at times entire oxen roasting on spits). My only regret is I couldn't speak german to make friends, or didn't drink enough to try.

We had a fine time, 3 beers each (nearly a gallon!) and only a big pretzel between us put Morgan and I ready to catch the last bus home, after getting reprimanded for urinating on the monument of Bavaria. We missed the night time festivities (which get even raudier, by reputation) due to our travel home, so next time we will have to stay in the city for greater cultural fulfillment.

A cow parade in Söll

We spent way too long on a bus today, turns out Austria wins at beer prices and mountains but falls far behind in traffic control. We spent an hour on a bus and traversed a total of, um, a quarter kilometer. Turns out a lane had been closed for, as far as Ben and I could tell, a few pebbles had fallen into the road.

It was all worth it as we arrived to the sound of bells, the smell of cow poo and an impressive brass band. It was a strolling of the cows, I guess you'd say. The parade is based around the cows coming down from their high alpine meadows for the winter. The good and bountiful milkers are given these elaborate head dresses to wear and when they walk the tassles and bells shake -- it was really amazing. The farmers each proudly marching their herd through the town streets, the cows pissin' and shittin' all over the place, all the people downing schnapps and beers like it's their job. Ben and I much enjoyed noting what a stark contrast that exsists between farming in the US and Austria. Everything is so integrated and normalized. It seems unfathomable to even imagine something like pooping cows in downtown Northampton and drunken folks in colonial clothing loving it. I guess there is the strolling if the heffers in Brattlboro, but that seems less attached to a farming cycle. This was a homecoming, really, for cows and farmers. Furthermore, I am coming to realize more and more that Vermont might just be an Americann imitation of the Alps.

And I took a video here

Bought german outfits and played minigolf!

Also for oktoberfest, where we are going on monday!

Raw milk mechanical dispensary!

What! 60 cents for a litre! From the cows that roam the fields around town! Organic! Yes please today and everyday!

Ellmau, we're here.

The alps here in Austria are magnificent, one of the ridges visible from the picturesque tourist town of Ellmau looks like monster teeth. All in a curved row, sort of crooked and hungry. I suppose its looking to eat us, as Bens got it in his head that we are going to walk through the gaps. Oma says its close to religion once you get up there. I may not yet be convinced. Perhaps its fangs outside our bedroom window will lure me.

Ben and I enjoyed a beer in the town square last night while fighting off our jet lag. Whilest sitting at an outdoor cafe, we witnessed (as the whole town did) a marching band! They were all wearing liederheusens and whatever the dress women wear is called. A woman in back of the band was playing a base drum in a wagon pulled by a small blonde child! Soon, they were playing in a public stage and the music surrounded us while a surprise brass section began echoing into the crowd from geranium covered balconies. From behind the stage a small church was perfectly lit on a grassy hill side pasture. (Cows roam everywhere here)

This morning I ate my first traditional austrian/german breakfast made up of cut meats, cheese, a hard boiled egg, pastry, bread that tastes sort of stake but isn't, and pate in a single serving plastic dish way better than the pate I attempted to make for Ben's birthday. If that sounds like a huge breakfast, that's because it was. And we needed all that energy for the hike we went on today up to some panoramic restaurant from which we could see all the way into the italian alps. The view was incredible making mother nature look ambitious. Peak after peak, covered in snow by late September, with no visible break between.

I cant figure out how to put pictures in between text on my phone, so y'all have to be smart enough.

Overnighting = love

My mother, the great Sheri Lynn, was so kind as to overnight a pair of newbalance shoes I had left at her house. They were the new minnys, seven ounce, barefoot tech shoes. Special purchase for the trip. Along with the shoes, she sent along my grandfathers rosary. He wasnt really all too catholic, and she had me expecting a plastic trinket out of a 25¢ machine. But it arrived and was actually made in italy and seems pretty legit. I have memorized our father and the hail mary. I  think I will skip the apostles creed, the cadense doesn't really appeal to my ear. Soon, I will learn it all in spanish and maybe say it everyday. Ben says pilgrimages are all about that sort of thing, a daily practice and such. He mediates in a real way, Ima be a visting or maybe just fake catholic.

We are leaving tomorrow!

Hello, everyone! By which, I mean, my mother and father and a handful of interested friends. Ben and I, whom you may know as exactly that, are going to Europe tomorrow. We are flying into Munic where we are getting picked up by some German or maybe Austrian folks. They are taking us to a town called Elmau in the Austrian Alps. I believe the story is that Ben's Grandmother named Brunie used to vacation on the slopes of this town when she was a young girl living in Germany. Ben and I mostly speculated this fact while we were in his new truck on 95 somewhere in New Jersey. It's not really a fact based in fact. But at any rate, Ben has been there many times before as a child. He has lots of fond memories that involve hiking the mountains and sitting on shut down saw mills. The pension where we are staying seconds as a saw mill and might be slightly responsible for his hobbies and profession (he's a carpenter), or perhaps all young boys given a chance will sit on the nearest piece of large machinery they can climb. He also remembers running up and down and sideways all over the slopes until stumbling upon a farm or maybe just an Austrian homestead. The women, seeing this adorable boy who, knowing Ben had the joy of the outdoors all over his face, gave him a gallon of fresh raw goats milk. He said he drank it up, relishing in something. Other wonderful stories he carries with him about this place include the local fame his sisters earned as the strawberry girl. Apparently in the mirco-feashe section of some Austrian library there is a photo of her, sitting happily in a field, with her face covered in berry juice. Awesome.

So, yes, this is the first leg of our journey. Austria. Ben tells me that when we get to the top of his favorite peak called Guttenheuter, which I would phonetically spell Gutten-whoo-ga, we can drink a beer and eat a full meal, making the Alps maybe simultaneously the most expensive and most delicious place to backpack. We are not, in fact, backpacking yet and will not start for another two weeks or so. We do, however, have backpacks! And I have a story about mine.

I purchased a backpack when I was living in Oregon in the Summer of 2008. I used it for 3 years, tore some holes into it, sewed it up with dental floss, affixed a patch that said "imagina que no haya paises," which at the time I recognized neither as incorrect grammar nor a John Lenon quote, and stored it in a dank basement over the winter where it molded. I recently walked in holding this backpack and put it on the counter and with a straight face asked for a refund. The man told me that REIs Satisfaction Guarantee was for slightly used and potentially resalable items, and my backpack would just be put in a dumpster. The manager came over, typed some numbers into the computer, looked at me and said, "If you really think that you deserve all your money back for this, then we'll do that for you." I said okay and she repeated the sentence "If you think you deserve the money back" followed by a clause about the condition of my backpack a few more times before giving me a full refund, which I immediately turned into a better pack. Thank you, REI. I will never shop at EMS again.

So, now, Ben and I have the same backpack. And let the record stand, I wanted this bag since the summer of 2008 and it is only through my guidance that he happened to purchase his. But, they match, how cute it that? Mine is the red one.