Some People Part 2

Ok so it's been a while. Part of it is my fault, and the other part is, well... also my fault. As I've previously written, my apartment is currently under construction. Like heavy duty, total makeover construction. And, well, I used my computer to listen to music while I was using a jackhammer to cut into the concrete walls. The dust got into the computer and crashed it. Yeah it sucked.

I tracked down an Apple store in Innsbruck, but not until ten minutes after they closed. So I took the 45-minute bus ride back to Kolsass and went to a bar for dinner. While talking to the owner about my recent misadventure in Innsbruck she said she'd call her computer guy and see what he could do. As it turns out "fix the whole dang thing" is what he could do. The piece that was broken would have cost 1,000 Euros at an apple store (that's 1,333 Dollars about 200 less than what I bought the dang thing for). He did it for 100 Euros (still a hunk of cash, but only 10 percent of what it should have cost) and I had it back in two days.

The woman who referred me to the computer guru is also the woman who will be renting my apartment when I leave. She and her husband, have been phenomenal to me since I've gotten here. In fact, since they had to take out my oven and stove to do some wiring, they've been inviting me to the bar two or three times a week to feed me. Which is awesome because he cooks a lot better food than I would have made for myself.

Some people are like that. It seems that for every jacket-nabbing Kraut in the world, there is an alpine village full of Austrians willing to sit down and have a beer or share a meal with you.

I met several of these people when I went schellenschlagen last week.

Schellenschlagen is a Tyrollean tradition dating back 250 or so years. The idea is that the men of the village get together and strap on these huge bells and then go through the streets ringing them to scare away the evil ghosts of winter.  The video above shows them doing it in a parade on "Unsinniger Donnerstag", but the village men do it periodically all through the Fasching (Carnival) season. When not in a parade setting it more resembles christmas caroling. They ring the bells up and down the village streets and up to peoples houses, except they get schnapps and beer and mulled wine instead of hot-chocolate.

Last Thursday I got invited to go along...by someone that didn't even show up. That meant I infiltrated a time-honored, culturally significant tradition and the guy who invited me wasn't even there to vouch for me. It took the rest of the guys three stops to work up the courage to ask me who the heck I was. After that we had a great time. They were very excited to have their first American Schellenschlager, though I did have to keep pulling out my passport to prove that I wasn't German. Which is a compliment I guess.