To sum up the last of my European tour:

After Sweden, I flew back to London, hung out with Drew for couple days, then to the much-talked-about Bristol Juggling Convention. All the rumors are true. It is a very laid back festival and attracts very talented jugglers and performers... although it's also a very social convention and most of the time it's more of a juggler's bristoling convention. ...

After that: Geneva, and a very fast and slick Swiss train to Zurich, where I met up with my good friends Naomi and Adrian for 1.6 days. Naomi is a Canadian who has thrown herself into storytelling as deeply and for as long and I have with poi. Adrian is her lovable Swiss boyfriend. When I'm feeling wayward I often reflect on how at least I get to hang out with the coolest people on the planet. Naomi and Adrian are often people I'll think about in this context. With a little luck we'll all be collaborating on a show within the next year or two. I stayed with them at an organic vineyard in the mountains, and I had a strong "home" feeling. I made new friends as well, with the others at the farm, and some good seeds were sewn.

And then back into the whirlwind: Workshops in Zurich (thanks Christian and Luzia!), a long train to Munich (thanks Michael!), more workshops, and then a very fun morning with Andy, who took me to Octoberfest, and then drove me to Nunberg to meet up with Sam, for more workshops in Nunberg, Frankfurt, and Dusseldorf. Then I caught a train to Bremen to do a tiny workshop and visit Gordon and Ying, who I met in Thailand three years ago. Gordon always has the effect of getting me back on track with developing better habits, and after a summer of drinking a lot of coffee, I stopped, and haven't started again. Wish me luck on that one.

Ah, but no rest for the wicked: After a brief visit and a little workshop, I swooshed all the way south on a train that goes 250km/hour, to do a workshop with 20 little kids, organized by Christine. It was a lot of fun, although a bit hectic. I put on a fire show for the kids and their families, and they were such a sweet audience. It was a really special show. The next day Christine drove me to Manheim, and on the way we went for a big walk in the woods and rain, and we explored castles, including the big castle in Heidelberg, which was like something out of The Lord Of The Rings. You won't believe how many castles there are in Germany.

And then I hung out with Olivier for a day, and we had a great walk and talk along the river, and then a workshop at "the Villa" in Heidelberg, which is a community artist house with big fire pit out back, and every wednesday there's a party, and it was wednesday, and oh what a party it was. I even got kissed by a beautiful woman! How great is that? Not a lot of sleep though.

The next day, Stuttgart, where we had the biggest and very back-to-back workshops of the tour (most of them were quite small), landing me back at Christina's place, packing for Thailand, at 1:30am. Then up at 6am to catch a very delayed train back to Frankfurt, for a bit of a stressful airport experience, and then we fly to a little country in the Middle East I'd never even heard of, and then to... Thailand.

To be continued...