Breakfast for Dinner: Cinnamon French Toast, Unrecognizable Bacon, and Old-Fashioned Pancakes

Hello Everyone (:

Given the short duration of our stay in Austria, each day is full of meetings for coffee or scouting out locations that might work for filming or signing up for random events that will help us meet new people around the city. I feel like I could write an entire blog post each day about all the new sights and sounds and thoughts, but it's probably better to refrain. So I'll give you a quick update.

Yesterday, I met with Paul, who works for a media company that rents camera equipment. Paul has made several documentaries and knows a lot about the business, so he helped raise a lot of important questions and also pointed out the possibilities for the project. Sitting with him in Cafe Ritter, drinking an Eis-Kaffee (which actually includes the delicious addition of vanilla ice cream, not ice cubes), the wheels in my mind began vividly turning at the idea of using high-quality film equipment and actually turning our small-scale project into a full-length feature film. But I'm only dreaming as I sit there, because the idea in itself is so grandios that it almost frightens me with the overwhelming details.

Talking to Kristen about it later most definitely helped. She pointed me towards the initial intention of the project, which is simply to explore the humanity of connection and vulnerability, and the universal drive of people to want to relate to one another and be with one another. I felt a lot better, much more ok with simply gathering all the interviews and pieces of film and experiences of life in these next three weeks, with the intention to put it all together in the end, and to see what story results. It helped me to be able to release the pressure of wanting to know exactly what this project will turn out to be, and give God the power to have the control. In a way, this entire project is an exercise of faith: that the right people to interview will show up, that the connections will be built, that more will happen with our clips of film than we can ever imagine.

And letting go proves to be the key to joy, I am finding. I'm currently reading a book by John Piper about fighting for joy, a concept that simultaneously entices my soul and scares me out of my mind. The idea of "fighting for joy" gives me both the power, and the responsibility to engage in the beauty that is a relationship with God. But forgive my spiritual ramblings, perhaps they have no place on this blog that deals with our project.

I bring up the idea of joy, however, because today I had an incredibly joy-filled evening. I had done a little (ok, not a little; rather, quite a bit) of research and found an indie-recordstore/bookstore/cafe that apparently catered to uni students, and invited Lenka (who I met on Sunday) to meet me at the Ubahn station so we could go to coffee. The next half an hour was almost a miraculous series of random events that lead to a wonderful and unforgettable rest of the day. Lenka was a bit later than expected, so I bought myself a small yoghurt and waited for her to arrive. As I sat there, I thought to myself how wonderful it was going to be to see Kristen soon and looked at my poorly-drawn map of how to get to "Phil".

When Lenka came up the escalator, it was so nice to see a friendly, warm face accompanied by the happy, "Hello!". Lenka, who is from Slovakia, is endearingly sweet and authentic, with the kindest heart that immediately welcomes each new person as a friend. She has said she would not mind being interviewed, and I am so excited that she agreed! We bumbled about a bit, getting lost and wandering through a few streets (even finding some real gems that I want to explore for filming), but decided to continue on to try and find Phil. This is when the strange thing occurred: a red-head biked past us at break-neak speed, and we recognized Craig, a young man we'd met on church that Sunday. Lenka and I waved wildly, hoping he'd stop, and he did. Turns out that he had just dropped off another friend of ours, Adam, at Phil, and he could easily show us where it was at.

And so it ended up that the four of us were at Phil (which, by the way, has a really charming, hipster feel) sitting together, ordering Eis Kaffees (this time with ice cubes), talking about a host of random topics, laughing and enjoying the warm summer afternoon. Adam and I couldn't figure out whether our chairs were from the first class section of a 1950s international air cruiser or and run-down 1970s movie theater, and Lenka told us about the the baked chicken her mother had made for her for breakfast that morning in a small town outside of Bratislava. Casey, another friend, came back from a few errands to see Adam, and found us all there. So then there were five of us. It was so nice, and I immediately felt comfortable and welcomed in to their community. Conversation was sweet and it almost felt like returning home, in a way.



We somehow got on the topic of biscuits and gravy, and other delicious breakfast-ey foods, and Adam voiced that he was starving, so we made our way back to my apartment. There, after a short grocery-store haul, we pulled together a magnificent meal of cinnamon french toast, American pancakes, mimosas, home-made apricot jam from Slovakia, and very burnt non-baconey bacon (German/Austrian bacon is different than American bacon). I would go as far as to say that this was the best breakfast-for dinner I've ever had [tip: the best pancakes are made with lactose-free milk and a hot pan]. Besides the mess and the laughter the resulted out of our attempts at cooking, the meal actually ended up being really tasty. We sat outside on the balcony, with the wine-bottle candles and small lanterns, and talked for several hours as the sun went down. It was wonderful and I was reminded of the whole point of the project: to research this joy that comes from being with other people. Cooking burnt, funny-looking bacon and delicious cinnamon french-toast while sitting underneath the Viennese stars is not even half as enjoyable without the people to share the experience with.

Just my thoughts from Vienna. Hope all is well with you, wherever you are, reading this,

Patty