world traveler

clown tom bolton

When I arrived in Europe in 1983 I started in Amsterdam and then went up to Sweden where I knew a couple of girls I had met in New Orleans. It was already September and cold so I headed down to Italy and as far as Athens, Greece. I would have stayed in Greece but I met 2 female Brazilian doctors who were going to Portugal and I decided to go with them. After a couple days in Lisbon they had to fly back home and I went to Spain where I spent the next 5 months including 2 months in the Canary Islands. While in Valencia in November, I met a French girl Dominique and we traveled a while together. I stopped to see her in Dordogne, France in the spring and we started an on going relationship that lasted 5 years. I was often in France to see her in the spring and autumn before and after my summer performing tours through Europe. This was the little farmhouse where she lived a number of years.

In autumn 1984 I was in Stuttgart, Germany and it was cold and rainy. Another American juggler Steve Goetz had shown up in town and we said, "this sucks, why don't we go to Italy". So we went of to Milan, Florence and Venice. Venice was another fantastic place, which I was to visit again a number of times in the future although the police were always quick to stop any street shows. We ran into 2 brothers who were childhood friends of Steve who I would later visit in New Zealand. Coincidently, I took these 3 photos on my last trip to Venice with my Austrian friend Uli, who I had originally met in Kathmandu. On the same day, whom did I run into in Kathmandu but Steve.

I decided to take a week long vacation with my then girlfriend in 1990. We had planned to go to Turkey but with the first Gulf war making it a risk of having the boarders closing, we decided to go to Malta. It's a Mediterranean island, south of Sicily that has been influenced by numerous cultures. It is covered with many ancient buildings and seems to have a cathedral on every other corner, many which contain artwork by Michelangelo. It is also a study in ecological degradation having been virtually deforested some 2000 years ago. The beaches were lousy and the water not very clean but it reeks of history. Nobody tried to pester us to buy things but people tried to short change us at every possible opportunity. The taxi drivers were comically dishonest and the bus drivers would attempt to resell old discarded tickets to the tourists. I felt no threat of robbery but the constant little rip-offs got annoying. These first 3 photos are typical scenes from the capital Valletta.

I traveled extensively through Spain my first year in Europe and made a number of later visits as well. Unfortunately, I no longer have the photos from that part of my early travels except for this one. This is Joaquin, a crazy little sailor I met in Seville where I spent quite some time. Like in the photo, there are many such plazas throughout the city that one stumbles upon while trying to find ones way down the narrowing, winding streets. Whenever there is a holiday and there seemed to be one on almost a weekly basis, the young people would go to such plazas and sing and dance flamenco. It was interesting to see their pride in keeping old traditions although mega discotheques and now rave clubs were prominent as well. In 1984, Spain was relatively cheap and the people were still celebrating their freedom after the long reign of Franco. I don't smoke but hash was supposedly legal at this time and what's sure is that there was always a party going on.

I had flown from Seville to spend Christmas and carnival time in the Canary Islands but returned for Easter and the elaborate Semana Santa or holy week rituals where large statues or crucifixes were carried from the many churches and paraded through the streets. Most participants wore hooded robes reminiscent of the Klu Klux Klan. Many carried large burning candles and spectators would fall to the ground to catch the wax drippings on cards with depictions of holy figures and prayers on them. It was quite the religious spectacle but the hedonist carrying on during carnival had been just as extreme. A week after the holy week finished was the start of the weeklong Feria (fair) de Seville. Possibly the biggest festival in the world, there were said to be over a million people on the fairgrounds some evening. There were even 2 circuses set up here. I tried to do some short shows especially juggling with torches at the fair but it was too much of a madhouse. One time some of the artists from one of the circuses saw me and invited me to party with them as if I was a star.

Anyway, my Spanish was not so good having almost flunked out of it during the 2 years I had it in high school. Joaquin showed me around and was proud to speak some English he had learned while traveling the world some years as a merchant marine. He was small but drank beer like crazy. He said the tradition in Andalusia was not to buy your own drinks while out with friends but to take turns buying rounds. Only he was ready for the next round before I had taken more than a sip or two of my last beer. He was extremely happy when I returned to Seville. Seems he was so drunk on one of our nights out before I left that he had lost his watch on his balcony and suspected I had stolen it. In the meantime, he found it again and felt sorry for having distrusted me.