Tagged: black travel

Strolling through Munich

Munich is cool.

Didn’t spend much time there as I was only on a layover on my way to Split. Luckily getting to the city center is super easy from the airport and naturally I wasn’t going to sit in the airport for 7 HOURS until my next flight.

The airport train station
These figures go around re-enacting medieval stories while the bells chime
The Glockenspiel
Interesting
Always one of these everywhere I go
Something that I’m sure is significant, but I didn’t take the time to find out.

I hopped on the S-bahn to Marienplatz and got to see the Glockenspiel and other attractions. Truthfully , I wasn’t even aware that the Glockenspiel was a big deal until I left the city and researched it.

I did catch the bells and chime show and that was cute.

 

Also, it was literally 9am when I arrived and people were drinking full glasses of beer. Oh, you Germans!

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Smells like Rotten Eggs

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Split, Croatia

It’s so surreally beautiful in Split! From the clear water to art deco buildings, to the cliff tops and beaches. All of it.

However, the closer you get to the Riva the more you’ll notice that it stinks. Bad. Like a levitating giant farted in the sky and pointed his ass towards the city when he let it rip.

(I might be exaggerating a bit)

Fun fact: The rotten egg smell is actually from an underwater sulfur spring. The famous Diocletian’s Palace was originally erected in Split as a retirement home for the Roman emperor Diocletian. Apparently he had terrible arthritis and sulfur remedies are a good treatment for it.

The palm trees aren’t even native here. They came from Florida.
Locals listening to live music outside a restaurant window
Within the palace walls
The basement of the palace.
Speedo!

I’ll be in Split for the rest of this month, so there will be much more to share!

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Magic Secret Boxes

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Sweet, sweet shopkeeper whose name I cannot remember

Off the shores of Lake Ashi, where you can catch views of Mount Fuji, lies Hakone Maruyama Inc. A quaint wood working shop where my tour group was given a really sweet demonstration of the mechanics behind Japanese puzzle boxes.

They are boxes with numerous amounts of combinations to perform before being able to open it. Some boxes only need four actions to crack the code, while more complicated boxes can require up to 125!

You can order your own from their website. They do international shipping!

They create all sorts of wood masterpieces
Tiny box
Catch a peek of Mount Fuji
The exterior of the shop

Really Can’t Escape the Snow, huh?

In early March of last year I went on my first ever solo trip and it was to Arizona (whoo!)- which I thought they called the valley of the sun.*

Except it was around 30F and snowing at the Grand Canyon.

(It’s not that I don’t like snow. I just don’t like being cold. If snow was warm, I’d probably be much more inclined to enjoy it. But maybe I’m thinking about sand now. Can we consider sand the opposite of snow? I do like the beach, but I don’t like finding sand days later in undesirable places…)

I somehow was under the impression that I was going to be escaping the lingering winter in D.C. at the time by jetting off to the other side of the country. The locals said they sometimes get one snowstorm a year. Lucky me it just so happened to be that week I was visiting.

So there you go. It does snow in the desert.

Bring a jacket.

 

*Later found out that phrase refers mainly to the Phoenix Metropolitan Area.