Travel – Chance Thoughts

My Favorite Adventures of 2015

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Marcus

Adventure!

This post started because I was weary. Not sleepy and tired, but sluggish and unmotivated. Maybe I’ve been a nomad too long. Maybe I’ve been away from work too long. Or maybe I’ve been without a mission too long.

Coincidentally, I downloaded book Level Up Your Life by Steve Lamb. It showed up on the Art of Non-Conformity blog, and resonated with my neediness and video-gaming tendencies. The title refers to the way you gain experience points in games like Dungeons and Dragons or Legend of Zelda or Call of Duty.

Steve encourages you to think of achievements and adventures you want to complete. His suggestions include holding a handstand, speaking a foreign language, or volunteering at a children’s hospital. As I brainstormed what I would like to accomplish I kept thinking I just did something like that! Here are some of my favorites.

Nighttime Segway Ride
Raw Shrimp Dinner
Cat Island
First Class Transpacific Flight
Opening Day Oktoberfest
Two Nights in a Bazaar

As you read things, think of the adventures you’ve had recently, as well as the ones you would like to have.

Nighttime Segway ride

The Romans built the forum with the Segway in mind.

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Morocco Meanderings

Posted on January 9, 2016 by Marcus

Can I live in this photo?

The final destination on my December mileage run was exotic Morocco. Think mosques and markets, merguez and tagines, deserts and beaches. An extra bonus for me was the chance to speak French, which is one of the official languages.

I violated rule #2 on this trip. I city hopped. I only spent two nights in each of Casablanca, Rabat, and Marakech. Here’s how each city treated me:

Casablanca – easing in
Rabat – spoiled in a Riad
Marrakech – marooned in the medina

Casablanca

The walls of the medina

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Blue Curaçao

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Marcus

Yes, that is a blue curaçao daiquiri.

I chose Curaçao because I was freezing in Prague and wanted someplace warm. Boy, did it deliver. For good measure it threw in magnificent cactus formations and one very painful scorpion sting. And it drained me with the oppressive humidity.

Despite, that, here are the highlights:

Great ocean views
Blue Curaçao liqueur
Unreliable utilities
A very strange language

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Rainy Rio

Posted on December 9, 2015 by Marcus

Gratuitous rainforest mammal. (Good name for a band)

My mission in Rio was simple: escape winter. The plan was formed after enduring the piercing, freezing wind of Nurnberg in October. As the chill followed me to Berlin and Prag, I booked the first leg of my mileage run as a summer week on Copacabana beach. I was also looking forward to:

Sunny beaches
Cristo Redentor and Pao de Azucar hill
Pao de Queijo
Brazilian Portuguese

Sunny Beaches

I had visions of myself becoming lean and bronzed, erasing my ghostly beer belly. (Though I would probably clear out the beach for the first afternoon.) Between relaxing walks in the sand, I would visit the majestic Cristo Redentor sculpture Pao de Azucar hill. From these iconic vantage points, I would take gorgeous photos of the translucent turquoise ocean and the green offshore islands dramatically lit with soft morning light or striking ruby sunsets.

It’s Copacabana beach, after all.

And then the clouds engulfed everything.

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Mileage Run

Posted on December 1, 2015 by Marcus

I got a crazy idea last month. I decided to do a mileage run. I’m going to fly 40,000 miles in December. The goal is to keep my Platinum status, which requires 50,000 miles for the year.

Of course, I’ve already flown 50,000 miles this year. (That’s like flying around the world…twice.) But 10,000 of those miles counted for status. The rest were award tickets. Those tickets gave me luxurious first-class experiences, but they didn’t count toward frequent flyer status.

In this week’s post:

My take on Platinum Status
What it takes
Where I’m going

Platinum Status

I almost regret ever getting status. Before having it, I just flew where I needed to when I needed to. And I just took whichever airline was cheapest. But now I’m hooked. I limit my search to American Airlines, without ever looking at the other sites. Maybe that’s a good thing. Too much choice often paralyzes people.

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Giving Thanks for Travel

Posted on November 26, 2015 by Marcus

Train stations are so much cooler than airports!

Wow, I can’t help but be thankful for this amazing year. Foremost, I’m thankful it happened at all. It could have remained a dream forever. Instead, it became an actual goal and then reality.

And it could have been awful. I could have failed to learn any language. I could have gotten sick. I could have been robbed. Stranded in Italy and forced to huddle in the shade of a marble cathedral surviving only on focaccia sandwiches and Brunello di Montalcino wine.

“Can you spare some prosciutto?”

So after 10 months of traveling, here’s what I’m most thankful for. Friends, art, and of course, languages.

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Top 5 Cities (This Year)

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Marcus

Sail Away!

A friend said to me “Now that you’ve seen the world, tell me where to go.” The simple answer is everywhere. This year I’ve visited 30 cities outside the US. Most of them for the first time. None of them were terrible, not even Napoli. But some were definitely more amazing than others. Here are the top 5.

Köln
Sapporo
San Marino
Venezia
Prague
Firenze

(Yes, that’s actually 6. Read on to see which one stole it’s way into my heart and onto the list. Any city that repeatedly inspires that much delight can’t be denied a spot.)

Köln

“It’s even bigger on the inside!” (Not actually possible)

As your train crosses the Rhein and pulls up to the Hauptbahnhof (train station), an enormous monolith towers over you. It’s the Dom cathedral, it’s huge, and it’s so close you can’t see the top of it. It may not sparkle like Italian marble, but it dominates and amazes.

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Unexpected Wonder

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Marcus

I came to Torino because I was bored of Milano. I fell in love with the place.

Torino (Turin) sits 80 miles to the west of Milano, in the hills of the Piedmont region. Like all respectable cities, it’s located on a river. This one is the river Po. Every time I see the name I think of Kung Fu Panda.

In addition to the river, Torino has beautiful architecture. It also has amazing food, and of course great cappuccinos. A local said Torino has everything you could want, except the ocean.

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“Your Way Isn’t The Another”

Posted on August 10, 2015 by Marcus

It’s a big green grapefruit drink monster!

One of the enjoyable aspects of living in Japan has been the signs. I loved seeing the street-sign art in Italy; little easter eggs everywhere. While that kind of graffiti won’t be tolerated in Japan, their un-altered signs have been have been helpful, amusing, and sometimes just weird.

I’ll take the Egg Slut Plate.

Helpful

Wow – there’s English pretty much everywhere. Especially airports, train stations, Starbucks. Moving to Japan is really not enough to guarantee that you’ll learn Japanese. (The signs are also in Chinese, Korean, and universal pictures.)

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A Taste of Korea

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Marcus

Early view of Seoul

Last weekend I went to Seoul, in the Republic of Korea. A whole weekend! Now I’m an expert on all things Korean.

The Won is the Korean currency (“wahn”). What do you call a bunch of Won? A Won-ton! (Now I’m hungry.)

There’s about 1,000 Won to the dollar. Just think of the comma as a decimal point. Try not to get nervous when you pull 100,000 Won from the ATM.

Where’s the comma?!

They should drop 3 zeros and reprint their currency. (Japan needs to drop 2 zeros from theirs. <hold breath>)

Friday afternoon we wandered around Itaewon (pronounced eat-taiwan, which seems like cross-marketing. And makes me hungrier.) We found a hamburger place run by Americans. We had Guinness at an Aussie bar. And then we struck gold. Pancake Hotdog Sale. Yep, bratwursts with a pancake for a bun and yummy asian sauces drizzled over them.

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