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| -rw-r--r-- | _drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md | 91 |
1 files changed, 52 insertions, 39 deletions
diff --git a/_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md b/_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md index a27be85..8a5eb97 100644 --- a/_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md +++ b/_drafts/mr-worldwide-pt-1-europe.md @@ -9,45 +9,6 @@ description: >- ## Outline -- Denver - - What I had - - Why I left -- Loadout -- Road Trip - - Ibrahim notebook - - Choosing destinations -- The First Leg - - Munich - - Silence - - Relative - - Italy - - Milan - - Ostello Bello, friends - - Duomo - - Walking/Getting around (Google maps) - - Ravenna - - Currency - - Old monastaries, mosaics - - Florence - - Museums - - Celia - - Rome - - Tourism's effect on a city - - Too much to see in Italy, too little time - - Spain - - Barcelona - - La Sagrada Familia, churches - - Madrid - - Royalty, revolution - - Cordoba - - Playing things close - - Granada - - Flamenco - - Peace - - Lisbon - - Hostels - - A city where people still live - - Escher (Granada/Cordoba) - The Second Leg - Munich - No more pictures, no more tourism @@ -104,3 +65,55 @@ description: >- - Culture - History +## Munich, Germany + +On Febrary 14th I returned to Munich. Having been on the road for a little over +3 weeks, I was utterly exhausted, and neglected to take any pictures at all. In +fact, I hardly remember _what_ I did there, except go to the library a lot. +Munich has a fantastic public library, which I spent a considerable amount of +time at every time I was in town. I'd create my rough plans of where to go next +there, as well as do miscellaneous coding and writing. I was through being a +tourist. + +After Rome I had begun really putting my strategy of "wander around and see what +calls out to me" to the test. By the time I was in Munich it had really sunk in, +and the only thing which really called to me in Munich was the peace and quiet +of the library during the day, and hanging out with Caitlin and her friends at +night. For the rest of the trip I wouldn't take so many pictures as I had been +doing, and wouldn't go way out of my way to see something which didn't truly +interest me. + +After I left Italy I had begun eating differently too. Italy is, obviously, +known for two foods: pasta and pizza, and I had a lot of those while I was +there. At one point I had the awkward experience of an Italian guy asking me if +Italy had better pizza than the U.S., and me having to try and find a way to +both be honest and not seem like too much of a dick when I told him: "no". It +would be fair to say that, in Italy, your money goes a lot farther in terms of +quality than in the U.S.; or, in other words, their average quality is higher. +But it's not like Italians know some secret the rest of the world doesn't, and +you can easily find a good, crispy, thin crust, wood fired pizza anywhere, if +you look for it. + +That was the real lesson for me: it's not that Europe has _better_ food across +the board than the U.S., it's that even their cheapest restaurants will be +pretty high quality, whereas finding good but cheap food in the U.S. can often +be quite difficult. So someone like me, who's on a spend-as-little-as-possible +budget, can still enjoy pretty good food anywhere. + +All the same, I would largely stop going out to eat at all from this point in +the trip onward, and instead I began visiting grocery stores frequently. During +the day I'd always have in my bag: a bottle of water, a loaf of bread, a block +of cheese (usually gouda), almonds, and dates or dried figs. These I would munch +on throughout the day, and for dinner I'd make something simple like pasta or +rice with veggies and tofu. Having a kitchen would become a requirement for me +to stay at a hostel, and many hostels have a "free stuff" section filled with +food items people had left behind, like garlic or salt or whatever, so I often +didn't need to go shopping at all. + +Of course, I didn't abstain from eating out _completely_. Every country has some +claim-to-fame food item, which I'd try once or twice while there, if it didn't +mean going way out of my way. But food wasn't a primary concern of my trip, and +so I tried my best to spend as little as possible on it. + +Having spent a few days in Munich, recuperating and figuring out my next steps, +I continued on... to Brussels! |