TN - Cultural Fest - Harrisburg, PA

Upon my return to my Home - Harrisburg, PA I attended the annual Dauphin County Cultural Fest

MJ Tribute band...don't even ask...

Here is a short video:

With a full roster of local talent, food vendors, health and community vendors, the annual Cultural Fest is a highlight every summer.  One of the main thoroughfares of Harrisburg's Downtown area (Market Street in front of the Dauphin County Courthouse) is blocked off so that people can dance in the streets to Salsa, Rap, Funk/R&B and the feature this year DOUG E. FRESH!!!

The fireworks were from the baseball game (we have a championship winning minor league team The Harrisburg Senators http://harrisburg.senators.milb.com/index.jsp?sid=t547) but it was a beautiful addition to the jam "Treat Me Right" which Doug E. entered on.

The afternoon into night was warm and breezy.  The drinks were cold (my fave was Pineapple Lemonade with fresh pineapple chunks) and the food was plentiful.

As we danced the night away to the sounds of Doug E., I was once again reminded why I love my city so much.  If you are in the area please feel free to check out the FREE Dauphin County Cultural Fest.  Held 1 night only per year!

Here is the link for Dauphin County Events:
http://www.dauphincounty.org/government/About-the-County/Pages/Upcoming-Events.aspx

Doug E. and fireworks...what a great night!

Come visit beautiful Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  I'd love to give you a customized tour!

Email: travelninjasworldwide@gmail.com
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[For European Tours email Sabine:  tourguide@ok.de]

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TRAVEL NINJAS!!!

Goodbye to Germany

I am The Visiting Ninja (ARC) and I've been home for almost a month.

It has taken me this long to write my "goodbye" to Germany for various reasons.  I learned so much on this trip abroad.  Some things are intensely personal and not fit for a travel blog.  Others will be shared...right...now.

1. Traveling opens up my whole heart. 
By this I mean that I experience things on such a sensory level when I'm away from home.  So present. So aware.  Hypersensitive to everything.  I felt wide open, vulnerable, challenged, tested...so many things.  A lot of times I was "drunk" on the love of seeing new things.  It's crazy.

2. I'm braver than I ever imagined I would be.
There were so many times when I felt like I was doing something I had no business doing.  I would say to the Native Ninja (Sabine) on these occasions, "The sh*t I get into with you..."  It got to the point where she was repeating it back to me.  We work well together, we balance each other out (2 Libras) and we challenge each other in very surprising ways.

People said I was crazy to go away for 9 weeks.

3. Germany is beautiful.
As beautiful as Deutschland/Germany is I also had to realize that we have a lot of the same beauty at home.  No one place has the lock on eye-catching scenery.  I fully enjoyed the sights and sounds I got to witness in Germany.  I also am thoroughly enjoying rediscovering all of the beauty right in my own backyard.

Beautiful Hamburg.

Beautiful Harrisburg

4. Wherever you go, there you are. ~Anonymous
Problems follow.  Personality travels with you.  Bad habits morph into other things.  Tests happen wherever you go.  Geography doesn't change destiny.

Always just me.

5.  Friendship can be elastic.
There are a lot of things that can be said and that can transpire during nine weeks of living together.  I'd like to formally and publicly thank my Hostess the Native Ninja Sabine, for bearing with me for the majority of the summer of 2013.

Birthday 2012

Club night June 2013

Sun and fun July 2013

There is so much more I could say but I really feel like I should stop here.  I fell in love with a little bit of every city I visited in Germany (Darmstadt, Worms, Florsheim, Hamburg, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Heidelberg and of course Frankfurt!) 

It was a summer I will never forget and maybe its not goodbye to Germany, just "see ya later".

Sabine is still doing customized European Tours.  You can contact her directly:  tourguide@ok.de  She is a consummate professional and will do her best to make sure your tour is great!


I, (Andrea/ARC) will soon be offering customized day tours of her hometown, Harrisburg, PA and nearby big cities (NYC, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia).  Feel free to use the contact info below to contact me.  Stay tuned!


Contact us!!!
Email: travelninjasworldwide@gmail.com
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TRAVEL NINJAS!!!

Airport Tales: Charlotte, NC

We promised to keep it real when we travel and we plan to discuss the good, the bad and the ugly!

The Visiting Ninja had a connecting flight in Charlotte, NC.  She spent 3 hours waiting for her flight and these were her observations:

The Good:
Charlotte airport is breathtaking!  It is wide and spacious with plenty of windows.  Lots of comfortable seating and even rocking chairs near the windows for better views of the planes coming and going.

They have every store imaginable, a beer garden type restaurant, Pinkberry, spacious walkways and easy to find concourses. It felt very "traveler friendly", bathrooms were clean and attended by very nice ladies in uniform and it was pleasing to the eye.

The Bad (aka why I want to beat other people's children):

I was waiting for an international flight out and since I had 2 hours to kill I spent a lot of time just watching the scene.  I have never in my life seen so many reckless children and unobservant parents.  It is NOT ok to let your children run around screaming at a busy airport!  I counted 12 out of control children who were just doing whatever they wanted and their parents were allowing it!  I could not believe it.  Unfortunately all of these children were waiting to get onto my flight.  Argh!

 
There was no real "ugly" to report.  All in all I enjoyed my layover time in Charlotte and will probably connect through there many times in the future.  I will make sure to bring a loaded mp3 player and big headphones to drown out the screaming children. :)


Feel free to follow or contact us:

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TN Heidelberg Part 2

The continuation of our day trip to Heidelberg :)

We walked from the peach sandstone church to the beautiful Church of the Jesuits

White and gold...breathtaking.

The fearless Ursula (our tourguide) let us know that this church always has interesting items hanging in the sanctuary to "shock and amaze".  On our visit there were the cool black and white hanging pictures to the right.

From there we visited the Student Prison...

This place freaked me out.

The room of kings...

Opposite side of the king room...

Ninja Andrea does not like jail!

The Student Prison was utilized through different periods by Heidelberg University.  Students who were disorderly were sent here to spend the night and think about their actions.  Ursula said it became a badge of honor to spend a night in the prison.

One of the Heidelberg University buildings...this was the last stop on our tour.

Just another summer day on campus.

We stopped for an iced chocolate shake and I did this quick video:

I loved the church bells...unfortunately they were drowning out the last of Ursula's speech:

A few other random pictures.

The Virgin Mary.

A zoom of just a portion of the castle.

The beautiful Nekkar River.

This concludes our fab day trip to Heidelberg.

Do you like to travel?  Would you like to take an adventure to a new city?  Allow us to show you around!

Email: tourguide@ok.de
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Travel Ninjas Heidelberg Part One

There were so many pictures taken by both Ninjas on this day trip that we want to share them in 2 separate blogs. Let's get on to the sights and sounds of Heidelberg...the Romantic City of Scholars!

An appropriate sign to begin our pictorial journey.

We started at the Rathaus (City Hall) to meet our tour group and guide...the awesome Ursula!  The tour was in English and we had tour companions from Australia, Asia and the US states of Texas and PA (me)!

The entry into the city

A more modern area of Heidelberg.

A beautiful door to greet us...

Inside the Rathaus the tickets were purchased for the tour and I wandered around to find this beautiful wooden scale design of the city:

It was massive...so I just am showing the close-up.

The main plaza where the Rathaus is located.  Our tour started here:

Now you may be asking why Travel Ninjas took a tour of the Old City of Heidelberg.  The answer?  We, too, are learning on every journey and trip we take.  Yes, we could have easily gotten a map and found the sites ourselves, but it was a lot more interesting to hear more of the history and the questions from other tourists.  Now we are more than prepared to give YOU the tour when you are ready! 

We moved on to view the amazing Heidelberg Castle.  We only viewed it from below. The castle tour is a separate tour altogether that we did not do this particular day.  You reach the castle by tram or by taking 315 steps!  The castle tour is readily available for approximately 6 Euros for adults and 4 Euros for children.

Heidelberg Castle view from the plaza.

From that 2nd plaza we walked over to the Old Bridge.  This is also a great vantage point to see the castle as well as Philosopher's Walk and the beautiful Nekkar River.  Heidelberg has one of the oldest universities in all of Europe and it is rumored that the professors would walk to the university every day discussing the problems of the world, hence Philosopher's Walkway.

The Visiting Ninja on the "Old Bridge".  Willkommen!

The monkey holding the mirror asking "why are you looking at me?"

Tennis legends Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi have a home here.

Other tourists boarding the river tour boat which is solar-powered ferry.

Part of the city gate.  Austere.

From the bridge we headed back into the plaza and into the famous Church of the Holy Spirit.  It was breath-taking from the moment we approached and awe-inspiring as we entered.

Beautiful peach sandstone on the exterior and interior.

Corners formed and cut so that horse and buggy carts could safely travel through town from the main bridge and not damage this masterpiece.

The columns, the windows, the history.  We were blown away!

One of the more modern stained glass windows.

The window above caught my eye as Ursula described that it signifies both the useful and destructive properties of atomic power.  The date August 6, 1945 is to commemorate the bombing of Hiroshima.  Einstein's theory of E=mc2 is also etched into the window. A powerful metaphor in a church.

A bit more of the intricate peach sandstone.

The fearless Ursula gave us a minute to sit and bask in the beauty of this church.  We snapped photos and listened to her regale tales of Princes, the library that was saved from fire only because it was moved and other interesting factoids.  Want to find out more?  Book our Heidelberg tour!

The fearless Ursula lecturing at a different spot in the tour.

This concludes part one of our mini-trip to Heidelberg's old section of town.  Stop back for the rest of our fascinating tour of the Romantic City by the River!

Do you like tours?  Churches?  History?  We'll travel to Heidelberg with you...Travel Ninjas style!

Email: tourguide@ok.de or travelninjasworldwide@gmail.com
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Travel Ninjas - A Quick Trip to Frankfurt

Frankfurt is quickly becoming a big part of this Visiting Ninjas heart.  It is so beautiful, vibrant and full of energy.  It gives me the DC vibe, not as big as NYC but not as small as my hometown either.  I love it here.

A tale of two cities...

The amazing lobby of the downtown Hilton Hilton.

Glass and sandstone lobby walls...stunning.

We went to Frankfurt for a top secret business meeting.  We spent the remainder of our time checking out a few sights near the Main River.

When we first arrived there were children playing in the fountain.

Sabine explains the construction in the video below.

Wednesday night frolicking by the Main River.

Very few patrons, early for dinner time perhaps?

A brief video...enjoy!

The building with the tapas restaurant...the Lindner Hotel - Main Plaza.

Professional pic courtesy of www.lindner.de

The ice cream was so good.  A few more pictures of the beautiful Main Plaza by the river.

The Lindner Hotel from our vantage point.

One more of the plaza.

Another successful trip to this amazing city by the river.

Do you like cities?  Let's explore one together!

Email: tourguide@ok.de or travelninjasworldwide@gmail.com
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TRAVEL NINJAS!