I just got back from my trip to Switzerland, Spain, Morocco and Brazil.
While for some of you this continent hopping is a usual occurrence, it still amazes me how easy traveling has become, and how much we can see in one trip.
Over the next few weeks, I will share some of my pictures with you.

Taking pictures was my main focus on the entire trip. Peeking through my camera has opened up an entire new world to me. I am more aware of colors, architecture and people. While there is a danger to hide behind lenses and miss valued interaction, on a one-day-tour through several cities I can only recommend the camera perspective.

On top of my to-do-list in every new city is getting to the market early. I love the colors and smells of markets. To me, markets stress the basic needs of human life. I watch vendors open their shops, preparing the fish, presenting their vegetables, arranging flower pots - all this, while chatting away with their stall neighbor.

While the goods vary slightly from city to city, the main difference of markets are its people. On a trip where I don’t spend a lot of time exploring the true life of a country, I get at least a superficial impression of the city’s people watching them in the market. Vendors usually represent the working class people, customers show middle class, on occasion and depending on country (Paris, France, comes to mind) upper-middle class shoppers will stroll through their city markets for fresh ingredients on their supper table.

Morocco and Cap Verde’s markets left the biggest impressions on my mind during this trip. I’ve never watched such a diverse population as in Casablanca and the poverty stricken, simplistic workers at Cap Verde’s Puerto Grande fish market will certainly stay with me. Understandably, my best pictures on this trip stem from those two places. Especially since I was able to find the local markets avoided by tourists and snap away unhindered.