The longest remaining stretch of the Berlin Wall that I am aware of is known as the East Side Gallery and is located in the former East Germany. This section, 1.6 kilometers long, is described as the largest open air art gallery in the world and features 106 paintings by artists all over the world. … Continue reading
Author Archives: Justin
Montenegro and The Republic of Dubrovnik
Montenegro… We thought it looked more like a Scandinavian country than a Baltic one. I mean, look at the pictures: The Republic of Dubrovnik – a piece of Croatia isolated from the rest of the country in order to give Bosnia-Herzegovina a small section of coastline… I know what you’re thinking… Dubrovnik and Montenegro are … Continue reading
A Brief Visit With Mr. Tumbus In Tumbus, Sudan
Not much is known about Mr. Tumbus (the statue below)… He is located just outside the village of Tumbus and this was an area of Nubian civilizations. Tumbus itself housed an important granite quarry in the Pharaonic era. Not much is known beyond that. Supposedly, an effort was made to relocate Mr. Tumbus to the … Continue reading
Visiting Sudan – Pictures and Scenes of Khartoum
Before even trying to get into Sudan, make sure you have your visas in order and give yourself plenty of time to get them. The Sudanese visas proved to be the most difficult and time-consuming visas that my Italian interpreter and I have yet obtained – and we have been to a lot of weird … Continue reading
How Many Insurgents Were Killed In Iraq?
In news reports about skirmishes or operations by coalition forces in Iraq, we often hear of insurgents being killed. To illustrate what I am referring to, here are two examples from recent articles: “Coalition forces backed by a helicopter and jets attacked a safe house being used by suspected foreign insurgents in Iraq, killing 12 … Continue reading
The Rwandan Genocide, Dom Bosco School and Captain Luc Lemaire: Indifference? Negligence? Or Something Else?
When I was still in school – either high school or an undergraduate in college, I can’t remember which and it doesn’t matter – my classmates and I watched a documentary on the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Although I remember nothing about the setting or the rest of the documentary, one segment of the film was … Continue reading
Tattoos: The Best And The Worst – Part 4: The Shock and Awe Edition
While working on the previous segment in the Tattoo Madness series, I realized that it would be unfair not to warn my dear readers who enjoy The Velvet Rocket at work of a post that could possibly cause them to run afoul of their company’s internet usage monitoring service. Hence, a separate post is created … Continue reading
The Velvet Rocket 