If you haven't seen me filming before, you haven't realised what a fool I have to make of myself to produce a cool View From a Tall Dude video.

I’ve been a sometimes professional, sometimes hobby video editor and producer since I was in college, and one of the best and worst things about doing this is how much footage I have to throw away to get a good video.

It’s supremely frustrating to throw away the footage I like best just because doesn’t fit into the flow of the final piece. Such was the case with this Morocco video. I has to sacrifice some of the funniest moments of our trip for the fact that a web video needs to be snappy and have a rhythm to it.

So kick back and watch 10 minutes of what things were really like in when I tried to film a vlog for three weeks in Morocco — this time without a backing music track driving the pace forward.

Amsterdam is a city off efficiency — too much efficiency. Bicycles outnumber people in The Venice of the North, so bikes zip around in their own lanes of traffic. Great for bikes, but a bit dangerous for pedestrians as they need to navigate their way across street crossing and bike crossings, both with their own traffic signals.

I captured this time lapse video whilst driving into Amsterdam on a cloudy day, which makes for a nifty effect as the clouds whipping across the sky. I end walking along the Vondelpark toward my hostel for the evening. Apologies for any motion sickness that will occur while watching that part.

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Yes I went to Oktoberfest in Munich, and yes I could have taken a video of everyone singing “Ein Prosit” and clinking glasses together, but I went for the more juvenile route: I got drunk on five maßes and I went on a carnival ride, where I was granted a beautiful view of the massive Oktoberfest grounds.

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The Swiss Alps, in addition to their natural beauty have become a sort of tourist haven for extreme sports over the last decade or so. While I didn’t have it in me to try skydiving, canyoning or rafting this time around, a leisurely parachute ride with Lucas seemed like a great way to experience a bit of extreme sport. Little did I know that paragliding wasn’t all slow-paced — Lucas threw in a few tricks in the middle to get my heart racing.

(Special thanks to Outdoor Interlaken for giving me a great deal on paragliding.)

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Walking the streets of Florence, Italy already feels like going through a time machine. To get to the old town you cross the Ponte Vecchio, a bridge so beautiful Hitler expressly ordered it’s survival while Nazis where destroying all the other bridges in town. The city’s walls still stand, and signs of the Renaissance bleed through every building in the old town.

Imagine my surprise then, when I happened upon this full Renaissance parade marching through the streets on the morning of Easter Sunday. It was as if I’d been transported back in time several centuries.

I’d stumbled upon a 1000-year-old tradition, the Scoppio del Carro. Literally translated “explosion of the cart,” it’s an elaborate Easter ritual that start with two simultaneous parades processing through town, one led by two bulls carrying a wagon. The wagon is delivered to the square in front of Brunelleschi’s famous Duomo, where Easter mass is in session. Some pomp and circumstance ensues, then the church doors are swung open and a firework shaped like a dove rockets out from the nave, striking the fireworks cart and sending it into a blaze of glory. The daytime fireworks last about 15 minutes and are quite dramatic, encompassing red, purple and white smoke and reaching a crescendo as three Easter flags drop out form the top of the cart.

It started with three big smoke bombs that filled the square with thick red, then purple, then white smoke.

Next came fifteen minutes of loud, bright fireworks coming from every corner of this ornate cart.

Finally, the three tubes at the top, spinning in circles (propelled by fireworks), let off their own walloping booms and each of these three flags dropped out.