Destination: Europe
American Expats in Britain Suffer ‘24/7 Sticker Shock’
by Jim Benning | 12.04.07 | 3:55 PM ET
How bad it is? Imagine life without cheese. The Los Angeles Times chronicles the plight of expats and foreign exchange students struggling with the weak dollar. Case in point: “Amanda Owen, a 19-year-old international relations student from Seattle, said she holds herself to a draconian budget: She has dinner out only every other month; she bought her iPod online in the U.S. and had her parents mail it to her; she weaned herself off lattes, organic food and, though she is a vegetarian, cheese.”
Related on World Hum:
* Dollar Sinks to Record Low in Europe
* Three Travel Tips: Ways to Save Money in Europe
Photo of British cheese by BeMa via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
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Yahoo! BuzzAnother Hot American on Television Botches a Geography Question
by Michael Yessis | 11.30.07 | 1:49 PM ET
We may have a new travel trend here. At the very least, we’ve got ourselves a new World Hum travel blog category: Hot Americans on Television Botching Geography Questions. First came Miss Teen South Carolina. This time around it’s American Idol’s Kellie Pickler, who appeared as a contestant on the U.S. television game show, “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” The answer, as you will see, seems clear.
In Belarus, Expression Battles Repression*
by Michael Yessis | 11.30.07 | 12:30 PM ET
The Boston Globe’s Tom Haines and Essdras Suarez have delivered another stellar package about life and travel at the edge of Europe. The edge, in this case, is Belarus, at the “land-locked…geographic center of Europe,” Haines writes.
U.N.: Iceland Rocks. Sub-Saharan Africa? Not so Much.
by Jim Benning | 11.27.07 | 11:57 AM ET
Reports Reuters on the United Nations’ annual Human Development Index report: “Norway had held top spot for six years but was edged into second place by Iceland this year because of new life expectancy estimates and updated figures for gross domestic product.” Australia, Canada and Ireland rounded out the top five. The U.S. is 12th. Sub-Saharan Africa is the worst place to live, according to the rankings, and worst of all is Sierra Leone.
800-Year-Old Roman Empire Courier Map Goes on Display. Briefly.
by Michael Yessis | 11.27.07 | 9:11 AM ET
The Tabula Peutingeriana (excerpt pictured), an 800-year-old copy of a chart used by the Roman Empire’s courier service, was pulled from the archives of Austria’s National Library yesterday as part of a celebration of its new “Memory of the World” status by UNESCO.
‘Forget Waterloo’: New Train Route Bringing ‘Two Old Foes Closer’
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.21.07 | 11:52 AM ET
France’s high-speed rail network, which has been coping with a labor strike, was hit by fires and other acts of sabotage overnight, according to reports. But in unrelated news, there’s at least one glimmer of good news coming from some rail service in the region. Historical enemies France and England are getting soft-eyed over the new high-speed rail link between Paris and London, according to the New York Times. A recent full-page ad in the French newspaper Le Figaro declared “Oubliez Waterloo”—forget Waterloo. And the English were talking not about Napoleon’s last stand but the former Waterloo rail terminus station.
Hostelling Seeks to Honor 100th Anniversary With U.S. Postage Stamp
by Michael Yessis | 11.16.07 | 10:39 AM ET
German schoolteacher Richard Schirrmann started the hostelling movement in 1909, and throughout its history Australia, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan and Sweden have all honored it with commemorative postage stamps. Hostelling International USA wants the United States to join those countries for the 100th anniversary of hostelling, and it’s asking travelers to help by signing an online petition.
Observing Istanbul’s Evolving Skyline
by Joanna Kakissis | 11.13.07 | 11:30 AM ET
Centuries of rich architecture define this city straddling two continents. But to understand how the new constantly challenges the old in Istanbul, the Boston Globe’s Tom Haines considered its architecture piece by piece: its minarets and mosques, its skyscrapers and soccer stadiums, even its bathrooms. For example, the public restroom in Kadikoy Park, designed by architect Gokhan Avcioglu, has “historical identity, looks nice and does its job,” he writes.
The World’s Most Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotels: From the Amsterdam Hilton to the Chateau Marmont
by Michael Yessis | 11.09.07 | 11:23 AM ET
The Guardian’s Sean Dodson picks 10 sleeping giants of rock, including the spot where John Lennon and Yoko One had their “Bed-in for Peace” (Amsterdam Hilton), the hotel where Led Zeppelin chucked TVs out windows (the now de-balconied Hyatt Riot House, pictured, on West Hollywood’s Sunset Strip) and the place where David Bowie lived in Berlin while recording “Low” and “Heroes” (Hotel Ellington). One obvious clunker: The Hotel Rival in Sweden, which is owned by Benny Anderson of ABBA fame. I’ve heard “Dancing Queen.” I’ve seen “Mamma Mia.” ABBA ain’t rock.
Jan Morris in Berlin: ‘Ooh, That’s Nice!’
by Michael Yessis | 11.07.07 | 11:54 AM ET
Legendary travel writer Jan Morris had a revelation about Berlin: The city “where Hitler strutted” and that had “haunted and disturbed” her all her adult life is “really rather nice.” She writes in the Financial Times: “Was it all guileless innocence? Of course not.”
Nuclear Tourism: Still Hot, and Getting Hotter?
by Eva Holland | 11.06.07 | 8:27 AM ET
We’ve written before about the steady trickle of visitors to the infamous Chernobyl site, and to lesser-known, functioning nuclear power plants in Japan and the United States. Now we can add Sweden to our list of “hot” nuclear tourism destinations. A staggering one-third of Swedes have visited a nuclear plant in the country over the past 35 years, writes Barbara Lewis in a Reuters story. And they’re still going to Forsmark, one of the three main plants on Sweden’s Baltic coast, even after a safety scare in July 2006.
See ‘The Last Supper’ as Leonardo Never Imagined
by Michael Yessis | 11.05.07 | 12:49 PM ET
By no means does the 16 billion pixel digital image of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece “The Last Supper” offer the experience of visiting the real thing in the refectory of the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent in Milan, Italy. But it is rather spectacular. Italian cultural officials teamed with high-definition photography experts HAL9000 to create what they’re billing as the world’s largest highest definition photo. It offers clear views of sections of the painting as small as one square millimeter, close enough to see every detail—and every crack in the paint. Good luck getting so near to the original.
Related on World Hum:
* ‘Rome Reborn’: Journey to the Eternal City, Circa 320 AD
* French Museums to Offer Free Admission
Romance By Rail: Europe Does It Better
by Julia Ross | 11.01.07 | 1:30 PM ET
The thought of finding romance on a train from Washington D.C. to New York City—a trip I’ve made many times—strikes me as unlikely. Let’s face it: There’s nothing particularly romantic about Amtrak. But a chance meeting on a European train? On atmosphere alone, I’d give it much better odds. Two train-related events in Europe this fall are reviving the romantic image of rail travel, albeit with a 21st century spin. Reuters reports that German rail operator Deutsche Bahn has introduced speed-dating on an intercity line from Nuremberg to Munich, providing an upscale alternative to the usual pub meet-and-greet, complete with champagne and roses.
Can ‘The Moses Project’ Stop the Tides in Venice?
by Eva Holland | 10.29.07 | 9:58 AM ET
The people backing the $7 billion project certainly hope so. And so do a number of observers from low-lying port cities around the world, where flood concerns are on the increase as the polar ice caps melt. As Doug Saunders writes in an interesting essay in The Globe and Mail, “when we visit Venice today, we are visiting our homes tomorrow.”
Art or Vandalism? Trevi Fountain Waters Turned Red in Rome
by Joanna Kakissis | 10.26.07 | 12:53 PM ET
Rome had an Andy Warhol moment last week when a baseball-capped art anarchist dumped a bottle of dye into the city’s famed Trevi Fountain and turned its waters blood red for a day, writes Elisabetta Povoledo in The New York Times. Traditionalists who revere Rome’s monuments called it vandalism. Artists who believe Italian culture is stilted and staid called it genius.