World Hum | Travel | Where Did I Buy This Bobblehead Doll? I Could Tell You, But Then I�d Have to Kill You.

Travel dispatches from a shrinking planet

World Hum’s Most Read: June 28-July 3

What We Loved This Week: Def Leppard in Greece, Austrian Competence and Freedom in Colombia

The LAX Theme Building, Then and Now

As a Woman, Can I Really Travel Without Much Fear for my Safety?

Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel

Inside Slum Tourism

With mixed feelings, Rob Verger recently signed on for a tour of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. He looks back on the experience—and the photos he was allowed to take.

Break Bread and Brie in France

Great cheese abounds in the land of Gaul, but dig in and you risk committing any number of faux pas. Terry Ward explains how to partake of the nation’s famed fromage with savoir faire.

10 Wanderlust-Inducing Summer Concerts

Call it world music or global pop or the sound of the world hum. Ben Keene reveals 10 acts on tour that are sure to transport you. Plus videos.

Bryan Mealer: ‘War and Deliverance in Congo’

The former AP correspondent traveled up the Congo River. Frank Bures asks the author of “All Things Must Fight to Live” about following in the wake of Joseph Conrad.

A Journey Into ‘The Second World’

Some bureaucrats joke that they would never claim expertise about countries they had not at least flown over. In an excerpt from his new book, Parag Khanna argues that real global understanding can only come from serious travel.

BOOKS

�The Worst Guidebook Writer Ever�?

Lonely Planet author Robert Reid reviews Thomas Kohnstamm’s “Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?” and weighs in on the controversy surrounding it

TRAVEL BLOG

1.23.08

Where Did I Buy This Bobblehead Doll? I Could Tell You, But Then I�d Have to Kill You.

In Washington D.C., visitors can go sleuthing around the International Spy Museum. In Berlin, they can look back on the reign of the Stasi at the DDR Museum. But in Canada’s capital, and my own hometown of Ottawa, tourists aren’t allowed even a spyglass-eye’s view of the top-secret Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) museum. And they most certainly can’t buy souvenirs.

The existence of the Canadian spy agency’s museum, which is off-limits to all outside visitors, was leaked a few years back. But now the Canadian Press is reporting that there’s also a top-secret souvenir shop to go with the museum exhibits. According to documents obtained through an Access to Information request, insiders who want to buy a souvenir “can do so by stating what they want and putting the money in an envelope.”

A spokeswoman for CSIS quoted in the story described the shop’s wares as including mugs, pens, T-shirts and golf balls, all with the CSIS crest. She added that the shop does not sell “junior spymaster trinkets such as shoe-phones, decoder rings or snow-globes with hidden microphones.”

Photo of International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. by dbking via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Posted by Eva Holland • 1.23.08
Categories: Weblog • Canada • Germany • Tres Loco • United States