May 18th, 2013 at 11:00AM: Alex Robertson Textor
Launched in 1956, Eurovision is a Europe-wide music competition held every May under the auspices of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Participating countries select their representative songs over the course of the preceding winter and spring. Some countries – like Sweden – make their selections via televised heats held over several consecutive weeks. Others ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
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Eurovision 2013: All Of Europe Under One Roof
May 18th, 2013 at 11:00AM: Alex Robertson Textor
Launched in 1956, Eurovision is a Europe-wide music competition held every May under the auspices of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Participating countries select their representative songs over the course of the preceding winter and spring. Some countries – like Sweden – make their selections via televised heats held over several consecutive weeks. Others ...Forbidden America: Cold War-Era Map Shows No-Go Zones For Soviet Tourists
May 16th, 2013 at 2:30PM: Image courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center
If you think security is tight now, imagine what it was like for Soviet tourists who came to the United States during the Cold War. Although a select few private Soviet citizens were granted permission to visit the Land of the Free in the 1950s, the U.S. government was very specific about the places these tourists could and could not visit. A map ...Paying More For Flights? Try $70.6 Million Per Seat
May 1st, 2013 at 5:00PM: Travelers have become accustomed to paying more for flights as airline fees soar, tapping them for billions. Between baggage fees, service fees and in-flight fees, it is getting harder to find cheap fares and no one knows that better than NASA.
As the space shuttle program came to an end in 2011, NASA began relying on the Russian Space Agency to ferry astronauts and supplies back and forth from ...Two Days After Scare, Russia Bans Flights Over Syria
May 1st, 2013 at 2:30PM: Just two days after a commercial airliner with 159 passengers detoured to avoid the danger of flying over a combat zone, Russia has officially banned flights over Syria, Reuters is reporting.
According to the news outlet, some Russian airlines had ignored a warning issue in February, and continued to pass over war-torn Syria. One of those planes was a chartered flight operated by NordWind ...Officials Search For 'Frankenfish' In Central Park
May 1st, 2013 at 2:00PM: Environmental officials plan to survey a lake in Central Park for the northern snakehead fish, a curious species often referred to as the "Frankenfish."
After sightings in Queens in recent years, the toothy, predatory fish is thought to have reared its ugly head in the park, NBC News is reporting. Native to China, Russia and Korea, the invasive species eats frogs and crayfish, and – ...Ethnic Element Of Boston Bombing Complicated By Geography Skills
Apr 21st, 2013 at 12:00PM: Killed and captured, Boston marathon suspects Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are understandably a trending topic across social media platforms. That's no surprise. Perhaps now some reasons behind the bombing will surface and we can begin to categorize the event, learn from it, vow to never forget and move along, albeit with a bit less of a secure feeling.
Also no surprise is that most ...Travel Tool: Interactive World Heritage Site Map
Apr 7th, 2013 at 12:00PM:
When it comes to planning my next trip, a pretty photo only inspires me half as much as a good map. I'm particularly partial to UNESCO's interactive World Heritage List map, which I spend more time clicking on than I'd care to admit. The map identifies the List's 962 properties across the globe and provides information about each, including an array of photos for those who need the ...Chinese Tourists Spend More Money Than Anyone Else
Apr 5th, 2013 at 12:00PM: Chinese travelers have officially become the biggest contributors to the tourism industry, spending a whopping $102 billion on vacations and other travel in 2012.
Figures from the UN World Tourism Organization revealed the Asian country has dramatically upped its travel spending, with last year's expenditure up 40 percent from the prior year.
The organization credits China's increased ...Survey Ranks 'World's Most Unfriendliest' Countries
Mar 15th, 2013 at 2:00PM:
Have you ever been to a country that just seems to give tourists the cold shoulder? Now, there are some figures behind those unwelcome feelings; the World Economic Forum has put together a report that ranks countries based on how friendly they are to tourists.
The extensive analyses ranks 140 countries according to attractiveness and competitiveness in the travel and tourism industries. ...Victoria & Albert Museum Showcases Treasures From Royal Courts
Mar 7th, 2013 at 2:00PM:
The Victoria & Albert Museum in London has just opened a new exhibition about the development of trade and official relations between Russia and the United Kingdom.
"Treasures of the Royal Courts: Tudors, Stuarts and the Russian Tsars" brings together more than 150 objects for a look at the interaction between both courts from the accession of Henry VIII in 1509. He and later Tudor ...Stalin Back in Style In His Hometown of Gori
Dec 23rd, 2012 at 10:00AM: Two years ago, Georgian officials carried out a secret, dead of night operation to dismantle a statue of Joseph Stalin in his hometown of Gori. But on Thursday, a municipal assembly in Gori voted to restore the monument. According to press reports, some 6,000 people signed a petition in support of the move. The fact that officials in this impoverished corner of the world have pledged $15,000 ...The Caucasus, Central Asia And British Airways
Dec 14th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
I traveled to Beirut earlier this year with bmi (British Midland International), the East Midlands-based airline partially absorbed into British Airways in the spring. My Beirut trip was meant to be the third installment in an ongoing series called "Far Europe and Beyond," which reached a premature end in the lead-up to the airline's sale to International Airlines Group (IAG), the parent of ...Russian Forest Now Features 170-Foot-Long Trampoline (VIDEO)
Dec 2nd, 2012 at 2:00PM:
At Archstoyanie, an annual festival held in the forests of Nikola-Lenivets, Russia, architects from Estonian design firm Salto created a 170-foot-long trampoline. Dubbed "Fast Track," the elongated trampoline acts similar to a people mover at an airport. Except in this case, instead of helping you get from one place to another in haste, Fast Track was designed to allow users to experience ...Traveler Visits Every Country In The World Without Boarding A Plane
Nov 30th, 2012 at 8:00AM: A British man has accomplished what many world travelers have only dreamed of. Over the course of the past four years, he has managed to visit every country on the planet, which is a very impressive feat considering some of the places he had to go to in order to earn this unique distinction. But perhaps most impressive of all is that he traveled to all of those places without ever stepping foot on ...Train In Vain: Four Days With A Pair Of Uzbek Prostitutes, Final Part
Oct 12th, 2012 at 10:00AM: Read parts one, two, three and four of this story.
I said a tentative goodbye to Marina, not knowing whether she wanted to lose me or not. I didn't have the mental capacity to deal with the chaos and uncertainty of a new place, so I was pleased when Marina said we should share a taxi into town. But before we could leave the station, two soldiers at the exit tried to shake me down.
Marina ...Train In Vain: Four Days With A Pair Of Uzbek Prostitutes, Part Four
Oct 11th, 2012 at 10:00AM: Read parts one, two and three of this story.
Day Four
I woke up in a sweat and was told by Marina that we had crossed into Turkmenistan, a country I had no transit visa for. The compartment was a white-hot crucible of heat that was exacerbated by the fact that none of the windows would open.
The train stopped at a dusty little outpost and the conductor, Ermat, already drunk at 10 a.m., ...Train In Vain: Four Days With A Pair of Uzbek Prostitutes, Part Three
Oct 10th, 2012 at 10:00AM: Read part one and two of this story.
Day Three
On my third morning on board an increasingly hellish train ride, I found a fully intact piece of excrement resting on the train's only toilet seat I could get to. It seemed not to have been an accident; in fact, the feces looked as though it was carefully placed there by some very malicious, or very inaccurate person. I marched down towards car ...Train In Vain: Four Days With A Pair Of Uzbek Prostitutes, Part Two
Oct 9th, 2012 at 10:00AM: Read Part One of this story here.
Day Two
We reached the Kazakh border before lunchtime and there was an unbelievable commotion as scores of merchants boarded the train while others threw big boxes through open windows. Two men barged into our compartment carrying boxes of produce and a vicious argument ensued as my travel companions tried to prevent the men from stacking their crates in our ...Train In Vain: Four Days With A Pair Of Uzbek Prostitutes, Part One
Oct 8th, 2012 at 10:00AM: Read parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 of this story.
After spending four sweltering, monotonous days on a dirty, cargo-laden train from Moscow to Bukhara, sharing a compartment with two Uzbek prostitutes, a Russian soldier and a capricious, alcoholic conductor prone to flashbacks from his days as a soldier in Afghanistan, I was more than ready to get off the damn train.
But there was no timetable and no ...International Business Travel Tips, From Business Travelers
Sep 20th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
After posting our 10 Tips For International Business Travel, readers responded with some engaging comments. Chiming in with additional tips that work, their ideas for international business travel have an undeniable common sense. Based on their personal experience, with some lessons learned "the hard way," readers shared not what they heard would be a good idea, but what they did that worked. ...
