Hollywood loves train scenes. Some movies depict adventure and action, like the scene where Captain America jumps onto a moving train in the Alps in Captain America: The First Avenger. Others are romantic, as displayed in Romance in the Orient Express by Lawrence Gordon Clark. My personal train travels have had little resemblance to these fictional ... [Read more]
The sun dipped low on the horizon, and a cacophony of sounds filled the square---percussion beats, singing and chanting, the calls of touts, the hiss of burning charcoal, and the flutes of snake charmers. This sensory overload mixed with the smells of freshly-squeezed orange juice, meat on the grill, exotic spices, and a mass of diverse humanity. Taking in ... [Read more]
First and foremost, staircases, whether straight, spiral, bifurcated, curved, L-shaped or U-shaped, are designed and built to provide access between floors or to the top of a structure. However, to many architects and engineers throughout the centuries, staircases were works of art, engineering marvels, and a means to an end. For some artists, plain public ... [Read more]
Celebrate your birthday girl’s Sweet 16 on a mini-vacation with family and friends. Some teens are sour on traditional Sweet 16 parties—with their elaborate chocolate fondue fountains and personality-plus disc jockeys—opting instead to gather a few friends for a Sweet 16 getaway at a fabulous resort or cool destination. City getaways have long been ... [Read more]
Tallinn is crowded when the cruise ships come to town, but you can have it mostly to yourself when the ships leave. Travelers from all corners of the globe make their way over land and sea (and of course air) to discover this charming city with almost 900 years of history. You can get a sense of the layers of history as you walk up and down the narrow ... [Read more]
Until this point in our history, we have not found another planet teeming with life like our own. We continue to search, but it has become clear that what we have in planet Earth is something special, at least within the scope of our understanding. Our planet is naturally divided into continents and oceans, so the first question that comes to mind is ... [Read more]
