La Soufrière is an extinct volcano. This doesn't mean
extinct like the dinosaurs, it just means that the
volcano is not exploding *at the moment*.
Read the rest of: "Postcard from Guadeloupe: La Soufrière"»
Judging from the 6 or 7 buses of Japanese tourists
armed with tripods and zoom lenses that could launch
canonballs I saw unloading beside Lac des Sables, the
Laurentien mountains (a.k.a. les Laurentides) of
Quebec possess fall foliage that draws a very
international crowd.
Read the rest of: "The Little Train of the North"»
There are two important things I learned from my recent whale-watching trip. One: whales come in all sizes, mostly smaller than you think. And two: whales are not dolphins!
Read the rest of: "Whale Watching In Quebec"»
Part of the Eastern Townships, Magog is a small
village on the shores of Lake Memphremagog. It's a half
hour from the Vermont border, and about an hour (and a
century or so) away from Montreal.
Read the rest of: "Magog, Eastern Townships of Quebec"»
Construction began today in
Moscow
on the site of what is
to become the tallest European skyscraper.
The "FEDERATION"
complex will include two towers, measuring 340 and 240 meters
respectively and will be part of "Moscow-City" -
a gargantuan multi-building project that has been under development for over
a decade now.
The possibility that the new towers
(and not the Kremlin) may soon become the standard
"postcard" view of Moscow is bothering many. Not us.
On my last trip to Buenos Aires, I was pleasantly surprised with the book-shopping scene there.
Walking the streets of downtown B.A. was like traveling in a time machine - this must have been what New York
City was like in the 1970's: crowded, polluted, with lots of small bookstores...
Read the rest of: "Book Shopping in Buenos Aires"»
¡Feliz Año Nuevo desde Madrid! By the way, this is
Madrid's Puerta del Sol on New Year's eve (right around midnight). Did you know that Spaniards eat grapes
instead of drinking champagne during the countdown?
You're supposed to eat exactly twelve during the
last minute of the year - that works out to be one grape every five
seconds, if my Bachelor's degree in Mathematics was worth anything at all.
If you linger or hesitate then it's bad luck. All
grocery shops around Puerta del Sol sell seedless grapes (wouldn't that be cheating?), neatly packed by the dozen.
