Word for the Travel Wise (11/27/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Well it’s been months since I’ve tossed out an Azeri word and my lack of doing so is a result of few online English to Azeri resources. Not wanting to fail you or anyone out there with a remote interest in this far out foreign lang, I went back to Azeri.org where I managed to pluck this easy word out of a few others. Hope it helps someone out there.

Today’s word is an Azeri word used in Azerbaijan:

romanlar – novels

Azeri, also known as Azerbaijani, Azari, Azeri and Azeri Turkish is he official language of the Republic of Azerbaijan. However, Iran is home for a majority of the Azeri speakers in the world. It is spoken in Russia’s Republic of Dagestan, south-eastern Georgia, northern Iraq, and eastern Turkey. I wanted to present you with a better word for the first lesson and second lesson in Azeri, but there are several with that upside down e and other characters and for me to try to give you one of those without the right character would cause too much confusion. Wiki has the lang background info and Azeri.org has some online lessons.

I’ll be patrolling the web for more online sources.

Past Azeri words: babatdir

The Great Wall Crumbles

by Iva Skoch on

Following up on my recent blog regarding construction crews taking a bite out of the Great Wall of China, here’s an interesting piece from the NY Times about folks who are trying to preserve the Wall.

An official at the Great Wall Society thinks that most of the damage to the Wall was probably done in the 1950s and 1960s, since Mao encouraged farmers to use bricks from the Wall to build homes. A reservoir outside Beijing was built with bricks from the Wall.

Now, however, visits by millions of tourists are taking a toll too. One site near Beijing alone counted 4.5 million visitors last year.

New national regulations, effective December 1, will, hopefully, help to protect what remains.

Colors Magazine

by Adrienne Wilson on

Don’t you hate it when someone puts you onto something completely hip and cool and then you sit on it for two months or so? You finally make the time to go check out what they were trying to tell you about in the first place and wonder why you didn’t move your arse to check it out any sooner. Such is the scenario with Colors Magazine. One of my Habitat pals told me long ago to scope out the online version of the quarterly magazine packed with vivid, bursting photography and culture topics from around the globe. I didn’t listen until now. If the online version is this awesome I think I wouldn’t mind having one of the hard-copies zipped over into my mailbox once in a while. In their current issue they discuss genetically contaminated corn, smoked reindeer meat, what kind of salmon the world will eat, in addition to tracking goat cheese by satellite. Sounds quirky for the most part, put the photos really pull you in for the read. Great magazine! Don’t wait on giving it a once over like I did.

Word for the Travel Wise (11/23/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on


Today marks the day of my all-time favorite holiday where year-long stories are exchanged with family and friends over warm plates of turkey, ham, stuffing, and veggies. As people from all corners of the country either relax in the comfort of their own homes or dine out at some fabulous restaurant there will be many toasts, cheers and wishes for good-health over their good meal. It is for this very occasion that I pass this small fruit of knowledge your way to whoever may be reading at this hour.

Today I leave you with various ways to say Bon appetit!

  • Croatian – Dobar tek!
  • German – Guten appetit!
  • Hebrew – Bete’avon!
  • Hungarian – Jó étvágyat!
  • Korean – Mani deuseyo!
  • Persian – Noosh-e jan!
  • Polish – Smacznego!

For a complete list as found on the New York Public Library site in their World Languages Collection follow the link found here. Happy Thanksgiving all!

Allie Cooper on Thailand’s Post-tsunami Beaches

by Adrienne Wilson on

During my last big foreign affair with the country of Tajikistan this past September I had the opportunity to meet several cool Tajik natives as well as the team members from my Habitat GV build. To list them all by name and what exactly makes them cool would take too long and could go forever, so for now I’ll concentrate on Alison Cooper. Allie, as I like to call her, was one of the individuals lending her hand in building better homes in the Dushanbe community.

Once we wrapped up our duties in the Central Asian city it was time to say our good-byes and head our separate ways. Most of us were heading home, but Allie being the overly lucky one decided to jet over to Thailand for some R&R and well I’m sure other things. Here, I’ve recently discovered her thoughts and opinions on Thailand’s post-tsunami beaches in the Christian Science Monitor. It’s a short read and doesn’t offer any hard core tips to really help you plan, but it may give you some extra reassurance if you’re second-guessing your own trip to Phi Phi Don or other islands.

Check out her Thailand Flickr photo stream for additional travel inspiration.