How to say “I love you” in different languages

by Iva Skoch on

Happy Valentines day, everyone, wherever in the world you happen to be.

Not that I really care for this holiday, but any day is a good day to learn to say I Love you in Swahili: Nakupenda!

Here is a start of the long list:

1. Arabic Ana Behibak (To A Male)
2. Arabic Ana Behibek (To A Female)
3. Assamese Moi Tomak Bhal Pau
4. Bengali Ami Tomay Bhalo bashi
5. Bolivian Quechua Qanta Munani
6. Bulgarian Obicham Te
7. Burmese Chit Pa De
8. Cambodian Bon Sro Lanh Oon
9. Canadian Sh’teme
10. Catalan T’estim Molt (I Love You A Lot)

Traveling together for Valentine’s Day? Here’s how NOT to hate each other at the end of the trip

by Catherine Bodry on

There are travel partners — friends with whom you travel — and then there’s travel partners — your real-life partner that you travel with. I’m lucky enough to have both. Jen is my great friend from high school and perhaps the best travel partner I will ever have. We spent nearly 10 months together on a round-the-world trip, drove up the Alaska highway together, and met up in Laos on another trip. My husband is my lifelong partner and while I love traveling with him, the going is not always as smooth as it is with Jen. Why is that?

Traveling with Jen is almost like traveling alone — if one of us wants to stay in a place longer, the other might go on. When we were in Ho Chi Minh City, I really wanted to see the war museum. She was ready to head to Cambodia, so she booked a three-day journey up the Mekong to Phnom Penh. I stayed in Vietnam a day longer, then took a similar 3-day trip. When I got off the bus in Phnom Penh I checked my email to find a message from her saying where she was staying. I took a motorbike there, and we were reunited until the next time it was time to part. Perfect!
With my husband it’s a bit different. On one of our first trips together I tried to convince him to stay in a place a day longer than me, since he really liked it and wasn’t ready to leave. I had made plans to visit a friend and didn’t feel I could break or change them. He didn’t like the idea of splitting up, arguing that “it’s just weird.” And maybe it is. So here are some strategies we’ve crafted for harmonious partner travel:

  • Be really clear about what you want to see. You might be heading to Amsterdam together with one person who assumes they’ll spend the whole trip in art galleries and tulip fields while the other person anticipates tours of coffee shops and sex shows. Make sure you know each others’ goals.
  • Be flexible. If you drag your partner from museum to museum, maybe skip a less important one in the interest of kindness.
  • Spend some time apart. This doesn’t mean disappearing for a few days; instead, try spending an afternoon solo. That way nobody has to do anything they don’t want to — and sometimes it’s just nice to have time to think only about yourself.
  • Acknowledge your partner’s willingness to go along with you. Say thank you, and return the favor.

Make Mozart Balls like a master

by Jamie Rhein on

One of the finest discoveries I experienced when I first went to Europe as a junior in college was the European version of chocolate. In Denmark, I savored Anthon Berg. In Switzerland it was Toblerone. In Austria I became quite fond of Mozart Balls. Had I been eating only Hershey bars and Almond Joys up until that point? I don’t remember, but what I do remember in a semester of college travel was savoring chocolate very, very slowly since I was on a budget and wanted every bite to last. Just this past week, I had a Mozart Ball, my first in about a year. It lasted several minutes. Yes, it was great.

As I’ve found out, one can learn to make Mozart Balls according to the original recipe passed down from1890. Making Mozartkkugein, the original fancy name, is one of the draws to St. Gilgen, a small village on Lake Wolfgang near Saltzburg At the Konditorei Dallmann, you can take a 30 to 40 minute course in Mozart Ball making. Included in the price is a confectioner’s hat, apron, cake and coffee.

Dakar Rally 2009 to be held in… Argentina and Chile?

by Anna Brones on

The Dakar Rally is one of those crazy events that it takes a certain kind of personality to do. I mean, why else would you willingly spend days and days speeding off-road across the Sahara with the inherent risk of death? But some people like that kind of thing, and since its creation in 1979, the annual event has attracted thrill seeking participants from around the globe.

Originally, the race went all the way from Paris, France to Dakar, Senegal but in recent years the event has commenced in places such as Lisbon and Barcelona. True fans of the “international nomad event” were disappointed when security concerns in Africa forced this year’s version to be canceled the night before it was supposed to begin.

The Rally is such a big deal that the organizers are committed to not letting political instability get in the way and have therefore decided to move the 2009 edition to South America with Buenos Aires as the start and finish. The Dakar Rally director Français Etienne Lavigne promises that the stint in Argentina and Chile is only temporary and that the Rally will return to its African roots when the “geopolitical situation is more stable.”

As for European competitors, participating on another continent should not cause worry; their cars will be shipped by boat across the Atlantic sometime late November. And Latin American participants will get to take advantage of a special entrance fee. Looks like the Dakar Rally will truly have gone global. But I still think the 2009 edition just might need a different name en español. Suggestions anyone?

European Union may begin fingerprinting foreign visitors (Yes, even you!)

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Today, the European Commission is introducing a plan that would require all visitors to Europe to be electronically fingerprinted before entering and leaving the continent. Yes, even you, U.S. citizens.

The move, which would not go into effect for at least a year if approved, has been lauded by U.S. officials for its national security implications. Said one Homeland Security spokesman: “Measures like fingerprint and passenger-data collection can disrupt the ability of terrorists to move easily across international borders. They also serve to protect American citizens traveling overseas.”

But not everyone supports the new plan, according to a Washington Post article. One Dutch Parliament member questioned whether the move wasn’t an unnecessary infringement of privacy, and whether it would really make anyone safer in the end. “It seems like a steamroller. There is a new trend in particular in the U.S., the E.U. and Australia to register every single detail of our life. We’re tagged. They can follow everything we do. They know where we are. The whole question is: What for? Does this actually make the world a safer place?”

The U.S. seems to think so. Most visitors to its borders are fingerprinted and photographed already.