Our friend and blogging mentor Jason Calacanis logs a LOT of miles as an entrepreneur, and I like to keep an eye on his blog to see what he’s up to. His posts are almost always thoughtful ruminations on the state of the blogging biz and what’s happening in the high tech world, but sometimes he does venture into travel-related areas. Here, he points us to a rather interesting picture of, well, a poster that seems to show what traveling coach could have been like. The hilarious circa 1970s shot shows a welcoming stewardess in a gaping lounge of red-upholstered seats which we are led to believe was once a possibility in coach travel. Right. If that ever happened, it certainly didn’t last long as now coach basically means being scrunched up like a prisoner of war in solitary confinement. But what I love most about the photo is the 2001 A Space Odyssey feel to airline travel. Alas, in my best John Kerry accent, would that it were. Would that it were.
GADLING’S TAKE FIVE: Week of December 31
With so many interesting stories coming out and into the New Year it made selecting this week’s five a bit difficult, yet I think I’ve gathered a well-rounded batch for you to review.
5. Think Before You Click:
Here is the sad tale of a German tourist who accidentally booked a ticket and flew into Sidney, Montana when he actually wanted to go to Sydney, Australia. The lucky fellow was able to make it to his intended destination with the help of family and friends, but talk about a costly mistake! Ouch.
4. Ask The Pilot:
Looking for the answer to all your flying questions? Why not “Ask the Pilot” or pick up the book to see if your question happens to make the selection of commonly pondered questions.
3. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum:
When a former president is no longer with us it is a big deal to say the least and many feel the need to pay some sort of tribute. The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum is just one place to start or perhaps you can think and thank him on your way from the ATM as he was the dude that made it legal to pull money from a machine. Not as grand as a trip to the museum, but its just a thought.
2. Paddling Baja Dispatch: Day 2:
After another great trip, Erik returns to share with us the details of paddling Baja. In this dispatch he talks about his guide Carlos, jagged coastlines, incredible rock formations, Mexican food, and rum and of course he does the favor of including some very cool photos from the affair. There is more to come, but in the meanwhile catch up on this if you already haven’t.
1. Chinese Shish Kabobs:
Death-wish or delicious? I don’t know about the food found in the pictures from Neil’s pal Pete, but I do know they make my skin crawl to the point where these Chinese shish kabob would be staying far from the taste-buds and only close enough for photo ops. Do proceed with caution.
Literary Gadling: Goethe’s Spa Romance
As another tip in my irregular series of literary travel destinations, I suggest visiting Marianske Lazne (aka Marienbad, in German), a spa town in Western Bohemia (Czech Republic), which Johann Wolfgang Goethe used to frequent in the 1820’s.
Goethe, a German poet and novelist, most famous for “Faust”, used to come here to relax …although some sources say that he actually came here to get treated for syphilis. It is peculiar to imagine how a hot mineral bath would cure venereal disease, but even more peculiar is that people actually came to this disease-laden place to seek romance. It was here where the 73-year old Goethe fell in love with the 18-year old baroness, Ulrike von Levetzow. He wanted to marry her but , shockingly enough, she rejected him. Instead, he wrote the “Trilogy of Passion” for her.
Marianske Lazne, smaller and more authentic than Karlovy Vary, still has the feel of a town frequented by the royalty, although nowadays you are more likely to see a busload of German pensioners than beautiful baronesses. The town and its numerous spas have been restored and it is still a great place to sip mineral waters, take baths and, of course, munch on the famous spa wafers. Thankfully, more effective medication for STDs have been discovered.
Potts on America’s Top Ten Travel Spots
I get very wary of most Top Ten lists of places to travel. It is my unproven suspicion that most of these lists are put together by interns at magazines who browse the web and compile them for their bosses. Most, I would guess, have never actually been to all the places on their Top Ten lists.
But if there’s a writer I do trust out there to come up with a viable to ten list, it would be Rolf Potts. Potts now writes an excellent travel column for Yahoo, which I try to read as often as I can. But usually he writes about more international-based stuff. But today he’s got a piece on, yes, the top ten places to travel in America. And what I like about the list is that it’s eclectic. No Disneyland. No Hollywood and Vine. These are lesser-known, off beat spots where you can savor the flavor of American history and the American outdoors. For example, rather than suggest the old stand-by road trip like Route 66, Rolf suggests driving U.S. Highway 50, Between Maryland and California. And what about Pike National Forest,, Colorado? I’ll bet most folks have never heard of it, but Rolf says it’s where he “learned how to sleep under the stars, build campfires, read topographical maps, and rock climb”. And his favorite is probably my favorite as well. He recommends the epic Olympic National Park, in Washington, which I agree is one of the loveliest places around.
That’s only three of the ten. For the rest, check out the peice.
Do you speak EU?
Once again the EU has found a way to create more jobs. Hallelujah!
This time, it will need people to translate documents to Irish Gaelic because the old Celtic language has become one of the 23 official EU languages (though only about 5% of the 4-million inhabitants of Ireland use it actively.) Irish Gaelic (or simply Irish) is often confused with Gaelic (aka Scottish Gaelic) which is not yet an official EU language, but it is probably just a matter of time. Catalan and Basque are considered “semi-official”.
As of the New Year, three new languages joined the family of the EU official languages: Romanian, Bulgarian and Irish Gaelic. With all of EU’s efforts to be culturally and linguistically diverse, it has managed to achieve the opposite effect. According to The Economist, in the beginning of EU integration, about one half of official documents were in English, now it is two thirds.