Sydney: Australia Day

by Erik Olsen on

If you decide to visit Sydney during peak summer season (more expensive, of course, but the weather is mostly divine), it’s good to know that the national holiday — Australia Day — falls at the end of January, on the 26th each year.

The day honors and celebrates the founding of the country, remembering January 26, 1788, when Captain Arthur Phillip took formal possession of the colony of New South Wales and became its first Governor. (You can read more about the history of the day here.) Some of the Australia Day traditions have been around for years, like the Anniversary Regatta which was first held in 1836 and is still held on Sydney Harbour each year.

Now called the Australia Day Regatta, it is the oldest continuous regatta in the world. Each state or territory in Australia has its own events and customs to mark the anniversary. In New South Wales, where Sydney is located, there are numerous events, including a surfboard challenge, tall ships race and air show. A full list of activities can be found at the NSW Australia Day website.


Virgin’s 101 Things to Do in London

by Erik Olsen on

London is a sprawling city whose bustle and thrum can sometimes be overwhelming to the uninitiated. You step off the plane in Heathrow and throw yourself into its maw, and without some guide to help you navigate the winding, car-infested streets, you can quickly get yourself lost…which might not be so bad, truth be told. But let’s say you don’t want to get lost and you are looking for a quick and dirty list of the best things to do in the city. Well, you can always get your hands on a good guidebook, i.e. Lonely Planet’s guide to London. Or you can check out this list of the 100 things you MUST do in London. The list was compiled by the good folks at Virgin and while it contains lorry-loads of basic tourist stuff like visit Big Ben and see Notting Hill, there are also some more creative ideas like taking a lunch or dinner cruise and checking out Spitalfields.

Altogether, it’s a decent little list and face it, 100 Things is a lot of, well, things. So you can pretty much bet that you’ll never get through all of them, but trying to do so would be half the fun.

George Packer on Lagos

by Erik Olsen on

Once again I feel I have to screech to the heavens and beg for an answer why the best magazine in the world has such a lousy Web presence. As Mike Meyere s might say: this one is crraaap! Don’t David Remnick and Company get the Internet? Or are they playing some kind of teasing game with us, playfully holding back so we drool and gnash out teeth and finally PAY to get some kind of decent New Yorker Web site. Or worst of all, are they like Larry King? Oblivious to the internet and its possibilities to help them spread the word…nay, their obligation to do so…and by “Word, I mean that literally, since no one on the planet is better with the word than the New Yorker.

Well, whatever their reason (another possibility: being part of mega-magazine behemoth Conde Nast, for whom the online world is a cannibal in sheep’s clothing?), whatever the reason, I am sad because I read an article by George Packer in last week’s issue (or was it the one before? Holiday season, ya know. Hard to keep up) and it can’t be found online. George Packer writes on Lagos, the sprawling, hellish, bizarre, nauseating, but ultimately charming-in-its-own-sick-way MEGAcity in Nigeria. The article is one of the looong typical New Yorker pieces, but ultimately a delight to read. It’s far to complicated to go into much here, so try to get your hands on it. And if you happen to drum up the courage to go, well, by all means tell us about it.

Acne on Mt. Rushmore?

by Erik Olsen on

This is kind of a fun piece. One of the coolest trips I ever got to take when I worked for the National Park Service was to see Mount Rushmore. The view from the bottom that most tourists get is cool. Sure you can snap some pics down there and look up aht those four gleaming, magnificent pates. You think to yourself: Self, that’s pretty neat.

But I was lucky enough when I worked for the NPS, to climb up on top of the heads, to walk around on Lincoln’s prodigious brow, to do a jig on Washington’s curls. Now THAT was cool. And all of that is a simple preface to direct you to this gallery from MSNBC of the effort aways back to clean the heads of Rushmore. According to this piece from last year at NPR it was the first time that the four Presidents have had their faces washed since the sculpture was completed. One wonders if there were any signs of acne.

Space Tourism Details Start to Fill In

by Iva Skoch on

Not to steal too much thunder from Erik (who’s been blogging about this for some time), but it looks like the details of space tourism are getting clearer.

Virgin Galactic has already collected $200,000 from its first 100 customers, called “founders,” for their 150-minute flights on SpaceShipOne. More spots are still open for the next elite group of 400, called “pioneers” ($150,000 down payment). Booking is now also occurring for a third group, called “voyagers” ($20,000 down payment). They hope to put up 500 adventurous folks in the first year of operation: 2009.

Competitor Space Adventures is already off and running, haven taken the first three space tourists to the Space Station … for a $20 million “base price” apiece.

Finally, Benson Space Company will take you up on their Dream Chaser — once they complete it — for between $200,000 and $300,000, hopefully sometime in 2009. Get your $25,000 deposit ready.