GADLING'S TAKE FIVE: Week of February 13

by Neil Woodburn on

Gadling’s Take Five is a new Friday feature spotlighting our favorite posts of the previous week—just in
case you missed them!

5.  Red Corner: Communist
Statue Parks
Red Corner takes us on a tour this week of the fascinating locations where many communist era
statues have eventually ended up, much to the delight of tourists wishing to experience the old Soviet days. 

4.  Next Time, Declare the
Human Head
We’ve all sweated it through customs, but usually not with a human head.  The bizarre
story of the week comes to us from Florida where a live human was arrested for smuggling a dead human head into the
United States. 

3.  Live Humans Please!
Speaking of
live humans, those are exactly the ones we want to speak with instead of their automated counterparts when we call
corporate help lines.  This post directs you to the fastest way of bypassing automated answering machines to reach
a real human voice.  

2.  MTV’s Alternative Spring
Break
Spring Break isn’t just about boozing it up anymore.  As Adrienne Wilson informs us, it is
now about being socially responsible—at least for a few people.  MTV, believe it or not, is promoting an
alternative Spring Break where students can volunteer their vacation time to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. 

1.  Working in Torres del Paine
Erik Olsen introduces us to another wonderful work abroad opportunity, this one in beautiful Torres del Paine,
Chile where volunteers can help the national park service maintain their trails while enjoying one of the finest slices
of outdoor on this planet. 

 

Places to Kiss Redux

by Erik Olsen on

With the passing of Valentine’s Day, we hope that you still keep
the fires of romance burning. After all, V-day is a good excuse to indulge in some chocolates and perhaps an expensive,
candle-lit meal, but love should be year-round.

Well, in the spirit of keeping the passion set to
"high", we offer a few suggestions and links to help you make sure that  Valentines Day is basically
every day.

First of all, let’s reprise the fine article in USA Today that offered
suggestions on places to smooth. Now, all of thes3e places are pretty much open to you year round, and last I checked
there was no law against kissing in public outside of V-day, so you should be fine. So get you and your heart to San
Francisco and climb the Filbert Steps on Filbert
Street. There, take in the gaping glory of the city, and lock lips. Or! and here’s a wonderful idea for the Northwest
folks who tune into gadling every so often: Kiss on the Ferry to Bainbridge Island in Seattle. Not only is this a
wonderful ride, through Elliott Bay, but the city lights shine off the water, and the gulls squawk overhead, making
this one of the most romantic spots around.

And, well, since I live in New York City, I had to include my
own list of top five places to kiss in the city…and yes, this is based on experience:

Brooklyn
Promenade
Central Park
Hudson River Park
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
the American Museum of
Natural History (in the primate diorama)

Next, this being winter and a good time to snuggle, you might heed
some of the advice in this article, that
offers a top ten list of places to kiss in the cold months. Now, granted the suggestions here are rather more general
(kiss on a horse drawn sleigh, for example), but they might stimulate some other ideas around your town where you can
steal a kiss.

And finally, let us change geography a moment and offer you this short list of places to kiss your honey that doesn’t
include travel…or at least, not very far.

Africa Travel: Guinea-Bissau

by Adrienne Wilson on

Yesterday I suggested touring Guinea’s old slave routes filled with painful,
tear-jerking memories of men and women sold for bags of rice and shipped to the America’s where they would never see
their family or native land again and as I move onto the next African country, Guinea’s direct neighbor, Guinea-Bissau
I’ll ease off historical travel activity for outdoor activity. Guinea-Bissau is located off the North Atlantic Ocean
between Guinea and Senegal. Off the coast you’ll find the Bijagós Archipelago with several small islands rarely
visited by foreigners. One of the easiest to reach is that of the country’s original capital city, Bolama and the area
has a number of great beaches perfect for camping. Then again, your camping experience will have to be perfect since
there is no other accommodation according to this travel
information site. While you’re there you may also wish to take to the water for some fishing. I’m only guessing the
catch must be good. Hansrossel.com has great
information on traveling the country as a whole and Lonely Planet offers there rather
useful notes as well.

Red Corner: Communist Statue Parks

by Neil Woodburn on

Yesterday’s Red Corner post discussed the handful of Lenin statues which remain standing in various corners of the former Evil Empire. Most were simply never pushed over and stand today in the same spot in which they were erected so many years ago.

If you are interested in checking some of these out, but not so thrilled with traveling to a place like Omsk to do so, there is another, much easier way to view these rare and endangered statues: Statue Parks.

There are currently three substantial parks which have rescued statues from throughout the former Warsaw Pact and now exhibit them for curious tourists who missed the whole communist experience (and are now willing to pay to see it).

These bronze and marble petting zoos are a very surrealistic experience where statues which were once focal points of squares and parks are now corralled together in a mish-mash of gigantism and totalitarianism, the homage they once evoked belittled by the presence of so many clone-like reproductions assembled in one place-not to mention the absurdity of their stoic visages, frozen in another era, still trying so hard to be taken seriously.

Graveyard of Fallen Monuments, Moscow
This casual park across from Gorky Park has just a few communist statutes mixed in with hundreds of others that have nothing to do with the Soviet era. A light and airy atmosphere blankets the area and really softens up the more notorious statues. History, as is often the case in Russia, is somewhat airbrushed and improved in this presentation.

Szobor Park, Hungary
Just a short bus ride from Budapest, Szobor Park is more of a modern art arrangement in which mammoth communist statues are presented in a stark and powerful manner to really drive home the horror and brutality of the period.

Grutas Park, Lithuania
My personal favorite. Commonly referred to as Stalin World by locals, this park is located amongst acres of birch trees and beautiful lakes; the contrast of evil men against this beautiful landscape is truly unnerving. Grutas Park has more statues than any other park, as well as a zoo, museums, cafes, and even replicas of the train carriages in which thousands of Lithuanians were hauled off to Siberia-by the orders of the very leaders immortalized in the park.

Seattle Getting New Art Park

by Erik Olsen on

Seattle is one of my favorite places in the world. I lived there for over five years off and on, and I would go
back tomorrow without a fuss. I left about six years ago, and since then the city has undergone vast changes, with new
museums, sprawling new developments in places like Ballard that were once sleepy fishing and industrial neighborhoods.
Paul Allen has had a big rile in this, and there was even a big article about him recently  in the Times. 
But it turns out that even bigger changes are afoot.  According to this piece at CNN, there
is a massive plan to build a new artistic park along the waterfront. I couldn’t be happier. Give me parks over
skyscrapers and other industrial development ANY day. I mean, thank God that people had the foresight to build Central
Park in new York. The city without Central park would be 40 percent less than it is today. Anyway, the new development
is called the Olympic Sculpture Park and was designed to highlight the natural setting on the shores of Seattle’s
waterfront. The cost of the new park will be $85 million, some of which will also be used to clean up an area that was
contaminated from Seattle grittier past. What a great idea for a great city. Almost makes me want to plan a move back
before real estate prices get even worse there…if that’s possible.