No Snow = Bummer European Ski Season

by Neil Woodburn on

This is usually the time of year where we post about all the wonderful ski areas around the world where one can hurl down mountainsides of snow and powder and truly embrace the winter season.

Unfortunately, ski season hasn’t really arrived in Europe this winter.

Austria, Italy, Switzerland and other legendary winter playgrounds are suffering from a desperate lack of the white stuff; almost no snow has fallen. This is because Europe is experiencing its warmest winter on record. It’s so warm, in fact, that resorts can’t even make artificial snow in many cases. When the temperature does drop, resorts frantically pump out as much artificial snow as they can but this hasn’t been enough to prevent a number of Ski World Cup races from being canceled or postponed throughout the region–including the one that was supposed to be held in Chaminox this weekend.

A recent article in the Los Angeles Times documents the impact that such a sorry season is having on the resorts in Italy. As you might imagine, the financial impact has been difficult to swallow and resorts are losing money very quickly.

Is this heat wave an anomaly, or yet another indication of global warming? I think the signs are obvious, yet there are those who continue to challenge the growing mound of evidence which suggest the conditions in Europe this season will only continue to get worse.

The Craziest Drivers in the World Are…

by Iva Skoch on

How does one define a “bad driver”? In a good portion of the civilized world, we tend to think of it as someone who drives fast, passes without seeing what’s ahead, doesn’t stop for pedestrians, honks impatiently … and frequently breaks the law.

This definition does not apply in other places. Take Eastern Europe: Bad driver is typically seen as someone without the skills to drive a bad car 100mph on icy roads, someone who frequently slows down traffic by driving the speed limit or someone who doesn’t take off within exactly one second of the light changing. This school of thought automatically makes every person above 55 and 95 percent of women bad drivers. Really, the only “good drivers” would be single, childless men between 18 and 30. And, according to some, good drivers would definitely not be Australians.

Some say that the people of Rome are the world’s worst; others think Buenos Aires is crazier. Several sites are dedicated to the awful drivers of the Arabian Gulf (aka Persian Gulf). A few Mexico Cities, LAs, Rios. And finally, one study shows that Russians are the worst in Europe, with 25 percent admitting to having sex while driving.

I cast my vote for the drivers in Egypt, the world’s most enthusiastic honkers.

Word for the Travel Wise (12/31/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

As promised I’m taking this one full year of language from across the globe and from the teeny tiny villages found in the Congo out with an explosive big bang! Okay, so you saw right through my attempt to hype it up, but really this is an exciting time. 2007 is only hours away for us and this completes a full year first year for the “Word for the Travel Wise” feature. I hope that the lessons have not only been helpful, but a little memorable. For the last time this year I just want to relay that while I do not have a degree as a linguist or speak fluently the mother tongue of several far more exotic places than my home digs in Florida, I appreciate the feedback and minor corrections that have been given and look forward to building a better world language feature in the new year.

Here is Happy New Year in various languages:

  • Yiddish – A git yor
  • Portuguese – Feliz ano novo
  • French – Bonne année
  • Italian – Buon anno
  • Persian – sal-e no mobarak
  • Japanese – Akemashite omedeto
  • Turkish – Mutlu yibasi
  • Catalan – Feliç any nou

Happy New Year everyone!

Word for the Travel Wise (12/22/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

It doesn’t surprise me a whole lot that About.com also has a word of the day feature for foreign languages, but what was does surprise is how long it took me to stumble upon their cool little lessons. After thumbing through some of the archives I decided to borrow this word from their teachings to pass on to you guys here. Go check out their feature.

Today’s word is an Italian word used in Italy:

mondo – world, humanity, mankind

Seeing how popular the language is there isn’t much difficulty finding learning resources on the web. I’m a little unsure about what’s going on with this June29 site, but they have three very simple lessons to get your learning motors going. You might find the BBC your one stop shop in handling your needs. Dictionaries, lessons, audio, and slang are all included. Distance learning is always recommended in my book. Check out some of these programs abroad where you can study in various cities across the country and even Lugano, Switzerland. A few links to study abroad are as follows: Amerispan, World Link Education, and ILUSS. Head over to this Italian Book Store for suggested text.

Past Italian words: qualcosa, dov’é, congratulazioni, un riccone/una riccona, sono strafelice, sono al verde

Holy Foreskin, Batman!

by Erik Olsen on

A travel-writing friend of mine told me over coffee a while back that he was undertaking a secret quest (OK, not THAT secret…we actually blogged about it a while back). He was packing his bags and heading to a small town in Italy in search of a most holy relic. But this was not your ordinary holy relic…not a splinter of the cross, an amulet from a long-dead disciple or even a cupcake with the Virgin’s countenance in the dessert’s creamy frosting. No, he was in search of Jesus’ foreskin.

Yes, this sounds like a Monty Python skit, but I assure you the writer, David Farley, was dead serious about his adventure. And like any true journalist, Farley has spent the last half year or so in the Italian village of Calcata uncovering this deep, shriveled mystery.

While his efforts have so far not reached um, shall we say, full tumescence, he has a lot of fertile research to show for his efforts. As this piece in Slate Magazine reveals, Farley has been hard at work, probing the deep mysteries behind the Holy Foreskin. We learn, for example, that the mystery has taken odd turns and twists worthy of the Da Vinci Code, and that the foreskin’s disappearance and/or theft may implicate an institution no less grand than the Vatican itself.

Personally, I can think of no quest more worthy of further, dogged investigation than this one, heralding as it might new revelations into the fate of our savior and giving new meaning (to steal David’s own joke) to “the Second Coming”.