Get out and go: Events around the world (November 18-21)

by Brenda Yun on

It’s time to look at the festivals and events happening around the world, and this week has a particularly international selection of happenings. If you’re close and have time, then you have no excuse to get out and go!

  • Mexico – Birders will unite in the Yucatan Peninsula for the Yucatan Bird Festival from November 19-22. For the 8th consecutive year, the festival offers a wide range of field trips, exhibits, conferences, and a “birdathon.” Objectives of this annual festival include promoting the rich diversity of bird species found in the Yucatan and developing a conservationist culture among tourists and tour providers.
  • California – The California Surf Festival celebrates awareness and support for surf history preservation this weekend from November 19-22. It is an international event destination bringing people from all over the world to Oceanside, California, to experience surf culture through films, music, art, photography and interaction with those who embody the culture as well as highlight the surf community of California.
  • Amsterdam – The International Documentary Film Festival begins this Thursday, November 19. The film extravaganza will present over 300 documentaries over the course of 10 days, ending on the 29th.
  • Israel – Shalem Dance Festival will begin this Thursday, November 19 in Jerusalem. Over 50 Israeli and guest dancers perform in original contemporary dance works. This year’s highlight will feature contemporary dance ensembles from Africa. The festival ends on the 21st.

  • India – The Mim Kut and Pawl Kut Festival will be celebrated this Friday, November 20 in Mizoram. Celebrated in the last week of November or the first week of December, the festival celebrates the completion of the harvesting season.
  • Helsinki – This year Helsinki’s Chocolate Festival has a larger “box,” as it is held at Wanha Satama fair centre November 21-22. The festivali celebrates the diversity of the sweet stuff. Choco-connaisseurs share their sweet wisdom about the impact of chocolate on health, wellbeing, history of chocolate, production and variety.

If you make it to one of these events, let us know how it was, or if you know of an event that’s coming up, please let us know and we’ll be sure to include it in the next “Get out and go” round-up.

Gadlinks for Friday 11.13.09

by Brenda Yun on

It’s Friday the 13th! I am hoping that makes it a lucky day for me. It’s been yet another tough week on the home front for many non-travelers, so maybe some travel reads will help to lift our spirits. Have a look at these….

‘Til Monday, have a great weekend!

More Gadlinks HERE.

United Airlines adds flights to Africa, the Middle East and Europe

by Katie Hammel on

Starting May 2, 2010, United Airlines fans can fly the carrier from the US to Africa for the first time in the company’s history. United will offer flights from DC to Accra, Ghana (and then on to Lagos, Nigeria). Beginning April 18, 2010, passengers flying from DC to Kuwait can also continue on to Bahrain.

Chicago to Brussels nonstop on March 28, 2010. The carrier also added several other new routes this year, including DC to Moscow, and DC to Geneva.

“Our first-ever non-stop service to Africa will offer customers convenient and comfortable travel opportunities to visit two of the fastest-growing cities in the continent,” United’s senior VP of planning said in a press release. “In addition, our new services to Bahrain and Brussels will open more international routes to our customers throughout Europe and the Middle East.”

Met returns stolen Egyptian art

by Sean McLachlan on

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced this week that it will return a fragment of Egyptian sculpture to its homeland. Unlike the bust of Nefertiti or the recently returned frescoes that the Louvre gave up, the Egyptians weren’t calling for its return for months or years. In fact, the Met bought the item from a collector with the specific intent of repatriating it.

The move is being seen as an olive branch offered by the Met’s new director Thomas Campbell, and another victory for Egyptian head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass, who’s been getting tough with museums who own stolen Egyptian artifacts.

The artifact is a fragment of a naos, a shrine in the holy of holies of an Egyptian temple. It was dedicated to the 12th dynasty pharaoh Amenemhat I, who ruled from 1991 to 1962 BC, and was taken from a temple at Karnak, shown here.

History and art buffs face huge temptation when they enter an antiquities shop. Beautiful works of art and evocative everyday items from ancient civilizations are available for purchase, but this history and art buff has always resisted temptation. Much of what you see is either fake or stolen (witness the large numbers of Iraqi and Afghani artifacts on sale these past few years) and purchasing them encourages the destruction of irreplaceable archaeological sites by artifact hunters.

Once in Palmyra, Syria, a guy tried to sell me some “Roman” coins made of aluminum! Unfortunately the fakes are not always so easy to detect, as there’s a major worldwide industry making new things look old. Even if they are real artifacts, there’s a good chance they were stolen sometime in the past.

So congratulations to the Met and Dr. Hawass for a job well done. It’s a shame the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities is such a mess, but Dr. Hawass is working on fixing that too.

Photo courtesy of mikescrivener from the Gadling Flickr pool. Check out his really cool series from Egypt here.

Gadlinks for Monday 10.19.09

by Brenda Yun on


Welcome to another week of Gadlinks! There are plenty of cool travel reads on tap today. Have a seat and enjoy!

‘Til tomorrow, have a great evening!

More Gadlinks HERE.