Here’s a video that will actually make you glad you’re sitting in front of a computer instead of being out on vacation. It’s footage of an unbelievably long security checkpoint queue in Heathrow Airport for passengers changing flights. The cameraman for this particular film spent over three and a half hours waiting in it.
The piece is almost three minutes long, and that wasn’t even enough time to film all of the people in line!
[via Boing Boing]
There is something about the way these three rocks are all slightly leaning, as though they are three people peering around a corner, that I found rather catching for some reason. Sure, the landscape is pretty and I quite enjoy the mossy tint to the rocks themselves, but I keep coming back to that unique pose the rocks are enjoying.
This is not nature’s hand, however. This is part of Castlerigg Stone Circle, an outcropping of rocks in the UK, thought to be constructed in 3200 BC.
We can thank Mister Rad for capturing this shot and sharing it with our Gadling readers. If you would like to submit a photo for consideration, head on over to our Gadling Flickr Pool an upload your favorites.
If you’re like me, the metric system provided some challenges the first time you visited Europe. That’s because us dunderhead Americans haven’t gotten around to embracing it yet.
As a result, nearly every American traveling abroad for the first time pauses just a little bit longer when looking at things like road signs, for example. 16 kilometers? Can I walk that or do I need to take a plane?
And then you cross the Channel and discover a land just as backwards as your homeland. And oh man does it feel good!
Britain, like America, has stubbornly refused to go totally metric. While America can get away with this for the time being, Britain is part of the European Union where the metric system is basically law. And yet, merry olde England has continued measuring distances and weights the same inefficient way they’ve done so for centuries. This has not pleased the EU who likes to have all things uniform and standard. And so the EU battled Britain over their archaic system and planned to force the country to give up their old-fashioned ways by 2009.
Well, that was the plan at least. The EU has just announced that they are throwing in the towel and calling it quits; Britain can go ahead and continue measuring in their pig-headed way despite the rest of the EU doing otherwise.
While I don’t necessarily think this is the right move, it sure will come as a relief to traveling Americans.
The last time I was in London I dropped $60 on an enchilada, some tacos and a margarita. Ouch! Normally I wouldn’t order Mexican food while abroad since I live in Los Angeles, but I was visiting my sister who was living in London at the time and she was hankering for Mexican food–Mexican food that would have cost me $15 back home.
London has become one of the most expensive places to eat on this planet. A $25 enchilada is just criminal! My sister’s rule was to just pretend that the pound was the dollar. In this way a £12 enchilada seemed a bit more palatable (until I returned home and got my visa bill).
There are cheaper options to be had, however. Jane Perlez, writing for the International Herald Tribune, has managed to track down a handful and share them with us pound paupers.
Perlez, for example, points us to “grazing” menus that feature finger foods like tapas. Or the ubiquitous Chinese restaurants that are sure to please. Most of her suggestions, however, are for international cuisine. I think we can all agree that British food isn’t exactly the best on this planet, but when I’m in a foreign country, I like to eat their local specialties (like enchiladas in London. Ha!).
And so, I was pleased to discover among the Iranian, Thai, Chinese and Spanish suggestions a single British staple: Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. Yes, it’s not exactly the best named place to really rouse the appetite, but it is a place where one can buy fish and chips for just £7.75.
Hey wait! That’s nearly $15! I can buy that for much cheaper at the Ye Olde King’s Head back home in Santa Monica!
Most towns have at least one thing they are known for, even if it is something as minor as a good restaurant or a friendly town mayor.
Few, however, are known for their books.
And yet once a year, the small town of Hay on Wye, becomes the most famous literary destination in the western world. The Welsh town, located on the border of Wales and England, hosts the annual Guardian Hay Festival each spring in which famous authors and booklovers alike descend upon the town and go wild in a literary sort of way.
Michael Shapiro, writing for the LA Times, recently described his experience at last year’s festival with enthusiasm that only another book lover could appreciate. “Exploring the village’s narrow, bookshop-lined streets during the annual Hay Festival,” he writes, “I felt as though I’d landed in paradise.” Bill Clinton, who visited in 2001, called it “the Woodstock of the mind.”
This year’s festival will be held May 24 to June 3 and will feature Dave Eggers, Martin Amis, Bob Geldof, and many more including four Nobel Laureates: Wole Soyinka, Orhan Pamuk, Derek Walcott and Wangari Maathai.
Oh, and if you can’t make it this spring, be sure to pop by any other time of year; the village’s numerous bookstores–mostly used–are open all year long.