Archive for June, 2009
2 Trav 2 Estonia
What might be better than 2 travel 2 Estonia to take part in one of the most exciting European annual musical events as a Song and Dance Celebration. I dream about then plan my July vacations with this wonderful festival of Estonian traditional singing. Tickets available yeat!
The Song Celebration tradition started in the middle of the 19th century and it has survived all of the twists and turns in Estonia’ s history.
It has defied the hardest of times like a frail plant that pushes its way through concrete with its inner strength and then bursts into bloom. Preceded by some local Song Celebrations, the first nationwide Song Celebration was held in Tartu in 1869.
At the time this was seen as the first attempt at national self-determination, manifested before the Baltic-German rulers: See, we can do something too! Fifty choirs and musical ensembles from all over Estonia performed before an audience of thousands, who experienced a blissful sense of belonging, enhanced by the beauty of the music and the songs.
This celebration evolved into a tradition that still flourishes today. The small nation which started the tradition has had to prove to foreign authorities, even in the 20th century, that they are a fully fledged nation with its own rights and resolves.
Song and Dance Celebrations were not just big festivals of singing and music but a way to demonstrate the national spirit and to strengthen the sense of belonging.
The age of foreign rulers is past but Song and Dance Celebrations are still alive – both local and nationwide.
And this proves how deep and strong is the core, spirit and meaning of Song and Dance Celebrations. It is definitely not only the spirit of protest and resistance that brings hundreds of thousands of Estonians – and an increasing number of guests from around the world – every five years to Tallinn. The total number of performers in the last Song and Dance Celebration in 2004 was 34 000 and they performed before an audience of 200 000.
Rather, it is the unique combination of the sublimity of music and human warmth that a rather distrustful northern nation dares to show during Song Celebrations, much to the surprise of others and its self..
Song and Dance Celebration – this is a joy. Because Song Festivals are irreplacable and unique, they can only be experienced on site.
Many thanks to all who have contributed to this Celebration!
Do not be sad, the next Youth Celebration of Song and Dance is in 2007 and nationwide Song and Dance Celebration in 2009!
Estonian Song and Dance Celebration Foundation
July 2-5, 2009
Programme
2 July, Thursday
at 15 – Folk Music Celebration on Town Hall Square
3 July, Friday
at 19 – First Concert of Dance Celebration – on Kalev Stadium
4 July, Saturday
at 11 – Second Concert of Dance Celebration – on Kalev Stadium
at 14 Festive Parade of Song and Dance Celebration
at 19 – First Concert of Song Celebration – on Song Celebration Grounds
5 July, Sunday
at 11 – Third Concert of Dance Celebration – on Kalev Stadium
at 14 – Second Concert of Song Celebration – on Song Celebration Grounds
Tickets available: www.piletilevi.ee/
Add comment June 28, 2009
Gay Tourism in Israel
Gay tour director Russell Lord, who has traveled extensively in the Middle East, to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and the Gulf regions, says Israel, particularly Tel Aviv, is a different world. The closest semi-progressive city, still far away in attitude, would be Beirut. In March 2005, Russell and his partner were married on a trip to Toronto, and upon returning to Tel Aviv they went to get the status on their official identification cards changed from “single” to “married” and were denied. With four other couples they went to court and won, so in December 2006, Russell was the first citizen of Israel to receive official identification labeling him as married to a partner of the same sex. It was a Supreme Court case of such importance that it was ruled on by seven judges as opposed to the traditional three (another case requiring seven judges was the decision to withdraw from the Gaza Strip). The five couples won 6-to-1 in a decision handed down to a packed courthouse. “Every faggot in Israel wanted to be there,” quips Lord, “It was the place to be seen.” Since then there has been no backlash at all, not one crank call. “Some of the most religious people I met told me ‘Mazel Tov.’” Lord’s work with inbound international gay tourists has given him plenty of perspective on what GLBT tourists look for, and what they can find in Tel Aviv.
Personal safety is a concern for many, and Russell is quick to calm fears. “There’s never been a real problem with hate crimes,” he assures, the worst crime against a gay man he has heard of in years was a tourist having his pocket picked. The city’s acceptance of everyone is his favorite quality about which to boast, “You have to remember, Dana International [trans star and Israel’s most visible Eurovision entrant, winning the international contest in 1998] was sent on a promotion tour by the government to many countries to represent Israel. Who else can say a transsexual was the spokesperson for an entire country?” Tel Aviv’s openness makes it gayer than people believe until they arrive. Lord says the incoming gay tourists he books are about 85% gay males, but he loves all the “great groups organized by lesbian rabbis.” Mostly he loves being able to be himself anywhere in the city along with his partner, Avi. Being out and active as a gay man and as part of a committed couple is a priority he takes very seriously.
via Passport Magazine
Add comment June 25, 2009
2 Trav 2 Vietnam
It’s easy now! I’m seriously. Despite political control in this country is still in the Communist Party hands Vietnam’s tourist facilities are established well enough already in such places as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, some beach and mountain resorts as well. Today this is fast developing, mainly agrarian country in the process of moving from a centrally planned to a market economy and might be highly interesting for visiting with its deep history and cultural traditions. Here is the list of places recommended to visit by most of travel services.
1 Sapa
Swoon at the valley views from this rugged mountain retreat, a home to a wealth of minority peoples and a base for exploring the Tonkinese Alps.
2 Halong Bay
Experience nature at its outrageous best, where hundreds of limestone peaks tower above the shimmering seas, a karst system with a difference
3 Hanoi
Steeped in history, pulsating with life, bubbling with commerce, buzzing with motorbikes and rich in exotic scents, this is a captivating capital
4 Mai Chau
Go native with an overnight stay in a traditional Thai stilt house, amid the lush valleys
5 Ninh Binh
Encounter rural life from this country town, surrounded by ancient temples, limestone crags, nature reserves and endless paddies
6 Hué
Intellectual, cultural and spiritual heartbeat of Vietnam, the old imperial capital offers historical, spiritual and culinary stimulation
7 Hoi An
Spared from wartime devastation, Hoi An’s cobbled lanes and historic buildings make for a magical and memorable stop
8 Quy Nhon
Access beautiful beaches and amazing Cham architecture from one of the coast’s less touristy cities
9 Nha Trang
Beach culture to the max, this is the place to chill out, party hard or dive into the turquoise depths
10 Dalat
A completely different view of Vietnam, this mountain town combines the French Alps with plenty of Bohemian cool
11 Cat Tien National Park
Lush refuge for city dwellers with ample hiking and bird-watching opportunities, plus elephants, crocodiles and the endangered Javan rhino
12 Mui Ne
Action or inertia, take your pick, this place is made for surfing (wind, board or kite) or blobbing on the beach
13 Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam’s commercial heart, a riverside metropolis of old and new with world-class restaurants and bars, and buzzing, seductive energy
14 Mekong Delta
Watery world of bustling river towns and sleepy villages, floating markets and tasty fish served by uber-friendly locals
15 Phu Quoc
White-sand beaches and little development make for a magical tropical getaway on this forested island gem
Add comment June 20, 2009
2 Trav 2 NY
Traveling to NY don’t forget to put your finger on the New Museum, opened in New York’s Bowery district, which is the city’s first such space devoted to contemporary art. The $64 million Japanese-designed building (clad in aluminum so it glitters during the day and glows at night) conceived to look like a tower of seven unevenly placed building blocks, is an art form in itself.
Each floor is set slightly in front of or behind the other, the overlaps providing space for skylights that flood the rooms with light.
The once distinctly seedy Bowery – New York’s original Skid Row – is on the up and up these days. A few doors down from the museum is the Bowery Hotel where the bars and lobby spill over with fashionable types, while in the rooms upstairs, enormous picture windows have views over the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan.
Add comment June 15, 2009
The top 10 places 2 trav 2 America
1. Las Vegas
2. Iowa State Fair
3. Times Square
4. Cedar Point Amusement Park
image Cedar Point Amusement Park
5. Cape Cod
6. River tubing Texas
7. Audubon Zoo New Orleans
8. Disneyland
9. National Air and Space Museum
10. Telluride, Colo.
Add comment June 7, 2009
Famous 2 Travel 2 Quotation
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” — Helen Keller
“Traveling is almost like talking with men of other centuries.” — René Descartes
“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” –- Miriam Beard
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” –- Henry Miller
“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” –- John Steinbeck
“In America, there are two classes of travel: First class, and with children.” — Robert Benchley
‘But why, oh why, do the wrong people travel, when the right people stay at home?” — Noel Coward
“Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones.” — Anne Sophie Swetchine
“Most of my treasured memories of travel are recollections of sitting.” –- Robert Thomas Allen
“Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversations.” — Elizabeth Drew
“If you look like your passport photo, you’re too ill to travel.” — Will Kommen
“Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.” — Samuel Johnson
“Long voyages, great lies.” – Italian proverb
“When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” — Susan Heller
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” — Lao Tzu
“Two of the greatest gifts we can give our children are roots and wings.” –- Hodding Carter
“He who would travel happily must travel light.” — Antoine de St. Exupery
“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” — James Michener
“Let your memory be your travel bag.” — Alexander Solzhenitsyn
“Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey.” — Fitzhugh Mullan
“No matter where you go, there you are.” – unknown
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will lead you there.” — unknown
“Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.” — Frank Herbert
“He travels fastest who travels alone.” — proverb
“Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter.” — Izaak Walton
“The journey not the arrival matters.” — T. S. Eliot
“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” — Lin Yutang
St. Augustine
The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.
St. Augustine
…travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.
Miriam Beard
Keep things on your trip in perspective, and you’ll be amazed at the perspective you gain on things back home while you’re away…One’s little world is put into perspective by the bigger world out there.
Gail Rubin Bereny
The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sight seeing”.
Daniel J. Boorstin
There is no happiness for the person who does not travel. For Indra is the friend of the traveler, therefore wander!
Brähmann
I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost eveything.
To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.
Bill Bryson
One of the gladdest moments of human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of routine, the cloak of many cares and the slavery of home, man feels once more happy.
Sir Richard Burton
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.
Martin Buber
I am so convinced of the advantages of looking at mankind instead of reading about them, and of the bitter effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of an Islander, that I think there should be a law amongst us to set our young men abroad for a term among the few allies our wars have left us.
Lord Byron
Embrace the detours.
Kevin Charbonneau
The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.
The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
The earth belongs to anyone who stops for a moment, gazes and goes on his way.
Colette
The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.
Colette, Paris From My Window, 1944
Travellers never think that they are the foreigners.
Mason Cooley
But why, oh why, do the wrong people travel, when the right people stay at home?
Noel Coward
Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.
Benjamin Disraeli
The journey not the arrival matters.
T. S. Eliot
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.
Clifton Fadiman
If an ass goes traveling, he’ll not come home a horse.
Thomas Fuller
All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.
Add comment June 7, 2009
