Sunday, January 20, 2008

Art and Politics

It is amazing how international relations (i.e. relations between governments) influence all areas of everyday life, even art on the international arena.

One of my favorite blogs, International Art blog, has recently published a post about the scandal around the potential exhibition of treasures from Russian museums in UK. Quite an amazing story which also generated an interesting discussion on the blog. Even if you are not into arts this is an interesting reading and something to reflect upon: http://capucinesblvd.blogspot.com/2008/01/art-politics-and-internet.html

Saturday, January 05, 2008

TouristClick

There are a lot of travel site out there but I find very fiew of them special. I recently came across a site, a travel directory, that I really like - http://www.touristclick.com/

The owners not only provide general information (hotels, insurance, air travel, etc.) you can find on other site but also try to attract contributors from all over the world to add to the site. They have a blog directory with blogs from all over the globe, forums for each specific country. The site is also developing a travel photo gallery too.

I also like their section on Special Travel (http://www.touristclick.com/SpecialtaTravel.html) which includes very unique categories such as:
Mystery
Archaeology
Native American
Pilgrimage
Battlefields
Rail
Science
Ecotourism
Supernatural
Working Holidays

and many others.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Country Insights

Usually good "countries of the world" are put together by Americans. There are loads of educational resources from CIA Factbook to more detailed specific information per country. That's why I was very surprised to find out a great CANADIAN website with tons of useful information (not that the Canadians are not capable of doing such a thing but because U.S. websites always somehow dominate search engine results...)

Country Insights, http://www.intercultures.ca/cil-cai/country_insights-en.asp?lvl=8 , is a Canadian government site that has fast facts, profiles, and useful links for countries worldwide. I also like that some profiles have cultural dos and don'ts which tell you the local attitudes and customs about dress, conversation, displaying emotion, punctuality, resolving workplace conflicts, religion, and communication styles, so you can make the best impression when you go there.