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Moscow is celebrating its 864th birthday. Historians assume that the city is actually much older, but the first recorded mention of Moscow dates back to 1147.

Despite floods, fires and invasions, the city grew and developed.

During the next few years, Moscow will more than double its territory to 251,000 hectares and may soon emerge as a major global

 

We've all read about prison shivs, but have you ever wanted to see an exhibit of them?  The Vancouver Police Museum offers a whole glass case showing the creativity of criminals, the excellent "push knives" one can fashion with a cafeteria fork or with a piece of wood and a few nails.  Equally fascinating is the display of confiscated homemade guns,

 Saturday  April 24, 2010

Arrived at Kennedy International Airport at about 7:30 am. Joan had taken two ambien and was very groggy. Grace had arranged for a shuttle car to pick us up and take us to our hotel, The New Yorker. Our rooms were on the 27^th floor, high above the crowded, noisy streets. We checked in and went to our

First sight of Africa — the moon:

We flew from London to Nairobi at night, and the continent of Africa was covered with clouds, so we couldn't see much. But above the clouds, the moon (now an African moon!) shone red.

Above is is what I could take through the window of the plane.

And then when the clouds broke through, the villages below:

   

So there we

Well here it is, summer again.  If you are travelling this summer, do you have your travel plans organized?  I use a desktop filing system (called a SwiftFile) that contains individual folders for the 12 months and 31 days of the month.  As I make reservations and receive confirmations, I place all of the documentation into my filing system in the folder

Hello Cruzio members. How do you commute? Let us know: take the poll in the sidebar to the right.

In case you're curious, some Cruzio staffers drive a car to work, but we also have cyclists, skateboarders, pedestrians, and a Vespa rider. Some of us do a little telecommuting, too.

Got another creative commuting solution? Tell us in the comments.

Looking for

On Wednesday we ventured out to Irogawa Village -- a remote town nestled in the mountains where organic farming and traditional methods are helping to revive this rural area. The community is comprised of both longtime residents and urban refugees -- people from large cities who have chosen a simpler lifestyle based on a strong sense of community and

An Unattractive Glacier

Now that we've headed east along the southern coast of Iceland, our bitter guidebook is getting snide again.

Our national park hotel, Hotel Skaftafell?

"...an ordinary, modern affair on the highway. Rooms here are overly pink and flowery with cheap wooden panels and flooring; bizarrely for such a prime location they don't have views of

Jake recedes from view

Despite initial misgivings, I'm getting to like our bitter guidebook to Iceland. It's much more upbeat as we've moved to the south of the country. In fact it's been downright helpful, pointing out where the hiking trails starts and breakfast is served.

Based on a number of guidebook descriptions, we visited Dettifoss, the largest

Our guidebook had described our next destination, Myvatn Lake, as surrounded by flies and referred to by locals as "a pool of the devil's piss."

We decided to go there anyway.

Myvatn itself is a wide lake surrounded by odd, gentle hills. Iceland is an island in the process of formation -- it looks like a cake that is

 

 

Uninteresting Area

To be fair, our generally depressing guidebook contains compliments about off-the-main-road excursions to birdwatch or look at harbor seals. It's more negative about the spots which are easy to see or reach. Maybe it's an example of hard-core tourist snobbery -- the "that's nothing, I've been to a place even more remote and done

 

 

The Least Interesting Drive In Iceland

After a few days in Reykjavik -- a lovely, colorful city which hugs a calm, grey bay -- we headed up to the nothern part of Iceland for waterfalls and lava fields. Once again we consulted our bitter guide. We weren't disappointed. Here's how they described the drive from Reykjavik to Akureyri:

"The 230 km-long stretch

 

 

Absurdly Expensive

There's a famous spa in Reykjavik: the Blue Lagoon. It's so well-known that some people fly to Reykjavik just for a day at the Lagoon, not bothering with the rest of the country. We know this because we met such people at the airport.

But what do those foolish travellers know? Here's what the bitter guidebook says about the Blue Lagoon:

 

When I  found out our family was going to Iceland, I went out and bought a bunch of guides at the bookstore.

It seems not that many people go to Iceland and the selection of guides isn't quite what you'd get for, say, Italy. Or Hawaii. Or France. And if you're a travel writer I expect those are the plum assignments -- not Iceland.

The first guide I got was

 

I was just in Bakersfield visiting relatives and I realized that there is something about Santa Cruz that I may have taken for granted but just grew to appreciate more once I had returned...air.  Yes, there's air down there, too, but it's filled with smog, and is hot, humid, and gets into your lungs, and nowhere near an ocean to blow it all away.

This is a