Hawaii is an archipelago of over nineteen distinct volcanic islands located over a geological “hot spot” in the Pacific. The Pacific plate on which the islands ride moves to the northwest, so in general the islands are older and smaller (due to erosion) as you move from southeast to northwest. There are eight major islands, six of which are open to tourism.
The island of Hawaii, always known as the Big Island, is the largest island, and lends its name to the whole island chain. Larger than all the other islands combined and still expanding in land area thanks to the active volcanoes on its southeastern coast, it is home to the major resort area of Kona, two of the world’s largest mountains, and the world’s most active volcano. Read the rest of this entry »
“Art Du Service“, a french blog that talks about the service sector in general (with a focus on services in the tourism, telecommunication and banking industry) stayed at the Easyhotel of London and came back with a candid video of the room.
easyHotel brand is part of a larger group known as EasyGroup which also holds easyJet, the famous budget airline mostly known in Europe.
Check below the amateur video of theeasyHotel London South Kensington. You will see that the bathroom is as tiny as the toilets of an easyjet aircraft!
Days later, I’m still not over the shock of Congress passing legislation expanding the National Security Agency’s authority to spy on Americans without warrants. By capitulating to George Bush’s demands for broad new surveillance powers, Congress has not only trampled on our Constitutional rights but failed its own Constitutional duties!
The law permits warrantless surveillance of “persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States” - even when they are U.S. citizens or are communicating with U.S. citizens - with no prior court approval and only minimal court oversight. Rather than setting meaningful boundaries on the Executive Office, Congress essentially handed the president a blank check to invade Americans’ privacy.
At 11 a.m. Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will argue for the release of court orders supposedly authorizing the government’s electronic domestic surveillance program that intercepts and analyzes millions of Americans’ communications.
The White House first acknowledged the surveillance program’s existence in 2005, claiming that surveillance could be conducted without warrants or judicial authorization of any kind. But in January of this year, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) had authorized collection of some communications. He said the surveillance program would now operate under its approval.
OK, no big toe like last year, no general view like in 2005, my “official” Paris Plage photo for this year will be this one. They installed jets to spray refreshing water on some parts of the river bank and, as you would imagine, kids just love it (This one was actually scolded by his - Italian - parents right after I took this photo)! For those of you who still don’t know what Paris Plage is, well, it’s a one month period during which they turn the embankment (and this year other places) into a giant beach, with real sand and palm trees and many activities. Usually a big success.
Some time ago, I visited Deuxbydeux whose post Say Fromage, I enjoyed. It reminded me how recently, I was at my favourite cheese shop in Paris and bought one of those wonderful goat cheeses. With the fromager, we had a long talk about what Europe does to our cheese-makers and more generally producers.
Our final trip with the 2007 Dartmouth Ski Team was a special one for the athletes, coaches, and administrators who have dedicated so much to the ski team in particular and Dartmouth Athletics in general. At the White House on June 18, President George W. Bush honored 27 of this year’s NCAA Division-1 national championship teams-of which we were one-in an afternoon-long celebration that included a tour of the White House, a personal meeting with President Bush, and Presidential remarks delivered on the South Lawn.
Having gone our separate ways after winning the ski championship, we arrived at Washington’s Hotel Sofitel from all corners of the country-some from Hanover, others from Colorado and Texas, myself from New York City where I’m spending the summer on an internship. Having the team together was pleasant reunion because end-of-term finals and graduation rarely allow much time to say goodbye to so a number of of the people that influenced our lives at Dartmouth. Read the rest of this entry »
Here is an interesting interview of Thomas Owadenko that Loic Le Meur just uploaded on his blog. Thomas is the CEO of the new travel 2.0 site called Trivop.
Trivop.com is a very good example of a good use of web 2.0 in the travel industry. It is a platform of video reviews of hotels (located in Europe and then in the future in the US).Like I said in the past, the future of hotel reviews is strongly connected to the future of online video; we previously saw the impact of a simple video uploaded on youtube to report a poor hotel room in Madrid. We also saw Tripadvisor launched a video uploading feature on their website to follow this (hotel) trend.
In the last couple days we’ve continued to see the sights of Tuscany, while inadvertently testing out as many modes of transportation as possible.
Yesterday we hopped a train to Pisa to see the ever-famous leaning tower. I know plenty of guidebooks that will tell you
it’s not worth the trip just to see this one sight, but I heartily disagree. This is my second time visiting it, and as before, I was struck by how dramatic the white tower (as well as the church and baptistery) looks against the blue sky, and how simply novel its sharp tilt is.
Upon the recommendation of our hotel owners, after going to Pisa we headed north to the cute walled town of Lucca.
