Empty Voices

My husband has always been one of those adventurous types that loves to get in the car and drive off in any direction just to explore some new area. We have taken more road trips than airplane flights and if we do happen to fly somewhere you can be sure that an extended road adventure has been at the other end of the flight. Last summer we were in a small town in Central Florida and were standing in line in a grocery store when suddenly John grabbed a map of Orlando off of the rack and I knew instantly where we were going.

As it turned out, we had two weeks left of our vacation time when we arrived at the Orlando hotel . We decided to visit Sea World and had an amazing time. The Up Close tours with some of the marine animals was absolutely amazing and seeing the penguins and dolphins so close was a truly an experience. The next day we went to Universal Studios and spent a large part of the day in the Harry Potter Wizarding World. This was mostly John’s idea and I expected to find ourselves in the middle of a ton of children. As it turns out there were a large number of adults there and I had as much fun as John did. In fact, I think this trip introduced my husband into a new way of seeking adventure and making new discoveries. Tomorrow we’re headed to Disney World .

There’s plenty to do in New York City, especially this Labor Day Weekend, beginning September 3rd. You can head on over to the action packed West Indian Parade and Carnival in Brooklyn, or if you’re looking for something less exuberant, head on over to downtown to do some shopping at the internationally famous Barney’s Warehouse Sale. If that’s still not your thing, head to Greenwich Village for their annual weekend-long Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit. See! There’s literally something for everyone, so book a room at one of the New York City hotels and get cracking.

Also happening in New York City this Labor Day weekend is the New York City Summer Restaurant Week 2010. There will be over 270 of the best restaurants such as Nobu, Tao, Atlantic Grill and Dos Caminos offering lunch at huge discounts. A 3-course meal will only cost $35 or under!

The Children’s Museum of Manhattan at 212 West 83rd Street will have tons of events and workshops for children of all ages happening all Labor Day weekend. Children 4 and under can develop their science and creative skills with ‘Mural Wall Painting’, children 5 and up can invent a toy by using recycled materials. Admission is free on Friday after 5pm.

Finally, the Manhattan East Community Association will be hosting a Family Festival. There will be over 80,000 people attending and will feature over 450 authentic and original artists from crafts to fine arts, from collectibles to fashion. Admission is free and there will be fashion shows, cooking demonstrations and productions of opera and ballet.

Hong Kong is an extremely dynamic city that presents a great progressive contemporary atmosphere, while also maintaining a strong sense of tradition and cultural heritage. Honoring the past is part of the culture, though clinging to it is not. This is evident in a number of the performance art establishments in the city, and popular entertainment is representative of both traditional customs as well as cutting edge performance genres.

The theatre scene is one of the thriving arts scenes and there are productions that represent theatre customs from around the world and through various historic eras. Productions of Shakespeare , Broadway musicals and the latest cutting edge comedies and dramas are all part of the performance scene of Hong Hong. And Cantonese opera is a favorite for audiences of all ages and backgrounds. And some of these performance companies are among the best in the world.

Many of the great hotels in Hong Kong also serve as tremendous resources for finding popular attractions or helping to make decisions about specific productions. In addition to some of the great theatrical productions music and dance are a large part of the culture. Festivals take place throughout the year that honor traditions from around the world and the Salsa Festival is one of the most popular in the city. It takes place for an entire week and features great performances as well as the chance to learn the art with a professional instructor.

Some lives are like an open book, where a singleness of purpose can make the chapters simple and rather elegant. Other lives are more like multi-media events, where chapters turn into short films, and those turn into songs, until it moves back to the page again. Every moment has the potential to open up new horizons, and new chapters.

With a pending move, a new chapter is not only very likely, it’s also rather unavoidable. Whether it’s a move of a household, or changing a commercial property , there is an impending shift that will reshuffle all the familiar things. It can be stressful, certainly, but it doesn’t have to catastrophic. In Canada, commercial and residential moves can be simpler with companies like Transglobe Property Management , that specialize in helping with all the aspects of a move.

In any new beginning, one has the difficulty of deciding what to hold on to, and what to get rid of. This works for both physical objects as well as moments that have emotional significance. Here it’s important to remember that nothing ever goes away entirely, it just changes form. A move, then, signifying a new chapter , can be that moment when the things that no longer serve can be put aside, and something new can come from the change as the story continues to unfold.

One of the most important aspects of making international travel plans is making sure that you have an appropriate visitors health insurance policy. This is a commonplace consideration for frequent travelers and once you establish the insurance structure plan, it is much easy to make the necessary arrangements in future travels. And unfortunately, this is an easily overlooked budgetary item for first time travelers in planning a trip out of their home country . All too often this overlooked travel preparation has left individuals in an unprepared emergency situation in a foreign country.

The previous statement was not intended to induce fear in first time travelers, but rather to serve as a reminder of the importance of travel insurance. The intention is that it will never be used when it is structured for a specific vacation or holiday experience. However, when you are making extended stay accommodation plans for trips related to work or study , ongoing medical care might be a primary concern. And when this is the situation, it is all the more important to have the appropriate coverage in place before you leave home. The good news is that there are insurance plans that are tailored for specific travel intentions and arrangements.

When visiting Phoenix, you may be asking yourself where you can take the kids to play and play and not be bored; especially if you’re visiting during the extremely hot summer months. The Arizona Science Center is a perfect solution. Located in downtown Phoenix at 600 E. Washington Street, the Science Center is an air-conditioned fun-filled environment.

Parents will have just as much fun as their children, and there’s always something new along with the old favorites if you’ve been to the center before. The Arizona Science Center museum features futuristic architecture by Antoine Predock that to turns learning into fun. Exhibits like ‘All About Me’ and ‘Fab Lab’ are interactive and are cleverly designed to not only entertain, but educate. The Dorrance Planetarium will let the entire family experience the night sky. The Irene P. Flinn Theater will let you experience a film on a 5-story high screen.

There’s enough to do to keep the children entertained for a whole afternoon such as the latest exhibit ‘ Goose Bumps! The Science of Fear’, which will make you face a tarantula, experience free fall, and then learn about the science behind the fear in this fun and educational exhibition. The ‘Forces of Nature’ exhibit is all about learning everything from the movement of the tectonic plates to the power of wind and sand erosion. If you’re children have high energy, they’ll really love the ‘Rock Wall’ where they can get a grip on science as they climb a 15 foot wall.

You’ll especially like the fact that the Science Center is located within walking distance to the best Phoenix hotels in the downtown area; that’s if you’re little ones have any energy left to walk.

For all of the reasons to come to Seattle, the fresh meat is usually low on the list. It’s not that there aren’t plenty of carnivores in town, and the restaurants are as world-class as a dining establishment can get. But the salt of the earth reputation of the Seattle population, which sometimes leads into a bit of a granola stereotype, is usually the inspiration behind young people looking at Seattle hotel rates for a great vacation in a pretty hip city.

However, out of the ashes of the mountain that is so rarely seen, there comes a new idea called Burning Beast . It happens at Smoke Farm , where 360 acres of farmland seem like the perfect place to do something interesting.

Inspired by Burning Man, the event is a gathering where people come together to meet each other, and share food. They share a lot of food, too, because the center of the event are challenges to cook a variety of animals. The chefs, some of them at the top of their restaurant careers, have to cook using simple materials, and simple ovens of wood, metal, and stone. It could be a meat-eaters delight, but it also has the Seattle stamp of approval, because the thrust of the event is to educate people about sustainable cooking and eating practices.

Anyone who’s spent a little time in Boston, taking in the rich cultural scene that characterizes the city today, may have seen some rather fetching masks in some of the live performance work. There are many local and national theater companies who pick up works from a company called Behind the Mask . It’s been featured in Opera and Dance works, as well as at the Cambridge River Fest. Some of the more detailed works have been displayed in places as illustrious as the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Children’s Museum , and the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum .

These are works by a local mask maker named Eric Bornstein . He’s well-studied, having earned a master’s from Harvard in art history, and has been making masks since 1982. His innovative work is one of the things that inspires travelers to look into the hotel rates Boston offers, because it’s artists like this that make it such an interesting town.

His work is exceptionally illustrative of a local aesthetic, if there can be said to be such a thing, by tying the very personal to the international. Drawing on his own experience, and coupling that with training from mask centers of the world in Bali and Italy, the work becomes a reflection of many worlds, and all of them live simultaneously in this one city.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s ‘Taliesin West’ home is in Scottsdale, Arizona, located at 12621 N. Frank Lloyd Wright Blvd. ‘Taliesin West’ was built in the late 1930s and consists of a cluster of buildings, which are now a National Historic Landmark.

Taliesin was patterned after the feeling and flow of the desert surroundings and became Frank Lloyd Wright’s favorite building and his winter home. He used the building of Taliesin as a school for his architecture students; they learned by doing, which was FLW’s teaching style . Wright’s former office, including a Cabaret Theater and the Pavilion Theater are the highlights of the tour.

The tours are offered every day and last about an hour for the Panorama version. Taliesin is easy to get to from any of the five star hotels Scottsdale offers. There are longer tours that are jammed packed with great information and can last up to 90 minutes. You’ll learn how FLW bought the land with a down-payment from his ‘Falling Water’ house and how he had his students build it, and pay him for the experience! All the students received new experiences at Taliesin, learned new building techniques, new lighting and new acoustics. You’ll also learn how the students suffered in the harsh climate of the desert and how that affected some parts of the complex.

The tour of Taliesin will show you what materials were replaced and show you renovation plans that will be extremely costly. You’ll see an original lay-out and get to know how to connect the different buildings and their functionality. You’ll leave very inspired and in awe of just how innovative Frank Lloyd Wright was and how his techniques still influence many structures today.

Laredo Texas is a booming border town where the main industry is trading and shipping goods between Mexico and the United States. The first town of Laredo was founded in 1755 by Don Tomas Sanchez when it was still a colony of New Spain. In the first hundred years that area with stood many wars for its control. It was the capitol of the Republic of the Rio Grande in 1840. Then it became a host town for the Texas Rangers during the Mexican-American War in 1846. The U.S. military set up Fort McIntosh to help manage the area in 1847. This town is one of the largest border crossing areas between the U.S.A. and Mexico.  

There are a few historical sites to see that are markers of these historical events. The old Diocese of Laredo called San Agustin Plaza and Church and the old Republic of Rio Grande building which is now a museum where visitors can learn more details, see photos and artifacts about the development of the town. This is also the place to catch some tours of the city. They have some walking tours and trolley tours that will take people around town and talk about the notable events and places this old historical town has.  

The city has created a wonderful historical neighborhood call the Villa Antigua where the locals and visitors can be educated on the local history and entertained with a hub of shops and restaurants. This is were one can catch a show at the Plaza Theatre . Speaking of theatre’s, you may like a more live entertainment experience and you can see what the local talent is up to at the Laredo Little Theatre.  

Get out and enjoy the local history of this old border town. You can find out more information from any of the hotels laredo has through out the city. There are plenty of places to hang out with the locals and enjoy a cocktail. Lots of wonderful restaurants to have a great meal.