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Showing posts from April, 2017

One Rainy Day in Rio

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Ten years ago, a list of the new Seven World Wonders was announced. The process was gimmicky as hell- 7 year voting period, winners announced on 7/7/07- and skewed towards countries with large populations and readily available internet access. (Sorry mud mosques of Mali, better luck next time!) but considering only one of the original world wonders remained standing, we were due for an update. The new list includes the Great Wall of China, Petra, Machu Pichu, the Colosseum, Chichen Itza, the Taj Mahal and Christ the Redeemer. The Pyramids of Giza- the lone holdout from the original version got an honorary status but are not always mentioned because announcing the Eight World Wonders would have totally thrown off their marketing scheme. I have been to six of these babies (7 if you count the pyramids). Last Saturday, I had the chance to cross the last one off my list. I got into Rio in the middle of the night and had most of the afternoon before having to board my return flight. All

What to do when you end up in the wrong Ontario.

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Imagine hearing that you are going to spend a week in Manhattan and Ontario. That's great news! Springtime in NYC is like no other. Anytime spent in Canada with it's friendly people, hot Prime Minister and abundance of vegetarian restaurants (even the hot dog cart vendors always have veggie dogs!) is always a pleasure. Hell yeah! Now imagine you take a closer look at the fine print and things are not as they seem. You are actually going to Manhattan, Kansas and Ontario, California. Not so great. This was my life.  I was on a tour of places named after much cooler places.  To quote a friend "Where next? Paris, Texas?" I tried to make the best of the situation. I found out that the next town over from Manhattan, Wamego, had a Wizard of Oz museum and winery . Even better, there was a silo that the military had build for missile testing which had gone on to become the site of the country's preeminent LSD manufacturing lab and now accepted visitors. Score, score