Following the Equator

One man's odyssey through "The Odyssey"

When National Public Radio contributor Scott Huler announced on-air that he will never, ever read Ulysses, the famous tome by James Joyce, he sparked a chain of events over which only Fate could chuckle.

From book club analyses of the renounced 800-page book to a six-month cross-cultural trek in the name of Odysseus (the original Ulysses), Huler uncovers the many layers of himself, The Odyssey and the world.

With its conversational tone, honesty and refreshing insight, Huler's new book, No-Man's Lands: One Man's Odyssey Through The Odyssey, reminds us all that in this adventure called life, sometimes returning home is the best adventure of them all.

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Scott Huler about his experience and the importance of world travel. Here’s what he said:

Live news around the world

Technology continually finds new and exciting ways to bridge distances and cultures. LiveNewsCameras.com is doing just that with its innovative approach to news.

Now you can watch more than 150 live, streaming video news feeds from television stations around the United States and around the world. The site is a dream-come-true for news junkies, and it also could be particularly valuable to travelers, especially international travelers who want to get a glimpse of news in the cities they're planning to visit.

More on Plaza de España

Want to see more of the Plaza de España in Seville? Check out this nice panoramic video:

You also can see the plaza star in Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones on YouTube.

Friday Fun Fact: Plaza de Españaboo

When Sevillians built their Plaza de España for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929, they were likely hoping to attract a few hordes of Latin American admirers; they probably didn't appreciate their creation for the intergalactic stage it would later become. 

In 2002's Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones, Anakin Skywalker (aka Darth Vader) and Padmé (unwitting Mrs. Vader) glide into the plaza on a spaceship and walk around its huge half-circle portico. The sequence is only a few seconds in total, but it's long enough to appreciate the computer-generated effects that add a touch of Naboo to one of Seville's most prominent landmarks.

Photo: yellowkamper via Flickr

EF's Olympic spirit

The Olympic torch reached the summit of Mount Everest yesterday, but that was only a supplementary torch. The official Olympic torch was in the hands of EF Education First Founder Bertil Hult.

The 67-year-old patriarch of the EF family carried the Olympic torch 200 meters yesterday through Guangzhou, China. He was one of several torchbearers who covered 40 kilometers on the torch relay yesterday.

More than a million spectators —including a couple of hundred EF teachers and 350 EF employees from South China—cheered Hult and the other runners as they paraded the torch through Guangzhou.

Life of Guangzhou, the leading English news source in the city, wrote about Hult yesterday in a feature titled, "Swede Lessons in Life: Never Give Up."

"I love sports and I love the Olympics," Hult said just a few hours before he ran with the torch.

EF on YouTube

Tune in now to see exciting videos about the EF experience on the
EF Educational Tours channel on YouTube.

There are a dozen videos now available from EF. Check out this video about students' experiences on EF tours:

This video has been viewed nearly 10,000 times and is already generating some great comments. Let us know what you think and stay tuned to YouTube for more videos about the EF experience.

Memories to last a lifetime

An educational tour leaves all kinds of lasting impressions. That was especially true for a  group of students from St. Joseph High School in Ironton, Ohio, who recently traveled with EF Educational Tours.

The Ironton Tribune last month wrote about the group's nine-day trip to Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland, asking them everything from their favorite place to visit, to their favorite food and their favorite transportation, to the differences in cultures.

Pangea Day unites the world

We often tend to overlook the fact that the entire world at one time was banded together on one landmass, one supercontinent called Pangea.

Next Saturday, a global event will try to bring the world together again for the appropriately named Pangea Day.

Pangea Day is an audacious idea to rally the world through the power of film—24 short films, in fact. The four-hour event, which also features seven concerts and more than a dozen speakers, will be held in Cairo, Kigali (Rwanda), London, Los Angeles, Mumbai and Rio de Janeiro, beginning at 2 p.m. EDT May 10. You can attend the live event, watch the broadcast through the Internet, television and mobile phones, and even host or attend a live local event.

Check out the official Pangea Day site, where you can hear countries sing each other's national anthems and learn about the inspiring international films that will "allow us see the world through another person's eyes." But, first, watch the trailer:

Friday Fun Fact: Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo will be celebrated in Mexico—and countries around the world—on Monday. The festive holiday honors Mexican pride and heritage, but it is not Mexico's Independence Day, which is celebrated on September 16.

Instead, Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican victory—under the command of General Ignacio Zaragoza—over Napoleon III's French forces in the Battle of Puebla, southeast of Mexico City, on May 5, 1862.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Photo: © Kathleen Crislip

Today is Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. It's a day to remember the 6 million Jews who died during the Holocaust. And it's been a national day of memorial in Israel since 1959.

Kathleen Crislip, who writes About.com's wonderful Student Travel Blog, recently wrote about Yom HaShoah and the 75th anniversary of the opening of the concentration camp at Dachau. She also posted photos from her tour with EF to Dachau in 2006, and she wrote:

"One of the more moving experiences of my life thus far was visiting Dachau, the German concentration camp outside Munich, with an EF Tours group; the inscription near the entrance to Dachau should be significant to tomorrow's leaders: 'May the example of those who were exterminated here … because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defence of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men.'"

Thanks, Kathleen, for sharing your experience and your photos.

The Best of April

May Day is a Labor Day holiday in many countries around the world. But there's no resting here. Because it's the first of the month, we're taking a look back at April at Following the Equator.

My two favorite posts this month were Postcards: Dead or Alive? about sending postcards while traveling, and yesterday's Dodgeball across the equator about students who played the first interhemispheric game of dodgeball in Ecuador. If you haven't seen the video yet, check out our post.

Those two posts also generated a couple of comments, which we love. We want to hear from you. If you see something you like (or even something you don't) or you want to contribute your thoughts, please post your comments on any post.

As for the past month, if you missed anything, you can check out our April archive or any of our five most popular posts below:

Dodgeball across the equator

It was historic. It was global. It was perhaps "the world's first interhemispheric dodgeball game."

But, unfortunately for five students from Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, it's not a Guinness World Record.

On a winter-break trip to Latin America, the college students competed in what is believed to be the world's first dodgeball game across the equator. The global game lasted a mere 10 seconds, but it did indeed cross the line. A red line at the exact equator in Ecuador marked the center line. Watch for yourself:

Travel Tip: First-aid kit

First-aid kits are often the last thing we think to pack and often the first thing we think of when something unexpected (like a fever or a minor scrape) occurs.

Awhile back, Gadling provided some suggestions for creating your own do-it-yourself first-aid kit for the road. You may not need everything on the list, but it might offer some good ideas.

Which education blogs do you read?

Two of my favorite education blogs are The Fischbowl and Dangerously Irrelevant.

They're written by Karl Fisch—the director of technology for Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado—and Dr. Scott McLeod—the coordinator of the Educational Administration program at Iowa State University. Those are the two teachers primarily responsible for the provocative Did You Know?/Shift Happens video that we wrote about recently.

There have been several lists of the top edublogs (try this and this and this), but what do you read? Please share your favorite education blogs in the comments section below.

"Let's Go" 1881

Photo: 24gotham via Flickr

A search in the New York Times' archives turned up a fascinating time capsule of travel advice. 

A full 80 years before Let's Go popularized a style of travel writing that didn't mince words or gloss over nitty-gritty details, a staff writer on the New York Times—a man "of some experience, gathered during the progress of ten annual tours in Europe"—strung together 5,000 words of practical and unglazed advice for anyone considering a summer trip to Europe. 

The article was published on September 4, 1881.  Below are my favorite excerpts, which I've divided into three categories:

More on Big Ben

Big Ben—which just marked its 150th birthday—is actually the name of the bell, not of the Houses of Parliament's famous clock tower that houses it.

But Big Ben is only a nickname. The bell's official name is "The Great Bell," which is much less distinctive.

For the record, Big Ben is more than 7 feet tall and weighs about 30,000 pounds. And this is what Big Ben sounds like at 12 o'clock:

Friday Fun Fact: Big Ben

Photo: Bobcatnorth via Flickr

Big Ben is truly a name that rings a bell, but whose name is it?

The official British Houses of Parliament site acknowledges that the exact origins of the name "Big Ben" are unknown. The famous London icon is commonly believed to have been named after Sir Benjamin Hall, "the First Commissioner of Works and a tall man known in the House of Commons as Big Ben."

But another theory is that Big Ben was named after champion heavyweight boxer Ben Caunt, another Big Ben "who fought his last fight in 1857, when the bell, and the debate of what to name it, was in the public consciousness."

The Bard's Birthday

Today is William Shakespeare's 444th birthday. There's an insightful article in today's Melbourne Herald Sun about the timelessness of the Bard and why we should celebrate today:

"Shakespeare has more than any other figure in literature influenced how we see the world."

Writer Christopher Bantick illustrates some of the lasting lessons that Shakespeare taught us in his enduring plays.

Speaking of plays, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London opens its 2008 season today with King Lear—his "most profound tragedy"—which is running until October 5. The theater also commemorated his birthday with a giant celebration Sunday.