This is the 320th post of 2008 at Following the Equator, and we decided to commemorate our blog's first full calendar year with a top-10 list of favorite posts.
We had a lot of stories, videos, photos, interviews, tips and perspectives about educational travel. We launched some regular weekly features, including our Tip of the Week and Photo of the Week. We debuted Life on Tour, introduced EF on YouTube and EF on Facebook and promoted the EF Tours group on Flickr (above). And, along the way, we encountered a lot of inspiring travelers.
Following the Equator also was nominated for a Blogger's Choice Award and finished fifth out of 1,177 blogs for Best Travel Blog. Thank you to everyone who supported our blog in 2008 by voting, reading, sharing, commenting and subscribing. We're looking forward to an even more successful 2009.
A few weeks back, I wrote triumphantly about my 9-foot Christmas tree. I didn't get into the guilt I felt over the fact that the tree was artificial—i.e., not authentic ("That's another post," I thought at the time—voilà). The Europeans I lived among in my time abroad would have taken one look at that plastic monstrosity and been mortified. In fact, a visiting European friend had just that reaction.
Europe specializes in authentic, as I discovered during my eight years there. Household coffee is made in old-fashioned stove-top Bialetti contraptions; no plugs to plug in or clocks to set. A Coca-Cola ordered at a table comes in a glass bottle, not in a plastic bottle, or from a syrup/water mix sprayed into a paper cup. Shoppers crowd outdoor streets lined with centuries-old storefronts, rather than admittedly spectacular but inescapably faux enclosed shopping malls. Building materials used on homes are still primarily stone, brick and mortar, wood and slate; vinyl siding has thankfully yet to become popular.
The vision Europeans have of themselves is that they're the ones living in the land of moderation, while we upstart Americans across the Atlantic live in the land of extremes.
From their perspective, the contrasts are stark: their compact, efficient cars versus our guzzling, armored all-terrain vehicles; their 800-square-foot apartments versus our McMansions; their 40-hour work week versus our on-and-off-again glorification of the workaholic (and on that note, their six weeks of vacation versus our spartan two); their liter-size milk cartons versus our gallon-size; their ingrained recycling culture (read: use up new resources only sparingly) versus our ingrained wasteful one (read: throw it out and make a new one); their social-state approach to governance and community versus our capitalistic, frontiersman, every-man-for-himself approach.
Two years ago, high school English teacher—and EF Group Leader—Wayne Feece created the Knox High School World Travelers Club with the intention of showing his students that there was a whole world outside of their small Indiana town.
With the dream of making travel part of the Knox school experience, Wayne is helping his students realize their full potential by taking them on educational tours with EF.
Wayne (pictured above at Stonehenge) discusses why travel is so important to his students, how to win over parents and how to teach cultural etiquette before the tour:
It must have been the moment when I was forced to get a step-ladder that I realized that I'd supersized.
No longer content with the compact Christmas tree that had decked my European halls over most of this decade—and apparently falling prey to the promise of manifest destiny offered by my generously tall American ceilings—I brought home an astoundingly attention-getting 9-foot Christmas tree.
Europeans can take old-world charm and quaintness a bit too far sometimes. Little mom-and-pop hole-in-the-wall hardware stores come to mind. There are still lots of them.
The size of these places really only allows you unhindered access to the few items arranged in front of the counter. Anything and everything else is in a labyrinth of stocked shelves behind the counter. Standing between you and the desired item is your ability to effectively describe it to the counter attendant—try asking for a washer without knowing the word for washer in the local language; I have. He or she will then disappear to fetch an item that may or may not be a washer, and certainly not a washer on the first attempt.
Europe has more than a dozen famous rivers—including the Danube, Thames, Seine, Tiber, Elbe and Rhine, to name a few—but its longest river exists entirely in Russia.
The Volga River flows nearly 2,300 miles, beginning northwest of Moscow, through 11 of Russia's 20 largest cities and draining in the Caspian Sea. Although it's Europe longest river, it's only the 15th longest river in the world.
For the fourth time in eight years, my wife and I are changing countries. Our first joint endeavor was in 2000, when we moved to the Netherlands. Then in 2002, we moved to Switzerland (but not before searching through a house-sized moving container looking for a passport we forgot to set aside). In 2006, we moved to Spain. And tomorrow, we move to the United States.
For me, it's a move home. For my wife, Spain native that she is, it's a move to the tundra.
This edition of Transatlantic Time Travel doesn't refer to a news article, because it wasn't in the news. In April 1994, I went abroad for the first time.
I was 18, a senior in high school, and one of seven students from Fitchburg High School to go on an educational tour to Spain. Our group leader was our Spanish teacher, Miss Breau. (Full disclosure: That tour was with a competitor. Since then, I've been thrilled to work with EF Educational Tours.)
So, here are the impressions of an 18-year-old being abroad for the first time, as remembered by that 18-year-old who is now 32:
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