Following the Equator | EF's Educational Travel Blog

Friday Fun Fact: Valentine's Day

In honor of the upcoming celebration of love, here are a few facts about Valentine’s Day.

• The exact origin of Valentine’s Day is debated. The holiday can be traced back to the pagan celebration of Lupercalia, a Roman festival celebrating health and fertility. However, it is also associated with St. Valentine, who supposedly married young couples in secret after Roman Emperor Claudius II forbade marriage in order to increase the size of his army
• Roman men were the first to send written notes of love. The oldest preserved Valentine’s Day card is from 1415. The French Duke of Orléans sent it to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. 
• The tradition of exchanging Valentine’s Day cards began in Great Britain in the nineteenth century. Today, the American Greeting Card Association estimates that Americans purchase 7 billion greeting cards annually. Christmas and holiday cards are the most popular, followed by Valentine’s Day cards.
• Chocolate has been linked to love since the fifteenth century. The Aztec emperor Moctezuma ate chocolate in hopes of becoming more virile. 
• Although women often receive chocolates in the United States. In Japan, women usually give chocolates to men. Women give giri-choco to colleagues and close makes friends. For their boyfriends, women often make chocolates called hon-mei.

Our 10 Best of 2009

Thank you to everyone for reading, sharing and supporting Following the Equator in 2009. We sure enjoyed posting great stories, facts, tips and profiles about educational travel and the group leaders who make it possible.

We're already planning some exciting new things for 2010. Most of all, though, we want to hear from you. What do you want to read and see on this blog—more interviews with teachers, more amazing travel photos, more fundraising and recruiting ideas, more tidbits about the things to see and do on tour? Let us know at equator@ef.com.

As we look ahead to an exciting year of travel in 2010, we thought we'd take a quick look back at a successful 2009 and our 10 favorite blog posts of the year. Feel free to post your own comments below.

Friday Fun Fact: Japan's Imperial Family

The world's longest continuous hereditary monarchy is in Japan.

Japan's Imperial Family, or the Yamato Dynasty, dates back to 660 B.C., when Emperor Jimmu legendarily "founded" Japan. The Imperial Family lists its line of succession through 125 generations, including the current monarch, Emperor Akihito, who inherited the throne 20 years ago.

A grateful tip of the hat to EF's resident trivia expert, Nicholas Brankle, for this week's Friday Fun Fact.

Friday Fun Fact: Eiffel Tower's steps

How many steps are there to the top of the Eiffel Tower?

Some sources insist there are 1,792 steps, which conveniently coincides with the year of the French First Republic.

However, according to the official Eiffel Tower website, there are a total of 1,665 steps to the top. Some of them are even numbered (above).

Photo: midnightglory via Flickr (CC license)

Friday Fun Fact: San Marino

San Marino may be mighty small, but its history is mighty impressive.

The landlocked country—completely surrounded by Italy—comprises just 23.5 square miles, making it the third smallest country in Europe. Only Vatican City and Monaco are smaller.

However, San Marino—founded on September 3, 301—remains the world's oldest sovereign state and constitutional republic. In fact, the Constitution of San Marino, which dates back to 1600, is the world's oldest, functioning constitution.

Photo: fdecomite via Flickr (CC license)

Friday Fun Fact: Triberg Waterfalls

Among the Schwarzwaldkuchen and the cuckoo clocks, the Black Forest is also known for the Triberg Waterfalls in the German town of Triberg im Schwarzwald.

The series of waterfalls (above) in the Gutach River has a total vertical drop of less than 500 feet—about a third the size of Germany's tallest waterfall, the Röthbachfall, which is more remotely located in the Berchtesgaden area of southeastern Germany.

Friday Fun Fact: Liechtenstein

Tiny Liechtenstein—the European country wedged in between Austria and Switzerland—boasts a mere 35,000 citizens. That's roughly equivalent to the population of San Dimas, California.

However, according to National Geographic, because of its liberal tax policies and banking laws, Liechtenstein has more companies than citizens in its 62 square miles.

Friday Fun Fact: Lake Arenal

Lake Arenal—Costa Rica's largest lake, which sits in the shadow of the Arenal Volcano—was enlarged to three times its original size following the volcano's major 1968 eruption. According to Arenal.net, the lake's basin now forms a hydroelectric project that produces 9 percent of Costa Rica's electricity.

Photo: Sam Beebe / Ecotrust via Flickr (CC license)

Friday Fun Fact: Offset time zones

If you're traveling to India or Newfoundland or even parts of Australia, make sure to set your watch properly.

A handful of destinations—most notably India but also Afghanistan, Burma, Iran, Venezuela, Canada's Newfoundland and Australia's Northern Territory and South Australia—deviate from standard world time zones by a half-hour. So these offset time zones are either 30 minutes ahead or behind their neighboring time zones.

Friday Fun Fact: March equinox

Today is the March equinox—the moment that the sun passes directly overhead the equator and the official beginning of spring.

In fact, the precise moment came at 11:44 UTC (7:44 a.m. on the East Coast) today, when, according to EarthSky, the sun was over the Atlantic Ocean, just off the west coast of equatorial Africa—south of Nigeria and west of Gabon.

The World Sunlight Map above depicts the position of the sun at the equinox this morning.

Friday Fun Fact: St. Patrick's Festival

St. Patrick's Day will be celebrated around the world on Tuesday, but in Dublin, Ireland, the festivities began yesterday.

To commemorate Ireland's national holiday, St. Patrick's Festival is a six-day celebration of "performance, spectacle and participation," culminating with Dublin's St. Patrick's Festival Parade on Tuesday.

The Dublin parade, however, is not the world's biggest. The largest annual St. Patrick's Day parade is in New York City, which draws upward of 2 million spectators. New York City also held the world's first recorded St. Patrick's Day parade in 1762, although it's believed that a parade by Irish settlers was held a year earlier in Boston.

Boston's St. Patrick's Day parade, by the way, will be held Sunday.
And, yes, I'll be there.

Photo: infomatique via Flickr (CC license)

Friday Fun Fact: Metric system

Meters, liters and grams … oh, my!

If you're traveling anywhere outside of the United States, you will encounter the metric system. On your tour, it might be handy to know that 1 kilometer equals 0.62 miles or that 1 liter is 33.8 ounces, for example.

Well, if you're traveling almost anywhere, that is. Other than the United States, there are only two countries that have not adopted the metric system as their official system of measurement: Liberia and Myanmar (Burma).

Special thanks again to EF's resident trivia expert, Nicholas Brankle,
for this week's Friday Fun Fact.