Following the Equator

Maple Leaf Monopoly

Montreal is the new Boardwalk.

Monopoly finally revealed the winning cities in its new World Edition this week, and the Canadian city earned the global game's most prestigious position, as we predicted in February.

In fact, Canada monopolizes the new Monopoly board. In addition to Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto also earned spots. The other dominant country is China, which placed Beijing and Shanghai, plus Hong Kong, on the board. Only one U.S. city (New York) made the game.

More than 5.6 million votes were cast to select the 22 cities in the new edition, which goes on sale next week in 50 countries.

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.