The traditional language of Carcassonne—the French medieval walled city that we wrote about earlier—is called Occitan.
Occitan is a language spoken at least partially by about 3 million people in Occitania, a cultural territory that includes parts of south France (including Carcassonne), Monaco, Italy and Spain.
A Romance language, Occitan is most similar to Catalan, one of three official languages of Catalonia in northeast Spain. The other two official languages are Spanish (of course) and Aranese, which is a dialect of Occitan.
"The joy I have found in watching students learn and grow has made traveling with students one of the best decisions I’ve made in my teaching career," says EF Group Leader Susan Pennington, an English and public speaking teacher at Nerinx Hall High School in St. Louis, Missouri.
Read on to learn why Susan keeps traveling abroad and for some tips on planning an EF tour of your own.
What inspired you to begin traveling abroad with students? When I teach poetry, fiction and creative writing, I use the images and experiences that permeate my brain to help me to understand literature and life. For me, many of these powerful images and experiences are from trips I have taken to Europe. About six years ago, I realized that if my students had similar experiences, they might make better connections between the things they study and the ways of the world, past and present. When all this collided in my head, I decided I needed to take students to Europe to give them their own special images and experiences.
Now, it's not only mapping ancient civilizations (such as its Ancient Rome in 3D layer), but Google Earth also has started mapping masterpieces.
The famed Prado art museum in Madrid and Google yesterday unveiled 14 paintings that have been mapped in ultra-high resolution for an even-more-than-up-close view in Google Earth.
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.
Cities all around the world celebrate the holidays with different traditions, but there's one illuminating similarity: impressive light displays.
Travel + Leisure magazine recently highlighted 10 of the World's Best Holiday Light Displays with a collection of videos. One of our favorites is the Christmas Eve lights-and-fireworks show over the Palacio de Comunicaciones in Madrid. Check it out:
Which is your favorite? Have you seen other grand displays around the world? Let us know in the comments below.
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.
Jeremy—pictured above with students in Australia (he's in the black-and-blue jacket to the right of the guy in the cool hat)—talked with us about the "irreplaceable experience" of travel, establishing a reputation for taking students on tour and his own dream tour of Italy:
In anyone's house or apartment, there's usually one window, door or balcony that offers the most picturesque view of the world outside the four walls.
My four most recent houses (OK, three apartments and now finally a house) have each been in a different country. In each home, I made a point of identifying the best view and taking a picture of it.
The U.S. elections are finally over, and most of us are probably glad that it will be at least three years before CNN starts shaking the foundations of our homes with the ominous Star Wars battle music and thunderclaps that alert you that a live presidential debate is about to happen.
Yes, CNN overdramatizes a bit, as do most news organizations. And I'm not knocking them for it. Presidential debates are fairly rare occurrences, and they rightly command extraordinary attention. They certainly commanded mine. I was living in Spain during most of the '08 campaign, but I didn't let mere time zones stop me; I got up at 3 a.m. for every debate (it is indeed the time when "something's happening in the world"), just in time to catch Wolf Blitzer's giddy-yet-grave introduction, where he'd all but tell me that my life was about to change.
Food stands and open-air markets provide great opportunities to try local treats—and even find interesting photos.
This colorful picture is from a market in Barcelona and shows a rainbow of peladillas—candy-coated almonds popular in Spain, especially at Christmastime. The photo was taken by ronmark., who submitted it to the EF Tours group on Flickr.
If you have a unique or fun destination travel photo, just add it to the EF pool on Flickr. We pick a new Photo of the Week every Thursday.
As I settle back into life in the United States after eight years abroad, I find myself struggling to reprogram my mind to the new Sunday landscape: all stores open, all day.
You see, I've spent the past eight years learning to live the European Sunday, where the only things that are universally open are churches and the "Sunday date" trio of cafés, restaurants and movie theaters. That said, the Euro-Sunday formula varies somewhat by country.
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