With our ever-expanding bucket lists, The Huffington Post says, it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of the essentials. So they’ve picked the greatest destinations on Earth, the 50 cities you must see during your lifetime. I added one of my own to the list.
I’ve got most of the European destinations covered although I missed out on anything in the Iberian peninsula as I’ve never been to either Spain or Portugal. But there are a slew of Asian cities I’ve never been NEAR and I’d love to see. Lhasa, for instance. That must be a JOURNEY, in more ways than one.
The city that I added to their list is Cape Town, South Africa.
Cape Town was my home for 13 years, the longest Ive actually ever lived anywhere for a contiguous stretch of time. Its climate is wonderful. That is, if you discount the occasional wind which blows hard enough to lift one out of one’s shoes as it did me, literally, once, or blow over a double decker bus – that happened, too.
Cape Town backs onto wine country, with estates that produce some of the best wines I have ever tasted (Nederburg Baronne. Immortal. Much missed.) It has some of the best and most interesting beaches ever – the one with the cold current running right off shore, which rendered the water ICY, the one which was home to a colony of penguins with whom you sometimes ended up sharing the ocean. I went to University there. It was the home of a special place known as Spanish Gardens which you can read all about in the novel I wrote (Midnight at Spanish Gardens.)
Amazing, unique, awesomely beautiful place. Should have been on this list. So I am putting it there.
Photo by Husar 77
Petra, Jordan – the Rose Red City Half as Old as Time. Of all the world’s great ancient cities, Petra stands in a league of its own. Set in the midst of a epic, wind-swept desert, Petra’s monumental rock-cut buildings must be seen to be believed.
Photo by Angel B. Arevalo
Siem Reap, Cambodia – While most come to see the stunning ancient city of Angkor Wat, but Siem Reap’s laid-back bohemian-backpacker vibe and tasty food make it a worthy destination on its own.
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The Empty City: Extraordinary photos capture the true spirit of New York City at night
I’ve always said New York City doesn’t really exist – it’s a stage set, unreal, only imagined -and these almost surreal fairytale photographs taken by artist Franck Bohbot PROVE it. As in, where are all the PEOPLE? This is freaking NYC. There are millions of humans crawling around there. And I don’t care WHAT ungodly time of day these were taken at.
Bohbot’s photos, posted at Sploid by Omar Kardoudi, are “rooted in his fascination with cinematographic iconography, his thematics study the relationship between the individual and the urban landscape. He lives and works in New York.”
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One-star reviews
******SPOILER*******
“Everyone dies!!!!”
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Nadine Gordimer offered Wise Words About Bettering A Troubled World
The great novelist Nadine Gordimer, whose stories told of the immorality of apartheid in her beloved South Africa, was not only a writer, Matt Silver writes at NPR upon her death at 90: She was an activist in the fight to end apartheid. In her writings and speeches, the Nobel Prize offered words of enlightenment for anyone sharing her commitment to bring a better life to those suffering from prejudice, poor health, poverty, and other ills.
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Quote of the Day
“Truth isn’t always beauty, but the hunger for it is.” ~ Nadine Gordimer
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Alma Alexander
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