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You Said It Kristy!

As the semester comes to a close, it's nice to take a little look back at some of the virtual adventures we've taken over the past few months. This project gave me a broader perspective on the world than I would have had had I just stuck to my normal classes and assignments here at Cazenovia College. And to think that many of the stuff we looked at is really accessible in the Internet Age, I wonder why we don't take advantage of these things more often? College students decades ago would have killed for a chance to "see the world" this way. It's all right there waiting to be discovered. Google, Wikipedia (which despite it's reputation in the academic world, can be a pretty amazing resource), Flickr, YouTube... We use a lot of these things on a daily basis, why not take a little time to put that to good use and learn a little something about all the wonderful places our planet has to offer?

Anyways, enough chat for now, here's a few photos of me on my travels for you to laugh at and remember all the good times we've had...

First up is me in a neat lookin street in ISTANBUL TURKEY! Man, Istanbul was a neat place! I can't wait to go back...hopefully in person!


And hey, look at this! I'm hanging with the penguins in Punta Arenas, Chile! Holy crap do I wish I could do this in person! Someday, penguins, someday...


Sticking with the animal theme, here I am standing near a giraffe in Nairobi National Park! It's so neat that they have a national park right outside the city! Sounds like an amazing place to me. See you soon, Nairobi!


And last we have a great picture of me hanging out with some of the locals in Rio de Janeiro at the Christ the Redeemer Statue! Seven Wonders of the World? Damn right!


Well, that was fun! But of course, I have to point out the huge difference between traveling on the web and traveling in real life. I may have a better idea of what Yuzhno Sakhalinsk is like than your average Joe, but man, I'm still a firm believer that to get a good sense of a place, of a culture, you need to go there and experience it for yourself. Looking at a webcam will never be good enough. So maybe some day I'll actually get to visit some of these places? I sure hope so! In the meantime, thanks for tuning in to our little travel blog and do yourself a favor every once in a while and take a virtual (or better yet, real life) trip of your own!

XOXOXO

What a Trip!

What a Trip!

Over the last three months Greg and I have "traveled" all around the world to the places where we have always wanted to go without actually leaving our cozy dorm rooms at Cazenovia College in New York. I have a blast finding out information that I didn't know about this places. And I would have never known all these cool facts if I never "traveled" to them. I personally traveled to eight different locations. Those locations include, the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, the Taj Mahal, Mammoth Mountain in California, Ireland, the Easter Islands, New Zealand, Ancient Egypt, and Iceland. I have taken a couple of pictures of my travels of the places I enjoyed the most. And here they are.


The first picture is me standing outside an Irish Pub called the Template Bar. I have Irish heritage and I felt that I should get back to my roots by going to Ireland.


The next picture is from the Easter Islands. I think the the Moai statues are amazing looking and mysterious at the same time. No one really knows where the statues came from and I think that is real interesting. So here I am standing in front of the Moai Statues. It a bad picture of me.


And the last two pictures are of me and my friend Paul Anderson from New Zealand and some of his friends and we are at a cricket game. Paul is a funny guy with a great sense of humor. He matches my personality as you can see. I can't wait to see him again.

This is me at the cricket match with Steve, Paul, and Peter.

Well this has been an amazing adventure and "traveling" online just makes me want to s jump on a plane and travel the world. And I think I might just go and do that soon. Wish me luck! Good-Bye for now and have a save trip.

Trip #14: Iceland

Iceland

Why go to Iceland? Iceland’s official website says that Iceland is close, it’s exotic, and it’s easy. So lets see if they were right.

Trip to Iceland

Iceland is a mid- Atlantic island that is about 40,00 square miles, which is about the same size as Ohio. It is the closest European neighbor to the United States. It takes about 5 hours to fly from New York City to Iceland. So as for the statement for Iceland being close, that’s pretty true.


Iceland has the largest glaciers in Europe- in fact 11% of the country is covered by glaciers.

The name Iceland comes from the Vikings. It was said that the Vikings were sailing by the island and saw snow and ice and perceived to call it Iceland.


But the name is the only thing that is cold. The funny thing is that the coastline is dotted with more than one hundred green and fertile valleys extend from many of them. In Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, the average temperature in January is higher than it is in New York. There are countless numbers of hot springs and waterfalls located all over the island.

Geysers are HOTT!

Iceland Summer Trip

Iceland is a beautiful place to visit or even live. Between the scenery and the varied of the landscape, it can be adventurous but dangerous. Here is an Iceland video on how to drive in Iceland.

How to Drive in Iceland

Most national Icelandic foods are based around fish, lamb and dairy products. But the puffin is common, especially in the southern part of Iceland, and is a part of Iceland's traditional cuisine. How exotic can you get. And I did not know that Puffins can fly! I always thought they were penguins but NO they are not. Huh, who knew.

puffins

So the next question I need to answer is, is it easy? But I really think its up to you. But here are some more pictures to try to make up your minds.

Destination #13: ANTARCTICA!

Ok, so at this point, we've been to a bunch of places all around the world. So what's next?


Time for a SPECIAL TRIP! We're heading down south! WAAAAAAY SOUTH!!! It's the Greg and Kristy's Travel Blog Antarctica Adventure!

As if you didn't know where Antarctica is, here it is on a globe:


Well before we all know the fun of learning about Antarctica is in the photo and video section, but lets take a second to cover some of the basics.

So Antarctica is in fact a continent, meaning its a solid piece of land, however roughly 98% of it is covered in ice, which averages about 1 mile thick! Antarctica is about 5.4 million square miles, has the highest average elevation of all the continents, and sees such small amounts of precipitation that the interior is technically the largest desert in the world. There are no permanent human residents and since the 1959 signing of the Antarctic Treaty, Antarctica has been agreed to be a military/industry free place with participation by 45 countries in scientific research. The United States does have a pretty good research program called the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) that has a few stations including one at the South Pole!

Enough talk right? Some of the coolest pictures I found amongst the thousands you can find online:








Now some videos! First up, a neat montage of time lapse!

Killer Whales!!!!

Antarctica in 5 minutes:

Global Warming message from an Antarctic Photographer:


Ok, of course all the science geeks in Antarctica have us more than covered for webcams, so here are some to have a look. From the USAP. From Australia Antarctic Division. PenguinCam! South Pole Webcam! RRS Ernest Shackleton Research Ship Webcam!

Enough with the webcams! But one last thing though before we go. This is exciting news people! Happening this year! Belgium is currently building the Princess Elisabeth Polar Science Station, the FIRST EVER ZERO-EMISSIONS research base in Antarctica! It will run solely on solar and wind energy! Check out the website for some awesome photos and videos. What a neat project!

That will do it for this adventure though, thanks for coming down folks!

Destination #12: Yuzhno Sakhalinsk

Well today we're going somewhere you've probably never heard of... Yuzhno Sakhalinsk!

What??? How do you even pronounce that?!

Umm...Don't ask me!

Here are some maps to give you an idea where it is... Basically, it's in a part of Russia you don't normally see, the part that's right by Japan!



In fact, Yuzhno Sakhalinsk has actually switched hands a couple times between Russia and Japan. It was originally a small Russian settlement founded in 1882, then it was handed over to Japan after the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, then finally, after WWII, it was returned to Russia.


Here is a drawing of what the original settlement looked like.

Next are a few pictures to give you a sense of what it looks like today:







They got a lot of snow there (sound familiar Cazenovia?) but they seem to have fun with it! Check it out:







And here is a neat picture of one of the few remaining Japanese buildings, not converted into a museum!



Next up is some guy's Youtube video sharing a bit of his travels:



Ok, because Youtube can be so bizarre sometimes, here's some other videos posted by people from Yuzhno, just for fun. First up, OFF ROADIN!



And second, its MOONBEAM playing LIVE! Haha. Well, I guess Yuzhno has some sort of music scene then? Funny:




And finally, a couple of webcams! Can't say these are the most exciting webcams I've ever seen, but hey, I was a bit surprised to see that a place like Yuzhno Sakhalinsk would even have some!

Trip #11- Egypt

Egypt

When I was a little girl growing up, I had an interest in ancient Egypt. Especially with the Great Pyramids of Giza, The Great Sphinx, King Tut, and Queen Nefertiti. I always want to travel to Egypt when I got older and visit these wonderful sites. It was always mysterious oasis to me. So why wait.

But instead of traveling to today's Egypt, I want to go back in time to Ancient Egypt. I am going to visit the people and places that I always loved and wanted to visit but could never unless I had a time machine. Well in todays world, the internet is going to be my time machine. So I guess whats left to do is to walk like an Egyptians I guess.

The civilization began around 3150 BC with the Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh. After the end of the last kingdom, known as the New Kingdom, the civilization of ancient Egypt entered a period of slow, steady decline, during which Egypt was conquered by a succession of foreign powers. The rule of the pharaohs officially ended in 31 BC when the early Roman Empire conquered Egypt and made it a province.

The Great Pyramids

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now Cairo, Egypt in Africa, and is the only remaining member of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is believed the pyramid was built as a tomb for Fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh Khufu and constructed over a 20 year period concluding around 2560 BC. The Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for over 3,800 years.

Live camera of the pyramids at Giza

There are three known chambers inside the Great Pyramid. The King’s Chamber, the Queen’s Chamber and the unfinished Chamber.


Great Sphinx



The Great Sphinx was believed to stand as a guardian of the Giza Plateau, where it faces the rising sun. It was the focus of solar worship in the Old Kingdom, centered in the next-door temples built around the time of its probable construction. Its animal form, the lion, has long been a symbol associated with the sun in ancient Near Eastern civilizations. Images depicting the Egyptian king in the form of a lion smiting his enemies appear as far back as the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt.


King Tut

Tutankhamun was only eight or nine years old when he became pharaoh, and reigned for approximately ten years, making him eighteen or nineteen years old at death. In 1922, Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun. Examinations from Carter had shown that Tutankamun died in April or May because on the flower placed in his sarcophagus were only in bloom in April and May. Since the discovery of Tutankhamun's intact tomb received worldwide press coverage and sparked a renewed public interest in ancient Egypt, for which Tutankhamun's burial mask remains the popular face.


To find the answers behind Tutankhamun's death that two examinations gave evidence to find out that he was murdered. And X-Ray in 1968 showed that a fragment of bone inside the skull of the mummy. This damange was caused by a blow to the head and that is what killed him.

Virual Tour of King Tutankhamun’s Tomb

Queen Nefertiti

Nefertiti was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. She was the mother-in-law and probable stepmother of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Nefertiti may have also ruled as pharaoh in her own right under the name Neferneferuaten briefly after her husband's death and before the accession of Tutankhamun. Her name roughly translates to "the beautiful (or perfect) one has arrived".

A standing/striding figure of Nefertiti made of limestone.

No concrete information is available regarding Nefertiti's death[citation needed], but the location of Nefertiti's body has long been a subject of curiosity and speculation. There are many theories regarding her death and burial.

NEFERTITI - Beautiful queen speed painting by M. Missfeldt

To finish my busy day of exploring. I wanted to watch Egypt at night. So I found a video of just that with a little help with today's technology and lighting.