Eat, Sleep, Breathe, Travel

Tower Bridge gets all lit up

If you like your iconic landmarks lit up with multi-colored lights, and you’re going to be in London, you are in luck. The famous Tower Bridge over the River Thames has been outfitted with an elaborate light-show system in preparation for the London Olympics (and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebration this coming weekend).

They turned the lights on for the first time Wednesday night. It looks pretty cool. You can see what it looks like in the video on this page (complete with a triumphant music soundtrack). I imagine it looks quite a bit better in person.

The stats for the project are impressive: 1,800 LED light bulbs, 6,562 feet of LED linear lights, 16,404 feet of cable and 1,000 junction boxes. That’s a lot of lighting equipment.

The intention of the project (besides inducing general celebratory feelings) is to brighten the famous bridge and highlight its architectural details. I’d say they succeeded. Though the light show is opening now to celebrate the Olympics, it will stay active for at least 25 years. Long time.

Photo: Stephen J Kennedy via Flickr 

Tennis time in Paris

EF College Break travelers in Paris right now are feeling the buzz of the French Open. It’s going on as we speak in the French capital.

The French Open, as you may know, is one of the four big grand slam tennis tournaments. The official French name for the event is Les internationaux de France de Roland-Garros. We'll just call it the French Open.

It always takes place at the end of May through the beginning of June. It’s one of the world’s largest tennis events, and it’s the most watched French event in the world. This year is the 111th French Open. 

The French Open is a little special in the world of tennis championships, because it’s the only one of the grand slam tournaments to be played on clay courts. That makes it a physically demanding place to play. The clay slows the ball down and makes it bounce higher, which makes it hard for powerful players with big serves to dominate as they can at other venues. A lot of famous players with many title wins at other tournaments have never won at the French Open. And a lot of players who don’t have so many titles, but whose game is suited to the slower clay surface, have won French Open championships. So it's special.

Anyway, if you’re in Paris right now, or will be in the next couple of weeks, you might feel the tennis in the air.

Photo: Destination Europe via Flickr

Memories from the French Riviera

With three days left of the Cannes Film Festival, this feels like a good time to talk about the French Riviera. (Incidentally, I’m really looking forward to this movie, which screened at the festival.)

I’ve had some good times on the Riviera. The great thing about it is all the cities and towns you can visit, all lined up one-by-one along the sea, each one just a short train ride from the next. 

Like most people visiting the French Riviera (and like EF College Break trips), I was based in Nice when I visited. Nice is a cool little city. We hung out on the beach, ate some good food, went out at night, kicked a soccer ball around with some local kids.

One night we went to Monaco. I’m not a huge gambler, and I was admittedly a bit intimidated at first by the world-famous Monte Carlo Casino. I barely gambled—maybe just a little roulette. But one of my friends was an experienced card player, so he went all out. He lost quite a bit of money playing blackjack, and he wasn’t pleased about it. The rest of us maybe won or lost a bit, I can’t remember. In a sense we all won, because we got to experience one of the world’s most famous casinos. Except for that one friend. He lost.

As for Cannes, I did make it there too for an afternoon. This wasn’t during the festival, so we just enjoyed the scenery, the boats, the beach, the sea. It probably goes without saying that it was an afternoon well spent. I still remember it all these years later.

Photo: TOMOYOSHI via Flickr

 

Crazy 4-D roller coaster near Shanghai

I’m not really a roller coaster person. Not so much because I fear for my life, but because I fear for throwing up on people. But I know a lot of people go nuts for roller coasters, so I thought I’d call attention to this:

The 4-D roller coaster, called the Dinoconda, at Global Dinosaur Town in China. 

I didn’t know about 4-D roller coasters until reading the post. There are only a handful of them in the world. On a 4-D coaster, riders rotate in any direction, independently of the track. Thus they are said to enter the “fourth dimension.” Sounds insane.

The Dinoconda is about 260 feet high, and you reach speeds of about 80 mph, doing 760-degree somersaults and taking almost completely vertical drops. And you’re going backwards the whole time. They say it’s one of the scariest roller coasters in the world. Throw in the fact that it’s at a theme park called Global Dinosaur Town, and you know it has to be true.

The park is nicknamed the “Jurassic Park of the East” (though they don’t have any dinosaurs). It was built in 2000 and it’s about an hour away from Shanghai by bullet train. Could be a good free-time activity for travelers on EF College Break’s China trip, which has three nights in Shanghai.

Photo: Ollie T. via Flickr

Sydney gets food trucks

Food trucks are all the rage these days. Out here in L.A., food trucks are abundant. Taco trucks of course are the most common. But then there’s everything else—Korean BBQ, burgers, Thai, sandwiches, and much more. Yes, in cities around the world, whatever your tastes, you are sure to find whatever you want served to you from a truck.

And now Sydney, Australia has joined in the mix. For a long time, late-night eating options in Australia’s most populous city were limited. So Sydney’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore decided to bring food trucks to town. Now there are 10 different trucks around Sydney where you can grab a bite after a fun long night out.

The trucks serve at various locations around town. They operate night and day offering a range of foods, from organic pizza to Australian cuisine. Helpfully, Timeout has a webpage that keeps tabs on their whereabouts, via their twitter accounts. If you’re traveling to Australia, this could definitely come in handy.

If you’re not yet signed up to travel to Australia, you should. Now you have another reason besides the amazing beaches, friendly people, interesting history, kangaroos and koalas. You have food trucks.

Photo: ricardodiaz11 via Flickr