Eat, Sleep, Breathe, Travel

Big concerts in Europe this summer

A certain music-loving EF College Break staff member (Betsy) has compiled a list of big shows happening in Europe this summer. If anyone going on a trip is looking for something extra memorable to do, you might want to check into getting tickets.

The big highlight looks to be the Wireless Festival in London's Hyde Park the weekend of July 6-8. Some single-day passes are still available. Check out the lineup on the festival website.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s Betsy's full list of summer shows:

London
May 20            Jay Z and Kanye West at O2 Arena
June 1              Coldplay at Emirates Stadium
June 2              Coldplay at Emirates Stadium
June 23            Tinie Tempah at Hackney Marshes
June 24            Nicki Minaj at HMV Hammersmith Apollo
July 6-8           Wireless Festival 2012 at Hyde Park (Wiz Khalifa, Nicki Minaj, Drake, Rihanna...)
July 21             Lady Gaga at O2 Arena

Paris
May 4-5                             Foster the People at Le Bataclan
May 1                                 LMFAO at Le Zenith
June 1-2                            Jay Z and Kayne West at Bercy
June 29                             Red Hot Chili Peppers at Stade de France
July 4                                 Bruce Springsteen at Bercy
July 14                               Madonna at Stade de France

Barcelona
June 20                              Madonna at Palau Sant Jordi

Madrid
July 6                                  Rock in Rio 2012 (David Guetta, Pitbull, Pete Tong, Wally Lopez, Martin Solveigh)

Rome
June 30                              Radiohead at Ippodromo delle Capannelle

Berlin
June 28                              Madonna at O2 World
June 29                              Snow Patrol at Zitadelle Spandau
July 6                                 Radiohead at Waldbuhne

Enjoy the music.

Photo: wonker via Flickr

Harry Potter studio tour opens near London

Harry Potter fans who are traveling to London will probably be excited about this news. The Warner Bros. studio where they filmed large parts of the Harry Potter movies has just opened its doors for visitors.

I’ve written in the past about Harry Potter sights in London (highlighted, I think, by Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross Station), but this will probably be even more exciting. Potter fanatics can now take a three-hour tour of the actual sets, props, animatronics and other movie magic that brought the Harry Potter films to life.

I’m actually not a Harry Potter person. I haven’t read or seen any of it. So what I’m about to say makes no sense to me. The studio tour includes a walk through the Great Hall, where Hogwarts students ate and enjoyed the Yule Ball. You also get to see Gryffindor Common Room, Professor Dumbledore's office, the potions classroom, Hagrid's hut, the Weasleys' kitchen and the giant animatronic spider Aragog. Finally, visitors get to walk through a large room housing a huge scale model of Hogwarts Castle, which was used for various establishing shots and overhead angles.

The tour costs about $45, and you have to book tickets in advance. It looks like it’s about a 20-minute train ride from London. For many EF College Break travelers on trips to London, I imagine this will be a great way to spend a free afternoon.

Photo: Craig Grobler via Flickr

April Fools around the world

April is three days away, which means people are starting to plan their April Fools’ Day pranks. I thought I’d take this opportunity to do a little research on other countries' April Fools’ traditions. I learned some interesting facts.

I learned that in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and the UK (among other countries), April Fools’ Day only lasts until noon. Anyone who pulls a prank after noon is called an April Fool, and is serenaded with cries of "April Fool's Day's past and gone, You're the fool for making one." (Somehow I doubt they actually say this.)

I also learned that France and Italy have their own April Fools' tradition. People tack paper fishes on other people’s backs and shout “April fish!” (actually "poisson d'avril!" or "pesce d'aprile!").

Finally, I learned that in Scotland they used to have a different name for April Fool’s Day. They called it Hunt-the-Gowk Day ("gowk" is a word for a cuckoo or a fool). They had some elaborate tradition that I don't really understand, involving a written message that says "Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile."

I’m actually not a big prankster, so April Fools' Day usually comes and goes without me noticing. But I know that some people get a lot of pleasure out of pulling pranks on April Fools’ Day. To those people, I say enjoy your special day.

Photo: Vintage Lulu via Flickr

Olympics in London and more

The Olympics will be in London this summer, and I’ve come across this cool video walking tour of the Olympic Park.

It’s actually kind of a different spin on your average Olympics walking tour. It takes you through an interesting London neighborhood called Hackney, which has historically been very industrial and is now filled with artists.

As for Olympic sites, the video takes you past the huge media headquarters for the Games, as well as the Olympic Stadium, the Aquatic Centre, the walkway where athletes will pass through en route to fame and glory, and the Velodrome (which people are calling the giant Pringle, thanks to its curves).

A lot of EF College Break summer trips will be lucky enough to be in London while the Olympics are going on. For instance, this one and this one and this one. (Check the dates.)

There’s nothing like being in a city when there’s that extra buzz in the air. Even if you’re in a city where the big event isn’t actually happening, it’s special. I can attest to this from my time in Prague during the 2006 World Cup and the 2005 World Ice Hockey Championship. Incredible fun.

Besides the Olympics, there’s another humongous sporting event in Europe this summer: Euro 2012, the huge soccer tournament. People in Europe go nuts for their national teams throughout the tourney, and anyone who’s in Europe between June 8 and July 1 will be a part of it. Like on this trip, or this one, or this one.

Europe will be a fun place to be this summer.

Photo: megoizzy via Flickr

Must-see art installation in London

Anyone traveling to London before June 5? A friend of mine just posted this on Facebook, and it looks very cool and definitely worth checking out. It’s a special exhibition at London’s Tate Modern museum.

The exhibition features the art of Yayoi Kusama, who is apparently famous in the art world (I, admittedly, don't recognize the name). The highlight is an installation called the “Infinity Mirror Room.” In this dark room (check out the cool photos here), hundreds of low-energy LED lights are reflected infinitely by wall-to-wall mirrors. By all accounts, it’s quite mind-blowing. I would like to go see it.

Kusama is from Japan. She’s 82 years old and has lived for the last 40 years as a voluntary resident in a psychiatric hospital. She suffers from hallucinations, which often inspire her art. Obsessive repetition of motifs, like patterns of polka-dots, are common in her work.

Anyway, the exhibit is the talk of the museum at the moment. By the way, the Tate Modern is a great museum any time of year (special exhibition or not). It's always free to enter, though special exhibitions like the Kusama one do cost money.

Photo: fastcodesign.com

A new Stonehenge theory: sounds

I like Stonehenge. It’s all mystical and mysterious, and you can’t help but get caught up in the wonder of who put it there and how they managed to do it. And now this guy has an interesting new theory behind the arrangement of the enormous circle of stones. It’s all about sound.

According to researcher Steven Waller, the stones at Stonehenge are organized according to the way sound waves interact. I’ll let you read the article for yourself, but the gist of it is that if you go walk around in a field and two ancient Britons are playing flutes, the interactions of their sound waves make certain spots louder and others quieter. And if you close your eyes, there are certain points where the sound makes you feel like a big object is in front of you. It’s at these positions that the Stonehenge stones stand. Or something like that. It’s kind of complicated.

Of course, there have been all kinds of theories about Stonehenge through the ages. At one point people thought Merlin had the stones put there by a giant. Nowadays, a lot of people think it was the work of Druids. Others think it was aliens.

Stonehenge's mysterious origin is its biggest draw. If you like such mysteries, and if you’re going to be in London with EF College Break, I highly recommend the Stonehenge trip.

Photo: IanL via Flickr (CC)

A Big Birthday in London

In case you missed it, Tuesday was Charles Dickens’s 200th birthday. Of course, Dickens is considered one of the greatest writers of all time, so there was quite a buzz about it online. Google even honored him by doing their thing with the thing.

I like Charles Dickens. I remember enjoying A Tale of Two Cities, and though I never read A Christmas Carol, the movie Scrooged is definitely a personal favorite. If you’re taking a trip to London this summer, you might soak in some of the Dickens bicentennial excitement.

This article talks about how London itself was the true inspiration for most of Dickens’s works. He grew up in the city after moving there as a child, working in a shoe polish factory from the age of 12. When Dickens was an adult, they say he would spend hours wandering the streets, observing, getting ideas from all he saw around him. One area that played a central role in many of his books was Covent Garden. Back in Dickens’s day it was a real working marketplace. Today it’s a popular shopping area. A different vibe sure, but the same footsteps.

If you really like your Dickens, you can check out the Museum of London’s temporary exhibition called “Dickens and London”. It’s about Dickens and London. The exhibit will be there until June 10. If you miss that, all is not lost. You can still see where he’s buried at Westminster Abbey, you can go on a guided Dickens Walk, and you can wash it all down with a pint at one of several historic Dickensian pubs.

Photos: pandrcutts via Flickr (CC)

Europe will be buzzing with Euro 2012

Going to Europe this June? If so, get ready to be caught up in Euro 2012 fever. The UEFA European Championship (Euro, for short) happens every four years, and it’s the biggest soccer event in Europe after the World Cup. Obviously soccer is huge in Europe, and the Euro championship pits 16 national teams against each other to compete for the ultimate honor. It’s a huge deal. People go nuts for it.

Euro 2012 kicks off on June 8 and lasts three weeks, with the Final played on July 1. The host countries are Poland and the Ukraine, but the whole continent will be buzzing. Lots of EF College Break trip destinations are competing (Greece, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy, Ireland, France, England), so get ready. It’s a blast watching games, seeing the locals going crazy, feeling the national pride, soaking in the festive atmosphere. And if you’re lucky enough to be in the country that wins the whole thing, well that’ll take the life-long memories to a whole new level.

I’ve experienced big international sporting events while abroad, and there’s nothing quite like it. I was living in Prague during the World Cup, watching tons of games at the beer gardens and pubs around the city. I will never forget being at a beer garden for the semi-final between Italy and Germany, when a table full of Italians sitting next to us went completely bonkers after Italy’s go-ahead goal late in the game. Weirdly, I also remember there was a big spider at the bottom of my beer. (It’s funny the things that stick with you.)

Photo: Radio Nederland Wereldomroep via Flickr (CC)

Bathroom games in London

I suppose it was only a matter of time. A bar in London has debuted urinal video games. Finally guys have something to keep them busy while relieving themselves in public bathrooms.

By all accounts, the video games are quite popular. After a successful trial run at a bar in Cambridge (England), they have been installed at another bar called The Exhibit Bar in the south of London. There’s an informative video on this page.

Each equipped urinal offers three games to choose from. The action unfolds on a video screen on the wall above the urinal, but everything onscreen is controlled by the business being done down below. The average "user" spends 55 seconds standing at a urinal, which is apparently more than enough time to play a game. After you’re done, you can upload your score to Twitter and even compete for the top spot on a live leaderboard. Competitive urinating is finally getting its moment.

According to the report, next year these urinal video games will be showing up at bars all across the UK. If you’re going on any trips to London, and you’re a male, you’ll have a whole new reason to go to the bathroom at bars. With luck, you might even find yourself on the leaderboard.

Photo: massdistraction via Flickr (CC)

New evidence on London's Jack the Ripper?

With Halloween still in the rearview mirror, I’m feeling a bit dark and creepy, so this story suited my mood. A man claims he may have the very knife used by London’s legendary killer Jack the Ripper.

The knife belonged to a late 19th-century Welsh surgeon named Sir John Williams. Sir John was actually the surgeon of Queen Victoria, and today he remains one of the suspects in the famous serial murder case. The evidence for Sir John is interesting (and the article does a better job of explaining it than I could).

For those who don't know, the man known as Jack the Ripper murdered at least five women in London in the fall of 1888. I won’t get into the gory details, but if you want more info, check out this incredibly extensive Jack the Ripper website. The case was never solved.

If you’re going to London, and you're interested in Jack the Ripper, there are a slew of Jack the Ripper walking tours you can take. I’ve never done one of these tours myself, but I’m sure they really ham up the ghoulish nature of the whole thing. They usually run after dark, and they lead you through the very streets where the murders were committed. Many of these areas look very similar to how they looked in the late 1800s. A lot of gaslight lamps, dark alleyways, scary stories. Very atmospheric, I’m sure.

Photo: contagiousmemes via Flickr (CC)