Free Traveling

Salmon-Caviar Le Bernardin, New York I don’t take my birthday too seriously.  All I ask for is a very good meal (or a few) shared with good friends. For the past few years, I’ve made it a point to celebrate my birthday away from home.  I’ve had a strong bias for New York, which has been the situs of three of my last four birthday dinners.  In 2006, I celebrated at per se with my friends Myrtle and Winston; in 2007 at Eleven Madison Park with my good friend Hue; and in 2008, for my thirtieth, my friends Paper Hat Boy, You-Me, Kramer, and Handel flew from New York to meet my friends Traveler Ho and The Diva and me at Vie and Avenues in Chicago. In 2009, I decided to co-celebrate my birthday with my good friend Houston, whose birthday is a week after mine.  She had never been to New York and I felt the need to correct that egregious deficit in her life.

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iReporters submitted photographs from their travels from around the world and we picked 16 of our favorites.

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Life and work have kept me too busy to write anything here for a while. I did manage however to get an article into Mystic Wicks Magazine in time for publication and it came out today.

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By Linda Tancs The North Pole is a lot closer than you think–as in North Pole, New York, in the High Peaks area of New York State’s Adirondack Park.  Like its more northern cousins (e.g., Alaska and Lapland’s Santa Claus Village), the New York version celebrates its famous moniker with a Christmas themed family amusement park sporting  rides, shows and shops for children and adults of all ages.  For those dreaming of a white Christmas, this is the place to be.  On any given year, the weather data suggests a 96% chance of any amount of snow for the holiday.  Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow–and Merry Christmas! DISCLOSURE OF NO MATERIAL CONNECTION   The author has not received any compensation for writing this content and has no material connection to the brands, topics, products and/or services that are mentioned herein.

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It was a bitter sweet moment leaving Garmisch and driving to Munich.  We all had such a great time exploring the Bavarian Alps and touring numerous churches, museums, castles, etc.  Leaving here was an indicator that my vacation time was winding down.  But at the same time, I was excited about exploring the crown jewels of Munich. Before leaving, we stopped at the Kaserne Artillery Post Office and mailed some surprise presents to my family in Pennsylvania.  The roads were still a bit snow covered, but once we merged with the Autobahn, they were clear and we could increase our speed.  Our first stop in Munich was Marienplatz.  We were hoping to see the animated figurines perform at 1100 hrs.  It was my day for parking karma, because just as we caught a glimpse of the Town Hall structure (Rathaus), someone pulled out of a parking spot next to the street. Much of Marienplatz is restricted to pedestrian traffic.  This massive plaza center was filled with vendors selling Christmas ornaments, jewelry, Our friend Elaine March holds up a beer at Hofbrauhaus

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iReporters share their best photos of Sweden, from Stockholm’s stunning architecture and setting to castles and coastal towns.

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Thailand was amazing, thank you for all your help Sunset Beach Hotel is beautiful, the other one is shocking though, very disappointed with it, and also the flight time made it rather tiring, perhaps we should have stayed 2 nights and then left the hotel at about 12 in the evening, cos we had to bum around the airport for HOURS! other than that i loved it, cant wait to go back!!! Samantha Holt

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The Snake River roils downstream under a snowy sky Sunday evening near Montezuma, Colorado. Every Monday, Summit Voice will take a quick look at mountain towns in the U.S. and even around the world, picking out a few stories, blog posts and other bits of information that might be of interest to Summit County residents

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After developing an unnerving metallic pinging noise on full lock we decided the car might be sick. After some swift diagnosis by Matt and an Austrian chap at MTI Land Rover in Cairo it was revealed to be the CV joint – the failure of which would result in a complete loss of drive

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