#this video was brought to you by extensive piracy

[cloudydayjoy]

I made an AMV showcasing Hater’s arc with Ruler of Everything by Tally Hall.

[yurimother]

Growing up Yurijin: My Childhood Experience with Lesbian Anime and Manga Part I

This article is the first in a two-part personal essay about my childhood experiences growing up around Yuri in an environment where LGBTQ+ identity and culture were normalized. The article was original released exclusively on Patreon in February 2019. You can read Part II on the YuriMother Patreon.

I was recently reading an article by one of the people I admire most in the world, LGBTQ+ manga tastemaker and lesbian icon, Erica Friedman, a person who, in my hubris, I sometimes compare myself to, qualitatively, of course, their achievements far exceed my own. In the essay I was reading, Friedman describes their struggle to find literature that reflected their queen identity in the 1980s. At this moment, it also occurred to me the Friedman had previously spoken about how they discovered anime and manga, which included lesbian elements, more commonly known as Yuri, in adult life, and found an affinity with the genre. Friedman went on to become one of, if not the pioneering individuals in the world of Yuri. As I reminisce on these facts about a person who I so deeply admire and am lucky enough to consider a friend, it occurred to me that, while they adopted the Yuri, I was born into it. Although, funnily enough, my existence as a Yurijin (lit. Yuri Person, an inclusive term for Yuri fans) likely would not have been possible if not for Friedman’s support and love of Yuri, more on that later.

I am rather young. Depending on who you ask, I am either one of the last Millennials or one of the first members of Generation Z, although, like most labels, I find using either one of these titles arbitrary. However, I am always aware of how immense of a blessing my youth is. Yes, being young is fun and dandy, but I am referring to my upbringing's social implications. From a very early age, since before I could even talk, I was exposed to homosexuality as normalcy. I did not think anything of it until I started to grasp the more significant history and circumstance around terms such as “gay” when I was about nine years old. My godmothers are gay women, as are my brother’s. I remember attending their second wedding in 2004, shortly after same-sex marriage was officially legalized where we lived, and I thought nothing of it.

As previously implied, around late elementary school, I discovered that being gay was a distinct identity and had a more serious and complex history around it, one which I learned about but never experienced. I think more than anything, my blessed lack of conflict around sexuality has been my greatest asset. Growing up in a progressive era and the late ’90s and early 2000s, I was never harassed, bullied, or attacked for being queer or talking about LGBTQ politics and media. To this day, I still never “came out” because there was no need to, although I admittedly have never been much of one to put labels on my sexuality. I was always just, queer, and there was never an assumption otherwise. On a side note, there is no possible way for me to express the breadth of my gratitude to the generations who fought for LGBT rights.

The reader needs to understand that, just as I was fortunate to grow up in a bubble that treated where homosexuality normally, so too was I luckily able to experience Yuri at such a young age. By 2010 we were well into Yuri’s third major movement, a period I often refer to as the “Current Era” of Yuri, although “S Revival” may be a more apt description. Sailor Moon had already dominated both Western and Eastern culture (a craze I was ever too slightly young for), brought Yuri into the independent comics market, and exposed audiences to one of the first positive portrayals of a lesbian couple in Yuri.

Additionally, Revolutionary Girl Utena had smashed its way into the anime world, cementing itself as one of the most acclaimed and influential anime works of the 1990s and legitimizing lesbian storytelling in the medium. Most importantly for me, Oyuki Konno’s Maria Watches Over Us light novel series revived the Yuri genre's earliest tropes, known as Class S. Elements of S fiction, such as all-girls catholic schools, piano duets, and temporary lesbian-ish love would permeate the genre for the coming decades. These themes were eventually adopted and intensely exaggerated in the work that set me on the path of Yuri and transformed me into the “Holy Mother of Yuri.”

Furthermore, when I was in the early stages of life, Yuri was beginning to make its way Westward slowly. This expansion was thanks to the publishing arm of Erica Friedman’s organization Yuricon, ALC Publishing. ALC was founded in 2003 and started to publish the first Yuri manga in America, including the Yuri Monogatari series and Takashima Rica’s Rica’ tte Kanji!? A few years later, Seven Seas Entertainment started to published Yuri manga, such as The Last Uniform and Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl. Around this team, thanks to the internet and anime’s growing popularity, anime and manga were more accessible than ever. Although Western Yuri publishing did not take off until the late 2010s, there was just enough of it readily available to create the perfect storm for my Yuri infection.

Shortly after I started to gain awareness of LGBTQ+ rights, identity, and… existence, I was exposed to my first Yuri, although I did not recognize it as such. My middle school library had an extensive collection of manga, including the Tokyopop adaptations of Strawberry Marshmallow. I never read them, but a friend did and talked with me about them. Curious, I went home and searched the title online and found that there were anime videos uploaded to YouTube, with each episode separated into three parts (this event was before I was aware of what piracy was and how harmful it is to creators). I watched all of them with my brother, and we had an absolute blast. To this day, Strawberry Marshmallow is one of our favorite series to watch together and have a huge laugh at.

Although Strawberry Marshmallow had subtle Yuri elements (this was before the 2009 OVA, which contained an actual kiss), I did not recognize them. However, this series led to my brother and I showing each other different anime series, in one of which I was very clearly able to see lesbian representation. I do not remember the exact year, but it must have been about 2010 when, sitting in our mother’s office waiting for her to finish with meetings, my brother pulled up an episode of Studio Madhouse’s Strawberry Panic anime and changed my life forever.

Part II of "Growing up Yurijin" is available to read as part of The Secret Garden series. The Secret Garden is YuriMother's exclusive series of monthly articles, available only for Patrons. If you want to access it and help support Yuri and LGBTQ+ content, subscribe to the YuriMother Patreon.

[commandtower-solring-go]

Tom Scott said something really interesting in his video Youtubers Have to Declare Ads? Why Doesn't Anyone Else? To paraphrase him, he said that people tend to set their ethical boundaries just bellow what they are currently doing. In the video he said this in relation to declaring ads; that everyone's standards for declaring sponsored content was different and there didn't seem to be much of a creator consensus. And in particular, he intended this purely as observation. But I've never been one not to take away observations as life lessons. I've been using this lesson as a foundation for understand my own ethics and trying to challenge them. If I'm always letting my ethics lie bellow my own actions, is my ethical understanding growing? No. Its simply staying the same. So instead of allowing my actions to dictate my ethics in this way, I'm trying to revaluate my ethics to dictate my actions.

What brought this up was a discussion around piracy. I've always been a staunchly pro-piracy individual. I genuinely believe that copyright law and IP ownership is out of hand and is often used to abuse employed workers. The fact that all works created by employees at Disney while they're working at Disney are the property of Disney is fucked. The idea that anyone could even begin to implement such laws is worse. Piracy represents reclaiming consumer control.

In particular I was pro-piracy around games. This was because in the industry, it is rarely for AAA developers to reap fair rewards of a game's success, despite them being among the most important people in the production process. In this, piracy represents a way of acquiring content in a way which doesn't impact the developers themselves. Moreover, digital piracy rarely represents lost product, only potential lost sales. So it also represents a way for people to access otherwise unpurchaseable content.

However I recently heard a discussion which has made me question this arguments. It isn't about piracy itself, but the methods of achieving piracy. That is, the fact that piracy is so often roped in with groups like homebrew developers, serves only to harm those developers. As console developers work harder to prevent piracy, it becomes harder for homebrew developers to develop for newer hardware.

This got me thinking real hard about my perceptions about developers. My bias is towards already 'successful' developers, those who make money and an income from the games they make. In a sense, developers who have income security because they work in the AAA industry. Independent developers, freeware developers, or any dev group which is funded fairly on units sold or ads viewed stand only to be hurt by piracy.

On the other hand, the issue these smaller devs have with piracy is more rooted in the developers trying to prevent it than those trying to pirate. If these devs stopped trying to prevent piracy, there wouldn't be an issue.

On the other other hand, smaller devs would still be hurt.

Its complicated and I'm not sure where I am about it. In either case, the ethics of piracy as either affirming or negative both hinge on future consequences and, by extension, participant intentions. To believe piracy is good relies on a future where it does good. To believe it does bad relies on a future where it does bad. Neither consequences are grounded in reality today, only coulds and shoulds. So I'm not sure.

I think so long as you can be confident that the people you pirate from, the people who worked hard, don't suffer for it, you're good.

[londiniumlundene]

Museum of London Docklands

Located in a 19th Century warehouse at West India Quay, this outpost of the Museum of London is dedicated to the capital’s history as a port. Though slightly smaller than its better-known sibling, the main galleries spread over two floors will still take at least half a day to fully explore – but probably longer if you want to read every panel, watch every video, and try out all the interactive exhibits.

The museum begins with a look at how the building itself operated in its life as Warehouse No. 1, before backtracking to ca. 1600, when trade to the port of London begun to expand with the rise of the merchant class. As the quantity and value of goods being brought up the river increased, so did the level of piracy – this gallery ends with a reconstructed gibbet, illustrating the fate that befell those pirates caught in the act.

The next gallery hits hard, telling the story of London’s role in the slave trade. The West India Docks were built from the proceeds of the sugar industry, the product of which was stored in the warehouses, having been grown on plantations by enslaved Africans. The cruel instruments of slavery sit alongside portraits of wealthy merchants and the fine implements used for preparing and handling sugar in the kitchens and parlours of Britain.

Continuing onwards, the museum details the great changes that came to the Thames in the early 19th Century, when major construction of docks was needed to support the expanding coal and whaling industries. A reconstructed ‘Sailortown’ gives an idea of what the dark, seedy alleyways around Wapping, Shadwell and Ratcliffe were like in the days they were filled with crews enjoying shore leave.

All this builds towards London becoming the principle port of the British Empire, sometimes called the ‘Warehouse of the World’, where every conceivable commodity could be found – just a fraction of which are on display. It wasn’t great for all though, as a section devoted to the 1889 dockworkers strike tells.

This hub of global trade wouldn’t last. The penultimate gallery tells how the docks were a major target for the Luftwaffe in the Second World War: the nostalgic artefacts such as gas masks, air raid shelters and mobile canteens are accompanied by film footage of the devastation caused by the bombing, and bleak paintings from war artist William Ware.

The lives of those associated with the docks post-war were filled with ups and downs. Exhibits show how reconstruction brought modernisation – but this meant automation and standardisation, leading to massive job losses. The final gallery packs in the stories of the Docklands Development Corporation, the fights against regeneration by local communities, the construction of Canary Wharf, and ends not, as one might expect, on the river, but on the Underground, looking at the Jubilee Line extension that better linked the Docklands to the rest of the capital.

[lawfultruth]

Even More Top Ten Travel Lists!

The Louvre Museum, in Paris

As part of a continuing series over the holidays, I have been publishing a series of top ten lists. Last week I published a list of the top ten travel destinations that you might not think of to visit. I also published a separate list of the top ten top travel destinations. Earlier this week, I posted Top Ten Lists for London and Paris. Next week, I will finally get around to publishing the Top Ten D&O Stories of 2018. But today, I am posting several additional top ten lists, just to round out the holiday season before returning to this blog’s more accustomed topics.

  My first Top Ten list in today’s post is my list of the Top Ten Museums. Just a few introductory words about my list of museums. There are some museums that everyone knows are great. For example, no one needs me to tell them that the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the British Museum and the National Gallery in London are top museums and worth seeing. So I have left those Museums off of the list, to leave so room for some other museums that may not be as well known. Here’s my list of top ten museums, starting with number 10. (Please also see my other Top Ten list, below, as well.)

  Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin

10. Checkpoint Charlie Museum (Berlin): Berlin is such an interesting city. Even though it has been a number of years now since the city has been divided, the Wall continues to cast a shadow. A number of sections of the Wall have been carefully preserved. The area around Checkpoint Charlie (the crossing point for entry into the American sector of occupied Berlin) includes a number of different memorials about The Wall. The Checkpoint Charlie Museum provides an interesting overview of The Wall’s history – how events at the end of WW II (including the Berlin airlift), and post-war events, like the nuclear arms race, the Hungarian uprising and the Cuban Missile crisis, led to the building of The Wall. The museum includes an interesting and sometimes tragic account of the many escape attempts as well, and a moving display about the events the led to the Wall’s fall.

  9. Seurasaari Open-Air Museum (Helsinki, Finland): The Seurasaari Musuem is an outdoor Finnish culture and heritage museum located in Helsinki. The Museum’s collection consists of a series of buildings, homes, and churches transported from around the country to a wooded outdoor setting. There are similar outdoor museums in Norway and Sweden, but what makes the Finnish version so special is its location on rustic, heavily wooded island connected to the mainland by a narrow footbridge. The Museum, which is interesting enough, takes up only a small part of the island; the rest of the island is a beautiful, forested preserve, full of flowering plants and wildlife. When we visited, we intended only to stay an hour or two and wound up spending the entire day walking through the woods and along the island shoreline.

      Warsaw Rising Museum

8. Warsaw Rising Museum (Warsaw, Poland): In August 1944, as the Soviet Army approached from the East, the Polish Home Army rose up against the occupying Nazi Germans. The locals anticipated that the Soviets would support their efforts; but instead, the advancing opposing army paused on the far side of the river. The last thing in the world Stalin wanted was an independent, effective military force in Poland. The tenacity of the locals surprised both the Germans and the Soviets, and the rising lasted longer than anyone anticipated. When it was finally suppressed, Hitler ordered that Warsaw should be destroyed, a task the Nazis completed with grim efficiency. Among the many terrible events in World War II, the Warsaw Rising may be one of the most tragic. This museum tells the story in great detail, emphasizing stories of the people who fought in the rising and how they were able to fight so effectively against a modern, well-equipped, professional army. If you go to Warsaw, you have to visit the Warsaw Rising Museum.

  Museo del Prado, Madrid

7. Museo del Prado (Madrid, Spain): The Prado is of course one of the most famous art museums in the world, very much in the same league of the famous museums in Paris in London that I deliberately left off this list. However, there is a very specific reason I included the Prado on this list. The Prado of course has an extensive collection of Spanish art, but much of it consists of portraits of overfed Habsburgs and Bourbons. What makes the Prado particularly interesting and worth visiting are the several paintings in its collection by Valazquez and Goya, particularly the exhibit of Goya’s Pinturas Negras (Black Paintings). Goya painted this group of 14 dark, haunting, obscure paintings on the walls of his home. The paintings were never intended for public exhibition, but they may be among the most interesting (although also arguably disturbing) works of art you will ever see anywhere.

    Museum of Occupations, Tallinn

6. Museum of Occupations (Tallinn, Estonia): Estonia’s 20th Century history was complicated and eventful. During the Second World War, the country was first overrun by the Soviets, invaded and captured by Nazi Germany, and then invaded again by the Soviet army. Following the war, the country remained a part of the U.S.S.R. until 1991. The Museum of Occupations explores this complicated, difficult history using video footage, photographs, interactive technology, and an extensive collection of artifacts. The museum provides deep insight into the country’s difficult 20th century history. Among other things, it really helps you understand what the country has accomplished to achieve its current stability and prosperity.

  Vasa Museum, Stockholm

5. Vasa Museum (Stockholm): The Vasa Museum houses the Vasa warship, which foundered and sank on its maiden voyage on August 10, 1628. The ship sat at the bottom of the harbor in Stockholm for centuries until it was salvaged more or less intact in 1961. You might not think a badly designed sunken ship would make for much a museum, but the museum is actually really interesting. There is of course the recovered ship itself, but what makes the museum so interesting are the exhibits showing how the sunken hull was located on the harbor bottom and how it was brought to the surface, as well as how the unique conditions in the Stockholm harbor preserved the hull so well.

  Viking Ship Museum, Oslo

4. Vikingskipshuset/Viking Ship Museum (Oslo, Norway): The Viking Ship Museum houses three more or less intact Viking ships that were recovered from excavated burial mounds in Norway, as well as a trove of Viking artifacts collected from around the world. It is quite an experience to see first-hand how massive the Viking ships were. You can only imagine how terrifying it might have been for a fleet of these huge ships to appear on the horizon. The exhibits explain how the ships’ sturdy construction allowed the Vikings to range so far across the seas. The exhibits also show just how far afield the Vikings roamed. This museum is relatively small and compact but a very interesting place to visit.

    King Shivaji Museum, Mumbai

3. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya/ King Shivaji Museum (Mumbai, India): The King Shivaji Museum is the principal museum in Mumbai. The museum itself is interesting in its urban context; the museum and its grounds are something of an island of calm amidst the chaotic kaleidoscope of Mumbai’s sometimes overwhelming sights and sounds. The museum’s collection includes vast array of art and architecture from throughout India’s history. The museum has a particularly interesting collection of artifacts from Indus Valley Civilization, as well as of other relics from ancient India in the time of the Guptas and Mauryas. The archeological exhibits include an extensive sculpture gallery including religious art from throughout India’s history. The museum is in effect an entire curriculum on art, history, culture, and religion on the Indian subcontinent.

    European Hansamuseum, Lübeck

2. European Hansamuseum (Lübeck, Germany): The Hanseatic League was a commercial and defensive confederation that thrived in Northwestern and Central Europe between the 1100s and the 1400s. For much of its history the League was based in Lübeck, which for a time was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. Lübeck is now home to the European Hansamuseum, an absolutely terrific museum that opened in May 2015. The Museum makes very creative use of technology to explain the League’s history, and to show how the League’s members overcame problems of language, currency, piracy, and geography to establish a thriving trade business across northern Europe. The museum includes interesting exhibits on how the League used flexible dispute resolution mechanisms to avoid deeper problems, as well as how cultural, social, and religious trends followed in the wake of the League’s activities. An interesting museum about an interesting time in European history.

    Gutengberg Museum, Mainz

1. The Gutenberg Museum (Mainz, Germany): The printer, inventor and publisher Johannes Gutenberg best known for introducing movable type printing to Europe was born in Mainz and established his first printing press there. The Gutenberg Museum includes original copies of many of his first printed products, including several of his famous bibles. But this museum is about so much more than what Gutenberg did and accomplished. The museum in effect represents an overview of the entire history of printing, and not just in Europe but around the world. The museum’s fascinating collection contains many interesting exhibits including a number of early printing presses, as well as interesting displays explaining the changes and improvements in printing technology over time. This museum is an absolutely fascinating place.

  My list of museums might be interpreted to suggest that while I travel I devote myself exclusively to improving activities and high-brow entertainment. In truth, from time to time when I travel, I sometimes take advantage of the opportunity to, say, have a beer. There are a number of great places to enjoy having a beer. Here is my list of the top ten places to enjoy a beer.

  10. Temple Bar (Dublin): The Temple Bar district in Dublin is just off of the Liffey River, near Trinity College. The area’s cobble-stone streets are lined with pubs, cafes, and restaurants. There is actually one bar called Temple Bar, but there are many other great bars in the area. Many of the bars have live Irish music. The area can be quite touristy but if you make your way into the side streets, there are some places that aren’t quite as full of American college kids. Just find a place you like and have a Guinness. It is great fun.

  9. Köln/Cologne (Germany): Cologne is the only city where beer that properly calls itself kölsch can be made. It is a delightfully light and refreshing beer, traditional served in small cylindrical glasses of only a few ounces. Throughout the old part of the city, there are numerous atmospheric pubs where the traditional local beer is served. Servers make their way around the tables, replacing empties with full glasses, marking the number of glasses consumed with a pencil mark on your coaster. The full glasses will keep appearing until you put your coaster on top of your empty glass, signaling you have had enough. For anyone that enjoys beer, Cologne is an absolutely mandatory destination.

      8. Bratislava (Slovakia): In recent years, Bratislava’s old town has been beautifully restored. At the heart of the old town is Hviezdoslavovo námestie (Hviezdoslav Square), a long shady plaza with several fountains and lined with restaurants and cafés. The plaza is about as pleasant a location for a morning coffee or an afternoon beverage as you will ever find anywhere. The pedestrianized streets leading off of the plaza are lined with renovated buildings and more restaurants and cafes. On the quiet side streets, there are a number of quiet sidewalk cafes. Have a seat and enjoy some of the excellent Slovakian beer.

  Hviezdoslav Square, Bratislava

      7. Holland Park (Singapore): Because Singapore is located just 80 miles from the equator, it is warm there every evening. There are a number of great areas in the city to go out in the evening. For example, along the Singapore River there are a number of quays that have been re-developed with restaurants and bars. One particular place I enjoy going out for some food and a beer is the Holland Park area. There is a huge indoor food court area serving a wide variety of food. Along the main streets are a number of sidewalk cafes where you can sit and enjoy an evening beverage while the world goes by. On one visit, I compared the vibe to the feeling in an American college town, during the summer. Relaxed and easy.

  Holland Park, Singapore

  6. St. Pauli (Hamburg, Germany): The St. Pauli district is a much livelier and a little bit rowdier place to go for a beer. The main street running through the district, the Reeperbahn, is lined with bars and restaurants, but from my experience the best places to go are on the side streets. The St. Pauli district is not for everyone; the city’s redlight district is located in an adjacent side street, and the Reeperbaum itself has some downright seedy establishments as well. Just the same, the area’s street life is lively and interesting, and the many bars in the area (or at least some of them) are great places to enjoy a beer and maybe watch a football match.

  5. Prague (Czech Republic): Prague is a great city to visit. It has many well-preserved historical buildings. It also has a great night-life. There are a lot of bars throughout the central district. I found that I preferred the quieter streets in the Malá Strana on the far side of the river. There are a number of quiet cafés without door seating along the canal. One place I particularly enjoyed was the Restaurace Velkopřevorský Mlýn, a quiet, shady canalside café, where we enjoyed some of the excellent Staropramen beer, which has its brewery along the river, right in Prague. There are a number of other excellent places along the canals to enjoy a beer on a quiet afternoon.

  A canalside cafe in Prague

  4. Schleusenkrug (Berlin, Germany): There are a lot of great places to enjoy a beer in Berlin, but one of the best places to have a beer, in Berlin or anywhere, is the Schleusenkrug, located in the Tiegarten, the city’s massive park. The beer garden’s sun-dappled tables sit in a quiet courtyard under huge mature trees. The establishment has a peaceful, calm area, perhaps in part because it can only be reached on foot or by bicycle. Quite a number of families with children seem to favor the place. A great place to have a quiet beer and a bit of traditional German food.

    3. Place de la Contrascarpe (Paris): Paris is of course famous for its sidewalk cafes. I think most people picturing themselves sitting at a sidewalk café might also imagine a glass of wine at their elbow. However, most sidewalk cafes also serve beer, and sitting at a sidewalk café with a beer and watching the endless Parisian parade is an excellent way to enjoy an evening in the city. There are a number of great areas to sit at a table and enjoy watching the evening crowd. For example, one area I like is the Rue de Buci, a particularly lively street in the 6e arrondissement. But if I had to choose one place in Paris to go for an evening beer, I think I would choose the Place de la Contrascarpe, a quiet square in the 5e arrondissement that has the feel of a village square. Because of its proximity to La Sorbonne, the crowd tends to be younger, livelier, and interesting.

  Place de la Contrescarpe, Paris

  2. Anglesea Arms (London): There are a lot of great pubs in London. In fact, having the opportunity to enjoy a pub is one of the great reasons to go to London. I have a long list of pubs in London that I like. I could in fact write a blog post just about my favorite London pubs. But if I had to choose one, I would recommend the Anglesea Arms, on a quiet residential street near the South Kensington tube station. This traditional non-chain pub, unusually, has an outdoor seating area. On a warm spring evening, it is great place to sit and enjoy the crowd of locals, and watch the neighbors stroll by.

  Angelsea Arms, South Kensington, London

    1. Chinesischer Turm (Munich): There are a lot of great beer gardens in Munich, but on a sunny day, my favorite is the Chinesischer Turm (Chinese Tower) beer garden, in the center of the Englischer Garten, Munich’s largest park. The beer garden surrounds a pagoda-style wooden tower, where oompa-oompa bands sometimes play. On a sunny afternoon, as many as 7,000 people can sit in the dappled sunlight under huge Chestnut trees and enjoy the excellent local Hofbräu beer.

      Another Photo Array: As it turns out, many of my favorite cities happen to be located on rivers. By a process of association, I now have a number of favorite rivers, as well. Here some pictures of a few of my favorite rivers.

  The Liffey River, in Dublin

  The River Spree, in Berlin

    The Derwent River, Hobart. Tasmania

  The Dreisam River, Freiburg, Germany

  The Charles Bridge, over the Vlatava River, in Prague

  The Limmat River in Zurich. On the day I visited last August, many people were floating down the river on inflatable devices as part of the annual Zurcher Limmatschwimmen.

  The Rio Tejo, in Lisbon

  The River Salzach, in Salzburg, Austria

    The Amstel River, Amsterdam

    The Main River, Frankfurt

    The Rhone River, in Cologne, Germany

  The Danube River, viewed from Devin Castle, near Bratislava, Slovakia

    The Seine River, Paris

  La Seine, Paris

The post Even More Top Ten Travel Lists! appeared first on The D&O Diary.

Even More Top Ten Travel Lists! syndicated from https://ronenkurzfeldweb.wordpress.com/

[simonconsultancypage]

Even More Top Ten Travel Lists!

The Louvre Museum, in Paris

As part of a continuing series over the holidays, I have been publishing a series of top ten lists. Last week I published a list of the top ten travel destinations that you might not think of to visit. I also published a separate list of the top ten top travel destinations. Earlier this week, I posted Top Ten Lists for London and Paris. Next week, I will finally get around to publishing the Top Ten D&O Stories of 2018. But today, I am posting several additional top ten lists, just to round out the holiday season before returning to this blog’s more accustomed topics.

  My first Top Ten list in today’s post is my list of the Top Ten Museums. Just a few introductory words about my list of museums. There are some museums that everyone knows are great. For example, no one needs me to tell them that the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the British Museum and the National Gallery in London are top museums and worth seeing. So I have left those Museums off of the list, to leave so room for some other museums that may not be as well known. Here’s my list of top ten museums, starting with number 10. (Please also see my other Top Ten list, below, as well.)

  Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin

10. Checkpoint Charlie Museum (Berlin): Berlin is such an interesting city. Even though it has been a number of years now since the city has been divided, the Wall continues to cast a shadow. A number of sections of the Wall have been carefully preserved. The area around Checkpoint Charlie (the crossing point for entry into the American sector of occupied Berlin) includes a number of different memorials about The Wall. The Checkpoint Charlie Museum provides an interesting overview of The Wall’s history – how events at the end of WW II (including the Berlin airlift), and post-war events, like the nuclear arms race, the Hungarian uprising and the Cuban Missile crisis, led to the building of The Wall. The museum includes an interesting and sometimes tragic account of the many escape attempts as well, and a moving display about the events the led to the Wall’s fall.

  9. Seurasaari Open-Air Museum (Helsinki, Finland): The Seurasaari Musuem is an outdoor Finnish culture and heritage museum located in Helsinki. The Museum’s collection consists of a series of buildings, homes, and churches transported from around the country to a wooded outdoor setting. There are similar outdoor museums in Norway and Sweden, but what makes the Finnish version so special is its location on rustic, heavily wooded island connected to the mainland by a narrow footbridge. The Museum, which is interesting enough, takes up only a small part of the island; the rest of the island is a beautiful, forested preserve, full of flowering plants and wildlife. When we visited, we intended only to stay an hour or two and wound up spending the entire day walking through the woods and along the island shoreline.

      Warsaw Rising Museum

8. Warsaw Rising Museum (Warsaw, Poland): In August 1944, as the Soviet Army approached from the East, the Polish Home Army rose up against the occupying Nazi Germans. The locals anticipated that the Soviets would support their efforts; but instead, the advancing opposing army paused on the far side of the river. The last thing in the world Stalin wanted was an independent, effective military force in Poland. The tenacity of the locals surprised both the Germans and the Soviets, and the rising lasted longer than anyone anticipated. When it was finally suppressed, Hitler ordered that Warsaw should be destroyed, a task the Nazis completed with grim efficiency. Among the many terrible events in World War II, the Warsaw Rising may be one of the most tragic. This museum tells the story in great detail, emphasizing stories of the people who fought in the rising and how they were able to fight so effectively against a modern, well-equipped, professional army. If you go to Warsaw, you have to visit the Warsaw Rising Museum.

  Museo del Prado, Madrid

7. Museo del Prado (Madrid, Spain): The Prado is of course one of the most famous art museums in the world, very much in the same league of the famous museums in Paris in London that I deliberately left off this list. However, there is a very specific reason I included the Prado on this list. The Prado of course has an extensive collection of Spanish art, but much of it consists of portraits of overfed Habsburgs and Bourbons. What makes the Prado particularly interesting and worth visiting are the several paintings in its collection by Valazquez and Goya, particularly the exhibit of Goya’s Pinturas Negras (Black Paintings). Goya painted this group of 14 dark, haunting, obscure paintings on the walls of his home. The paintings were never intended for public exhibition, but they may be among the most interesting (although also arguably disturbing) works of art you will ever see anywhere.

    Museum of Occupations, Tallinn

6. Museum of Occupations (Tallinn, Estonia): Estonia’s 20th Century history was complicated and eventful. During the Second World War, the country was first overrun by the Soviets, invaded and captured by Nazi Germany, and then invaded again by the Soviet army. Following the war, the country remained a part of the U.S.S.R. until 1991. The Museum of Occupations explores this complicated, difficult history using video footage, photographs, interactive technology, and an extensive collection of artifacts. The museum provides deep insight into the country’s difficult 20th century history. Among other things, it really helps you understand what the country has accomplished to achieve its current stability and prosperity.

  Vasa Museum, Stockholm

5. Vasa Museum (Stockholm): The Vasa Museum houses the Vasa warship, which foundered and sank on its maiden voyage on August 10, 1628. The ship sat at the bottom of the harbor in Stockholm for centuries until it was salvaged more or less intact in 1961. You might not think a badly designed sunken ship would make for much a museum, but the museum is actually really interesting. There is of course the recovered ship itself, but what makes the museum so interesting are the exhibits showing how the sunken hull was located on the harbor bottom and how it was brought to the surface, as well as how the unique conditions in the Stockholm harbor preserved the hull so well.

  Viking Ship Museum, Oslo

4. Vikingskipshuset/Viking Ship Museum (Oslo, Norway): The Viking Ship Museum houses three more or less intact Viking ships that were recovered from excavated burial mounds in Norway, as well as a trove of Viking artifacts collected from around the world. It is quite an experience to see first-hand how massive the Viking ships were. You can only imagine how terrifying it might have been for a fleet of these huge ships to appear on the horizon. The exhibits explain how the ships’ sturdy construction allowed the Vikings to range so far across the seas. The exhibits also show just how far afield the Vikings roamed. This museum is relatively small and compact but a very interesting place to visit.

    King Shivaji Museum, Mumbai

3. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya/ King Shivaji Museum (Mumbai, India): The King Shivaji Museum is the principal museum in Mumbai. The museum itself is interesting in its urban context; the museum and its grounds are something of an island of calm amidst the chaotic kaleidoscope of Mumbai’s sometimes overwhelming sights and sounds. The museum’s collection includes vast array of art and architecture from throughout India’s history. The museum has a particularly interesting collection of artifacts from Indus Valley Civilization, as well as of other relics from ancient India in the time of the Guptas and Mauryas. The archeological exhibits include an extensive sculpture gallery including religious art from throughout India’s history. The museum is in effect an entire curriculum on art, history, culture, and religion on the Indian subcontinent.

    European Hansamuseum, Lübeck

2. European Hansamuseum (Lübeck, Germany): The Hanseatic League was a commercial and defensive confederation that thrived in Northwestern and Central Europe between the 1100s and the 1400s. For much of its history the League was based in Lübeck, which for a time was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. Lübeck is now home to the European Hansamuseum, an absolutely terrific museum that opened in May 2015. The Museum makes very creative use of technology to explain the League’s history, and to show how the League’s members overcame problems of language, currency, piracy, and geography to establish a thriving trade business across northern Europe. The museum includes interesting exhibits on how the League used flexible dispute resolution mechanisms to avoid deeper problems, as well as how cultural, social, and religious trends followed in the wake of the League’s activities. An interesting museum about an interesting time in European history.

    Gutengberg Museum, Mainz

1. The Gutenberg Museum (Mainz, Germany): The printer, inventor and publisher Johannes Gutenberg best known for introducing movable type printing to Europe was born in Mainz and established his first printing press there. The Gutenberg Museum includes original copies of many of his first printed products, including several of his famous bibles. But this museum is about so much more than what Gutenberg did and accomplished. The museum in effect represents an overview of the entire history of printing, and not just in Europe but around the world. The museum’s fascinating collection contains many interesting exhibits including a number of early printing presses, as well as interesting displays explaining the changes and improvements in printing technology over time. This museum is an absolutely fascinating place.

  My list of museums might be interpreted to suggest that while I travel I devote myself exclusively to improving activities and high-brow entertainment. In truth, from time to time when I travel, I sometimes take advantage of the opportunity to, say, have a beer. There are a number of great places to enjoy having a beer. Here is my list of the top ten places to enjoy a beer.

  10. Temple Bar (Dublin): The Temple Bar district in Dublin is just off of the Liffey River, near Trinity College. The area’s cobble-stone streets are lined with pubs, cafes, and restaurants. There is actually one bar called Temple Bar, but there are many other great bars in the area. Many of the bars have live Irish music. The area can be quite touristy but if you make your way into the side streets, there are some places that aren’t quite as full of American college kids. Just find a place you like and have a Guinness. It is great fun.

  9. Köln/Cologne (Germany): Cologne is the only city where beer that properly calls itself kölsch can be made. It is a delightfully light and refreshing beer, traditional served in small cylindrical glasses of only a few ounces. Throughout the old part of the city, there are numerous atmospheric pubs where the traditional local beer is served. Servers make their way around the tables, replacing empties with full glasses, marking the number of glasses consumed with a pencil mark on your coaster. The full glasses will keep appearing until you put your coaster on top of your empty glass, signaling you have had enough. For anyone that enjoys beer, Cologne is an absolutely mandatory destination.

      8. Bratislava (Slovakia): In recent years, Bratislava’s old town has been beautifully restored. At the heart of the old town is Hviezdoslavovo námestie (Hviezdoslav Square), a long shady plaza with several fountains and lined with restaurants and cafés. The plaza is about as pleasant a location for a morning coffee or an afternoon beverage as you will ever find anywhere. The pedestrianized streets leading off of the plaza are lined with renovated buildings and more restaurants and cafes. On the quiet side streets, there are a number of quiet sidewalk cafes. Have a seat and enjoy some of the excellent Slovakian beer.

  Hviezdoslav Square, Bratislava

      7. Holland Park (Singapore): Because Singapore is located just 80 miles from the equator, it is warm there every evening. There are a number of great areas in the city to go out in the evening. For example, along the Singapore River there are a number of quays that have been re-developed with restaurants and bars. One particular place I enjoy going out for some food and a beer is the Holland Park area. There is a huge indoor food court area serving a wide variety of food. Along the main streets are a number of sidewalk cafes where you can sit and enjoy an evening beverage while the world goes by. On one visit, I compared the vibe to the feeling in an American college town, during the summer. Relaxed and easy.

  Holland Park, Singapore

  6. St. Pauli (Hamburg, Germany): The St. Pauli district is a much livelier and a little bit rowdier place to go for a beer. The main street running through the district, the Reeperbahn, is lined with bars and restaurants, but from my experience the best places to go are on the side streets. The St. Pauli district is not for everyone; the city’s redlight district is located in an adjacent side street, and the Reeperbaum itself has some downright seedy establishments as well. Just the same, the area’s street life is lively and interesting, and the many bars in the area (or at least some of them) are great places to enjoy a beer and maybe watch a football match.

  5. Prague (Czech Republic): Prague is a great city to visit. It has many well-preserved historical buildings. It also has a great night-life. There are a lot of bars throughout the central district. I found that I preferred the quieter streets in the Malá Strana on the far side of the river. There are a number of quiet cafés without door seating along the canal. One place I particularly enjoyed was the Restaurace Velkopřevorský Mlýn, a quiet, shady canalside café, where we enjoyed some of the excellent Staropramen beer, which has its brewery along the river, right in Prague. There are a number of other excellent places along the canals to enjoy a beer on a quiet afternoon.

  A canalside cafe in Prague

  4. Schleusenkrug (Berlin, Germany): There are a lot of great places to enjoy a beer in Berlin, but one of the best places to have a beer, in Berlin or anywhere, is the Schleusenkrug, located in the Tiegarten, the city’s massive park. The beer garden’s sun-dappled tables sit in a quiet courtyard under huge mature trees. The establishment has a peaceful, calm area, perhaps in part because it can only be reached on foot or by bicycle. Quite a number of families with children seem to favor the place. A great place to have a quiet beer and a bit of traditional German food.

    3. Place de la Contrascarpe (Paris): Paris is of course famous for its sidewalk cafes. I think most people picturing themselves sitting at a sidewalk café might also imagine a glass of wine at their elbow. However, most sidewalk cafes also serve beer, and sitting at a sidewalk café with a beer and watching the endless Parisian parade is an excellent way to enjoy an evening in the city. There are a number of great areas to sit at a table and enjoy watching the evening crowd. For example, one area I like is the Rue de Buci, a particularly lively street in the 6e arrondissement. But if I had to choose one place in Paris to go for an evening beer, I think I would choose the Place de la Contrascarpe, a quiet square in the 5e arrondissement that has the feel of a village square. Because of its proximity to La Sorbonne, the crowd tends to be younger, livelier, and interesting.

  Place de la Contrescarpe, Paris

  2. Anglesea Arms (London): There are a lot of great pubs in London. In fact, having the opportunity to enjoy a pub is one of the great reasons to go to London. I have a long list of pubs in London that I like. I could in fact write a blog post just about my favorite London pubs. But if I had to choose one, I would recommend the Anglesea Arms, on a quiet residential street near the South Kensington tube station. This traditional non-chain pub, unusually, has an outdoor seating area. On a warm spring evening, it is great place to sit and enjoy the crowd of locals, and watch the neighbors stroll by.

  Angelsea Arms, South Kensington, London

    1. Chinesischer Turm (Munich): There are a lot of great beer gardens in Munich, but on a sunny day, my favorite is the Chinesischer Turm (Chinese Tower) beer garden, in the center of the Englischer Garten, Munich’s largest park. The beer garden surrounds a pagoda-style wooden tower, where oompa-oompa bands sometimes play. On a sunny afternoon, as many as 7,000 people can sit in the dappled sunlight under huge Chestnut trees and enjoy the excellent local Hofbräu beer.

      Another Photo Array: As it turns out, many of my favorite cities happen to be located on rivers. By a process of association, I now have a number of favorite rivers, as well. Here some pictures of a few of my favorite rivers.

  The Liffey River, in Dublin

  The River Spree, in Berlin

    The Derwent River, Hobart. Tasmania

  The Dreisam River, Freiburg, Germany

  The Charles Bridge, over the Vlatava River, in Prague

  The Limmat River in Zurich. On the day I visited last August, many people were floating down the river on inflatable devices as part of the annual Zurcher Limmatschwimmen.

  The Rio Tejo, in Lisbon

  The River Salzach, in Salzburg, Austria

    The Amstel River, Amsterdam

    The Main River, Frankfurt

    The Rhone River, in Cologne, Germany

  The Danube River, viewed from Devin Castle, near Bratislava, Slovakia

    The Seine River, Paris

  La Seine, Paris

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Even More Top Ten Travel Lists!

The Louvre Museum, in Paris

As part of a continuing series over the holidays, I have been publishing a series of top ten lists. Last week I published a list of the top ten travel destinations that you might not think of to visit. I also published a separate list of the top ten top travel destinations. Earlier this week, I posted Top Ten Lists for London and Paris. Next week, I will finally get around to publishing the Top Ten D&O Stories of 2018. But today, I am posting several additional top ten lists, just to round out the holiday season before returning to this blog’s more accustomed topics.

  My first Top Ten list in today’s post is my list of the Top Ten Museums. Just a few introductory words about my list of museums. There are some museums that everyone knows are great. For example, no one needs me to tell them that the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the British Museum and the National Gallery in London are top museums and worth seeing. So I have left those Museums off of the list, to leave so room for some other museums that may not be as well known. Here’s my list of top ten museums, starting with number 10. (Please also see my other Top Ten list, below, as well.)

  Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin

10. Checkpoint Charlie Museum (Berlin): Berlin is such an interesting city. Even though it has been a number of years now since the city has been divided, the Wall continues to cast a shadow. A number of sections of the Wall have been carefully preserved. The area around Checkpoint Charlie (the crossing point for entry into the American sector of occupied Berlin) includes a number of different memorials about The Wall. The Checkpoint Charlie Museum provides an interesting overview of The Wall’s history – how events at the end of WW II (including the Berlin airlift), and post-war events, like the nuclear arms race, the Hungarian uprising and the Cuban Missile crisis, led to the building of The Wall. The museum includes an interesting and sometimes tragic account of the many escape attempts as well, and a moving display about the events the led to the Wall’s fall.

  9. Seurasaari Open-Air Museum (Helsinki, Finland): The Seurasaari Musuem is an outdoor Finnish culture and heritage museum located in Helsinki. The Museum’s collection consists of a series of buildings, homes, and churches transported from around the country to a wooded outdoor setting. There are similar outdoor museums in Norway and Sweden, but what makes the Finnish version so special is its location on rustic, heavily wooded island connected to the mainland by a narrow footbridge. The Museum, which is interesting enough, takes up only a small part of the island; the rest of the island is a beautiful, forested preserve, full of flowering plants and wildlife. When we visited, we intended only to stay an hour or two and wound up spending the entire day walking through the woods and along the island shoreline.

      Warsaw Rising Museum

8. Warsaw Rising Museum (Warsaw, Poland): In August 1944, as the Soviet Army approached from the East, the Polish Home Army rose up against the occupying Nazi Germans. The locals anticipated that the Soviets would support their efforts; but instead, the advancing opposing army paused on the far side of the river. The last thing in the world Stalin wanted was an independent, effective military force in Poland. The tenacity of the locals surprised both the Germans and the Soviets, and the rising lasted longer than anyone anticipated. When it was finally suppressed, Hitler ordered that Warsaw should be destroyed, a task the Nazis completed with grim efficiency. Among the many terrible events in World War II, the Warsaw Rising may be one of the most tragic. This museum tells the story in great detail, emphasizing stories of the people who fought in the rising and how they were able to fight so effectively against a modern, well-equipped, professional army. If you go to Warsaw, you have to visit the Warsaw Rising Museum.

  Museo del Prado, Madrid

7. Museo del Prado (Madrid, Spain): The Prado is of course one of the most famous art museums in the world, very much in the same league of the famous museums in Paris in London that I deliberately left off this list. However, there is a very specific reason I included the Prado on this list. The Prado of course has an extensive collection of Spanish art, but much of it consists of portraits of overfed Habsburgs and Bourbons. What makes the Prado particularly interesting and worth visiting are the several paintings in its collection by Valazquez and Goya, particularly the exhibit of Goya’s Pinturas Negras (Black Paintings). Goya painted this group of 14 dark, haunting, obscure paintings on the walls of his home. The paintings were never intended for public exhibition, but they may be among the most interesting (although also arguably disturbing) works of art you will ever see anywhere.

    Museum of Occupations, Tallinn

6. Museum of Occupations (Tallinn, Estonia): Estonia’s 20th Century history was complicated and eventful. During the Second World War, the country was first overrun by the Soviets, invaded and captured by Nazi Germany, and then invaded again by the Soviet army. Following the war, the country remained a part of the U.S.S.R. until 1991. The Museum of Occupations explores this complicated, difficult history using video footage, photographs, interactive technology, and an extensive collection of artifacts. The museum provides deep insight into the country’s difficult 20th century history. Among other things, it really helps you understand what the country has accomplished to achieve its current stability and prosperity.

  Vasa Museum, Stockholm

5. Vasa Museum (Stockholm): The Vasa Museum houses the Vasa warship, which foundered and sank on its maiden voyage on August 10, 1628. The ship sat at the bottom of the harbor in Stockholm for centuries until it was salvaged more or less intact in 1961. You might not think a badly designed sunken ship would make for much a museum, but the museum is actually really interesting. There is of course the recovered ship itself, but what makes the museum so interesting are the exhibits showing how the sunken hull was located on the harbor bottom and how it was brought to the surface, as well as how the unique conditions in the Stockholm harbor preserved the hull so well.

  Viking Ship Museum, Oslo

4. Vikingskipshuset/Viking Ship Museum (Oslo, Norway): The Viking Ship Museum houses three more or less intact Viking ships that were recovered from excavated burial mounds in Norway, as well as a trove of Viking artifacts collected from around the world. It is quite an experience to see first-hand how massive the Viking ships were. You can only imagine how terrifying it might have been for a fleet of these huge ships to appear on the horizon. The exhibits explain how the ships’ sturdy construction allowed the Vikings to range so far across the seas. The exhibits also show just how far afield the Vikings roamed. This museum is relatively small and compact but a very interesting place to visit.

    King Shivaji Museum, Mumbai

3. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya/ King Shivaji Museum (Mumbai, India): The King Shivaji Museum is the principal museum in Mumbai. The museum itself is interesting in its urban context; the museum and its grounds are something of an island of calm amidst the chaotic kaleidoscope of Mumbai’s sometimes overwhelming sights and sounds. The museum’s collection includes vast array of art and architecture from throughout India’s history. The museum has a particularly interesting collection of artifacts from Indus Valley Civilization, as well as of other relics from ancient India in the time of the Guptas and Mauryas. The archeological exhibits include an extensive sculpture gallery including religious art from throughout India’s history. The museum is in effect an entire curriculum on art, history, culture, and religion on the Indian subcontinent.

    European Hansamuseum, Lübeck

2. European Hansamuseum (Lübeck, Germany): The Hanseatic League was a commercial and defensive confederation that thrived in Northwestern and Central Europe between the 1100s and the 1400s. For much of its history the League was based in Lübeck, which for a time was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. Lübeck is now home to the European Hansamuseum, an absolutely terrific museum that opened in May 2015. The Museum makes very creative use of technology to explain the League’s history, and to show how the League’s members overcame problems of language, currency, piracy, and geography to establish a thriving trade business across northern Europe. The museum includes interesting exhibits on how the League used flexible dispute resolution mechanisms to avoid deeper problems, as well as how cultural, social, and religious trends followed in the wake of the League’s activities. An interesting museum about an interesting time in European history.

    Gutengberg Museum, Mainz

1. The Gutenberg Museum (Mainz, Germany): The printer, inventor and publisher Johannes Gutenberg best known for introducing movable type printing to Europe was born in Mainz and established his first printing press there. The Gutenberg Museum includes original copies of many of his first printed products, including several of his famous bibles. But this museum is about so much more than what Gutenberg did and accomplished. The museum in effect represents an overview of the entire history of printing, and not just in Europe but around the world. The museum’s fascinating collection contains many interesting exhibits including a number of early printing presses, as well as interesting displays explaining the changes and improvements in printing technology over time. This museum is an absolutely fascinating place.

  My list of museums might be interpreted to suggest that while I travel I devote myself exclusively to improving activities and high-brow entertainment. In truth, from time to time when I travel, I sometimes take advantage of the opportunity to, say, have a beer. There are a number of great places to enjoy having a beer. Here is my list of the top ten places to enjoy a beer.

  10. Temple Bar (Dublin): The Temple Bar district in Dublin is just off of the Liffey River, near Trinity College. The area’s cobble-stone streets are lined with pubs, cafes, and restaurants. There is actually one bar called Temple Bar, but there are many other great bars in the area. Many of the bars have live Irish music. The area can be quite touristy but if you make your way into the side streets, there are some places that aren’t quite as full of American college kids. Just find a place you like and have a Guinness. It is great fun.

  9. Köln/Cologne (Germany): Cologne is the only city where beer that properly calls itself kölsch can be made. It is a delightfully light and refreshing beer, traditional served in small cylindrical glasses of only a few ounces. Throughout the old part of the city, there are numerous atmospheric pubs where the traditional local beer is served. Servers make their way around the tables, replacing empties with full glasses, marking the number of glasses consumed with a pencil mark on your coaster. The full glasses will keep appearing until you put your coaster on top of your empty glass, signaling you have had enough. For anyone that enjoys beer, Cologne is an absolutely mandatory destination.

      8. Bratislava (Slovakia): In recent years, Bratislava’s old town has been beautifully restored. At the heart of the old town is Hviezdoslavovo námestie (Hviezdoslav Square), a long shady plaza with several fountains and lined with restaurants and cafés. The plaza is about as pleasant a location for a morning coffee or an afternoon beverage as you will ever find anywhere. The pedestrianized streets leading off of the plaza are lined with renovated buildings and more restaurants and cafes. On the quiet side streets, there are a number of quiet sidewalk cafes. Have a seat and enjoy some of the excellent Slovakian beer.

  Hviezdoslav Square, Bratislava

      7. Holland Park (Singapore): Because Singapore is located just 80 miles from the equator, it is warm there every evening. There are a number of great areas in the city to go out in the evening. For example, along the Singapore River there are a number of quays that have been re-developed with restaurants and bars. One particular place I enjoy going out for some food and a beer is the Holland Park area. There is a huge indoor food court area serving a wide variety of food. Along the main streets are a number of sidewalk cafes where you can sit and enjoy an evening beverage while the world goes by. On one visit, I compared the vibe to the feeling in an American college town, during the summer. Relaxed and easy.

  Holland Park, Singapore

  6. St. Pauli (Hamburg, Germany): The St. Pauli district is a much livelier and a little bit rowdier place to go for a beer. The main street running through the district, the Reeperbahn, is lined with bars and restaurants, but from my experience the best places to go are on the side streets. The St. Pauli district is not for everyone; the city’s redlight district is located in an adjacent side street, and the Reeperbaum itself has some downright seedy establishments as well. Just the same, the area’s street life is lively and interesting, and the many bars in the area (or at least some of them) are great places to enjoy a beer and maybe watch a football match.

  5. Prague (Czech Republic): Prague is a great city to visit. It has many well-preserved historical buildings. It also has a great night-life. There are a lot of bars throughout the central district. I found that I preferred the quieter streets in the Malá Strana on the far side of the river. There are a number of quiet cafés without door seating along the canal. One place I particularly enjoyed was the Restaurace Velkopřevorský Mlýn, a quiet, shady canalside café, where we enjoyed some of the excellent Staropramen beer, which has its brewery along the river, right in Prague. There are a number of other excellent places along the canals to enjoy a beer on a quiet afternoon.

  A canalside cafe in Prague

  4. Schleusenkrug (Berlin, Germany): There are a lot of great places to enjoy a beer in Berlin, but one of the best places to have a beer, in Berlin or anywhere, is the Schleusenkrug, located in the Tiegarten, the city’s massive park. The beer garden’s sun-dappled tables sit in a quiet courtyard under huge mature trees. The establishment has a peaceful, calm area, perhaps in part because it can only be reached on foot or by bicycle. Quite a number of families with children seem to favor the place. A great place to have a quiet beer and a bit of traditional German food.

    3. Place de la Contrascarpe (Paris): Paris is of course famous for its sidewalk cafes. I think most people picturing themselves sitting at a sidewalk café might also imagine a glass of wine at their elbow. However, most sidewalk cafes also serve beer, and sitting at a sidewalk café with a beer and watching the endless Parisian parade is an excellent way to enjoy an evening in the city. There are a number of great areas to sit at a table and enjoy watching the evening crowd. For example, one area I like is the Rue de Buci, a particularly lively street in the 6e arrondissement. But if I had to choose one place in Paris to go for an evening beer, I think I would choose the Place de la Contrascarpe, a quiet square in the 5e arrondissement that has the feel of a village square. Because of its proximity to La Sorbonne, the crowd tends to be younger, livelier, and interesting.

  Place de la Contrescarpe, Paris

  2. Anglesea Arms (London): There are a lot of great pubs in London. In fact, having the opportunity to enjoy a pub is one of the great reasons to go to London. I have a long list of pubs in London that I like. I could in fact write a blog post just about my favorite London pubs. But if I had to choose one, I would recommend the Anglesea Arms, on a quiet residential street near the South Kensington tube station. This traditional non-chain pub, unusually, has an outdoor seating area. On a warm spring evening, it is great place to sit and enjoy the crowd of locals, and watch the neighbors stroll by.

  Angelsea Arms, South Kensington, London

    1. Chinesischer Turm (Munich): There are a lot of great beer gardens in Munich, but on a sunny day, my favorite is the Chinesischer Turm (Chinese Tower) beer garden, in the center of the Englischer Garten, Munich’s largest park. The beer garden surrounds a pagoda-style wooden tower, where oompa-oompa bands sometimes play. On a sunny afternoon, as many as 7,000 people can sit in the dappled sunlight under huge Chestnut trees and enjoy the excellent local Hofbräu beer.

      Another Photo Array: As it turns out, many of my favorite cities happen to be located on rivers. By a process of association, I now have a number of favorite rivers, as well. Here some pictures of a few of my favorite rivers.

  The Liffey River, in Dublin

  The River Spree, in Berlin

    The Derwent River, Hobart. Tasmania

  The Dreisam River, Freiburg, Germany

  The Charles Bridge, over the Vlatava River, in Prague

  The Limmat River in Zurich. On the day I visited last August, many people were floating down the river on inflatable devices as part of the annual Zurcher Limmatschwimmen.

  The Rio Tejo, in Lisbon

  The River Salzach, in Salzburg, Austria

    The Amstel River, Amsterdam

    The Main River, Frankfurt

    The Rhone River, in Cologne, Germany

  The Danube River, viewed from Devin Castle, near Bratislava, Slovakia

    The Seine River, Paris

  La Seine, Paris

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Micro Center sees surge in gaming PC salesicro Center sees surge in gaming PC sales

Popular laptop parts and electronics chain inside the United states is seeing a spike in gaming Computer income, and it offers partial credit to the developing recognition of sports for the uptick.

That chain is Micro Middle, the go-to region for picking up Pc elements that often sell for much less than they do on-line at places like Newegg and Amazon. The caveat is that the tantalizing prices are usually in-shop simplest, and Micro Middle simplest operates 25 shops in 16 states throughout the U.S. In comparison, Fine Purchase has nearly 1, four hundred stores.

In spite of its comparatively small footprint, Micro Center’s vice president Kevin Jones says the chain has seen its income of gaming Computers grow 25-30 percent on-yr in 2016, and 2 hundred to 300 percent from a yr in the past, Digitimes reviews. He expects extra of at some point of 2017.

Part of the success is because of sports activities. Jones was taken into consideration Laptop gaming a niche market as recent as five years ago, however, says that sports have placed it on the map in a huge manner. Mixed with mid-variety expenses on gaming Desktops, Jones says the marketplace clearly ballooned in 2016.

He additionally credits the increase to being capable of taking in customers from smaller retailers that closed down because of opposition. Alongside tight partnerships with emblem vendors, Micro Center’s sales have climbed to $60 million in line with 12 months.

This isn’t always a surprise to everybody who has been paying attention. Even marketplace studies corporations that typically submit gloom and doom scenarios for the Pc market are noticing the effect of gaming Pcs. Gartner, as an instance, predicts that gaming Computers with develop from 6 million devices in 2016 to 8.7 million units in 2020 and could account for thirteen percentage of consumer Laptop shipments.

Gartner isn’t always alone right here. A document from Jon Peddie studies (JPR) earlier this 12 months confirmed that Pc gaming hardware jumped beyond the $30 billion mark for the first time ever in 2016. Prior to that document, JPR figured the $30 billion thresholds would not be reached till 2018, so the marketplace for Pc gaming hardware is growing quicker than expected.

An increasing number of humans are hooked on gambling online video games. With lots of recent and thrilling games to select from, human beings of all ages are now searching into first-rate online video games. Nowadays, there are online present playing cards you should buy to buy the video games you need to play. These playing cards can even be used to buy your favorite songs, films, and Television suggests. Professionals shared some of the pros and cons of online gaming.

Blessings

You could strive it earlier than shopping for – on-line gaming systems provide demos made for gamers with a purpose to try playing that feasible purchase as well as decide how a great deal they might want Prior to making an investment. Furthermore, You could additionally Buy games proper then and there, without the need to rush out to the store.

Get right of entry to one-of-a-kind content – This one of the First-rate reasons for choosing to play online games. You get to have Access to the unique content for whatever it’s far that you are playing.

Speak with other human beings – online gaming will permit people to interact whilst gambling, supporting people to keep extremely good relationships through communicating with own family and friends all around the international. Without a doubt, this could be very useful for gamers. Team building talents can be reinforced. additionally, more tactical and strategic factors could be delivered to game-play. In flip, this will help boom your reminiscence as well as develop lateral thinking.

Aggressive – It allows you to compare your playing into center distinct games and sales. There’ll Truly be an experience appropriate aspect in understanding that you are a miles better participant than someone else. Being aware that you are not against synthetic intelligence will installation more competitiveness. And because you are not always going to be the Quality, you may discover ways to display good showmanship.

Hazards

Device updates – In case you are approximate to download the sport you need or possibly play on-line, there will be a time while a System update suddenly pops up and put off your sports time. You need to await it and then reboot.

Server problems or glitches – system defects are viruses in game inflicting it to run irregularly. That is actually a trouble with all recreation sports; however, they are extra commonplace to online games. You could revel in a sequence of server problems that are very irritating for game enthusiasts.

Piracy – There were incidences of breaching copyright legal guidelines, scandal, and letting customers to pirate video games illegally. And These conditions have offered a huge problem for the world of on-line gaming. In reality, the scandal brought about lots of controversies so there are a few games that have been close down. sales enablement continues to be a key motive force in increasing income overall performance.

B2B income leaders should examine their income enablement practices relative to their Group being geared up to gain intention. With Nice-in-magnificence sales enablement practices in the region, your income Crew has a great benefit to satisfy sales quotas and increase ROI.

We dissect the pinnacle 6 sales enablement Exceptional practices to help B2B sales leaders determine in which to cognizance for expanded income productiveness:

1) broaden

while sales representatives are capable of broadening new promoting strategies based totally on customer conduct, not only are clients greater efficaciously engaged by means of a sales rep however additionally the customer enjoy is advanced, growing purchase probability. The position of the B2B income leader is to make sure proper sales education and the income control infrastructure is in location to encourage utilizing the equipment and client intelligence human beings want to increase a more personalized consumer enjoy.

as an example, a sales rep is better ready for a verbal exchange when he/she has to Get entry to the intelligence that a specific patron has already had three touchpoints, considered one of which changed into downloading a white paper this is aligned with a purchase selection.

2) Position

Qe frequently find ourselves reinforcing the criticality of imparting the “proper message at the right time” to potentialities. This is an important aspect of lead control. income reps have to consistently and time and again make stronger your organization’s cost proposition to prospects within the proper context for the purchaser.

as an example, a sales rep that reinforces the price in their products for a selected enterprise utility is positioning the business enterprise’s products in a manner that is contextually applicable to that patron.

3) Discover

With the intention to execute at the ultimate Nice practices, it’s far vital to seize the client touchpoints which might be applicable for the ones in sales positions whilst having patron conversations. Advertising plays an especially crucial position in things:

Implementing the systems to elevate purchaser insights

Growing the assets for income rep to equip income to continue the verbal exchange with a prospect.

for example, Advertising can guide income’ patron conversations with the aid of presenting precious purchaser insights which include what white papers and articles have particular possibilities downloaded.

4) ALIGN

possibly the most complicated of the B2B sales enablement Pleasant practices is the required internal organizational alignment. In order for an income rep to fully apprehend the characteristics in their customer, Advertising and marketing and sales groups must align to share insights, manipulate leads and Get entry to assets.

“Agencies whose income and Advertising groups are aligned attain 208% better Advertising and marketing sales whilst compared to misaligned teams.” five) Engage

For an income rep to efficiently near a deal, they ought to attain stakeholders concerned in the purchase choice throughout a purchaser’s business enterprise. With Get right of entry to to those selection makers, those in sales positions have to Talk the particular fee of doing enterprise together with your corporation in a manner that resonates with each stakeholder for my part.

As an example, once income representatives realize which stakeholders play roles in a buy decision, they are able to efficiently have interaction with every stakeholder, presenting applicable product records for the given audience.

6) Assemble

it’s miles crucial for income businesses to effortlessly produce a 86f68e4d402306ad3cd330d005134dac suggestion that enhances the value proposition and this is aligned with the needs of the purchaser. This very last sales enablement First-class practice requires seamless alignment with economic, accounting and felony companies to make this step much less time eating and extensively extra efficient. no longer best does this efficiency advantage growth income pressure potential, but it additionally improves the customer’s revel in.

This is a facility that offers its clients an area that has workout system for the purpose of getting bodily match The memberships of these fitness facilities may be as inexpensive as $10 a month or as a lot as $700 a 12 months. It depends at the location of the Middle and the amenities and device provided. While you are choosing a fitness center there are many things that you have to bear in mind before making your final decision.

one of the foremost things which you need to remember is your degree of consolation. The reasons That is critical is that In case you are self aware or uncomfortable approximately working out then you definately are most likely not going to stay prompted to go on a everyday basis. On the subject of your stage of comfortableness with the fitness center, there are also different troubles to reflect onconsideration on. You ought to ensure that the Middle is nicely lit and easy, that it has the kingdom of the artwork equipment and is it in proper restore. Is there an trainer to reveal you in how to use the extraordinary pieces of equipment nicely? You are going to a gymnasium to get match and healthful so it is vital which you realize how to maximize the benefits from the different pieces of gadget. You furthermore may want to ensure that there are private, easy showers and restrooms.

Every other crucial consideration is the area. You want to make sure that it is without problems placed close to your home because no one desires to power twenty miles or so as to a fitness center. You need to be sure that it’s miles placed in an area this is safe and nicely lit, in particular in the event that they provide early morning or past due night hours. Take a look at to peer in the event that they have a respectable length automobile parking space and that it is also well lit.

Some other key thing is the availability or the hours that the Center is open. no one works the equal hours nor has the identical hours that could go to the gymnasium so the hours open want to suit your schedule. a few health centers Nowadays are open twenty-4 hours an afternoon seven days every week however nonetheless have certain hours that they’ll be open and feature instructors in the Middle. To make use of the Center after the ones hours you’ll to have a skip card, like a lodge makes use of, To be able to get into the fitness center. For These sorts of centers, it’s miles very critical that the parking is close to the constructing and the parking lot may be very nicely lit. The final two elements is the fee according to month or year and if the Middle offers any fitness training.