• They Draw & Travel: One-of-a-Kind Illustrated Maps – Very cool idea (posted on Vagabondish)

• The Real Buddha Bar, Tended by Tokyo Monks – Holy cow, this was fascinating.  The one question I had though was this:  Um, aren’t Buddhist monks supposed to condemn alcohol?  Isn’t serving patrons sake shots a little hypocritical?

• French Lessons:  Why Letting Kids Drink at Home isn’t ‘Tres Bien’ – Fascinating podcast on NPR.  This totally totally flies in the face of every comparison I’ve made between Americans and the French.

• When the Likes of Diedrick and Hemingway Still Could Travel Across the Atlantic in Style  – I’ve always been obsessed with ship-travel (I didn’t spend two years working on a cruise ship for the pay, that’s for sure).  And as much as I love the convenience of air travel, there’s something exciting, adventurous and romantic about the cross-Atlantic travel of yesteryear.  I wish I could have lived back then!

• I’ve always wanted a VW van but have never had the money.  One of these days, when I’ve gotten around to paying off all my bills and have some money again, I’m totally buying this:

• I’ve looked all over Google and have yet to find where this is sold (which leads me to believe it’s either not real or not on the market anymore) but I think it’s ingenious.  Supposedly it was made in Japan.

• Overnighting in this treehouse at the Lion Sands Game Reserve in South Africa has just been added to my travel bucketlist.

The ‘ice hotel’ in Quebec, Canada looks like super cool place to chill-out!  Ha, ha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIwval66mbI

I found this clip from the film “Paris, Je T’aime” captured well the mixture of loneliness and elation felt while traveling alone.  In an interview with NPR, the director, Alexander Payne (who also wrote and directed Election and The Descendants) said that he intentionally chose an actress with zero knowledge of French, so that her French accent would sound as garbled as possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XGJq8wrw5I

I played this video for my adult ESL students and was worried that they wouldn’t understand the joke or worse, that some of my Latin American students would find it offensive, but they all laughed and found the award-winning short film to be really clever.  For any ESL teachers out there (or anyone who teaches a current events class) this site provides a well-written lesson plan to go along with the film.

Also, if you’re an ESL teacher and you want to know how to make grammar more interesting, you really ought to check out this dude’s blog.  I’m obsessed.  He has hundreds of lesson plans (which you can copy or paste from the site or download).  Seriously, it’s the best.

Reannon Muth

Reannon Muth is a full-time writer, social media consultant and owner and manager of the Taken by the Wind travel blog. Born in Hawaii, Reannon has lived in five countries, at Disney World and on a cruise ship. She currently lives in fabulous Las Vegas.