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Ay, Caramba! You’ve gone on that long awaited vacation to Mexico and all of sudden you 1. Are sick 2. Had your money stolen or 3. Are stuck alone on a roadside! At World Nomads we’re lucky to have lots of friends in the travel industry, we polled them to give you the very best tips staying safe in Mexico.

1. Learn the Lingo.
A little bit of Spanish goes a long way! Try your hardest with the locals and it will get you a lot further than simply trying to get them to understand English.

Daniel Radcliffe,? Volunteer HQ

2. Drink responsibly.?
The variety of tequila is simply overwhelming, so was the hangover! Drink responsibly and test new alcohols cautiously and with friends that can watch out for you. No matter what your friends say don’t eat the worm in the Tequila bottle!!

Mat Lewis, i-to-i

3. Stay alert!????
If you get far off the beaten path (for example, deep in the Copper Canyon) and see fancy late-model pickups and gated driveways, know that you’re in a drug growing and trafficking area and get the hell out of there.

Josh Steinitz, Nile Guide

4. Check the water.??
Don’t drink the water also means don’t drink the ice! Check with your hotel or restaurant if the ice is made with purified water, same goes for anything that would be washed in water during preparation like salads.

Christina Tunnah, World Nomads

5. Get directions.??
Rural roads can be bad. Very, very bad. Make sure your vehicle can handle them. The last thing you want is your rental to break down, your cell phone doesn’t work and no one speaks English. Check with the locals on which routes are the safest to take.

Kathy Dragon, Travel Dragon

It always helps to know a little bit of the local language, so have a quick study of the below:

?Hola! = Hello

Buenos Dias = Good Day

Buenas Noches = Good Night

Gracias = Thank You

De Nada = You’re Welcome

?Cuanto Cuesta? = How Much?

?A Que Hora? = At What Time?

?Donde esta el baño? = Where is the bathroom?

?Emergencia! = Emergency!

?Ayudame por favor! = Help me please!

Keen to learn more?

If you want to learn more Spanish in prep for your trip, check out our FREE Spanish Language Guides. If you’re determined to nail more than just the basics, check out our latest Spanish Language Guide PLUS iPhone app with over 500 phrases!

What did you learn in Mexico and wish you knew before you went?? Leave us a comment…

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Link to this post http://aquariustattoo.bloglife.ca/aquarius-tattoo-for-women/aquarius-tattoo-sample/

So we’ve all been there, you’ve read the guide books and done everything you think you could to prepare for your trip overseas. Then you arrive on your spectacular holiday and realize you should have brought your sweater, some sunscreen, extra cash… you get the idea.

We combed our network of adventure travel operators and asked them for their expert opinions on Croatia. Below are a couple tips to keep you traveling safe in Croatia and help you prepare for your vacation (and hopefully avoid the ‘oh no!’ moment).?

Why Croatia?

What did you learn in Croatia and wish you knew before you went?? Leave us a comment…

Hotel Midtown Raipur

It is located at Chhattisgarh and is one of the best hotels you can find in Raipur, giving you a good reason to spend a night or more in this hotel. They give their guests top class facilities and services.
Hotel Midtown Raipur is also a good choice for business travelers because of their wonderful amenities and services. This is also convenient for tourists out on a leisure trip, so as to relax and have a fun-filled vacation.
It is accessible to the airport and to the Raipur Railway station. It is also close to the Pandri Bus Stand. They have a total of 24 rooms all decorated very stylishly. They also have different types of rooms you can choose from such as their single economy rooms, double deluxe rooms and deluxe suites. All these are spacious and decorated modernly.
Amenities like a bath tub with shower, air conditioner, TV, work desk, telephone line, coffee maker and room services are available at your disposal. The hotel also has a variety of selections for food such as Chinese, Indian, etc. For the business people, they also have a conference room for meetings.

Hotel Mayura

Putting up a flare to the meaning of luxury, the Hotel Mayura has a total of 47 well designed guest rooms that have many amenities to offer to both business and leisure travelers. Located centrally in the city, the Hotel Mayura is a serene place to stay in and is located conveniently near the airport, being only a 15 minute drive away.
Amenities include centralized air conditioners with each having their own temperature controls, a coffee maker and a mini bar in each of the private rooms, travel assistance, and different services such as express laundry and call waiting.

Hotel Royal Garden Raipur

This hotel is located at Chhattisgarh. Hotel Royal Garden has very modern and elegant rooms with a royal touch to each room as well as to each part of the hotel. They also have an accessible location and agreeable rates which the guests value and find worthy of paying. In fact, Hotel Royal Garden is one of the best Economy Hotels located in Raipur. Just as Raipur is mostly visited by business travelers, Hotel Royal Garden also caters to the businessmen.
Each room has clean and well maintained lavatories, good water supply, TV, telephone line, and a mini bar. The dining experience will prove to be memorable and distinct. Each dish is prepared by professional chefs specializing on Indian, Continental and Chinese food. There are also many varieties of drinks guests can choose from such as cocktails.

For the business travelers, they have a business center where you can find all that you would need such as a fax and photocopying machine. Services for the guests include laundry services, security, wake up call, and doctor on call among others.

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Need some handy Arabic travel phrases? Try our Arabic Language guide podcast or iPhone app.

What did you learn in Egypt and wish you knew before you went?? Leave us a comment…

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This fall, four schools will participate in an experiment that combines girls-only classes with online teaching. Supposedly, the classes will be tailored specifically to females because, according to Larry Goodman, director of strategic programming at the Laurel School (one of the four participating schools), “There is no one out there who’s thinking with a specifically feminine audience in mind.” So what would a female-geared online course entail? Goodman claims that “[g]irls thrive best in environments where connectivity is valued.” Therefore, the courses will focus on collaborative projects. The creators of the project hope that in future years, girls from all over the world, including those who attend co-ed schools, will be able to participate in the girls-only online teaching experience.

Both online courses and gender-segregated classrooms have grown in popularity in recent years. Online courses are (obviously) a more recent phenomenon, but private schools have offered single-sex education for ages. These days, public schools are starting to pick up the trend; the number of public schools offering single-sex classes has grown from 11 to over 500 in the last seven years.

The first question I have is why is this project only focusing on girls? Are girls really farther behind, or more distracted by the opposite sex, than boys? The evidence says no. As Judy Berman of Salon.com’s Broadsheet pointed out, boys are struggling in classrooms too. According to experts, their issues have been neglected, whereas there have been attempts to address girls’ issues for decades. So if these online courses are going to devote so much time and energy catering to girls’ “special” educational needs, why not have a boys-only component as well?

Or, as Amanda Hess of The Sexist blog suggests, why not forget single-sex education completely, and instead focus on strengthening co-ed teaching? She finds “this particular solution (single-sex teaching) to gender inequality in education to be utter bulls**t.” Hess doesn’t see online girl-only education as a solution to problems in co-ed classrooms; if girls and boys can’t be taught to work or learn together in the classroom, how are they expected to succeed in the co-ed, real world?

“Girls and boys will be collaborating and competing with each other well past prep school. Learning to collaborate and compete as equals is important, and not just in the interest of everyone getting along. If the sexes have different educational needs, as these segregated programs suggest, why see it as a liability? Why not, instead, see difference as a huge asset to both boys and girls, who can learn valuable tactics from each other?”

After reading up on the evidence, it still remains unclear whether single-sex education is beneficial. The “boys are better at math” myth was debunked, so maybe it’s time to also stop assuming that separate “feminine” and “masculine” ways of learning are the reason kids aren’t succeeding in school. My “learning style” didn’t stop me from acing calculus in a room full of dudes, and if I was utterly confused about something, it probably had less to do with my female mind and more to do with my professor’s lackluster teaching skills. Then again, I can’t say I wouldn’t have been less distracted (from cute boys) in a girls-only environment…

What’s your take on single-sex education?

Source

Link to this article: http://edicational.blogbuddy.ca/2009/news/does-single-sex-education-solve-anything/ from the Educational issues revealed website

WASHINGTON — Political fund raising has suffered a rare decline since Election Day as corporate political-action committees have trimmed campaign donations amid an economic slump.

Contributions from company PACs fell 6% to $8.2 million in the first two months of the year, compared with the same period in 2007, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of the most recently available fund-raising reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

That contrasts with big increases in corporate PAC donations at the start of the previous three election cycles. PAC donations by businesses jumped 37% in the January-February period in 2007, compared with the same period in 2005. In the first two months of 2003 and 2005, corporate PACs’ contributions increased by about 50% over the previous elections.

Campaign contributions from companies don’t come from the corporate treasury, but rather from management-level employees who pool their personal funds into a single fund-raising account called a political action committee. Those pooled funds have declined as employees “looking to trim their household budgets cut out the contributions they make to the company PAC,” said Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Corporate PACs saw a 14% decline in employee contributions to $16.5 million in January and February, compared with the same period in 2007.

Pfizer Inc. led other companies with a $141,000 decline in PAC donations to $87,000 in January and February, compared with the same months in the last election cycle. “Pfizer is committed to making our voice heard in our nation’s health-care debate,” the company said in a statement. “Our PAC is bipartisan, and we are committed to supporting comprehensive health-care reform.”

PAC donations were down 80% at Chrysler LLC; 89% at U.S. Steel Corp.; and 28% at General Electric Co., according to the data. Spokesmen for Chrysler and GE declined to comment; a representative of U.S. Steel didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Several companies that were among the major donors in previous years have either filed for bankruptcy protection or no longer exist in their current form, such as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos.

Companies that received funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program showed a sharp drop, including Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. PAC donations by J.P. Morgan were down 75% to $20,000 in January and February from $81,000 during the same period in 2007, according to the data. Bank of America, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan declined to comment.
Source

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Link to this post: http://freeecards.blogbuddy.ca/2009/free-birthday-ecards/some-great-free-happy-birthday-ecards/ from the Free E-cards website