Have you ever found yourself at a loss when attempting to order a beer in another country? Do you ever have trouble getting the type of beer that you really want when traveling? Well, the new Pivo app is just for you.
Developed by Justin Amey and Ollie Hepworth, Pivo provides the correct spelling, phonetic pronunciation and video tutorials by native speakers for beers in 59 languages from Afrikaans to Zulu. Best of all, no Wifi connection is required for use. I’ll drink to that.
Travelers have been picking-up mementos of their trips since the first tourist hit the road. Now that universal tendency is the focus of a new exhibition by Washington D.C.’s National Museum of American History.
“Souvenir Nation”, at the fantastical Smithsonian Castle on the Mall, dates back to the time that travelers pilfered souvenirs rather than making purchases at the now ubiquitous gift shops. The diverse exhibits include a chunk of Plymouth Rock chiseled-off by a 19th century tourist, Napoleon’s napkin, John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 tie clip, a brick lifted from George Washington’s childhood home, tables and chairs appropriated from Appomatox Courthouse, a piece of fence rail split by Abraham Lincoln and other curios and keepsakes.
The fascinating exhibition runs daily until August 2014.
This summer, the Main Branch of the famed New York Public Library is featuring a wonderful book art installation by artist/designer Kelli Anderson and book blogger Maria Popova (Brain Pickings) . Titled “Big Books made of paper”, the fantastic installation is a charming diorama of books floating above a stylized New York City skyline. Each of the books has been painstakingly recreated in 3D cut paper.
The Sun Bright Hotel is located in NYC’s Chinatown just a block from the world famous Canal Street. The hotel offers free WiFi, cable TV, a 24 hours front desk, and rooms for as low as $10 per night. But it also has prison cell-like rooms that measure only 7×5 feet and room ceiling constructed from chicken wire. Online reviews of the Sun Bright Hotel highlight the ubiquitous “vermin, fleas, roaches, bedbugs and the odor of rotting trash”.
Earlier this summer, we shared a story about a Molson beer promotion that offered free beer in select locations around Europe. Now Dutch brewer Heineken has launched its own free beer promotion for its Amstel brand. So far, the “Amstel Pause” vending machines have only surfaced in Sofia, Bulgaria.
In order to get a free can of Amstel beer, participants simply need to push a button and pause for three full minutes in front of the vending machine. Patience apparently has its rewards.
Dear New York is a charming and imaginative homage to New York City. The whimsical little black and white video was created by Madrid-based artist/director Luis Urculo for the international clothing retailer Zara‘s new flagship outlet on 5th avenue in NYC. Don’t worry; it’s not a commercial ad.
Many Sci-Fi fans are aware of the treasure-trove of reading material available at the awesome site Tor.com . But if you love Sci-Fi and Fantasy writing, and have somehow missed it, get thee to Tor ASAP to participate in the site’s 5th anniversary celebration.
To mark the occasion, Tor has assembled 5 years of original short and long form fiction and made it available for free as a downloadable eBook. All you need to do is visit Tor and register. You can then download The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction in ePub, Mobi or PDF formats.
In honor of what would have been writer Charles Bukowski’s 93rd birthday tomorrow, HaperCollins is releasing eight Bukowski novels in digital audio versions for the first time. Titles including Pulp, Post Office, Ham on Rye, Factotum and Hot Water Music are narrated by actor Christian Baskous. Too bad they don’t have readings by the man himself. Well at least we have YouTube.
I’m certain that this story would never pertain to regular followers of Travel Between The Pages, but we’ve all run across geographically impaired travelers who don’t know the difference between Bucharest and Budapest. To set these folks straight, the Romanian candy bar brand ROM has come up with an amusing campaign to clear up the confusion once and for all.
With billboards in both capitals, bus ads, posters, videos, a website, and even specially embossed candy bars with the logo “Bucharest is not Budapest”, ROM and the rest of Romania hope to avoid all those awkward moments with the cartographically challenged tourists.
I was captivated by Madrid-based artist Fernando Vicente’s intriguing series called “Atlas”, which is based on antique maps. The translucent painting allows the original geographic features of the old maps to remain visible while simultaneously creating a completely new unified image.
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