Live Life. Travel.

Change Please: Experiencine the Rise fo Capitalism in Russia

By Catherine Skrzypinski, Freelance Writer

January 2008

For more than a decade, Russia has been dismantling communism and building capitalism. However, there is a deep contradiction emerging as the Russian economy matures. On the one hand, Russians are embracing Western-style capitalism. But at the same time, the country is slipping back into a criminal-style capitalism that thrived during the times of the Soviet Union and the KGB.

Facing Your Fears at 450 Feet

By Shannon Leigh Antony, Freelance Writer

December 2007

“JUST ENJOY IT!”, he bellowed over the wind, 450 feet above glassy ice water. My gigantic plastic smile and enormous unblinking eyes were frozen fervently as our rickety old cable car dangled dangerously from the center of a clear blue sky. In the depths of Switzerland’s great mountainous Alps and surrounded by 200 glistening peaks of the colossal Simmental Valley, I hadn’t even a sliver of hope for escape.

The Universal Problems with Showers

By Guylaine Spencer, Freelance Writer

November 2007

I love to travel. If I could, I’d travel to foreign countries constantly. But I’d always come home eventually for one thing: my shower.

You’d think showering, unlike food, language, or clothing, would be fairly universal. It seems so simple. How many variations could there be? The answer: more than you’d imagine.

The Kindness of Strangers

By Tara Miller, Staff Writer

October 2007

I guess we should have known when Steve said "I have no idea where we are going and I cannot read this map" that the bike trip to Lake Garda would be an adventure. Or perhaps when our first trail led us simply in a circle instead of down the hill, we should have heeded the warning. And then when the German bikers sent us 500 meters back up the hill to the dirt path on the left with a smirk on their faces, we really should have know what was in store…but we put our faith in Steve and continued to follow along.

The Boy From "Kill The Cat"

By Shane Townsend, Freelance Writer

September 2007

Not a single piranha that day, not even a bite. So I was happily distracted from my piscatorial misfortune by friends asking, "José, how's your family in Mississippi?" You see, despite the confusion about my name, everyone in this indigenous Chiquitano village in lowland Bolivia knew Mississippi was home.

TOTALLY GRISWALD