About Amy Laughinghouse
View all posts by Amy Laughinghouse
Taking Big Risks On The Big Island Of Hawaii
Killer waves may be the least of your worries.
“Do you get the feeling,” my husband hisses in my ear, “that maybe we shouldn’t BE here?”
We are standing in the middle of Kilauea Iki Crater in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii. Steam vents issue super-heated mist that rises, wraithlike, from the barren, lunar-like surface.
Here and there, giant slabs of crust are piled upon one another like asphalt after an earthquake, and deep fissures create jagged scars across the face of the crater.
I cautiously sidle up to the rim of one nasty gash and peer down, half expecting to see a river of red-hot lava, but it’s dark and seemingly bottomless. There are no barriers, no ropes, nothing to keep me from falling in but my own common sense.
Of course, if I had common sense, would I be hiking across a volcanic crater? I’m forced to concede that my husband may have a point.
That’s the Big Island for you. Bewitched by its wild beauty, you find yourself pushing your limits, drawn—quite literally—to life on the edge. (more…)
Europe’s Crackin’ Christmas Markets
Lose the “bah humbug” blues with a walk through these winter wonderlands
A Christmas market in Strasbourg, France. Credit Christophe Hamm, Greater Strasbourg Tourist Office.
An evening spent mingling with the pink-cheeked crowds at festive fairs throughout Europe could transform the most curmudgeonly Scrooge and the greenest of Grinches into stocking-stuffing, carol-crooning converts.
Imagine rustic chalets overflowing with handicrafts that might have been fashioned by elves themselves; historic town squares illuminated by twinkling strands of lights; and local delicacies, from bratwurst to pastries, washed down with mugs of mulled wine.
Here’s a look at five of the best cities to stoke your holiday spirit.
Holiday gifts in Hamburg, Germany. Credit www.mediaserver.hamburg.de/C. Spahrbier
London, England
Celebrating the Fall of the Berlin Wall: One Man’s Experience of a Family Divided
The site of the former Berlin Wall, one foot in the East and one in the West.
“Berlin is not Germany. It’s a very important sentence. Berlin was always something special.”
Christian Tanzler would know. Although he’s a spokesperson for Visit Berlin, Tanzler isn’t just a media mercenary hired to promote the city, which this year celebrates 30 years since the fall of the infamous Berlin Wall. He’s one of the many whose family was torn apart by those cruel miles of concrete erected in the 60s. But even during those darkest days, Tanzler says, Berlin’s denizens on both sides of the wall harboured a rebellious, irrepressible spark.
The Topography of Terror Museum. At ground level, you see a remnant of the former wall. Below are former Gestapo cells.