Archive for July, 2010

The Paris Apartment: Romantic Decor on a Flea-Market Budget

  • ISBN13: 9780060391690
  • Condition: New
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Product Description
The Paris Apartment is a popular shop in New York’s East Village, where visitors can step back in time and immerse themselves in the beauty and romance of antique furnishings. Reflecting an unusual mix of design influences (Baroque, rococo, neoclassical and Art Deco) and personal taste, its style is luxurious, playful, and wholly original. In The Paris Apartment, Claudia Strasser, the founder and owner of the shop, offers readers the quintessential guide to achievin… More >>

The Paris Apartment: Romantic Decor on a Flea-Market Budget

Backpack Safety Tips

Think carrying a backpack is “no big deal”? Think again. The average child’s backpack weighs 12 pounds and gets lifted 10 times a day. That equals 120 pounds lifted each day. That works out to be about 21, 600 pounds lifted in a 180-day school year!!!

How exactly does carrying a backpack affect the spine? Common sense tells us that a heavy load distributed unevenly day after day causes stress to a growing spinal column. More than 50% of youths experience at least one low back pain episode by the end of their teen years. Repetitive activities such as hauling a heavy backpack over one shoulder each and every day can lead to serious postural misalignments and imbalances, creating subluxations of the spinal column. These subluxations may cause nerve interference, which can lead to a variety of symptoms and decrease a child’s immune response.

Carrying a heavy backpack in which weight is improperly distributed can result in poor posture; spinal column distortion; muscle strain; headaches; back, neck and arm pain; and nerve damage.

Proper lifting techniques are extremely important. The following is proper backpack lifting technique and should be demonstrated to your child:

Face the backpack before you lift it

Bend at the knees

Using both hands, check the weight of the pack

Lift with legs, NOT your back

Carefully slip on one shoulder strap at a time

NEVER sling the pack on one shoulder

Packing your child’s backpack properly can decrease strain on the spinal column:

Pack the heaviest objects close to the body

Place bumpy objects on the outside, away from the back

Having your child checked regularly by a chiropractor to remove subluxations and insure proper posture during the growing years is very important. Remember, “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.”

Paris Is The Most Visited City In The World

Paris is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, with over 30 million foreign visitors per year. As the paragon of style, Paris is one of the most glamorous cities in the world.


The “City of Light”, is the apex of architectural beauty, artistic expression, and culinary delight. As Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “There is never any ending to Paris” and Spring in Paris may be the stuff of romantic legend, but the most delicious time of year to visit is the fall, especially September and October.


This autumn season the city bristles with energy as new shops, clubs, and restaurants open, a cultural season begins, and everyone catches up after the summer holidays.


Or consider winter because it is usually mild, and December, January, and February are the trough of the annual tourist calendar, so you’ll be getting Paris at its most Parisian (except for Paris is a savory blend of old and new, as centuries-old palaces and monuments steeped in history share the skyline companionably with modern commercial complexes.


Paris is relatively small which means most scenic highlights are within walking distance and this is what makes Paris an ideal place for a France Holiday Rental. Parisian’s-eye-view of the open-air markets, corner bistros and meandering little streets that make this urban paradise so famous.


Explore classic sights like the Tour Eiffel, Notre-Dame cathedral, Louvre and Arc de Triomphe, or pick up a fresh golden baguette and enjoy a leisurely picnic on the banks of the Seine River or at one of the unexpected grassy knolls that you come across during your excursions.


Indeed, Paris is the city of dreams for for artists, intellectuals, philosophers and of course, lovers.

Paris is made up of 20 arrondissements or districts. There is no logical numerical order. The romantic river Seine separates the two sides, simply known as left and right bank.


Place de la Bastille (4th, 11th and 12th arrondissements, right bank) is a historical district and as it shows the illogical numbering of the districts. The arrondissements are numbered like a snail. So the actual numbers of the arrondissements can alter every two blocks or so depending on the direction that you walk.

Beautiful Barcelona – Easy Travel Guide

.Beautiful city of Barcelona, capital of Catalonia (a Spain’s province), is situated on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea and bordered at either end by 2 river deltas. Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after its capital city Madrid. Barcelona has a population of 1.5 million, over 4 million including suburbs. The varied, eventful history of the city dates back 4,000 years to the first settlements by ancient farmers. Later it became a Roman colony, the Visigoth’s capital city, and then it came under Moorish rule. It went through sieges, destructions and occupations, finally to become an autonomous democracy 1975. The city has always played an important role in political and cultural life of Spain and it is well reflected in the variety and quality of historical buildings, museums, many other tourist attractions. Today Barcelona is one of the most diverse European cities with unique culture and rich traditions. You can find here a formidable balance of the traditional things and the avant-garde. A cosmopolitan metropolis, Barcelona affords visitors a warm and sincere welcome, being acknowledged worldwide as one of the best tourist-friendly cities in Europe. Barcelona’s organization of the 1992 Olympics provided regeneration of this dynamic city, gave a fresh start to its infrastructure development. WHAT TO SEE AND WHERE: POINTS OF INTEREST – La Ramble is a tree-lined pedestrian boulevard packed with buckers, living statues, mimes and itinerant salespeople selling everything from lottery tickets to jeweler. Pavement cafes and stands selling craftwork, street performers surrounded by curious onlookers, a noisy bird market, Palau de la Virreina, a grand 18th-century rococo mansion, the Gran Teeter del Liceu, the famous 19th-century opera house- these are all colorful parts of La Rambla’s mosaic. La Rambla ends at the lofty Monument a Colom (Monument to Columbus) and the harbour. Barri Gotic – also known as Gothic Quarter, it is the old part of the city. Picasso lived and worked in Barri Gotic from 1895 to 1904 and Joan Miro was born and lived here during his youth. Gothic Quarter is situated on the right hand side of the La Rambla, it contains a concentration of medieval tall Gothic buildings (14-15th century) on narrow cobbled streets and now is home to much of the city’s nightlife. La Sagrada Familia – La Sagrada Familia is one of the most famous and magnificent among Barcelona’s landmarks. The life’s work of Barcelona’s famous architect, Antoni Gaudi, the magnificent spires of the unfinished cathedral imprint themselves boldly against the sky with swelling outlines inspired by the holy mountain Montserrat. Above each facade there are four towers, 12 in total, which are dedicated to the Apostles. The tower in the center, the tallest of all at 170 m., is dedicated to Jesus Christ. Around these there are the towers of the four Evangelists, and the tower over the apse is dedicated to the Virgin. They are encrusted with a tangle of sculptures that seem to breathe life into the stone. Gaudi died in 1926 before his masterwork was completed, and since then, controversy has continually dogged the building program. Nevertheless, the southwestern (Passion) facade, is almost done, and the nave, begun in 1978, is progressing. La Pedrera – Casa Mila (Mila House) is an apartment building, the last example of Gaudi’s civil architecture.It is one of his finest and most ambitious creations, extraordinarily innovative in its functional, constructive, and ornamental aspects. Visitors can tour the building and go up to the roof, where they can see spectacular views of Barcelona. One floor below the roof is a modest museum dedicated to Gaudi’s work. Montjuic – the largest open space in the city, its main attractions are the Olympic installations, the Spanish Village and the hilltop fortress. Montjuic, the hill overlooking the city centre from the southwest, is home to some fine art galleries, leisure attractions, soothing parks and the main group of 1992 Olympic sites. Montjuic is covered in ornamental gardens with water features and is the most popular destination in Barcelona on Sundays. Tibidabo – is the highest hill in the wooded range that forms the backdrop to Barcelona. It has amazing views of the whole of Barcelona, a stunning cathedral, and a family fun park Parc d’Atraccions with old-style rides offering breathtaking views. A glass lift at the park goes 115m (383 ft) up to a visitors’ observation area at Torre de Collserola telecommunications tower. Modernisme – spectacular modernista architectural creations dotted around the city by famous Antoni Gaudi and his contemporaries. Camp Nou – home of F.C. Barcelona, one of Europe’s leading soccer teams, with capacity of almost 100,000 spectators. The Seu Cathedral – Built in medieval times on the site of a Roman temple, La Seu is one of the great Gothic buildings in Spain. Parc de la Ciutadella – Barcelona’s favorite park and a Sunday afternoon rendezvous for families, friends and ducks The Sardana – traditional Catalan dance, performed outside the cathedral and at national festivals, with everyone encouraged to join in.

3 Things For You To Know While Hiring Travel Agencies

Traveling is a big part of the 21st century person. This is not necessarily with regard to vacations and holidays. People travel continuously for work purposes as well as leisure. Therefore, plans for travel tend to be less elaborate and time consuming. However, for this to be possible there must be a way to buy your ticket, book your hotel and reserve a mode of transport in the other city from before. It is not possible to do all this on your own. This is where travel agents come in.

The Importance of Travel Agencies

Travel agents specialize in providing information about the place of visit to the tourist. This includes the best deals on travel, whether it is by the train or by air, the most convenient location to live at depending on ones plan of action as well as a mode of transport there so that one doesnt have to depend on local help for such things.

Older people like to have a more hands-on approach to travel plans. They like to be sure of who is helping them out and prefer the one-on-one interaction with their travel agents. This restricts their choice of agents as many travel agents now have websites of their own. They put up all the information that a tourist needs for travel purposes and provide their contact details so that anyone can call or email them for booking purposes.

Go Online with your Travel

With the Internet becoming a big part of our daily lives, most people prefer to procure the information with the ease of a few clicks of the mouse. Not only is it time saving but also efficient. Because of the competitive nature of the tourism industry which thrives on a few trillion dollars, every agent wants to put up the best deals and the most efficient modes of booking for its customers.

Since there are a number of travel agencies which claim to give you the best deals on your travel plans, the only way to find out which one is authentic and which one is not, you have to read up on them on the website. You should also take the opinions of friends and family who travel often. If they swear by a particular agency, then you should probably look into it more conspicuously.

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