Orlando

I had been in Orlando about five times in my life and I love it. It is a very fun city, the thing I like the most about going to Orlando are the different parks. Disney world is awesome, they have 5 different parks and each one has a lot of different attractions. My favorite one is Epcot Center this park has a road around the most recognized cultures of the world, they have a little Eiffel tower for France and they have a pagoda for Japan. The park icon is the Spaceship Earth, looking like a giant golf ball it is an attraction that takes you through human history. When I was a little kid I used to love Magic Kingdom, they have all kind of attractions for little kids and they also have attractions for adults like the Splash Mountain, the Space Mountain and big thunder mountain railroad.

Other park that I like a lot is Sea World, even though all the controversy about how bad this kind of parks are for wild animals, I enjoy watching the shows and I think this kind of parks could help people to get concerned about the life of the marine animals. I love the whale show it is pretty cool to see the interaction between humans and this giant animals.

I also had been in Island of Adventure and Universal Studios, they are both very fun parks, they are more about exiting things, the first one has a lot of roller coasters, and the second one is all about attractions based on movies, pretty similar to Universal Studios here in California.  

New York

I remember last year when I got out of the train station and look up to the sky and I found myself in a jungle, a jungle of buildings; I was in New York. I got there early in the morning, and even though it was spring, it was very cold. For the first time in my life I took a subway and it was quite an experience. I and my best friend went to New York for spring break last year, we stayed for a week and we had an amazing time. When we got there we first took the subway to the hotel. When we got out of the train the first thing we noticed was that the hotel was two blocks away from the Empire State, it was awesome. The first day we went to Times Square and we walked around Central Park, both of them are very cool places in different ways. The next couple of days it was raining so we went to the NBC tour at the Rockefeller center, to MOMA (The Museum of Modern Art), to the Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, to The Metropolitan Museum of art, to the Guggenheim Museum and to Madame Tussauds. We were trying to avoid the rain so we really used our time in going to as many places as we could and even though it could sound like we went to every place we missed a lot of tours and museums in NY. Every day we ate at different places we would walk around the streets and pick a place and every single one of them had good food, it was awesome, you can find all types of different cuisines that go from Indian food to French food.

When the weather was finally good we went to the Statue of Liberty and the last floor of the Empire State .We also walked around little Italy, Soho and China town. We went to The Top of the Rock which is the last floor at the Rockefeller Center, it has the most amazing view, in one side you can see the central park and on the other side you can see the Empire State and all of the other buildings in Manhattan.

New York is a beautiful city, I think it kind of has like three different environments; you can go underground in the subway, on the ground and walk through its buildings watching the New Yorkers running from place to place, or you can enjoy the peace that the high rise buildings give. It is really an amazing city; I don’t have enough words to describe how awesome it is!!

Russia

The Maslenitsa, a Russian festival that begins at the end of the winter, also known as the Butter week, is a traditional celebration that has pagan origins and in Soviet times was celebrated almost secretly, but after the fall of communism in 1991 it received official endorsement. There are different events during the Butter week, the big parties are held on Saturday and Sunday to accommodate work schedules, Thursday is Cleansing Day, Sunday is Forgiveness Day and Monday morning is teeth-cleaning. This is just one of the reasons to visit Russia.

Moscow, Russia’s capital contains a great variety of impressive soviet era buildings along with modern scycrapers at the Moscow business center. There are different important place in Russia like the Tretyakiv gallery established in 1856 and The Trinity Lavra of St Serguis a monastery founded in 1345 and home of over 300 monks.

Saint Petersburg, Russia’s former capital is the second biggest city in the country and is the most norther city in the world with over a million people. The historic center of Saint Petersburg and related groups of monument are considered world heritage.

Besides its important cities, other popular destinations include Kamchatka with its volcanoes and geysers, Karelia with its lakes and rocks and Dombay an amazing sky resort.

Ica, Peru

Ica is located in the southwest of Peru. It is the region that covers most of Peru’s coast desert and it was also the home of regional cultures from the Antique Peru. From Lima (Peru’s capital) is a five hour journey by car to get to Ica. A few minutes away from the main road is the Pacific Ocean, the blue side of the desert.

From the port in Pisco you can go by boat to Ballestas Island, a group of small islands that are the habitat for different marine animals. Another attraction of the area is Tambo Colorado, an Inca settlement considered one of the best preserved archaeological sites in Peru.

Nearby, from the airport in Ica, planes can be taken for a 45 minutes away stop to admire the Nazca Lines. The Nazca Lines are unique in the world; they are geoglyphs that scholars believed were made by the Nazca culture. There are hundreds of individual figures which complexity goes from lines to stylized monkeys, spiders, fish, lizards, hummingbird and sharks.

La Huacachina, a lagoon surrounded by palms located 3 miles away from Ica is considered an oasis in the desert, where extreme sports can be practiced.

If you want to find out more about Ica go to http://www.perutravels.net/

The Bahamas

The Bahamas is a group of 700 islands and cays located in the Atlantic Ocean by the Caribbean. It is the most prosperous country in the Caribbean. The Bahamas relies on tourism to generate most of its economic activity.

From going to the beach and enjoying its crystals waters, to going partying during the nights there are all sort of activities that you could enjoyed in this islands. For example: snorkeling, hiking and horseback riding. What could be better that watching the underwater wildlife, laying by the beach or simply going around the tropical habitats of these islands?

Depending on which island you want to go, there are different resorts; all of them include different activities for tourists. Nassau, Bahamas’s capital, located at Providence Island is home of The Atlantis resort, one of the biggest resorts in the world, among all of the things to do in the island, this resort has a dolphin cay, water parks, marine habitat and different activities that go from golfing to climbing a rock. At the Grand Bahama Island you can enjoy the different ecotours or cultural tours or you can also go shopping at Port Lucaya Marketplace, where you can find some duty-free stores.

This is a place just to go and relax, have a nice vacation and escape from the stressful life of the city.

Egypt

As some of you may have heard, Egypt has been in the news for the last month. Hosni Mubarak’s regimen for the last 29 years had oppressed Egyptians. Since January25th, a revolution has been the reason why the eyes of the world are on Egypt. Hosni Mubarak’s regimen is over, and the country is struggling to recover and organize.

Egypt is recognized as being one of the first empires in the world and for its pyramids. Egypt was founded by the king Menes in 3150 BC.  There are about 138 pyramids discovered in Egypt as of 2008. They are considered one of the biggest monumental structures in the world and the question about how they were built is a mystery; most people make up stories and myths about it. The most recognized ones are the ones in Giza outside of Cairo, Egypt’s capital. The pyramid of Khufu is the largest Egyptian pyramid and it is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World still in existence. Cairo is the largest city in Africa and The Nile, the longest river in the world, goes by this city.

I have yet to make a trip to any part of Egypt. If you have been please share with us your experiences.

The Three Gorges Dam

I chose to talk about the Three Gorges Dam in this week’s blog because I like engineering challenges, and this place represents one of the biggest engineering challenges since the Panama Channel was built, 100 years ago. Last week by searching around big engineering projects I found this one. I knew it existed, but I didn’t know how important it was. I did some research and I want to share with you guys some interesting facts I found about it.

The Three Gorges Dam is located in China and is consider one of the modern wonders of the world. It is the world’s largest hydroelectric power station and it took 10 years to be constructed. The construction began in 1996, and it was expected to take 19 years to be finished. The two main reasons why it was build were:

1.       To control the flooding caused by the Yangtze River.

and

2.       To generate electricity.

The idea of constructing a dam by the Yangtze River started in 1919. Engineers and scientist have been studying this idea since 1957, but with all of the economical, social and political problems in China during the last century. It was very hard for china to work in this project.

Today it is a reality. The dam is finished and the hydroelectric is working. The dam wall is about 2,335 meters long and 185 meters high. The project used 28,000,000 m^3 of concrete, 463,000 tons of steel, and moved about 134,000,000 m^3 of earth.

The construction began in 1994 and the first part was finished in 2003. After the hydroelectric began to work in 2003, the water level of the Yangtze River in the Three Gorges area raised more than 100 meters.

The Three gorges dam blew my mind and I hope it sparks interest in your minds as well.

If you would like to see videos about The Three Gorges Dam visit this links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsVb1lmVmiY&feature=related

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/discovery-atlas-china-revealed-three-gorges-dam.html