A very nice table at the Oktoberfest today, we had people from (hope i can remember them all):

Brasilia
San Francisco
Los Angeles
Melbourne
A town in Mongolia i can't remember the name, sorry
Edo
Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm (must have been a tourist)
Greece
A small town near Wellington (yes, they have many sheep)

Funny, most of them tell you that they are from a big city, and not from a small village 150 miles away, but anyway, meeting all these people (and teaching them how to eat a Weisswurst, (forget the Zuzler, it is awful)) is fun. 14 days to go, and a lot of people to meet...

Explore a 3-D White House .


Inside the White House

Use the navigation on the right to move through areas of the building. Click the red markers to display historical info, photos and panoramic images.

Infographic of the Day: It's a Small World, Afterall

This map shows exactly where are the most remote places in the world.



If you're wondering how "close" two places are, a geographic map doesn't help much anymore. If the airports are good--or if there's a bullet train nearby--hundreds of miles might as well be down the street. Point being, "distance" is now really a function less of geography, than of the transport networks we've invented.

Which is why researchers at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, and the World Bank created this gorgeous map. They first created a model, which calculated how long it would take to travel from a given point, to the nearest city of 50,000 people or more; the model includes rail, road, and river networks.

Then they plotted these results on a color coded map: The brighter an area, the closer it is to a big city; the darker it is, the further out it is. (The blue lines above represent oceanic shipping lanes.)

Keep reading....


Bottom line

The most remote place: Tibet, parts of which are as much as three weeks away from a city--with the journey comprising 20 days on foot.

Check out the New Scientist's entire gallery of 11 different maps....

JP,



Santo Domingo, or Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 2,253,437 in 2006. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River. Founded by Bartholomew Columbus in 1496, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Americas, and was the first seat of Spanish colonial rule in the New World. Santo Domingo came to be known as the "Gateway to the Caribbean". It lies within the boundaries of the Distrito Nacional (D.N.; "National District"), itself bordered on three sides by Santo Domingo Province.

Santo_Domingo

Reporting from Puerto Plata

We were here around 10 years ago and this city of 300,000 people has changed. It looks more prosperus.

We are staying at a Barcelo Hotel, typical of the all inclusive caribean hotels. Excellent service, good food (all day), beatiful pool and beach.

Sunday we went into town, we attended to Mass in the cathedral. It has been renoveted recently as well of all of the central plaza. The church was full but we were very self concious of ourselves. My wife was the only blond in the whole congreaion and I was the only guy in shorts. Did not matter, Dominicans are very welcoming and friendly people. At the end of Mass a nice young man offered to show us (with pride his city) - he took us to the Malecon, the market (full of exotic tropical fruits), the fort of San Felipe (built by the Spanish to protect the port against English, Dutch and French Pirates - it was also used as a prison in times of Trujillo). and we visited a factory of jewelry made of Larimar (a local semi precious stone and amber that is abundant in Dominican repulic.

As mentioned above the best part of being here is contact with Domnican people. The are just great!!

Time to say bye for now. We have an appointemnt with the beach.

The official page of Puerto Plata: http://www.puertoplata.com.do/en