There are so many things to do in Barcelona it’s difficult for a tourist to find time to do them all, and had even greater difficulty deciding what to see and do, since they are all fantastic. It’s even a special experience spending the day in one of the city’s numerous parks, some of which also have museums and cultural centers. In addition to the standard entertainment venues and cultural aspects the city offers, there are numerous festivals that are celebrated throughout the year and they also attract many tourists who fill the Barcelona boutique hotels.

Whatever the reason for visiting Barcelona, and however one’s day may be filled, experiencing the nightlife and club scene is always a great way to wind down or even party all night. There are bars and clubs to suit all interests, personalities, persuasions, ages and genders. It’s difficult to get more diverse than that. 23 Robadors is well known to residents, and is considered to be a true find when tourists open its old doors on the rickety old street. It is an informal club with exposed brick walls and timber beams on the ceiling. It features light jazz on Wednesdays and Flamenco on Sundays.

Aire is a sexual orientation open bar. It is part of the gay disco chain venues known as Arena, though this bar is low key and there is a diverse mix of patrons. It is generally accepted to be a lesbian dance bar, though everyone is welcome and everyone comes. The Baja Beach Club is an intriguing and lively club, featuring go go dancers from both sexes. It blasts dance music and is considered to be a great place for meeting people. It overlooks the beach, which enhances its ambiance, and also attracts the beach crowd. Daguiri is an interesting bar, and generally full of travelers, whether they be general life travelers or tourists. It offers good food and a nice patio to enjoy a drink on a warm summer evening.

The city of Manhattan and the people living there are dedicated to the continued developments and improvements made to the parks located throughout the city, and to the city streets themselves.  Some of those projects span one hundred years, as in the constant updating and renovations made in the park along the East River.  One such project has been happening for fifteen years, and that is the planting of trees throughout the city during April.  Million Trees NYC has teamed up with Adrian Bebepe, the commissioner for the city parks, and Gary Bagley, the Exec. Director of the organization called New York Cares.

The goal is that, within the next decade, one million trees will be planted, putting back twenty percent of the natural forests that were removed throughout the history of the city and creating not only a more pleasant atmosphere, but a more healthy one as well.  Healthy for the souls and healthy for the bodies of all those living and working in the businesses, the city streets, and the small hotels.  New York citizens are well known throughout the world, as those most willing to come together when their city or any of her people are in need of help and this occasion was no different.

More than 5,000 people were out last month, all volunteers, located throughout the city’s parks, tending to the landscaping there, while another 1,300 people planted trees throughout the city.  In one day, twenty thousand trees were planted.  In one day!  That is the number of trees that are in Central Park, an amazing feat and an inspirational one as well.  In the Bronx, citizens planted fifteen hundred trees in Claremont park.  Brooklyn’s Spring Creek Park received two thousand trees.  Staten Island was not left out, as two thousand more were planted there.  On this one day, not only were the trees planted and tended but other areas of the city were as well.  Many volunteers worked fixing up the city’s paths, spreading mulch in the gardens of the parks, and painting fences.

Near Bangkoks busy business districts and Bangkok Business Hotels, small farms produce vegetable for markets that are located in and around downtown Bangkok might have little more than half a hectare, whereas commercial rice farms outside the city average over ten hectares. The average commercial rice bolding on the central plain however, are typically over three hectares and all the available land is under cultivation. In the upland to the east of the plain, where maize is commercially grown, the typical farm size is close to 6.5 hectares. Cassava also grows in this area on a somewhat smaller farm, around five hectares. West of the plain, the uplands are committed in part to sugarcane on holdings usually about the size of 3 hectares. In the south, the rugged terrain made of about a quarter of the region is unsuitable for agriculture.

The climate of Bangkok, however, favors the cultivation of rubber trees and the majority of small farms grow rubber as a cash crop alongside subsistence of the rice crops. The type of agriculture engaged in by the small farm, whether a cash crop, subsistence, or a combination of the two vary from region to region. Most of the small farmers whose sole agriculture is the raising of such cash crops as maize, vegetables, fruits and sugarcane on the every disappearing farm land have sustained the local markets with fresh produce for centuries. And provided employment for the rural country folk in need of earning a livelihood, but only having farming skills, but who are also wanting to live a comfortable life in the big city. The small farms of Bangkok employ about one-eighth of the labor force. The small farm sector has provide an adequate amount of food for the rapidly growing population and has produced substantial produce surpluses to even export. The Bangkok’s farmer’s ability to adapt to changing market conditions has contributed to the country’s agriculture success and continue to flourish. A testimony to the David’s verses the Goliaths of agriculture.

In the beginning of 1999, an organization was launched at the South African National Gallery, just around the corner from many of the five star Cape Town hotels and businesses.  A speaker from Ghana, Dr. Ruth Omabegho, gave the inaugural speech for this anticipated event.  The organization launched that day was the Bead Society of Southern Africa.  Much attention has been given to the group over the years as far as coverage by the local and international media, there are more artists requesting to join the group each and every day, from all over the country.  The Museum has been collecting, exhibiting and researching the indigenous art work of beads beginning in the early 1980’s and continuing now to the current times.  This was a motivating factor in the creation of the society.

The working of beads is the means by which the women of the country express themselves artistically.  They have been doing this for the past three hundred years.  This is significant to the political history and the constant transformation that the societies of South Africa have been going through, as well as for the women and their part in the history, socially culturally and artistically.  This is not the only bead society in the world.  They exist in Hungary, Great Britain, Russia and the United States.  In the States there are more than fifty such organizations.

This is the first one for the country of South Africa however, there is one that is located in Ghana, but it does not focus on the wide variety of traditions and those unique qualities that set the bead-work of South Africa apart from that done elsewhere in the world.  This society also has goals to create a networking system between the workers, and the researchers, students, archaeologists and collectors.  Activities are scheduled throughout the year, and the society publishes a paper that outlines events and provides resources for those not living within the city.  The bead-work can be found throughout the markets of Cape Town and during the festivals, and is one of the truly special characteristics of this beautiful South African city.

To travelers all around the world, Bangalore restaurants are some of the best in the region.  In a city where culture and technology meet and continually re-define each other, there are always innovations in the cuisine, but also long traditions that one can depend on.  A place that has been shaped by migration in a way that is like no other, Bangalore has seen a brain drain, when the young were leaving for economic reasons, and a reverse brain drain, where they started to return for the same reasons.  It’s an interesting place of interesting contradiction, and the cultural expressions here are likewise steeped in old-world traditions and new-world technologies.

It is in this setting that a remarkable new installation, “Digital Palimpsest,” comes to Bangalore.  Organized by the French Embassy in India, Fil d’Ariane, Point Ephemere, Alliance Francaise, and the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technoloy, “Digital Palimpsest” is a fascinating interactive installation.  Designed and created by B2Fays and Mathieu Constans, this work is engineered to make works of electronically-generated visual art that are then modified by the viewer’s participation.  The spectator’s image is projected into the work, and electronic impulses measure the body movements and vocal impressions to change the work while it is in motion.

This exciting new work is part of a global trend toward digital art, and it would be no surprise to find it in Bangalore, with a reputation for being on the cutting edges of technology.  The French artists developing the work are also participating in an exciting collaborative action that moves the work to muti-national proportions.  It is very interesting to note that the social landscape of Bangalore, shaped by a shifting identify based on leaving and returning, with constantly transforming versions of self, finds itself metaphorically represented in this work.  In a kind of marriage of art and life, the impressions left by the visitor are impossible to control, and difficult to measure, but absolutely there in the landscapes of living memory.

American journalist Roxana Saberi was released from a Tehran, Iran prison this month.  After spending over four months in one of the perhaps most notoriously unfair prison systems on the map of the world, the Northwestern University graduate will return to the United States map as soon as possible according to her lawyers.

Her original eight year sentence was trimmed down to a two year suspended sentence.  A suspended sentence means that if she commits another crime her record will be updated.

Saberi was charged with collecting and passing on information to U.S. intelligence officials.  After her arrest she was interrogated for weeks and convicted after only an hour long trial. Her sentence has been reduced, but the espionage charge still stands in her conviction. She was detained initially not for her alleged espionage charges, but for buying alcohol, which is prohibited in Iran.

The appellate court ruled that the Iran Court applied the wrong article of the penal court, that plus the political pressure most likely led to the sentence being reduced.

Saberi is now free to leave the country and return to the US map, the turnaround of decision from the court was said to be abrupt.

This case has become a diplomatic turning point for talks between Iran and the United States. The move to release Saberi was seen as good public relations for both parties involved.

This is not the first American Iran has detained. In October a California State University at Northridge student was detained for being part of a women’s rights campaign. Her charges were later dropped, but she, Esha Momeni, is still not allowed to leave Iran.

One has to wonder why Saberi got the preferential treatment, most likely because she is a journalist. It has to be disheartening for Momeni to still be unable to leave Iran,( while Saberi does.