One of these days we plan to take a vacation in Europe. I’ve been to Ireland in the past, but other than that neither of us have been anywhere else in Europe.
Like so many others who plan vacations to Europe no trip would be complete without visiting England, France and Italy. I’m sure that if we were able to take a holiday of a month or more we’d go to a few other Countries as well.
We still don’t know when we might be able to take this dream vacation but it can’t hurt to begin planning where we might stay, what cities we might visit and what historic sites we’d want to see.
Take Rome for example. This city is so old and has so some much history. We could probably spend a month there alone and still not see everything that we’d like to see. There are several museums that we’d visit. I also think it would be wonderful to see the Pantheon, the Catacombs, St. Peters and Vatican City, the Colosseum, and the Forum as well as so many other historic sites.
There’s even a wide assortment of Hotels to stay in. We could stay in a 5 star suite at Hotel Fori Imperiali Cavalieri in the heart of the historic center, or perhaps for the sake of keeping our expenses down stay in the 3 star Hotel Siena Rome which is also in the heart of Rome and appears to be quite a nice hotel with all the amenities that we’d need.
As many of you already realize, where you stay when you are on a trip far from home, whether it be business travel or vacation can make or break your trip. Which means that choosing the right hotels along the way is as important as it is to choose the correct travel and tour itinerary. So I plan on doing some research on the hotels that we’d like to stay in, in Rome and any other cities on our dream vacation.
I came across Easytobook.com and I like that they show each hotels rating as well as a brief description on each of the city pages. Once you choose a hotel that you think you might want to stay in your can learn more about it by clicking on the hotels link where you will find more information about the hotel, photos, a map of it’s location within the city and many other forms of information related to the hotels location within the city, and information on how to book or cancel your reservations.
It’s a great site to visit in order to learn more about tourist destinations within the city of your choice - Rome in our case - and to book your hotel stays. I’ve bookmarked this site so that I can do more research as we plan our future Roman vacation.
If you spent Valentines all alone look no further .. maybe www.hotprisonpals.com will have a just the right man for you. Yep. Some of America’s most desirable felons are lining up to send you love letters, poems and even proposals of marriage.
Some of the men are getting out soon while others are until 2023. If you like space in your relationships this might just be perfect.
The idea for hotprisonpals came from New York pop artist Sam Wagner, who began writing to a friend in jail several years ago. The prisoner then asked Wagner to write to his cell mate who had stopped receiving letters from his family.
Requests for letters from lonely prisoners kept coming, until Wagner was sending a monthly letter to more than 100 inmates.
With no access to the Internet, letters are often the only contact U.S. prisoners have with the outside world.
“Prisoners have real abandonment issues. Friends and family often stop writing after a couple of years,” said Wagner’s business partner, Jason Rupp, who built the Web site in 2003.
“The letters they get through the site are crucial to their well being. They need to know someone on the outside cares.”
The inmates, both straight and gay pay $19 each to have their photos and a short note on the site. Female inmates have been invited to join hotprisonpals but so far none have joined.
“We don’t require that prisoners say what crime they committed,” said Rupp, a 30-year-old photographer who runs the site from his home in the Thai capital, Bangkok.
“We take everybody. If they are murderers or rapists they are not going to put that in the ad.”
“Sometimes the messages get a little racy and we like that,” said Rupp. “We pride ourselves on having the hottest prisoners on the Internet.”
Pen pal friendships often lead to prison visits and serious long-term relationships.
The prison marriage of Erik Menendez — convicted with his brother Lyle of the 1989 murder of his wealthy parents in Beverly Hills — has helped generate interest in prisoner dating.
Menendez married a woman with whom he had corresponded for years from jail. A book by his wife Tammi, “They Said We’d Never Make It”, heavily romanticizes the unconsummated relationship.
“It’s a thrill for women. These are good looking guys and they can seem really exotic from the outside,” said Rupp. “It’s a fantasy. You don’t see any of their flaws.”
“We have scoured the prison floors and checked each bunk bed, both top and bottom, looking for the men that you have dreamed about,” the site says.
Ladies? Get your pens ready.
If you came here for Photo Hunters I haven’t thought of anything for this theme yet. I may still come up with something … but I’m trying to figure out how to combine Salty - this weeks theme - and funny. Give me some time - I may still come up with something yet!
I did come up with something - see photo below!
In other news - I slowed down on posting this week. Sorry about that. It’s not that there’s been a lack of Odd news, weird news or dumb criminal stories to write about. Nope, I don’t think that people will stop doing stupid things. It’s just that work has been so busy this week that I’ve been exhausted by the time I come home and haven’t put much time into bloggin’. Sorry about that!
I’ll leave you with a funny photo. I was saving this one as a blooper since it looks like none of the ladies from either basketball team wanted to catch the ball. However, now that I take a better look at the photo it might fit the theme this week … those ladies have got to be sweaty after running around playing basketball … and sweat is salty .. so yeah, this fits this weeks theme:
Salty, stunned basketball teams:
A woman living in a small community west of New York City was startled when she looked out her kitchen window and saw a black bear looking back in at her.
“I was making a pot of coffee, and I turned around and there he was in the window looking at me,” said Lorraine Grossman.
The womans scream spooked the 211 pound bear who ran and climbed a nearby tree. He reached a height of 40 feet and wouldn’t budge. The woman found herself entertaining more than 50 neighbors who gathered in her Maplewood home to watch the bear in the tree for five hours. The bear didn’t do much more than yawn though.
“He’s really kind of cute,” said Joanne Penaluna.
State wildlife officers eventually shot the animal with a tranquilizer dart. After hanging on for about 10 minutes, the bear dropped into a net. It was taken away, tagged, then released at a state wildlife management area.
“It’s not something you get to see every day — bears falling out of trees,” said Pete Samek, whose 5-year-old daughter, Lucy Rose, watched from his shoulders.
Bears usually hibernate from December to March, though they can be easily roused, said Larry Katz, chairman of the animal sciences department at Rutgers University.
“It’s a little early for them to be waking up,” he said. “Someone or something probably walked over the area where it was hibernating.”
Authorities said the bear, a male estimated to be 2 or 3 years old, might have been snacking on birdseed and likely wandered in from the nearby South Mountain Reservation.
