BBC’s website recently reported that a customs officer at Narita Airport in Japan gave a free spliff to a random passenger. Three questions: Where was that, um, flier headed? Was he/she was the hit of the party at the end destination? More to the point, what would have happened to that passenger had a dog detected the stash? The agent who planted it admits to not remembering into whose bag he put it.

Many travelers have come to appreciate Holland as a land of unique and sometimes mind-expanding travel opportunities… including, I guess, booking a flight with this Dutch travel agency and being scared out of your bloody mind!

Two questions: (1) Where is the travel venue? My guess is somewhere in the Netherlands Antilles… Aruba? Curacao? … and (2) What the hell are those things pointing upwards on the sides of the emergency slide?

Oh yeah… and HAPPPY 2008 from Volette! And travel safely….

The British are rightly proud of their currency. So proud, in fact, that while the UK is one of the linchpins of the European Union, it has steadfastly refused to become a member of the so-called “Eurozone” – the group of countries that use the euro. Some recent entrants to the EU, like Hungary, have adopted the euro in fits and starts. In Hungary, the old national currency, the forint, still circulates side-by-side the euro. Even countries as remote and poor as Romania and Bulgaria may soon adopt the euro.

Great Britain, however, remains the great outlier in so many things. The British drive on the left with steering wheels on the right, have an unwritten constitution, think Kylie Minogue is entertaining, and hold resolutely to the venerable old pound, or as people in posh financial circles like to call it, “sterling”. Continue Reading…