Author: Ms. R.

During the Passover Seder, Jews eat from a table filled with symbolic food, such as bitter herbs and matzoh, contemplating the dishes’ relationships to Jews’ escape from Egypt. For most Ashkenazi Jews, who trace their ancestry to Central and Eastern Europe, the rest of the meal includes traditional favorites such as potato kugel, gray lumps of gefilte fish, and other dishes evoking a European motherland. But at the end of the Seder, most Ashkenazim indulge in a more recent……

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On the outskirts of Auburn, New York, lies the state’s oldest operating drive-in movie theater. First opened on July 15, 1947, the Finger Lakes Drive-In continues to broadcast films for moviegoers while maintaining the classic drive-in feel. When using the quintessential drive-in speakers, coupled with a heavily wooded background, various movie relics scattered across the property (including a Jeep from Jurassic Park), and the retro-style snack bar, watching a flick here gives a real decades-old throwback feeling for moviegoers…….

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When you cross the picturesque Bonifacius Bridge heading West, look up to your right, where you’ll see a teeny tiny stained glass window set in the wall of the Gruuthusemuseum. Though there is not much specific information available from the museum, it’s been called the smallest window in Bruges, the smallest Gothic window in Europe, and the smallest Gothic window in the world. Either way, it’s adorable!…

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In the quiet, inner area of Buffalo’s Erie Basin along the city’s Lake Erie waterfront stands a granite memorial dedicated to the Great Famine in Ireland that occurred in the mid-1800s.  The memorial was dedicated in 1997 and is situated in a well with the biblical verse Luke 19:40 on its base in Irish. 32 boulders are along its outer ring representing the 32 counties of Ireland with names of survivors inscribed on them with several stones being left……

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At the Matenadaran, a museum in Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan, is a manuscript written in Middle Armenian, an archaic version of the language used today. It’s a little mysterious, but researchers believe it presents the recipe for a cake or sweet bread: The list of ingredients seems to contain sugar, flour, and nuts. Another manuscript, probably even older, has a diagram of a cow and its cuts on one of the yellow stained pages. The Matenadaran (known in……

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Each year from July to August, the Mendenhall River greenbelt comes alive with an explosion of fireweed flowers. This meadow by the Brotherhood Bridge is filled with the tall, showy wildflowers, which blanket the land in magenta blossoms sometimes used to make brightly-colored syrup or jelly. The Brotherhood Bridge was designed by Roy Peratrovich, Jr, who was a leader of the Alaska Native Brotherhood, to connect Glacier Highway across the Mendenhall River. Though originally built in 1965, the current bridge was completed in 2015….

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When Fort Churchill was constructed alongside the Carson River and on the Pony Express route in 1861, it was meant to serve multiple purposes. First, to intimidate local Confederate sympathizers; and second, to intimidate the local Paiutes. The fort was constructed of adobe, with bricks made from local mud, and with sparing use of timber for roof beams and lintels. (Timber had to be brought in from the Carson Range some 30-35 miles west.) The post, although very remote……

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Julie Oliver is an Idaho Falls native who spent her childhood watching horror movies with her parents and had an older brother who was into heavy metal. As a result, Oliver developed an attraction to the macabre and a collection of unusual things.   She opened Shaddow Domain, which has the tagline “Curious Things for Curious People” in 2002. The shop is located in a historic building that was built in 1903 and was once home to a brothel. A……

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