Author: Ms. R.

El Viejo Hobbit (The Old Hobbit) opened the round doors to its round room in 1997, a mere year after Geraldine and Juan Pablo started selling their homemade cheese and sausages out of their garage. The couple built the first iteration of the restaurant next to their home, and quickly had to expand into the two-story building with an adjacent garden that it is today. It also serves at the family’s home, embodying the legendary hospitality of hobbits. In……

Read More

Ekranoplan is a Russian word describing so-called “ground-effect-vehicles.” They look like planes but are able to move over the surface by gaining support from the reactions of the air against the surface of the earth or water. “Lun” is a huge ekranoplan built in the USSR in 1987. It measures approximately 73 meters (240 feet) in length, almost 20 meters (65 feet) in height, and has a wingspan of 44 meters (144 feet). Only one vehicle of this class……

Read More

On an otherwise unremarkable Wednesday in 1978, photographer Mark Gubin was a bit bored at his studio. He decided to take a tub of white paint and write out “Welcome to Cleveland” in big block letters on his rooftop—nevermind that Gubin and his studio both reside in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The rooftop, and the “Welcome to Cleveland” sign that adorns it, line right up with the flight path to runway 19 at the Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport. Decades of perplexed……

Read More

This sculpture was made by Vera Mukhina in 1937 for the World Fair in Paris. It was meant to overshadow the Nazi German pavilion that was located opposite to Russian pavilion in the fair. In the end, both pavilions won a prize, to keep the political balance. After this event, the pavilion was moved to Moscow and was finally placed in front of the vast VDNKh complex. After the latest renovations, the whole sculpture complex is 58 meters (190……

Read More

Crawl down an abandoned mine shaft in the south of Spain and then descended further still via a narrow staircase and you’ll find yourself in a magical world: a cavern filled with human-sized, sparkling crystals. This is the Pulpí geode, the second-largest known geode in the world. The Pulpí geode sits 164 feet below Mina Rica, a silver mine on the coast of Almería that was abandoned in the 1960s. The natural wonder lying below the mine was discovered……

Read More

In a city filled with cinemas and movie lovers, there is no theatre in Portland whose facade can rival that of  the  Hollywood Theatre.  The Hollywood originally opened in 1926 as a silent movie theatre equipped with an 8-piece orchestra and an organist. The spot was such a popular destination that the entire neighborhood was dubbed “Hollywood.” This elaborate historic landmark was bought by the nonprofit Film Project Oregon in 1997, leading to a major restoration project after decades……

Read More

Jonathan Alberico has been collecting oddities and unusual antiques since his childhood. The first piece he collected was an anatomical human heart model. His parents owned an antique shop and he was drawn to weird items that no one else wanted. Alberico started working with dermestid beetles (flesh-eating beetles) while he was working on cleaning a piece used for art project in college. The interest developed from there and he now has colonies of beetles that clean most of……

Read More