Consider the map of Denmark for a moment. “We are almost completely surrounded by water,” says fiddler and composer Harald Haugaard. “Really, we have been a harbor for all kinds of musical influences from all over northern Europe.” Out of that, over centuries the Danish people have created a folk music all their own, reflecting their own landscape, character, and interests. Taking the story of Danish music to the world, and building on and extending its traditions, are the things Haugaard has chosen as his life’s work.

That’s been a clear path for him, although not at first a direct one. He began pla

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This past Friday night I went to the Rock Fashion Night, one of the events from Berlins Fashion Week. Basically it was a bunch of hipsters and sexy indie folks glammed up watching relatively attractive models who sported tattoos and odd facial expressions as they walked down a catwalk during two rock bands performances. Oh yeah, and at one point they climbed a ladder and just kind of stared into space. Fun? Genau. (translation: helll yeah)

The Rock Fashion Night party was open to the public, like a lot of the Berlin Fashion Week events, though Im not entirely certain this event was technically even part of Fashion Week.

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Eastern Europe is becoming popular with many travellers.

People in the UK who are looking to head off on adventurous holidays this summer are increasingly turning to new kinds of destinations in 2012 in order to make savings and see new areas of the world that they may not have had the chance to visit before.While many still enjoy taking out their travel insurance policies for holidays such as the traditional break on a Spanish beach, there are an increasing number who are looking to travel to places where they can undertake a more adventurous holiday, such as a hiking break or a mountaineering expedition.According to Nadine Hallak, travel expert at Cheapflights.co.uk, the destinations which are becoming more popular are mostly in Eastern Europe.She said that countries such as Macedonia and Romania are seeing a substantial increase in visitor numbers already this year, and also suggested another region further afield was quickly gaining momentum.”Vietnam is also a good choice – with new flights with Vietnam Airways the destination is likely to become even more popular and is a great choice for travellers looking for an adventure break, with plenty of activities on offer including biking and kayaking tours in the north.”Those who are heading off on adventure holidays need to make sure that they are buying themselves travel insurance policies which cover such breaks, as the cover often needs to be more extensive than standard ones because of the increased levels of danger.Recently, Rosie Fuller, editor of Adventure Travel Magazine, said that there had been a huge increase in the number of people looking to travel to Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan. Read full topic…

If you were told that you could get paid $6,000 a WEEK to play in the sand, stay in fancy hotels, eat amazing meals and get lots of publicity, would you do it? Ok, ok, so maybe play in the sand isnt the correct word but it feels funny saying work when Im talking about sand. In any case, it appears that some people actually do make $6,000 a week to build sand castles. And thats just not fair.

Or maybe it is. Ok, it definitely is. These arent just people playing with buckets theyre educated mechanical engineers and teachers who happen to be really good at building stuff in sand.

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