Wine flows on top of battlefields

When, due to EU laws, some countries had to stop using the term ‘champagne’ for sparkling wines produced outside of Champagne, the change was met with sarcasm and reluctance. Yet the history of Champagne and champagne is more about a local workers’ struggle against unfair trade than about French exceptionalism.

Trying to scratch the surface in London

London has become such a usual travel destination for Central and Eastern European people that it would be difficult to surprise them with anything. Cheap flights to most European countries allow going there for business or for pleasure separatly, without the urge to explore everything possible in one go, and some people already go there only for shopping, or academic …

Sunny and artsy Metz

Metz (Northeast France) is excellent for a day trip, particularly when you are sick and tired of this year’s Europe’s prolonged winter. With a cute mixture of 13 century religious architecture, some French rationalist planning, astonishingly large and centrally located green spaces, and art venues, the city is simply a pleasant place to be, although, as some of us noticed, …

The ABC of this year’s travels

I found a fun questionnaire on this blog and decided to use it to ‘close’ 2011 on Wonderland. This year was exceptionally full of travelling, for which I feel grateful. I went somewhere almost every month. I visited 3 continents, 12 countries (6 of them – for the first time) and 21 cities. True, I didn’t blog on Wonderland much, …

Translating between regular language and economics

Have you ever noticed that the best compliment students give their professors is something along these lines: “S/he is capable of explaining complicated things in such a simple manner”? Teaching and research, as well as the media, is often about translation: from specific to abstract, from sound/view to words, from one culture to another. And some scientists work very hard …