Twenty New Year Foods and Traditions Around the World

We found this at The Daily Meal at Yahoo Travel:

Twenty New Year Foods and Traditions Around the World

Before the clock strikes midnight on Jan. 1, people everywhere ring in the new year with celebratory food and drinks alongside family and friends. How we celebrate, though, depends on where in the world we are on the last day of the year because New Year’s traditions differ from country to country. But no matter where it’s celebrated, New Year’s is always welcomed with traditional food and drink.

Here in the United States, the beginning of a new year is celebrated with champagne toasts at midnight. In Estonia, it’s traditional to eat seven, nine, or 12 meals on New Year’s Eve, with part of each meal left unfinished for the spirits of ancestors who visit the house that day.

Germans celebrate the new year with jam-filled donuts and a mulled wine drink called feuerzangenbowle. And people in Scotland participate in the tradition of "first footing" on New Year’s Day, bringing gifts of shortbread, a black bun, and whisky to a neighbor’s house.

However you celebrate, there are plenty of ways to say "Happy New Year!" with food and drink. Read on to see New Year's food and drink traditions around the world, from Argentina to Japan to Wales.

On New Year’s Day, Argentineans eat beans, following the belief that eating beans will help them keep their current job or find a better job in the new year.

For good luck, Austrians serve roasted suckling pig on New Year’s Eve — which they call Sylvesterabend— and also decorate their dinner tables with little marzipan pigs. Pigs represent progress and prosperity in Austria as well as in other cultures, including Cuba, Hungary, and Portugal, where they also serve pigs on New Year’s Eve. To drink, Austrians sip on a red wine punch, mixed with cinnamon, sugar, and other spices, and give a toast to Saint Sylvester.

Unmarried women like to play games on New Year’s Eve in Belarus to predict who will marry in the new year. In one game, a pile of corn is set before each woman, then a rooster is let go. Whichever pile of corn the rooster feasts on first determines who will be married first. In another game, a married woman hides different items, one being bread and one being a ring, around her house, and her unmarried friends try to find them. Whoever finds the bread is said to marry a rich husband, and whoever finds the ring will marry a handsome one.

People in Denmark and Norway celebrate the new year with a dessert called kransekage, meaning "wreath cake." It is a tall, cone-shaped cake with many rings layered on top of one another. The cake is made with marzipan and is often decorated with ornaments of flags and firecrackers and a bottle of wine or Aquavit in the center. Another tradition, throwing dishes on a neighbor’s doorstep on New Year’s Day, is believed to guarantee many friends in the new year.

Some Estonians eat seven, nine, or 12 meals on New Year’s Eve, believing that with each meal eaten, they will gain the strength of that many men in the new year. Part of each meal, however, is left unfinished for the spirits of ancestors who visit the house on New Year’s Eve.

French New Year's is celebrated with a traditional meal of goose or turkey, oysters, foie gras, and champagne.

Once the clock strikes midnight and fireworks have been set off on New Year’s, Germans enjoy a traditional treat of jam-filled, and sometimes, liquor-filled, donuts called "Pfannkuchens" in Berlin and "Berliners" everywhere else in Germany. Sometimes, a donut may contain a practical joke, such as mustard instead of jam, which is considered by some to be bad luck. Like Austrians, Germans also dine on marzipan pigs for good luck on New Year’s Eve — which they call Sylvesterabend, meaning the eve of Saint Sylvester. A traditional drink consumed on New Year’s Eve is " feuerzangenbowle". To make the drink, warm mulled wine is mixed with cinnamon, cloves, and orange peel. A large, cone-shaped piece of sugar is soaked in rum, placed in a holder above the wine, and set on fire. Then, the sugar caramelizes and melts into the mulled wine. However, toasts at midnight are not given with this traditional drink, but instead with champagne.

Symbolizing birth and re-growth in the new year, in Greece an onion is hung on the front door on New Year's Day alongside a pomegranate (which is hung on Christmas). Later in the evening, a meal of roast lamb or pork is eaten, and an extra place is set at the table for Aghios Vassilis, or Santa Claus.

On New Year's Day, Italians feast on the traditional dish of cotechino e lenticchie , which is savory pork sausage containing "lo zampone," or the hoof of the pig, and paired with lentils. The hoof is considered to be a symbol of abundance and lentils are believed to bring good luck and prosperity in the new year.

 

Just before the clock strikes midnight, people in Japan begin the new year with a bowl of buckwheat noodlescalled toshikoshi soba, which are known as "year-crossing noodles." Other traditional foods eaten on New Year's include kuromame (sweet black beans), kazunoko (herring roe), kobumaki (rolled kelp), rice cakes, and shrimp.

 

With each chime at midnight, Mexicans eat a grape, representing a wish. A Mexican sweet bread called Rosca de Reyes, which is baked with a coin or charm for good luck, is also eaten. And whoever gets the slice with the coin or charm is believed to have good luck for the year. Salted codfish, warm tequila punch known as ponche, and fried fritters are a few other traditional New Year’s foods. 

 

People in the Netherlands ring in the new year — or what they call Oud en Nieuw, meaning "Old and New” — with sweets. Oliebollen, which are fried donut-like pastries that are filled with apples, currants, and raisins and sprinkled with powdered sugar, are served along with apple beignets, apple turnovers, and champagne.

In the Philippines, round shapes, which represent coins, are believed to symbolize prosperity in the new year. So Filipinos decorate their dining tables with all kinds of round fruit on New Year's Eve.

At the stroke of midnight, Polish people dine on pickled herring— which is plentiful in Scandinavia — believing it will bring a year of prosperity and bounty. Herring is often eaten with a midnight smorgasbord of smoked and pickled fish, pâté, and meatballs.

On New Year’s Eve, Russians decorate a Christmas-like tree, which they call "Novogodnaya Yolka" with sweets along with a bright star at the top. The tree is kept up until Jan. 14.

At midnight, Scots celebrate New Year's, which they call Hogmanay, with the tradition of the First Footing, in which a dark-haired male aims to be the "first foot" to enter a neighbor's house, bringing gifts of shortbread, a black bun, and whisky to toast the new year. The "first footer" is believed to have good luck in the coming year.

 

Just as Mexicans do, with every chime of midnight marking the new year, Spaniards eat a grape and make a wish.

 

On New Year's Eve, Swedes serve rice pudding with an almond hidden inside. It's believed that whoever finds the almond will receive 12 months of good fortune in the new year.

 

Americans celebrate New Year’s with a champagne toast at the stroke of midnight.

 

On New Year's morning, children in Wales are given skewered apples covered with raisins and other fruit. Bread and cheese are also commonly given as a gift.

 

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And after that champagne toast at the stroke of midnight,remember Excelsior Limousine is there to provide your transportation home in one of our town cars,

SUVs or limousines.  Happy 2014 to everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magic Reindeer with Kaleidoscope Eyes

There’s Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and then there are the reindeer in the Arctic that have eyes that change color with the season. Around Christmas the eyes of these special reindeer turn from gold to blue to help them cope with the harsh conditions at the top of the world.

Need a ride? Santa’s got reindeer to pull his sleigh. You’ve got Excelsior. SUVs, town cars and limousines. Just call 800 420 4252 for your reservation.

Bob Hope Airport. Thanks For the Memory...bership Points?

Bob Hope Airport is doing something new. They have a loyalty program. Members get one airline mile or two hotel points for every dollar spent shopping, eating or parking at the airport—and at almost 200 participating airport vendors nationwide. It’s called the Thanks Again Customer Loyalty program which includes Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, United ,US Airways and now Southwest. Also participating are Hilton Hotels and Hotel Amarno Burbank.  Travelers can enroll free at www.thanksagain.com/BUR or by texting FLYBUR to 82257 by using a credit or debit card. Even if travelers are enrolled in American Express, MasterCard or Visa cards, they can get additional miles/points when they shop or eat at airport sites.

Bizarre Travel

 We found this at Yahoo Travel

7 Bizarre European Tourist Destinations

Mental Floss
By Theodoros II

1. MEDIEVAL CRIME MUSEUM, GERMANY

The charming medieval city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, located in the Franconia region of Bavaria in Germany, has become a tourist hot spot. But one of its chief attractions is decidedly not charming: the Medieval Crime Museum , which is dedicated to the horror of the Dark Ages. It’s full of creepy exhibits and instruments of torture, including the Schandmaske—a mask of shame made for public humiliation and ridicule. Each mask is designed to fit its victim’s crime (one mask on display even has a muzzle shaped like a pig’s snout). There's also a torture chair for bakers who sold undersized loaves of bread and a spinning Catherine wheel that victims were strapped to during public execution.

2. PETRIFIED FOREST OF LESBOS, LESVOS, GREECE

Greece's Petrified forest of Lesbos has been declared a protected monument of nature. The protected zone covers an area of 150,000 acres and includes hundreds of fossilized conifer trunks and fruiting trees. Volcanic materials blanketed the forest more than 20 million years ago, which caused it to become petrified. Now, as the volcanic material erodes away, the beautiful colors and patterns of the stone tree trunks are exposed.

3. LIGHTHOUSES FOR RENT, CROATIA

Croatians have taken the modern-day hostel and transformed it into a unique experience with their rented lighthouses , which stretch along the Adriatic coast from Istria to Dubrovnik. For only $55 to $85 a day, visitors can spend the night in a private lighthouse on an isolated island. But the stay definitely isn't as glamorous as it might seem: Visitors report that the sheets are changed only once a week, and tourists need to bring their own water and supplies if they want to avoid drinking the reservoir water.

 

4. AVANOS HAIR MUSEUM, TURKEY

Thirty years ago, one of Chez Galip’s friends left town for good. Before leaving, the woman left him a lock of hair for him to remember her by. So the Turkish potter and artist created the Avanos Hair Museum under his pottery shop in Cappadocia. Since then, most women who visit the museum leave locks of their hair—labeled with their addresses—behind. The museum is filled with more than 16,000 hair samples, which adorn every surface but the floor.

5. DRACULA’S CASTLE, TRANSYLVANIA

Vampire lovers who find themselves in Transylvania might want to swing by Bran Castle, which is marketed as the home of Prince Vlad of Wallachia, aka Vlad the Impaler, the man who inspired Bram Stoker's Dracula. Located in the village of Bran on the border of Transylvania and Romania, the castle was the second-most expensive property in the world and valued at $140 million, according to a 2007 Forbes article.

6. CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR POWER PLANT, UKRAINE

At the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, daring tourists who aren't afraid of a little radiation can learn every detail of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and its effect on those who lived and worked around the area. Visitors will see a nuclear reactor, the ghost town of Pripyat, and the “red forest”—where nuclear radiation caused surrounding pine trees to turn a reddish orange. There is also the Chernobyl Museum in Kiev.

7. MUSEUM OF BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS, ZAGREB, CROATIA

Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić first conceived the idea of the Museum of Broken Relationships  when they combed through their collection of tokens and gifts they had exchanged during their relationship. They decided to exhibit them and asked their friends to contribute their own collections. Over the years, they created a huge collection of items donated by divorced couples. Lingerie, toothbrushes, clothes, wedding dresses, and dental floss are among the items on display in the museum.

At Excelsior Limousine we are happy to provide ground transportation to the airport for your travels to bizarre destinations. Need a town car or and SUV? We’ve got you covered.

Christmas Markets Around the World

From Yahoo Travel/The Daily Meal

Christmas Markets Around the World

Beginning in late November and running throughout December (and often into the new year) some of the most enchanting events take place across the world — Christmas markets. Now, we’re not talking about flea markets in Podunk, USA, that feature plastic snow globes and tacky glittered ornaments to put on your fake Christmas tree; we’re talking elaborate candlelit displays, gourmet baked goodies and mulled wine, and artisanal craftspeople that’ll have you feeling like you stepped through a time portal into a scene from centuries past, where the magic of Christmas feels real, and the scenery and soothing scents are guaranteed to uplift your spirits no matter what your religious convictions may be.

These Cristmas markets, also known as Holiday Markets, Christkindlmarkts (the spelling of this varies from city to city) or Weihnachtsmarkts, are based on a tradition that started way back in the late Middle Ages in German-speaking parts of Europe — a time when decorations and orna ments only came in handmade form from talented artists. Traditionally, these markets were held across Germany, Austria, Northern Italy, South Tyrol, and Alsace, but today these spirited celebrations can be found all over the world.

Unexpected places, such as Sapporo, Japan (which got into the mix because Munich is its sister city), and Quebec City now take part, turning sections of their cities into winter wonderlands you’d have to see to believe. Even spots in the United States, including New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, have put their own spin on the tradition, some of which invoke the ritual of incorporating a Christkind into the program, à la Nuremberg, Germany’s original market.

What is a Christkind, you ask?  While it literally translates to "Christ child" and it was imagined by many as a little boy, when it comes to these markets, the Christkind is an angelic woman with long, flowing blond locks topped with a gilded crown, dressed in a robe of white and gold, who is responsible for reciting the customary prologue to commence the festivities. At some markets, you’ll find the Christkind schmoozing with guests, spreading holiday cheer, and even reading Christmas stories to children.

If you find yourself in any of these cities during the holiday season, make a point to explore a Christmas market to see the lights, trees, and tinsel, smell the pine and spiced wine, and gawk at the gorgeous pieces of art and antiques on display and for sale. You’ll be able to score eclectic gifts for your whole network, and no matter how Grinch-like you may naturally be, you’re pretty much guaranteed (at least) a momentary flashback to your former, childlike self (if not a full-on regression to a stuttering, awestruck tyke at the sight of Santa Claus sitting in his cushy red chair.

Excelsior Limousine will be happy to give you a ride to the airport in one of our luxury town cars or SUVs to visit any of the above cities to indulge in holiday festivities.

 

New TSA PreCheck Applications Go Live

This from Budget Travel:

New TSA PreChecks Applications are Live

Okay, so the phrase "The new TSA PreCheck application form went live this week!" may not be quite as hot as, say, "So sorry, there's no room in coach, would you mind if we bump you up to first class?" But if you're not one of the 25 million airline passengers who have already used PreCheck to zoom through security (with your shoes, belt, and coat on and your laptop safely tucked away), it's time to sign up!

Read the guidelines carefully and be prepared to share your name as it appears on your identification documents, the date and location of your birth , contact info, physical description, and to answer questions about your past (such as criminal record, history of mental illness, and any changes to your name). Next step is to bring your application to an enrollment site, where you verify citizenship, show ID, and get—yup—fingerprinted. The good news is that TSA plans to open 300 such application centers. The bad news is that only centers in New York, Washington, and Los Angeles will be open by year's end and only one—at Indianapolis International Airport—is currently open. (Insert government-shutdown joke of your choice here.) But once you are enrolled, the TSA reports that PreCheck is available at more than 100 airports nationwide.  

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With Excelsior Limousine you'll have a relaxing ride before the stress of security checks at the airport. We've got town cars, SUVs or limousines for all of your ground transportation needs.  

Research Habits of Men and Women. TMI?

A study shows that half of all American travelers rely on smartphones to research holiday travel plans. Where they research travel plans is another story. It depends on gender. More women tend to do their research in bed. More men do their research in the bathroom. TMI?

Speaking of smartphones…did you know Excelsior Limousine has its own APP? Book your town car, SUV or limousine using your phone. We don’t need to know where you did your booking.