For a long time known simply as skiing wines, the best wines from Savoie deserve much greater recognition. After continued quality improvements in the wines over the past couple of decades, skiers coming to the French Alps should certainly consider adding on a day or two of vineyard visits in this beautiful French wine region in the foothills of the mountains.

Vancouver, Canada is a city that takes great pride in their multiculturalism. This Friday, Vancouver will make their biggest multicultural move yet by literally opening up their city to the world for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. This will mark British Columbia’s first time hosting the Olympic Games, although it is Canada’s third.

Hard to believe, really, but this month marks the tenth anniversary of my first major solo venture abroad. It was the year 2000. Not many months earlier I had finally finished twenty-one years of formal schooling.