We didn’t hear a whole lot about this, and I’m still not sure I understand everything going on, but these pictures help describe a bit.  It’s weird to see a place on fire that I was visiting about a year ago.  You can tell by the pictures, the Greek youth are protesting/rioting against police who murdered a 15 year old.  Of course I’m sure the actions are also tied into the center-right government.

I believe these incidents are more controlled now, and I wouldn’t let it change travel plans to the area.  But that’s just my take.

So I’ve been bored with the “travel” biz lately. (there has been a lack of updates as of late) Let’s face it, it’s a slow time of year for travel, and things are tanking left and right pre-occupying our minds. But a new year is coming around so I put together a short list of some very well designed calendars for 2009…I’m not sure they are necessarily for sale, but that doesn’t really matter.

This one is by Yurko Gutsulyak:

This light minimalist vector designs seem to be popular this year. This one is from annacote at Etsy:

Yet another overpriced and cool calendar from Black Pearl Press:

Are you picking up on the popular style everyone seems to be doing. At least this wall calendar isn’t as overpriced…from Susy Jack:

All this has almost inspired me to create my own…probably more travel-based calendar for 2010. We’ll see.

Urbane Nomads is a new site/operation as far as I can tell. They call themselves ‘travel mixologists.’ I suppose what this means after reading their ‘about us’ is that they create off the road itineraries for the well off.

I’m a little mixed on Urbane Nomads myself. I don’t really admire companies that market themselves as designer, mod and upscale. But I do admire any tour outfit that can take you on a 13 day tour in Afghanistan. I think this company would be great for MBA grads. They’ve got money, they’re young enough to have a sense of design, and some understand that you have to get off the beaten path to see another (the real) culture of the place. And also…MBA grads lack vision and creativity in my opinion. Either way, Urbane Nomads has a rather inconsistent site with multiple font sizes and weird navigation. The map is very cool, yet it doesn’t do much….like I said…I’m still feeling ‘mixed’.