Carnival Here, Cities Everywhere

It’s time for the carnival to set up here at Budget Globetrotting, and there are seven festivals joining us this week. Most of the jamborees will be taking place in North America, but one is featuring a party across the pond, and another is in good ole Russia. So put your party hat on and follow us through the Carnival of cities.

Starting in the east and moving west with the horizon we start with Jul’s guide Doing Dublin posted at his non-American Life. His experiences with Dublin’s Guinness and microbrews makes me jealous, and it’s a great read to get the party started for this traveling carnival.

Next, we arrive in New England’s Beantown (pictured above) to work off the calories we acquired in Dublin. Marilyn Terrell’s post about Biking Boston from National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel discusses new Boston bike coaches and the joys of riding around Boston. Heavy road traffic, flat terrain, and great views are a few attractive reasons to go green and get outside while Biking Boston.

South of the border in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, there’s a very interesting post about Protests and Painted Walls from Kate and Neil’s Official Website. The post talks about the beautiful, if you can call it that, graffiti that originated from the political unrest in the area from the NAFTA. The graffiti art is very attractive, and the post is very insightful.

Up in rainy Seattle, the carnival’s euphoria is dampened a bit by Mary Jo Manzanares post about how their Freeway Closure Means Weeks of Heavy Seattle Traffic. The Seattle Traveler is home to this post covering this unfortunate event, but taking Minneapolis’ recent bridge collapse into consideration, the heavy traffic in Seattle isn’t too grave of a situation.

Just a bit north in Vancouver Isabella presents her post on the History includes Hawaiians in Coal Harbour posted at her Coal Harbour blog. The post, as its titled, discusses the history of the Coal Harbour area, if you’re interested in that type of thing.

Down the coast in San Diego, a lively competition created by Carole Lane keeps carnival goers entertained. The San Diego Beat presents the 27th Annual U.S. Open Sandcastle Competition which is home to several amusing photos of the sandcastle competition. By unanimous decision, Hogwarts has won the design competition in the eyes of the editors here at Budget Globetrotting, because Harry Potter is just too hot right now.

Before the carnival comes to a close, we’re going overseas once again to St. Petersburg, Russia, where Stacey visits Church on the Spilled Blood (at her creatively titled blog the travels of stacey) . I had a hard time actually reading her entry with all the great photos filling the page around the text. Stacey shows why the Church on the Spilled Blood is one of the most recognized churches in the world.

So that brings a wrap to this weeks Carnival of Cities. For more information on future and past carnivals, and for info on submitting your blog entry in the future, check it out at Home Turf Media.