The importance of chat rooms when we move to a new city

As you probably know from your own personal experience, when we move to a new district or a new city, we often face some exclusion at the beginning and it is often extremely difficult for us to meet some new friends.

Keeping this in mind, chat rooms tend to play a very important role as they allow us to meet new people in whichever city we want in just a few minutes! In fact, I am planning to move to Melbourne in the next few months in order to expand my growing business and I am already joining the best melbourne chat room available on the Internet! If you live in Melbourne or if you are planning to move to that amazing place, why don’t you also join the free chat room to which I have linked just above?

Discovering the volcanoes all around the globe

When considering your favorite destinations all around the world, you probably don't think about volcanoes and how active they might be but the truth is that it is extremely important that we are aware of the fact that they may "wake up" at any moment and we must be prepared for it! If you would like to know more about these volcanoes, then you should read the msnbc.com article just below:

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By Jeff Koyen

“Volcanoes form mountains; supervolcanoes erase them. Volcanoes kill plants and animals for miles around; supervolcanoes threaten whole species with extinction by changing the climate across the entire planet ... Is it going to blow again?”

What sounds like an advertisement for Hollywood's latest apocalyptic blockbuster are actually the words of Joel Achenbach, Washington Post reporter and science writer. In the August 2009 issue of National Geographic, he wrote about the Yellowstone Supervolcano that sits beneath our beloved national park. When Yellowstone eventually blows sometime in the next 100,000 years (or so), it will make Mount St. Helens look like a geological indigestion.

Fortunately, supervolcanoes are very rare. Volcanoes, however, are all around us.

“On any given day there are probably 25 volcanoes erupting around the world,” William Rose, a professor of Geological Engineering and Sciences at Michigan Technological University, told Space.com. Rose described volcanoes as an “immediate and constant threat to people around the world.”

To identify the world's deadliest volcanoes, we must sometimes rely on educated guesses and estimates culled from contemporary accounts. As for future deadliness, we can refer to the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior (IAVCEI), which has compiled a list of the 16 most dangerous volcanoes in the world. These are called the Decade Volcanoes.

Guatemala's Santa Maria volcano is on the IAVCEI's list. The volcano known locally as “Gagxanul,” in the Sierra Madre range, had sat quietly for more than 500 years. But when she exploded in 1902, her blast was the 20th century's third-most violent eruption — after Alaska's Novarupta in 1912 and Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991.

The explosion is described as “colossal” on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, or VEI, and destroyed 120,000 square miles of countryside and killed 5,000. More died from malaria in the weeks following. In recent decades, Santa Maria herself has been relatively quiet, but a new lava dome formed nearby in 1922. Named Santiaguito, this baby volcano has already destroyed villages, roads and bridges with deadly flows of volcanic material.Central and South America are highly volcanic areas. History has recorded hundreds of eruptions across the region, but none have taken as many lives as the eruption of Colombia's Nevado del Ruiz. Despite warnings of imminent eruption, the residents of Armero, in the Andean region, failed to evacuate their homes. (A number of false alarms had inured them to the danger.)

When the mountain finally exploded on November 11, 1985, a deadly surge of volcanic material engulfed the entire town, killing more than 23,000. Today, memorial sites stand where much of the city and victims remain buried under solidified mud and ash.

When we think of volcanoes, we think about lava. And when we think of lava, we think of heat. That's why Iceland doesn't immediately come to mind when considering deadly volcanoes. But the 40,000-square-mile island was created by — and still sits atop — countless volcanoes that are responsible for the country's famous hot springs. In 1783, the world learned of Iceland's potential for geological catastrophe with the Laki eruption, which released clouds of poisonous hydrofluoric acid and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. Three-quarters of Iceland's cattle were killed, resulting in the Haze Famine that took 10,000 lives. Thousands more Europeans may have died in the unusually harsh winter caused by the debris thrown into the atmosphere.

Volcanoes specialize in throwing ash, pumice and other harmful materials into the air. In fact, that's usually how many victims perish. In 79 A.D., Mt. Vesuvius covered Pompeii and its sister city, Herculaneum, beneath 60 feet of ash, killing an estimated 10,000. That's not the last time the world felt the wrath of Italy's sole mainland volcano — in 1631, Vesuvius claimed another 6,000 lives, a 1906 eruption killed 100 and several villages were lost in 1944.

For good reason, Vesuvius is considered the most dangerous volcano in Europe. Volcanologists estimate that in the first 15 minutes of a large-scale eruption, everything within a four-mile radius of the blast could be destroyed. Today, approximately one million people live within that kill zone, with another two million nearby.

Hawaii has the world's most active volcano, Kilauea, but it doesn't rate when we turn to the plural, volcanoes. That honor goes to Indonesia. Thanks to its prime position along the Pacific Ring of Fire, this collection of 17,000 islands claims the most active volcanoes in the world. It can also claim the incident whose name has become synonymous with cataclysm: Krakatau. When this island volcano blew its top in 1883, 36,000 perished.

But even Krakatau isn't the deadliest eruption the world has witnessed. It's not even the deadliest eruption in Indonesia. That honor goes to Mt. Tambora, whose massive 1815 eruption killed 12,000 in the blast and another 80,000 from starvation. That's not the end of the story. Tambora ejected so much ash into the atmosphere that the world experienced an artificial winter.

In fact, 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer — thanks in no small part to Tambora's eruption. Several regions of the U.S., normally warm, saw snow during the months of July and August. Best estimates may put Tambora's death toll at 92,000 — but it's impossible to calculate the global havoc caused by this geological disaster. Like every other volcano on this list, Mt. Tambora remains active.

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Preparing your own wedding

As a woman who really knows what is important in life, I would personally say that apart from our job and all the leisure activities, family is one of the most important things in life. In fact, as a woman I have dreamed with my wedding until it finally became a fact and this is something that tends to happen with every woman, who normally get extremely excited with the wedding and all the preparations around it!

Keeping this in mind, if you are also planning your wedding and looking for some new great ideas to make it even more special, then I would personally advise you to have a look at these fully customizable wedding invitations and see the wide range of designs that will surely meet your expectations. Moreover, as these wedding invitations are customizable, you can really make them extremely personal and different from each other, allowing your friends and family to feel even more special and important in your life!

Gdansk: history waiting to be discovered

Would you consider yourself a person who loves history and discovering new cities? Would you like to discover some historical European cities such as Gdansk? If that's the case, then you definitely need to read the msnbc.com article just below and discover how incredibly affordable it is to discover on of these important cities that will surely surprise you:

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By Rick Steves

Tribune Media Services

Standing at the end of Gdansk's long wooden pier, I realize that I can see two of the most important sites in 20th-century history: the spit of land where World War II began, and the shipyard where the Cold War started its long and gradual final act.

Many people imagine this northern-Poland city to be a wasteland of rusted, smoke-belching shipyards. But that's just one view of this multifaceted place. Gdansk boasts an illustrious history and one of the most picturesque old quarters in Eastern Europe.

Gdansk's magnificent Main Town features block after block of red brick churches and colorful, ornately decorated mansions. As one tourist gasped to me, "It's like stepping into a Faberge egg."

A stroll along the main drag, ulica Dluga, allows you to soak in the city's gorgeous architectural cancan. During the Golden Age, these eclectic homes (inspired by a wide range of people, including the Jews, Dutch, Italians and Germans) were taxed based on frontage, so they were built skinny and deep. The widest houses belonged to the super-elite.

War in Europe deestroyed the city
This lovely street wasn't always so lively and carefree. On Sept. 1, 1939 — nearly 70 years ago to this date — Adolf Hitler invaded this once-German city, sparking World War II. By the end of the war, nearly 80 percent of the city had been destroyed, and the main street lay in ruins. Locals stubbornly rebuilt their town with the help of detailed drawings and photographs, mostly using the original brick. Today, excursion boats ferry history buffs through shipyards to Westerplatte point, where the war's first shots were fired.

Right outside the Main Town's Golden Gate, you'll find the Amber Museum, dedicated to the globby yellow stuff that's sold all over the city. Almost 75 percent of the world's amber — a fossilized tree resin — is mined in northern Poland, much of it washing up on beaches following winter storms.

Amber comes in 300 distinct shades, from yellowish-white to yellowish-black, opaque to transparent. I didn't believe it either, until I toured the museum, which shows off amber clocks, amber chandeliers, amber beer steins, a model ship with delicate amber sails — you get the idea. There's even an unfinished altar made entirely of amber at St. Bridget's Church.

If you're interested in visiting a milk bar (bar mleczny), Bar Mleczny Neptun in the Main Town is the city's most popular. Milk bars are government-subsidized cafeterias, a holdover from Poland's communist days, when lowly workers could barely afford to eat out.

Bar Mleczny Neptun has more charm than most milk bars, thanks to its outdoor seating along the most scenic stretch of the main drag. Load your tray with traditional Polish foods, such as borscht or pierogis, pay the cashier, and do a double-take when you realize how little you spent. My bill for a full meal usually comes to about four or five dollars.

Shipyard birthplace of Solidarity movement
Just 15 minutes north of the Main Town, the charms of the old core fade quickly as you come across the Gdansk Shipyard. Here, in the place that Solidarity leader Lech Walesa called the "cradle of freedom," a motley collection of brave shipyard workers took on and ultimately ended the USSR's stranglehold on Eastern Europe.

In August of 1980, a shipyard crane operator and known dissident was fired unceremoniously, sparking a strike. Upon hearing this news, Walesa — an electrician who had been fired for being an agitator — rushed to the shipyard and scaled the wall to get inside and rally the protestors.

Near the shipyard, the excellent "Roads to Freedom" exhibit tells the inspiring story of those workers and re-creates the difficult communist reality they were struggling to change. A typical phone booth is marked Automat Nieczynny — "Out of Order" — as virtually all phone booths were back then. An authentic WC is stocked only with old newspapers (actual toilet paper was cause for celebration).

A replica of a typical 1970s grocery store captures the desperate days when government rationing led to rampant food shortages. You'll see a display case filled with phony wheels of cheese marked "fake," a loaf of bread with a cigarette butt baked into it, and shelves stocked only with vinegar and mustard (about all you could buy during lean times).

Nearly 20 years after the fall of communism, Gdansk is changing. Neighborhoods that were World War II rubble a few years ago are now being remade into posh condos and shopping malls, and a futuristic stadium shaped like a translucent glob of amber is being built to host the 2012 Euro Cup soccer tournament.

Despite modernization, Gdansk will always have a powerful history. Exploring the lanes of this city, I always imagine that around each corner, I might bump into old Lech Walesa — now happily retired — still wandering the time-passed streets.

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