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When you opt for a cheap travel to Europe, the city of Amsterdam should be your best choice. The city offers cheap relatively compared to most European cities but not sacrificing the quality of the trip.

The city…

Amsterdam is undoubtedly a beautiful city. No wander it is the fourth most visited cities in the region just after Paris, Rome, and London. Most of the population speaks either French or German or both. The people also can speak English and Dutch as well. The area is relatively flat. You cannot find slopes and hills unlike other European cities. If you want to roam Amsterdam by foot, it is very conducive for hiking. This would save you from the trouble of renting a car or hiring a taxicab to transport you within the city. And since Amsterdam has lots of sights to offer, hiking would be fill up the day while spending some time on different attractions the city has to offer.

If you don’t feel the idea of hiking, Amsterdam provides not only cheap but free transportation. White-bikes are located in abundance in the city. In fact there are over 700,000 bikes waiting for you. You can hop on one of these communal bikes at one place then drop it off on the other. They are stationed in different point of the city so you won’t get a hard to locate one.

Not into biking and hiking but still opting for cheap Amsterdam vacation? You can always ride any of the public transportation within the city. Amsterdam offers some of the best train, bus, and tram systems in Europe. They are cheap and the service is extremely good.

The attraction…

Amsterdam is lined with several museums and monuments often time just a shot away from one another. To be exact, Amsterdam has 42 museums and almost 7,000 monuments within its limits. And if you want to visit them without confusion, the city has prepared 7 waking routes, marked especially for you.

You can see the works of Hals, Vermeer, Rembrandt, and several other world-renowned artists in Amsterdam’s most famous museum- the Rijks museum. A Van Gogh admirer? Vincent Van Gogh has his own museum located near Rijks. For a more contemporary and modern pictures, paintings, and pottery, you can visit Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art. For a closer feel of Amsterdam during the 1600s, you can visit the Museum Willet-Holthuysen that is considered World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

When you visit during summer (July-August), expect to see bed of Tulips along with other Holland’s pride- narcissus, daffodils, and other flowers.

Canal attraction is superb. During summer, you can tour the city by boat. The city’s canal stretches up to 100KM giving you an alternative way to see the city. During winter, the same canal freezes and transforms into a sporting site where skating events take place.

The rates…

Amsterdam is not a typical European city where you have to spend so much to survive. It does not charge premium rates like any other European cities. You can stay at one of the hostels in Amsterdam under $70. Dining is also very affordable in the city. You can survive a decent meal for under $15. Transportation is also cheap. Tram pass could be purchase at around $5 for unlimited ride for the day.

Picturesque view and rich culture and history give every reason to travel to Amsterdam. And with prices are relatively cheap, you surely would enjoy your stay at Amsterdam.

There has been a strong trend recently towards on-line greeting cards, or e-cards, as they are more commonly referred to. The automatic assumption would then be that normal greeting cards, the traditional hallmark (bad pun intended) of birthdays, holidays, and graduations would be on the decline, but according to Hallmark Cards and American Greetings (by far and away the two largest producers of greeting cards in the United States) that is not the case, and both companies have actually continued to sell more cards the last few years than before.

According to recent numbers, there were literally billions of greeting cards bought last year. This is a staggering number, and seems to show two things: 1) e-cards would have to go an incredibly long way, indeed, to even make a dent in these greeting card giants, and 2) the e-card take over has not been as sudden or complete as many people assumed it would be. E-mail and e-cards promised to revolutionize the business of saying ,”I Love You,” but so far that sentiment has not caught on.

Even as more and more electronic greetings make their way to e-mail accounts all around the world, the old fashioned ink-on-paper greetings have held their ground–a fact many people attribute to the irreplaceable feeling of opening, and even saving, a physical card from an old friend, lover, or family member. Over the past few years, greeting card retail growth has been mostly from the sales of cards for everyday situations, and not, as commonly thought, for holidays. A study done by a committee put together by a conglamorate of greeting cards companies found one of the main reasons consumers head toward greeting cards rather than hashing out their feelings in a letter is because greeting cards “make it easy to express feelings” and “help people express them selves better than they can alone.”

Despite the boom of e-cards, more than 90% of U.S. households were part of a year that created over $7.5 billion dollars last year. A second thought on why greeting cards continue to do well is the tradition of saving Christmas cards, which for many people, is the “catch up on all this year’s news” for old friends and acquaintances. There are also graduations and birthdays, which often involve relatives giving money, which is very easy, and discretely done, through cards, and doesn’t show any signs of slowing soon.

Want to develop a direct communication line with your web site visitors without spamming? Develop an opt-in list with a large subscribers’ base. You will be able to send personalized emails to your subscribers who have expressed their willingness to receive informative as well as commercial offerings from you. However, you have to tread a fine line between annoying your visitors and making them volunteer the information you need. Knowing the right strategy and implementing it correctly will decide whether your offerings end up in spamboxes or inboxes. These seven steps will guide you in the right direction.

1. Decide what information you need to collect. Names and email addresses are the minimum. Do you need their home address, their gender, or their age group? Don’t collect information that you don’t have any plan to use. Don’t collect information for any anticipated future use. You may get plenty of chances to collect those information from a revised list of prospects. Keep the information collection to the absolute minimum.

2. Publish a privacy policy and provide a link at the point in the web page where you collect users’ information. Mention in bold letters that you don’t sell their emails to others and practice the same. Your opt-in list is very valuable and don’t sell it to others for a few bucks. Don’t violate the trust of your visitors and ruin your reputation.

3. Provide instant incentives for subscribing to your offerings. Free e-books, report, software, video tutorials, etc. that interest to your target audience are very effective incentives. If you have a paid member’s only area, you can provide time limited access to that section of your web site in exchange for their subscriptions.

4. Publish your past offerings in your website. Each offering should be in the form of a newsletter with quality contents that improve your readers’ quality of life. Conclude your contents with your commercials that explain the benefits of products or services you are selling.

5. Set up a discussion board (forum) at your site and make it available to registered members only. The discussion board should focus on your target market. By scanning the posts and their threads, you will be able to identify problems your visitors are trying to solve. Do your research and find solutions to those problems, organize them and publish those solutions your newsletter.

6. Use Co-registration. This will build your list rapidly in a short amount of time. What is co-registration? It refers to the practice of referring subscriptions or leads for memberships with another registration process. There are several ways of doing this.

When a visitor signs up for a free subscription or other service, give them the chance on the thank-you page to opt-in to another offer. Another way is give the visitors to a website the opportunity to sign up for another opt-in list. These do not need to be your thank-you pages or websites. You need to partner up with another web marketer.

The goal here is to find other website owners who you can joint venture with you to offer your newsletter along with theirs. Do a search via your favorite search engine and directories for similar offers and contact the people to set up your joint venture.

Two additional secrets to this co-registration process. First, make sure you offer more value than the other party involved in your joint venture. Second, offer your leads you get from this process more value than you usually offer by giving them a huge giveaway only available to them.

7. Use Squidoo, a social media website, to create lenses. A lens is a web page on any idea. Provide a RSS feed of your website on your lens. Embellish your lens with YouTube videos and Flickr photos related to your target market. Squidoo splits its revenue with lens creators (or lensmasters). Sign up to donate all your revenue from Squidoo lenses to a non-religious charity. Call for action by announcing that subscribers are helping a charity by joining your list.

UK travel insurance options, in addition to full year UK travel insurance coverage, are numerous: one-trip or multiple-trip designs, extended stay, business travel designs, several designed for family travel, and even three that’s focused on the needs of backpacking travelers.

If you are travelling in the UK, or a UK citizen travelling elsewhere, you have lots of options including full year travel insurance. While the occasional traveler such as a vacationer may not find full year travel insurance preferable to the one-trip options, business travelers or other frequent travelers may opt for full year travel insurance as the best time saving and money saving choice.

Instant quotes are available online. On three informative UK site your instant quote is given individually for your choice of single trip, annual (also known as multiple trip) or backpacker.

With about every plan lost luggage coverage can be included or deleted a la carte, since travelers may find that this protection is included in their homeowners’ owner. Full year UK travel insurance, as well as three or multiple trip options, also includes medical coverage while participating in most sports, although you sometimes must choose this option for the coverage.

Let’s take a look at the full year UK travel insurance quote.

For this quote you are asked to register and then choose destinations. The location choices for this full year UK travel insurance plan are for travel specific to the UK, travel within all of Europe, travel worldwide with the exception of the United States and the Caribbean, word travel that includes the U.S. and the Caribbean, or travel in Australia and/or New Zealand. they indicated that they’re a couple – 45 and 43 years of age – with no children under 19 accompanying us, that they’re travelling throughout all of Europe starting September 1st of 2005, and that they’re going to participate in winter sports.

The highest premium full year UK travel insurance product, offered an amazingly high ceiling on medical coverage – over $17 million -included compensation for any loss of limbs, dental coverage, mountain search and rescue and repatriation for medical emergency.

The quotes, converted from British pounds to U.S. dollars, ranged between $92 and $255, depending on the extent of coverage. At the low end of the full year UK travel insurance coverage they found lower ceilings on medical coverage. These quotes also excluded lost baggage coverage and some sports coverage. An accident during a round of golf, for example, was not included in this quote.

Childhood obesity is at alarming levels in this county. Children in the San Francisco Schools are no exception. Too much television and video games, and too little time spent playing outside has led to an epidemic of juvenile health issues. It sure doesn’t help that the San Francisco Schools have had to cut funding for physical education over the years. But the 2007-2008 school year does have something positive going for it. Several San Francisco Schools will provide fresh salad bars, whole grain options, and whole fruits and vegetable in their cafeterias.

Twenty six San Francisco Schools from elementary to high school will benefit from a half a million dollar grant from the mayor’s office and the Department of Children, Youth, and their families. This is a big deal. The fact that a school district has actually recognized the importance of nutrition in education is enormous. For the past few decades public education has acted as if the only aspect of learning we should worry about are test scores. The San Francisco Unified School District has been forced to slash the arts, physical education, and anything not seen to directly affect standardized tests.

How Does Nutrition Affect San Francisco Schools Students?

Teachers in the San Francisco Schools know that a child’s academic success lies in several factors: home environment, proper nutrition, and a good night sleep greatly impact a student’s ability to pay attention and retain information. The fast food generation currently attending the San Francisco Schools needs to be made aware of how nutrition choices will affect their health. But it’s a pretty safe bet that the San Francisco Schools don’t have much extra time to teach daily health classes. That’s OK, what they’re doing now might be even better.

Schools need to lead by example. Just think of the message that it sent to children to have soda in vending machines and options like chips, ice cream and fatty meals for lunch fare. The San Francisco Schools are setting an example that the rest of the nation needs to emulate. It’s high time that schools look at the messages they are sending to our children.

What Else Can the San Francisco Schools Do?

While healthier school lunches are a huge improvement to the San Francisco Schools, the reality is that every public school district in the country is struggling to succeed. The San Francisco Schools experimented with the salad bars with pilot programs in a few of the schools last year. Hopefully more San Francisco Schools will follow this example next year. It is more costly for the San Francisco Schools to provide this fresher fare than canned vegetables and mystery meat? I’m sure it is. But the San Francisco Schools will recoup the cost in children who are more likely to pay attention (maybe less ADD diagnoses), higher test scores, children who are less fussy, and who appreciate the taste of fresh foods.

There are just a small handful of states that do not require drivers to purchase car insurance and Iowa is one of those states. However, while Iowa may not require that you purchase car insurance, Iowa does require that you be able to prove financial responsibility in the event that you are involved in an accident.

In practice this is a fine line, and most Iowans choose the easy way out and purchase car insurance although there are several other, more torturous, methods of proving financial responsibility.

Also, if you finance an automobile then your lender will require that you purchase car insurance.

So in practice it is obvious that the majority of drivers are interesting in finding ways to save money and get discount car insurance here in Iowa.

Keeping your driving record clean is probably the single biggest thing you can do to keep your car insurance rates as low as possible. If you get a speeding ticket, a reckless driving citation, or any moving violation then you can count on your insurance premiums to begin climbing.

If you are convicted of Driving Under the Influence (DUI) or if you are convicted of Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) then your rates will skyrocket.

If you have multiple tickets or convictions, or several accidents or recent insurance claims, you may find that most companies will simply refuse to insure you and you will be forced to get insurance from a high-risk insurer – with rates that will be through the roof.

The lesson here is to simply drive safely, responsibly and legally at all times.

If you’re under age 25 then you already know that your car insurance is expensive. You can lower your rates somewhat by staying in school and maintaining at least a “B” grade point average. Doing this will qualify you for a Good Student Discount which could save you about 5% on your car insurance premium.

Older drivers, those 55 and over, may be able to take a special driver’s refresher course. Not every insurance company offers such a course, but if your company does – and you pass it – you can often save 10% or even more on your monthly premium.

If you only drive occasionally you should check with your agent about a low-mileage discount.

If you drive an older vehicle that has little or no Kelly Blue Book value then you are probably throwing your money away if you purchase collision or comprehensive insurance since your insurance company will only give you Blue Book value for your vehicle in any case.

Before purchasing a vehicle you should talk to your agent about the cost of insurance for the particular model you have your eye on – some car makes and models are far more expensive to insure than others so you can save a great deal each month simply by choosing the proper vehicle to begin with.

Choosing the right deductible can also reduce your monthly car insurance premium. Consider your deductible carefully as you will be asked to pay your deductible out of your own pocket in case of a claim, but the higher your deductible the lower your monthly insurance premium.

Finally it’s time for you to go online and find at least 3 different websites that allow you to make head-to-head comparisons of different car insurance policies from different insurance companies. Don’t just make comparisons on one site and think that you have found the best discount policy available. Since no one site compares all insurance companies you will need to fill out the forms on at least 3 different websites and then compare everything before you know which company will give you the best policy at the deepest discount price.

We live in the information age. We have grown so accustomed to information at the speed of light that the prospect of not having immediate access to countless numbers of facts and figures with the mere click of a few buttons for many of us is simply disconcerting. For this reason, it only makes sense that there are many people across the nation and around the world that are embracing the idea of online learning and educational opportunities with every ounce of enthusiasm they can muster.

At the same time there are equal numbers of people around the world who are trying desperately to hold on to traditional methods of dealing with certain things. In fact, some people actually still play solitaire with a deck of playing cards. For people who feel that the information age has left them behind to some degree the chances are quite good that online learning may not be the best available option for you.

Below you will find a few questions that can help you narrow down whether or not you would truly benefit by taking some of the many online courses that are being offered in today’s information age of learning.

1) Are you disciplined? This may seem like such an innocuous question because we would all like to think that we are disciplined to some degree. The problem is that when you are in the driver’s seat for your own education you need to have a little more than some small degree of discipline. You need to be able to meet deadlines, take the tests, and hold yourself responsible for actually learning the information that you need to learn in order to pass the course. There is no one to blame but yourself if you do not manage to do well in your online classes and some people simply do not like being in the drivers seat when it comes to motivating and pacing themselves and their learning practices.

2) How do you learn best? We all have different methods of learning for which we retain information better than others. Online courses are reading intensive. If you have difficulties retaining the information you read you may need to find an alternate learning method or seek solutions with the assistance of the course instructor before moving forward in an online learning environment.

3) Do you have a true desire to succeed? The answer to this question is quite important in determining whether or not online learning is in your best interest. There are many paths you can take in order to achieve the education and degree you desire. This is not the path of the masses, at least not yet. This type of learning, more than any other is easy to give up on through apathy. If you aren’t determined to do the assignments, to study the notes, and to really learn the material that is presented to you then you really do not need to waste your time or the instructor’s time by continually making up excuses. Online courses are largely self-paced but you do have a limited amount of time in which to learn the material before you need to move on. The teacher is responsible for providing you the information and material but you are responsible for everything that happens from that moment on. Are you ready for that responsibility?

Whether you are a first time college student or a professional that is returning to school after a long absence online learning can open new doors of opportunity for your learning pleasure. You must be willing to walk through those doors and take the information that is presented to you however in order to be successful. My sincere hope is that everyone reading this will carefully consider whether or not the lack of structure that many online courses provides is going to be conducive to your specific learning and educational needs before taking the plunge.

You do not have to go by the book to create tasty, easy, sociable food. Easy meal preparation is all about stripping cooking down to its bare essentials using little techniques and conveniences to make the most of your recipes. It is so simple: Skip the fuss and follow your heart.

Here are some tips to take the stress out of cooking, whether you are stirring up supper for your mate or hoping to impress the new in-laws:

Dinners-in-a-Bag

Make these dinner bags involving glorious aluminum foil and write on them,

25 minutes at 425 F”, for example, with a marker pen. Even though Jools didn’t like cooking, she never had a problem with cooking the bags. I just program the “Favorites Cycle, in your microwave . Here’s just one version, but feel free to vary the recipe with things like grated parsnip, smoked bacon or red wine.

Chicken Breasts Baked in a Bag

(Serves two)

2 7-ounce skinless chicken breasts

1 handful of dried porcini

9 ounces of mixed mushrooms, torn up

1 large wineglass of white wine

3 large pats of butter

1 handful of fresh thyme

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced

Using wide aluminum foil, make your bag by placing two pieces on top of each other (about as big as two shoeboxes in length), folding three sides in and leaving one side open. Mix everything together in a bowl, including the chicken. Place in your bag, with all the wine, making sure you do not pierce the foil. Close up the final edge, making sure it is tightly sealed and secure on the sides, and slide it onto a roasting pan. Place the pan on a high heat for one minute to get the heat going, and then bake in the middle of a 425-degree oven for 25 minutes.

Bare-Bones Cooking Techniques

* If you invited friends to come round but they are running late, pop up to four plates of food in the separate warming oven. Your glorious food not only stays warm, but also keeps the kitchen smelling wonderful until they walk in the door.

* If your side dish is ready but you still have other things to cook, just slide the pot onto the middle of the cook top. The “warming zone” there acts like a fifth burner, keeping it warm and freeing up the other burners so you can finish cooking.

Whether one supported, or opposed the candidacy of Donald Trump, when he ran for the highest office, in our land, most realized, his campaign, was different, from most others, witnessed, in recent memory! Mr. Trump heavily relied on a populist, promise - based, approach, often blaming and complaining, while rarely, if ever, supplying potential voters, with details, and/ or solutions. He made many, somewhat, seemingly far - fetched promises, in areas, related, to significant issues, such as the economy, taxes, foreign policy, immigration, terrorism, safety, and, of course, the wall along our southern border (which he stated, Mexico would pay for). This article will attempt to briefly examine, review, and discuss, 5 of these promises, which, at least, to date, appear to be, broken ones.

1. Tax reform focused on middle - class tax cuts: Despite his constant statements, his tax reform, would focus on benefiting the middle - class, most economists, who have evaluated the legislation, approved, along partisan lines, benefited large corporations, and the wealthiest 1% of the population, to a far greater degree, than the rest of the population. Examining the details, which included doubling the standard deduction, were not nearly as beneficial, as one might believe, because it also eliminated the personal exemption! For example, for a family of four, while the standard deduction was raised from $12,000, to about $24,000, eliminating approximately $4100 per person ($16, 400), meant, fewer, not greater deductions to their taxable income. In addition, eliminating many deductions, and capping others, such as S.A.L.T., or State and Local Taxes, at $10,000, will potentially, raise taxes, to approximately 30% of the middle - class. In addition, the savings to most people expire in under a decade, while the corporate tax savings, are permanent.

2. What do you have to lose?: Remember when Mr. Trump, asked certain minority members, What do you have to lose?, meaning by voting for him? However, if we surveyed most minority Americans, today, they would tell you, the tone, and vitriol, of this President, has seemed regressive and hurtful!

3. Drain the swamp: Do you recall, when Trump, kept calling everyone else, names, and accusing them, of horrible motives, etc? His slogan was, Drain the swamp, but, we have witnessed, the greatest number of scandals, and potential ones, in his first year, than ever before? Rather than draining the swamp, it seems, he drained it, in order to make room, for more, and worse creatures!

4. Work constantly: He enjoyed accusing former President Obama, of constantly golfing, and stated, he wouldn't have time, to do so, because he would be so busy, working for us! However, rather than doing that, he has spent, over a quarter of his days, in office, golfing, at one of his resorts.

5. Better health care, at a lower cost: As was his pattern, he complained about the A.C.A., and proclaimed, he'd create a plan, which was so much better, and less expensive, only to, once in office, state, it was much more involved than he thought! The proposals have not improved coverage, even threatening health protection, to those with previously existing conditions, while promoting plans, which might be less costly, but, that's because they cover far less!