Word: caf
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...themes in this quintet of first-person narratives are those of failure and unfulfillment - of lives having to settle for second best. "Crooner" is narrated by Janeck, who plays guitar in Venice's tourist cafés. He spots Tony Gardner, a schmaltzy crooner whose heyday is well behind him, and gets roped into accompanying the singer while he serenades his wife, Lindy, from a gondola. What begins for Janeck as an unprecedented honor, in being party to a famous man's romantic outpouring, modulates to the realization that the gesture is despairing and valedictory. Lindy, now divorced from Gardner...
...apartment the cops found about 44 lb. (20 kg) of explosives, and a training video of how to construct suicide-bomb belts. In Sarajevo I met Bajro Ikanovic, 32, one of the four men arrested for plotting terrorist attacks as a result of that raid. Sitting in a café during a four-day furlough from prison, he told me he has converted several young men to militant Islam, and has pressed them to consider fighting to defend their religion. "Muslims who do not preach jihad are cowards, or just too comfortable with their lives," he says. Asked if young...
...restored as a venue for film festivals and conferences. The thickly carpeted guest rooms are meanwhile individually designed with impeccable Swedish taste. Comfort, rather than any showbiz excess, is the keynote - an approach exemplified by the choice of eight different pillow types, and the noticeably informal dining options (a café and a bakery). It isn't all money, money, money, either. Rates start from about $180. See www.rival.se for more...
...major highway linking the city of Vologda to St. Petersburg, blocking the route for hours. Finally Moscow took notice, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin flew in by helicopter to force local politicians and factory owners to pay the town's workers the money owed them. Now Pikalyovo's shops, cafés and banks are doing good business again, but as the recession sweeps across Russia, small single-industry towns all over the country are just one factory closure away from suffering the same plight. (See 10 things to do in Moscow...
Desperately poor, Laos abuts the Golden Triangle, a notorious opium-growing region. One of Laos' more furtive tourist attractions, despite attempts to crack down on the drug trade, is pizza and other Western foods laced with marijuana or other drugs. In some backpacker cafés, for instance, so-called happy food gets its kick from illicit materials. At the same time, drug convictions in Laos warrant heavy punishments, with the death penalty applicable for cases involving more than 500 grams of heroin. (However, the Laotian government says no one has been executed on such a drug conviction since...