Showing posts with label world. Show all posts
Showing posts with label world. Show all posts

24 Hours in Prague

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

 


At noon, from Petrin Hill you can look out over the city of Prague and listen to its hundreds of bell towers clanging simultaneously.  The city of a thousand spires, it's called.  The architecture evokes provincial France or Italy, with red shingled roofs and labyrinthine streets that invite you to wander until you completely lose your bearings.  Along the river Vltava, however, the colorful, ornate buildings, trees, and hefty old bridges lined with time-blackened sculptures could fool you into thinking you're in Paris.  Prague often feels like Paris' shadow-city, a sombre and stubborn city that has remained more intact over the centuries than almost any other city in Europe.  Spared the brunt of WWII bombings, it was instead subjected to mental oppression under Communist rule from 1948 to 1989.

Today the Museum of Communism is located right behind a McDonalds.  But if you want my pick for the best museum in Prague, go check out the Alfonse Muchy (Alphonse Mucha) Museum.  This Czech artist lived an amazing life and defined the style of Art Nouveau, a style which can be spotted all around the city.  When you get hungry, if it's early in the day go to Cafe Slavia for breakfast or brunch.  In Prague you sit yourself and wait for a waiter or waitress to come to you, so pick a seat by the window.  Order their pear crepes (prepare yourself for heaps of whipped cream) and an espresso and sit contemplating the universe for a while.  For coffee or an afternoon treat, try either Grand Cafe Orient or Cafe Louvre (the latter was a favorite spot for both Kafka and Einstein).  Don't forget to say thank you - "Děkuji."

Of course the Old Town Square and the Astronomical Clock are worth a look, but these places are often packed with tourists and pickpockets so don't linger too long.  Wander north from there to find yourself in what used to be the Jewish ghetto, now one of the wealthiest areas of town.  The Spanish Synagogue, with its golden Moorish interior, is one of the most beautiful synagogues in Europe and is also a museum where you can learn a great deal about the history of of the Czech Jewish community, including the Nazi occupation and the post-war decades.  The Old Jewish Cemetery is right down the road.  It contains almost 12,000 tombstones (though the number buried here is over 100,000 - Jews were not allowed to be buried outside the ghetto, so the dead had to be buried on top of one another, up to ten layers deep).

After those incredibly sobering spots, you'll likely just want to walk and be alone with your thoughts.  The Knihkupectví Franze Kafky is right across the street from the corner of the Jewish Cemetery, and here you can browse the literature that has come out of Prague over the past century.  I bought two of Milan Kundera's books and then walked to Petrin Hill.  The park is very, very steep, but the view in the orchards at the top is spectacular.  The precisely-lined trees are a bit eerie, especially for those of us who recall Teresa's dream in the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being.  But it's a beautiful, peaceful spot meant to be lingered in.

Either before or after Petrin Hill, explore the West Bank near Kampa Island.  Kampa itself is beautiful, green, and the site of an interesting art museum with a free outdoor sculpture garden.  It includes some giant bronze babies without faces, quite creepy, by the very outspoken Czech artist David Černý.  His art is scattered all over the city as urban installments.  Back on the mainland, you can walk a bit north to the Franz Kafka museum, outside of which there is another statue of his: a fountain made of two men pissing on the Czech Republic.

Due west of Kampa Island is the Lennon Wall, which should not be missed.  It's in a beautiful neighborhood, so take your time.  The Lennon Wall is constantly changing as new layers of graffiti are added to it.  If your'e lucky, you might get a live performance of "Let It Be" by a random street musician.  Prague is quite safe to wander after dark, so take your time finding a place for dinner.  Don't be afraid to deviate from your intended path at any point, because the most beautiful corners of this city are the ones you stumble accidentally upon.



24 hours in Stockholm

Friday, October 25, 2013



The Venice of the North.  Spanning fourteen islands, and situated within a wider archipelago made up of tens of thousands more, Stockholm is a city well-acquainted with the sea. So the best way to get acquainted with the city is by boat.  Start your day on a Stockholm Sightseeing tour, such as "Under the Bridges of Stockholm," which will take you for a couple hours out around the city.  The Baltic and giant Lake Mälaren meet among its many waterways, and you'll be able to see everything from the main skyline of Östermalm (above, top) to the Brooklyn-esque island district of Södermalm.

Of course you'll eventually want to explore these areas on foot.  Stockholm is a very livable city: it's clean, crime and homelessness are low; there's an unbelievable number of places to shop, eat, and sit down for a cozy fika; and there are cultural must-sees for everyone, from the Skansen to the ABBA Museum to Vasamuseet, a museum containing an entire salvaged 17th-century ship that sank off the coast of Sweden. Skansen is the Swedish version of Colonial Williamsburg, only it's way more epic because it covers practically half of the Stockholm island of Djurgården, and it includes a zoo of Nordic animals.  If you want to feel like you've walked through Swedish history and gotten a glimpse of all the regions - including the northern Sami villages - simply visit Skansen.  The park is a vast expanse of recreated farmsteads and timber sheds, mills and belfries, glass workshops and stables...  It's a beautiful, immersing experience.  My personal favorite was seeing the Sami village reindeer (photo below), and watching the wolf pack in the zoo.  There are also squirrels and peacocks that run all over the park, and be warned - they're not afraid of people!

Making your way through the main bustling district of Norrmalm around the Central Station, pop into the Stockholm Urban Outfitters at Biblioteksgatan 5.  It's housed inside what used to be the Röda Kvarn (Moulin Rouge) of Stockholm, a beautiful old building reminiscent of an opera house (see photo below).

Make sure you take also head to the south side of town and stroll through Södermalm.  You'll spot some hipsters and find more than a couple places to buy lunch, fika, or an Indie literary magazine.  Speaking of magazines, if you want a really neat bookstore that also has a fantastic collection of old and hard-to-find DVDs and periodicals, check out Papercut.  You can see their selection on their website here.

As the sun starts to set, make sure you take a stroll through Gamla Stan, the small island at the heart of Stockholm, and the oldest district of the city.  The dusk light will lend itself to all the old orange and pink pastels of the buildings here.  In Gamla, you can step down into hovel-like cafes that were stables and wine cellars as far back as the 1500s!  You can get lost in cobbled alleyways and winding streets, only to turn a corner and find yourself before a beautiful old cathedral, a bronze sculpture atop a fountain, or perhaps the Nobel Museum, which is small and definitely worth a quick walk-through.  Make sure you step into one of the many chocolate shops or cafes and grab something sweet.

If you're staying in Stockholm for a couple days and want an awesome hostel choice, stay at the af Champan, which is the white ship pictured above.  That's right, they converted that standing ship into a hostel.  You stay in cabins below-decks.  I haven't tried it yet, but looks pretty awesome.




A time-sensitive read: Kofi Annan's Interventions

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

This book has been on my list for some time now, and when Kofi Annan himself came and lectured on my first day of classes at Uppsala University less than a month ago, I was absolutely amazed by this man's combination of candor and composure. I picked up his autobiography of his years as head of UN Peacekeeping Operations (1993-1996) and then as Secretary-General (1997-2006), during which time he was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in tandem with the UN itself. The book, Interventions: A Life in War and Peace, is a concise, focused read which dives right at the heart of the multiple international failures of the 1990s and early 2000s: Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq... Kofi gives a blunt, refreshingly-sharp critique of the shortcomings of the United Nations as a cohesive actor in conflict prevention, an issue he has made it his business to remedy over the past twenty years.

I can't speak highly enough of this book. As a Peace and Conflict Studies student with a basic knowledge of the topics and players in major UN debates of my lifetime, my knowledge was completely uprooted by Annan's summation of the conflicts from the perspective of the UN. Not only does he present the issues in an incredibly fluent and concise manner (a testament to his natural ability to zero-in on the root of a conflict, the place where diplomacy must be targeted), he also peels back the complex layers and interactive structures of the UN to easily engage the reader with the interplay of countless nuanced exchanges between many, many actors over endless years of conflict after conflict. In the throes of what was no doubt one of the most challenging jobs in the world, Annan emerges as a lucid, forward-thinking individual, one who was always attune to the bigger picture, even as actors (often the US) barraged the UN to make narrow-minded and thoughtlessly reactionary decisions in the face of global trauma.

This is a book that you can open to any page and find immense wisdom. I would love to quote many, many of his paragraphs, but I would like to mention this one, because it really gets at the heart of why the UN fails to act in the face of crisis. It's not because they don't want to or don't have the ability to; rather, it's the very nature of the organization, i.e. that it is reliant on the whims and decisions of the actors that constitute it. The UN is not an independent force, and this is something that we tend to forget. "The UN" is a term for the consensus (or at least the bargaining table) of every country in the world (except Kosovo, Taiwan, the Vatican, and Palestine).  Failure to act on the part of the UN is merely a failure for the broader international community to act.
"Contrary to what many suspect, the UN has few resources of its own.  For a peace operation, I had to go to the troop-contributing countries and ask for peacekeepers.  For development assistance and humanitarian relief, I had to go to the donor governments." (140)
With events unfolding in Syria, this is a very timely book to read - Kofi Annan leaves off in this memoir with mentions of the escalating tensions in Syria.  I would recommend reading it now before it becomes outdated by a barrage of new developments in the Middle East.

One last point I want to make about this book: he gives a thorough account of the Iraq War from where he sat as Secretary-General while the US chose to commit an illegal act of invading Iraq without the approval of the Security Council.  In light of everything Annan writes up to this point (he saves the Iraq War for last), in light of his descriptions of how painstakingly the UN had to be restructured in order to step out of the Cold War era and into our world of contemporary armed conflict (most of which is actually intrastate in nature), this decision to flout the UN had terrible ramifications that continue to be seen and felt, even a decade later.
"By behaving the way it did, the United States invited the perception among many in the world--including many long-time allies--that it was becoming a greater threat to global security than anything Saddam could muster.  This was a self-inflicted wound of historic proportions--and one that did immense, and possibly lasting, damage to U.S. standing in the world.  Abu Ghraib did not come out of a vacuum, and neither did Guantanamo.  The way they both ran counter to the principles of the rule of law has done incalculable damage to the global struggle for human rights." (366)
The sad fact is that Kofi Annan had been devoting nearly all of his time to engaging in diplomatic processes all over the Middle East -- with Iraq, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Hizbollah, you name it!  And real strides were actually being made!  The US invasion of Iraq put pretty much all of this to a halt, delaying peace in the Middle East by years, if not decades.  This isn't old news; the consequences are apparent today, in the US's less-than-amicable relations with many Middle East leaders.

Buy on Amazon
All-in-all, I was absolutely riveted by this book - it's a remarkable historical artifact, going through all the major conflicts of my lifetime (I'm 22) and discussing the ways in which the UN has adapted for the better (while still pointing out where the organization has still to better itself).




links of the week: travelling the world

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Eli here. Sorry Zab and I have been MIA, but she is currently planning her sister's wedding and I am interning at Yale University Press, so we're currently 1000 miles apart and super busy. Doesn't stop us from our daily habit of surfing the web for news updates, popular culture, and completely random StumbleUpon-esque discoveries. I thought we might start a recurring chain of posts where we just share the particularly fascinating morsels we come across in our WiFi travels... The theme word of the week is EXOTIC...



Did you know there is a Buddhist temple in Thailand where monks live peacefully with ten wild Bengal tigers?? Check out this documentary on Vimeo.

This National Geographic article about tribal Europe is so unbelievably weird. Photographer Charles Fréger travelled through 19 European countries and chronicled the strange costumes that symbolize mythical monsters and beasts that have graced the festivals and stories of these societies for hundreds of years. Even in contemporary Europe, tradition is kept alive through these eerie manifestations of nightmarish beings. You can skip straight to the photo gallery here.

Apparently you can spend the night underwater at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island hotel, where the restaurant Ithaa sits in a glass-domed room beneath the Indian Ocean. Typically restaurant space, the hotel apparently will convert it into a suite for honeymoon bookings.

While we're discussing exotic getaways, check out the incredible Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp & Resort. I'd totally go here for my honeymoon. You can stay in gorgeously-designed tents that are pure luxury, and right outside your door elephants just wander the grounds freely. I'm assuming it costs a fortune, but you can go elephant-riding and learn the skills of the mahout (elephant-riders). How cool is that?

Speaking of Thailand, I learned recently that there is a place in the world where they recreate the lantern scene from Tangled every year. In the Lanna region of northern Thailand, they're called "floating lanterns" (โคมลอย, khom loi) and are released on one special festival, called Lanna Yi Peng. There are a lot of cool pics and more info here.

One more link of the week: I found this really awesome travel article in the NYTimes about a girl who took a 2890-mile roadtrip from Seattle, Washington, all the way to the Arctic Circle! It's really incredible, and you can read it here.

7 reasons grad school in Europe is a good idea

Friday, May 17, 2013

Hey, everyone! Sorry we didn't post last week - Zab and I have been so busy with finals! This was my last semester at William & Mary, so I have also been dealing with graduation! This fall I'm moving on to grad school with an MA program in Peace and Conflict Studies at Uppsala University in Sweden. Can't wait! Also, Zab is trying out the UK with a summer program at London School of Economics! We are both so excited to be travelling to Europe for the first time and exploring these prestigious universities. We have done a lot of research on grad school in Europe at this point, and have realized time and time again that it's a pretty sweet deal...

1. You don't have to take the GRE. Instead, applications are heavily made up of your undergraduate research, which European schools place a lot more emphasis on. This is something I really give European universities a lot of credit for: taking the time to closely examine the research and work you've already done as an undergraduate. In sharp contrast, American schools tend to focus on your resume/CV, transcript, and GRE scores. With the exception of personal statements, applicants to American colleges aren't really given a chance to showcase their material academic achievements and illustrate where their passions lie. The European applications seem more concerned with the scholar as individual, than with standardized assessments such as GRE scores.

2. European universities have been around a lot longer. Uppsala is the oldest university in northern Europe - founded in 1477. Cambridge was founded in 1209, and Oxford is so old that it's year of inception is unknown - definitely 1096 or earlier, making it the second-oldest surviving university in the world. All over Europe, universities are preserved in beautiful buildings which have been standing for hundreds of years. The presence of so much history, so many previous scholars and students... these are academic institutions which have withstood and born witness to countless eras!

3. MA programs are only one year. This isn't the case with all of them, but a lot of MA programs in Europe are only one year (check out the list of King's College MAs for loads of examples), whereas in the States the typical length is 2. The degrees are the same, but the time (and money!) you put in are less. Some universities even allow you to choose between a 1- or 2-year version of each masters program.

4. Tuition is cheaper, or even free. Grad school is so much cheaper in Europe (you just have to figure in living expenses, of course). In some countries (particularly Scandinavia) education is heavily or completely subsidized by the government, which means tuition is unbelievably low by US standards. In Norway, which is not part of the EU, the government COMPLETELY subsidizes education. This means that if you wanted to get your MA at the University of Oslo, even as an international graduate student, it won't cost you anything (except living expenses in Norway).

5. It opens up job opportunities abroad. Going to university in Europe gives you a fantastic leg up if you ever plan on living and/or working in Europe. Often after getting a degree in any foreign country there are additional perks, such as the ability to get a work visa more easily.

6. You interact with a truly "international" student body. In the European Union there's so much international connectivity and the universities really embrace this. Many European universities (Uppsala is no exception) have very large international student percentages to their student bodies, facilitating that constant cross-cultural discourse that is vital in today's world. So if you go to grad school in Italy, you won't just be hanging out with Italians. You won't even just be hanging out with Europeans! European universities are fantastic global microcosms, and your peers will truly come from all over the world.

7. Programs are often offered in English. Because of this emphasis on creating a multinational student body, universities in countries with languages that are not widely spoken (such as all the Nordic countries) offer programs in English. Of course, it's always a good idea to try to learn as much of the local language as possible when living in a foreign country, and building language skills is a vital CV-builder in today's world.

zab's top london destinations

Tuesday, March 12, 2013


So I am leaving for London in a little more than four months. I was just accepted into summer school at London School of Economics (my dream!) to study Finance, and I'll be living in the city for almost three weeks this August. As my dearest friend Eli keeps reminding me, it's time to start thinking of things to do and see when I'm not in class at LSE!

Of course, I have to see the usual tourist stuff. Though I usually try to keep as far away from overcrowded tourist attractions as possible, how could I possibly say that I lived in London for three weeks but never saw Buckingham Palace or Big Ben? Those are just must-dos.

Here are a few tourist-y destinations:

Buckingham Palace: where I can press my pathetic little face up against the gates and dream of being a real-life princess in a real-life palace with a real-life prince.... or, perhaps even better, dream of finding a pants-less Benedict Cumberbatch wrapped in a sheet and drinking tea...

Downing Street: equally fascinating to me but probably not as visually impressive...

Hyde Park: of course. This park is larger than the entire Principality of Monaco. Quintessentially British. I don't really have a choice. Couldn't miss it if I tried.

King's Cross Station: mostly because of Harry Potter

Big Ben, Westminster Bridge, Palace of Westminster, Houses of Parliament: I guess I can't really 'go to' Big Ben, it's kind of just something to see... These are all pretty obvious tourist stops, at least to just pass by and get that traditional view of the Thames!

Now we get to the fun stuff...

I'll be living a block or two away from Soho and I plan to spend a significant amount of time there! London's fashion and entertainment district, and previously its prostitution district. Since the 1950's Soho has been the centre of beatnik, rock, and pop culture in London. The Rolling Stones, the Sex Pistols, and Jimi Hendrix have all recorded there! It's home to London's main gay village and lots of shops and bars and clubs.

Ministry of Sound: probably London's most famous, iconic nightclub and ranked by some in the top five in the world. Apparently a must-go for nightlife in London. Also Fabric ('body-sonic' dance floor where bass comes through the floor. enough said. however, I'm not sure about the unisex toilets) and Pacha (Ibiza-based club with a stained glass ceiling and notoriously glamourous crowd).

The Eagle and Child: my nerdiness is coming out but I would be so happy if I could visit the Eagle and Child. This is the four-hundred-year-old pub that the Inklings (JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis!) met at to read and discuss their unfinished manuscripts!!!!! This has been a dream for years, ever since my dad encouraged Eli and I to form our own Inklings club when we were about fifteen....

The owner of my favourite local restaurant, a German native who went to school and lived in London for ten years, told me that I MUST go to high tea at The Dorchester. This gorgeous five-star hotel serves world-famous (it had better be, at £41 a person) afternoon tea of sandwiches, scones, and cakes.  The hotel is absolutely stunning inside.

I still remember my grandmother mentioning Harrod's when I was very young, in particular for their tea. This is London's equivalent of Macy's, and though I've been to many department stores in my life, I don't want to miss out on this one.

Tiffany & Co. on Bond Street. I just want to visit Bond Street (though I won't be able to buy a single thing) and see this absolutely gorgeous, iconic black building (since I've already been to the one in New York!).

Restaurants: Rules (London's oldest restaurant, as classic British as it gets), The Dalaunay (continental cuisine), Le Gavroche (best French), Maison Bertaux (French cafe in Soho)...

Other to-do's: ride in a black cab and on a double-decker bus; find a public call box that even remotely resembles the TARDIS and completely lose it geeking out on the sidewalk; use the Tube and a loo and a lift (which I'm pretty sure I will); and do all those other stupid things that tourists think are fascinating in the UK.

life tip #1 | why you need to travel

Saturday, December 29, 2012


“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
― Saint Augustine of Hippo

“Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you've never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground.”
― Judith Thurman

Travelling is an art. Since Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo, travelogues have been a window into other worlds. Tales and imagery too exotic to be true, places so unfamiliar that they seem more dreamlike than real... this is the stuff of adventure. Doesn't mean you have to buy a one-way ticket to Timbuktu to experience the same thing! Just venture a little bit out of your comfort zone to start reaping the rewards of travel. Simply uprooting yourself and testing the waters of an unfamiliar place is something very personal: every individual adapts (or doesn't adapt) differently, we all approach new places and people with our unique predispositions and expectations. To travel is to explore yourself.

The world is not as big as it seems, but it's big enough that you'll never see all of it, no matter how hard you try. This certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't bother to explore it at all! So much ignorance is the result of lack of exposure to different people, places, and ideas.

Make 2013 your year to be bold, to attempt a bit of travel, no matter how small. Go explore a new town, visit friends who live in another state (or better yet, country!). Take a road trip; get a passport. Go find yourself!

the invisible war: rape prevalent in U.S. military

Friday, December 28, 2012

More than 20 percent of active-duty servicewomen are sexually assaulted.

Since 2006, more than 95,000 service members have been sexually assaulted in the U.S. military.

More than 86% of service members do not report their assault.

Less than five percent of all sexual assaults are put forward for prosecution, and less than a third of those cases result in imprisonment.


We highly recommend watching this documentary, The Invisible War, which was released in October of this year. Directed by Kirby Dick, it shines light on the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military, letting actual victims tell their stories. The lack of concern that these women were shown after they were raped is shocking. When each and every one came forward to report the crimes, they faced "a second assault": commanding officers who either don't believe them or who refuse to do anything about the crime.

ABC News says: as terrible as the rape was, the repercussions were almost as horrendous -- women were accused of adultery (if the perpetrator happened to be married) or "conduct unbecoming an officer." They lost rank, they were accused of having "set up the men." When one of the women reported a rape -- the third that week in one particular unit -- she was asked, "You girls think this is a game; are you all in cahoots?"

Many of our closet NATO allies no longer allow commanders to determine the prosecution of sexual assault crimes, yet within the U.S. military, where rape has become so prevalent that a female soldier is now more likely to be raped by one of her fellow soldiers than killed in combat, many women are finding themselves trapped because the person in the chain of command to whom they should report the crime is either a friend of the rapist (in 33% of case) or the rapist himself (in 25% of cases).

The most horrifying account which comes to light in this film is the story of Kori Cioca, who is still dealing with a major jaw injury inflicted when her rapist hit her in the face.

In February 2011, seventeen United States veterans filed suit against the Pentagon and defense secretary Robert Gates and former secretary Donald Rumsfeld, alleging that they allowed a culture in the military where rape was unevenly reported and punished. In several of the plaintiffs' cases, the victim was forced to work with the accused rapist after reporting them for sexual assault. Unit commanders often have heavy influence over military rape cases, and less than one in five cases are prosecuted (from Wikipedia). In December 2011, the Court dismissed the survivors' lawsuit ruling that rape is an occupational hazard of military service. An appeal has been filed.

Invisible No More is a non-partisan coalition working to end sexual assault within the U.S. military and to help survivors of Military Sexual Assault heal.. You can visit their website to learn more and get involved.

Also check out some of these related news articles: "Sexual assaults in military bring shame, not action" in USA Today and "Sexual Violence and the Military" in the NY Times.

raven + lily: empowering women worldwide

Monday, December 10, 2012


I just discovered a jewelry and accessories company called Raven + Lily, which sells some very beautiful, interesting pieces. The more interesting part of this company is how they operate: they employ marginalized women, providing them with sustainable economic opportunities, and their proceeds also fund healthcare and literacy programs for women and children in this community.

A lot of their jewelry is made in Ethiopia from melted bullet casings and recycled metals such as copper and brass. The women who handmake these pieces are HIV-positive women, a very marginalized group in Ethiopia. Due to its unique nature, much of the jewelry will antique over time.

Definitely check out their blog, which details their travels to the localities in which they've established all of these fantastic cooperatives.

They have clothing items as well - scarves and t-shirts. They also have accessories likes bags and journals. Their Uzma Travel Journals are handmade 100% recycled cotton paper and textiles by marginalized women in Northern India. Proceeds from this collection go to fund literacy programs for the women artisans and children in the community. They're absolutely beautiful, I've already nabbed a couple for Christmas gifts. I love fair trade shopping, and I love knowing that there's a story behind an item. Empowering women in poorer nations is a cause that remains particularly close to my heart. I truly believe that greater equality for women will mean a more peaceful planet; in fact, I recently wrote a paper for a class I'm taking (Cross-Cultural Psychology) in which I found a number of studies that illustrate how societies with strictly-enforced gender roles and sexism tend to have higher levels of male aggression and are more likely to dissolve into war.

Currently, the three regions in which R+L operates are northern India, Ethiopia, and Cambodia. They're a member of another organization I've never heard of, the Ethical Fashion Forum’s 500 Fellows around the globe, which is apparently "an exclusive group of 500 of the world’s foremost innovators and leaders in the fashion sector."
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