It's been a third year in a row that I post my favourite pictures of the past year on my blog's anniversary day. The number of pictures equals the year's number, so this time around you'll be able to enjoy 18 pictures. Can't wait until my blog turns 100! Most of the pictures will be new to you as I'm slowly but steadily revealing my trips completed in 2018 as my time permits. Using this opportunity, I'd like to thank you for following my blog here and on social media, and giving me enough inspiration to continue delivering the very best content that is interesting, entertaining and relevant to you, my readers! Happy New Year and wishing you and your families all the best in 2019! 

The whole generation of Americans grew up on the Western movies featuring John Wayne and other fearless cowboys fighting unruly Native Americans. But how well do we know the period preceding the Expansion of the American West and forming the United States in their present borders? Bent's Old Fort hidden in the vast plains of Colorado under the endless blue sky is a living book that was once at the frontier of the Anglo-American civilization.

Italian city of Rome proudly bears a title of a "city of seven hills", however many other cities across the globe claims the same title. Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine is one of them. You can literally feel each hill as you go explore this ancient and beautiful city, but I think the best way to see them all (or at least most of them) is if you take a Dnipro river cruise from the River Port at the Podil neighbourhood.

What can be more christmassy than a sweet scent of fresh fir needles at your home? And what can be a better way to get a Christmas tree than cutting one with your own hands? Luckily, you can do it if you visit one of the u-cut farms in your area, and it's totally legal and nature friendly. After having an artificial tree for over a decade, we finally decided to dump it out and switch to a real one this year.

This and other famous quotes of Salvador Dali, my lifelong favourite artist, make you smirk a little bit, but they very accurately describe how well aware he was of his own genius: "I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait" or "At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since". This past summer, I was extremely grateful to visit The Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, a museum that hosts the second largest collection of his finest artwork in the world. You too want to get a quick glimpse? Click a link below or scroll down.

It's not uncommon to stumble upon a town or a city in North America that bears a name of a famous town or a city from somewhere else, mostly from Europe. And it always amazes me how different a real place and its North American namesake can be. I was driving through the northern part of New York state the other day, and in 20 minutes I saw three European capitals - Lisbon, Madrid, and Stockholm. If you try hard enough, you can find some similarities between that area and Scandinavia - rushing rivers, blue lakes, pine trees, and old rocks, but nothing resembled Portugal or Spain. Keep in mind: those places were named by early immigrants who probably never came back. Lucky us, we can now shoot pictures and videos, make phone calls and send instant messages, but those immigrants had nothing like that and must have been feeling really homesick if they gave names of their native towns and cities just to any place. So Lisbon, New York reminded me that I haven't yet shared my pictures and stories from the real Lisbon which I visited last year.