The diehard Villagers still have a huge voice in the politics of the neighborhood. The park is a landmark, 10 acres in size and nearly 200 years old. It has seen hangings, burials, countless graduations, generations of kids, dogs, joggers, seniors, and drug dealers—you name it, it has happened in THE PARK, as I called it growing up on its West side.

I can recall tagging along with my dad as he went to hear the musicians in the Seventies on sunny weekends. All I wanted to do was get to the playground and the sprinklers but we had to listen to a few songs. We’d chat with the winos and bums; this was before homelessness, when the local wino knew me by name. I can still see the Good Humor Ice Cream Man and hear his cart bells. He wore a full uniform, a sweet old guy, who never failed to please the throngs of dirty kids on a hot summer day. With the first legitimate snow, a trip to the park was necessary on sleds or cross country skis.

Seasons were marked, big events celebrated, I can even trace the different phases of my life through the park. As a high school kid I spent hours, with my best friend, in our oversized men’s coats and scarves listening and swooning over one particular musician/ busker name “Zorki.” To this day when I hear the Traffic song Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, I get nostalgic for those days when time didn’t matter and listening to live music was my plan for the day.

So now the park is in the midst of a $16 million renovation. The plan is to create more green space and benches and update some of the features that were quite worn. The work is to be done in phases so the public can still enjoy parts of the park at any given time. The first phase is slated for completion in the spring of 2009.

The controversy comes from those who oppose moving the famous fountain, shrinking the public gathering spots and various other changes. Most of all, those who oppose the upgrades see the changes to be class oriented, a way to increase real estate values, please New York University and gentrify the quintessential concept of public space. Bloggers have taken to their laptops and sites have popped up on the internet with many New Yorkers chiming in.

At this time of year I always look forward to seeing the Christmas tree under the arch and remember caroling there so many times as a kid. I hear about the park drama often from my mom who still lives a block away. She is an active Villager, who has connections in the dog owning crowd and has been known to bang pots, with her cronies, to get the drug dealers to disperse. She appreciates how much creativity the park has inspired and worries the scene will change.

Our neighbor when I was growing up, who went on to write for SNL, Letterman, Seinfeld and the Simpsons, used to sit in the park with his partner dreaming up story lines. On any given day one can see jugglers, chess players, movie filming or people just hanging out enjoying the space.

I hope the park will retain its role as a democratic magnet, drawing people from all walks of life at all stages in life, from near or far. Change isn’t always easy, but I pray they keep the integrity and ethos of the park intact, and just spiff it up (a bit) so I can take my kids to hear music they won’t appreciate till they are older.

But our vision is limited by our eyes and the incomprehensible distance between us and the celestial bodies we wish to see. Not many of us have easy access to observatories to view the cosmos through powerful telescopes, although opportunities for backyard astronomers are better than ever now with improvements in home telescopes. But to get a glimpse into deep space and marvel at the extraordinary beauty of what’s out there we can look at the images sent back to Earth from the Hubble Telescope, which was put into orbit by the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990. Since then its transmitted astounding photographs of what it sees light years away, and now astronomers have chosen what they consider Hubble’s top ten images. Take a look and contemplate our place in the cosmos.

It’s also because the buses from Puerto Natales (Chile, pictured above) to El Calafate (Argentina) have been so full that she had to wait several days in town to get a seat — which suggests that, despite the global economic crisis, Patagonia remains a hot destination.

For more details, please visit Southern Cone Travel.

Nearly every weekend I took off for London, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Holland or Italy. I remember sewing a Canadian patch on my backpack before a foray through Europe because of the palpable dislike for Reaganomics and small acts of terrorism against Americans: small potatoes compared to travelers’ fears today.

These days, the economic slowdown and global tensions make a year in another country out of reach or out of the question for many. So you might think that there has been a decrease in student travel, but no, according to a recent New York Times article, study abroad is not only on the rise, it is flourishing.

This is good news for all us travel buffs; it means a new generation is getting out and seeing the world. Where are students going? The top five countries where student travel has increased dramatically in the last few years are Ecuador, South Africa, Argentina, China and India. Many schools are expanding their programs to keep up with the high demand, particularly for China. Interestingly USC, NYU and Columbia receive the most foreign students.

Charles Veley and others of his ilk aren’t like most of us. They want, and intend, to go everywhere.

I met Charles last night when I went to hear Rolf Potts speak about his books, Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, and Marco Polo Didn’t Go There: Stories and Revelations from One Decade as a Postmodern Travel Writer.

I’ve known Rolf for many years now but catch up with him only occasionally. My excuse last night was he was in San Francisco, and as executive editor of Travelers’ Tales I was partly responsible for bringing his latest book, Marco Polo Didn’t Go There, into the world. I couldn’t let our author pass through town with saying hello and shaking his hand.

It turned out that Rolf had written a story about Charles for The New York Times Magazine that had run just two days earlier, on Sunday, Nov. 16, and Charles and his wife were there with a basket of wine to greet Rolf and improve the mood after the event.

Charles looked vaguely familiar—I realized I’d read about him somewhere before and must have seen a photo of him. But here he was in the flesh, the current title holder of Most Traveled Person in the World with 709 of the world’s recognized places under his belt (well, perhaps more appropriately their soil in the treads of his well-worn boots). Turned out the reigning king of travel isn’t a swashbuckler but an engaging, gracious regular guy.

We chatted about kids and schools and books and finding office space in the Presidio (where Triporati is located) and when Rolf’s book-signing duties were over the party moved down the street to a restaurant. When you’re with the World’s Most Traveled Person and Rolf Potts, vagabond and writer extraordinaire, you assume the conversation will range all over the world, and I’m sure it did.

I, however, being a writer myself, had a deadline that night for a story that my editors in the eastern time zone would be demanding before I awoke the next day, so I had to leave. But I took solace in the knowledge that I’d have another chance to talk with Charles because he was here in San Francisco—for a while. I’m sure it won’t be long before he heads out to visit place number 758.

The new structure is 4,300 years-old and archaeologists think it is the tomb of Queen Sesheshet, the mother of Pharaoh Teti, the founder of ancient Egypt’s 6th dynasty.  Mothers were greatly revered in ancient Egypt: another great teaching moment. The secret found in the sand is located at Saqqara, just south of the capital Cairo. This is the 118th pyramid discovered in Egypt, if you are keeping count. You can see a video about the discovery on the National Geographic website. I could also throw in the news of the latest pyramid found when my sons received their Lego magazine featuring a pyramid replica. They were more impressed than the three-year-olds and both said they wanted to travel to Egypt to see the real version of the Lego structures.

The place most people think of when hearing about a taste of France in Canada is Quebec, the French-speaking province with cosmopolitan Montreal and the walled old town of Quebec City. But San Francisco Chronicle Deputy Travel Editor Spud Hilton has a different take and a different place in mind: Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, an archipelago of eight tiny islands (only three are inhabited) off the coast of Newfoundland that not only offer a taste of France, they are France.

The islands are officially known as the Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon and are the last remnant of the colonial empire of New France still under French control. As Spud Hilton reports, they are famous for the only use of the guillotine in North America and for being a bootleggers’ haven during prohibition, where even Al Capone spent some time overseeing operations.

The islands are French soil and some locals consider the place more French than France because of its isolation: with little reason to change with the passage of time, the people of the islands have maintained their traditional ways of life.

Sometime in the 1980s the QE2 came to San Francisco and I remember thinking she was a marvel among marvels. After all, at 963 feet and 70,000 tons she was the world’s largest cruise ship and dwarfed the other vessels I’d seen over the years docking at the piers beneath my home on Telegraph Hill. Not long after, or maybe before, my memory is fuzzy, the ship was commandeered by Margaret Thatcher to serve as a troop ship during the 1982 Falklands War.

In January 2007 she returned to San Francisco, diminished in size by the behemoths that followed her. The current “world’s largest cruise liner” is Freedom of the Seas at a staggering 1,112 feet and 160,000 tons. That’s more than twice the weight of the QE2, which is almost beyond comprehension, literally holding a small town of 4,300 passengers and 1,300 crew on 15 passenger decks.

In her nearly 40 years of service the QE2 transported 2.5 million passengers across the sea, making 800 transatlantic trips and 25 round-the-world voyages. But today she is on her last voyage, sailing now from Southampton to Dubai where she will be retired and become a luxury hotel. This seems a sad fate for a vessel with such a storied past, but it’s better than the salvage yard, and means people like me can still go aboard if they find their way to Dubai.

But she didn’t go quietly to her retirement. She ran aground in the English Channel at the start of her voyage, perhaps one last protest against her fate of permanent anchorage, a stationary hotel with a museum to display her glory, but free to roam the seas no more.

The Simpson Desert at the northern end of South Australia is one of the world’s most unforgiving places where temperatures can reach hellish temperatures (this year officials forecast temperatures as high as 50 degrees centigrade, or 122 degrees Fahrenheit). Thousands visit the Simpson Desert Conservation Park each year to see the sand dunes and rock formations, but the park has no maintained roads, only tracks, and breakdowns are common, both from the rough terrain and intense heat. Deaths have occurred in the past and officials say they have had many near misses.

If death by desiccation isn’t enough to deter you, you probably won’t be put off by the fine for violators: 1,000 Australian dollars (US$657).

It’s Veteran’s Day and I’d had all the good intentions of taking a walk through a military cemetery in San Francisco’s Presidio, a stone’s throw from our office. It is a wonderful and moving experience any time of year, with great views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin Headlands.

The boys were planning to build a coffin with my husband this afternoon and we intend to have a little service and burial in our garden this evening.

All this got me thinking about pet cemeteries.

There is one in the Presidio. Most of the markers are hand crafted and many of the animals were military pets; their birth places around the world are noted on their grave markers.

If you are interested in scouting out pet burial spots around the country or even the grave of a specific celebrity character such as Flipper or Ham the first Chimp in Space, you can check out the Roadside America site and find your favorite famous feline or Fido’s resting place.