Founded by Spanish settlers in 1565, St. Augustine is full of Spanish-inspired architecture, historical sites and other attractions. The Colonial Quarter is a popular tourist area, and there are many places to grab traditional Spanish food.

Holland, Michigan

Holland was settled in 1847 by Dutch Calvinist separatists, under the leadership of Dr Albertus van Raalte. Terrible economic conditions in the Netherlands forced them to emigrate(移居国外), while their desires for religious freedom led them to unite and settle together as a group. Much of the original architecture was destroyed in an 1871 fire, but the city still has many windmills, eateries, art and even an annual tulip festival and holiday market.

New Glarus, Wisconsin

More than 160 years after it was founded, New Glarus has maintained much of its Swiss heritage and old world traditions. New Glarus’ Swiss immigrant roots are proudly on display with its Alpine architecture, Swiss Historical Village Museum and Yodel Club. The Wisconsin village also puts on cultural events like the Heidi Folk Festival and Swiss Volksfest.

Solvang, California

Located near Santa Barbara, Solang is a charming California city with Danish roots.   A group of immigrates from Denmark founded Solvang just over 100 years ago to create a Danish home away from home. As such, the city is full of Danish architecture, restaurants, shops and even a copy of Copenhagen’s famous Little Mermaid statue.

【推荐3】New Year's Eve Foods for Good Luck

New Year's Eve is a festival time celebrated around the world with friends, family, fireworks and foods. Do you have any New Year's Eve food traditions? Read through the foods below to figure out the best New Year's Eve foods.

Greens are a late crop mostly grown in the south, so they're easy to find in the colder months. They are go-to New Year's Eve foods because they look like money.

Mix and match a few different New Year's Eve food traditions with black-eyed peas, greens, and cornbread to make a fortune. As the Southern saying goes, “ peas for pennies, greens for dollars, and cornbread for gold. ”

In Japan, soba is the traditional New Year's food of choice. The length of the soba noodles is said to symbolize a long life. Part of the tradition is eating the whole noodle since the luck runs out if you break or chew the noodle.

Make sure to add grapes to your New Year's food. On New Year's Eve, the Spanish eats a grape for each strike of midnight, with each representing a page of the calendar ahead. If one is bitter, watch out for that month!

Pigs are a lucky New Year5s Eve food because they move forward when they eat. They are also rotund (圆胖的),symbolizing a fat wallet ahead. And the meat itself is fattier than other cuts of meat, making this New Year's Eve food both tasty and a symbol of richness.

Ring-shaped cakes are a symbol of coming full circle, making them a perfect New Year's food. This tradition roots in the Greeks who make a traditional Vasilopita with a hidden coin baked inside. If you get the piece with the coin, you'll have good luck for a year.

Fish are believed to be a lucky New Year’s Eve food because their scales look like coins, and they swim in groups, which relates to the idea of abundance. Plus, fish swim forward, which represents progress.

So, try some of these dishes for your next New Year's Eve party to bring luck to all your guests and yourself.

【推荐1】The Internet plays a big part in human life. We use it for work and pleasure. We use it to learn a new language. We find advice on it. We use it to connect with family and friends. We use it to stay in touch with events we care about.The list goes on and on.

As far as the Internet being a part of our lives, well, that train has left the station. There is no going back to an Internet-free life. But can using the Internet too much be bad for our health? It might be, say researchers. A new study finds that heavy Internet use may be connected to high blood pressure in a young group: teenagers.

The study results show that teens who spend at least 14 hours a week only online may cause high blood pressure, which makes their hearts and blood vessels(血管) work too hard. Over time, this extra pressure increases the risk of a heart attack. High blood pressure can also cause heart and other diseases.

The Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan did the study. 335 young people, from 14 to 17 years old, took part in it. 134 of the teens were described as “heavy Internet users”. And researchers found that out of these 134 teens, 26 had high blood pressure. The researchers said the study was the first to connect heavy Web use with high blood pressure.

The lead researcher is Andrea Cassidy-Bushrow. She says, “Using the Internet is part of our daily life, but it shouldn’t ruin(毁坏) us.” Ms. Cassidy-Bushrow adds that it is important for teens to stop to have a rest regular from their computers or smartphones and do some kind of physical activity. She also suggests that parents shouldn’t let their children use the Internet for more than two hours a day, five days a week.

【推荐3】Bats are nature’s pest patrol. They consume large quantities of night flying insects, including some that annoy farmers. But habitat loss and climate change, as well as infectious diseases, are reducing bats’ ability to do their job. A new study adds another item to the list: wildfires. But not too many — too few.

In California’s Sierra Nevada ecosystem, bats have adapted to occasional wildfires. But fire-prevention policies have kept some areas unburned for unusually long periods, resulting in denser (更稠密的) forests with thicker undergrowth. “We wanted to see how these changes in how fires are burning might be influencing bat biodiversity,” says Zack Steel, who conducted the research.

Steel and his colleagues used microphones to count bats by recording their distinctive echolocation (回声定位) over four years at six sites in the Sierra Nevada. Three of the areas had recently endured fires, and three remained unburned.

Seventeen bat species call these forests home. The study revealed that eight of them tended to frequent the unburned patches, whereas 11 used the burned areas (some species visited both). “We expected to see Group A (the more open-habitat-adapted-species) benefiting from fire and Group B (the more clutter-adapted species) being negatively affected by fire, preferring the unburned areas,” Steel says. “But even some of those species were occurring more often in burned areas.”

“When there’s lots of variation in habitat after a fire, many species benefit in different ways,” says University of Connecticut biologist Andrew Stillman, “On the whole, the community (群体) becomes more diverse, and that’s a good thing for the landscape.”

Putting out wildfires early leads to some species losing out on food and resources.

“Fire is a natural part of the ecosystem, and many animals require the disturbance from fire to create the types of habitat that they need,” Stillman adds. “It demonstrates another negative consequence of keeping wildfire away from fire-adapted forests in California.”