Here are four wonderful hotels and campsites in Europe.

    Ekies All Senses Resort, Chalkidiki, Greece

    This could be the perfect retreat for stressed parents who need spoiling. For a start, it's in lovely Greece, but there's no need to take a ferry, as it's on the mainland. With a juice bar beside the(heated)pool, open-air spa, calm beach, restaurants or meals on demand, and secret bays to explore by boat, it makes for a super-relaxed break.

    Doubles from € 88, junior suite(sleeps 4)from €138 a night, family suite(sleeps6) from €272 B&B, open late

    April-October, i-escape.com

    Casa Vicentina, Algarve, Portugal

    For a back-to-nature feel, family-run Casa Vicentina in the Algarve is perfect. Built with ecological materials, it's in a protected park area on a natural lake. Breakfast is a plentiful buffet-and bikes are supplied free of charge so you can go to the beach or cafes and restaurants. Accommodation is in brightly decorated rooms or larger suites complete with small kitchens.

    Rooms from €75 B&B, wonderfulland. Com

    Fairy Chimney Inn, Cappadocia, Turkey

    Older kids will love the fairytale landscape of Cappadocia and the excitement of staying in a cave hotel. The Fairy Chimney Inn used to be part of a cave monastery(修道院). Its rooms are beautiful and homely, with traditional decorations and the occasional reminder of the modern world. All rooms have courtyards overlooking the  extraordinary landscape.

    Rooms from €55 B&B, plus 11 per child, fairychimney. Com

    Casa San Gabriel, Umbria, Italy

    Casa San Gabriel is a small hilltop farm where three self-catering cottages share a swimming pool, playground and barbecue. There's added excitement for young guests in the family of alpacas(羊驼)kept on site. There are several water, wildlife and activity parks nearby, and slightly further afield a Pinocchio theme park.

    A week at II Fienile cottage (sleeps 4-6)costs from €650, B&B (low season only) from €95, casasangabriel. com

    A member of our class told us of a request made by his wife. She and a group of other women in her church were involved in a self-improvement program. She asked her husband to help her by listing six things he believed she could do to help her become a better wife. He reported to the class," I was surprised by such a request. Frankly, it would have been easy for me to list six things I would like to change about her—my heavens, she could have listed a thousand things she would like to change about me—but I didn't. I said to her, 'Let me think about it and give you an answer in the morning.'”

    “The next morning I got up very early and called the florist (花商) and had him send six red roses to my wife with a note saying, 'I can't think of six things I would like to change about you. I love you the way you are.”

    “When I arrived at home that evening, who do you think greeted me at the door? That's right. My wife! She was almost in tears. Needless to say, I was extremely glad I had not criticized her as she had requested. ”

    “The following Sunday at church, after she had reported the results of her assignment, several women with whom she had been studying came up to me and said, 'That is the most considerate thing I have ever heard.' It was then that I realized the power of appreciation.”

    Lincoln once began a letter saying, “Everybody likes a compliment (赞扬).” William James said, “The deepest principle in human nature is the desire to be appreciated.” So, let's give honest, sincere appreciation to others instead of criticizing them. This will make a great difference to your life as well as others' life.

    We were silently waiting on the platform in the late afternoon. There he was, my 80-year-old grandfather with his silvery hair. And there I was, a teenage girl in my jeans and T-shirt. His aged but still clear blue eyes were taking in the scene as I wondered how I was going to get through the next two days. Why did I ever agree to accompany my cranky grandpa on a train ride from New York to Georgia?

    No one else wanted to be the fellow traveler since my grandfather refused to fly. In contrast, I loved to fly since I wanted to get to the destination as quickly as possible. No matter what anyone told my grandfather about the comfort and safety of flying, he refused to book a flight, saying, "It's not just the trip; it's the adventure of getting there."

    With my first step onto the train, the journey was already different from what I expected. The train was modem and filled with friendly travelers. We settled into the club car, where we could enjoy food and drinks while watching the scenery pass. Instead of listening to my music, I became a willing audience and learned family history that I had never had the time or patience to learn. With teary eyes, he told me that going to family events was hard for him since my grandmother died. It always made him think about those who were no longer with us. For the first time I felt I understood him. I gained a new appreciation for our time together.

    In this fast-paced world, we often miss important moments. There is great significance in listening to elders who offer a piece of their history and experience. I may be more open to opportunities to stay with my grandpa. Life isn't just about the destination; it's about the journey.

    Are you interested in movie musicals? Here are some best movie musicals you need to watch.

    Singin' in the Rain (1952)

    Debbie Reynolds (the heroine) is ultra-charming in this time-honored classic musical about the coming of the talking pictures in movie history. She plays a winning showgirl with a golden singing voice designed for Hollywood stars. You can also see how Gene Kelly (the hero) made a hit in the timeless "Singin'in the Rain".

    The Sound of Music (1965)

    It hit the big screen in 1965 and became an early blockbuster. It's one of those movies that everybody watches again and again. Whether you're singing along to "Do-Re-Mi" or "My Favorite Things", you'll still think of the cute Von Trapp children and the beautiful Austrian setting. Christopher Plummer (the hero) is wonderful as the serious captain melts into gentleness when singing "Edelweiss". And Julie Andrews (the heroine) shows her addictive voice in such songs as "I Have Confidence".

    Chicago (2002)

    Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones sing and dance as criminals in this musical about fame, envy, and murderous love. Famous songs include "Cell Block Tango", where female criminals sing about how they ended up in jail. It won Best Picture, Best Actress in a supporting role, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound in Oscar 2003.

    La La Land (2016)

    Struggling actress Mia (Emma Stone) and ambitious jazz pianist Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) begin a romance as they both follow their heart in the path of their dreams in Los Angeles. It won Best Performance by an Actress in a leading role, Best Achievement in Directing, Best Achievement in Cinematography, Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, and Best Achievement in Production Design in Oscar 2017.

    When an ice cube melts, it creates a puddle (水坑). When an ice sheet (冰盖)melts, it raises sea levels. It sounds simple, but scientists have debated for decades whether both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets actually were shrinking, and how much that melting contributed to rising sea levels.

    Now, a new study has provided the best evidence of how the polar ice sheets are responding to our warming world. In the study, an international team of scientists looked at 20 years of' data in the ice sheets collected by 10 satellite missions. The team's conclusion: The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets both are losing ice overall. The researchers also found that between 1992 and 2011, melt water from those shrinking ice sheets caused sea levels to rise by about 11 millimeters.

    Over the 19 years studied, the Greenland ice sheet lost 2.7 trillion metric tons of ice. The Antarctic ice sheet also shrank by about 1.3 trillion metric tons. Previously, some scientists disagreed whether the Antarctic sheet, the largest mass of ice in the world, was shrinking or growing or neither.

    While the Earth is warming overall, the effect of climate change varies from region to region. Over the last 15 years, for example, scientists have something disagreed over how climate change has affected the polar ice sheets. Many studies found that the sheets lost a lot of ice and that not enough snow fell on the sheets to compensate for the loss. But other studies found that the loss of ice was balanced by the gain in snowfall.

    Richard Alley, a glacier scientist at Penn State University, said that many of those studies looked at different areas, and over different time periods. In addition, the studies didn't all use the satellite data in the same way. Those differences made, it difficult to compare the results.

    The data in the new study matched time periods and areas. The study also combined measurements from kinds of satellites.

When it comes to sitting properly, we all know the correct way even if we don't do it to the letter. No crossed legs, bottoms touching the back of the chair and feet on the ground. But even if you're doing it right, sitting for long periods is shockingly bad for you. It has been described as the new smoking, linked to heart disease and even cancer. There is no doubt we should all try to do less of it. But perhaps we could also do it better.

A classic survey, published in 1953, described 100 different sitting postures adopted by 480 cultures around the world. Among the most common were sitting cross-legged, kneeling and the deep squat (深蹲), with feet flat on the ground and bottoms resting on or just above it. Even in Western cultures, these are preferred sitting positions among young children. But Westerners tend to prefer chair use from an early age, insisting children sit on seats in school.

One big problem with this desire for chairs is that they make sitting so, well, sedentary (久坐不动的). Consider the Hadza, a group of hunter-gatherer people in Tanzania. They spend around 9 hours a day sitting. However, they squat and sit on the ground in various positions, and this involves high levels of muscle activity. The supportive nature of chairs, with their high backs and armrests, removes this effort perhaps the reason that people love them.

So what's the best way to sit? Josette Bettany-SaItikov at Teesside University, UK has found that kneeling can help keep the spine in a better position as does squatting. We might also take inspiration from traditional cultures like the Hadza. "Use a variety of postures and preferably not just still postures but some which allow movement," says Bettany-Saltikov.

Bettany-Saltikov believes that we should be rethinking what it means to do a desk job. "We still need to design workplaces that enable people to be productive while being lightly active, like with under-table cycling or walking desks," she says. For now, if your job is sedentary, don't forget to stand up regularly and move around.