On Sept. 15, TripAdvisor, one of the world's largest travel review websites, named the world's top 25 museums in its Travelers' Choice Award according to the reviews and opinions of travelers worldwide. Now let's take a look at the top four museums which are ranked as follows by the popularity around the world.

    Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

    It is the largest museum in the Western Hemisphere, with a collection of 2 million items from more than 5,000 years of world culture. The iconic museum includes important collections from ancient Egypt and medieval Europe as well as ancient Greece and Rome. Here, visitors can get lost in different centuries: They can see the Temple of Dendur from early Egypt, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh's Wheatfield With Cypresses an US pop Andy Warhol's Souper Dress, all in one place.

    Muse d'Orsay, Paris

    Located in the center of Paris on the bank of the River Seine, the Musee d'Orsay houses the world's most amazing collections of impressionist and post-impressionist art. It offers the chance to view major works from greats like Van Gogh and Claude Monet. The museum is famous for being home to Starry Night over the Rhone, an oil painting by Van Gogh that is often praised along with his masterpiece Starry Night.

    Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois

    It was named the world's best museum in 2014. The world-famous Windy City museum houses nearly 300,000 works, including one of the largest collections of modern art, including pieces such as Spanish painter Pablo Picasso's The Old Guitarist, US artist Georgia O'Keeffe's Black Cross and French artist Henri Matisse's Bathers by a River. A TripAdvisor reviewer commented, “No matter how many times I visit, it never gets old. Paintings from every era, works from every great artist.”

    Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

    Nowhere is able to present the entire history of Spanish art like the Museo Nacional del Prado.

    Here, visitors can enjoy a detailed view of the Spanish school of the Modem Age. Outstanding masterpieces by artists such as Diego Velazquez, Francisco Goya and Joaquiin Sorolla make up an internationally-famous collection. The Italian school is another highlight of the museum's collection, as it includes the 15^th century masterpieces such as The Annunciation by Fra Angelico, The Death of the Virgin by Andrea Mantegna and The Dead Christ Supported by Angels by Antonello da Messina.

    Generations of children grew up reading comic(漫画) books secretly, hiding out from parents and teachers who saw them as a waste of time and a risk to young minds. Comics are now gaining a new respectability at school. That is thanks to an increasingly popular and creative programme, often aimed at struggling readers, that encourages children to plot, write and draw comic books, in many cases using themes from their own lives.

    The Comic Book Project was started in 2001 by Michael Bitz at an elementary school in Queens. Since its creation, the programme, which is mainly conducted after school, has spread to more than 850 schools across the country. It has gotten a big push from the craze(狂热) among adolescents for comic book clubs and for Manga, a widly popular variety of comic originating in Japan.

    The point is not to drop a comic book on a child's desk and say “read this”. Rather, the workshops give groups of students the opportunity to collaborate(合著) on often complex stories and charac-ters that they then revise, publish and share with others in their communities.

    Teachers are finding it easier to teach writing, grammar and punctuation with material that students are fully invested in(投入). And it turns out that comic books have other built-in advantages. The pairing of visual and written plotlines that they rely on appear to be especially helpful to struggling readers. No one is suggesting that comic books should substitute for traditional books or for standard reading and composition lessons. Teachers who would once have dismissed comics out of hand are learning to exploit(利用) a style that clearly has a powerful hold on young minds. They are using what works.

How to treat your guests at a dinner party

    Almost everyone has attended a dinner party where they felt awkward. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}So it's very necessary to prevent unpleasant party situations for your guests with the following useful tips and find out how to treat your guests at a dinner party.

    As guests arrive, greet them at the door saying "Hello" and ask how they are. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} If there is a wine table, show them to the table and allow them to mix with other guests.

    If a guest arrives who doesn't know the majority of the people in the room, announce his presence and introduce him to everyone. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Be modest about your food even if the food is great. And don't apologize either—your guests may think they shouldn't try your food. Serve your guests or allow guests to serve themselves if food has been placed on a serving table. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Make sure that they are as comfortable as possible.

    As you and your guests dine, play a "get to know each other" game. Have the guests go around the room and give a fun fact about themselves, their favorite things to do, where they would like to live and their worst or best cooking experience. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

    After the main course is served, offer your guests dessert. Have a dessert wine ready to serve in case a guest would like to pair wine with dessert.

A. This would help him feel more comfortable.

B. This is a great ice­breaker as well.

C. Take their coats, welcome them and make them feel at home.

D. Ask your guests often if they need more food.

E. Choosing a specific theme for your party is definitely a great idea.

F. Still more people remember dinner parties where they didn't have a good time.

G.A great dinner party allows you to enjoy one­on­one time with your guests.

    Do you ever draw? Most of us don't. The reason we usually leave drawing to the artists is that we're not very good at it. Who wants to do anything they're bad at? {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. Studies have found drawing has many benefits, artist or not. Here are just a few reasons for picking up a pen or pencil of any kind.

    It pushes you to be patient. We're used to things happening fast these days. Drawing is not fast. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} That's OK, and as something comes together over time, you'll be reminded of the value of patience. Drawing is an object lesson that not everything good comes quickly, which is an easy thing to forget.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} A few of my drawings are really kind of great. Í can look at them with pride. But plenty of my little drawings ate nonsense or unfinished. It doesn't matter. I still have the experience of drawing and the benefits that brings. Even if you're not naturally "good" at drawing, you'll get better over time if you practice. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Your drawing doesn't have to mean anything or do anything useful, Sometimes you will even fail. No big deal.

    It makes memories stick, I draw in order to capture (捕获) moments from my life. I'm not great at drawing, but that's not the point. Sometimes I draw the view from the window of my hotel room-whether it's a great view or not. Remember, the idea is to capture the moment, not create a masterpiece. Other times I draw from my dinner table. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}

    Vacations are important. We need to take time out from work to relax, and just be ourselves. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} We should all be allowed to leave our jobs behind us—at least for a few weeks each year—and just have fun. This might be something as simple as reading a good book in front of a warm fireplace and travelling to the most interesting places on our planet. Whatever we fancy doing is worth taking time out for.

    Workplace stress is on the rise. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} These include disease, depression and even death. We all seem to be running from one place to the next, never finding out where we want to go in the first place. I intend to break that trend in the coming days.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} I will sleep late, write, watch movies, drink the occasional glass of wine, and eat to my heart's content ignoring calorie counting. My plan is to just enjoy the fleeting moments of being alive.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Spend your next vacation the way you want. Do what will restore your mental health. You're very valuable to the people who are close to you, and to those who depend on you. Like it or not, we are all interdependent in this great life of ours.

    You are valuable. Just remember that the next time you look at the mirror and take a deep breath. Remind yourself that there will never be anyone like you ever on this earth again.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} All you have to do is just ask yourself what you want to do.

    In 2011, the old style Malta buses were taken off the road and replaced by modern vehicles. Most of the old buses were deserted, a few were sold, and about 100 of them were put into storage in the hope of showing them in a museum at some stage.

    A pre-2011 visit to Malta wouldn't have been complete without a ride on one of the colorful buses. Until 1973 you could tell the destination of the bus just by looking at its color — Sliema was green and white, Zabbar was red and white with a blue stripe(条纹)etc. . Later, the buses all had numbers. For a while, they were all painted green and white before the ‘final' orange, yellow and white.

    In their prime, walking around the Triton fountain at the Valletta bus station, you would have found it very difficult to see two buses of exactly the same design. Most of them had locally built bodies. On the front of the buses carried names like Dodge, Leyland, Bedford etc. You were equally likely to find football pennants(锦旗)and the like decorating the cabs. Real bus experts would have recognized that these were there mainly for decorative reasons, and were seldom an accurate reflection of the vehicle's origins.

    Nowadays much more modern buses are to be found at the Floriana bus station. They are more environmentally friendly and possibly even more comfortable than the older types. However, I miss the old buses. I remember, when you boarded your bus, you had to prepare the correct change to pay the usually bad-tempered driver as you got on. If you were seated anywhere near the front, you would have noticed that most drivers sat well to the right of their steering wheel. The reason for this, as any Maltese would tell you, was to leave space for their pet to sit alongside them. I wonder where the pet sits these days.