I had so many fun plans for this weekend, starting with dinner tonight at a Serbian restaurant, my first Balkan meal ever. But about an hour ago I felt the first stirrings of sickness in my increasingly sore throat and since then it’s spread throughout my entire body – a general malaise that can only mean a cold is on its way. Must. Fight. Back. Must eat delicious meats with unpronounceable names.

Hope you all have a healthier weekend than mine unfortunately promises to be, and that you don’t need to entertain yourselves while convalescing with these interesting reads I’ve gathered from all corners of the Internet:

An English-speaker spends a year without speaking English.

Travel deals from around the globe.

And in the same vein… the U.S. dollar is now worth almost as much as the euro, which is at a 12-year low. Best places to travel while the dollar is strong. 

But if you can’t afford to go abroad… on March 19, Americans can sample a (slightly less expensive than normal) taste of France.

Can you guess which of these blurbs was written by a computer? (The most foreign of foreign speakers is a bot, no?)

An argument for traveling in your 20’s (that I’ve applied to my 30’s).

The French ponder (in French) why Americans love brunch so much.

I don’t even know where to begin with this video. No wonder Air France is in trouble.

The French are not as cool with their version of Ashley Madison as you might think.

[Photo: Dennis Skley]