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Many great minds have given their two cents about the merits of travel, and none can deny its power to open minds, expand horizons and change lives. For Tilman Brune, Florian Ruffin and Leo Reutter, three exchange students from Dortmund, Germany, visiting Buffalo has been a rewarding and enlightening experience. The three young men arrived in Buffalo on Aug. 17 and attended St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute while staying with host families in the North Buffalo area until their departure Dec. 11. During their time here, they made new friends and learned new things. Florian, who was a junior at St. Joe’s, said about his visit: "I have more life experience now; I think I have become an adult.” Back in Germany, Florian says he will miss all the new friends he made, and Rice Krispies Treats, a delicacy wholly new to him. "It really helped me find lots of friends; my language has improved a lot. Chemistry improved thanks to Mr. [Matthew] Hellerer,” Florian said. Leo, also a junior, says of his experience: "I would say, best time of my life.” For Tilman, the trip helped to break down the stereotypical American image that is held in many other parts of the world. "At first I thought that American people are fat. Most people in Germany believe this, but I saw that it is not so,” Tilman said. During the trip, the students and those they met recognized interesting contrasts between the two cultures. "U. S. are better in sports, except soccer,” said Florian. "The lifestyle is different. The Americans have the lifestyle where everything is easy, easygoing. Not like in Germany, everything is more serious.” According to Leo, this lifestyle "is based on individual car transportation.” Leo believes that access to this easygoing lifestyle depends on whether or not one owns a car. Asked to elaborate, he said, "The Buffalo public transport is bad, so I get the feeling that in the U. S., public transport is not that big.” All three students were struck by the hospitality they were met with in the "city of good neighbors.” Florian believes people are friendlier in the United States than in Germany. Leo, however, believes that this is because he and his friends were something of a novelty, and that this treatment would be found elsewhere under similar circumstances. Tilman adds, "I was happy that a lot of people talked to me in the beginning, and I think that this is an American characteristic. You Americans, I believe, are open for new experiences and ... a lot of your people are nice to new people.” The students also picked up on the stark differences in education in the two nations. They all believe that public schools in Germany are better than those here, while their time at St. Joe’s at times had proven more challenging. As Florian says with a groan, "I get more homework here.” However, Tilman said, "I think the American school is a little bit easier, especially math.” Leo said that in Germany, students are sorted into three different groups based on intelligence. "Their elementary school teachers decide at the age of 10 –they obviously can’t tell the real thing then.” While there is the chance of improving one’s status and moving among the groups after ninth grade, one must qualify for university, and there are no community colleges like those in the United States. Though more rigid and subjective than the American system, Leo prefers the German way, saying, "I like the system. If I had to deal with all the lowest students in my gymnasium [what Germans call high school] class, I would get nowhere.” However, he is a big fan of high school sports. "I really like the school spirit and I am a great fan of St. Joe’s Marauders. But school sports, opposing to club sports, lead also to a great amount being stuck in the institution for a whole day, and therefore basically all of the midweek life.” Leo refers to the fact that in Germany, what we would consider recess continues throughout the high school years. Tilman agrees, saying, "I loved that your American school has a lot of sport activities. In Germany a school is a school, but not a center for sport and emotions.” Lastly, Leo did find the light-hearted way in which many American students treat World War II to be disturbing. "Almost every German is thankful for you having stopped the madness going on. Many Germans, and me especially, feel ashamed of what happened in 1933-1945, and so there is one thing for me to say: thank you.” Aidan Ryan is a junior at St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute.

In 1964, 18-year-old Sara Martin (not her real name) visited three gynecologists in the small Illinois town where she was attending college before she found one who would prescribe the newly available birth control pill to her, an unmarried woman. "That little pill changed the sex lives of a whole generation," says Sara. "It certainly changed mine." Fully 40 years later, another pill is recharging her sex life. Thanks to Viagra, she and her husband of two decades are able to enjoy a passionate physical relationship in spite of a chronic medical condition that made it difficult for him to function sexually. "The pill changed my thinking when I was young by making me feel I had a right to enjoy sex without the fear of pregnancy," says Sara, now a public relations consultant in Chicago. "The medication my husband is taking now means that age and illness don't have to mean the end of sex. This is not about pill popping, it's about our expectation that sex should always be a joyous and important part of life." The Baby Boom generation famously came of age in a time when sexual mores were changing radically. And now, according to an AARP study of the sexual attitudes and practices of Americans 45 and older, the Boomers are creating a second sexual revolution—one that will change forever the way people think about sex and aging. It's a revolution in spirit and attitude about sexuality in midlife, and at its core is the assumption that health- and age-related physical problems should be treated and overcome rather than accepted as part of growing older. Six years ago, this magazine commissioned the first nationwide sex study to focus on Americans from midlife to old age—a group largely ignored in previous sex research, from the famed Kinsey reports of the 1940s and '50s to the work of Masters and Johnson in the late 1960s and the '70s. The newest AARP study conducted in 2004 surveyed a nationally representative group of 1,682 adults ages 45 and older to measure attitudes and other factors affecting their sexuality and quality of life. This second landmark study represents the very frank viewpoints and revelations of three quarters of the 78 million Baby Boomers—men and women ages 45 to 59—as well as individuals in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and beyond. Online Guide to Relationships This article is just one part of AARP The Magazine’s online guide to relationships. Delve into this special section for compelling articles, message boards, video clips, and our very own Modern Love column. So what's changed in the last six years? Quite a bit, actually. For one thing, the proportion of men who've tried potency-enhancing medicines, hormones, or other treatments has doubled since 1999. Not that surprising, considering the number of prescriptions and other remedies on the market for erectile dysfunction. What is surprising: the increased pleasure the men's use of these treatments is giving their female partners, no matter what their age—a finding that challenges the widely held belief that older women aren't all that welcoming of their partner's newfound ardor. Another headline: despite Baby Boomers' famous open-mindedness, they disapprove of extramarital affairs in roughly the same proportion as do members of the older generation, and they also agree with their own parents that today's popular culture puts too much emphasis on sex. Still, much of the spirit of the "free love" generation's youthful attitude remains. Boomers feel strongly that sex is for every age, not just the young. And a large majority of both men and women in their 40s and 50s see no reason that sex should not be enjoyed by singles, the divorced, and widows and widowers. By contrast, half the women 70 and older, and 37 percent of the men in that age group, disapprove of sex outside of marriage.

At a time when we're at 30 below normal in some places , when people in Peru are facing death because of the years of excessively harsh winters, when Beijing and parts of Russia are colder than it has been in over 40 years , let's not forget the deception that is going on globally, trying to control our economies and say that it's getting warmer, as this is the coldest Winter in Florida I've seen in probably ten years, which is similar to the one's that decimated the citrus industry in the late 80s and early 90s. Now that Copenhagen is past history, what is the next step in the man-made global warming controversy? Without question, there should be an immediate and thorough investigation of the scientific debauchery revealed by "Climategate.” If you have not heard, hackers penetrated the computers of the Climate Research Unit, or CRU, of the United Kingdom's University of East Anglia, exposing thousands of e-mails and other documents. CRU is one of the top climate research centers in the world. Many of the exchanges were between top mainstream climate scientists in Britain and the U.S. who are closely associated with the authoritative (albeit controversial) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Among the more troubling revelations were data adjustments enhancing the perception that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other atmospheric greenhouse gases. Particularly disturbing was the way the core IPCC scientists (the believers) marginalized the skeptics of the theory that man-made global warming is large and potentially catastrophic. The e-mails document that the attack on the skeptics was twofold. First, the believers gained control of the main climate-profession journals. This allowed them to block publication of papers written by the skeptics and prohibit unfriendly peer review of their own papers. Second, the skeptics were demonized through false labeling and false accusations.