🥤 Birth of the drinking straw | Bulletin #122

This week: ciao, Adventurers! 🇮🇹

February 26, 2025

Clam Point 📍 Boston, Massachusetts 📸 Matthew Dickey

Clammy hands may not be ideal, but “clammy” water? Now that’s a different story! You might be surprised to learn that many cities use freshwater clams to monitor their water quality. These small shellfish serve as natural bioindicators, detecting pollution and chemicals in the water. When exposed to contaminants, the clams instinctively close their shells, signaling potential risks to municipal facilities and helping to ensure clean, safe water supplies. Now that’s what we call shelling out for quality control!

THIS WEEK IN AWA AWESOMENESS

👩‍⚕️ Picturesque pharmacies
🎺 Brassbound beginnings
⛷️ Scenic skiing in Italia
🧘 Finding your zen

$100 TOWARD YOUR NEXT FLIGHT

Where in the world do you dream of exploring? Well, we created a quick survey to help make the AWA Community even better! As a thank you, 10 lucky Adventurers who complete the three-minute survey will be sent $100 toward their next flight. Tell us your thoughts here and thank you in advance! YOUR FEEDBACK MATTERS MORE THAN YOU KNOW! 😉

CIAO, ITALIA!

Buon Viaggio, Dexter! We’re excited to announce our next Adventure will take us to Rome, Florence & the surrounding Tuscany region with our friends at Skyscanner. And we need your help to make it amazing… Know which Wine Window we should snag a Chianti from? Have a line on a secret garden we should see? Drop us your recommendations and we’ll do our best to eat as much carbonara as we can.

In Case You Missed It

Bless you! Is flu season hitting you hard? Unfortunately, we can’t send tissues or meds with this bulletin (our lawyers were adamantly against it), but we thought a little reading on some charming pharmacies might lift your spirits!

🥤 Birth of the drinking straw
🔬 The oldest apothecary in NYC
⚗️ The most scenic pharmacy in Italy
💊 Flu meds of the past

Riverboat Louis Armstrong 📍 New Orleans, Louisiana 📸 Federica Bellucci

HOW KING LOUIE GOT HIS HORN

You may have heard of Louis Armstrong, one of the jazz greats, but how did he get his first horn? It all began with selling junk and coal for a family who took him in as one of their own.

Maniva Ski Resort 📍 Giogo del Maniva, Italy 📸 Fabio Ardito

A SLALOM SNAFU

With nearly 350 ski resorts, Italy has quite a fascination with traversing snow-filled slopes. So much so, that a now internationally beloved sport was accidentally invented right in the mountains of Piedmont. 

BLAST FROM THE PAST

This YMCA in Syracuse, New York is stuck in a different time. Founded in 1858, and this 190,000-square-foot facility was built in 1907. Although the facility itself has been expanded, it still keeps its original charm and unspeakable nostalgia.

This week we’ll be giving away an adorable AWA Motel Keychain that’ll add some extra special charm to your everyday set. Get searching because it’s anything but low-key.