The 7 Wonders of the World.

A website, The New 7 Wonders, conducted an online poll to name what the world believes should be the new 7 wonders of the world. The results were announced yesterday. The winners were:

-The Great Wall of China
-Petra in Jordan
-Brazil's statue of Christ the Redeemer
-Peru's Macchu Picchu
-Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid
-The Colosseum in Rome
-India's Taj Mahal

Which is a fine list, I suppose. Most of those are pretty darn impressive -- particularly Petra and the Great Wall.

But I was amazed that the Great Pyramids in Egypt did not make the cut. I mean, they were on the original list -- one of the ancient wonders of the world. And even today, they are still a damn wonder. How could they not have gotten enough votes? So I decided to take a gander at the 21 finalists.

And you know, I have to say I was a little disappointed.

Maybe it's me, but although I do think places like the Kremlin, Neuschwanstein Castle and the Statue of Liberty are beautiful, they are not wonders of the world. I searched on the website for their operational definition for "wonder" -- did it have to be built by a certain date? without modern tools? serve certain purposes? -- but the only gleaning I could get was that it was based on tourism numbers. Which is not how wonder should be defined. That means that the items on the list are going to be ones that are household names, fairly easy to get to or featured in an action film.

Which means that wonders like the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum in Malta (picture above) and the Tikal Temples in Guatemala were not included as selections. Serious bummer.

So my list? Granted, I haven't been to all of the places on their list. But if the vote were up to me, here's what I'd choose, based on the places I've been:

-Malta's Hal Saflieni Hypogeum
-The Great Wall of China
-Aya Sofya in Turkey
-The old city of Dubrovnik, Croatia
-Macchu Picchu in Peru
-The Great Pyramids in Egypt
-Kiyomizu Temple in Japan

What are your wonders of the world?