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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Social "International Interview" Thread--All Are Welcome!

Discussion in 'FanForce Community' started by Pensivia, Jun 20, 2016.

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  1. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Hey, Chyntuck, and welcome back!:) No worries--DRL has been striking a lot of us down lately...he's very powerful!

    Yes, absolutely--and genuine Italian food definitely deserves a bit of discussion!=P~ One thing I have noticed is that while many "Italian" restaurants, etc. in various cities in the U.S. claim to offer "authentic gelato," I have never succeeded in finding any that even came close to the gelato I enjoyed on my trips to Italy (even in major cities like New York)...this is definitely a problem:p
     
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  2. panta1978

    panta1978 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 20, 2016
    Hi Chyntuck, welcome back.


    EARTHQUAKE.

    It's so sad. More than 200 people died because of it. There are also thousands of homeless people who are currently living in temporary buildings, but at least they are safe.

    But it shouldn't happen. I mean, earthquakes in seismic zones are inevitable and we can't predict them, but the fact that many Italian towns are full of buildings that are not anti-seismic is inacceptable. Especially old towns such as Amatrice, the one that was near the epicentre and was affected the most.

    I fear that now - as usual - it will take ages to rebuild those cities, an awful lot of money will be wasted, and the new buildings will not necessarily be built with the state-of-the-art technologies one would expect. It happened more than once in the past.

    FOOD

    OK, maybe I'm biased but... yes, I love Italian food and I'm glad I can eat it all the time :D It's true that I'm not the kind of guy that only eats local recipes. I like trying different kinds of food (Chinese, Japanese, Indian, etc...) but Italian one still remains my favourite!

    I start with the premise that one of the things I like about our food is diversity. There is a common ground, but every region, every province, even every town has its own peculiar recipes. You can get about Italy for years and try different dishes every day... I myself have just come back from a 2-day trip in the Dolomites (north-East of Italy) and yesterday I found a kind of pasta I'd never seen before.

    Now, my home town (Bologna) is considered the Capital of Italian Food, and our recipes are believed to be among the best you can find in Italy. I honestly agree up to a point, I've found great food in other regions! However, it is true that everybody loves Bolognese food... well, apart from vegetarians, I suppose :D

    But before talking about our recipes, I'd like to start by discussing what it is not a traditional Bolognese recipe. The "notorius" spaghetti alla bolognese. This is something unheard of here, my grandmother would horrify if she saw it... OK seriously, since I was curious I tried it when I was abroad once... not bad, I have to say, but not an Italian recipe at all.

    What it definitely is a traditional Bolognese recipe is the "cousin" of spaghetti alla bolognese. My beloved tagliatelle alla bolognese (I've already talked about it before). A simple but great dish! Tagliatelle is a variety of pasta that looks similar to spaghetti, just with a flat shape instead of a round one. But it is made with egg and is rough, whereas spaghetti is made with durum wheat and is smooth. And the Bolognese sauce doesn't fit very well with spaghetti, that is usually topped with other variety of condiments.
    [​IMG]

    Then we have tortellini, a "navel-shaped" variety of pasta filled with minced meat mixed with Parmigiano (parmesan) cheese. Usually served with broth or alternatively sour cream, it is considred our most iconic dish. I have to say I like it but I'm not mad about it.
    [​IMG]

    A popular comfort food we love is crescentine. A kind of dough fried with either oil or "strutto" (animal fat), it is served with cold cuts (generally ham), or eventually prickles or cheese.
    [​IMG]

    Then we have mortadella, a very popular cold cut. I think it is called Bologna in the US.
    [​IMG]

    There are other many recipes I could show you, but let's finish with just another one. Certosino bolgonese, a traditional cake prepared during the Christmas Holidays. There is no unique recipe, but it is generally made with flour, honey, candied fruit, almond, chocolate, cinnamon, etc.
    [​IMG]


    EDIT. A very nice article about Emilia Romagna (the region Bologna is the capital of) and its food written by a vegetarian. As I said before, our cousine and vegetarianism don't see eye to eye... Perhaps a little bit exaggerated, after all things are changing. Being a vegetarian in Bologna doesn't mean to be an alien... anymore. 30 years ago did!
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20970092
     
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  3. Chyntuck

    Chyntuck Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 11, 2014
    Okay panta1978 all that was absolutely mouth-watering =P~

    I find it really funny that spaghetti alla bolognese is a thing everywhere in the world except in Bologna (this happens with a few Greek dishes as well). Is the sauce you put on tagliatelle alla bolognese at least similar to what the rest of the world calls bolognese?
     
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  4. panta1978

    panta1978 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 20, 2016
    Yes pretty similar... minced meat and tomato are what both are based on. Then of course every Bolognese grandmother has its own secret recipe and our sauce is not standardised... but yes, quite the same as the spaghetti thing...

    Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk
     
  5. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Awesome post, panta! I think my fave of the examples you describe above would be the tortellini. You can get tortellini here in the US (both in grocery stores and in Italian restaurants), but of course I'm sure most of it here (except at the really up-scale Italian restaurants, maybe) pales in comparison to how it would be in Italy!

    ^Yeah, me too...I always wonder how stuff like that happens...like is it the result of non-Italians over the years trying (and failing) to reproduce things they tasted when they were in Italy? Or did it start out as more "authentically Italian" perhaps among a first-generation immigrant community somewhere else, but then as the generations went by in that community, the recipe was changed by the effect of the surrounding new culture?

    I don't know...the only thing I know of here called "bologna" (and get this--most Americans pronounce that word when it's used in this way as "bah-loe-nee"--LOL) is this really really cheap kind of cold cut that pretty much only kids seem to actually like:

    [​IMG]

    Believe me, the "mortadella" looks a LOT better than this, hahaha

    Just for laughs, here is a TV commercial for American "bologna" I remember from my childhood that featured a little advertising song that became very "famous" ("My bologna has a first name, it's "O-S-C-A-R", etc.)...



    And I just found an explanation for our (terrible:p ) pronunciation of the word:

    "The luncheon meat bologna is named after Bologna, Italy. In Italian, the name Bologna is pronounced /boˈloɲɲa/, where the sound /ɲ/ is the palatal nasal sound*. Americans are generally unable to produce this sound, and so in the US the pronunciation of bologna has become adulterated to "baloney".
     
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  6. panta1978

    panta1978 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 20, 2016
    Well we rape the English language every day by mispronouncing every single anglo-saxon sound :) so don't worry about the way you sound when you say Balooney.

    Omg. The kid in the ad is sooo cute

    We don't have an Italian counterpart for mortadella. But even so... yes I'd go for our version. But for the same reason when it comes to burgers I wouldn't recommend Italian ones... it's horses for courses!

    Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk
     
  7. El Jedi Colombiano

    El Jedi Colombiano Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 24, 2013
    1) [​IMG]

    Since you're a Spanish Native Speaker, I was wondering if it's easy for you to communicate to other Native Speakers from other nations or you have troubles from time to time. I know the Spanish spoken in Spain not to be the same as the ones spoken in South America, Mexico, Caribbean Island, etc. Are there some varieties harder to understand than others?
    Well, it is widely considered that Colombians tend to have the most “neutral” accent of all the Spanish speakers. The hardest to understand is probably the Puerto Ricans and some Cubans, although in general you can talk to any Spanish speaker and not have major issues. Some words that are used commonly in Colombia though aren’t used in other places (chevere, commonly meant to refer something cool, is completely unknown to the Argentines, something I came to notice recently). Argentinians and people in general from the southern countries of South America have a very marked and distinguished accent you wouldn’t confuse with that of anyone else. The Spaniards also have their accent; It’s mostly distinguishable by the thick pronunciation of the c, z and s.

    2) Is there any celebrity from Colombia you'd like to talk about? It can be either a worldwide famous star or someone that is only popular in your country.

    Well if there is someone famous that perhaps deserves some recognition is the famous writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He is most famous for having written the novel “100 Years of Solitude”. The novel is considered a prime example of the genre Magic Realism, which consists of fantastical and magical elements accepted in the rational world. The novel deals with the story of the Buendia family, spanning through several generations. Many have interpreted the novel as a metaphor for the history of Colombia, and even alludes to the small town or Aracataca, where Garcia Marquez grew up. The novel is considered one of the most important in Spanish literature.

    His son, Rodrigo Garcia is the director of the film Last Days in the Desert, where Ewan McGregor stars as Jesus.

    3) What are the most popular tourist places in your country? Have you ever been there?
    Sadly I haven’t been to most of the more touristic places of the country, but that doesn’t mean many aren’t worth the visit.

    Perhaps the most famous is the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, an independent mountain ridge from the Andes, that is considered the highest coastal mountain range in the world at 5,700 meters (18,700 ft). Truly unique due to it’s close proximity to the ocean, and having been the land once for the indigenous group known as the Tayrona, it’s a very popular tourist place where people can stay in these small cottages (see below). A wide variety of climates- ecological regions can be found, going from tropical rainforest to a cloud forest high in the mountains, and even a snowy peak. The descendants of the Tayrona, known as the Kogi, still live in the region.
    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Another famous tourist place is Caño Cristales, also known as the “River with Five Colors”. The river gets these colors due to the quarzite rocks and a native riverweed found at the bottom of the river. The five colors which can be seen in the river are yellow, green, blue, black and red.

    [​IMG]

    Close to the border with Ecuador you can see the Santuario de las Lajas, a Gothic Revival Cathedral that was built in the early 20th century, inspired by a miraculous apparition from 1754. The church is built on a bridge that crosses the Guaitara River.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Finally, this destination is relatively close to my home city, Bogota (about an hour away by car) is the famous Lake Guatavita. While small in size, this lake was a sacred place for the Muiscas where the Zipa (ruler) would make offerings in a raft and cover his body in gold dust in order to worship the Goddess. This lake became the basis for the legend of “El Dorado” or the supposed city of Gold the Conquistadores went all over the Americas searching for.

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]

    (bt, sorry this took so long, I've been very busy as of late :D)
     
  8. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Oh WOW! Awesome post, El Jedi Colombiano...that was definitely worth the wait!!! =D= I'm going to take the liberty of tagging panta1978 since he came up with the questions you answered (so that he will know your responses are up). Thanks again for the questions, panta!

    A lot to comment on in your responses (so this won't be my only comment)...but those pics are amazing! I've never seen anything like that "River with the Five Colors"....it's like Croatia's "sea organ" that Evening Star posted, in that I'd never even heard of anything like that even existing, let alone seen (or in the case of the sea organ, "heard") it before...

    I read a short story ("A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings") by Marquez years ago, but I haven't read 100 Years of Solitude (yet!). Did you have to read/study his works in any of your pre-university schooling? Also, I happen to notice when looking up Marquez on the English Wikipedia page about him that it says he is "known affectionately as Gabo or Gabito throughout Latin America" I thought that nickname for "Gabriel" is really cute.:D

    That looks so cool how the bridge leads over to the cathedral! Lovely pic of the inside as well. I have been to a lot of original Gothic as well as some revival/neo-Gothic cathedrals in Europe and America, and I always really enjoy that style of architecture.

    I'll be back with more comments and/or follow-up questions later on. Thanks again for your post!
     
  9. Skiara

    Skiara ~• RSA FFC •~ star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2002
    The pics of the cathedral and the beach are just Wow!!

    I have another question: How is the general meaning of the people about the politic and the normal life over there?

    If I think about Columbia, I think of a lot of nature. How is it really? Too crowed or normal or really much nature wherever one looks?
     
  10. panta1978

    panta1978 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 20, 2016
    The five-colour river is really spectacular! And so is the Cathedral near the bridge Surrounded by a forest... really fascinating.

    I love Garcia Marquez as well. I read "100 years of solitude" (in Italian)... well, I have to say, I had to when I was in High School. At first I didn't want to, after all I was a terrible reader at the time :D However I agree, it's really a masterpiece, worth being remembered.
     
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  11. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    So these figures in the photo below are a depiction of the myth associated with Lake Guatavita?

    [​IMG]

    That's really cool--so those figures must be solid gold?!

    I don't know much about pre-Columbian cultures, but I find those kinds of stories fascinating.

    Also Darth Nerdling has a thread somewhere where people post pics of real-world places that would make for good locations in SW films. I should add the pic of the "River of Five Colors" to his thread!
     
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  12. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    A guy from Sweden here, I want to sign up.
     
  13. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Terrific and welcome, Gamiel!

    I'm working through the interviewees in the order they volunteer here in the thread, so you've been added to the "list.":) As you can see from looking at back pages, this isn't the quickest-moving thread (or sub-forum:p !), but I am definitely committed to keeping it going as long as there are people willing to be interviewed, so "stay tuned"...
     
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  14. El Jedi Colombiano

    El Jedi Colombiano Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 24, 2013

    Yes, I've a few of his books while in Middle and High School, including parts of 100 Years of Solitude- (which we strangely read as a class and mainly broken by chapters)

    Some of his books are interesting, others are kinda boring, but that one is worth checking out ;)


    Well, people back home tend to be known for being very friendly towards outsiders-

    It's also common to hear it being said that Colombians are some of the happiest people in the world -(Although I don't get how these happy surveys are made anyway)

    I think that in general the country is very much abounding with nature (due in part to our unique geography, we are the second most biodiverse country in the world after Brazil) and our population is relatively small given the size of the country. However, the capital of Bogota (where I am from) tends to be very much crowded and traffic is the thing of nightmare [face_relieved]:p

    Yes, these figures can be found in the Gold Museum in Bogota- There are more from other tribes and civilizations that inhabited the country.

    Another famous figure, is a poporo used by the Quimbaya people, mainly used during religious ceremonies

    [​IMG]
     
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  15. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Well, you are the only Colombian I have met so far, but you are definitely friendly and seem pretty happy , so I'd say you're a great representative of your country in that respect:) !



    I also read somewhere once that Denmark is considered one of the "happiest" nations...along with Bhutan, where I think the government actually measures something like "Gross Domestic Happiness" ...
     
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  16. Skiara

    Skiara ~• RSA FFC •~ star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2002
    Thanks for answering my questions. I don't get these "happy surverys" neither. But when I look around I see more not-happy or bored faces than happy faces...
     
  17. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Hey everyone! Due to some unexpected DRL issues, I need to take a leave from the boards for a while (hopefully no more than a few weeks to a couple of months or so at the most).

    Skiara from Germany will be the next interviewee when I return. I'll let her decide whether the thread should be left open or temporarily locked until my return. Either way is fine with me.

    Thanks and see you all down the road a bit!:)
     
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  18. Skiara

    Skiara ~• RSA FFC •~ star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2002
    Thanks for the information, Pensivia! Take all the time you need. RL is always more important. :)

    The thread will stay open until you come back. Don't worry. :)
     
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  19. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Guess what everyone?!

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    I was away longer than I thought, but it's time to get this international party started again![face_dancing][face_party]

    So, without further delay (!), here are @Skiara's answers to the questions submitted by El Jedi Colombiano!

    Please direct your comments and questions directly to Skiara by tagging her...thanks!

    Question 1. Is there a particular time of German history that you find interesting?

    That's a difficult question. Once it was interesting to read about the second world war, but the more I learned the less I wanted to know. When I finished of getting my personal opinion (mostly what most German think about it) it came the time that I decided to stop reading about it, because most arcticles repeat the same thing and it's the clear opposite of fun. In my view, Germany is a very young country, although it has some history. So I'm more interested in the general developement of things. Like, what kind of stand had the political parties in the beginning and what happened that they lost so many votes. You need to know that the two big parties (SPD and CDU) had about or more than 40% each in the beginning and now they are about 25% more or less and the small parties like (FDP, Grüne and new parties) grew from about 5% to 10 or 15%. The percents are not from a qualitfied research and just to show what I mean.

    It's also interesting to see the developement of the industrial time. In the beginning, people were working 14 hours a day six days a week (I don't know how they could form a family at that time!), not much weight on health or fairness. Now, the average working hours is 8 hours five days a week. Plus, extra hours, of course. The "Sonntagsausflug" (tiny sundays trips, solely with family to the green parts of the city) had a totally different meaning than nowadays (often with family, but friends can be involved, different kind of trips). But this seems to be a world wide thing.

    I had watched a tv show at which they explained the different tricks of lengthening food back in the days and nowadays. To that day I had thought, if they sold milk, they had had only milk in the bottle. But they added water and flour or chalk! :eek: Nowadays, they need to use other, less obvious tricks, because the food controlling is working mostly very well.

    Of course, it's pretty cool to visit the historical cathedrals or other buildings or places as well! We have some of them, sure. I can really support visiting them, even some cities as a whole have their own storytelling history for which you need insiders, if you want to get to know them. :)

    Question 2. Germany is widely known for it's sausages--which one do you think is the best?

    Sausages... o_O You really asking the right person... lol I'm not a big fan of sausages, but I can tell you a bit about them. It's true, almost all Germans love sausages and eat them as a snack or at bbq parties. The usual "Bratwurst" is the one I see the most, right after "Wiener Würstchen" (Vienna sausages). But if I had to choose one, I would go with the Bavarian veal sausage. It's a bit different by being "whiter" then the other sausages and served with sweet mustard. Did you know that there's a "Bavarian veal sausage equator"? It devides Germany into the southern part (Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg) and nothern part (all other German states). It's nothing official, of course, just a "joke", but with some serious meaing as well. If one does a statistic about anything, it's often that the northern part prefers A while the southern part prefers B and that line is about the same as the Weißwurst-Äquator (Bavarian veal sausage equator).


    Question 3. What cities/places are most worth visiting?

    Ehm, am I allowed to say every place and city is worth visiting? It's not easy to name just a few, because of history and the geografy I would suggest various ones. To beginn in the north, the North and Baltic sea is worth more than one holiday trip. In the earlier times before flying got that cheap, it was usual that families spend their holidays at the German sea. In east Germany, you find Berlin, which was divided until 1990 and is the capital city again (when it was decided Bonn was the captial). In the middle of Germany you can find a lot nature, flat land and hills, depending on at which place you are. In the south you have the Alps with lakes and snow. If a foreigner would ask me to suggest a single place for a holiday with the aim to get to know Germany, I would answer that a round trip with at least four stops (say Alps, Berlin, North- or Baltic sea and Luneburg Heath) would be the best with spending at least one week at one place, so they can take a look at the places close by as well.

    And lastly, Skiara had some questions to ask any readers of this thread who are interested to answer...so here they are:

    Skiara's Question for Readers of this Thread:

    About one thing I'm really curious. There are a few "English" words in German who have a different meaning than the exact translation. I wonder, if you would get what I say, if I use these "German" words instead of the correct translation. So...

    Do you know what a German means, when they say "handy", "beamer", "oldtimer", "casting show", "fitness studio" or "office program"? What do you think what it means? (Please, don't spoil the fun by googling it, ehm, searching it by using google.)

    How do pronounce "live" in English correctly, if it's about a tv show? Is it even similar to our pronounciation?

    Please, add the your country when you answer! I bet there are differences from country to country. :)

    Many thanks to El Jedi Colombiano for his questions, to Skiara for her answers, and to any readers of this thread still out there after this little hiatus...now, let the discussion begin!
     
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  20. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    Hopefully Skiara will excuse the double post, but I thought it would be more "readable" for me to break off my first response to her question in a separate post.:

    I have some German relatives, and there is one of those words that I have heard them use: "handy"...which I think is an informal term for "cell phone" or "smartphone" (is that right?). I have never heard the other words used in German, but I will tell you what they mean in American English:

    beamer: a slang term for a BMW car

    oldtimer: an elderly person or, anyone who has been doing something a long amount of time relatively speaking (like I would say that a person who joined the JCF in 2001 is an "oldtimer" here)

    casting show: I have no idea on this one--it's not a term I have ever heard used here in America before (!)

    fitness studio: this is also not a term that I've heard people use here exactly, but I would guess that maybe Germans use it to refer to what we would call a "gym" (a place where people go to exercise)


    office program: again, this isn't a widely used term here, but to me it sounds like some kind of workplace training program required of employees (?)

    how to pronounce "live" (referring to a TV show): with a long "i" (rhymes with "dive," bee "hive"/same type of "i" sound as in the word "knife")

    I will respond more to your actual interview answers later, but I would like to give others a chance to respond first...

    Edit: One last announcement...after we have time for any follow-up questions and discussions related to Skiara's answers (usually a week to two weeks), our next interviewee will be Chyntuck from Greece!

    Further edit: Just so I don't forget, I'm going to remind myself here that poster Snokers from Scotland has volunteered to join the lineup of interviewees! (That way when I go through the posts in the thread later on looking for the order of volunteers, I'll see this and remember...) So thanks for volunteering, Snokers, and "stay tuned"!
     
  21. Chyntuck

    Chyntuck Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 11, 2014
    Skiara Thanks for the answers (and thanks to El Jedi Colombiano for the questions!) I have many questions for you, but I'll limit myself to just three for the time being.

    1) About German history, I find it interesting that you didn't mention the period of the unification of the German states under the rule of Otto von Bismarck. Is that a period that isn't thought of as particularly "exciting" in Germany, or does it simply fall outside your areas of interest?

    2) About sausages, there's a question I always wanted to ask. Why on earth would a people so rational and logical as the Germans make sausage sandwiches with a round piece of bread? :p

    3) About places to visit in Germany: many people all over Europe think of Berlin in particular as The Place To Be. Why do you think that is, and do you think that the image other Europeans have of Berlin is close to reality, or that it's exceedingly romanticised?
     
  22. PatttyB0123

    PatttyB0123 Former RSA star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Apr 2, 2003
    I was in that museum 5 years ago. Your photographs are looking much better than my photographs. Museum of the Gold. ;)
     
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  23. Skiara

    Skiara ~• RSA FFC •~ star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 5, 2002
    Pensivia, I'm totally fine with this kind of double post. The first is made by you as the moderator of this thread and the second is made as a user/reader of this thread. Plus it helps to keep up the readability as you said above.

    Btw, I'm going to tell you what those "English" words mean later on, when hopefully more people answered. :)


    It's the obvious period that most people would refer to. Of course, it's interesting, but I got bored about it back in school, so I enjoy other parts of history more. ;)

    You are speaking about "hot dog"? Hot Dog is not a German invention, I think... Or what do you mean exactly? Could you link a picture, please?

    Berlin is overrated. It's a very big city and the capital of Germany, but it's not so nice. I have been there a few times. Somehow the city is different and has it's own character. I guess that's why most people of Berlin love it, but in my view there are more interesting places and cities in Germany. Freiburg for example, is really beautyful or Hamburg has lots to offer and it's own history. Of course, Berlin has a big history because of the world wars and the divided Germany, but beside of that I can't think of anything else history-wise. That's the difference to other cities. Or Cologne, that city is made by the romans and exists since then. Not sure, when Berlin was founded... If one visits Germany, I would to advice to travel around and to visit more places than just Berlin and it main sighseeings.

    Btw, what do you think of the "English" words used in German I posted above, Chyntuck and PatttyB0123?
     
  24. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    I blame Beatles and David Bowie.
     
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  25. Pensivia

    Pensivia Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2013
    But I think the Beatles are more associated with Hamburg, right? (and the infamous "Reeperbahn" district there (!)...though I'm not sure if it's still considered "infamous" today or if that was more when they were playing there in the early 1960s...)

    [​IMG]

    I don't know much about Bowie--can anyone tell me how he is associated with Berlin?

    @Skiara's perspective on Berlin is interesting. I've only been there once, for about a week in 1999 (!). I loved it, but of course all I experienced was the "tourist's view." And I definitely romanticize it...but then again, being the major American "Europhile" that I am :D ), I pretty much tend to romanticize anything European!:p

    Edit: oh, and since the Beatles have been mentioned, I must give a tag shout-out to my fellow Beatles-lover Dagobahsystem! :D
     
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