Adventures of a Nomad Princess

Film Review: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

2010-12-03T00:38:00.001-05:00

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas unsettled me.

Was it because I compared it too closely -and it didn't come close - to Life is Beautiful (made by the same studio, Miramax), an infinitely, painfully superior take on a young boy who does not quite understand the horrors of the holocaust happening around him?

Was it because I can't stand when characters who live in different countries - Germany, circa WWII, for example - should be speaking in a foreign language, but for some reason are speaking English, and even more inappropriately in this case of a Nazi German family, in a British accent.

Perhaps I was annoyed that that the adult actors were intriguing (particularly Vera Farmiga - fantastic in everything - and the Nanny, who should have had a larger role), and I wished the annoying kids would piss off out of the movie and let the grown ups take the spotlight.

It disturbed me that, unlike my favourite films about the Holocaust - Schindlers List, The Pianist, Life is Beautiful above all - this movie seemed to cheapen the tactics that those films used so effectively and touchingly. I agreed with the New York Times reviewer wrote: this film shows "the Holocaust trivialized, glossed over, kitsched up, commercially exploited and hijacked for a tragedy about a Nazi family."

It bothered me that some of the characters were so stereotypical (the mean guard, the nice servant, the prissy daughter). It bothered me that the guard showed a moment of humanity at the dinner table that was never fully explored. It bothered me that Roberto Benigni was nowhere to be found, nor were any Hitler-style moustaches. It bothered me that not one word of German was spoken throughout the movie, yet they read German-language books.

But it was the end of the film that disturbed me the most. And only as the scene faded to black did I realize that this was the whole point of the movie. I was disturbed by the fate that befell the innocent boy Bruno, but then I realized that every person in that room was innocent. In fact, the boy was probably the most guilty of all, by association with his father. Then I felt that he got what he deserved. Then I heard the wailing in the distance, just as the father did, of his mother, the beautiful Vera Farmiga, who didn't deserve to lose her little boy. And I watched that heavy door, wishing it would open, hoping it really was just a shower.

And just like that, this film that had so unsettled me, had turned me into a naive kid, like the boy in Life is Beautiful, and like the boys in the striped pyjamas, who understood on some level what had happened, but who didn't want to believe it.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Application Video for Transat Vacationer Job

2010-11-10T22:18:00.000-05:00

Transat is hiring a professional "Vacationer" who gets to travel for 2 weeks of every month for ONE YEAR, and blog about it for them (and get paid to do it!).

To apply, we had to make a 2-minute video, showcasing a tourist attraction in our city (I chose Ottawa's Byward Market), and then showcasing ourselves.

Here was my effort!

You will Miss Sarajevo

2010-10-20T00:37:00.001-04:00

There are a few cities in the world where you visit and, for whatever reason, can’t seem to leave. Unlike Paris or Rome - where you could spend weeks visiting museums and sites - these are cities that lure you in with their easiness, inviting you to just hang out for a while. Until suddenly, ten days later, you’re wondering where so much time went, and how it’s possible that you’re still not ready to go?

Sarajevo is one of these cities.

If you’re a history buff, you will remember that it was in Sarajevo where the shot that started WWI was fired. If you’re a music fan, you might recognize U2’s tribute, “Miss Sarajevo,” and if you’re a sports fan,

you probably watched the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics.

If you’ve read Lonely Planet this year, you’ll know that Sarajevo is listed as one of the Top 10 Cities to Visit in 2010.

But if you’re like most people, you will still get chills from the very name Sarajevo, remembering that from 1992 to 1996, during the Bosnian War, it was the victim of a siege that has been compared to Stalingrad in brutality.

When I first arrived, I felt uncomfortable to be in a city that still has bullet holes in its buildings, libraries still in ruins, and thousands of its residents still unaccounted for, while I knew next to nothing about what went on there.

But I didn’t have to worry about my lack of knowledge for long – Sarajevo is also a history teacher.

For a fairly small city – about half the size of Portland – it has many museums, including a History Museum with photos, newspaper articles and artifacts detailing, sometimes excruciatingly, the siege in the 1990s.

There are “Sarajevo Roses” around the city: old mortar shell explosion-sites filled in with red paint so they can’t be missed. You’ll see them on the sidewalks, in parks, in a marketplace where civilians were killed while they queued up for bread.

There are many commemorative plaques; one where Franz Ferdinand was murdered, another on the former National Library that says: ‘On this place Serbian criminals in the night of 25th, 26th August 1992 set on fire National and University’s Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Over 2 millions of books, periodicals and documents vanished in the flame. Do not forget, remember and

warn.’

There is a guided tour to the tunnel that led one million Sarajevans out of their besieged city to safety.

You can walk through the remaining 20 metre section and try to imagine how it felt to make that walk not twenty years ago, risking your life to leave the city you love.

The tour guide, probably a young Bosnian who lived through the siege himself, then takes you to the spot in the mountains where part of the Olympic luge still sweeps down through the trees. Ten years after it was used for sport, it was the point from which soldiers fired down into the city.

I asked my guide, Mustafa, why the past seemed more available in Sarajevo than in other Croatian and Serbian cities, which suffered through the same war but do not have nearly the same amount of commemoration.

‘We didn’t do anything wrong in Sarajevo, we

were not the aggressors, so we aren’t ashamed to talk about it,’ Mustafa said.

Sarajevo wants its history, albeit sometimes

painful, on display so that it doesn’t repeat itself.

But its history isn’t all bad, it’s not limited to the siege, and it didn’t begin in the 1990s: it was the Ottoman Empire that had the biggest impact on Sarajevo, not to mention the tastiest.

Thanks to 400-years of Ottoman rule in Bosnia, there are coffee shops aplenty in which to sit for hours with strong cups of Turkish coffee. That is, when your mouth isn’t full of cevapcici; a minced-meat, Ottoman-era delicacy that is enjoyed throughout the Balkan countries, but perfected in Bosnia, where its is paired with onions and sour cream on a doughy flatbread.

Fascinating history lessons, great coffee, spicy cevapcici, and all a fraction of the price that you’d pay elsewhere.

No wonder the city is a black hole for tourists.

You’ll see them wandering the cobblestone streets of Bascarsija, feeling like they’ve just stepped out of Europe and into the Middle East. Bascarsija, the old Ottoman bazaar, is the heart of Sarajevo now just as it was four hundred years ago. Each of its narrow streets is dedicated to a particular craft; you can buy rugs, pottery, handmade jewelry, and copper coffee sets. In the doorway of the tiny shops, the employees sit on carpeted stools, drinking little coffees, while the sweet scents of shisha waft out of cafes and the calls to prayer sound from the minarets overhead.

Legend says that if you drink water from one of Sarajevo’s many fountains, you’ll come back someday; most visitors, although having spent more than enough time in the city already, will have a quick,, hopefuly sip from the fountain in the centre of Bascarsija, outside the Ferhadija Mosque.

Before the siege displaced 100,000 people, Sarajevo was called the Jerusalem of Europe with its mixed population of Bosnian Muslims, Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Catholics. The demographics have changed, but within the city you can still Catholic and Orthodox churches, a synagogue, and mosques such as Ferhadija, the country’s finest example of Ottoman Islamic architecture, damaged but not destroyed in the war.

Together, they have reached a level of peaceful co-existence where other Bosnian cities have not been

so successful.

Despite all its tragedy, it is a city that inspires. Only Sarajevo could have produced stories such as the 1993 Miss Sarajevo pageant, held in one of the many underground cellars for protection. Or the “Romeo and Juliet” of Sarajevo, a young couple killed at the foot of a bridge as they tried to escape their burning city.

The owners of a restaurant called “To Be or Not To Be” crossed out the “Not to Be” on the sign over their door, offering no other choice but to survive. On the wall of that restaurant today is a poster of the Cellist of Sarajevo, defying snipers by playing his instrument amid the rubble of the National Library.

If a city can be defined by a word, then Sarajevo’s word is LIVE.

On the eleventh night of my scheduled 2-day trip to Sarajevo, I met my friends in the Sarajevska Pivara Brewery across the Miljacka River, a grand room with delicious dark beer and good music. The brewery is one of Bosnia’s most successful industries, established during Ottoman rule and flourishing under the Austro-Hungarians. It is also one of the best places in the city to spend an evening.

When we left at midnight, the snow had started to come down. By the next day, it would cover the entire city, from the cobbles of Bascarsija up to the cold mountains, where red flags warning of landmines are still posted in the grass.

We walked home in the dark, clear night, sliding along the sparkling roads, throwing snowballs and drawing our initials on windshields. The windows of the houses were yellow-tinted and peaceful.

We felt exhilarated to

be alive, sorry that we didn’t know enough about what happened here in the past, but grateful to have finally learned.

And we thought maybe that’s why Sarajevo makes everyone stay around for so long: you can’t leave before you understand it, this city that makes you wholeheartedly believe in the promise of a water fountain.

Croatia Sailing 2009 - the movie!

2010-10-09T12:19:00.001-04:00

For those of you who were there, this video should bring back memories of the greatest country on Earth, and thank you for making it such a great time!

For those of you who weren't, watch and be jealous (and then book your holiday immediately!)

Here's what I've been doing with my summers for the past 2 years...

(If it's easier, it's on YouTube too at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fqgx4B3jAQ)

Vienna

2010-04-15T07:21:00.001-04:00

POPULATION: 1.7 million (more than 25% the population of Austria)
-Vienna is the 10th largest city in the EU

-In 2009, it was tied with Vancouver as the city with the highest quality of life.

QUICK HISTORY

Under the Habsburgs back in the 13th century, Vienna became a major European capital. It was, for a time, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. It was the capital of Bohemia and Hungary when they were under Austrian rule. It was subject to attack by the Ottoman Empire, so it became a fortified city in the 16th century. When the Ottomans were finally defeated in 1683, during the Second Turkish Siege (where they were defeated by Polish King Jan Sobieski), Vienna was finally able to let its guard down and flourish.

The 18th Century was characterized by extensive building, in the baroque fashion. Many palais were constructed during this time.

BAROQUE

The artistic style that prevailed in Europe from the 16th-18th centuries. Its popularity was supported by the Catholic Church, who wanted arts to communicate religious themes (as a response to the Reformation). The Renaissance before it hade gotten away from religious themes a little in favour of realism, so baroque style saw a return to it. The aristocracy also enjoyed baroque architecture because it was impressive to visitors, and expressed triumph and control. It is simple, but at the same time, characterized by large courtyards and entrances, grand staircases and reception rooms, operatic gestures, and, above all, opulence.

Where the Turks had been unsuccessful in capturing Vienna, Napoleon’s army was able to capture it twice during the French Revolution (in 1805 and 1809). The first conquest happened without a battle; three French marshals crossed the Tabor Bridge over the Danube, told the Austrian commander who was guarding the bridge that the war was over, and they let the French army enter without a fight. Napoleon was quite good to the Viennese, and let them keep their national guard and all of their arsenal.

Congress of Vienna

After Napoleon was defeated, the Congress of Vienna took place. This was a meeting of ambassasdors from around Europe to draw the European political map after the French Revolution had ended after 25 years of war, and the Holy Roman Empire abolished. It was held in Vienna from November 1814 to June 1815. At this congress, the boundaries of France, the Netherlands, and various Italian territories were drawn.

The Congress of Vienna was a model for the League of Nations and the UN. There were representatives from all of the nations that took part in the Napoleonic wars (around 200 representatives of cities, religious organizations, special interest groups too), but the most influential players were: Russia, Britain, Prussia and Austria and France. One unusual characteristic was that the meetings were not formal, held in boardroom affairs. They were informal, face-to-face meetings between leaders.

The main results from the Congress included: Russia was given the Duchy of Warsaw (Poland), and Finland; the nearly 300 states of the Holy Roman Empire were consolidated into Germany; the Netherlands were united (but broke apart shortly afterwards when Belgium revolted); the neutrality of Switzerland was guaranteed; Austria received control of Croatia, Hungary, Bohemia and Slovakia; the slave trade was condemned.

The 1867 union of Austria-Hungary saw Vienna become the capital of the Empire. The 19th century was a heyday for Vienna: it was the centre of classical music, high culture and modernism.

WWI saw no physical damage inflicted upon Vienna, but it was the end of Austria-Hungary, which was proclaimed in front of the Parliament in Vienna.

Inflation after the war, economic difficulties, radicalization of the government, latent anti-semitism that had been increasing over many years, and the frustration all of this caused in the population led to Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler being warmly welcomed in Vienna. He gave a famous speech from the balcony of the Hofburg. The Viennese citizens took part in the November, 1938 Reichskristallnact (this was a simultaneous attack across several cities, triggered by the assassination of a German diplomat by a Polish Jew in Paris; it led to up to 30,000 Jews being arrested, placed into concentration camps, their homes and synagogues destroyed, belongings confiscated). Vienna was less supportive of Nazism than the rest of Austria, in fact Hitler himself hated Vienna and wanted to see his childhood hometown of Linz replace it as capital, but this did not result in any resistance. When WWII ended, Vienna was divvied up between the Allied powers (similar to the division of Berlin, but not as severe), and it did not regain its political independence until 1955.

Today, Vienna is full of beautiful buildings, grand parks, magnificent architecture. The Habsburg history can be traced, but there is a lot of Art Nouveau around as well. Vienna is the seat of many international organizations: it is the 4th UN City (after New York, Geneva and The Hague)

VIENNESE BALLS

Vienna is the last capital of the 19th century ball. There are still over 200 balls per year, with orchestras, in beautiful venues around Venue, the most impressive being the Hofburg Palace. For many Viennese, they will attend several balls in their lifetime (as long as they are at least middle class), and for the richer folk, the ball season may last several months.

VIENNESE COFFEE SHOPS

The Austrians claim to be the inventors of filtered coffee. Apparently, when the Turks invaded in 1683, they left behind sacks of coffee beens. The King gave the sacks to one of the officers who helped to defeat the Turks, named Jerzy Kulczycki. Jerzy had his choice of booty, but left behind gold and weapons in favour of the beans that others thought was just camel feed; he had visited Turkey, and knew exactly what it was. After a little experimentation, and the addition of sugar and milk, he was able to make it a little more palatable to the Austrians, and opened the first Viennese coffee house. The concept then spread to the other countries of the Austro-Hungarian empire; by 1900, there were 600 coffee shops in Vienna alone. (Paris, however, was the first city to open a coffeehouse in Europe).
The Viennese coffee house became an institution in the 19th century, with writers and artists turning up there to discuss and create their work. The Viennese coffee house is the equivalent to the Parisian cafe.

The popularity of coffee houses waned with the rise of television and chain coffee shops (some old coffee shops are now Starbucks), but there are still some classic examples in Vienna.

A few to try:

Cafe Frauenhuber: Vienna’s oldest cafe and one of Mozart’s favourites

Kleines Cafe: One of the smallest in town, and used in the movie Before Sunrise

Cafe Sperl: Hitler’s preferred cafe

SITES AROUND TOWN:

BURGTHEATER

OPERA HOUSES

HOFBURG PALACE: The Habsburg’s city centre base. Inside are many museums:

HOFBURG MUSEUM: the location of the treasury, holding the imperial jewels of the Habsburg dynasty.

SISSI MUSEUM: tells the story of the strange life of Emperor Franz Josef’s wife, Elisabeth (“Sissi”)

KAISERGRUFT: the Imperial vault, holding the remains of several Habsburgs, including Sissi (where many of her followers still leave flowers)

SCHONBRUNN PALACE: an imperial, 1440 summer palace. It has gardens similar to Versailles, a maze, and is also home to the world’s oldest zoo, the TIERGARTEN SCHONBRUNN

-100 Art Museums around town

OBERES BELVEDERE: A Baroque palace-cum-art gallery, home to Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, and other Impressionists and early 20th century works. (There was a scandal in 2005, which saw 5 Klimts returned to Maria Altmann, the descendent of the man who owned the paintings before they were stolen by the Nazis; one of the 5 paintings was later sold for US$135 million, making it the world’s most expensive painting).

MUSEUM QUARTER: Former Imperial Stalls that were converted into a museum complex in the 1990s (including the LEOPOLD MUSEUM)

MUSEUM MODERNER KUNST: Art Gallery

KunstHausWien: Designed by Vienna’s version of Antoni gaudi, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, this former factory was transformed into an art gallery. It has a collection of his works, and other modern artists.

Hundertwasser House: Another of Viennese Gaudi’s designs; very colourful, in different squares of colours, its floors are uneven (an uneven floor is a divine melody to the feet), a roof covered with earth and grass, and large trees growing inside the rooms, with limbs extending from the windows. The artist, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, took no payment for the house, which he designed in the 1980s to counter all of the baroque and classical architecture. saying it was worth it to prevent something ugly from being built there.

ALBERTINA: A few Michelangelos, and other modern exhibitions, are here.

ZENTRALFRIEDHOF (Central Cemetery): Home to Beethoven’s grave, as well as Schubert and Brahms. Mozart has a monument here, but is buried elsewhere.

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL: Found in Judenplatz, the first of its kind in Austria

PETSAULE: The Plague Column, on Graben (the Plague killed 1/3 of Vienna’s population)

AUSTRIA

2010-04-15T07:06:00.001-04:00

Capital: Vienna

Population: approx: 8,400,000 (approx. 2 million in Vienna, or 20% of the population - no other city exceeds 1 million)

Currency: Euro

Languages: officially German (also Croatian, Slovene, Hungarian locally)

Borders: Austria is landlocked: Germany and Czech Republic to the North; Slovakia and Hungary to the East; Slovenia and Italy to the South; Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the West

Landscape: The Alps constitute 62% of the nation’s total area (of the total area of Austria, only a quarter can be considered low-lying)

Rivers: Danube (in Vienna); Salzach (Salzburg)

Part of EU?: Yes (since 1995)

-Austria is one of six European countries that have declared permanent neutrality (written into its constitution)

-It is one of the 10 richest countries in the world in terms of GDP

-Vienna is consistently rated first or second most livable city (after Vancouver)

QUICK HISTORY

The age of the great Austrian Empire really kicked off with two important marriages: 1477, Mary (daughter of the last Duke of Burgundy) and Max (son of Frederick III Habsburg, Holy Roman Emperor); and 1496, their son Philip married Johanna the Mad (daughter of Spain’s Ferdinand and Isabella). Another marriage a few years later (Max’s grandson to the daughter of the King of Bohemia and Hungary) gets them the crown of Hungary too (after the Hungarians are defeated by the Turks at the Battle of Mohacs).

This pretty much gives the titles to Burgundy, Spain, Austria and Germany, i.e. most of the major kingdoms of Europe at the time, to the Habsburgs, making them the most powerful dynasty since the Romans, and all through peaceful means.

The Habsburg marriages of 1477 and 1496 give rise to a much quoted line of Latin poetry: Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube (Let others make war; you, fortunate Austria, marry).

These intermarriages inevitably resulted in disaster and inbreds, but it worked for many years.

The Habsurgs were great patrons of the arts (much like the Medicis). They were the origin of all of the Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, rulers of the Austrian and Spanish Empires, and responsible for bringing the thrones of Burgundy, Spain, Bohemia and Hungary (and others) together. They separated into the Spanish branch and the Austrian branch, and by the 18th century, both died out due to lack of male heirs (their reign began by creating families, and ended with lack of families, probably due to their inter-marriages!). The Spanish branch ended with Charles II in 1700 and was replaced by the house of Bourbon (Philip V). This prompted the War of the Spanish Succession. The Austrian branch ended in 1780 after Maria Theresa died and the new house called itself the House of Habsburg-Lorraine.

They wanted to consolidate their power through marriage, but this resulted in disaster. They married their cousins, their uncles or nieces, and this inbreeding led not only to the famous Habsburg jaw, and to severely disabled leaders such as Charles II, but to their eventual extinction. The last Habsburg on the throne was Charles I, who was deposed in 1919, and because Austria had lost WWI, the Habsburgs were banished from Austria until they renounced all claims to the throne (which Otto von Habsburg subsequently did). But regardless of their dubious sexual preferences, they were great patrons of the art, responsible for Austria’s great history of classical music, and possibly for Kaiser rolls.

But back to the history of Austria ...

In 1556, the capital of the Holy Roman Empire was located in Vienna, and the Holy Roman Emperors ruled places as far away as Belgium. Before the French Revolution, it didn’t matter as much what type of nationality you were, but rather who ruled you (the Turks ruled the Balkans, for example). The French Revolution changed all that, saying that people should be ruled within their own “national” boundaries. Napoleon dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, declared himself Emperor of Austria

After the Congress of Vienna in 1814, which ended the French Revolution, all of the leaders of Europe got together to figure out who controlled what. Austria ended up responsible for Germany and Italy, as well as Hungary, Bohemia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia.

Revolution broke out in 1848,, and Austria lost much of its territory (after the German Prussians revolted). In 1867, Hungary demanded a dual-government, so the kingdom officially changed its name to Austria-Hungary. Their joint parliament would meet one year in Vienna, the next in Budapest. This union worked well; they made good trading partners, and their territories, such as Croatia, managed to get enough concession to keep them happy.

The only ones that weren’t happy were the Serbians. They won their independence from Turkey in 1878, and wanted to establish a large Slav state, with the King of Serbia at its head. To do this, they particularly wanted Bosnia (which still belonged to the Turks, but its population was Serb/Croat/Bosnian). The Russians were happy with this idea, being fellow-Slavs, but Austria-Hungary was not, and in 1908, Austria took over Bosnia for itself.

In 1914, when Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand (heir to the throne) was celebrating his wedding anniversary with his wife in Sarajevo, a Serb terrorist group, lead by Gavrilo Princip, shot the Archduke dead.

Thus began WWI.

The teams were: Austria-Hungary/Germany/Turkey vs. Serbia/Russia/France/Italy/Britain/US.

Once the Americans entered the war, it ended a year later.

The different nationalities (Yugoslavia/Hungary/Czechoslovakia/Poland) declared independence, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed.

Fast-forward to WWII, when Adolf Hitler, from Braunau, Austria, had a vision to re-unite all of the German-speaking people of Europe (the way it was back during the Holy Roman Empire).

STRUDEL

Origins from Turkish burek, probably entered Austria through its ties with Croatia and Bosnia. Austrian cuisine took in a lot of qualities from the territories it posessed during the Austro-Hungarian empire. The oldest strudel recipe dates back to 1656, from the Habsburg empire.

WIENER SCHNITZEL

Commonly served with a slice of lemon and potato salad/potatos. The traditional Wiener schnitzel is made of veal, but now also made of pork. There are debates as to whether it originated in Italy, or in Austria. “Wiener” means Viennese in German. Legend has it that a Kaiser in the 9th century liked his meat covered with gold; this practice was a little too expensive, so an alternative was created: yellow-gold bread crumbs. Breading meat soon spread to other countries (through the influence of the Austrian empire). In the 1800s, an Austrian discovered a meal called “Costoletta alla Milanese” in Milan, which was a thick veal cutlet covered in bread crumbs, and he brought it back to Austria.

KAISER ROLLS

Originated in Vienna, thought to have been named to honor Emperor Franz Josef. Franz Josef, incidentally, was the last Emperor of Austro-Hungary before its dissolution in 1918, and the second last from the house of Habsburg-Lorraine (Charles I was last). His heir was his nephew, Franz Ferdinand. Franz Josef is the third-longest reigning leader in Europe (after Louis XIV of France and Johannes II, Prince of Liechtenstein).

PEZ

First marketed as a compressed peppermint candy in 1927 in Vienna. (“PEZ” is derived from the German word for Peppermint: Pfefferminz). The first PEZ dispensers were shaped like cigarette lighters, and were marketed as an alternative to smoking. In 1955, the first heads were put onto the dispensers, and to date, over 1500 varieties have been created. The Pez HQ is still found in Austria. The highest amount ever paid for a Pez dispenser was $7000, for a Mickey Mouse head. They also have Pez conventions.

-SCHNAPPS

COFFEE

The Austrians claim to be the inventors of filtered coffee. Apparently, when the Turks invaded in 1683, they left behind sacks of coffee beens. The King gave the sacks to one of the officers who helped to defeat the Turks, named Jerzy Kulczycki. Jerzy had his choice of booty, but left behind gold and weapons in favour of the beans that others thought was just camel feed; he had visited Turkey, and knew exactly what it was. After a little experimentation, and the addition of sugar and milk, he was able to make it a little more palatable to the Austrians, and opened the first Viennese coffee house. The concept then spread to the other countries of the Austro-Hungarian empire; by 1900, there were 600 coffee shops in Vienna alone. (Paris, however, was the first city to open a coffeehouse in Europe).

The Viennese coffee house became an institution in the 19th century, with writers and artists turning up there to discuss and create their work. The Viennese coffee house is the equivalent to the Parisian cafe.

The popularity of coffee houses waned with the rise of television and chain coffee shops (some old coffee shops are now Starbucks), but there are still some classic examples in Vienna.

A few to try:

Cafe Frauenhuber: Vienna’s oldest cafe and one of Mozart’s favourites

Kleines Cafe: One of the smallest in town, and used in the movie Before Sunrise

Cafe Sperl: Hitler’s preferred cafe

REDBULL

Began in 1987, inspired by Lucozade and other “functional” drinks in Asia. The inventor, an Austrian entrepreneur named Dietrich Mateschitz,, visited Thailand and found that one of their energy drinks cured his jet-lag. He worked for three years to create Redbull, changing the taste a bit and making it more palatable to Westerners (its taste is said to be akin to liquid gummy bears), and it hit the market in Austria (Salzburg), and in 1992, hit its first foreign market in Hungary. In the 1990s, the company was the most highly valued in Austria, and Mateschitz its richest individual. Today, the owners of Redbull are the 260th richest persons in the world (Forbes). In Germany, a small amount of cocaine was found in Rebdull, so six German states have banned the drink until further notice. The Thai drink that Redbull was inspired by – called Krating Daeng, was popular among cab drivers and blue collar workers, but Red Bull markets itself strongly to young, active people, by sponsoring football teams, RedBull Flugtag (a homemade flying competition ... Mateschitz was a flying enthusiast) , racecars, extreme sports, graffiti-style advertising, promotions for young club-goers, Reggie Bush is a sponsor.

SWAROVSKI CRYSTAL

Founded in 1895 by Daniel Swarovski using his expertise at glass-cutting. First factory was built in Wattens, Austria (near Innsbruck). Swarovski was born in Bohemia, and his father was a glass-cutter who owned a small factory (glass-cutting is very popular in the Czech Republic). In 1892, Daniel patented an electric cutting machine that facilitated the process, and with a few partners, founded his company in Austria. The Swarovski theme park, Crystal Worlds, is located in Wattens and was built in 1985 to commemorate the company’s 100th anniversary. Today, the crystals are used for jewellery, Christmas trees (Rockefeller Centre), Bluetooth pieces, chandeliers, figurines (the figurine line was started accidentally in 1973 when a designer built a little mess out of spare chandelier parts).

CLASSICAL MUSIC

In the 18th and 19th centuries, classical musicians were drawn to Vienna due to the patronage of the Habsburgs (much like the Medicis during the Renaissance). This was known as the Classical Period, and Vienna was its capital. Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss, Brahms, Haydn, Schubert, were all there during that time. The Vienna Philarmonic’s New Years concert is still one of Europe’s most important concerts.

In modern times, Falco is Austria’s most famous musician (“Rock me Amadeus”).

The accordion was also invented in Austria.

VIENNA BOYS’ CHOIR

Founded in 1498 by Emperor Maximilian I (a Habsburg, of course) for concerts of the court and private masses. They were privately tutored, which of course had a positive influence on the rest of their lives. Mozart has worked with this choir. Today, there are over 100 members, between the ages of 10 and 14. They are broken up into 4 groups, each of which tours for about 9 to 11 weeks per year and are named after Bruckner, Mozart, Haydn and Schubert.

Other Famous Austrians:
GUSTAV KLIMT
SIGMUND FREUD
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGAR

The Czech Republic

2010-03-23T15:30:00.001-04:00

Capital City: Prague

Population: approx 10,500,000 (approx. 200,000 Romani)

Currency: Czech Koruna (CZK) (will possibly adopt the Euro in 2013)
1 EURO = 27 CZK

Languages: Czech (Czech has few vowels, and many consonants).

Religion: The Czech Republic has one of the least religious populations of Europe; 59% are either atheist, agnostic, or a non-organized believer; 26% Roman Catholic; There used to be 118,000 Jews, but they were virtually annihilated during WWII; in 2005, there were only a reported 4000 Jews in Czech Republic

Borders: Czech is a landlocked country: Poland to the Northeast, Germany to the West, Austria to the South and Slovakia to the East

-The Czech Republic is divided into 13 regions; composed of the ancient lands of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia

Rivers: Elbe, Vltava, Morava

Part of EU?: Yes, since 2004, along with Slovenia, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, and several other Eastern Bloc countries that had recently emerged from Communism. This was the single largest enlargement of the EU, and was met with a lot of criticism from other member countries that feared letting in so many poorer countries would result in cheap labour, massive immigration and bring down the general EU economy.

This was also the event that gave rise to stereotypes like “the Polish Plumber” (which originated from a French politician saying he wanted to hire a Polish plumber because he couldn’t find good handyman in France, stemming from the idea that Polish people provide cheap labour. The Poland tourism board turned the negative stereotype around and designed posters with gorgeous male plumbers, and subsequently female nurses, beckoning French people to come to Poland).

QUICK HISTORY

From around the 5th century, Slavs, Germanic, Eastern European people migrated into the lands of Bohemia and Moravia. The Bohemian or Czech State emerged in the late 9th century, and was a fairly powerful player as part of the Holy Roman Empire.

The first hero of Czech Nationalism was Good King Wenceslas, the Patron saint of Bohemia. Prince Wenceslas was executed on the orders of his younger brother, Boleslav, who took over the Bohemian throne. A popular cult arose proclaiming Prince Wenceslas as the perpetual spiritual ruler of all Czechs. The horse market, Prague's traditional meeting place, was the scene of a brief thrust of Czech nationalism against the Austrian Empire in 1848, when people named the place Wenceslas Square (Václavské nám.). The statue at the top of the square was erected in 1912.

The 14th century, particularly the reign of Charles IV, is considered the golden age of Czech history. He was King of Bohemia, Holy Roman Emperor, and during his reign he made Prague one of Europe’s most advanced cities. He inspired several sites around the country, including Charles University and Charles Bridge in Prague, and the spa town of Karlovy Vary, before the Black Death decimated the population of Bohemia.

After the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, the Czech lands increasingly came under the control of the Habsburgs, who expelled the Protestant Czechs and banned all religions other than Catholicism.

The Hussite movement, founded by Jan Hus (1369–1415), linked the Slavs to the Reformation one hundred years before the Reformation actually happened.

Jan Hus was a University lecturer (and now a Czech nationalist symbol). He didn’t like what he saw as misuse of power by Rome and the German clergy in Prague, and questioned the authority of the Pope (he was ahead of his time, and Renaissance scholarship really took off after his death). In 1414, he was summoned to explain his views before an Ecclesiastic Council in Germany, and promised safe conduct by the Holy Roman Emperor. but was arrested on arrival and burned at the stake as a heretic on July 6 (now a Czech national holiday). Because of what happened to Hus, Martin Luther was quite concerned about meeting the Emperor at the Diet of Worms.

The Pope and Emperor launched a crusade to crush the Hussites in Bohemia, but the Protestant Hussites, with Hus as their martyr, fought back. On July 30, 1419, they stormed the New Town Hall on Charles Square and demanded the release of other arrested pro-reform Hussites. After town councilors rejected the demand, the Hussites tossed them out of third-story windows, killing several. This became known as the First Defenestration, from the Latin for "out of the window." The incident sparked a 15-year battle known as the Hussite Wars, which ended in the defeat of the radical Protestants in 1434.

In 1618, Ferdinand II, a Hapsburg who was a dedicated Catholic and vowed to stamp out Protestantism, particularly in Bohemia, became Holy Roman Emperor. Before he took power, Rudolf II had been King, and had granted Bohemian Protestants religious freedom (in the Letter of Majesty). Czech Protestants at the time were building a few new churches in Prague, but the government tried to stop them. When the Catholic leaders metaphorically threw the Letter of Majesty out the window, the Czechs rebelled, stormed Prague Castle, and literally threw a couple of Catholic Deputies out the window (Second Defenestration).

Thus began the Thirty Years' War, which engulfed the entire continent. It was the Catholic Habsburgs vs. the Protestants of other countries. The Thirty Years War was one of Europe's most violent, and the Czechs were defeated in the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620 (although war continued to rage until 1648, when it ended with the Treaty of Westphalia). Twenty-seven Czech leaders were beheaded in the Old Town Square in Prague, and hundreds of Czech nobles fled the country

The Czechs were ruled for the next 300 years as part of the Austrian empire. This period, until the late 18th century, is known as the Dark Age.

Following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in WWI, the independent nation of Czechoslovakia was created in 1918, incorporating Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia. During WWII, Hitler threatened to annex part of Slovakia, allowing the remaining parts to be partitioned by Hungary and Poland, so Slovakia seceded from Czechoslovakia in 1939 and allied itself with Nazi Germany. The remaining Czech territory was occupied by Germany, and almost 400,000 Czech citizens were killed in the holocaust, while hundreds of thousands of others were forced into camps (such as Terezin) or forced to evacuate. There was a Czech-Government-in-Exile, and the occupation finally ended in 1945 when the Soviets and Americans arrived.

In 1948, the Communist party (KSC), disillusioned with the West and looking favourably to the Soviets after they helped with the Czech liberation from German rule, staged a coup d’etat and took complete control,. For the next 41 years, Czechoslovakia was a Communist state within the Eastern Bloc.

COLD WAR

North America had formed a special alliance with Western Europe, called NATO, to guard against attack from the Soviet Union. So the Russians formed their own alliance with the Communist states of eastern Europe (including Czechoslovakia), called the Warsaw Pact. Each side started arming themselves with missiles.

By the 1960s, the economy was stagnating, there was media censorship, and calls for reform.

Alexander Dubcek, a Slovakian, was a leading figure in the reform movement. His vision was a softer, more liberal form of Communism, Socialism with a Human Face, where you could be a Communist but still speak your mind without fearing repercussions from the secret police. In the Prague Spring of 1968, Dubcek’s government drafted the Action Program, removed the Czech Prime Minister and Dubcek became leader.

The Soviets weren’t happy about the Prague Spring, and the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia on August 20, 1968, which really turned the population (and the government) against the Soviets, and got them behind Dubcek. In 1969, student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Wenceslas square to protest the Soviet invasion. The Soviets had to ease up on Dubcek a bit after all the resistance (which was not confined to the Czech Republic, but worldwide), so they allowed him to stay in power for a while. The reforms of the Prague Spring were not reversed overnight, but eventually.

Reformists were purged from government, censorship got stricter, atheism was imposed, conformity and obedience were encouraged and the top creative and intellectual minds were sent into exile or imprisoned. Dubcek was ousted. Underground writing and publishing emerged from dissidents (who, frankly, were only a small portion of the population in Czechoslovakia, as much of the population adhered to the recommended the status quo)

Finally, in 1989:

... Poland became a democracy for the first time since the 1930s (and the Solidarity Union won the first free elections, after being imprisoned by the Communists)

... the wall came down in Berlin

... Hungary dismantled its iron curtain and opened its doors to the west

... the people of Bucharest overran the secret police, capitured the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu and his wife, who were quickly tried and executed

... Yugoslavia broke apart in 1991

... and the Velvet Revolution occurred in Czechoslovakia.

It started with a student demonstration in Prague, which sparked a series of other protests, swelling from about 200,000 on the first day to a half million the next. Peacefully and quietly, the Communists announced that they would relinquish their control, and the first non-Communist party was appointed, with Dubcek the speaker of the parliament and Vaclav Havel, a playwright who had been imprisoned under the Communist regie, the first Prime Minister (he remained in power for 10 years, getting the Czech Republic into the EU and NATO).

Slovakian national aspirations continued, and the two countries quietly parted ways in 1993 (the Velvet Divorce). The Czech Republic has become the first former member of the Comecon (a response to the European Coal and Steel Community set up by communist/Eastern Bloc countries) to achieve the status of a developed country (2006), and it also ranks best, compared to the former Comecon countries, in the Human Development Index.

PUPPETS/MARIONETTES

Puppetry has been practised in the Czech Republic since the 18th century as part of a family-oriented traditional activity. It had a revival in the 20th century, when puppet theaters were established. Puppet theatre was shown indifference by the country's censors, so it was used for political dissent; in this way, some puppeteers became national, revolutionary heroes.

BOHEMIA(N)

Formerly the Kingdom of Bohemia, before the region was incorporated into the Czech Republic along with the Kingdoms of Moravia and Silesia.
Romani gypsies entered France and Western Europe via Bohemia, so the French called their gypsies Bohemian. Eventually, wandering artists, those who lived untraditional lifestyles, artists and creators who congregated in low-class gypsy neighbourhoods (particularly in Paris), also took on the name Bohemian.

BOHEMIAN CRYSTAL

The Czechs started working with Bohemian crystal in the 1500s (under Rudolf II, who became patron to the glassmakers during the Renaissance).

CZECH FOOD

-Czech national dish: roast pork with dumplings and sauerkraut; strong emphasis on goulash, meat dishes (particularly pork); fish is rare

-Absinthe has a connection with Prague, but it did not originate in the Czech Republic. Artists in Prague simply brewed it, and enjoyed it.

CZECH BEER

Czech beer has a long history, with the first breweries dating back to 1118 and 100 still operating today.

The Czech Republic makes a good argument for being the home of beer as we know it. Pilsner, which today describes any light beer, originated in the Bohemian town of Plzen in the 19th century. Budweiser, North America’s number 1 beer, was brewing in the Czech town of Ceske Budejovice for 100 years before the Americans put it into a six-pack. And in case anyone doubted their claim as the Masters of Beer, the Czechs have topped the list of most beer drinkers per capita. So when in the Czech Republic, pick a side in the Budweiser debate and enjoy a few pints, because chances are everyone around you will be having one too.

BUDWEISER

The history of brewing in Cesky Budejovice dates back to 1265. In the late 19th century, the beer was brought by Germans to the US, and started being brewed by Anheuser-Busch. The Czech company, and the US company, fought for years over the usage of the name Budweiser. In 2009, courts ruled in favour of the Czech company, but the US firm still markets as Budweiser or Bud in some countries, the Czech company markets as Czechvar in North America, and they both use Budweiser in the UK. Either way, a pint’s a pint!

Famous Czech People:

-Sigmund Freud

-Czechs invented contact lenses, first separated blood types

-Franz Kafka, a German-Jewish Praguer who, for much of his adult life, worked in relative obscurity as a sad Prague insurance clerk (“kafkaesque” now means absurdity)

-Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being), was born in Brno but has lived in exile in France since 1975 after he criticized the Czech government and his books were banned until the Velvet Revolution in 1989

-Milos Forman directed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus

-Martina Navratilova, Jaromir Jagr, Dominik Hasek

-The Czech Republic is the homeland of many supermodels: Eva Herzigova, Paulina Porizkova, Petra Nemcova

-Ivana Trump, Madeleine Albright (former US Secretary of State)

QUIRKY FACTS

-Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, the country found itself without a common single-world name. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested Czechia, but it never really caught on

-According to The Economist, the Czech Republic has earned "a reputation for promoting human rights at every turn". EU officials have been irritated by the Czech Republic's activism in human rights. Kosovo was one of the main EU issues in 2009 (with Czech as the Presidency of the Council)

-The Czech Republic has the most Wi-Fi subscribers in the European Union

Language Tips

Hello: dobry’den

Goodbye: na shledanou

Please: byt prijemny

Thank You: dikuji

Excuse Me/Sorry: prominte

Yes: Ano

No: Ne

Do you speak English?: Činit tebe mluvit Anglicky

Where is?: kde is?

How much?: Kolik?

One: jeden

Two: dva

Three: troyka

Four: ctyri

Five: pet

Water: voda

Beer: pivo

Wine: vino

Cheers!: Na Zdravi!

The Netherlands

2010-03-21T22:46:00.002-04:00

God created the Earth, and the Dutch created The Netherlands...

Capital City: Amsterdam

Population: 16.5 million (very densely-populated country); 15 million live below sea level.

Currency: Euro

Languages: Dutch; also West Frisian, but only official and spoken in the northern province of Friesland.

Religion: The Netherlands is one of the most secular countries in Europe, with only 39% being religiously affiliated.

Part of EU?: Yes, it was one of the founding members in 1957.

Borders: Bordered by the North Sea to the North and West; Belgium to the South; Germany to the East

Rivers: The country is divided into two main parts by three major rivers: the Rhine, the Schelde and the Meuse.

Landscape: Generally low-lying, flat; mostly coastal lowland and reclaimed land (used to be islands, the Dutch stitched them all together, built a bunch of dams and windmills, controlled it and created a country out of it.

-The Netherlands is broken into 12 provinces; The country is commonly called Holland, which is incorrect because North and South Holland are merely two of its twelve provinces

FLOODING

Being a low-lying country, there have been many floods in the Netherlands. The last major flood took place in early February 1953, when a huge storm caused the collapse of several dikes, and more than 1,800 people drowned. The Dutch government subsequently decided on a large-scale programme of public works (the Delta Works) to protect the country against future flooding. The project took more than thirty years to complete, but greatly reduced the chances of flooding (chances are now 1 in 10,000).

Following the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005, the Americans looked to the Netherlands and inspected the Delta Works for tips on how to protect their low-lying areas.

THE HAGUE

The Hague is the seat of government in The Netherlands. It is known as the World’s Legal Capital because it is home to the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia), the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice

-The Economist ranks The Netherlands as the fourth most democratic country in the world; UNICEF ranks it first in child well-being

QUICK HISTORY

Until the 16th century, The Netherlands was known as the Low Countries, along with Belgium and Luxembourg. They were doing quite well, taking part in the Hanseatic League trade, the Renaissance was flourishing with artists like Reubens. Bruges and Ghent were two major cities in Europe. The regions had a lot of control over their own affairs (particularly in places such as Flanders and Holland), but their independence stated to be stripped away in the 1400s, with the rise of the Duchy of Burgundy.

Burgundy was a royal court that had carved out an empire between France, Germany and the Netherlands. It was known for magnificent trade (such as its sought-after Order of the Golden Fleece, a must-have for knights) and its support of the Renaissance (Jan Van Eyck was a patron of a Duke of Burgundy). The Dukes of Burgundy wanted to turn their Duchy into a kingdom, and nearly succeeded if it weren’t for the French coming in to stop them.

In 1415, the French went to war with the English, and the Dukes fought on the English side. In the end, the last great Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was murdered, and the French took back the French part of the Duchy while the Habsburgs kept the rest of it. Charles the Bold’s daughter, Mary, married the heir to the Holy Roman Emperor (Max), and from then on the Emperors (mainly Habsburgs) protected The Netherlands. They were quite happy there, too, with all of the Renaissance paintings and excellent trade systems.

Mary and Max had two children, Philip and Margaret, both of whom married into the royal house of Spain, which began the link between The Netherlands and Spain. Philip married Joanna (the daughter of the Spanish Inquisition’s Isabella), they gave birth to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

Charles V’s son, Philip II, ruled The Netherlands from Spain in the 1500s, during the time of the Reformation. Just like their social tolerance policy today, the people of The Netherlands were very tolerant back then too, especially when it came to religion, so they weren’t happy about Philip II taking after his great-grandmother and starting a new Inquisition against those who spoke against Catholicism.

In 1566, the Dutch Calvinists (who fully supported John Calvin’s theories and the Reformation), started smashing church statues and pictures (which they saw as idols that should not be worshipped - one of the major tenets of Protestantism) in the Iconoclastic Fury. Philip II wasn’t happy with this, and sent an army to crush these protesters.

In 1572, the Dutch Revolt occurred because the people resented being harshly put down by their absentee (and Catholic!) leader. They had been feeling resentful ever since Charles V first moved out of The Netherlands and into Spain, but the momentum of the Reformation and Philip II’s action inspired them to action.

During the Revolt, other countries jumped in on the side of the religion they supported, and it all ended in Philip II’s bankruptcy and Spain’s demise. The Dutch Revolt was part of the wider Thirty Years War.

The Netherlands officially declared independence from Spain in 1579, and in 1596, there was a split between the north and South (north being the Protestant Netherlands, and the south was the Catholic Spanish Netherlands, present-day Belgium).

During the 17th century, the Dutch had their Golden Age. They were a leading seafaring and commercial power, establishing colonies around the world. They took over the spice trade in the Far East from Portugal (it had been united with the Spanish crown during the wars, so it concentrated more on that than on business), and the Dutch East/West India trading companies were established (an unfortunate sidebar to this successful trading business was the slave trade that it depended on). William the Orange was their leader.

The Dutch were ahead of the times in many ways. Their leaders were Protestant, mostly business-oriented merchants in the trade industry (which helped The Netherlands, and Amsterdam in particular, to be on par with the French and English). Most Dutch people were urban (their townhouses were copied by the English many years later), and they lived in smaller family groups than was normal at the time (the trend that later became the nuclear family). They had the first stock exchange, and had the first capitalist government.

Because the English were their closest rival, there were several Anglo-Dutch wars. It was a burden for the small country to have to fight, and they were forced to give up some of their overseas territories (such as New Amsterdam, which became New York after the Dutch governor gave it up to the Duke of York).

But where the English weren’t successful in dominating the Dutch, the French Revolution was. Napoleon came in and named his own leaders (many of whom were French Catholics from Belgium), and the fiercely independent Dutch weren’t happy.

After a 20-year French occupation, upon hearing of Napoleon’s defeat, the Habsburgs at the Congress of Vienna formed the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, which once again included Belgium (they wanted a strong country). But there were divisions between the Belgians and the Dutch, and in 1830, Belgium rebelled and formed a separate kingdom.

The Netherlands remained neutral for most of the World Wars, but it was occupied by the Germans. 104,000 out of 112,000 Dutch Jews were killed (25,000 in one night in Rotterdam). Amsterdam lost most of its population, and many were reduced to eating tulip bulbs.

Princess Juliana of the Netherlands sought refuge in Ottawa with her two daughters (current Queen Beatrix was one of them) during the war. Juliana was pregnant, so when it came time to deliver her child, the Canadian parliament declared her suite at the Civic Hospital “extraterritorial”, to ensure the Dutch citizenship of her child. A day later, the Dutch flag was flown on the Peace Tower (the only time in history that a foreign flag has waved atop the Canadian Parliament Buildings). The Canadian Army was also responsible for liberating much of the Netherlands. Today, Canada and the Netherlands have a special bond (symbolized every May during the Tulip Festival).

After the war, the Netherlands decided to leave behind its staunch independence, and forged closer bonds with its neighbours in order to protect itself in future. It established Benelux with its former partners, Belgium and Luxembourg, in 1946, and in 1951, all three countries joined France, Italy and West Germany to form the European Coal and Steel Community (the precursor to the 1957 European Union).

Today, its trade industry is still flourishing (Rotterdam is the biggest port in Europe), and it is still known for its tolerance.

SOCIAL TOLERANCE

They were the first:

...to legalize cannabis (in 1976)

... to legalize prescriptions of medicinal marijuana

... to legalize euthanasia (in 2000)

... to legalize same-sex marriage (in 2001)

-The Netherlands is also very permissive of immigration; during the Spanish Inquisition, the Reformation, and World Wars, many other nationalities who were being persecuted fled to the Netherlands.

FLOWERS

The Dutch rank third worldwide in value of agricultural exports, behind the US and France, with exports earning $55 billion annually. A significant portion of these exports are derived from fresh-cut plants, flowers, and bulbs, with the Netherlands being the world’s largest exporter of flowers (two-thirds of the world's total).

(Incidentally, The Netherlands also exports a quarter of all world tomatoes, and one-third of the world's exports of peppers and cucumbers).

Keukenhof Park, in Lisse, is the largest flower garden in the world, with approximately 7 million bulbs planted annually. It was designed to showcase The Netherlands’ flowers.

Flower-growing in country began in the late 19th century. Conditions in The Netherlands are perfect for flower cultivation: low lands, very wet and fertile.

The Netherlands is known for its tulips, although they actually originated, and were named, in Persia (brought to Europe by the Ottomans in the mid 16th-century). They were seen as status symbols and their names were prefixed with titles such as “Admiral”

Tulipmania was a period in the Dutch Golden Age during which contract prices for bulbs of the recently introduced tulip reached extraordinarily high levels and then suddenly collapsed. At the peak of tulip mania in February 1637, tulip contracts sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. Goods exchanged for a single bulb: four fat oxen, eight fat swine, twelve fat sheep, two hogsheads of wine, four tuns of beer, two tons of butter, 1000 lb of cheese, a complete bed, a suit of clothes and a silver drinking cup.

The term "tulip mania" is now used metaphorically to refer to any large economic bubble (like the dotcom bubble).

WINDMILLS

There are 1180 windmills around the country. They helped to remove excess water from lowlands and helped with agriculture. They have been around since the 13th century, and in the 19th century, there were around 9000 windmills.

CLOGS

Clogs have been worn in The Netherlands for around 500 years. Wooden shoes help to keep the feet dry, so they were used by peasants who worked in fields. They inspired the modern CROC shoe, adapted from a plastic clog to be worn in spas.

DRUGS

While most countries believe that drugs should be outlawed, Dutch officials take the point of view that they cannot eliminate drug use entirely, so they might as well control them. The Netherlands has the second highest drug related public expenditure per capita of all countries in the EU (after Sweden).75% of their expenditure is law enforcement, and 25% is health/social care. There is an enforced distinction between “soft” and “hard” drugs; the Dutch believe that smoking pot is a victimless crime, but doing hard drugs is a different story. The Dutch are also very hard on importing/selling drugs, and the amount that a person can sell is regulated, with a zero tolerance policy for drug crimes (on par with Sweden).

The number of drug-related deaths in The Netherlands is among the lowest in Europe. Magic mushrooms and all hallucinogenic drugs were deemed illegal in 2008 (but can still be bought in smartshops, shops that sell drug-related paraphernalia).

COFFEE SHOPS

Introduced in the 1970s to separate hard and soft drug use. They are only allowed to sell cannabis, and not allowed to sell alcohol. They are not allowed to sell more than 5 grams at a time. Coffeeshops are also not allowed to advertise, so many of them will have reggae-inspired flags or paraphernalia outside the shop. There is an on-going contradiction, as a coffeeshop is allowed to sell cannabis, but not to buy it: "The front door is open, but the backdoor is illegal." In 2008, the Dutch government decided that coffeeshops would no longer be allowed within a radius of 250 m of schools.

DUTCH PEOPLE:

-The Dutch are among the tallest in the world, with an average height of about 6'1" for adult males and 5;6" for adult females

-A third of Dutch people smoke tobacco. Holland has a long tradition as a smoking culture, being among the first to import the tobacco plant from the New World. (Strangely enough, the Dutch are also among the healthiest people in the world).

-Dutch people leave their windows open all the time, they don’t mind people watching them. Incidentally, the TV show “Big Brother” originated in The Netherlands.

BIKES

Due to excellent cycling conditions (particularly the flat land, although it is also quite windy and wet!), plus decreasing parking spaces, limited access to cars in cities and strict fines for motorists in collisions, nearly a third of all journeys in the Netherlands are made by bicycle. The country's 16 million people own 16 million bikes, and Amsterdam is known as the most bike-friendly city in the world. The Dutch team brought bicycles to Vancouver for the Olympics to promote healthy living, but the Canadians had to put an import tax on them.

Food and Drink

-Cheese (Gouda and Edam)

-Fries and Mayo

-Heineken, Amstel and Grolsch beer

-Salted herrings are eaten as a snack

DUTCH ARTISTS

-Rembrandt

-Vincent Van Gogh

Famous Dutchies: Erasmus from Rotterdam; Descartes’ major work was done in The Netherlands; Anne Frank, Van Halen

QUIRKY FACTS:

-Rotterdam has the biggest port in Europe (used to be the World’s Busiest Port, until Shanghai took over)

-English rivalry with The Netherlands especially during the period of the Anglo-Dutch Wars, gave rise to several phrases that promoted certain negative stereotypes of Dutch people as ungenerous and selfish: “Dutch courage”, “Dutch oven”, Dutch uncle and Dutch wife.

LANGUAGE TIPS

Hello: Hello

Goodbye: Tot ziens

Please: Alstublieft

Thank You: Dank u

Excuse Me/Sorry: Verontschuldig Mij/Droevig

Yes: Ja

No: Geen

Do you speak English?: Spreekt u Engels?

Where is?: Waar is?

How much?: Hoe veel?

One: Een

Two: Twee

Three: Drie

Four: Vier

Five: Vijf

Water: Water

Beer: Bier

Wine: Wijn

Cheers!: Cheers!

Where are my clogs?: Var zien min klumpen?

Watch out for cyclists!: pass op for feetsters!

I am drunk!: Ek ben drong can!

Spain - Espana

2010-03-16T23:33:00.004-04:00

Capital City: Madrid

Population: 46,000,000; According to the Spanish government, 11% of the population is comprised of foreigners. Spain has always been a melting pot, and today it has the highest number of immigrants in the EU, due in part to its cultural ties with Latin America, its border, its underground economy and the strength of its agricultural/construction economy which demand low cost labour, and the people who retire along the 8000km of beaches along the Spanish Mediterranean coast.

Area: Second largest country in Western Europe after France

Currency: Euro

Part of EU?: Yes (since 1986)

Parliament: President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (Zapatero means shoemaker); King Juan Carlos I

Languages: Spanish is the only official language, however in their respective regions, Basque (in the Basque Country and Navarre), Catalan (in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands), Valencian (in the Valencian Community), and Galician (in Galicia) have been declared co-official.

Religion: 94% Roman Catholic; immigration has brought an increasing number of Muslims, making it the second largest religion (although still only around 2%).

Rivers: Madrid is the only European capital not located on a river.

Mountains: the Sierra Nevadas, the Pyrenees (Spain is the most mountainous country in Europe after Switzerland and Austria)

Well-Known Companies: Zara, Mango, Chupa Chups (“sucky sucks”).

QUICK HISTORY

In the 15th century, Spain was made up of several different kingdoms (and in a way, it still is, but more on that later); Portugal, Navarre, Aragon, Castile. But in 1469 came one of the most famous weddings of all time; Prince Ferdinand of Aragon married Princess Isabella of Castile. They then made sure that their children married advantageously; they married their daughter Joanna to the Duke of Burgundy (Philip of Habsburg, son of Mary and Max), and their other daughter to one of the Tudors, Henry 8th’s brother, Prince Arthur.

Isabella was very religious, so in 1492, she invited Pope Sixtus to set up an inquisition to find out whether the Muslims and Jews in the country (there were many of them), were actually practising Christianity, as they said they were, or if they were secretly still practising their own religion behind closed doors. This was the Spanish Inquisition (Reconquista); they used torture to get results, and the guilty were paraded through the streets and burned at the stake.

They finished by getting revenge on the Muslims for taking Constantinople away from Christianity by conquering Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in the West. Not surprisingly, the Reformation happened only 20 years later.

These were the Spanish glory days. The same year, Christopher Columbus came to visit, asking for a grant to sail to the new world. Rumor has it, Isabella had a little crush on him, so she backed him, and when he returned, Spain reaped all the glory of his discoveries.

Joanna and Philip’s daughter, Charles V, subsequently became king of Castile and Aragon, Duke of Burgundy, and soon Holy Roman Emperor. He ruled mostly from Spain, but also the Low Lands, and his other territories as well. He was the lord of all Spain’s lands in the New World as well, as well as the Habsburg lands (coinciding with his counterpart on the Austrian Habsburg branch). Their explorers went off in search of El Dorado, the fabled land of gold, and in the meantime conquered the Aztecs and the Incas.

In 1493, the Pope drew a line down the world and gave half to Spain and the other half to Portugal. They started importing slaves from Africa to populate and work on their new lands. In 1580, King Philip II (Charles V’s son) took over the Portuguese Empire, making him King of the first world Superpower. He was a complete control freak, and felt that God had given him this power and he would use it to defend his religion.

The other players in Europe started to take notice of Spain’s expanding Empire, and decided to close in on North America, ambush Spanish ships, and claim more territory for Protestantism (making the religious wars global).

Speaking of the religious wars, they were raging in Europe. The Reformation was sweeping the continent, the Dutch Calvinists were smashing Church statues in their Iconoclastic Fury. Philip, with help from the Venetians and Austrians, crushed the Muslim Turks, a major coup for Christianity by its Most Catholic King. But that was Spain’s last major success for a while: the Spanish Armada he sent to topple Elizabeth I and take the English throne was defeated; the Dutch Revolted, and after all the fighting, Philip led Spain right into bankruptcy.

By the 17th century, Spain had ceded command of the seas to England and France. Portugal declared independence, the Dutch had surpassed them and were having their own Golden Age. By 1700, the last Spanish Habsburg, Charles II, died without an heir (ending that Habsburg branch). The crown was going to pass to Philip, a relative of his and, incidentally, grandson of Louis XIV of France. This meant that he was in line to acquire the thrones of both Spain and France, and the rest of Europe was not impressed with the idea of such a great consolidation of power. The War of the Spanish Succession ensued, which ended with all of Spain’s possessions divided between the Austrians, British, and French. Philip kept the throne of Spain, but had to give up his claim to the French throne. Spain had become like its most famous literary hero, Don Quixote, who doesn't realize his glory days are over.

Spain was neutral in both world wars, but it had its own problems during the Spanish Civil War. In 1936, Spain had elected a left-wing government, which was challenged by a right-wing army general named Francisco Franco. People came from all over the world to fight this war in Spain. The left-wing sumpathizers joined the International Brigade, and other dictactors such as Hitler and Mussolini sent assistance to their friend Franco. The atrocious bombing of the Basque town Guernica on market day was memorialized in Picasso’s painting (found in Madrid’s Reina Sofia Museum).

By 1939, Franco had defeated the government and declared himself dictator of Spain. He ruled Spain until his death in 1975, and the next ruler, King Juan Carlos, was a good, democratic ruler. Spain joined the EU in 1985, showing that they were democratic.

After the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Spain backed the military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and lead the EU in pushing for increased international cooperation on terrorism. Spanish parliamentary elections on March 14, 2004 came only three days after the terrorist attack on Madrid commuter rail lines that killed 191 and wounded over 1,400. With large voter turnout, PSOE Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, took office on April 17, 2004. Carrying out campaign promises, he immediately withdrew Spanish forces from Iraq but has continued to support Iraq reconstruction efforts.

Today, there are over 400 million Spanish speakers worldwide, as a result of their previous world-domination. As a country that freed itself from fascism only 30 years ago, Spain may be the most underrated economic success story on the planet. However, the downside of the real estate boom has been a corresponding rise in the levels of personal debt; as prospective homeowners struggle to meet asking prices, the average level of household debt has tripled in less than a decade The government continues to battle the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) terrorist organization, but its major focus for the immediate future will be on measures to reverse the severe economic recession that started in mid-2008.

Spain is now spiralling into the worst crisis since the Franco dictatorship. Over 10% of Spain's economy had been building houses. This compares with 6%-7% in the US at the height of the bubble. House prices fell drastically, expected to fall by 35% by 2011. There were almost a million unsold homes. In Castilla-La Mancha - ironically, Don Quixote's region - some 69% of all houses built over the past three years are still unsold. Spain, once again, is that old knight, wandering past empty houses in the countryside of a country that was once the greatest power in the world.

But ... it's not all bad!

Spain is:

... the world's second most popular tourist destination (after France)

...(after Italy), home to the second highest number of UNESCO sites in the world, with a total of 40 (including the Alhambra, the most visited spot in the country).

...the world's sixth-largest car manufacturer

... the eigth-biggest economy in the developed world

... the most land covered by vineyards

...home to the most bars per person than any other country (San Sebastian has the most bars per capita)

FLAMENCO

When the Gypsies arrived in Spain from India in the 1400s, Andalucia was still under Arab rule. However, the Spanish Inquisition took place shortly after their arrival, and Jews, Muslims and Gypsies alike were forced to either convert to Christianity and give up ties with their original culture, or retreat. The three groups banded together through their shared persecution, and all of their cultures, music and dance fused together to become flamenco. When they finally were allowed to come out of their hiding places and re-integrate into society, flamenco spread.

In its original form, Flamenco was only voice, a primitive cry or chant accompanied only by the rhythm which would be beaten out on the floor by a wooden staff or cane. Today, Flamenco is made up of four elements, Cante-Voice, Baile-Dance, Toque-Guitar, and the Jaleo, which roughly translated means “hell raising” and involves the handclapping, foot stomping, and shouts of encouragement.

Another important component of flamenco is the element known as duende, and this is shrouded in as much mystery as flamenco itself. Writers and poets over the years have given duende a magical and mysterious meaning, a spiritual significance that goes beyond human understanding.

The poet Federico Garcia Lorca romanticized duende saying, “Duende could only be present when one sensed that death possible.”

Many will say that duende can only be experienced in certain surroundings like an intimate flamenco session where a singer will be possessed by the dark tones of the song and the spirit will enter the mind and soul of anyone who opens up to it.

Flamenco is mostly popular in Southern Spain, in Andalusia where it originated.

SIESTA

Possibly began during the Roman Empire, the word “siesta” comes from the Latin term “hora sexta” (Sixth hour). This is the term used by Romans to refer to the period of time between 2pm and 4pm, when they would have their lunch and then have a nap in the heat of the day.

Spaniards typically get an hour less sleep per night than other Europeans (which suits their lifestyle of eating dinner no earlier than 10pm and only starting to party at midnight). However, a law has recently passed that changes government employees' work hours to a 9-5 schedule, to get them in line with the work hours of other European countries.

BULLFIGHTING

Bullfights were popular spectacles in ancient Rome, but it was in the Iberian Peninsula that these contests were fully developed. The Moors from North Africa who overran Andalusia in AD 711 changed bullfighting significantly from the brutish, formless spectacle practised by the conquered Visigoths to a ritualistic occasion observed in connection with feast days, on which the conquering Moors, mounted on highly trained horses, confronted and killed the bulls.

As bullfighting developed, the men on foot, who by their capework aided the horsemen in positioning the bulls, began to draw more attention from the crowd, and the modern corrida began to take form. Today the bullfight is much the same as it has been since about 1726.

Today, bullfighting is most associated with Spain, but the world's largest bullring is located in Mexico City, while the oldest bullring is found in Peru.

Six bulls, to be killed by three matadors, are usually required for one afternoon's corrida, and each encounter lasts about 15 minutes.

Matadors wear gold-embroidered outfits that cost thousands of euros. They have practised and studied this artform since they were children, and they get their applause and respect depending on how close they get to the bull and how graceful their movements. Also, in order to kill the bull, they must stab it directly between the shoulders, which calls for very precise and skilled swordwork.

While there is usually no doubt about the outcome, the bull is not viewed as a sacrificial victim - it is instead seen by the audience as a worthy adversary, deserving of respect in its own right. Bulls learn fast and their capacity to do so should never be underestimated. Indeed, a bullfight may be viewed as a race against time for the matador, who must display his bullfighting skills before the animal learns what is going on and begins to thrust its horns at something other than the cape.

For the matador, this means performing skillfully in front of the bull, often turning his back on it to demonstrate his mastery over the animal. The skill with which he delivers the fatal blow is another major point to look for. A skillful matador will achieve it in one stroke. Two is barely acceptable, while more than two is usually regarded as a bad job.

Ernest Hemingway pointed out in Death in the Afternoon: “The bullfight is not a sport in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the word; that is, it is not an equal contest or an attempt at an equal contest between a bull and a man. Rather it is a tragedy: the death of the bull, which is played, more or less well, by the bull and the man involved and in which there is danger for the man but certain death for the bull.”

Bullfighting supporters say: "The bullfight is a portrayal of life as it is, from life to death ... All the activists see the blood, they don't see the art. The fight is the struggle between man and beast, transformed into art."
68% of Spaniards express no interest in bullfighting, and National Spanish TV has banned it from being televised. Some in Spain despise bullfighting because of its association with the Spanish nation and its blessing by the Franco regime as the fiesta nacional. It is criticized for its cruelty to animals, as well as for the expense (it receives grants of up to 6 million euros per year).

The Catalan government is seeking to ban bullfighting this year, and would be the first region in Spain to do so if they are successful.

SPANISH FESTIVALS

La Tomatina (Bunol)

San Fermin (Pamplona)

Las Fallas (Valencia)

... there is even a baby-jumping festival near Burgos, where babies are lined up and jumped over!

SPANISH CUISINE

-Italy might have perfected pasta, but the Spanish brought tomatoes back from America, and someone made the first tomato sauce out of them (and the tomatoes also enhanced Gazpacho, which until then had just been an Andalusian cold vegetable soup).

- Olive oil is used lavishly in Spain, the largest olive grower on the planet.

Tortilla: Potato/egg omelette

Churros: Donuts dipped in chocolate

MENU DEL DIA: the most economical way to eat in Spain; three courses at lunch, all delicious and all for one low price.

PAELLA

Paella originated in the Valencian region. The word stems from the latin for PAN, and it was eaten by poor people who threw everything into a pan to make a meal. Valencian paella consists of white rice, green vegetables, meat, snails, beans and seasoning. Seafood paella replaces meat and snails with seafood and omits beans and green vegetables. Mixed paella is a free-style combination of meat, seafood and sometimes beans; The rata de marjal, marsh rat, was one of the main ingredients of early paellas.

The biggest paella in history was made in Valencia and eaten by over 100,000 people. During Las Fallas, you'll find huge pots of paella cooking in the streets of Valencia.

JAMON SERRANO:

“Cured Meat”; it is rubbed with salt, hung up for a year or so (you’ll see it hanging in bars around Spain, and on the pole at La Tomatina); the most expensive type is Jamon Iberico, for which prices start at around 100 euros.

TAPAS

Tapas originated because the lunch that farmers used to eat was so heavy and rich in fat that they had to take a siesta afterwards. So they worked longer in the mornings, eating little bites to keep them going, so that they had a lighter workload after their lunch.

There is an old Madrid ruling (dating from the 11th century) that alcoholic drinks must be accompanied by a nourishing tidbit in order to "lesson their noxious influence," so you usually get a small free tapa thrown in with your drink.

Pintxos is the Basque version of tapas, meaning "something with a stick."

Jugs or glasses of wine used to be cover with a tapa (a piece of jamon, for example).

-San Miguel and Estrella beer;

-Valencia Orange Juice

-Horchata/orxata (almond millk drink)

SPANISH WINE

Until fairly recently, Spain was not taken particularly seriously as a winemaking region. Overshadowed by France and Italy, it was mainly associated with cheap red wine and sangria (and calimoxo). But thanks to the innovative practices of a handful of winemakers, and particularly of those in Catalonia, Spanish wine is currently undergoing a renaissance, offering some of the best wines (like Spanish Rioja) in the world.

CAVA

Made by the same method as French champagne, most of the high-end producers will swear that cava is as good as, if not better than, champagne. The most famous brand of cava is Freixenet.

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SPANISH CELEBRITIES: Pedro Almodovar, Penelope Cruz, Julio and Enrique Iglesias, Antonio Banderas, Javier Bardem, Guillermo del Toro (director of "Pan's Labyrinth")

ANTONI GAUDI
(1813-1906)

The architect of Barcelona who was killed by a tram when he stepped back to admire his work.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

-Actually an Italian, he wasn't finding the funding he needed from his own country, so he turned to Ferdinand and Isabella, and they gave him what he needed.

The Columbus monument in Barcelona is supposed to point out towards the new world (the U.S), but it doesn’t actually point there because if it did, it would be pointing inland

ARTISTS: Diego Velazquez, Francisco Goya, Picasso, Salvador Dali

Sport: Rafael Nadal is one of the top tennis players,

SPANISH FOOTBALL:

The Spanish team won the 2008 Euro Cup; (Spain has never won the World Cup); La Liga, (The Spanish League) is ranked as the highest division of football and it is considered to be one of the world's best competitions. Successful teams in recent European competitions include Real Madrid (The Most Successful, having won the Euro Cup five years in a row, from 1956-1960), FC Barcelona (doesn’t accept sponsorship payments, but wears UNICEF shirts), Sevilla FC, Villareal FC and Valencia FC. Real Madrid and Barcelona have dominated La Liga for much of its history.

QUIRKY FACTS

-The Spanish word for “wife” is esposa, which is the same word they use for handcuffs.

-It was the Basques, not the French, who invented the beret

-Public nudity is legal in Spain

-Spain was the third country in the EU to legalize same-sex marriage (after Belgium and The Netherlands)

-There’s no concrete evidence that King Pedro of Castile spoke with a lisp and it therefore spread through the region (no one knows where the lisp really came from)

Language

You’re fit: Hola Guapa! Guapo!

Hello: Hola

Goodbye: Ciao

Please: Por Favor

Thank You: Gracias

You’re welcome: De Nada

Excuse Me/Sorry: Lo siento

Yes: Si

No: Non

Do you speak English?: Hablas Ingles?

Where is?: Donde Esta?

How much? Quanto cuesta?

One: Uno

Two: Dos

Three: Tres

Four: Quatro

Five: Cinco

Water: Agua

Beer: Cervez

Wine: Vino

Cheers!: Salute!

Germany - Deutschland

2010-03-15T18:21:00.008-04:00

The Architects of Europe - for better and for worse!

Capital City: Berlin

Population: 82 million (Largest population in the EU, however its fertility rate is one of the lowest in the world)

Religion: Christianity, split pretty much evenly between Protestantism and Roman Catholic (64%); Germany has Western Europe’s third-largest Jewish population (in 2004, twice as many Jews from former Soviet countries settled in Germany than in Israel)

Currency: Euro

Languages: German

Part of EU?: Yes, Germany was a founding member. Also part of the G8.

-France and Germany have historically been very closely allied, presently forming what is known as the ‘core’ countries against greater integration of the European Union .

Chancellor: Angela Merkel - first female Chancellor of Germany, second chairwoman of the G-8 (after Margaret Thatcher) - she won the 2008 Charlemagne Prize for her work to reform the EU

Borders: Germany shares borders with the most European countries on the continent; to the North by the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and Denmark; to the East by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the South by Austria and Switzerland; and to the West by France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands

-Germany is divided into 16 states

Rivers: Rhine; Elbe; Danube

QUICK HISTORY

The Germans, for better or worse, basically shaped Europe as we know it. Germany has always been a driving force; occasionially, that was a bad thing (the two World Wars and the Holocaust), but often, it was a good thing. Germany was the driving force of the EU and encouraged open confrontation of past crimes. Perhaps it is the latter that propelled Germany to become the moneybags of the continent for the past decade, giving money to places like Ireland in the 80s and Eastern Europe. German taxpayers have also spent a fortune building up and integrating East Germany since 1989

Here are a few of the key points in history in which Germany played a key role.

CHARLEMAGNE and the FRANKS

In the 700s, the barbarian Frankish tribe (from north Germany and the Netherlands) decided to team up with the Popes in Italy (this had been their winning strategy all along, and helped them to conquer many lands). The Franks were a strong tribe, and able to offer protection to the Popes, and because they had willingly converted to Catholicism (even if only for strategic purposes), the Popes were happy to work with them.

Charlemagne was the son of the first King to be officially knighted by the Pope (Pepin the Short). He was well-educated, he believed in a union of church and state, and wanted to reconvert everyone back to Christianity. Ruling from his court in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), Charlemagne and his army invaded Spain to try to reconquest the Moors, he invaded Italy, and other parts of Germany.

When the Pope in Rome was attacked by some of his enemies who tried to cut out his eyes and his tongue, he ran to Charlemagne for help. Charlemagne restored him to his position; to show his gratitude, the Pope crowned Charlemagne Roman Emperor. Not everyone was happy about it, but it cemented Charlemagne’s authority over his territories.

Today Charlemagne is regarded not only as the founding father of both French and German monarchies, but also as the father of Europe: his empire united most of Western Europe for the first time since the Romans, and the Carolingian renaissance encouraged the formation of a common European identity. He was the first ruler to mention a unified “Europe”. Today, the Charlemagne Prize is still given out to people who have promoted European friendship and unity.

HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

Charlemagne, crowned Emperor of the Romans in 800 AD was the forerunner of the Holy Roman Empire, largely because he had inaugurated the tradition of imperial coronation by the Pope, which continued as a significant institution in the Holy Roman Empire until the 16th century. Charlemagne's policy of "renovatio Romanorum imperii" (reviving the Roman Empire) remained at least in theory as the official position of the Empire until its end in 1806, when the Empire was claimed by Napoleon.

In 936, Otto became King, and basically united the Germans into a single empire. He had himself crowned Emperor at Aachen. Otto wanted a proper coronation by the Pope in Rome, and took the title Holy Roman Emperor. The Emperor and the Pope had many clashes over power. This eventually lead to the Kings of France getting fed up with the Popes wanting so much power, that the French Pope at the time decided to move to Avignon.

The Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories that lasted from 962 1806. It did not actually include Rome for most of its time, and it was not religious, but it was widespread; it included most of Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, northern Italy, Poland, France, etc. It was divided into hundreds of individual areas, ruled by Kings, Dukes, Bishops, Princes, etc. At no time could the Emperor simply issue decrees and govern autonomously over the Empire. His power was severely restricted by the various local leaders. They mostly called it the Holy Roman Empire to assert their equality with the Popes, to make sure everyone knew they were on par (even if they weren't).

THE BLACK DEATH

The Germans set up the Hanseatic League, a trading federation of towns (including Bruges, Bergen, and London) that linked Europe with the far East. This was profitable for the cities involved, but all of this contact with far-off lands (especially with Mongols from China) resulted in the Bubonic Plague, The Black Death, being carried into Europe. It probably came via the Silk Route (possibly the fault of Marko Polo). Another hypothesis is that during a siege in Crimea, Mongols (who were already suffering from the disease) started to throw the infected corpses over their city walls at the European invaders (the Genoese), who fled too late. It was carried around by rats who roamed the streets, and came off cargo ships. The persecution of cats in those years (due to their association with satanism and witches) is often overlooked as a contributor to the spread of the disease, because it allowed the rats to flourish.

The Black Death was the greatest disaster in European history, and caused around 50 million deaths from 1347-1350 (between a third and half of the population of Europe, worst in Italy and Spain and only around 20% of the pop in Germany). In crowded cities, like Paris or Vienna, it was common for 50% of the population to die. Doctors had no idea how to deal with it, thought that it was something in the air, some even blamed it on the Jews which resulted in attacks on Jewish communities (because they figured only God's wrath could produce such horrifying results).

Despite all of the tragedy, the Black Death actually caused working and living conditions to get better for the people who survived; they had more work opportunities, more money, and the Renaissance stemmed from this renewed zest for life.

Milan was one city that was able to escape the Plague; once it infected the first three people in the city, they were walled up in their house and left to die (a harsh, but successful, solution). And strangely enough the port city of Bruges was spared the extremes that other cities on the trade routes suffered, possibly due to a recent drop-off in trade activity resulting from the early stage of the Hundred Years War.

It was in Spain that the only ruling monarch to die of the disease met his end. The advisors of King Alfonse XI of Castile begged him to isolate himself, but he refused to leave his troops.

Also, some studies suggests that as Europeans evolved after surviving the Black Death, 10% of them grew immunity to certain types of disease (including HIV). There were other outbreaks of the disease in subsequent years; the latest cases of Plague were confirmed in 1995 in the US.

THE REFORMATION

In 1517, Martin Luther, a German Monk and theology teacher, was fed up with Catholics trying to bribe people to pay them in order to get into Heaven (among other things, they were selling indulgences, basically passes into Heaven). Luther wrote a set of 95 theses, speaking out against these teachings, and it was posted on the door of the university of Wittenberg church where he taught.

His colleagues and students rallied to his side. One of his colleagues wrote to the Pope, and Luther was excommunicated, but it was too late to stop him. His local prince, Frederick the Wise, had a word with the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V (who he’d just helped to elect). They met at the Diet of Worms (a meeting of the Holy Roman Empire), where Luther presented his findings. Charles didn’t agree with him, and basically gave the whole of Germany permission to hunt him down. Luther went into exile, where he rewrote the New Testament and a series of pamphlets, with the following beliefs:

-The Pope has no authority over the Church

-You don’t need sacraments, because only God - not priests - can forgive sins

-You don’t need priests

-Everyone must be able to read the bible themselves.
Luther’s followers protested against his exile (hence became known as Protestants). Thanks to the Printing Press (which was invented in 1450 by Johannes Gutenberg - incidentally, a German), Luther’s ideas spread around Europe and influenced other countries, such as England, where King Henry VIII particularly took it onboard because it quite suited his own needs.

John Calvin, a Frenchman living in Switzerland, later took over as the biggest Protestant Reformer

COMMUNISM

Karl Marx was a German intellectual who studied why rich people were rich and poor people were poor. He was surrounded by the 19th century Industrial Revolution, lived in Dickensian England where there were slums and extreme divisions between rich and poor. He came to the conclusion that the working classes remained poor because they worked hard for factory owners who made all the money. He thought the working classes should rise up and work for themselves, sharing profits equally. This idea was called Communism, and he hoped it would start a workers' revolution. Communism started in Russia (under Lenin), when all industry, banking and business was taken out of private hands and private property abolished. It spread through the Eastern European countries.
WORLD WARS

After WWII, Germany was occupied by the Allied powers of the US, UK, France and the Soviet Union in 1945. Two separate German states were formed in 1949 - West Germany (which involved itself in Western organizations, such as the European Coal and Steal Community and NATO); and Communist East Germany, which joined the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The two halves weren’t re-united until 1990, after the fall of Communism and the end of the Cold War.

EUROPEAN UNION

The EU was conceived in order to avoid the nationalist tendencies that had culminated in the World Wars. In 1950, the European Coal and Steel Community began to unite European countries economically and politically in order to secure lasting peace. The six founders were Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The EU now comprises 27 countries.

Well-Known Companies: 37 of the Fortune 500 Companies are headquartered in Germany; Daimler, Volkswagon, Allianz, Deutsche Bank, Mercedes, BMW, Adidas, Nivea

-Germany has the largest economy in Europe, the world’s fifth-largest economy.
-Germany is the largest exporter and the second-largest importer of goods

GERMAN CARS

There are many famous German car companies: Audi, Mercedes Benz (the company, named after the founder's 10-year-old daughter, started off with a tricycle); Volkswagen; Porsche; BMW; Mini Cooper (and in case the Mini Coop wasn't small enough for you, the Smart Car); and Germany's most popular car, the VW Beetle (the most famous vehicle of all time due to its affordability and simplicity was created on direction of Adolph Hitler who wanted a car that any German could afford. Ironically, the car subsequently became a favorite of the hippie generation).

AUTOBAHN

German highway, where the advised speed is 130km/h but there is no official speed limit. Construction began in the 1930s, was halted during WWII (stretches that had already been built were used as runways for bomber planes). Today, the autobahn stretches 12,000 km, the third-longest highway in the world after the U.S. and China. The Autobahn is not a complete free-for-all: there are certain restrictions placed on overtaking, etc, and speed restrictions in certain areas.

GERMAN FOOD
Sauerkraut, bratwurst, dumplings, black-forest cake, bread (German bakeries produce about 6,000 types of breads, like rye bread, pumpernickel, pumpkin or sunflower seed, wheat) and approximately 1,200 different types of pastry

GERMAN BEER

German beer consumption per person is declining but—at 116 litres annually—it is still among the highest in the world.

When it comes to German beer, it’s more about quantity than quality. With 1300 around the country, including the world’s oldest, Germany is second only to the U.S. in number of breweries, despite having just a quarter of their population. Germans trail the Czechs and Irish for most beer-drinkers per capita, but they make up for it during Oktoberfest, when nearly 7 million litres are consumed in 16 days. Thankfully for those taking part in all that guzzling, German beer itself is no slouch. Since 1516, the Germans have adhered to the Reinheitsgebot, the German Purity Law, which states that beer can only be made with water, hops, yeast and barley. The law, which originated in Bavaria and applies to all 5000 varieties of beer brewed around the country, goes a long way towards keeping beer clean and preventing hangovers; in a country that downs their beer by the stein-full, you’ll need all the help you can get!

LAND OF IDEAS:

Germany calls itself the Land of Ideas: Albert Einstein; the inventor of X-Rays, Immanuel Kant, Hegel, Marx and Engel’s Communist theory; Nietzsche, Heidegger, Schopenhauer; composers Beethoven, Bach, Wagner and Brahms.

OTHER FAMOUS GERMANS

-Rammstein; The Scorpions

-The current Pope, Benedict XVI, was born in Bavaria

-The Brothers Grimm and Goethe are German

-Marlene Dietrich, Claudia Schiffer

-Ampelman

SPORTS

With more than 6.3 million official members, the German Football Association is the largest sports organisation of its kind worldwide, and has won the World Cup several times (and hosted the last one).

Germany is one of the leading motorsports countries in the world. Many race winning cars, teams and drivers have come from Germany. The most successful Formula One driver in history, Michael Schumacher has won more championships and races than any other driver since Formula One's debut season in 1946. He is one of the highest paid sportsmen in history. Constructors like BMW and Mercedes are among the leading teams in motorsport sponsorship.

Germany ranks third in overall Olympic medals

Since the 2006 World Cup celebrations the internal and external perception of Germany's national image has changed; the BBC revealed that Germany is recognized for the most positive influence in the world in 2009, leading 16 investigated countries. A majority of 61% have a positive view of the country, while 15% have a negative view.

TRIVIA:

-It is criminally illegal in Germany to deny the holocaust (it illegal in many other European countries too) - a person can be jailed - and there have been around 10 such cases, right up to 2009 - for holocaust denial. It is also illegal to use hateful symbols, such as the Swastika.

-More than 400 registered zoos and animal parks operate in Germany, which is believed to be the largest number in any single country of the world. The Zoologischer Garten Berlin is the oldest zoo in Germany and presents the most comprehensive collection of species in the world

-Germany is the third-largest producer of books worldwide (the Frankfurt Book Fair dates back 500 years and is considered the most important book fair in the world)

-Germany is a legally and socially tolerant country towards homosexuals; the mayors of the two largest German cities, Berlin and Hamburg, are openly gay

LANGUAGE

Hello: Hallo

Goodbye: Auf Wiedersehen

Please: Bitte

Thank You: Danke

Excuse Me/Sorry: Entschuldigung Me

Yes: Ja

No: Nein

Do you speak English?: Sprechen Sie Englisch

Where is?: Wo? ist

How much? Wieviel?

One: Ein

Two: Zwei

Three: Drei

Four: Vier

Five: Funf

Water: Wasser

Beer: Bier

Wine: Wein

Cheers!: Beifall! Prost!

Italy - Italia

2010-03-15T01:02:00.002-04:00

La Vita i Bella, LA DOLCE VITA

Capital City: Rome

Population: 59.9 million (fourth-largest in the EU)

Currency: Euro

Languages: Italian

Geography

-Borders: France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia

-Sardinia and Sicily are the two largest islands in the Mediterranean

-The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican are enclaves within Italy

-Italy is prone to natural disasters. In 2009, extensive flooding, forest fires, lethal landslides and an earthquake near the city of L’Aquila cost more than 300 lives.

Landscape: Mount Etna (on Sicily) is the largest active volcano in Europe; Mount Vesuvius is the only active volcano on mainland Europe (the only one to have erupted in the last 100 years). It was responsible for the destruction of Pompeii and the deaths of up to 25,000 people in 79AD; it has not erupted since 1944. When it erupted in 79AD, the eruption sent ash flying as far away as Constantinople (Istanbul), the sun was blocked out and the sea was sucked away and forced back by a tsunami.

Rivers: Italy’s largest river is the Po

Mountains: 75% of the Italian peninsula is mountainous; the Alps - a section of which are the Dolomites - form Italy’s Northern boundary, while the Appenine Mountains extend from North to South

Part of EU?: Yes, Italy was a founding member in 1957 (Italy was also a founding member of NATO)

Prime Minister: Silvio Berlusconi

SILVIO BERLUSCONI

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was born in Milan, and is the longest-serving Prime Minister of Italy (he has held the position three times, currently since 2008). He is the richest Italian and one of the richest men in the world (worth 6 billion). He owns A.C. Milan (his own party is named Forza Italia - Go Italy! - after a chant sung by AC Milan supporters), several media channels, newspapers, and over 150 other companies. He is a successful businessman, seems a lot younger than his 72 years (due in part to plastic surgery), and in good health; when he was attacked in 2009 by a statuette-wielding protestor, he got right out of the car to wave to the crowd, despite having a bloodied face, to show he was okay.

Berlusconi has been accused of fraud, tax evasion, mafia collusion, having relationships with young women, hiring prostitutes, has been involved in sex scandals. People say he influences the media because he owns most of it; comedians who have made fun of him have never appeared on tv again. The Economist is always after him and to make matters worse, he isn’t the most eloquent fellow: when Obama became President, he complimented him on his “suntan”. In 2009, he was shouting out “Mr. Obama! Mr. Obama!” and the Queen turned around and shhh’d! him.

-There are 20 different political regions in Italy (including Umbria, Tuscany, Sardinia, Sicily, Piedmont, Lombardy, Calabria)

-Italy is a member of the G-8, and it is in a good economic position today, although the country entered a recession twice in the past decade. Italy doesn't have many multinational companies, rather it has purely Italian companies.

-In recent years, voters have been disenchanted with the government, citing corruption, debt,
influence of organized crime; the government has swung back and forth over the past few years
from centre-left party under Romano Prodi, who had to resign again in 2008, and centre-right
Berlusconi

QUICK HISTORY

Legend has it that Rome was founded in 753 BC by Romulus and Remus, who appear in mythology as the twin sons of the God of War, Mars but were raised by a she-wolf so they were feral creatures, very in touch with nature. They stood on 2 hills and a swarm of birds flew over Romulus’ head, signifying that he should be the first King of Rome, so Romulus killed his brother, named himself King and named the city after himself. He stole a bunch of women from neighbouring tribes, and conquered other territories and populated Rome.

By around 500 BC, a number of groups shared Italy. The Greeks were on the Southern Coast and Sicily; the Gauls were in the North; The Etruscans, from somewhere in Turkey, ruled Central Italy for a while. They were a tribal group, very spiritual, with a fondness for architecture (and wine!).

In around 55BC, Julius Caesar and his triumvirate came to power. They conquered the Gauls and invaded Britain. Caesar was a dictator, and heavily centralized the bureaucracy of the republic. But by the first century BC, as Rome got bigger and expanded overseas, this system stopped working, and a series of revolts against the Roman government began. Spartacus, a slave, led an uprising against the Patricians. Spartacus was one of many Gladiators (some 40,000 of them) who plotted their escape from slavery. They didn’t win, but their uprising was an inspiration to others. The trouble continued for decades, eventually leading to the assassination of Julius Caesar by a group of Senators hoping to restore the normal running of the Republic.

In 29 BC, after a long struggle, Julius Caesar’s nephew Octavius defeated his rivals (Antony and Cleopatra) and declared himself Emperor Augustus Caesar; the Roman Empire was born. Rome gained territory in Britain, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

This Pax Romana (time of peace) ended when the last great Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, died in 180 AD, and then a series of economic instability, barbarian invasions, domestic issues, combined with a lack of strong leadership, led to the decline of the Roman Empire and by the fourth century AD, it eventually split into two: The East thrived, becoming the Byzantine Empire, based out of the newly-built capital Constantinople, (now Turkey), while Rome, capital of the West, declined.

For the next thousand years (The Dark Ages), Italy stagnated and broke apart into a series of city-states, with Rome (the centre of the Catholic Church) the most powerful.

RELIGION

After the death of Jesus, the apostles started to travel, and found themselves in Rome. From as early as the 1st century, the Church of Rome was recognized as an authority because it was believed that the Apostles Peter and Paul had led the Church there. Roman and Catholicism are now synonymous, but the early Catholics in Rome were persecuted (by Emperors such as Diocletian) because they did not adhere to many of the pagan Roman practices.

Finally, the Romans could not fight the rise of Christianity any longer. It was recognized as a valid religion in 313 AD, and Emperor Constantine made it the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 AD. The bishops and popes steadily rose in power.

Until 1054 AD Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism were branches of the same body. The slow process of separation was encouraged in 330 AD when Emperor Constantine decided to move the capital of the Roman Empire to the city of Byzantium (Byzantine Empire, modern-day Turkey) and called it Constantinople. When he died, his two sons divided their rule, one taking the Eastern portion of the empire and ruling from Constantinople and the other taking the western portion, ruling from Rome.

In 1054 AD a formal split (East-West Schism) occurred when the Pope in Rome excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople, who in turn excommunicated him.

The Crusades were a series of religiously sanctioned military campaigns designed to reclaim the Holy Land (Jerusalem). They were waged over a period of nearly 200 years, between 1095 and 1291. They were bloody, but they allowed for goods and knowledge to be brought into Italy from abroad.

The Church at the time influenced the development of western art, Renaissance Artists, and music (Catholic monks developed western notation, leading to the rise of European classical music).

RENAISSANCE ITALY

Things didn’t pick up again in Italy until the 14th Century AD, when cities such as Florence, Venice, Milan and Pisa became centres of trade, and the influx of wealth and contact with other nations turned Italy, once again, into Europe’s premier centre of culture. This was the Renaissance period.

Tuscany is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance movement; no surprise, as it is also the birthplace of Dante Alighieri ("the father of the Italian language"), Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo (who inspired the term Renaissance Man), Galileo and Botticelli. During the Renaissance, the fields of art, literature, politics, science, exploration (Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo were around during this time as well) and fashion introduced Italy and Europe to the rest of the world.

Several factors contributed to the Renaissance, and many of them were not nice.

Italy had been in the Dark Ages ever since the East (Ottoman Empire) had taken over from Rome as the centre of power in Europe, and the Renaissance helped bring it back into the light. Due to the fall of Constantinople at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, Greek scholars and texts came into Italy during this time.

The Crusades, whilst bloody, had led to increased trade and knowledge coming into Italy (textiles from North Africa, Asia, etc.). Marco Polo also brought back knowledge from his travels, as did Christopher Columbus.

The Black Death had wiped out a third of Europe's population, so the reduced population was much wealthier, better fed, and had more money to spend on luxury items. Additionally, the collapse of two major banks in Italy cleared the way for the Medici to rise to prominence in Florence, and they became the Patrons of the Renaissance, allowing a burgeoning Italian art scene to flourish.

Catherine de Medici, as well as three Popes and Lorenzo the Magnificent, patron of some of the most popular Renaissance art, held power in Florence at the time. (The Sforza family was their Milanese counterpart, commissioning Milan’s Castle Sforzesca and parts of the Duomo). The Medicis married strategically, and were thewere powerful in Florence from the 14th - 18th centuries. They had three popes, politicians, the Queen of France, and later members of French and English royalty.

Their wealth and influence initially derived from the textile trade, and when they took power of Florence, they created for an environment where art and humanism could flourish, thus inspiring the Renaissance. Artists at the time only made their works when they received commissions in advance, which the wealthy Medicis were able to provide.

The most significant addition to the list over the years was Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), who produced work for a number of Medici, beginning with Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was said to be extremely fond of the young Michelangelo, inviting him to study the family collection of antique sculpture. Lorenzo also served as patron to Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) for seven years. Pope Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo to paint the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel just before the pontiff's death in 1534.

In addition to commissions for art and architecture, the Medici were prolific collectors and today their acquisitions form the core of the Uffizi museum in Florence.

After Lorenzo's death, a Dominican Friar, Girolamo Savonarola, rose in power. He hated the excessive luxury of the Medicis, and ordered many works of art to be destroyed in the "Bonfire of the Vanities" in 1497. The following year, he was burned at the stake in the same location as his bonfire.

The Medicis remained in power, with two 16th century popes, but were unable to stem the advance of the Reformation and eventually their power declined, but their legacy and contribution is still painted all across Florence.

MODERN ITALY

Things in Italy were carrying along fine, but not spectacularly, until the 20th century.

In 1919, a politician named Benito Mussolini launched a movement that called for the restoration of Italy as a great power. In 1922, impatient with electoral politics, Mussolini led his supporters, known as Fascists, on a march on Rome to seize power directly through a coup. Spooked, the Italian king did not put up a fight and allowed Mussolini to become supreme ruler of Italy.

Mussolini spent the next twenty years consolidating power and building up the Italian economy, calling himself Il Duce (‘Leader’) and dreaming of leading a new Roman Empire. When WWII broke out, Italy remained neutral at first, but once it appeared through the Fall of France that Germany would win, Mussolini eagerly joined Hitler, a fellow Fascist and longtime ally, in the war effort and rushed to invade Greece, the Balkans, and North Africa. Overextended and unprepared for such a large-scale effort, Italy quickly found that it could not maintain its military position and had to ask Germany for help. Before long, Mussolini saw himself losing control of his overseas possessions, and eventually his very own country to the Allies. Abandoned by a disgusted Hitler, Il Duce and his mistress were captured and executed by Italian partisans.

After the Second World War, Italy abolished the monarchy and declared itself a republic. With the strong support of the United States, Italy rebuilt its economy through loans, joined NATO and the EU and today, Italy is one of the most prosperous and democratic nations in Europe.

ITALIAN CORRUPTION

The government might be focusing too much on fighting crime and not enough on fighting corruption.

United Nations and European Union studies indicate that Italy's crime rates are below the European average. Rome is safer than London, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam. But Italy is one of the worst offenders in Europe when it comes to corruption, and cases of corruption in Italy have increased 200% since 2008. On a scale from 1 to 180, Sweden, New Zealand and Denmark are at the top, with Iraq, Myanmar and Somalia at the bottom. Italy comes in at 55.

SICILIAN MAFIA ("COSA NOSTRA")

The Casa Nostra originated in 19th century Sicily, led by families who ran their own territories, protecting their business interests again feudal land owners who intimidated poor employees into working for low wages. They were Italian Robin Hoods.

Mussolini cracked down on Cosa Nostra, and that is when many of them fled abroad to America and beyond. When Fascism fell after WWII, they slowly made their way back into Sicily where, today, it is estimated that the Sicilian Mafia costs the Sicilian economy more than €10 billion a year through protection rackets. 80% of Sicilian businesses pay protection money to Cosa Nostra; monthly payments can be up to €5,000. Cosa Nostra is estimated to have about 100 clans, with a total of at least 3,500 to 4,000 members. Most are based in western Sicily, almost half of them in the province of Palermo.

There are reports that the Forza Italia party has links to Cosa Nostra. Cosa Nostra controls about 80% of the cocaine trade in Europe. In recent years, it has deliberately murdered judges, priests and children. Palermo's Falcone-Borsellino Airport is named after two such judges.

While America has glamorized the Mafia in movies, Italians recognize that they are criminals, and no one outside their social class would aspire to be one.

In November 2007 Sicilian police reported to have found a list of "Ten Commandments" in the hideout of a mafia boss. They are thought to be guidelines on how to be a good, respectful and honourable mafioso.

-No one can present himself directly to another of our friends. There must be a third person to do it.
-Never look at the wives of friends.
-Never be seen with cops.
-Don't go to pubs and clubs.
-Always being available for Cosa Nostra is a duty - even if your wife is about to give birth.
-Appointments must absolutely be respected.
-Wives must be treated with respect.
-When asked for any information, the answer must be the truth.
-Money cannot be appropriated if it belongs to others or to other families.
-People who can't be part of Cosa Nostra: anyone who has a close relative in the police, anyone with a two-timing relative in the family, anyone who behaves badly and doesn't hold to moral values.

ITALIAN FASHION

From the 11th-16th centuries (during the Renaissance), Italian fashion, just like other Italian art, was at its peak - although some might say its most important contribution to fashion was made during the height of the Roman Empire, when the bikini was first invented. During the court of Louis 14th in the 1600s, France took over as the fashion capital of Europe, but Italian fashion designers have made a comeback (the Italian School vs. French Haute Couture).

Today, the big names in Italian fashion are Armani, Valentino, Versace, Dolce and Gabbana, Roberto Cavalli, Prada. Milan is considered the World's Top Fashion Capital, and Rome is 4th.

CUSTOMS: 67% of single Italian men stay at home until they marry (But even the number of marriages has fallen - with 257,880 couple tying the knot in 2003, less than half of the number in 1971). Italy is projected to actually lose 10 percent of its population by 2050, possibly a consequence of not leaving the home.

ITALIAN FOOD

-Italian meals usually consist of no fewer than 3-4 meals (an antipasto, a primo piatto, secondo piatto, insalata or contorno - vegetable side dish-, and finally the dolci and an aperitif.

-Local specialities abound, such as pesto in Liguria (Genoa and the Cinque Terre), pizza in Naples, bolognese sauce in Bologna, risotto in Milan;

-Italy is also the leading European country for organic or biological foods with some 50,000 farms committed to growing produce by natural methods without the use of chemicals.

-Coffee and espresso are widespread; cafe con leche; gelato; panna cotta

-Peroni is the national beer

ITALIAN WINE

The Etruscans and Greeks were cultivating wine long before the Romans arrived, but the Romans really advanced the industry, creating barrel-storage and bottles. In AD92, an Emperor actually had to destroy some vineyards to make room for food cultivation.

Today, Italy is the largest producer, exporter and consumer of wine in the world; it makes 1/5 of wine worldwide, and there are over 1 million vineyards under cultivation and 6 billion litres produced. They recently beat the French for the first time in a decade.

Italians drink 59 litres per capita, compared to the 7.7 per capita consumed in the States. Wine is cultivated in all 20 Italian regions, such as Chianti from Tuscany, Barolo, Montepulciano, Pinot Grigio,

ITALIAN PEOPLE

Explorers: Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo

Artists: Donatello, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael

Writers: Virgil (wrote The Aeneid), Dante (wrote The Divine Comedy in the 14th century); Petrarch (who invented the sonnet), Machiavelli (The Prince);

Scientists/Inventors: Gallileo; the inventors of the radio and the telephone; Frank Zamboni invented the Zamboni

Musicians: Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, tenor Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocellio, Eros Ramazotti; Mussolini

FILM: Sophia Loren, Roberto Benigni (Life is Beautiful)

SPORT: Italy’s football team is the second-most successful team in the world, with four World Cup victories (including the last one, in 2006); Turin hosted the 2006 Olympics; sports are often incorporated into popular festivals, like Il Palio in Siena and the Venice regatta.

GLADIATORS: They were often slaves who were forced to fight.

QUIRKY FACTS

-The first paved streets in the world were in Rome: in 170 BC, Julius Caesar banned all vehicles during daylight hours because of traffic jams

-Roman gladiators were the first athletes to endorse products

-Roman Emperor Caligula appointed his horse to a senate position

-Roman statutes were made with detachable heads so new heads could be put on as leaders changed

-After poor performances, Roman commanders would kill every tenth Roman soldier, giving rise to the word ‘decimate’

-La Sapienza University in Rome is the largest university in Europe,184,000 students

-Italy is the 5th major tourist destination in the world

-Italy has the most UNESCO sites (43) in the world

-Italy has the eighth highest quality of life index

Language Tips

Hello: buongiorno

Goodbye: Ciao!

Please: per favore

Thank You: grazie

Excuse Me/Sorry: mi scusi

Yes: Si

No: No

Where is?: Dov’e

How much?: Quanto costa?

One: Uno

Two: Due

Three: Tre

Four: Quattro

Five: Cinque

Water: Acqua

Beer: Birra

Wine: Vino

Cheers!: Salute!: Cin cin!

"Travels with Charley" - Book Review

2010-03-14T00:59:00.000-05:00

A decade after Jack Kerouac travelled across America in On the Road, American author John Steinbeck, a little older and wiser but with the same curiosity about his country, took a trip of his own. His goal: to answer the question: “What are Americans like today?”
One of the answers he discovered is that Americans, young and old, have an unquenchable wanderlust. Steinbeck himself is no exception:
When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked.

Travels with Charley is a personal account of Steinbeck’s journey through nearly 40 states, from Maine through the Pacific Northwest to California, Texas, and Louisiana. He is accompanied by his truck, Rocinante, named after Don Quixote’s horse, and his French poodle, Charley, who provides much of the comic relief in the book.

Along the way, he meets other travellers, locals, actors, drunks, cops, migrant potato pickers, and he weaves their opinions and stories together, along with his own observations, to portray his own real, and mature picture of life on the road.

Steinbeck was 58 years old, at the end of his career and ill; he took the trip in part to prove that he was down but not out. According to his son, Steinbeck knew that he was dying – indeed, he died eight years after the book was published – and this trip was him wanting to see his country for the last time.
In Travels with Charley, Steinbeck is still as opinionated, and at times critical, of the government, working conditions and any form of inequality as he is in his novels, such as the Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, or East of Eden. In particular, when he visits New Orleans and writes against the outpouring of racism he encountered there, he reminds the reader that he is the same author that won the Nobel Prize for describing the plight of the downtrodden American.

But Travels with Charley shows a different side to him; it’s refreshing to hear his funnier, more lighthearted voice, when he writes about his dog’s prostate ailments or his own innate ability to get lost:
I knew long ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a path kicks her in the stomach to clear the war, will cheerfully devote several hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be lost.

He is self-deprecating and honest as he describes his insights, sometimes hard-won, about:

…not wanting to go on a trip in the first place:

In long-range planning for a trip, I think there is a private conviction that it won’t happen. As the day approached, my warm bed and comfortable house grew increasingly desirable and my dear wife incalculably precious. To give these up for three months for the terrors of the uncomfortable and unknown seemed crazy. I didn’t want to go.

…the loneliness of travelling:

There seemed to be no cure for loneliness save only being alone.

…and of going places just to tell others you were there:

Niagara Falls is very nice … I’m very glad I saw it, because from now on if I am asked whether I have seen Niagara Falls I can say yes, and be telling the truth for once.

I first picked up Travels with Charley about ten years ago, before I had ever travelled anywhere. It was cute, with cute stories about Steinbeck’s dog and truck, but it didn’t hold my attention past the first few chapters. Recently, I picked it up again and couldn’t put it down. Like so much other great literature, you need to be on the same level with it to understand it. Now that I have travelled, and I have my own beloved dog, I can better appreciate it.
The basics of travelling haven’t changed much in the nearly fifty years since he wrote the book and anyone who has been alone on the road will relate to, and laugh along with it.

Croatia Guide

2010-03-14T00:26:00.002-05:00

Don’t believe the rumours: Croatia is not being ruined by tourism.

Sure, it’s been one of the hottest destinations of the past few years. It is ranked as one of the top 20 tourist destinations in the world, and keeps getting more and more popular. And all for good reason; Croatia simply has everything. The bluest and clearest water in Europe, great weather, fresh seafood,, pumping discos, party islands or uninhabited ones. You can swim with dolphins, sleep in a lighthouse, climb ancient city walls. And that’s just along the coast.

Venture inland and you’ll be treated to castles, national parks, spa towns, waterfalls and wine regions, ancient churches and Roman amphitheatres, a world-class capital, locals that are happy to see you, fantastic wine and even better brandy.

Then there’s that little issue of the bloodiest European war since WWII, in which Croatia played a leading role. So to top it all off, you can visit a city like Vukovar and get a first-hand history lesson.

To be sure, you won’t be the only tourist on the island of Hvar. You might be surrounded by more sunburned tourists in Dubrovnik than you’re comfortable with, and there might be more Aussie accents bouncing off the walls of Diocletian’s Palace than there were a decade ago.

But there are thousands of islands around Croatia, so if one is too busy for your liking, choose another. Or head away from the coast, away from the obvious hot-spots, and you’ll stumble upon towns where you’ll find nary an English-speaker and not a cheap souvenir shop in sight, but only local people enjoying the surreal beauty of their country.

The truth is, Croatia is too gorgeous to be spoiled, no matter how many people are around to marvel at it.

So jump on the bandwagon and see it for yourself.

(Before it actually gets ruined by tourism).

The Basics

Capital: Zagreb

Population: 4,4530,500

Religion: Predominantly Roman Catholic (88%)

Government: Croatia has had a democratic government since the adoption of the 1990 constitution. It previously had a long history of Communism, headed most famously by Joseph Broz ‘Tito’

Race: Croatian (89%); Serbian (4%)

Official language:

This isn’t as easy a question as it looks.

When Croatia was still part of Yugoslavia, the language was officially called Serbo-Croat. Today, the Croatians call it the Croatian language and use the Latin alphabet. The Serbs call it the Serbian language and use the Cyrillic alphabet. The Bosnians call it the Bosnian language and claim that the others misappropriated it for their own political and cultural reasons. The courts at The Hague try to keep the peace by calling it BCS (Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian). Some linguists claim there never was one unified language, but two distinct languages that have overlapped over the years.

Whatever moniker you give it, the language is considered one of the hardest to learn. Not only is it difficult, but it has many potentially offensive political connotations. For example, many guidebooks list the word ‘Zdravo’ for ‘Hello’. But say that to someone who did not support the Communists and you might get a funny look, as that word is often associated with the party.

Don’t worry too much about mastering the language before you visit Croatia: most Croatians speak English, Italian, German, sometimes even Russian. If you’re in the bigger cities, such as Split or Zagreb, you shouldn’t have any trouble chatting with locals or at least making yourself understood in English. In smaller towns you might have a harder time, but even if they don’t speak English, Croatians are usually keen to practice and to help however they can.

And one final note about the Croatian language: the word for "bat" in Croatian is sismis (pronounced: "shishmish"). Say it loud, it's brilliant!

Visas: Most visitors don’t need a visa to visit for three months. Obtaining a work visa, on the other hand, is a different matter. By most accounts, you kinda need to know someone.

When to visit: The high season from June to August is pretty busy, so the best months to go are April, May and September when the weather is hot enough for swimming and also for comfortable sightseeing.

The infamous bura wind blows in around late September, usually signalling the end of the season along the coast when everything shuts down. You should plan to head inland around then. In the colder months, spend time in Zagreb galleries or in Slavonian wineries, or find a little spa town where you can spend your days lounging in warm water and your nights in a cozy café.

The People

Croatians love to sit for a coffee and a smoke. They don’t do take-out-coffees, and they certainly don’t have Starbucks; they sit down for five minutes to relax.

Croatians are big-smokers, in fact if you don’t smoke you’ll probably be quite uncomfortable there. But funnily enough, their life expectancy is the same as Americans.

They love being outside and they really love their sea. They are very patriotic, but still somewhat surprised and curious to realize how many tourists are interested in their country.

They love bakeries; in fact, there isn’t a huge variety of restaurants in Croatia, but you can’t walk five feet without coming across a bakery where you can buy a delicious burek.

They have forgiven, for the most part, what happened in the past but it’s still fresh in their memories. You won’t generally feel much tension in the air, but at the same time, you won’t be in a conversation very long with a Croatian before their recent rough times will inevitably come up.

Croatians aren’t fake. If they don’t like you, don’t worry, they’ll tell you. Or ignore you.

Croatians can be skeptical. It takes them a little while to warm up, but once they do, they treat you like family.

Croatians love to eat meat, bread and fresh salad, preferably with their hands and preferably with a bottle of homemade wine.

Croatians are really tall. If you’re short, you’ll realize just how tall they are when you try to look into a mirror and have to stand on tiptoes.

Dating

There are no two ways about it: Croatian men are hot. The term ‘tall, dark and handsome’ might have originated there, with brooding demeanours and rugged manliness thrown in for good measure. They have all the sexy qualities you expect in Mediterranean men, minus any sleazy catcalls or particularly fiery tempers.

Croatian girls, like most of their ex-Yugoslavian counterparts, are pretty, but they don’t often go for the natural look. They like to put effort into their clothes, make-up and hair colour. You won’t see many windswept, fresh-faced blonde beauties in Croatia. These girls are high-maintenance.

When a Croatian guy is trying to impress a girl, he will pull out chairs, pay the bills, order her drinks.

An Irishman who spent a summer working on the island Vis said he learned to be more of a gentleman while observing customers in the restaurant where he worked. He learned to never look at the woman when taking orders or settling the bills. When he got back to Ireland, he started pouring drinks for his girlfriend and ordering for her. He preferred the way of life that he learned in Croatia. He said:

“The girls in Croatia are more delicate, more feminine.”

He said that men are able to feel more like men in Croatia than in Ireland.

“It’s an act, but there’s something to it.”

Most Croatian girls are on the fence when it comes to their men. When the topic comes up, most of them roll their eyes and say: “That’s Balkan men for you. They don’t know what they want.”

They can’t explain what they mean by that, but there seems to be a collective agreement that there is something wrong with Balkan men. Words like ‘macho’ and ‘confused’ get thrown around.

But at the same time as their men frustrate them, they admit that there is something special about them.

It’s not hard for a foreigner to get a date. Female tourists will find that Croatian guys are more than happy to show them around, take them out for drinks or to the beach. But just as in any strange country, foreign girls should be careful. Croatian guys don’t necessarily have the same opinion of foreigners as their own. They don’t necessarily want to just be just friends, and when they invite you back to their house for a home-cooked meal, they’re not just trying to give you a taste of the local cuisine. The good thing is that Croatians are fairly well-mannered, so even if one gets a little out of order, most times a stern word will suffice to get a girl out of an uncomfortable situation.
Croatian girls, like girls around the world, love an accent and will be happy to accept a date with a foreign guy. But a word to the wise, guys: it’s only a matter of time before a Croatian girl is bound to remember that she’s surrounded by some of Europe’s sexiest men, and your accent will only take you so far.

Work and Money

The currency in Croatia is the kuna (fun fact: the kuna is a furry little animal that used to be used in trading). There are approximately 7 kunas to the British pound.

Croatia is inexpensive, but not dirt-cheap. It’s no Bulgaria, for example. A pizza in a nice restaurant costs around 40 kunas, a coffee or beer costs about 10 kunas, a hostel room costs about 100 kunas. Of course, prices vary depending on your proximity to the tourist-traps along the coast.

Working in Croatia isn’t easy. Many bars or restaurants won’t hire tourists without visas, and it’s not easy to get a visa.

That said, there are a few that will hire people under the table. You might not get paid much, or at all, but you can find work at a hostel or a bar where your accommodation is taken care of, so at least you’ll be able to stick around a little longer.

Health and Safety

Everyone in Croatia has a story about an encounter with a sea urchin. It is a part of growing up by the sea. When a guy from Birmingham stepped on two urchins on an Istrian beach, he asked a bartender later that night how to get them out. The bartender replied ‘squeeze a lemon onto it’, like that was the most obvious answer in the world.

Sea urchins are one of the biggest dangers you’ll encounter. You needn’t worry too much about scams, pickpockets, kidnappings or muggings.

For a country that coined the term ‘genocide’, it’s doing pretty well.

Transport

God love cheap European airlines. You can usually find a return flight to Croatia from London for no more than 50 pounds with Ryanair, Easyjet, GermanWings or Thomsonfly. Of course, in the high season, flights to Split or Dubrovnik are ridiculously inflated, but there’s ways around it. Fly into Pula or Zadar and then rent a car or take a bus to wherever you want to go.

Once you’re in Croatia, getting around is easy. The bus system is extensive and accessible. There is a bus station in every town with big signs clearly listing the timetables.

There are direct buses between most major cities, and the most you’ll pay for a bus ticket is around 150 kunas, and that will get you practically across the country. Buses are comfortable and safe, and will make a few stops along the way (don’t forget: Croatians are heavy smokers so they won’t go far before taking a smoke break!). The greatest thing about Croatian buses: the drivers usually play the radio so you can get your fill of traditional music on the road.

If you’re comfortable driving in a strange country, hiring a car is a terrific option. There is a new highway linking Split and Zagreb so you can motor along quickly, albeit with a few toll booths along the way. If you have the time, take the old highway for a spectacularly beautiful drive. If you fly into Pula or Zadar, hire a car and meander along the coast or head into the mountains, stopping along the way for a swim or lunch in a little coastal village.

Accommodation

If you get off a bus, ferry or train in a major city or island, someone will, without fail, approach you to offer a room. Go ahead and accept their offer, because private accommodation is the best way to go in Croatia. Private accommodation is safe, it’s the norm, and it’s a way for Croatian homeowners to pull in a little extra income.

If you’re alone, expect to pay around 100-150 kunas per night; if you’re a couple you’re in luck because the rooms are often charged by the room rather than the person, meaning you’ll each pay half that amount.

Private rooms range from personal and cozy, with homey decorations, to sparse and empty but probably in a fantastic location. You might get to sit for a cup of coffee or a snack while the landlord gives you the lowdown on the area. Some families even cook for their tenants.

Entrepreneurs take note: hostels are not widespread in Croatia. Yet.

If private rooms aren’t your thing, there are several hostels in Zagreb and a few in Split. You’ll likely need to splurge on a hotel room if you head to Slavonia, and the same goes for Istria where there are many high-end resorts but only a couple of hostels.

Destinations

Istria

For several decades, from the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918 to the end of WWII, Istria was part of Italy. The Italian heritage is still prominent, from its food to its architecture to the fact that more people say “Ciao” on the streets than “Doviđenja”.

A 70-year old lady who has lived her whole life in Medulin, a small village just outside Pula, said she has had five different passports.

During the so-called “homeland war” in the 1990s, Istria saw none of the fighting. Still, the war and years of Communism before that, took their toll on the Istrian economy and its major industry, tourism. But people have gradually rediscovered it and tourism once again plays a major role, although far less than Dalmatia.

Istria has truffle fields and vineyards, spectacular coastal drives, world-heritage sights in Porec and Rovinj, and the world’s smallest town, Hum.

The biggest city in Istria is Pula, known more as a military city than a touristy one since the 19th century, when its harbour was the headquarters of the Austro-Hungarian navy. It has one of the best-preserved Amphitheatres in the world and several other important ancient Roman sights.

Pula isn’t the prettiest city: the paint is peeling from its walls and some buildings look like they’ll fall down any minute. Some people leave after one night because they’re looking for white sandy beaches, not the cement and stone things Pula has to offer. Others get bored because they’ve seen the Arena, had a swim, sat at a table at Café Uliks beside the statue of James Joyce - who lived and taught in Pula for a few months and supposedly hated it - and there isn’t much else to do.

But Pula has an inviting, small-town feel to it, plus a few nice and quiet beaches, and some of the best gelato this side of Italy.

Slavonia

The region of Slavonia has a lot going for it. It has sprawling maize fields, burgeoning wineries and the country’s first wine hotel. Its biggest city, Osijek, has a beautiful cathedral. The city of Dakovo has Lippizaner horses to ride and Slavonski Brod has one of Europe’s best-preserved fortresses. Slavonia is bordered by the Drava river, the Sava river and the Danube.

But the area is probably best known for Vukovar. The city became famous for its David and Goliath story, when the Croatian population defended the city against the approaching Yugoslavian military for 87 days before eventually succumbing and being nearly completely destroyed. Vukovar is still a sensitive subject around Croatia, and most cities have a street or monument dedicated to it. Visit there now and you’ll find a city still divided and not yet recovered. It’s worth a trip away from the coast to see the part of Croatia that isn’t in the tourist brochures.

Zagreb

Zagreb is a great city. It’s got museums and galleries dedicated to everything from botany to sculpture. It has the Croatian parliament, housed in a big building with a checkered-tile roof. It has the Croatian National Theatre, a bright yellow building with a beautiful sculpture by Ivan Mestrovic outside called The Well of Life. It has a vibrant nightlife. It has big green parks and a botanical garden and an efficient, if noisy, tram system. It has several cathedrals and galleries. It doesn’t have great shopping but it has great cafés. It has festivals in the main squares. It has one million people.

And yet Zagreb is not known as a world-class capital city and probably never will be. It’s not Paris or London, cities that everyone wants to see at least once. It doesn’t have the funky reputation of Barcelona or the romance of Florence or even the quirkiness of Reykjavik. It doesn’t have any internationally-famous monuments. It’s the capital of Croatia but let’s face it, people don’t come to Croatia for its cities and Zagreb is nowhere near the coast. The name Zagreb isn’t even particularly appealing.

It’s a city that grows on you. Give Zagreb a chance and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. There aren’t many must-see destinations, so you can sit in a café all morning with a coffee, spend all afternoon wandering, then spend the evening in a bar with a glass of wine and watch the world go by. And those are always the best kind of places.

Split

There aren’t many places in the world where you have a pizza, get drunk, and buy a cheap pair of earrings without ever straying from the walls of an ancient Emperor’s palace. But that’s exactly what you’ll do in Split, where you’ll spend hours wandering the streets of Diocletian’s Palace. Outside the palace, there is a new boardwalk where you can join the locals on a nightly promenade and stop for dinner at one of the many outdoor terraces overlooking the sea. Then head to the beach and poke your head into as many bars as you can, all housed in the Bacvice complex. Split has great nightlife, the official Ivan Mestrovic museum, theatres and statues and galleries, plus it’s the major jumping-off point to the islands. If Diocletian knew how many sunburned degenerates were running around his home, he’d be turning in his mausoleum.

The Dalmatian Islands

Croatia’s major draw is its sea, and the best showcases for the sea are the islands. There are 1185 islands in Croatia, mostly uninhabited, so take your pick. They’re covered in fresh lavender, they have windy little streets and mind-blowingly blue water. The most popular are: Hvar, where you’ll find the best nightlife going and Korcula, which have gained respectable reputations among the rich and famous; beautiful Brac, where the Zlatni Rat beach of postcard-fame is located; and Vis, a favourite among locals, a little less busy than the others and boasting the spectacular Blue Grotto.

Take a boat-tour or hop on the public ferries and meander your way around the islands that are quickly making Greece yesterday’s news.

QUICK HISTORY

In the seventh century, the Slavic tribes were pushing west - reaching their most western point in Istria, stopping just short of Italy – and south, destroying Salona, the capital of Roman Dalmatia.

The Romans, who already occupied most of Dalmatia, and the Slavs co-habited the land peacefully for many years. Their civilizations were completely different, but they worked out a trading system and compromised on their language and tradition. The Slavs lived in the countryside, the Romans lived in the cities, and everyone was happy.

One major difference between the Romans and the Slavs was their language: latin or glagolitic. By the 12th century, the papal authorities had turned the Croatian Church into a Roman Catholic one, and the glagolitic language survived only as a secular one (although it is still a national source of pride).

But Empires changed and depending on who married who, the rule of lands swapped hands every few years. The first major struggle that had repercussions for Croatia was between the Byzantines and the Franks (under Charlemagne). After the battle of Aachen, the Byzantines were given the Roman cities, while the Franks got the rural hinterland. This split up Croatia for the first time, and they worked for centuries to re-unite it. At the time, there was also a fledgling Croatian state in Slavonia.

In the 10th century, the Croat ruler Tomislav stopped an invasion by the Hungarians and Bulgarians, and gained a lot of respect for protecting the country. The Byzantine Empire allowed him to rule their cities as the Emperor’s pro-consul. Tomislav was a successful leader, and very politically innovative; he was the first to divide Croatia into 11 administrative districts.

In the 1100s, the Croatian crown was given to the King of Hungary, who guaranteed that the Croatians would have an unequal, but separate, existence within his Kingdom. The Croatians were to keep their sabor (parliament) and local authorities.

But over the next few centuries, Croatian nation-building was blocked even further. Venice bought all of Dalmatia in the 14th century. The Turks were approaching, and after the King of Hungary was killed at the Battle of Mohacs, the Croatians turned to the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand for help. The pirates of Senj revolted, the Krajina (military border) was controlled by Vienna, and Croatia was referred to as “The remnants of the remnants of the once great Croatian kingdom.”

Dubrovnik was the only success story in the whole divided country. It was known as Ragusa then, and it was full of skilled artisans, was the main trading partner with the Ottomans along the Mediterranean, and maintained its independence as a republic (which saved it from the Ottoman attacks that the rest of the country was prey to).

Dalmatia (particularly Hvar) was a hotspot during the Renaissance, with Croatians studying in Italy and Italians coming to Dalmatia to work on the magnificent building projects of the time (which can still be seen around the islands).

When the Ottoman empire was finally defeated in the 16th century, the Habsburgs tightened their control over Croatia, taking the Krajina completely out of their hands. Two noble Croatian families, the Frankopans and the Zrinskis, were tired of such treatment, and plotted to eject the Habsburgs from their country. But word of their plot got out, and Peter Zrinski and Franjo Frankopan were beheaded in Vienna. Croatia was now completely under the Austrian thumb.

During this time, the Habsburgs attracted their own people into the Krajina by ensuring that Serbs could practise their Orthodox religion freely. Consequently, in 1819, over half of the population there was Serbian (a source of tension later).

There was a brief period of French rule during the French Revolution, in which Dalmatia and Dubrovnik was also occupied. When it ended, Croatia was returned to the Habsburgs with all its pieces together. While the Hungarians were struggling to gain equality with Austria, a sense of nationalism rose in Croatia as well with the emergence of the Illyrian movement. There were calls for the Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia to be reunited.

Josip Jelacic was the Croatian ban at the time, and he fought on the side of Vienna against the Hungarian uprising, hoping to gain favours. But the Austrians tightened their fists, subdued any nationalism movements, and Jelacic without seeing the independence of his country.
The Illyrian movement eventually split into two, with one half looking to unite all of the Slav people into Yugoslavia (under Josip Strossmayer), while the other half (under Ante Starcevic) seeing that broad union as far too problematic, and hoping to see an independent Croatia on its own.
When the Austria-Hungary empire was created, Dalmatia was left under Vienna’s rule, while Slavonia was given to Hungary. Aspirations for a united Croatia were dashed until WWI, when it was united with the other Slav countries into Yugoslavia. Croatia was not entirely happy about this, because it seemed that Serbia saw the union as an extension of their own country.
Stjepan Radic was a separatist who did not support Yugoslavia, and campaigned for Croatian independence. When he was assassinated in the middle of a Parliamentary meeting, the debate got even more heated, resulting in the rise of the far-right Ustashe movement (which traced its establishment back to Starcevic), and the far-left Communist movement.
In WWII, Yugoslavia was occupied by Hitler, and the Ustashe were installed into government by Mussolini. The Ustashe cooperated with them, hoping to exterminate all minorities within their country (including the Serbs and Bosnians, so that Croatia was finally its own country). A three-way fight over the country emerged: the Ustashe, the Communists, and the Cetniks (Serbian royalists).

The Communists eventually won the fight, under the charismatic Josip Broz Tito. Yugoslavia was now made up of Croatians, Serbs, Bosnians, Slovenes, Macedonians and Montenegrins, all sharing power.

Although Communism had quelled fighting for a few years, most Croatians were not happy to be ruled by that party, particularly because it persecuted the Catholic Church.

Mass tourism helped Croatia to prosper, it gained back Istria from Italy, and it was doing quite well for itself. But there were feelings that it was bringing all of the money into Yugoslavia, holding up its less prosperous partners, without getting anything in return. A small uprising by Croatian nationalists was put down by Tito, but when he died in 1980, foreign debts started to spiral out of control, and Communism started to lose prestige these nationalist feelings re-emerged, not only in Croatia but in Serbia. Slobodan Milosevic took power in 1987 and started to violently enforce Serbian authority over the other republics in Yugoslavia. First, he took over Albanian-dominated Kosovo (a historic place for Serbs), then Montenegro. Milosevic had suddenly ended the 45-year union, and with that, the countries decided to look after their own interests.

In Croatia, Franjo Tudman was elected in 1990, and within a year, war broke out when Slovenia, and then Croatia, declared independence. Their dream had been realized, but at the cost of many lives.

The dissolution of the former Yugoslavia cannot be reduced to religion, politics or money. Historians still can’t agree on who was to blame in the conflicts, where the source of disputes originated, or even the number of people who were killed in the 1990s wars.

Croatian journalist Slavenka Drakulic has written many books about the subject, including They Would Never Hurt a Fly, in which she sums it all up as well as anyone:

Once upon a time, in a faraway part of Europe, behind seven mountains and seven seas, there was a beautiful country called Yugoslavia. Its people belonged to six different nationalities, were of three different religions and spoke three different languages. They were Croats, Serbs, Slovenes, Albanians, Bosnians and Macedonians, yet they all worked together, went to school together, married each other and lived in relative harmony for forty-five years. But because this is not a fairy tale the story of this beautiful country has no happy ending. Yugoslavia fell apart in a terrible and bloody war, a war that claimed some two hundred thousand lives - mostly in Bosnia - displaced two million people and produced several new states: Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia. Albanians and Montenegrins are still struggling for their independence. This all happened in the middle of Europe not so long ago, between 1991 and 1995. The whole world was surprised by this war. We, the citizens of Yugoslavia, were even more surprised.

Even if it appeared so to us, the war, however, did not descend upon us overnight. In the late eighties communism collapsed everywhere in Eastern Europe and in what was then still the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia was unprepared for the political changes that followed the collapse. We had not developed any democratic alternatives as Poland and Czechoslovakia had done, and the political vacuum was suddenly filled with nationalist parties. They all had the same programme: independence and nation-states of their own. Simmering nationalism was soon spreading like a fire ... Slovenia took the first step, and by June 1991 it was out of the federation. The break-up had begun. The Jugoslavenska Narodna Armija (Yugoslav National Army) tried to stop Slovenia from leaving but, as it had no minorities to speak of, the army let it go ... But Croatia had a large Serbian minority, and Slobodan Milosevic, as President of Serbia, had the perfect excuse to send his army to ‘protect’ the Serbs there. That meant real war ... In Bosnia, where Serbs, Croats and Muslim lived together, the war started in April 1992. Because of the mixed population, it also took on the characteristics of a civil war.

My father never spoke about the four years he fought as a partisan under the command of Josip Broz Tito in the Second World War. He wanted to forget it, and for a long time I saw this as a sign of sanity and self-preservation ... And the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the combination of his silence and the official version of the historical events of 1939 - 1945 made this latest war possible ... Only now can I understand how easy it is to start a war in the absence of facts.

Bruges - Belgium

2010-03-11T23:24:00.000-05:00

QUICK FACTS

Population: 117,000

Capital City? No

Region: Capital and the largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish region of Belgium

SHORT HISTORY

Bruges was an important city back in the 13th-17th century, when it was one of the principal trading stations of the Hanseatic League (a trading union in Northern Europe, reaching all the way up to Norway and out to London). It was a centre of Flemish textile trade, an internationally renowned product.

In the 15th century, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, set up court in Bruges, attracting a number of artists, bankers, and other prominent personalities, and the population swelled. The weavers and spinners there were considered among the best in the world.

But, in around 1500, the Zwin channel, which had given the city its prosperity, started silting. The city soon fell behind Antwerp as the economic flagship of the Low Countries. By the mid 19th century, Bruges was the poorest city in Belgium.

Only in the second half of the twentieth century has the city started to reclaim some of its past glory. The port of Zeebrugge was built in 1907, it was greatly expanded in the 1970s and early 1980s and has become one of Europe's most important and modern ports due to its location on the North Sea (busiest sea in the world), its proximity to Great Britain as well as proximity to so many other European cities. International tourism has boomed (thanks in part to its medieval appearance and perhaps a recent movie?)

AROUND TOWN

Bruges Old Town: a UNESCO World Heritage Sight.

Burg Square: The Gothic Town Hall is found in this square, beside the Renaissance Civil Registry, and a Baroque Deanery (used to house the former Deans of the Church). There used to be a castle and a church here, but both fell into disrepair (the church was destroyed during the French invasions of the Spanish Netherlands).

Chapel of the Holy Blood: Dates back to the 12th century, but reconstructed over the years, it contains a bottle that dates back to that time as well, brought to Bruges from Constantinople, possibly containing Jesus’ blood. The Procession of the Holy Blood takes place every year in May, with the citizens of Bruges parading through the streets dressed in historical costumes.

Market Square: the commercial heart of the city in Medieval times, it holds the Belfry Tower, the Cloth Hall and the Provincial Court (which stands in the place where the Water Halls used to be, where traders would come to trade their goods).
Statues of Jan Breydel and Pieter de Coninck: Located in the center of the Market, the statue not only honors these two leaders of the 'Battle of the Golden Spurs' an uprising by the Flemish against the French King, which took place in 1302, it is perhaps more so a clear statement of the political leaders of the 1880's that the cause for Flemish emancipation was something that the Belgian government had to take notice of.

Church of Our Lady: Located in the old town, its brick spire reaches over 400 feet, making it one of the world’s highest brick buildings. Inside you’ll find the sculpture Madonna and Child, believed to be Michelangelo’s only sculpture to have left Italy within his lifetime.

TRIVIA

-The first English book ever printed was printed in Bruges by William Caxton

-Bruges has a chocolate museum, a Belgian fry museum, and a big shop to buy all things TinTin!

-Nowadays no commercial ships sail on Bruges’ canals; they are used exclusively for tourist boats.

Belgium

2010-03-11T11:45:00.008-05:00

Chocolate, Waffles, Tin Tin, “In Bruges”, and BEER!

Capital City: Brussels

Population: 11 million

-The population density is the second highest in Europe, after the Netherlands (97% of the population is urban)

Area: Divided into 10 provinces and 3 regions -the 3 major regions are the Brussels capital region, Wallonia and Flanders. The Brussels Capital Region, officially bilingual, is a mostly French-speaking enclave within the Flemish Region.

Currency: Euro

Languages: Three official languages: Flemish (a dialect of Dutch), in the Flanders region (60%) French in Wallonia and the Brussels region (40%), and a small group of German speakers in Wallonia. Following a usage which can be traced back to the Burgundian and Habsburgian courts, in the 19th century it was necessary to speak French to belong to the governing upper class, and those who could only speak Dutch were effectively second-class citizens. Walloons (in Wallonia) and those in the Brussels region adopted French as their official language. But the Flemings, refused to do so and succeeded in making Dutch the official language of Flanders; the constitution now officially recognizes and gives rights to the different language groups. Today, the Belgian economy shows a dual nature: a dynamic Flemish economy and a Walloon economy that lags behind.

Part of EU?: Belgium was a Founding Member of the EU in 1957 and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO.

Parliament: Former Belgian President Herman Van Rompuy was designated the first permanent President of the European Council in 2009. He legalized same-sex marriage, and was lenient on soft drug use and euthanasia.

In 2003 Belgium became the second country in the world to legally recognise same-sex marriages (The Netherlands was first, in 2001). The only countries that currently grant gay marriage full legal status are: The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, Norway, Sweden and South Africa.

Famous People: Audrey Hepburn (Belgian-born, Dutch-raised); Jean-Claude Van-Damme; Django Reinhardt; Liz Claiborne

Quirky Facts

-Belgium is one of the few countries that has compulsory voting, and thus holds one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the world

-The first newspaper was printed in Belgium

-A Belgian created the Big Bang Theory

-“Spa” is a Belgian city where the word originated

Quick History:

Back in the 10th Century, Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands were jointly known as the “Low Countries”, and life was running along quite smoothly. In the 12th and 13th centuries, cloth manufacturing in Flanders took off with the growth of cities like Ypres, Bruges and Ghent, and with the expansion of trade across northern Europe and beyond. By the 14th century, Ghent was the second biggest city in Europe after Paris.

Charles V was born in Ghent in 1500 and, at the age of 15, became Duke of Burgundy and ruler of the Low Countries. He inherited several crowns from his different grandparents (one set of grandparents were Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain): Hapsburg Austria, Spain and Germany. He was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1519, thus becoming Europe’s most powerful ruler.

Charles initially ruled from Brussels, where he was advised by the great humanist Erasmus. He spent much of his life travelling to far-flung parts of the empire and, later, ruling from Spain, considering it the most powerful part of his Empire (the Spanish explorer, Christopher Columbus, had, after all, discovered America by this point).

During Charles’ reign, the Reformation swept Europe, and met with severe repercussions in the Low Countries. Charles was severe, and his son Philip II was even worse about punishing those who spoke against Catholicism (no surprise, seeing as his great-grandparents were responsible for the Spanish Inquisition!). In 1566 the Protestants revolted, running riot and ransacking churches in a wave of violence that has become known as the Iconoclastic Fury.

In the turbulent years that followed, during which time the Dutch Revolt occurred, the present-day borders of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands were drawn. The Netherlands expelled the Spaniards, while Belgium and Luxembourg, known then as the Spanish Netherlands, stayed under southern rule.

In 1598 Philip II handed the Spanish Netherlands to his daughter Isabella and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria. Their 40-year reign is most noted for its flamboyant court, which gave rise to new industries like lace making and diamond processing. In turn, this brief economic boom boosted cultural life in Brussels and Antwerp and brought to the fore great painters, such as Pieter Paul Rubens, who had been living in Renaissance Italy, and eventually returned to set up a studio in Antwerp that influenced most Belgian artists of the time.

In the 17th century, the Scheldt River was blockaded by the Dutch and trade shifted away from Antwerp to Amsterdam, ushering in the latter’s golden age and ruining the prosperity of the former. Life in the Spanish Netherlands worsened when French plans to dominate Europe during Napoleon's reign meant war after war was fought in this buffer land.

The Battleground of Europe

From the 16th century until the Belgian revolution in 1830, many battles between European powers were fought in the area of Belgium, causing it to be dubbed the battleground of Europe. Again, in WWI and WWII, a lot of the fighting occurred in Belgium (due in part to its geographical position between Germany and France). Belgium was supposed to be a neutral country, and when the Germans attacked France via Belgium, that brought the British Empire into the war. The Battles of Ypres, in Flanders, was the first time chlorine gas was used by the Germans in warfare. The poem Flanders Fields remembers the fighting that went on there.

Independent Belgium

The fighting came to a head with the War of Spanish Succession (1701–13), which saw the Spanish Netherlands handed over to the Austrians. The mighty Austrian Hapsburgs ruled from 1713 to 1794 and, overall, the century was a peaceful change to what had come before. The French reclaimed Belgium briefly after the French Revolution, but when Napoleon was defeated, the low countries were united again into The United Kingdom of the Netherlands at the Congress of Vienna.

The 1830 Belgian Revolution led to the establishment of a Belgium country independent from the Netherlands and Luxembourg, with King Leopold as its first king. The British and French helped the Belgians become independent and decreed it be so with the 1839 Treaty of London. So in 1914, when the Germans invaded Belgium, the British declared war, upholding that Treaty.

BENELUX - Friends

Despite being separate countries today, the three former compatriots remain close friends; they founded Benelux in the 1950s, which was a precursor to the European Union.

In 2000, Belgium and the Netherlands jointly hosted the Euro Cup, the first time two countries co-hosted it. The official mascot for the tournament was Benelucky, a lion-devil with its hair colour being a combination of the flag colours of both host nations.

It was the first time a game had been played in Heysel Stadium in Brussels since the disaster in 1985, when Liverpool FC fans rioted and pushed against a fence and 39 people sitting underneath died. Although there had been speculation that the stadium was not fit to hold the event in the first place, the blame was placed mainly on Liverpool fans and English football clubs were banned from the Euro Cup for five years. There are still memorial statues outside Heysel Stadium.

The three countries have put in a Benelux bid to co-host the 2018 World Cup.

BENELUX-Foes

But relations aren’t always so happy, and one major feud between Belgium and the Netherlands is playing out over mussels.

The Scheldt River is shared by the two countries, and it is the main waterway linking Antwerp to the North Sea. Back in the day, when the Dutch blockaded the river, trade was rerouted to Amsterdam and away from Antwerp, causing Antwerp’s prosperity to decline.

Today, The Netherlands refuses to dredge its side of the Scheldt. The dredging work, agreed between the two countries in 2005, is necessary to allow large ships to reach Antwerp, Europe’s third largest port, and the delay is costing the Belgian port over £60 million a year in lost trade.

Belgium is convinced that The Netherlands is delaying the work again, like they did back in the 17th century, so that their own trade ports will profit (namely: Rotterdam).

This dispute is starting to threaten relations between the two countries, and could jeopardize their World Cup bid.

And one way that the Flemish government is trying to show their anger at the Dutch is by urging Belgians to stop eating mussels and oysters because Belgium's consumption accounts for 60 per cent of the Dutch shellfish harvest, including crops from the Scheldt.

But mussels are the national dish of Belgium, and the people want to support their government, but so far, they have not shown any desire to give up their favourite meal.

Borders: Landlocked between France, Germany, Luxembourg and The Netherlands

Because of its high population density, location in the centre of Western Europe (most West European capitals are within 1,000 km of Brussels), and inadequate political effort, Belgium faces serious environmental problems. It scored 75.9% for overall environmental performance and was ranked lowest of the EU member countries

Food and Drink: The national dishes are ‘steak and fries with salad’, or ‘mussels with fries". Brussel Sprouts.

BELGIAN WAFFLES:

Belgian waffles are bigger and fluffier than regular waffles. Although originally showcased in 1960 at Expo 58, Belgian waffles were popularized in the United States during the 1964 New York World's Fair. The waffle was introduced by Maurice Vermersch of Brussels, Belgium. Originally called Brussels waffles, Vermersch decided to change the name upon observing the poor geographical skills of Americans. The waffles were served with whipped cream and strawberries, and retailed for a dollar

FRENCH FRIES:

Back in the 17th century, the poor inhabitants in a Belgian region allegedly had the custom of accompanying their meals with small fried fish, but when the river was frozen and they were unable to fish, they cut potatoes lengthwise and fried them in oil to accompany their meals.

There are a few legends as to where the name "french" comes from.

The name actually refers to the description of the manner in which the potato is cut: to "french" means to cut into slivers.

A Belgian legend claims that the term "French" was introduced when British or American soldiers arrived in Belgium during World War I, tasted Belgian fries, and called them "French", as it was the official language of the Belgian Army at that time.

At a White House dinner in 1802, Thomas Jefferson served "potatoes served in the French manner.”

CHOCOLATE:

175,000 tonnes of chocolate are produced in Belgium each year. It is held to the highest standard, even the Swiss got their recipe from Belgium. Most of it is still made by hand in small shops that are a tourist attraction like wineries in France.

However, the history behind Belgian chocolate is not so sweet: in fact, it emerged from the Heart of Darkness in the Belgian Congo.

King Leopold II colonized the Congo in the 19th century, and was the first leader to commit genocide in the 20th century. The Congo was turned into a slave-labor camp for the production of rubber. Villages were burned, women and children murdered, the hands were cut off of anyone who tried to resists. An estimated 10 million Congolese were murdered under his order, however it paved the way into the African cocoa grounds. In 1912, Belgian chocolate really took off when Jean Neuhaus created a “couverture”, a cover for “pralines”, which could be hazelnut, fruits, creams, etc.

BELGIAN BEER:

Belgium produces over 800 varieties of beer, and there are around 125 breweries in the country. In Europe, only Germany, France and the U.K. are home to more breweries. The most famous beers include Stella and Hoegaarden. The biggest brewer in the world Anheuser-Busch InBev, is based in Belgium.

The majority of Belgian beers come in bottles, usually dark brown. All Belgian beers have their own glass, often accentuating the type of beer. A goblet, for example, lets the drinker's nose inhale the beer's aroma at the same time the mouth is drinking in the liquid. A tulip glass, for example, is very good for foam retention.

Legend has it that beer has been brewed in Trappist Monasteries in Belgium since the Middle Ages (no written proof), but the first recorded Trappist brewery began in 1836. Each abbey's beer is served in its own glass and only seven breweries (six of these are Belgian, one is Dutch) are allowed to brew Trappist beer. For a beer to qualify for Trappist certification, the brewery must be in or near a monastery, the monks must play a role in its production and policies and the profits from the sale must be used to support the monastery and/or social programs outside.

ABBEY OF WESTVLETEREN BEER (http://www.sintsixtus.be/eng/brouwerij.htm)

The Trappist beer of the Abbey of Westvleteren has consistently been rated the world's best beer, which is unfortunate for the monks, who have been brewing it for 160 years, because it has made them famous.

Inside the monastery's walled compound is a small, modern, bottling plant manned by three monks, producing 12,000 bottles an hour. The monks sleep in dormitories and pray for up to six hours a day in seven sessions starting at 3.30am. They may consume a light beer, Westvleteren Blond, the weakest drink produced there.

The monks at Westvleteren have repeatedly stated that they only brew enough beer to run the monastery, and will make no more than they need to sell, regardless of demand.

During World War II, the brewery stopped supplying wholesalers and since 1941 they only sell to individual buyers in person at the brewery or the visitor's centre opposite. These methods all go against modern business methods, however as stated by the Father Abbott on the opening of the new brewery, "We are no brewers. We are monks. We brew beer to be able to afford being monks.".

Sales are limited to one order a month per person per license plate and phone number. Also, the beer must be reserved on their "beerphone" (+32 (0)70 21 00 45) beforehand.

The monks will not increase supply to match demand because they believe in a monastic life. Because of the fame they have received, they mostly turn beer-seekers away and direct them to the cafe/exhibition across the road.

TIN TIN:

Created in 1929 by Belgian artist Georges Remi (pen name: Herge).

Tin Tin is a reporter, with his little fox terrier sidekick, Snowy. It’s very simply drawn, with simple mysteries that TinTin solves by the end of the story.

Tintin is a reporter, and Hergé uses this to present the character in a number of adventures which were contemporary with the period in which he was working, most notably, the Bolshevik uprisings in Russia and WWII. The invasion of Belgium by Hitler saw the closure of the newspaper in which TinTin was serialized. During the war, Herge ended up serializing his comics in a German-licensed newspaper, and after the war was accused of being a Nazi collaborator.

Herge’s personal life also seeped into the comics; TinTin in Tibet, for example, was influenced by his nervous breakdown; his nightmares, which he described as being “all white” are reflected in the snowy landscapes.

Tintin in the Congo has been criticised as presenting the Africans as naïve and primitive.

But, despite controversy, Tintin has done a lot of good. In the wider art world, both Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein have claimed Hergé as one of their most important influences. On 1 June 2006, the Dalai Lama bestowed the International Campaign for Tibet's Light of Truth Award upon the character of Tintin, along with South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The award was in recognition of Hergé's book Tintin in Tibet, which was "for many ... their introduction to the awe-inspiring landscape and culture of Tibet".

Charles de Gaulle once said "My only international rival is Tintin".

Language Tips

Hello: Hello

Goodbye: Vaarwell

Please: Tevreden

Thank You: Dank u

Excuse Me/Sorry: Verontschuldiging Me/Sorry

Yes: Ja

No: Nr

Do you speak English?: Spreekt u het Engels

Where is?: Waar? is

How much? Hoeveel?

One:

Two: Twee

Three: Drie

Four: Vier

Five: Vijf

Water: Water

Beer: Bier

Wine: Wijn

Cheers!: Juicht! toe

Lauterbrunnen

2010-02-24T15:03:00.000-05:00

As if the spectacular scenery of Swiss Alps wasn’t enough, Lauterbrunnen throws waterfalls into the mix!
There are 72 waterfalls around “Lauter”(meaning, depending on who you speak to, Many, (louder, clear, bright, or clean) “Brunnen” (meaning Springs)

QUICK FACTS

Population:
Around 3000

Capital City:
No.

Region:
Lauterbrunnen is a municipality in the District of Interlaken, canton of Bern; the municipality comprises the villages Lauterbrunnen, Murren, Gimmelwald, Wengen, Stechelberg and Isenfluh. The Valley of Lauterbrunnen is one of the deepest in the Alpine Chain.

River(s):
Weisse Lutschine (because it runs down from the mountains, it’s drinkable)

Mountain(s):
The Monch, Eiger and Jungfrau (legend has it that the Monk, Monch, is in the middle, protecting the Lady, Jungfrau, from the Ogre, Eiger - however, the Jungfrau is the largest of the three)

DAY TRIPS:

Jungfrau: Known as the Top of Europe, the highest train station and the highest toilets in Europe are up on the Jungfrau! Outdoor Interlaken organizes river rafting, kayaking, paragliding ... it's expensive, but in ten years, you won't remember the price, but you'll remember how incredible it was to skydive in Switzerland. Take a 2-hr cog railway ride to the top, visit the observatory, an ice palace with sculptures, toboggan rides, husky rides. Or if you fancy hiking; take a train partway down the mountain, then there’s a 3-hr hike the rest of the way down.

Schiltorn: 30 minute cable car ride to the 2970m high Schiltorn. Atop, you’ll find the world’s first revolving restaurant, Piz Glora, which was built for a James Bond Film, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”.

Staubach Falls: 300m high (right above the hostel), one of the highest in Europe formed of a single, unbroken fall

Trummelbach Falls: 10 glacier waterfalls cut their way through illuminated caves, and 20,000 litres rush through the caves per minute.

Bern, Switzerland

2010-02-24T14:19:00.000-05:00

"There is a beautiful order, a solidity, a gravity in this city, which strikes one at first sight and then never loses its effect.’ -Dorothy Wordsworth

QUICK FACTS

Population: 130,000 (fifth most populous city in Switzerland)

Capital City? Yes

Region: Capital of the Canton of Berne (the second most populous of Switzerland’s cantons)

River(s): Aare; (clear, clean and running straight from the Alps)

Mountain(s): The Gurten and Bantiger (in the Bernese Alps)

SHORT HISTORY

Although it has a relaxed and cozy feel, very similar to Cesky Krumlov, it is actually the capital of Switzerland, and an important city of diplomats, international organizations and meetings.

The city was founded back in 1191, by a Duke named Berchtold V of Zahringen. He went out hunting near the river Aare and decided to name the town after the first animal he killed. Thankfully, he didn’t end up killing a skunk; instead, he slaughtered a bear with his "bare" hands, and consequently named the city Berne, the German word for bear.

In 1353 Berne joined the young Swiss Confederation, becoming a leading member of the new state.

In 1831 the city became the capital of the Canton of Berne and in 1848 it additionally became the Swiss capital.

Over the years the city landscape has been praised by many famous visitors, including Dorothy, sister of William Wordsworth, who gushed, ‘There is a beautiful order, a solidity, a gravity in this city, which strikes one at first sight and then never loses its effect.’

AROUND TOWN

Medieval architecture remains intact. The churches are known as "Mothic" (modern Gothic).

Two excellent examples of Bern’s medieval architecture:

Zytglogge: Found on Kornhausplatz. This is an 800-year-old Glockinspiel that goes off every half hour.

Ogre Fountain: Found on Kornhausplatz. The ogre is based on Franz Berchtold, the brother of the Duke who founded Bern. Legend has it he was fed up with being overshadowed by his brother and, in a rage, started eating all of the town babies.

Other things to check out in Bern:

The Bear Pits: Commemorate the name of the city. Bears have had a long connection with Bern ever since its founding. They were kept in these pits ever since 1513, at the town’s expense, but last October were moved to the Bear Park beside the Aare.

Museum of Natural History: The Museum hosts the largest diorama exhibit in Europe: 220 showcases depicting native and exotic birds and mammals in their natural habitat. A part of the exhibition is devoted to the famous "Barry", the Saint Bernard dog. Barry worked as a rescue dog in the 1800s, and lived at a monastery near the Great St. Bernard pass near the Swiss-Italian border. He was credited with saving over 40 lives in his time. He died in 1814, was stuffed and has been displayed at the Museum in Bern since 1815.

Shopping: There are 6km of covered shopping arcades (one of the longest covered shopping promenades in Europe).
Tuesday and Saturday mornings are great for markets.

Rose Gardens: Served as a cemetery for many years; in 1913, the site was turned into a rose garden, with 200 types of roses, and 200 types of iris.

DAY TRIPS

Gurten: Closest mountain, tram 9 to Gurkenbahn Train Station, take a funicular up the mountain (5CHF)

Interlaken/Lucerne/Geneva: Can all be reached from the main train station; (train from Bern - Zurich/Geneva: 92 CHF)

TRIVIA

Toblerone: the Toblerone Chocolate Factory is based in Bern. It was created in 1908, and the image of a bear in the Matterhorn symbolizes the town.

-Albert Einstein worked out his theory of relativity while employed as a clerk at the Bern patent office

-The fourth Monday of November features the centuries-old Zwiebelmarkt, or Onion Market. This is the city's last big event before winter, and residents traditionally stock up on onions in anticipation of the first snows. In Bern's historic core, vendors arrive before dawn to set up stalls featuring plaited strings of onions. It is customary to sell some 100 tons of onions in 1 day during the festival. It's not all salesmanship either -- buffoons disguised as onions run about, barrels of confetti are thrown, and a good time is had by all. Local restaurants bust out their best onion recipes during this time.

SWITZERLAND - the SWISS CONFEDERATION

2010-02-24T12:21:00.002-05:00

Awesome, majestic, the Alps, Heidi, cowbells, Swiss Cheese and chocolate
Quick Facts:

Capital City:
Bern

Population:
7.7 million, divided between 26 semi-independent cantons (townships, voting districts) with populations ranging from 15,000 to over one million.

Area:
41.285 sq. km

Currency:
Swiss Franc (1CHF=0.68EUR)

Languages:
Four official languages: German (Swiss German, not too different from German), French, Italian, Romansh (a local dialect spoken by only .05% of the population in a southeastern canton;

Religion:
Roman Catholic 41.8%, Protestant 35.3%, Muslim 4.3%

Borders: (Land and Sea)
Switzerland is landlocked; Germany to the North, France to the West, Italy to the South and Austria and Liechtenstein to the East

Landscape:
Switzerland comprises three basic topographical areas: the Swiss Alps, the Jura Mountains and the Swiss Plateau; waterfalls and glaciers; the more populous Northern part of the country is still hilly, but has more fields, pastures, grazing herds and vegetable/fruit fields

Rivers:
Several rivers such as the Rhine and the Rhone flow through the Alps, emptying finally in Lake Geneva(largest), Lake Neuchatel and Lake Zurich

Mountains:
Switzerland is an alpine country; the Alps comprise about 60% of the country’s total area; the Dufourspitze is the highest peak (15,203 feet); the Matterhorn is the most famous mountain (it’s an iconic emblem of Switzerland), also has the luxurious St. Moritz region

Main Cities:
Zurich (Switzerland's largest city, ranked 1st on 2006 World’s Best Quality of Life; Switzerlan'd business centre, many Swiss Banks, including UBS and Credit Suisse, are based here)
Geneva (ranked behind only Zurich in Quality of Life index; known as “The Peace Capital” because many international humanitarian agencies, namely the UN and Red Cross, are based here; site of the Geneva Conventions, which laid out the protocol for treatment of people during war)

Quirky Facts:

-It was once against the law to slam a car door in city centres

-Swiss Law prevents people to mow their front lawns dressed as Elvis Presley

-In 1957, the BBC pulled an April Fools trick, a 3-minute piece about the harvest of spaghetti trees in Switzerland. Biggest media hoax of all time; spaghetti wasn’t common in Britain at the time, so hundreds phoned in asking about how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees.

-The first acid trip was taken by a Swiss scientist while trying to develop a cure for migraines

History

Head back to the 13th century to see how Switzerland, as we know it, began.

Everything was ticking along well in the 13th century. Craftsmen from different cantons were developing new tools, producing goods and trading with each other.

When the Habsbug Emperors from Austria sat up and took notice of this developing area, in 1291, the Swiss Confederation was founded as a defensive alliance among three cantons against them. In succeeding years, other localities joined the original three.

The Swiss National Hero William Tell comes into play here.

William Tell lived in the canton of Uri (one of the original three), and was known as an expert marksman with the crossbow.

At the time, the Habsburgs were seeking to dominate Uri. Herman Gessler, an Austrian bailiff, raised a pole in the village's central square, hung his hat on top of it, and demanded that all the local townsfolk bow before the hat. When Tell passed by the hat without bowing to it, he was arrested. He received the punishment of being forced to shoot an apple off the head of his son, Walter, or else both would be executed. Tell had been promised freedom if he successfully shot the apple.

On 18 November 1307, Tell split the fruit with a single bolt from his crossbow. When Gessler queried him about the purpose of a second bolt in his quiver, Tell answered that if he had killed his son, he would have turned the crossbow on Gessler himself. Gessler became enraged at that comment, and had Tell bound and brought to his ship to be taken to his castle in Austria. But when a storm broke on Lake Lucerne, Tell managed to escape, found Gessler, and shot him with his crossbow.

Tell's defiance of Gessler sparked a rebellion, leading to the formation of the Swiss Confederation.

More cantons eventually joined the confederacy, bringing the total to 26 today, and they have worked well together. Their political system was, and still is, based on compromise, in religious, political and social matters. This compromise began during The Reformation in the 1500s, when there was a deep division between Catholics and Protestants in Switzerland but through compromise, they managed to work out their issues and stay together as a country.

John Calvin
John Calvin came from France to Geneva, and was a major figure of the Reformation. His main ideas were that life (and entry into Heaven) is pre-destined (very comforting for those who were trying to keep the faith under persecution). Geneva became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, and regular influxes of Protestant refugees arrived from France, Spain, England, and other places where they were being persecuted.
The Confederation collapsed only once, during the French Revolution in 1798, when Napoleon became guardian of Switzeland and tried to change the order of things by centralizing the power in Switzerland, instead of letting the semi-independent cantons retain a say in their own matters. But they found their way back together, and in 1814, the current Swiss boundaries were fixed.

Neutrality

Famous Swiss Neutrality made its first appearance during the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), when the Swiss remained neutral while civil wars flared around them, particularly in Germany, particularly between the French monarchy and the Habsburgs.

During World War I (1914-18), Switzerland once again maintained its neutrality.

In August 1939, on the eve of World War II (1939-45), Switzerland, fearing an invasion, ordered a mobilization of its defense forces. But an invasion never came, even though Switzerland was surrounded by Germany and its allies. It proved convenient to everyone to have, in the middle of a continent in conflict, a neutral nation through which they could deal with each other. It also indicated to Hitler that it was determined to defend itself, and convinced Nazi Germany that any invader would pay in blood for every foot of ground gained in Switzerland.

Swiss Banks

It is because of their neutrality that they were able to develop their famous Banking System. Switzerland was a stable and trustworthy place for people worldwide to keep their funds. 1/3 of all funds kept outside the country of origin (known as “offshore funds”) are held in Swiss Banks. Switzerland views its banking system’s privacy as important as other countries view the doctor/patient relationship.

But Switzerland came under fire for possibly allowing Nazis to set up bank accounts with blood money, stolen goods, etc. It had to pay billions to the families of Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Today they take steps to make sure that nothing fraudlent happens in their banks under the guise of privacy. A judge can issue an order to get the privacy lifted if needed in cases of tax fraud/evasion. The Swiss are also very cooperative with authorities to stop money laundering or fraud; they recently cooperated with the FBI to target the financing of terrorist/Al Qaeda cells.

Neutrality and International Organizations

The sense of neutrality remains so strong that even as recently 1992, rejected joining the EU. They only joined the UN in 2002, leaving behind decades of isolationism.

The Swiss are known for their humanitarianism, and despite of their neutrality (or possibly because of it), several international organizations are housed here, including the Red Cross and UN Human Rights Council, also the WTO,UEFA, FIFA and the International Olympic Committee.

The Red Cross was founded in Switzerland: Henri Dunant, a Swiss merchant, was shocked to learn about the fate of wounded soldiers in the Austrian-French war in 1859. In 1862 he wrote a book about it. and in 1864 the Swiss government organized an international conference on humanitarian aspects during war. 12 nations signed the Geneva conventions and established the Red Cross as a permanent, neutral institution to take care of military and civil persons wounded or imprisoned in war.

Swiss Military

Speaking of war... at the same time that Switzerland staunchly defends their neutrality, and promotes their humanitarianism, they are extremely prepared for any type of attack.

All male citizens at 20 years old are conscripted into a type of militia. They don’t have the same rankings as other countries, with Majors and Generals, etc. unless it’s wartime, or unless they’re involved in peacekeeping missions abroad, to put them on equal footing with foreign officers.

(And, interestingly, Michelangelo designed the uniforms for the Swiss Guard back in the day)

Switzerland also has fallout shelters all over the country. The Swiss built a network of them after the Cold War, with a capability to house and feed 114% Swiss population for two years after a nuclear or biological attack; Switzerland has the highest ration of space to population of any other country. There are also hospitals and command centres in such shelters, aimed at keeping the country running in case of emergencies. Every family or rental agency has to pay a replacement tax to support these shelters, or alternatively own a personal shelter in their place of residence. For several years, these shelters were being neglected or turned into gyms, wine cellars, etc. but there was a renewed interest in them after 2001.

Economy and Industry:

The fact that Switzerland has not been involved in the squabbles of any of its neighbours has led it to unprecedented financial and industrial growth. Many social-welfare programs were introduced, unemployment was virtually wiped out, and the country moved into an enviable position of wealth and prosperity.

Despite a dearth of natural resources, the Swiss economy is among the worlds most advanced and prosperous. Per capita income is virtually the highest in the world, as are wages. Trade has been the key to prosperity in Switzerland. In 2005, the average household income was around $80,000USD. About 25% of the adult population holds a diploma of higher learning. They are environmentally conscious, with a 0% carbon footprint.

Switzerland is very technologically advanced: in 1989, HTML was designed at the European Nuclear Research Centre in Switzerland, thus the “Internet was born”.

The Swiss are competitive, and two of their most famous products were born out of wanting to one-up other the inventions of other countries:

Swiss Army Knives: Originated in 1897, by a surgical equipment company who wanted to compete with a similar German model. The name was coined by US officers, who received the tool in huge numbers on their navy bases and couldn’t pronounce the original Swiss name. The tools that have featured on Swiss Army Knives include: tweezers, toothpick, corkscrew, can opener, bottle opener, screwdriver, nail file, scissors, saw, file, hook, magnifying glass, ballpoint pen, fish scaler, pliers, key chain. Recent technological features: USB stick, digital clock, LED light, laser pointer, MP3 Player. Wenger has manufactured a $1400 Swiss army knife that includes every implement the company has ever made.

Watches: The Swiss invented the wristwatch back in 1868. The SWATCH watch was invented in 1981 and sold more than 100 million units within 10 years. It was invented to combat the introduction of the digital watch by the Japanese.

People

Famous people: Tennis stars Roger Federer, Martina Hingis. Albert Einstein lived and worked in Switzerland.

Traditionalism: The Swiss are very traditional. No work on Sundays, and there is an organization to protect traditional dress. A traditional farmer and herder culture also predominates in many areas and small farms are omnipresent outside the cities. Folk art is kept alive in organizations all over the country. In Switzerland it is mostly expressed in music,dance, poetry,wood carving and embroidery. The alphorn, a trumpet- like musical instrument made of wood, has become, alongside yodeling and the accordion, an epitome of traditional Swiss music.

Yodelling is another example of their traditionalism: in Alpine folk music, it was probably developed in the Swiss and Austrian Alps as a method of communication between mountain peaks, later becoming part of the region's traditional music. The best places for Alpine-style yodeling are those with an echo. Ideal natural locations include not only mountain ranges, but lakes, rocky gorges, or shorelines, and high or open areas with one or more distant rock faces.

Food and Drink

(Rosti:Switzerland was for a long time a country of farmers, so their specialties involve potatoes and cheese.

Swiss Cheese: Gruyere, Emmental are popular Swiss cheeses. The Swiss Cheese Union managed the export of cheese and made it world-famous, although Ohio is now the biggest manufacturer of Swiss Cheese. Cheese making is an integral part of the Swiss heritage. Cattle breeding and dairy farming, concentrated in the alpine areas of the country, have been associated with the region for 2,000 years, since the Romans were there. Today, more than 100 different varieties of cheese are produced in Switzerland. The cheeses, however, are not mass produced -- they're made in hundreds of small, strictly controlled dairies, each under the direction of a master cheese maker with a federal degree. The cheese with the holes, known as Swiss or Emmenthal, has been widely copied, since nobody ever thought to protect the name for use only on cheeses produced in the Emme Valley until it was too late.

Fondue: Cheese fondue, which consists of cheese melted in white wine flavored with a soupçon of garlic and lemon juice, is the national dish of Switzerland.

Toblerone (from Bern)

Muesli: Invented in 1900 by a Swiss doctor to give patients in his hospital.

Ovalmatine: A typo in the North American patent office lead to it being called Ovaltine there.

Absinth: Originated in the canton of Neuchatel. It was created by a French doctor living there in the 18th century, then given to French soldiers for treatment against malaria. It was brought into France when those troops returned home and became popular with artists (Van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec), nicknamed "The Green Fairy." Absinthe was banned in Switzerland in 1907 (after a Swiss man murdered his family, and it was reported that he drank two glasses of absinthe in the morning, although the fact that he drank much more than that throughout the day was ignored. It was only legalized again in 2005.

Language Tips

Hello: Hallo
Goodbye: Auf Wiedersehen
Please: Bitte
Thank You: DankeExcuse Me/Sorry: Entschuldigung Me
Yes: Ja
No: Nein
Do you speak English?: Sprechen Sie Englisch
Where is?: Wo? ist
How much? Wieviel?
One: EinTwo: Zwei
Three: Drei
Four: Vier
Five: Funf
Water: Wasser
Beer: Bier
Wine: Wein
Cheers!: Beifall! Prost!

A Visit to Santa at the Arctic Circle

2009-10-23T17:32:00.001-04:00

Hello from what promises to be the longest train ride of my life! It's 21:10, I just left Rovaniemie en route for Helsinki, and this train car is so full that I've actually got a girl sitting in front of me and our legs are nearly touching! My MP3 player is dead, I'm tired of playing cell phone games, and I can't go to sleep just yet. And I don't arrive in Helsinki until 8:30 tomorrow morning...

So, after dinner last night, I went back to the hotel, made an Earl Grey (which I stole from that Cafe in Oslo... got even more benefit out of that great brekkie!), watched a bit of telly, then went to bed and had a FANTASTIC sleep! I didn't even dream about being naked whilst giving a spiel or anything!

I woke up this morning at 9:00, got out of my very warm and comfy bed by 9:30, and out the door shortly afterwards. I dropped off my luggage at the Hotel Santa Claus :) then decided to check out the Lonely Planet-recommended cafe down the street. I had a capuccino and cinnamon bun, and checked out the cool, old-school paraphernelia in the cafe; old kettles, video games, radios - a random assortment of old, very cool junk.

Then I headed to the train station, where I caught the Santa Express bus ... YIPPPEEEE!! I told the bus driver that I was very excited, and he looked at me like I was a bit nuts (then kept his eye on me through the rearview mirror). So I cranked up all of the Christmas tunes on my MP3 and quietly rocked out all the way to the Santa Claus Village. And WOOHOOO was it ever awesome!!

Unfortunately, the real Christmas action doesn't kick off until December, so I didn't get to see any reindeer or huskies. But I had a ball nonetheless. I shopped a lot (there was lots of actually cute stuff, not the average plastic Christmas crap); bought a letter-to-Santa-writing kit for Brett, sent a letter from Santa home to Daddy, bought some postcards for Susan and Tupper, got a card for Mom, and an official "I crossed the Arctic Circle" certificate.

I was gutted not to see any reindeers, so when I came upon a restaurant selling reindeer meat, I figured that was the next best thing. I was going to buy the whole lunch meal, but then the waitress offered me a sample that was actually half a plateful, so that was enough. It was very tasty, really salty and delicious, but it left a funny aftertaste (both mentally and physically). I'm glad I tried it, even more glad that I didn't have a whole plate!

After lunch, I walked into the woods, hoping to spot a stray reindeer or at least someone walking a husky, but alas, all I got was a nice, snowy stroll. It actually snowed all day, which totally added to the festive atmosphere.

All in all: a BRILLIANT day ... made even greater when I got to meet Santa!

I was in my final gift shop of the afternoon when I saw the door leading to Santa, so I couldn't resist. I had to walk through basically a haunted house, full of dark corners and creepy, creaky sounds; it was really neat, like I was entering a hidden, Tim Burton-esque lair! And then an elf photographer emerged from a big, heavy door to lead me in to the big man himself. I felt a little ridiculous, but giddy at the same time. I chatted with Santa about Ottawa, the Sens, he taught me how to say "cheese" in Finnish as we smiled for the camera, and we took a few photos together. It was fantastic!

I caught the bus back from the Santa Village at 5pm, and along the way, I chatted with a local girl who was in love with all things Canadian. She was very sweet, with perfect skin (that's what you get in a country with very little sun!).

When I got back into Rovaniemi, I had dinner at McDonalds. I didn't even feel guilty about it this time, because it is the "World's Northernmost Golden Arches", so it had to be done (and I thoroughly enjoyed every bite of my Big Mac Meal).

I shopped a little bit, enjoying the snowy and sparkly street, then walked back to the train station and caught my train to Helsinki.

Okay, I've killed 20 minutes now. Only 11 hours, 40 minutes to go.

Shit...

Welcome to Rovaniemi!

2009-10-22T17:24:00.002-04:00

Well, I finally made it way up North to Rovaniemi (in Lapland), and I must say, I'm stoked to be here and I can't WAIT for the Santa Claus village tomorrow! I'm SOOOO hoping to see a reindeer and/or a husky!

When I arrived in town, I asked a cab driver how to get to the Hotel Santa Claus (where I needed to check-in to the Hostel Rudolph... perfect!). It was a bit of a hike to get there (my right arm is killing me from lugging around my 20.7-kilo suitcase!), but I finally found it on the main street, Koskikatu. The hostel was 600 annoying metres down the road, so I had to then drag all of my bags there, but I made it. This hostel is more like a hotel, and I'm quite happy that is as I didn't feel like staying in a dorm room tonight!

I quickly dropped my bags, then headed out to find the sauna (when in Finland...). It was in the changing room of the local pool, nothing spectacular, and basically, I paid 6 euros to get into an average sauna for a half hour. But it felt nice and I'm in Finland, so that's what I should be doing!

I went back to the hostel afterwards, had a luxuriously-long shower, put on face and hair masks, blow-dried my hair, lotioned-up, had a beer, then headed out for a burrito dinner.

And... it's snowing!!

A Great End to Stockholm...

2009-10-16T22:58:00.000-04:00

Hello from a Pizza Hut, where I just took Lonely Planet's advice and filled up on a big lunch buffet, for only 79 SEK (hehehe, that currency makes me giggle). Salads, pizza, Pepsi, and now a nice Earl Grey ... not bad.

So, last night I watched the band for about a half hour - they were quite good, the lead singer was a big, black guy with a harmonica and sax, and he walked around the room a lot, making me a little nervous that he might spot me, solo, and come sing to me. Thankfully, I got away without being noticed.

I left at around 10:30; it was a chilly walk home, not sure if I mentioned this already but I was wearing black socks and sandals like the World's Biggest Geek because my new Skechers are breaking my feet). I internetted for a little while back at the hostel, then went to bed in a pitch black and silent room (just like the Novi Dan!).

When I woke up this morning at 8:30, I had no idea what time it was, where I was, or how I was going to get out of bed without tripping over anything because it was so dark! I finally manoeuvred my way out of bed, tried to have a shower but it was scorching hot and I couldn't stand it. I had to leave my bags at reception before I left for the day because I'm switching rooms tonight. I'm very lucky to have arrived at that hostel when I did, because it's fully booked tonight, and apparently everywhere else in town is booked too!

I got out of the hostel at 10:00, and went directly to Sodermalm, found the shoe shop I'd seen yesterday, and bought a paid of brown boots. They're the greatest boots ever (second only to my pink Bosnian boots). I shopped for a couple of hours, then because it's quite rainy, and not an ideal day for movie-making, I decided to head inside to this Pizza Hut.

It's still raining, but I have a lot left to do so I'm going to venture outside again now. I'm a little pressed for time here, because I'm planning to leave tomorrow. It's totally unrealistic and expensive, but I really want to go to Norway. I should just focus on Sweden and Finland during this trip, but dammit I want to see the fjords in Bergen! So I'm planning to go to Oslo tomorrow, Bergen the next day, then back via Sweden to Helsinki. It's a little nuts, but, I think, do-able. Bye for now!

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Hello again, later in the evening, from a bar that really knows how to deal with Sweden's cold evenings! I'm sitting outside, on a bar patio, with a red blanket draped over my legs ... fantastic! And the little beer that I just paid 5 euros for is going down a treat!

Sometimes I think there must be something wrong with me, because I am completely not in the mood for any company other than my own. I couldn't be happier spending time with just my own thoughts, and my journal, and beers all by myself. In fact, when someone speaks to me, it really irritates me. Hahaha! Pedro and I will never end up together: we're both such loners, we'd probably never spend any time together at all! (which makes us all the more perfect for each other: at least we both get it).

Anyway, I had a very full, and frickin' awesome day! After lunch, I shopped a little more in Sodermalm, bought some nice legwarmers and a beautiful scarf for Mom, then walked over to Gamla Stan and bought some Christmas souvenirs for Mom and Daddy.

I then decided to visit the Nobel Museum. It feels great to go to museums again; I was missing a bit of culture this summer! I inadvertently snuck into the place without paying, and only realized later, when I was leaving, that there is a 70 SEK admission fee. Whoops! Anyway, it would've been totally worth the price: it was very interesting to find out all about Alfred Nobel, the fact that he was the inventor of dynamite and the reason he decried in his will that his fortune go to prizewinners was because he was a bit of a loner with no family. He was from Sweden, so that's why all the Nobel Prize action happens there, except for the Peace Prize, which he decided to share with Norway. That explains why Barack Obama (recipient of the 2009 Peace Prize, God love him!) will be heading to both Stockholm and Oslo in December. If only he was here this week!

I bought a magnet at the museum with a very fitting quote: "To Travel is to Live", by H.C. Andersen. It's interesting that I found that magnet, because just last week, the guy at the hostel in Pula asked me what my life is about, and I said "travel", and I've been contemplating that answer ever since.

(I'm getting a tad chilly sitting out here now ... this blanket, cute as it is, is useless).

After the museum, I busted a move back to the centre of town, where I luckily found the free IKEA bus, and in no time at all, I was at the IKEA Mecca! Actually, it wasn't all that magical a place; I wandered around, bought Mom some napkins (they were the smallest thing I could find), and was back on the bus an hour later. I didn't even have time for Swedish Meatballs!

I headed again to Sodermalm, and I heard this bar before I saw it. In hindsight, I probably should've sat in a warm and coze pub because it's quite cold, but the blankies (especially the one wrapped around a big guy's shoulders in front of me) are worth it.

My train to Oslo is at 8:30 tomorrow morning, and I don't actually know where to catch it form, so I'll have an early start. Also, I'm a little worried that everything might be fully booked in Oslo, like it is in Stockholm, so I might spend some time searching for hostels online when I get back to the hostel tonight. Mom made a good point in her email: I barely spent any money all summer, so I can afford to spend a bit now. Screw it: I deserve a holiday (but even as I write that, I can't keep a straight face ... my whole life is a holiday!

Bye for now! (and thanks to Stockholm for a great visit!)

A Great Start to Stockholm...

2009-10-15T21:44:00.035-04:00

Well, here I am in Stockholm, Sweden, and I couldn't be more elated about it! What a FABULOUS city! I've only been here 3 hours, but I'm in love already! Wandering the streets, albeit a tad cold, has been awesome. There's not a chance in Hell that I'll ever get drunk here as it would probably bankrupt me, but I am going to have one beer in this pub, I'm about to listen to some live music, and I definitely made the right choice to travel North. Yipppeee!!

So, I left Bratislava early this morning. I unfortunately didn't have time to buy Mom a Slovakian hockey puck (which would've been a very cool souvenir, after all the Slovakians do make the most hockey pucks in the world).

I caught the airport bus at 10:25 from just outside the hostel; I didn't buy a bus ticket, more because I didn't know where to buy one than because I didn't want to buy one. It took only 25 minutes to get to the airport, but I needed the extra time because I knew I'd have to sort out my suitcase, weight-wise.

Turns out, I was only 3 kilos over, so I took out a few shirts, threw a couple of things away (they needed to be tossed anyway), and when I brought my suitcase back and it was still 2 kilos over, the girl let me check it in anyway. Phew! I spent a little time with the duty-free lotions, then hopped onto a quick 2-hr flight to Stockholm. All in all, a fantastic airport experience.

I arrived in sunny Stockholm, and caught the 80-minute bus into the city. I think I saw reindeer in the fields, but I'm not sure if they were reindeer or just (JUST?!) regular deer.

I got off at the Central Station, got a little bit turned around trying to find the street my hostel was on, then when I finally found it, they told me they were fully-booked. I had a momentary panic that I'd end up spending a fortune on a hotel, if I could even find an available hotel, but Thank God the next hostel I tried had a few spare beds.

It's a massive hotel, and I'm in a 10-bed dorm tonight and an 18-bed dorm tomorrow. PLEASE don't let there be any loud snorers!!

The guy at reception was very cool, Aussie I think, so I chatted with him for a few minutes before dropping my bags in the room and heading out.

I quickly passed through the Old Town (Gamla Stan) on my way to the funky district Sodermalm, where I was giddy from all the shopping: H&M (which, I forgot, is Swedish!), an excellent H&M wannabe called Gina Tricot, and many other great boutiques and department stores. I'm going to buy many, many an item tomorrow!

I decided to eat cheaply (2 little cheesburgers from McDonald's did the trick), then I headed back to Gamla Stan, and came into the Liffey Pub, where I am now, and the beer is great and the band is just gearing up to start. LOVE STOCKHOLM!

Cross Canada Sales Trip

2009-02-01T15:49:00.000-05:00

As the Sales Rep for Busabout, I spent two weeks visiting travel agencies in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.

My new video camera kept me company ... here's what we got up to!

Where the Hell is Matt? (and why the Hell didn’t I think of this first?)

2008-12-07T01:00:00.001-05:00

Read this article on RoadJunky at http://www.roadjunky.com/article/1799/travel-the-world-for-a-dance

So, you thought being a travel writer was the best way to travel the world? Guess again. Maybe a job as a UN ambassador? Nope. How about becoming a photojournalist? An international assassin? Not a chance.

The best way to travel the world, bar none, is to develop a ridiculous dance, point your computer-geek skills at YouTube and get super lucky.

That’s how Matt Harding, a self-confessed 32-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames, got to travel to some of the coolest places in the world, from Brunei to Tokyo to Namibia.
It all started in 2003 when he quit his job in Brisbane and decided to be a deadbeat around Asia. He did a little dance for the camera to entertain his friends back home; a few years later, the video made its way online where someone noticed it, and the dance that probably scared away all chances of Matt getting lucky in his youth made him famous.

In 2006, Matt was sponsored to take a 6-month trip to 39 countries on all 7 continents. This is the video that resulted:

He got so much positive feedback from people around the world that in 2007, he headed back to his sponsors with the idea to take a second, even bigger trip, but this time get other people to dance with him. They took the bait again:

In 2008, NASA used his video on their website, calling it Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth. And recently, one of the founders of YouTube called Matt’s videos his favourite items posted on the site.

Indeed, watching Matt do his dance on the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, in front of Machu Picchu, or in the middle of Petra, has the incredible ability to both inspire you to travel, and annoy you that you didn’t use your own nerdy traits to such fantastic results.

Lithu - Don't- Go-There! - ania

2008-11-25T16:38:00.000-05:00

Read this article (and get a load of the hilarious comments it received!!) on Roadjunky at http://www.roadjunky.com/article/1789/travelling-in-lithuania

The cold, dark bus hurtled through the Lithuanian countryside. I was heading to Kaunas and not looking forward to my impending homelessness at midnight.

I’d arrived in the city of Siauliai earlier that evening, hoping to stay for the night. After searching in vain for a hotel or anything else that was open, I was forced to get back on the bus without dinner or a drink.
I regretted ever leaving lovely Estonia to come to this country full of boring landscapes, unpronounceable words, cold weather, dull old towns, mediocre food, no hot men, and people who would rather scowl than speak English.

A little harsh, perhaps, but I was frustrated.

Short of closing doors right in my face - which one amber shop employee actually did - I had been made to feel more unwelcome in Lithuania than anywhere I’ve been.

If reports by Invest in Lithuania are true, and 90% of the country’s 3.4 million people speak a second language, 100% of them apparently weren’t in the mood to attempt English during the week I was there.

Everyone I spoke to, from bus drivers to hostel owners, policemen to waitresses, even the people at Tourist Info, either could not, or simply would not, try to be nice or help me. The mere sound of English seemed to infuriate them.

Now, if a Lithuanian came to Canada and expected me to speak their language, I wouldn’t be able to help in the slightest, so I don’t expect people in other countries to speak my language either.

But there is a certain level of courtesy that can be expected, and two instances, in the middle of the general unpleasantness, particularly infuriated me:

1. A hostel owner in Vilnius pleaded ignorance when a group of us complained about the drunken local man passed out in our room, an empty bottle of vodka dangling from his hand and the smell enough to intoxicate us all while we slept. It was an ironic turn of events, seeing as the first thing I'd noticed in the creepy hostel was the sign stating that no drunkenness would be tolerated. Local drunkenness, I guess, was acceptable.

2. A waitress in Klaipeda looked the other way when a homeless man began to shout at me and other patrons, leaving us to fend for ourselves while he frothed anti-Americanism at the mouth. It was the first time I’ve actually feared I might be attacked by a madman while the rest of the town stands around and watches.

An English woman I met in Vilnius said she’d encountered the same rudeness, but she was a little more understanding than I.

“Lithuania has had mass emigration over the past few years,” she said. “Something like 10% of their population has moved away. Maybe all of the people who care to speak English have gone West.”

Before getting there, I’d have been prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. In fact, I’d been more than prepared to love it.

I had been staring at my European map one day, feeling uninspired after having visited most of the countries already, when I spotted the Baltics and was intrigued. I barely knew a thing about the area. I loved the originality of it.

Lithuania does, after all, have a few things going for it. It’s an EU country and a NATO member. It was the first ex-Soviet country to declare independence in 1990, and it currently has low unemployment and one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe. It has 100 kilometres of coastline, rivers, forests, and the highest quality of life in the Baltics.

But no matter how many positive attributes a country has, it’s the people who make the biggest impression.

And frankly, Lithuanians dropped the ball.

Three thousand hours into the cold bus ride, I was pissed off at my guidebook for pulling a fast one on me, suggesting that Lithuania was one of the must-see gems in Europe.

Moreover, I was pissed off at myself for trying something new when I could have been in Croatia, or London; anywhere but here, barrelling through the Lithuanian night with only bad memories and my originality to keep me warm.

It's great to see as many places as possible while you’re young, but Lithuania was my last straw. I'd been everywhere that was worth going, and it was time to either switch continents, or stop my European tourism promiscuity and settle on a favourite.

‘I won’t make this mistake again’, I vowed, still 100 kilometres from Kaunas. ‘That is, if I ever get the chance to do anything other than sit on this bus.’

Afterward:

When I arrived in Kaunas, I immediately liked it.

My guidebook had nothing good to say about it, but I was determined to make friends with the city. I loved the surreally beautiful church on the horizon of the long pedestrian street, the cute shops and restaurants, and the quietness of the Sunday afternoon that I spent kicking autumn leaves around the cobblestones.
I finally felt at peace with Lithuania. Maybe I’d been too hard on it? I was ready to forgive and forget.
At 6pm, before catching a cab to the airport, I returned to the hotel to collect my backpack from behind the owner's desk - after making clear to the owner that morning that I was leaving my backpack behind his desk and would be back to collect it at 6pm - and I found the place locked and dark.

I banged on the window and nearly smashed it. I phoned, I yelled, I rang the doorbell.

No answer.

When I went to the police station to file a report they stared blankly at me, not able to offer a single consolatory word of English, not even a “sorry, you’re screwed”.

Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I should have learned Lithuanian before I went to the country in order to communicate with the locals. Maybe I’d unwittingly arrived during Act-Like-An-Asshole week.

Whatever the reason, after all of the great travels I’ve had in other parts of the continent and the great people that I’ve met, I can’t personally recommend Lithuania to anyone.

Unless they want to go to Kaunas and pick up my backpack.