I had an appointment at the Georgian Heritage Preservation Council to talk about cultural heritage in the country. But the entrance to the building told me everything I needed to know.
Random Thoughts (16)
- Finland has some weird sports competitions.
- Each time I return to Europe, rents have doubled.
- Tweets cannot change laws, regulations or rules. Each time Donald Trump tries to do so, he should be laughed at.
- Why can’t Microsoft Windows move a file from one folder to another while the file is open? I can move open books and bottles around the whole house.
- Poland is not only doing away with separation of powers, but also deforesting parts of Bialowieza National Park, one of Europe’s last primeval forests.
- The subject of my MA thesis in philosophy about prisoners’ voting rights became relevant in Kenya.
- If this railway project will include passenger transport, I would most definitely return to South America. I have already been on part of this line in Bolivia.
- People arguing about who invented the smiley. But we’ve always had Ü in the German alphabet.
- I thought of moving to the Czech Republic. But then I learned that they speak like this: “Chrt zdrhl z Brd. Vtrhl skrz strž v tvrz srn, v čtvrť Krč. Blb! Prskl, zvrhl smrk, strhl drn, mrskl drn v trs chrp. Zhltl čtvrthrst zrn skrz krk, pln zrn vsrkl hlt z vln. Chrt brkl, mrkl, zmlkl. Zvlhls?” Now I am scared.
- I had the first visitor from Christmas Island on my blog.
- But there are still 12 countries missing.
- Not only Catholic priests/monks/charlatans, Buddhist priests/monks/charlatans too like to sexually molest their flock.
- Donald Trump’s “fire and fury” threat against North Korea was copied from President Truman.
Posted in Bolivia, Czech Republic, Finland, Language, Military, North Korea, Philosophy, Poland, Politics, Religion, Sports, Technology, USA, World War II
Tagged Donald Trump, prison, railroad
5 Comments
Where is the center of Europe?
Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Artikels.
Reading the book Black Earth, I became aware of a village in Ukraine that was calculated and named as the geographical center of Europe in 1887: Dilove.
“Really?“ I wondered, not because I would begrudge Dilove the distinction, but because I had already visited the alleged center of Europe a few years ago, in the aptly named Europe Park in Lithuania.
The underlying calculation in this case dated from 1989.
Over a hundred years, it may be possible for a continent to grow a bit, shrink a bit or move around a bit. After all, the continental drift had been invented in the meantime. But from Ukraine to Lithuania, that’s a stretch – at least geographically. Different methods of calculation must have been used.
The first problem is to determine what Europe is. Do you do it politically? Then it would be the Habsburg Empire or the European Union. With or without candidates for accession? Will the United Kingdom suddenly be (even) less European in two years? And what is the effect of that Swiss hole in the middle of the European cheese? Do you include the islands which expand the territory of the EU all the way to Guadeloupe and New Caledonia? Aren’t French Guyana and Ceuta so obviously in South America or Africa, respectively, that they cannot be part of Europe? What about Northern Cyprus? Questions upon questions. Good that at least Germany lost everything from Samoa to the Bismarck Archipelago, for otherwise the map of the EU would be even more complicated.
But even leaving political interpretations aside, a mere geographical calculation of the center of the continent can be debated endlessly as well. Where to draw the Eastern boundary? What about Turkey? What about the Caucasus? Is Malta European or African? Do you simply connect the most outward points to determine the center? Or do you consider the boundaries of the landmasses? Possibly weighted for the product of surface times density, because an acre of Switzerland weighs more than an acre of Holland. Or do you pick the center of a circle drawn around Europe?
If you are playing around with methods and figures, you will always find some center of Europe situated in a small village hoping to benefit from Euro-centrist tourism. Because it is striking that all centers of Europe have so far been in villages in the pampas where nothing else is happening:
- Suchowola, Poland
- Stará Voda, Czech Republic
- Neualbenreuth, Germany
- Hildweinsreuth, Germany
- Dilove, Ukraine
- Krahule, Slovakia
- Purnuškės, Lithuania
- Westerngrund, Germany
- Polotsk, Belarus
- Tállya, Hungary
- Mõnnuste, Estonia
But I don’t think there is much to see at either of these places. Well, Mõnnuste at least is on the island of Saaremaa, which looks quite beautiful.
Posted in Belarus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Europe, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Photography, Poland, Slovakia, Travel, Ukraine
Tagged Europos Parkas, geography, Maps
13 Comments
Romantic Graffiti
“If nights were as long as I love you, dawn would never come.”
(Photographed in Podgorica, Montenegro.)
Posted in Language, Love, Montenegro, Photography, Travel
Tagged graffiti, Podgorica, romance
3 Comments
Sheep in Montenegro
It was the last day of October. It was foggy. It was cold. It was wet. It was gloomy.
But these sheep in Žabljak in Montenegro didn’t seem to mind.
Light Effects
I am spending a few months in Ammerthal, the Bavarian village where I grew up.
“But there is no theater, no cinema, no Academy of Sciences?” my friends from New York, Paris and Moscow are asking, worried and pitiful at the same time.
That’s true. And that’s why for entertainment, we go out into the fields and stare into the sky. Yesterday, they had a great show. For at least twenty minutes, the sky was lit and flashing, but without any rain and with almost no thunder. Like a thunderstorm where someone had played with the controls, dimming sound and precipitation but overmodulating light effects.
The photos were taken by my father. We stayed until someone added a hailstorm, which made us run back home.
A Western from Bolivia
Sam Shepard’s death is a sad but fitting occasion to watch some of his films (again): Homo Faber, Black Hawk Down, Don’t Come Knocking and many more.
And not to forget Blackthorn, a Western movie set in Bolivia. Sam Shepard played Butch Cassidy, who did indeed live in Bolivia, and the movie was mostly filmed in the most beautiful country in South America, too.
Attentive readers of my blog will recognize some of the locations, for example the spooky but beautiful cemetery in Milluni.
Links:
- More from Bolivia.
- More about films.
- Hier geht es zur deutschen Fassung des Artikels und des Trailers.
Disclaimer
This blog is entirely based on facts and true stories.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s observation and not to be construed as fiction.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely intentional.
You are still waiting for my postcard?
Thanks to everyone who supports my blog! As promised, I send you a postcard from one of my journeys.
If you are still waiting, it could be for the one I mailed in Humberstone in Chile. I should have guessed that this mail box wasn’t being emptied anymore.
The Happy Hermit 