h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm usually in bed by then. Sometimes even on Friday nights.

I don't know how typical I am, but I'm sure I'm typically USAian in some ways, and hopefully not in lots of streotypically annoying ways.

I fell asleep at half-past six this morning Couldn't sleep, and then the birds kept me awake even longer!

I'm sure you're not American in your meat consumption, for one thing

More about breaking topics from Usanians:
"Sooner or later, Punk and Islam were fated to meet and produce strange offspring. This excellent novel represents the first blast of the trumpet — loud and utterly unique."

I´ll like to read the book:

http://www.autonomedia.org/taqwacores

There´s also a musical group which formed after the novel. It has become for them a kind of fashion.
But I can´t find any song of them in youtube.
The book in UK isn´t published in full text. Some parts have been eliminated.

Bel was kind enough to look up the name of the boy in the case she mentioned- it's a bit complicated, but it doesn't sound like a SWAT team burst into the house. A single police officer went around and was allowed in the house. That's a little less scary. Though family services really dropped the ball in letting those parents have their son back.

Mar- I'm adding that book to my reading list, if I can find it. Sounds fascinating! THIS is the kind of stuff I love finding out about! Thank you!

That's not what was published here at the time. From what you can read in German magazines, police came in the middle of the night and put the boy in handcuffs. Seems even AI was alarmed by what happened.
Never mind, we'll probably never find out what really happened.

Ooh! I'm getting that book too.

Ha! PC, I just remembered I bought you a book for Christmas, but forgot. And now I haven't a clue where it is. Och - it will turn up. Eventually.

Hey, better later than never. I've got some neat books thanks to you.

A female acquaintance is of Arabic decent, but not particularly religious. She's looking to start an all-Arabic-girl band and call it Shejad.

Strange things "foreign" people do. Well in the UK I notice that so many people have carpet in their bathroom/toilet which I find very strange.

And washing up bowls. What are they about?

I find walking into someone else's home with shoes on rather abhorrent

It's not customary here to remove shoes when walking into someone else's home, but I always do anyway. If I visited any place where it *is* customary to do so, I wouldn't have any problem doing.

In fact, while I've never come out and asked, most people who visit my place remove their shoes in the foyer. Probably because they see we're not wearing any, and all the shoes are out there. I take my shoes off even when visiting someone who's wearing their shoes.

Washing up bowls- are those like the plastic tubs you put in your sink to wash the dishes in? My mo9ther used to have one of those, mainly because the sink drain always came unstopped and let all the water out. I don't personally like them, though.

Oh, carpeted bathrooms! That was popular here back in the '70s. We had carpet in our second-floor bathroom. A friend of mine had indoor/outdoor carpet in the kitchen- that used to be popular back then, too. Especially in those very '70s shades of rust, gold, or avocado green.

I find it worse when everybody takes their shoes off, too smelly!

This reminds me, though. When I was in school (another difference: it takes 13 years to graduate from "high school" here, but then it's expected that you have a general education and only take courses pertinent to your particular major at Uni. No college.) we had an exchange programme with a school in Senegal. We got to pick one - either the only girls' high school in the country, or a cadet school! We picked the girls' one, of course, and did fundraising for them.

And an exchange. When the girls were here, they kept complaining of being woken by the church bells. We told them we're used to them, we don't hear them... And then when we went over there and were woken every morning by the muezzin, they just laughed at us

I get confused at what's meant by college in other countries. Over here, college and university are essentially the same thing- the major difference is that I think only universities have doctorate programs (and I may very well be mistaken about that). Whereas what Europeans and UKians refer to as college sounds somewhat similar to our vocational high schools?

I think it used to be that colleges focused on a single field and universities were made up of several colleges, but that's not really the case anymore, if it ever was. I started out at Triton College and they offered various courses of study (but because it was community college they only offered programs up to associate's degree level- you would then transfer on to another school if you wished to pursue a bachelor's).

That's another perfect example of the sorts of things I'm interested in learning about.

And our high schools don't necessarily require you to follow a course of study pertinent to a major- though some college prep high schools may focus on that more. When I was in high school we were required to take a set minimum of science, math, social studies, and English course, as well as two years of a foreign language. I was in Advanced Placement classes, so I needed four years of math, English, science and social studies and two years of foreign language, plus two additional humanities courses.

My high school didn't participate in any exchange programs, but one of my grammar schools did. We had a lovely girl named Annelise from Sweden stay with us for a few weeks (she stayed with several families). My parents wouldn't let me go anywhere.

I watched Volver,(Almodóvar)on tv last night. Then there was a talk with him, Penélope and other actress. Almodóvar said that he got surprised by the wellcome the film had outside Spain, even inside Spain ,because the film is so "manchego" (from La Mancha, the region where the film is located and where he was born)
It has indeed a genuine manchego flavour. I´d love to watched it in English to see how it was translated.
I guess the success was due to the story itself. Emotions, after all, are the same everywhere. But I´m not sure about how easy cultural differences penetrate or are received, particularly those of Almodóvar´s films. His films are quite "spanish"

::
I knew you´ll like that book PC

"In a way, when I imagine life elsewhere, when chatting on here with my friends from the UK, Europe, Australia, etc, I tend to imagine their lives quite similar to mine."
(Gosh I wish we could have some proper mark up tools like 'Quote')

I think your exactly right too. Here is a brief description of life here in a sub tropical part of OZ (it's a big place too).

Saturday morning on a warmish Autumn day ( 16c to 30c forecast), tried to sleep in but some rainforest trees are in flower outside my window so the parrots get stuck into them early and they are many and extremely noisy: Time to get up.
Wander out the front to collect the weekend papers and spy a biggish Carpet snake(Python) lazing up against my garage door and he/she has eaten something about the size of a small cat and it's probably a possum. I leave it to its sun baking and digestion after taking some pics.

Papers are all talking about how bad things are in America and GB and I'm thankful that the economic news is not so bad down here and so far we have been spared a lot of pain but that might change.
I'm glad we're so far away as all the 'bad stuff' seems to happen a long way away from us and I'm grateful for that as is nearly everyone you'd care to ask.
For instance, I've never seen a machine gun or a tank or the Army wandering about the place. I mention this because a friend recently returned from a holiday to Europe and he had his first view of a machine gun at Rome airport and then nearly every other airport he visited he saw armed men and women and he said it bought home to him what we only really know about from things we read and watch.
He was glad to be back home.

Vegimite on toast for breakfast along with locally grown and roasted coffee a perfecto start to the day.
Australia is a place of houses and backyards and we always look askance at pictures of tenements and rows and rows of houses that are all joined together in GB(I've forgotten what these are called) and most Aussies aspire to a block of land and house.
I have one of these and the lawns at this time of year need mowing nearly twice a week so that's my job this morning and cleaning and testing the pool while my better half will wash her car, do some shopping and assorted bits of housework and the kids will lay around watching DL torrents and doing 'stuff' on their netbook/pc's.

BBQ for tea with some rellys coming around and that's my day.
Apart from the wildlife and Vegimite I'd imagine this routine wouldn't be that different to other parts of the western world.

Good idea, Keith, describing the day! I always forget it's already autumn over there...

I'll try, too.

Got up at around ten today (went to bed at two). Had a breakfast of muesli while reading webcomics - no hootoo, it was down. Officially, it was 1°C today, but my thermometer said 5° and I was fine in just a long-sleeved t-shirt and corduroy jacket outside.

I made a few phone calls to the protestant church's charity and immigration aid office - they accept donations of furniture and things to help people. In Germany, you don't get a kitchen when you rent an apartment - you have to supply your own - and since I don't want to take mine with me, I'm looking for someone who could use it.

Then went down into town on a few errands. Admittedly, I went into the shopping mall - they're a real plague, springing up everywhere - but only because it's a shortcut downtown. Spent some gift certificates I still had on a birthday present for Tavaron, doubly useful because the shop where I bought it doesn't have a branch in the city nearest where I'm moving. Went out through the back door there and walked straight into the arms of a WWF volunteer, had a nice chat with him and one of the others, and eventually signed up to donate. Then I went to the main train station, where the Schwebebahn (Wupppertal's rather unique suspended monorail train) stops and took that to the *other* downtown to go have a look around the antiques shop, because I want a trunk to decorate as a "bride's trunk" for my sister, who's getting married in a month. I'm mulling over a steamer trunk, just bought a tin there for now.

Walked back from there through the shopping district so I could stop at a bookshop - found something else for Sho - and also bought some new socks. Took the Schwebebahn back from Barmen to Elberfeld, went into the *other* shopping mall because it's the only way to get to the supermarket. Bought cheese and ice cream, for a treat. Must remember to do the proper shopping tomorrow, as nothing's open here on Sundays! Then walked back uuuup the hill. Paused to talk to the Red Cross people about donating blood on the way back, but they didn't want mine. Finally stopped by the secondhand appliance place just a bit down the road and asked whether he'd buy my stove, refrigerator, and washing machine, but he only offered me 100€ for all three, so I refused.

Came back here, fell asleep on the sofa looking through the book I bought for Tav (now *that's* about fascinating cultural differences, but she might be lurking...) and only woke up when it was dark. Wrapped her package, and another one for someone else, and then packed boxes of books. Realised it was eleven and I'd not yet eaten so I just made some fried tofu and a grilled cheese sandwich. (On proper German bread, none of your squishy stuff for me! )

(Oh yes - much confusion over police at the moment - you never know what to look for. They're going from beige shirts, brown trousers, and green jackets to dark blue uniforms, and from green and white cars to blue and silver, because of some EU regulation. Saw both kinds walking around today, but they're not particularly heavily armed. There were a lot of soldiers around the train station, but they weren't on duty - just going home on leave. They travel in uniform, usually. Germany still has a year of required military service for all young men, or the alternative, "Zivildienst", which is spending the time in a hospital, nursing home, kindergarten, etc. to help out. The Red Cross guy I talked to first was doing his Zivildienst there, rather than join the military.)

The cultural stereotype thing is usually just a myth in my experience. Here am i, half Irish, quarter English, probably quarter Asian Indian; living in Ireland with a German guy, having previously lived in France, Pakisttan, Middle East, Africa, Greece....

All i could say would be in my general experience:

Ireland is as the Tourist Board claims, green, full of & people are incredibly friendly.

Not all German people are cold & incredibly organised, P is totally the opposite!

Never met any Arabs who agree with terrorism, whether they are practising Muslims or not.

Africa is a beautiful country & most people are very friendly & kind, full of fun despite having little wealth.

France is far more agricultural than many people realise, but the myth of "French men are the best lovers in the world" is not true; however, the food is wonderful.

Pakistan has some wonderful, lively cities & incredible scenery, the people are highly intelligent, but can also be rather devious.

Greece is great, apart from drivers in Athens; and no, Greek men don't pounce on you unless you express interest, in which case they are delighted to oblige!

I find U.K the scariest place, even though it's supposedly my "homeland".

zdt

'Zivildienst' That sounds interesting Mal.
Oh, and by the way, what's wrong with your blood ?