Magdalene, thank you for such an informative post!
I missed the whole interesting discussions about eyes being considered a delicacy in different countries. At least we don't eat eyes here in Germany!
Your little flashback TR is wonderful!
I am amazed how seemingly effortless you adapted to B's a bit chaotic plans for your stay. I think I would have been a bit nervous if I was sent from hotel to hotel without knowing where I was going to stay the next night. But the botel sounds very cool!
Thank you. In contrast to the Vienna portion of the trip, I made no plans for this portion -- partly because we didn't have time to plan. We had such a hard time finding how to contact B (before the trip) that we ended up booking flights directly to Vienna. Then we finally reached him a couple of weeks before and re-booked our flights, adding these few days.
Antwerpen is a beautiful city. I have never been there, but my parents visited it a few years back and loved it a lot. Isn't it also a center of the diamond trade? Did you see any of that?
Yes it is, but no I didn't see any.
Oh and on the topic of Burberry (yes, I would have known that, too...), Emma Watson, the girl who plays Hermione in the Harry potter films, is their main model.
She's all right in my book.
I am relieved to hear that you don't understand Donald when he talks English!
I never understand him.. And always thought that's because my English isn't good enough. It's been a long time since I saw Donald dubbed in German, so I don't know wether I would understand him in German.
It was really funny to hear him in a foreign language.
How horrible that the best french fries shop burned down when you were there. I was in Brussels this summer and loved the fries there. They had all kind of different sauces to put on top as well which Ioved. Belgium is a dangerous country: chocolate and french fries...
You just made me realize something....there should really be a pomme fritte stand in the World Showcase! We should start some kind of letter campaign or something. Somebody stop me if there already is one, before I go and make a fool of myself.
B's dad seems to be quite a character as well! How old is he? I really like the picture you got.
I think around 80. He robbed the cradle when he married E.
Loved the story about Olen. I guess every country has a place like that where the people are not very clever! At least in anecdotes. Here in Germany it is an imagined place called Schilda. I think one of the stories goes that they had to enlarge the gate in the city wall in order to bring in a beam. Afterwards they saw a sparrow getting a straw through a fence by putting it lengthwise instead of crosswise. That hadn't occurred to the citizens of Schilda as a possibility.
That's a great story! Olen and Schilda must be sister-cities.
I am surprised that B and his girls didn't know about the Oscars. They are actually pretty big here in Germany, too. But Phillip Seymour Hoffman is not very well known in Europe indeed. He tends to be in rather artistic films, doesn't he? Did E2 get to go the US?
Somewhat, but not exclusively. He's been in a lot of films. I remember when we had only heard of him as "my sister's roommate's cousin" who was trying to be an actor. We heard, "oh he got a part in 'Scent of a Woman'" And then 'Twister'. After a while, we were like "what's his name?"
I haven't heard whether E2 got to the U.S. Probably not, or I'm sure they would have contacted us.
And what you mentioned about it being easy to get around, that's what I am telling everyone! I think as long as you keep an open mind that things are different and don't expect everything to work just the same as at home, Europe is really easy to get around.
Yes, even with the different languages, it was not a problem at all.
I never knew about the name of Antwerpen, but it makes so much sense. Flamish is in the same family of languages with German and you can really tell, in German it would be Handwerfen!
Interesting. Neat that it's so similar in German.
What a wonderful dinner with C and E3! The desserts look delicious.
The cheese they ordered for dessert reminds me that I am always amazed that they offer the cheese board as an appetizer at the WDW restaurants. Here in Europe I only ever have seen it as dessert. We even say that cheese closes the stomach.
Doesn't make sense as an appetizer then, does it? Someone needs to get to the bottom of this!
Ok (and typed this before you mentioned that you were hoping for my explanation!), "Gute Fahrt" just means "have a good drive". In Danish (another close relative to German), the world is even spelled without the h. Most coach tour companies are called something with "turist fart" in the name...
Thanks for the explanation! There are a few people on these boards, and I won't name names, but those tour companies sound like they were made for them.
That's why I posted the link to the video, it is very difficult to explain. And btw, the lady talks very much in the dialect of the region where Spätzle are from, it is very funny to listen to her.
I could have sworn I heard her say "dummkopf" part-way through.
That may make sense that it is from Russian. We also say it more with the emphasis on the first syllable... But that might be just the German way.
Ok, I hope you two will never complain about Brazilian tour groups at WDW!!
Good point!
Good thing, too; we'd have been soaked everyone of us!
