+81

Gotta go with Jen.

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My Poor Ol' Neglected Journal

Thrice

No offense freebase, but liek 54 eapafgwed of lame nenss

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Lew Harrison, who looked like an anarchist with his red eyes and fierce black beard, had been writing furiously in one corner of the room. "That's good—happiness by the kilowatt," he said. "Buy your happiness the way you buy light."

Guybrush

Wow, you're from Lebanon? That's quite exotic! I know there's recently been some internal strife and power struggle in Lebanon. Has that all died down or is there still tension? How is tourism at the moment?

I saw a travel program once about sailing along the Croatian coast. I remember it well because it looked like an awesome.

I'd like it if more people would post some summaries of their respective country. Especially those from weird ones.

I'll post some trivia about Norway :


GEOGRAPHY :

• It's north in Europe
• It's a long country, so long that if you swivelled it around it's southern point, the north end could easily end up somewhere down in mid-Italy.
• Warm waters from the Gulf current warm up our west coast while the inlands are much colder
• "Norway" usually also includes Svalbard, an archipelago of islands in the high arctic at about 77~80 degress latitude whose largest settlement is Longyearbyen, the world's northernmost settlement with a complete infrastructure (police, hospital, school, even a university of sorts)
• The person to area ratio is quite low, there are only about 4.5 to 5 million norwegians.

POLITICS

• Norway was under Denmark in the Danish-Norwegian union which lasted for 436 years from 1521 to 1814.
• Then Norway was under Sweden much to the norwegian people's discontent until 1905 when there was a peaceful separation and we became fully indepentent.
• After the separation, the people voted for Norway to be a kingdom as it had been back in the days, so we still have royals although they don't actually interfer much with politics.
• Because of our vast oil reserves in the north sea discovered in the 60s/70s, Norway may be the richest country in the world, at least of a decent size (I mean Louxembourg? That's not a real country).
• Norway is social democratic. The current government is "red-green", meaning they're somewhat socialistic and care for environmental issues.
• People enjoy a lot of freedom here - freedom of speech, free health care, reasonably equal rights, freedom of speech, functioning democracy - and we generally have trust in our government
• Svalbard has no immigration laws, so anyone who want can go there. The only requirement is that you have the resources/ability to keep a roof over your head while you're there.
• Although there's a lot of positives to norwegian politics, we have a hard time integrating many of the immigrants who come to Norway which, among other things, leads to crime.
• There have been public votings on whether or not we should be part of the EU or not. Norwegians generally worry that being in the union would force farmers to compete with products from countries where agriculture is cheaper, so many vote no in order to preserve norwegian agriculture although that means we pay more for our meat, milk and eggs.

CULTURE

• Our language is a bit more melodic, so members of some of the neighbouring countries (ex. Sweden/Finland) think we sound happy all the time.
• The typical norwegian of old is born with skis on his feet and likes to be out in nature. He or she is also down to earth, not wasteful and does not brag or excess (or like people who do). He or she may be becoming increasingly rare, though.
• Although we're friendly, I've heard from some immigrants that norwegians are hard to make friends with. I think we're a bit "stiff" meaning we adhere to standards of behaving which are friendly even if we're not feeling very warm towards those we talk to.
• In some coastal areas, minke whales have traditionally been hunted for hundreds of years. Today, we have a small sustainable whaling industry which seems a focus of much animosity from outside our borders. Norwegians themselves have generally little problem with it.
• The amount of swearwords used in daily speech correlates positively with how far north you go, meaning they swear much more up north than they do down south.
• We have an indigenous population/culture called sami whose distribution cross the borders of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia up north. Much of their culture revolves around the use of reindeer which, traditionally, is is a source for not just food for them, but also the skins and other things to make their clothes, tents, tools, instruments and so on.
• The amount of distinct dialects in Norway is very high considering the total population number (4.5~5M). We have two written languages in Norway, one based on dialects and one based on a norwegianized danish. These two are only written languages, though, they both try to represent the actual spoken norwegian.

Darn that 10000 characters limit! Anyways, if anyone have any questions, fire away.

EDIT :

Some more trivia!

• The main religion here is christian protestant, although less than half the population consider themselves religious at all
• Aside from the exploding harpoon and advances in oil related engineering, the cheese slicer is a norwegian invention
• Black Metal is a major cultural export
• Since we're not part of the EU, the map in the old 2 euro coins didn't have Norway in it. It (and also the lack of Latvia, Lithauen, etc) made Sweden look like a giant penis with Finland as it's balls.

It's a pity they changed it.

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NumberNineDream

Everything seems better than all previous years. There were a lot of tourists this summer, specially from the US (not many from the Gulf, yippy!) as the New York Times declared, Beirut as the #1 city to visit in Summer 09. Though the polls were obviously rigged, as the new NYT Editor in Chief is Lebanese (or something like that) but anyway... lol
The country was over crowded in the summer, and xmas season was great, in contrast to the previous very pathetic years...

There always has been some internal strife, sadly the ones that are showed as the "good guys" in the international media, are actually the corrupted politicians. However, some common grounds were reached from both parties some months ago, and everything looks calmer than ever.

I luckily live very far from all these political tensions, so I don't know much about what's been happening for the last 3 years... But we're living well, and tourism, market and business are booming.
I'd say... I'm optimistic. *smiley*

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NumberNineDream

I thought of writing some trivia also:

GEOGRAPHY :

_ It's in the Middle East. Syria on the Northern and Eastern border, Palestine/Israel is on the Southern border.
_ On the west, the Mediterranean sea, from North to South. The coast is 120 km long.
_ Lebanon is a very small country, of 10452 (square)km. The population is over 4 million, with 1 million living in the capital Beirut alone.
_ There are 2 mountain chains (The Eastern chain, and the Western Chain), separated by the Bekaa Valley.
_ The highest mountain top in Lebanon is 3800m high. Travelling from the coast (after a swim) to the any ski resort, can only take 30 minutes. Something enjoyable to do between March and April.
_ Temperature is between 25-30ºC in the Summer, and 10-15ºC in the winter (on the coast) and -5ºC (in the mountains).
_ The Lebanese diaspora is mainly in Canada, Brazil, US, France and Australia, with over 35 million Lebanese living outside their home country.
_ Lebanon was, in the past, named Phoenicia. Phoenicians have created the Alphabet, soap and of course the Phoenix, that still symbolises Lebanon.
_ Many Lebanese, still consider themselves as "Phoenicians" and not "Arab"... which is stupid imo.

POLITICS

_ Lebanon has been occupied, since the defeat of the Phoenician Empire by the Roman Empire.
_ After that, Lebanon was occupied by the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) form 1415 till 1915.
_ In WWI, one third of the Lebanese population died from hunger, and another third immigrated to another country.
_ From 1915 till 1945, Lebanon was occupied by France.
_ The 60s was the decade of high life... Lebanon was free at last!
_ In 1975, the civil war started. (Christian v/s Muslim| Christian v/s Palestinian | Muslim v/s Israeli| Christian v/s Syrian | Muslim Sunni v/s Muslim Shi'ite | Christian v/s Druz | Palestinian v/s Israeli, on Lebanese ground | Syrian v/s Israeli, on Lebanese ground etc ... etc ... I think it's enough for now)
_ In 1982, Israel occupies half the Lebanese territory.
_ In 1990, the war ends, with Syria occupying the country (except the South, which was occupied by Israel)
_ In 1995, Israel occupies the South no more.
_ In 2005, Syria occupies Lebanon no more.
_ From 1975-2010, the lords of the Lebanese civil war, are still in the Government.

So... I think that's about it, not much has changed in the last 1000 years.

PS: There is no Official unified Lebanese History, from 1970 till 2010...

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FETCHER.

You don't get Beans in the US?! It's not a vicious stereotype, beans are very popular. For a good reason . They are good with certain foods, like fish and chips!

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Guybrush

Wow NumberNineDream, that sounds like quite a turbulent history. It's good to hear things are calmer and that you're positive.

Also sounds interesting that you can go from swimming to skiing in such a short amount of time. You can only do that here if you have a heated tub.

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Janszoon

I don't know what Sam is talking about. The city I come from originally, Boston, is famous for its baked beans. Beans are pretty common here.

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Guybrush

It's less common here I guess, but I also like a fry-up with beans for breakfast. I'll take it with a little pile of black pudding as well if I can.

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Cadrian

Your going to have to break down the major differences....

Besides NC has a Vinegar Based BBQ sauce and SC has Mustard based BBQ sauce.... The two states are probably the most alike I figure then any other two states.

Even though I really do like GA.