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What countries have you visited, and how would you describe them?

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Any of you guys or girls fooled around with the native population?

One of the guys I used to work with is 1/4 native, he's got a card and everything, and we've been out boozing with the office crowd lots of times (we're not a responsible bunch so the term 'fooling around' could apply), does that count?
 
I don't have to go to other countries to fool around, they come to me when they visit the United States for business or pleasure.
 
I have still to see Paris, a mistake I am willing to correct soon.

Germany: Just an airport stop in Frankfurt unfortunately. Planning to visit Munich and Berlin in the near future.

When you get to Berlin, let me know. I'll buy you a drink. And I mean it. :)

Both of you can count on me to buy you a drink if you visit Paris, that would be a pleasure :)
I promise that I'm not going to be rude and that I'm perfectly clean ;)

(I also promise that I'm not going to pay with monopoly money ;) )
 
Both of you can count on me to buy you a drink if you visit Paris, that would be a pleasure :)

Thanks, the same applies the other way around, too, of course. I was in Paris once, years ago, and loved it. Didn't see much of the night life, though.


(I also promise that I'm not going to pay with monopoly money ;) )

That's what you're saying now. I'll bring real money, just to be safe. ;)
 
Italy: Been to Bologna several times for business. They have wonderful, wonderful food (love their pasta Bolognese) and the Piazza Maggiore has some beautiful old buildings. I wish I'd had my digital camera back then.
"Bologna, navel of everything, you make me heave, you make me burp." ;)

(I also promise that I'm not going to pay with monopoly money ;) )
That's what you're saying now. I'll bring real money, just to be safe. ;)
I'm sorry, the Deutsche Mark is no longer in circulation. :(
 
Finland: Where I am from. Cold. Beautiful. Prudish. Full of forests and lakes. Home.

The Netherlands: Where I live. Small and crowded, direct and blunt, flat.

Germany: Much closer to home than the Netherlands ever. Organized. Easy to figure out. Somewhat oldfashioned (although I have to say I've mostly spent time in Bavaria).

France: Vacation! Mountains! Riviera! Funny language mishaps! Comic book stores in Paris!

Sweden: So close to home it might as well be home. Although the people dress better and seem to look down on us.

Norway: The most beautiful country in Northern Europe.

Denmark: Flat and xenophobic.

Austria: Awesome scenery and opera. The Schnitzel was nice as well, but the Sacher was a disappointment.

Czech Republic: Lovely beer. :techman:

Poland: The history of the country silences me. From the recent visits I mostly remember truck stops and neon-colored crucifixes.

Latvia: I remember dark bread and old ladies begging in the streets late at night. And a restaurant called Kamala ('awful' in Finnish) which served excellent vegetarian food.

Lithuania: The toilets at the border stops scared me.

Estonia: Tartu is lovely, Tallinn is full of drunken Finns.

Italy: Unforgettable beauty, awfully arrogant people. Who are very nice though.

The Vatican: The grumpy but sweet nun who sold me my crucifix sort of sold me on the place.

Belgium: Nice beer, nice chocolate, no government. Nice place to visit for a day.

The UK: Loved Scotland and its nature, was lost in London, since it's too big for me.

Switzerland: Organized, beautiful, oldfashioned, reserved, polite. Rich.

Luxemburg: Small and pretty. Fun.

Monaco: Obnoxiously rich.

The US: Diverse and strange. Friendly, but in a calculated way. Competitive. Arrogant.

Russia: Chaotic. Hospitable but dangerous.

Japan: Polite, gorgeous, fascinating, totally incomprehensible.

Uganda: Friendly, poor, hospitable, religious, green.
 
Could apply? "Fooling around" means something pretty specific things. You either did them or you didn't.

Actually, "fooling around" is a very broad term that means engaging in general mischief, a quick google search produces these result:

fool around Informal
1. To engage in idle or casual activity; putter: was fooling around with the old car in hopes of fixing it.
2. To engage in frivolous activity; make fun.
3. To engage in casual, often promiscuous sexual acts.

As such I would say that throwing a fish donut at the windshield of a truck in Japan counts as fooling around.
 
Okay, in this context, given who asked the question, we're obviously referring to the 3rd definition.
 
A "fish donut"? :wtf:

You didn't think that they just wrap it in rice and seaweed did you?

Oh no, the Japanese enjoy the sea's bounty in all sorts of ways, from yes, fish cream filled doughnuts (not like the ones Finn linked to), to fish candies, fish cookies, fish crackers. I'm confident that this very minute there is a significant number of Japanese enjoying some sort of fish beer.

There is probably fish flavoured condoms as well...
 
Finland: Where I am from. Cold. Beautiful. Prudish. Full of forests and lakes. Home.
Emphasis mine. I wouldn't have thought that. I always figured than Finns, as a Nordic people, were most at ease with sex and nudity. Just a stereotype, probably.
 
Finland: Where I am from. Cold. Beautiful. Prudish. Full of forests and lakes. Home.
Emphasis mine. I wouldn't have thought that. I always figured than Finns, as a Nordic people, were most at ease with sex and nudity. Just a stereotype, probably.

I'm from a small town. That's probably it. We're all quite fine with nudity though, because of the sauna culture.. we don't associate it with sex as much.
 
I'm only going to list places I've spent enough time in to have a feel for, which leaves out places I've also been to or through Frankfürt, Toronto, etc. I live in the US.

Veneto, Italy
. I was born there but moved stateside when I was piccolo bambino, but I was there two years ago. The Veneto, contains Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Citidella etc. Gorgeous scenery. Very laid back lifestyle. Wonderful food. Good but inexpensive wine to be had everywhere. Properly made risotto (in a lot of countries they overcomplicate it). Venice is too touristy during the day charming in the evening. Verona has a working colosseum that predates the one in Rome, where they have plays and concerts. Don't look for food between 1 and 4 though cause the country basically shuts down during those hours.

Budapest, Hungary. Worked there for weeks at a time back on three separate trips. People are nice, but the language is a bear, and nothing much is pronounced like you'd think. Cs is "ch" and S is "shh" and G is "dG", etc. etc. Budapest is like the poorer twin of Vienna, as in they are architecturally very similar, but Budapest under communist rule didn't get rebuilt like her western sister. In 2000 the buildings on the lane (utcha) where I was staying still had bullet holes from the 1956 revolution. Was relatively inexpensive. I remember breakfast cost 1/8th what it did in Vienna. The Parliament is epic, and the Danube (Duna to locals) is rarely blue. The public baths are amazing!

Vienna, Austria. Budapest with money plus that stereotypically germanic efficiency and cleanliness. Some great museums. Climb the stairs in St. Stephen's cathedral for a cool overlook of the city. Not a cheap cate though.

New Zealand. I can't say enough about this country. I adore it. Scenically it's incredible, with many and varied landscapes one next to the other. The area of the whole country is about the size of Italy (or Nevada), so you be at the ocean in subtropical rainforest that looks like Jurassic Park, then go up a canyon 12km into the mountains and find yourself facing a glacier. Cuisine is surprisingly good, largely due to the various ethnic foods brought in by immigrants. The north and south islands are fairly different. I spent 3 weeks there and it wasn't enough. Funniest experience: watching the full Moon rise, because, since you are 90 degrees in south around the planet from the US or Europe, the Moon appear to be on its side as it rises.

Tokyo and Yokohama, Japan. I worked for a Japanese company so I had some tiny inkling what it would be like there. The culture of politeness takes a tiny bit of getting used to. When the train doors open people on the platform actually wait for the passengers to disembark before pushing in. The food is surprisingly varied, and what you get as "Japanese food" in the US is a fairly small subset of the range of cuisine there. What little of the countryside I could see was gorgeous, but limited. Tokyo is a city city, with a metro system so extensive you can walk underground through shops like it was a mall. Yokohama is more like a working port. The "New Jersey" of Japan I was told.

Melbourne, Australia. Pretty city. Parts quite quaint. Didn't get to spend much time there. But a tip: Don't go in summertime if you don't like flies. I was out walking with a group of guys on Christmas days and there were a half dozen flies on every single one of us all the time during the day.

Bucarest, Romania. If Budapest was a lower-rent Vienna then Bucarest is even lower rent than that. Not dissing it, as I actually enjoy being there, but under Ceaușescu the country really suffered and still has a long way to go. Ceaușescu had much of the historic city razed for several monstrous projects like the unfinished and abandoned Văcărești and the Palace of Parliament, which is world's largest and heaviest civilian building with an administrative function. But there are still pockets of it where you can feel what it must have been like before communism. Food: very meat and potatoes, and the sausage is a-maz-ing. They also make a chicken schnitzel that is just like the variation on it made in my mama's region of Italy. I just made myself hungry typing about it.


As the question about "fooling around". A but in Budapest. And I basically "fooled around" with a local all over New Zealand...both islands. ;)
 
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While your insights are certainly welcome, this isn't really even a borderline case... the thread has been dormant for seven years. Please start a new thread if you wish to discuss this further. Thank you.
 
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