Hey hey so I just got back home this morning. Had a long nap, then started unpacking and getting ready for the new uni semester which starts in the morning. I’ll be getting back to the comments I missed very soon and translations this week.
What can I say about Europe? I think I’ll break it down by country as that makes things easier.
UK/England: One of the most enjoyable places I went to, and I felt like I’d never really be bored. While on a Thames River cruise, I was told: “To be tired of London is to be tired of life”, and that really is quite true. There is simply so much history and heritage in the UK that makes it worthwhile. Of course, there are also many current things which make it rather fun. Highlight: Wimbledon 2016.
The Netherlands/Amsterdam: I was only there for a day but I felt it was a very clean and beautiful city. Everything is about green energy and there are hordes of bicycles everywhere. Zaans Schans was very nice to see, but probably filled with more tourists than I’d like. On the other hand, the city itself was more enjoyable as it seems to have so much liberty: people smoking marijuana on street, bongs for sale in convenience stores, and a rather inviting red light district. Highlight: The city itself.
Belgium/Brussels: I had about half a day here as it was just a stopover on my way from Amsterdam to Paris. I do apologise, but I found Brussels somewhat less interesting than other cities, perhaps due to time constraints. Highlight: Traditional cuisine.
France/Paris: Paris lived up to all of my expectations and a bit more. The first day I spent hitting out most of the top tourist attractions, and it was rather fun listening to French and just exploring the city. Days two and three were mostly spent in museums, as there are simply so many famous works and museums all over Paris. We also happened to be there while the Euro Cup was on, and that really made everything much more lively. I was on top of the Arc de Triomphe on the day of the finals and flags were fluttering about everywhere, horns were blaring, and people were fired up. It felt like French pride and patriotism at its best, which was accentuated even further by everyone’s depressing expressions the next day.
Italy: Well, there was just so much to see here. I visited Milan, Pisa, Florence, The Cinque Terre, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, The Amalfi Coast and Venice. Florence was quite a beautiful city and also where I had the best homemade pasta. I did an AirBnB stay at an apartment in Vernazza and it honestly felt amazing to be living like a local would in the Cinque Terre. Rome felt like another place all together because it felt “Roman” rather than “Italian”, and there was so much to see and do there. Naples was the least enjoyable place, probably because I had the wrong impression of it before I arrived. I thought it would be just another major city like Rome or Florence with tourists out and about, but I was wrong. It felt seedy, dangerous and dirty wherever I went and there were very few tourists around. Just a short train ride away and we were in the ruins of Pompeii, which was an incredible sight to behold, especially those body molds. Taking the train to the end of the line, we came to Sorrento, which was an pleasant place to stay and certainly quite nice. Of course, Positano and Amalfi were even better, and the Amalfi Coast really lived up to my expectations of how beautiful the coastline was. I went kayaking and swimming around there and the water was simply beautiful. My last stop in Italy was Venice, and I found it rather boring. Sure, the photos will look nice and I’ll have been there but the experience itself wasn’t that enjoyable as it was way too touristy. Highlight: Vernazza.
Spain: Madrid was a pleasant city, and a nice place to be in. The Spanish I learnt in Peru certainly paid off in communicating with some of the locals and the food was also great. Of the two cities I visited however, Barcelona was definitely much more enjoyable. Barcelona felt fun and lively at any time of the day and it was filled with interesting spots all of the city such as the Parc de Laberint, and Gaudi’s architectural works. Being able to speak Spanish was again quite helpful, although most signs were actually in Catalan. That’s also why I found it to be a peculiar city, as that is the only place (correct me if I’m wrong) where Catalan is used, yet it seems to be the dominant language there. Highlight: The Tapas.
So, that roughly sums up my trip. I had a great time, so thanks for being patient. I’ve probably visited the countries that some of you live in, so feel free to let me know about what you think.
I’ve just seen for curious your message about holiday
I wait that you has liked Barcelona, I’m from there
Technically and summarizing, the Catalan is the own language from the regions in the east of Spain [Catalonian, Valencia and Balears] and some little regions in the frontier with France and Italy
And The central government try to kill our language
Pd: And just to be clear please. Valencia and Balear [this last term not used for anyone, even the Balear people itself] would be regional dialects, so who try to say other thing is a fascist trying to divide and kill
Spain has several coofficial languages depending on region (less languages than France, but with better prospects). The main other than spanish, and leaving aside frontier contamination of portuguese and french are (going clockwise from center north):
-Basque: coofficial in its territories, koiné; spoken in the Basque Country and the Foral Community of Navarre, has gotten to the same point you’ve seen Catalan only in the former through the efforts of the main political party of the region, the National Basque Party (PNV), with the collaboration as some other likeminded (on that department) parties.
-Fabla: non-official, almost lost; spoken in Aragon, while there are efforts to revive it, they don’t have the drive to go for officiality.
-Catalan: coofficial; spoken in Catalonia (four provinces of Barcelona, Tarracona, Lleida and Girona) as well as in the country of Andorra (not Spain, it convives with spanish and french), kept by the higher classes (nobility and burguesy) and made into a banner for national identity. Has a lot of political connotations due to that.
-Aranese: non-official; a variety of Occitan spoken in the municipality of Val D’Aran in Lleida. Seems that part of the reason it’s not made official it’s because the Catalonian Government can’t stomach such an existence, as shown in an anectote several years ago where, once again, they started asking for independnce due to cuktural and language reasons only to have the tables turned on them by that municipality doing the same on the exact same basis; they still kept at it while trying to cover that.
-Valencian: coofficial; spoken in the Valencian Community, seems to be a mix of catalan with remnants of other languages formerly spoken in the area. The catalan influence is stronger in the north and weaker in the south, but even the northern dialects seem to have enough differences in sounds and vocabulary for a good chunk of scholars to distinguish between them.
-Balearic: cooffical; spoken in the Balear Islands, each one with its own dialect. Closer to catalan than valencian, but still with some differences, but the main reason to be counted as separate is mainly that they don’t want the political connotations to rub off on them.
-Galician: coofficial, koiné conviving with thousands of dialectal forms; spoken mainly in Galicia, and said to have been kept by the lower classes, but the truth is that it was kept mainly in villages and city and town outskirts except the city of A Coruña, as well as by the traditional nobility (the fact that the first koiné was mostly based on a particulary obscure and corrupted dialect from not precisely the most populated region caused it to be lost from part of the cultured people at the startt of the 20th century as retaliation). Its status shines and wanes depending on political struggles in the Academy responsible for the koiné which leads to very outrageous changes in vocabulary, spelling and even reading each few years, but it’s still the one language from this list (pehaps leaving aside the aranese) that’s most widespread (more than 90% of the people in its influence territory can understand, speak, read and write it).
-Bable: non-offical; technically, after proper Basque and alongside Galician, the oldest language still spoken in Spain, but no effort has been made to go for its officiality. Spoken in Asturias and north of Catilla y León.
-Caló: non-official; main spanish gypsy language, made from mixing remnants of traditional romani language with spanish. Spoken throughout Spain by gypsies/romani (calós, technically) with varying degrees of admixture of spanish and other reginal languages. (There’s one other gyspy language in Spain, the arromintxela or erromintxela, which is mixture of romani with basque, but it was never too widespread and it’s losing influence to caló).
Wow, thanks for the info. I had no idea that there were so many different languages/dialects spoken in Spain itself. Although some of them seem to be politically motivated, I’m surprised at how many coofficial languages exist. It’s starting to make me think that the different regions are actually quite segregated due to this. Though, this also does show the history of Spain and the area around it as many of these languages seem to be born from a mixture of previous languages in the area.
To be honest though, for a country with that much history, having ten or so languages is not actually a lot – what’s surprising is that many of them survived and are still in active use today by a significant portion of the population in each area. If I remember correctly, China also had many dialects, but most have died out in favour of the Mandarin language that was created by the communists and forced upon the nation. And in Australia, the indigenous people originally had hundreds of different dialects all across the nation and only a few people in each tribe would learn the languages of the neighboring tribes so that they could negotiate trades, marriages, etc. I myself learnt “Wiradjuri” for about six months, but it hasn’t proven useful nor practical anywhere because almost all indigenous languages could be considered as ‘lost’ and there isn’t a very high population of indigenous people anyway – mainly owing to the history of conflict between whites and blacks.
The thing with Spain’s diversity is because each region was a separate kingdom as close as 1850 (less than 200 years since), that happens to be the reason of the heavily marked difference between them
If you went in Spanish, you are bound to go through where I live. Whether by road or train, you went here!
I live next to Perpignan
Yes we were sad, we are still, but you know what? The rooster kept singing, even whit feets in the shit
So we fuck them, and we continuously live as we please!
no highlights for France?
My highlight would be standing on top of the Arc de Triomphe, overlooking the main roads of France as everyone raved about with French and Portuguese flags.
If you dont see Poland you dont see anything. Beatiful woman and strong alcohol- fun of full charts
You been half way around the world, thats pretty sweet
Heyo. Nice to see you back and also nice to hear that you enjoyed Europe 🙂
Glad you had fun in London, I’m assuming that you went on tour around London and museums there, it’s fun place to be with lots of things to do so you probably won’t get bored of it if you are there as tourist.
Damn, I’m in Italy right now (writing this in hotel at Genova and going to Florence soon) if our schedule synced we could have met up lol. Oh well I’m glad that you had fun because it’ll be me who will be having fun now 🙂
It was a self-planned trip mostly based off tripadvisor, but it was fun going around the city. Didn’t actually get around to that many museums as we were more interested in other places. Wimbledon was great though as I got to see the Williams sisters and Raonic in action.
Hope you have a great time in Italy, it’s too bad our breaks are at different times.
Italy is a cool place. Glad you had fun
Amstersam is epic.Weed women and nightclubs i mean what else do u need
Sounds so much fun! I’m so jealous! Should’ve had a stop here in Ireland to check some of the (somewhat boring) history and the distillery’s and breweries. Really enjoyable day trips. But still glad to have you back and all the best for the new semester of college!
Thanks mate, might check out Ireland next time 😉
I live in Barcelona and I’m surprised about how near came the guy whose traductions I follow. Maybe we’ve seen each other without realising it.
I’m glad you had fun in my city. I’m used to Barcelona, so hearing people thoughts about my place is interesting and entertaining. Now rest a bit. You don’t have to rush in your translations, so take your time to recover. I’m sure all the people who follow your translations are patient, me included 😀
It’s really good to have you back,man..I love your work..so please upload the rest of the volume 21 of highschool dxd in English please..I loved reading your other translations.. I’m die hard fan of highschool dxd so please do this..btw I live in the Southeast Asia so I don’t think you’ve visited my country but seems like you’ve a great trip..I liked reading it..so keep up the great work…