Daily Slow Chat

11 comments

1. Uhh dang who leaves a laundry basket on the highway. Fortunately, the plastic in them has no strength or it would’ve damaged the car badly.

2. I went on a small walk by [The Elbe](https://imgur.com/a/3n7K1iu) yesterday and kept thinking all the time that I was back in the Netherlands. Probably because it looks exactly like the Netherlands.

   In German, river names have articles although they’re proper nouns. I don’t know why. My husband told me they’re mostly “die” (feminine). He also told me the few exceptions but I already forgot. German… We need to talk.

3. The first Arab-Israeli war is interesting in that the Jewish forces outnumbered Arab ones which would not be the case for the following wars with Israel. From reading a bit on it, the invading Arab states’ main concern was to grab as much land as they can to increase their power and prestige rather than genocidal fervor against Jews or concern for the Palestinians. That meant each Arab country had every incentive to not cooperate because it might lower their share of the spoils.

4. There was a nice event in Palermo this weekend,at least if you like ice cream 🍨🍦…an ice cream festival!

   Lots of stands from other parts of Italy and other parts of Europe and the world too.For some reason there were several from Japan, which is not a country I usually associate with ice cream.

   Anyway it was really nice experience to try some flavours I’ve never tried before.All the ice cream was artisanal and made by very small producers, most of it by the person who was actually selling it.

   There was a strudel ice cream from Austria that was amazing! And also a great pesto flavour ice cream, from Genoa in Liguria.

5. A few months ago somebody made a comment on an LA sub that you could basically make up a convincing-sounding name of a fake neighbourhood of LA by combining any random Spanish word (bonus points if it’s a fruit or vegetable) with the word Heights, Park, Beach or Hills. E.g. Manzana Hills, Aburrido Park, Asquerroso Heights, Albaricoque Beach, San Putamadre Hills and so on.

   And that got me thinking: what European cities could you do something similar with?

   Paris is an easy one: take any English or vaguely English-sounding word or name that has five or six letters and ends with -y. Bonus points for innuendo. E.g. Handy, Curry, Horny, Slutty, Stacy-la-Salope and so on (sadly can’t go with Pussy as that’s [already taken](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy%2C_Savoie?wprov=sfla1) (oh, and it’s in a place called La Léchère?! Oh, that just makes it so much better…)).

   Oxford: Just take any random 3-letter word and add -ley or -sey to the end of it. E.g. Mutley, Jetley, Manley, Antsey.

   Zurich: Take any word that has -ikon at the end of it. E.g. Lexikon, Komikon.

   I feel like Berlin or some random Scottish/Northern English city should be easy as well, but I’m blanking right now.

6. Slowly starting into the bridge day – state holiday tomorrow, and I took the day off. We went to a tribute concert yesterday. The first half wasn’t too impressive, but in the second half it got much better and the audience took part way more as well. I guess it didn’t help them that it was a Sunday evening deep in the rural area – in a state that doesn’t have a holiday tomorrow, so I guess most people had to work today, so there were many empty seats.

   But I don’t think any of this is going to happen next time we’re going somewhere, as the next will be Stomp! It will be in January, but I’m already looking forward to it so much. I saw them three times already, but it has been already some years again since.

7. Went to a party this past weekend that was held in a XII Century castle where people had to be dressed up as something related to All Saints Days and it was pretty good actually. Lots of fun even though it was cold and rained for most of the night.

   Downside was that on Sunday I was pretty much dead to the world😂

8. A place I order a lot of stuff from at work promises next day delivery in EMEA, for a price of course. Their warehouse is in a major Mediterranean city, and as promised the parcels are here in Finland at our warehouse or at our customers the next day. On the opposite side or Europe. So that’s the E covered.

   But would they really be able to deliver an order to the middle of Mali or Congo or something like that? I so want to ask them to deliver something to some random village 500 km from Bamako to test it out.

9. I am a little worried about the situation here, it has just stopped raining, but the river is now at the arches of the bridges and some of them have even been closed.

   In the mountains, a bridge also collapsed due to debris.

10. Have you ever read Tony Wolf’s [Woodland](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1495789.Meet_the_Woodland_Folk) [Folk](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1025287.The_woodland_folk_meet_the_gnomes) [book](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1495790.The_Woodland_Folk_Meet_the_Giants) [series](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1495788.The_woodland_folk_meet_the_elves) [?](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1589841.The_Woodland_Folk_in_Dragonland)

    I hadn’t realised just how much those books had shaped my childhood until last weekend, when I was having the time of my life dressed up as a garden gnome, my true final form.

    Was there a book that marked you when you were young?

11. The super strong scirocco is back again in Palermo!

    Strong wind blowing and 33° at 2pm.Everything is covered in a fine layer of sand.