The while-we-wait-for-river-cruises photo quiz

[dogs4fun]

Ah, I see that we are still visiting Bordeaux, @Canal archive. Quite an unattractive sculpture, IMHO. 

[notamermaid]

I must admit that it unpleasantly distracts from the surrounding pleasant Street scene. Give me a "Kaiser Wilhelm" or Bartholdi fountain any time...

 

notamermaid

 

[jklc123]

2 hours ago, Daisi said:

@jpalbny, I've been doing the same through Duolingo.  I have one set of parents who are Swiss, and speak German...he says I'm not doing to badly with the pronunciation.    One of our "goals" is to take a month and travel by train to areas in Germany and Austria.  We loved what we saw on our Rhine cruise.  Just trying to get the basics in so I can make myself (partially) understood.

I used my rudimentary Duolingo German to help my husband buy toothpaste in a pharmacy in Speyer and my French to shop in a department store in Rouen.

[Canal archive]

Dos4fun your quite correct, your right it does not blend at all with its surroundings and the area is very vibrant with lots of different types of street artists. Your turn. CA

[notamermaid]

I must really have a look at this Duolingo, if it helps with essential skills like buying toothpaste. Seriously, important stuff. As I trained in languages I am okay with German, English and French, but my Spanish has seriously gone downhill. I managed to get by in Poland as I rarely strayed from the group but it would be nice to understand more in Polish and Dutch places that are not so familiar with German. Many Dutch speak German well and some Polish near the border where impressively good. So as long as I do not meet a Swiss Italian from deep in the valley or somebody "aus dem Osten"* who has never left his village before I should not run into problems quickly.

 

*from the East - the dialect problem like "Porto" and "Bordeaux"

 

I do not normally speak broad dialect anyway, but when I am away I make more of an effort to speak clearly. Still, people can place me. Went to this tiny shop in a village in Baden-Württemberg some years ago, the owner said "are you from near Koblenz?" Which I confirmed. She answered: "I thought I recognized your accent." She had friends from near where I live.

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

My Spanish teacher (so many years ago) hitched across France and got a lift just before the French/Spanish border from a priest their common language was Latin, a supposedly dead language, all the way to Madrid. I find that as long as people talk slowly and clearly I can understand the Latin based and Germanic based languages. Anything galic, and Russian based and I’m up the creek without a paddle. CA

[notamermaid]

Oh, yes, the Latin scholars, they do that. I had a history teacher who had also studied Latin and met a priest. Their only common language was Latin, so they used it. I never got good enough to use it in a modern way, but it was very useful for handling other languages.

 

notamermaid

 

[dogs4fun]

I wasn’t attempting to win the opportunity to post a photo - was just providing a clue. 😊 So, wild card.

[jklc123]

1 hour ago, notamermaid said:

Oh, yes, the Latin scholars, they do that. I had a history teacher who had also studied Latin and met a priest. Their only common language was Latin, so they used it. I never got good enough to use it in a modern way, but it was very useful for handling other languages.

 

notamermaid

 

I studied Latin throughout high school and majored in Spanish and minored in Latin at university. I do think the Latin helped with the Romance languages. If we do our bucket list cruise Bucharest to Budapest, I’ll be curious to see how much Romanian I can understand. Of course, Hungarian is a total mystery!

[Renmar]

1 hour ago, notamermaid said:

Went to this tiny shop in a village in Baden-Württemberg some years ago, the owner said "are you from near Koblenz?" Which I confirmed. She answered: "I thought I recognized your accent." She had friends from near where I live.

When we were still living in Holland we lived in the town of Hilversum and we could tell if somebody was from the city of Utrecht and that was only 17 KM south of Hilversum.

 

Theo

[notamermaid]

23 minutes ago, jklc123 said:

Of course, Hungarian is a total mystery!

They say Hungarian is a complete mystery to almost anyone. While Hungarian is in a family of languages with Finnish, they are very remote and the only semblance with other languages now is some Siberian (according to Wikipedia). Or guide in Budapest explained a little about the language and history of the people, really interesting.

 

Bucharest to Budapest sounds so interesting. I would really like to see Bucharest, Romania once had a German queen from the Rhine valley.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

5 minutes ago, Renmar said:

When we were still living in Holland we lived in the town of Hilversum and we could tell if somebody was from the city of Utrecht and that was only 17 KM south of Hilversum.

 

Theo

I can well believe that. It is fascinating how people living close use the exact same letters in writing and sound similar but the nuances are there to distinguish us from another, especially where there are historically distinct dialect boundaries.

 

notamermaid

 

[sharkster77]

2 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Oh, yes, the Latin scholars, they do that. I had a history teacher who had also studied Latin and met a priest. Their only common language was Latin, so they used it. I never got good enough to use it in a modern way, but it was very useful for handling other languages.

 

notamermaid

 

There was a historic meeting between Queen Elizabeth I of England and Grace O'Malley the "pirate queen" of Ireland (she was not someone to mess with and had a navy probably equal to that of Elizabeth).  Elizabeth did not speak Gaelic and Grace did not speak English so they conducted diplomatic business in Latin, which both spoke.

[Host Jazzbeau]

I'm confused.  Did we get a winner for the rusty sculpture in front of the beauty salon?

[notamermaid]

2 hours ago, dogs4fun said:

I wasn’t attempting to win the opportunity to post a photo - was just providing a clue. 😊 So, wild card.

This is what happened. Bordeaux on the Garonne river.

 

Have you got a photo for us?

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

How a rusty sculpture that seems completely out of place where it is led to a quite in depth discussion about language is wonderful.

yup wild card it is.

[Daisi]

Ok, I'll grab it.  As usual, name the river, town and hopefully what this is.

 

 

[notamermaid]

I know the lady, but I had never really looked up her background before. The story is online (as one would expect in literature on the town). I won't say anything more yet.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[jpalbny]

There are a ton of statues like this in Koblenz. I think I have a picture of this one as well.

[notamermaid]

A café nearby is named after her.

 

notamermaid

 

[dogs4fun]

She had a good heart - selling goodies in order to feed strays. I definitely approve. 😁

 

36 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

A café nearby is named after her.

I didn’t notice the cafe @notamermaid but you are, of course, absolutely correct. Checked Google maps & found the cafe.

Edited March 7, 2021 by dogs4fun

[jpalbny]

Ah! I took a picture of the inscription "Pfefferminzje" on the base of that statue! Now I have found the cafe too. 

[dogs4fun]

You also have a photo @jpalbny?

[jpalbny]

1 hour ago, dogs4fun said:

You also have a photo @jpalbny?

 

Yes, we were here in 2014 for a Rhine cruise on Uniworld. 

 

Here is the statue. Daisi's lighting is much better.

 

 

And a close-up of the base:

 

 

That's the name of the cafe, right? Pfefferminzje?

 

Here is some information about the statue:

 

https://statues.vanderkrogt.net/object.php?webpage=ST&record=derp227

[Daisi]

@jpalbny, you are correct.  Over to you.