Bollywood
German Culture Lesson Number One - There is no pound sign on a German keyboard.
German Culture Lesson Number Two - The guy in the picture is Shah Ruhk Khan, probably the most famous Bollywood actor. I don't know how many of you have ever actually seen a Bollywood film (that would be the Indian Hollywood, in case I really need to start at the beginning), but they are on TV all the time here. The films are very pretty, for lack of a better word. The colors that they use are great and there are lots of big song and dance scenes. They're actually musicals and not movies and almost every one I've ever seen stars the guy in the picture. They all have at least a side love story and a lot of them are relatively politcal and deal with the problems between India and Pakistan, among other things. Anyway, if you like musicals, love stories, or anything like West Side Story you'd probably like it. You have to get used to the dubbing or the captions, but they don't dub the songs so it's not too annoying.
German Culture Lesson Number Three - The G-8 "Gipfel" is currently in Heiligendamm, just outside of Rostock, in northern Germany. If someone would tell me how the word "Gipfel" is typically translated I would appreciate it. The event is big in the news here, I assume it ought to at least get a mention there. The German government spent 12.9 million Euros on a fence that completely cuts off Heiligendamm from the rest of the world. Some Greenpeace boats got through the sea blockade and you should see the pictures of the police hunting them down. There are surely pictures online if they weren't in the news. And there were riots in Rostock where almost a thousand people were injured, 443 of them police officers. There are thousands of police in that area, and they are apparently still a little nervous. I guess when you take the heads of state of the eight most powerful countries in the world and put them all in one little spot there's probably a reason to be nervous. Hopefully they can get something done there, though. The big themes seem to be the environment and poverty in Africa. There's a big ad campaign here where they say that every three seconds someone in Africa dies because of extreme poverty. The pictures make you feel kind of guilty and sick but supposedly they are making lots of progress. Bono and a famous German singer, Herbert Grönemeyer, apparently got into a fight with the German chancellor because she wasn't doing as much as they thought was necessary. But now everyone seems to be happy again.
German Culture Lesson Number Four - If you go to the Bureau of Whatever and take a lawyer with you, everything will be fine.
I'm going to finish cleaning here and then make myself some dinner. Hope you're enjoying the last day of your Pentecost break. Oh, wait, what...?
German Culture Lesson Number Two - The guy in the picture is Shah Ruhk Khan, probably the most famous Bollywood actor. I don't know how many of you have ever actually seen a Bollywood film (that would be the Indian Hollywood, in case I really need to start at the beginning), but they are on TV all the time here. The films are very pretty, for lack of a better word. The colors that they use are great and there are lots of big song and dance scenes. They're actually musicals and not movies and almost every one I've ever seen stars the guy in the picture. They all have at least a side love story and a lot of them are relatively politcal and deal with the problems between India and Pakistan, among other things. Anyway, if you like musicals, love stories, or anything like West Side Story you'd probably like it. You have to get used to the dubbing or the captions, but they don't dub the songs so it's not too annoying.
German Culture Lesson Number Three - The G-8 "Gipfel" is currently in Heiligendamm, just outside of Rostock, in northern Germany. If someone would tell me how the word "Gipfel" is typically translated I would appreciate it. The event is big in the news here, I assume it ought to at least get a mention there. The German government spent 12.9 million Euros on a fence that completely cuts off Heiligendamm from the rest of the world. Some Greenpeace boats got through the sea blockade and you should see the pictures of the police hunting them down. There are surely pictures online if they weren't in the news. And there were riots in Rostock where almost a thousand people were injured, 443 of them police officers. There are thousands of police in that area, and they are apparently still a little nervous. I guess when you take the heads of state of the eight most powerful countries in the world and put them all in one little spot there's probably a reason to be nervous. Hopefully they can get something done there, though. The big themes seem to be the environment and poverty in Africa. There's a big ad campaign here where they say that every three seconds someone in Africa dies because of extreme poverty. The pictures make you feel kind of guilty and sick but supposedly they are making lots of progress. Bono and a famous German singer, Herbert Grönemeyer, apparently got into a fight with the German chancellor because she wasn't doing as much as they thought was necessary. But now everyone seems to be happy again.
German Culture Lesson Number Four - If you go to the Bureau of Whatever and take a lawyer with you, everything will be fine.
I'm going to finish cleaning here and then make myself some dinner. Hope you're enjoying the last day of your Pentecost break. Oh, wait, what...?