OK, you’ve all heard of the village of Fucking in Austria; the mountain of Wank in Germany or the very well known Ville de Condom in France, all three of which suffer from pranksters stealing their city signs on the motorway as soon as they put another up. Can dowdy, demure Switzerland compete with the […]
Swiss Romansch
As if Switzerland isn’t peculiar enough, it has a corner – or rather several scattered ones – where Romansch, its fourth official language is spoken. These corners tend to be where Italian meets German meets Frenchand that’s what the language looks like: a mixture between the three with a Latin-based vocabulary but with a German […]
Berlin: Is there anything left from the old GDR?
The first time I went to Berlin was August 1989 and the Wall was still up. I remember changing 25 DM at a rate 1:1, crossing into East Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie, spending one complete day in the East, eating lunch, dinner, paying entrance for museums, spending money on transport and still being left with […]