Lothianlad

: Sussed at last! I did indeed seriously consider the idea of leaving the UK and moving to Canada, and perhaps even the USA but the former was fave because I did not really really want to, sort of, sever all links with Britain, seeing that Canada also has the Queen as Head of State within the British Commonwealth and to my mind that makes Canada not really a "foreign" country as the USA undoubtedly is, with a culture greatly different from that of the UK. I actually went over to Canada to get some idea of what the country was like and I have to say that it looked very American in many ways, even though I did see evidence of British connections such as the royal crest and emblems on many public buildings.

I used this forum as a source of information and very informative it has been, too, and the USA thread just sort of became addictive, but now my plans for the future have changed completely and with a great job here in Edinburgh (but with opportunities to work in London and elsewherwe in the UK) which I really enjoy and with great friends both here in the UK - many of them in England and great guys they truly are - and also in the Netherlands - amazing mates living near Eindhoven - I don't think I could ever chuck all this in and go and live on the other side of the Atlantic or in any other country for that matter.

I love the UK although I have the right to slag it off whenever I feel the need to as there is a lot wrong with it, but when I read many of the comments in this Forum, from any other country apart from the USA, I get to feel that maybe it isn't all that bad here in Britain after all. An unfortunate British trait is to concentrate on, comment on, and publicise everything that is negative about the UK, while completely ignoring or just overlooking all the positives. It seems to me that the Americans, generally, do it the other way round, but maybe I have got that wrong.

The words "European Union" will never be removed from the front cover of my UK passport - on any of the ten yearly renewals I will be in possesion of in the future as the chances of a British withdrawal from the EU are about as likely as The Queen taking a job as an overnight shelf stacker at her local Tesco Express store between now and Christmas Eve this year....I think there is such a store within easy walking distance down the Buckingham Palace Road towards Victoria train station.

One of the joys of living in Britain is its very close proximity to Contintental Europe with its great diversity and its wide range of cultures and languages and lifestyles, all packed into an area little larger than several Texases (or whatever the plural of Texas is, not that it's ever necessary to pluralise it) plus a wee slice of California perhaps.

I mean, there is a similar diversity in culture and language, albeit on a smaller scale, here in the British Isles, too, and even more closely packed together within a much smaller area, within each constituent country. Even North Yorkshire is quite different from both South and West Yorkshires, as I found out while a student at Leeds...I could have done with a phrasebook, especially when talking with some of the old people there.

Englishtart

Englishtart

Well, you should know!

Lothianlad

And I do know...in my job I have to know. Surely you also know that the British generally do broadcast the negatives appertaining to their own country and leave others to proclaim the positives if they so desire, and to be quite honest, many of them do once here. They obviously see the things we take for granted. In this thread I merely wanted to offer a wee bit of information to the lady asking about interesting places over on the Continent, based solely on my own experiences as I do nip across the Channel (mostly under it or about 30k feet above it) fairly regularly. Anyway, enough already.....here's to the next time though....

This is the only song I could find with those words as a title and it seems to be a very old one, courtesy of a BBC Dance Orchestra of the 1920s or 1930s apparently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8ApUuO42ZU

Kaffy Mintcake

Thanks for the suggestions. I think we're going to do Bavaria (Nuremberg, etc.) followed by Prague and then Krakow. Should be chilly, but I hear they have lots of mulled wine at the markets so we should feel no pain.

Bob

Bavaria is fun...but get out of the beaten track and it's quite surreal...still quite a lot of the old boy Nazi undertone in some of those villages.

My brother, one of his best mates from school was from there, used to go quite a bit, showed us around a lot.

Then his sister got involved with an old family, the perfect blue eyed, blond haired lot. Anyway, after that, completely no contact what so ever. The old family were quite up the nazi party back in the day, and my father, his family were wiped out during the war so it was very surreal that one time we met.

Beautiful countryside and castles though

Kaffy Mintcake

That's scary and shameful, but not surprising I guess. It's a bit like how some picturesque small towns in Indiana, for example, are KKK hotspots.

Goes to show how important it is to make sure noone ever forgets ugly times in our history.

Sally Redux

How awful Bob - unfortunately I can well believe it.

Juswus

fantastic

Bob

It was weird because it just wasn't something you'd think about, especially how much the country has done to try and atone for its sins of the past and it's just not something that you'd see on the face of things even in the countryside, but you hit one or two of those out there villages kind of thing and it's a whole new world that isn't in the tourist brochues.

Saying that, every country has those kind of places about something weird or other.

Oh and in the spring/summer, it's a gorgeous place to go mountain biking too

willmore

Three beautiful places to visit. Have a fabulous trip especially Krakow (my very favourite place).

Happy travels.....

Kaffy Mintcake

Thanks Willmore. I love Krakow too, which is why I'm including it even though it would be a much easier itinerary if I left it out.

dmu

Hi,
Why don't you post in the Europe Forum for ideas from people who live in Continental Europe all year round?
I can confirm that, in the south of France, last winter was the wettest, coldest (4 Arctic-cold spells), longest (5 months) winter since I've lived here. You just can't tell what weather you'll have...
Strasbourg's Christmas Market is apparently very impressive, so you may do well to "do" southern Germany and French Alsace, but you'd have to check on the opening dates of the Markets...
Have a good trip, wherever!

cindyabs

Alsace Lorraine area is nice blend of German French food etc.

Oh yes gluhwein does warm the cockles of your heart too.