Blue Stuff up to something

[jacko]

A general question about Amsterdam, would a non-dutch speaker manage or is it best to have at least a working knowledge of the language?
 
graeme

[adriaan]

The place is full of tourists the year round, so really no need to speak Dutch. If you do, they'll hear you're a foreigner, and won't let you, because they want to show off their English. Which for most people means doing word-by-word translations from Dutch, which can lead to interesting turns of phrase. So prepare to be bemused.

[palembic]

Hehehehehehe ...well said Adriaan.
Same thing over here you know.
With a difference that all Flemish people speak English. Walloons (french speaking Belgians) don't. You cannot see at face-glance if someone is french speaking!
Best advice ALWAYS start speaking English! No prob!
 
Paul TBO

[bracheen]

Paul, thanks for the heads up.  Is the Flemish half to the west of Brussels?
 
Sam

[palembic]

Hi Sam!
(and other travel-eager friends)
 
See this map:
 

 
What is yellow colored is Flemish speaking = Flanders, Green is Walloon country and French speaking. The blue dot is Brussels and bi (multi) lingual.
The dark-green zone on the right (east) is German/French speaking.
Of course when operating on the language border you will be confronted with facility zones (we like to make it complex ...huhuhuhuh).
But ...for you rest of the world out there: please don't try to show off your ability to speak french in a flemish zone (quite some Americans and Commonwealth people do so). To a certain degree people will be embarassed! By all means: speak english/US/Australian ...whatever. Without meaning to brag but most of the time we'll manage to speak english better than you trying to speak french.
In the south zone (green) ...well ...good luck I would say!
 
Paul TBO

[bracheen]

Paul
Can you do it again with a dot at Sint Joris Weert?  I haven't been able to find it on any map I've had access to.

[adriaan]

EDIT: With all those commas in the hyperlink to Google Maps, the forum software gets a little confused ...
 
Try Google Maps and do a search for Sint-Joris-Weert, Vlaams Brabant, Belgium.
 
 
 
(Message edited by adriaan on March 05, 2007)

[bracheen]

That did it, thanks Adriaan.

[David Houck]

Cool, thanks Adriaan!

[Manfred]

Hey Paul,
 
I once had to play in a place called Jodoigne, not far from Sint-Joris-Weert I believe. Nice area, but finding it was such a hard thing to do after dark, during a winter. It was snowing. Some of you dutch and belgium folks may remember snow. White cold stuff they threw on the road to make it slippery a couple of years ago. Here's a picture @win van Huik once send me about our extreme winters.  
 
 
And about Amsterdam, once you have parked your car, Amsterdam is great.
 
Manfred

[palembic]

Hehehe
Well ...now you know where I live!
IFF not try this link:
http://www.viamichelin.fr/viamichelin/int/dyn/controller/Cartes-plans?mapId=-tiyvv1bzx4q8cp&dx=424&dy=200&empriseW=849&empriseH=400
By the way www.viamichelin.com is still the best for me for you over-the-ponders. For those in Europe use www.viamichelin.fr
So ...welcome friends!
 
Paul TBO
 
PS: you can zoom in and out the map. So take a look at my back-yard ...
 
(Message edited by palembic on March 08, 2007)

[Manfred]

Nice backyard Paul, while zooming in, there's a train coming up. Is it yours, the good ol' TBO Express? We all come over this weekend, how many clubmembers do we have?  
 
Manfred

[palembic]

Actually I live 100m from a railway station (small one) but that means that -with some patience and hopping from train to train- you can get to TBO even from Kualalumpur ...mmmm ...but those trains from over the pond ...euh ...well
Can't you guys swim???
 
Paul TBO

[palembic]

Hi friends,
 
thanks to our beloved moder Dave I can offer you a link to landing space here http://home.earthlink.net/~davehouck2/paulstune.mp4
You can listen to Me my guitar and the blues a Sherman Robertson song we interpreted on the famous live concert/recording.
 
ATTENTION: THIS IS A TEMPORARY LINK ONLY ACTIVE FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS.
 
Just for you fans out there who want to take a peep in advance
 
Paul the bad one

[jacko]

Very nice paul ;-)  The recording quality is superb, especially like the way the bass is well up in the mix. How was it done? we've been trying to get a decent live recording of big tuna for a while but it always comes out Bass-light.
 
Graeme