Can we make our own 'from our own correspondent'

[teafortwo]

I love love love this radio show...

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/default.stm

Can we please please please have a thread that has a vibe a bit like this?

We can have a bunch of parents who live all over the World in all kinds of countries (including Blighty), with all kinds of neighbours and themselves living in all kinds of situations (rural, city, suburbs and anything inbetween) explaining what is happening where they live. Day to day things (what is on sale at your local market, what you ate for lunch), portraits of figures in your community (e.g a lovely old village character), big news stories (e.g student riots), little news stories (a much loved dog has died that used to wander around the town centre), arguements in the cafe (sport, politics, religion), music and dance (e.g I notice all Parisian teenagers like to do this weird wiggling dance and they even have lessons for how to do it on national telly), observations on things that are different from where you come from (I don't know...e.g a New Yorker's take on living in the Lake District), interesting discussions on languages spoken... etc etc... I think it could be fun!!!

So tell me...

Am I making sense?

and..

What do you think? Shall we give it a go?

well managed to get some fab bits from the markets today for the dds. The older two have shopping dollies - dolls with dresses that are made to be handbags - the dolls have woollen plaits for hair and the handle of the bag is woollen plaited. They look great. If they let me I shall take a pic tomorrow and put on my profile. Dd1 got her first real dolly. A fabulous rag(cloth) doll - all cloth - very soft. She has a day face -then you take her bonnet off and put it on the back of her head and she has a sleeping face. i think dd2 might have liked one of those dolls and I think dd3 would have liked a shopping dolly.

I wandered the markets with my dad and his wife - lovely to catch up.

I remember those night and day dolls! They were great, I am pleased they are still being made.

What are those pretzel things like? Have never been to Germany but they look fab.

Tea, thanks for comments on Burma. It's somewhere we have considered as so near to us (lots of Bangladeshis from Chittagong Hill Tracts look like Burmese). Like so many things,it's hard to know what is tight and decent thing to do.

Effie, why don't you post about London?? One person's 'abroad' is another's backyard. Everywhere is interesting.

Was someone looking for foreign coins earlier on in this thread? I would be happy to be send some from Argentina.

Coins (or monedas) are in short supply here. If you go to a shop they will often not have change - last week I got two eggs instead of a peso (about 6 pesos to the GBP) in the chicken shop. Bakeries will often make up your change with bread rolls.

You also need coins to travel by bus, and so the bus companies end up with a large supply of coins, which, people say, they then sell on a slightly more than their face value (although I don't have any evidence for this!)

One of the supermarkets asks you if you want to donate your change to charity at the till, rather than be given the coins, which always slightly annoys me, but then makes me feel like a bad person for saying no ... oh well.

And finally, as a non-spanish speaker "moneda" is one of the words that I learned first - with so many beggars on the streets (and lots of children as well) all asking for "una moneda" it's easy to work out the translation.

I was also going to look in the tourist shops for a little metal statue (I think that someone was asking for these earlier on this thread as well) of the obelisco but I went into labour instead. When life returns to some semblance of normality I look forward to trip into town, but I suspect that this might take a while ...

Oooh, tell us about Argentinian food please!

longwayfromhome
When did you have your baby? Congratulations, and welcome to your little globetrotter. Boy or girl?

Effie
Yes, do post about London. I have only been to London once and am curious about how it is to live there.

Moondog
What do Brezel taste like? Gosh, that is a difficult question. Salty, especially when they put extra salt corns on the top.

This is from Wiki

"pretzel dough is made from wheat flour, water, brown sugar and yeast. Prior to baking, it is dipped into a sodium hydroxide (NaOH), sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), or sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) solution and sprinkled with coarse salt, which gives it a glazed look. During baking, a Maillard reaction then gives the pretzel its characteristic brown color and distinctive flavor. In Bavaria it is a standard component of a Weisswurst breakfast."

I really cannot decribe it, certainly not without eating one at the mometn. I will buy a brezel tomorrow, in the of scientific discovery and try to do it justice.

A Weisswurst Frühstückis a typical Bavarian breakfast, with white sausages, brezel, sweet mustard and a wheat beer (Weissbier). I am not keen on the beer, but the rest is delicious. It is not something that I would eat every day, but once or twice a year, lovely.

The other important fact with the Weisswurst Frühstück is that it is only to be eaten until noon.

Many of you have heard of the Berlin Wall that seperated East and West Germany, but how many of you have heard of the north/south divide, just north of Munich? Weisswurst are common eaten below this border which is known as the "Weisswurstäquator" the white sausage equator

Why is that Germans and the French can all make such fabulous breads and pattiseries and us Brits get white sliced loaves?

Even in Cameroon thanks to the French colonial legacy you could get a decent baguette on any street corner and boulangeries in every other street. In Kenya they are just discovering the joys of brown breads and seeds. But still only in the supermarket.

Congratulations longwayfromhome? How old is the baby? What do people eat for breakfast in Argentina?

Ninedragons Burma has always sounded so fascinating and now your post has made it even more so, I had imagined there would junta on every street corner...

EffiePerrine, come back! We need some stories about North London, it's certainly not dull.

I meant to add that today we visited some friends in the burbs out in Langata, which is some 10kms from the centre of Nairobi. It is in this area that Karen Blixen lived with her view of the Ngong hills and her coffee farm. Nowadays it is populated mainly by white settlers who for the most part, work in the safari trade. There are lots of big houses here with acres of land passed down from a couple of generations back. For example the Douglas-Hamiltons from Big Cat Diaries fame have quite some acres. A lot of these settlers are selling acres off for vast amounts of money, scared now that the government will eventually reappropriate the land for redevelopment and they will be given little compensation.

Our friends are a mixed race couple, Kenyan English and their children go to a predominantly white prep school. I was shocked to hear reports of racist bullying at this school from white kids who have been born and brought up here.

Our part of town is more 'international' given our proximity to the regional offices of the UN and certainly dd's prep school tries hard to ensure a third white, third asian, third african mix. In some years it doesn't quite happen but the sentiment is there.

Califrau
What do the Fischköpfe know about baking brezels? Of course the Bavarian ones are the best.

They call them Laugenbrezel here to distinguish them from the sweet version, often covered with almonds. In Munich they say Brez'n.

DS calls them Laugenstangenbrezeln which confuses the women in the bakers. He means a Laugenstange, a long baguette roll made of brezel dough.

The brezel here are ok, not as good as the Bavarian ones though.

I had to laugh at the thought of a celtic-looking lass earwigging when the locals speak. You must hear some interesting conversations that way. I once shocked a group of young German school children who were messing about in Stirling Castle by telling them that they should be ashamed of themselves for behaving so badly. They were not expecting to be told off in their own language.

oh califrau - I used to love watching speedy gonzales on TV when I was a little girl.

These stories are fascinating. Burma must be an amazing place.

That bakery looks lovely, MmeLindt. One of the best things about Germany is going for freshly baked bread to have for breakfast. And the Kaffee und Kuchen. We have the Brezlen here too but there is a large German population in the area and several Lutheran Seminaries. It's a shame the rest of the bread here is so awful.

Keep the pub quiz facts coming. I didn't know about the oldest roundabout.

There are few roundabouts in the US. Which is a good thing because, on the whole, they are not good drivers - the state of the roads and the cars is quite shocking (given what a wealthy country this is). Anyway, today I was in Indiana. There is a roundabout. Just a small one but of quite a busy. Cue everyone stopping, waiting, thinking, then just driving, almost as if hoping for the best, without really knowing what is going on. Really, roundabouts are a bad thing here.

I wish I could tell you about some culinary delight but I can't. My treat over the weekend was Dairy Queen

Well "the summer that never came is finally here" as the man in the Post Office said to me today.

It's been 29C and sunny here in Ottawa, Canada - we've been on the beach today. The dds enjoyed swimming and sandcastles and DH and I read the paper.

After 9 weeks off school, only one week left - the big news is Back To School Shopping - I have bought new trainers (for indoor use only), jeans, felt tips and biros, but have been so far unable to find the "chair slippers" requested by dd2s teacher.

Oh well, back to Canadian Tire tomorrow.

What are chair slippers?

What are chair slippers?

Cali, I haven't forgotten, but apparently it's illegal to send currency through the post. They x-ray packages and return any containing coins. I am searching for a metal box to disguise them [sneaky emoticon]

It's me with the souvenir buildings, longwayfromhome. I am just tickled by the idea that labour deterred you from getting me one! Thank you so much for the thought, and beaming smiles and congratulations to you on the birth of your child.

I don't speak any German but being a salt am fascinated by amazing morphological processes. If it gets that exciting just talking dough products, how is it when yuo get onto really complicated subjects?

I am on tedious quest to locate souvenir Bangladesh teaspoon for UK colleague who collects them. Thus am having to go into every 4* hotel to search through gift shops.

There's always one thing on everyone's wish list that you cannever get eh?

Still, have done all Christmas shopping-gorgeous shalwar khameez for all the laydeeeez, mirrors, candlestick holders, jewellery,face packs, nice soap, mango pickles. Also got 24 metres of gorgeous materialto cover two huge armchairs. It was 90 quid. I paid about 500 for similar amount in Laura Ashley in UK a few months ago.

S'funny to see who is online at this hour!

OMG - I hope my parcel gets to you califrau - hope it did not get lost in transit due to coins being in parcel. I did list it on the customs form as collectible coins and the woman at the post office did not tell me that it could not be sent.

Has mine not reached you yet Cali? No such need to list for customs what is inside the package here However i think its more likely that some thieving bastard stole them en route to the aeroplane. I like the Calpol wrapping suggestion, in true MN fashion mine were rather beautifully wrapped in Mini Boden paper

Moondog
I could bore you to tears with examples of DS's Denglish at the moment. He seems to be at the stage of sorting out which language is which and often speaks in a mixture of Deutsch and English. No problem for us and fun for the kindergarten teachers who have to work out what he is saying.

Yesterday he said, "I will den Kite flyen"

The funny thing is, he has the sentence structure of the German language with a few English words thrown in.

am loving this but nothing of any interest to report - all sounds so dull next to what's on here

moondog, the beggars were the worst thing when I went to India. I was working at a massive IT site in Bangalore where they employed umpteen security guards to make sure we weren't 'bothered' at teh gates. One of my colleagues got severly told off for giving someone some money. Delhi, where I got stuck for a day when the plane broke, was far worse though.

other random contributions: (one of) my NZ grandfathers survived Gallipoli, unfortunately he died before I was born so I never got to meet him.

and CAlifrau, do you live next to Joey from Friends? hows the BP now? I must book a hotel in Melbourne pretty soon.....

Mrs JC - that is pretty cool. Are you able to see his war records. We are so lucky here in Aus as the national archives have digitised the records of all the men who served in WW1.

OH - follow up to my drama at the archives - I phoned this morning to ask that they copy the files I had gone to see at their expense and send them to me. It seems there is no record of my ordering the files. Even though I know I did and I remember checking the dates as the files that had not been examined could have taken up to 90 days to be released. Surprisingly I got an email this morning saying they were open and I was more than welcome to come to the archives to view them. I felt like emailing back and saying too bloody late now.

Anyway - long story short - many apologies later - they are going to copy them and send them to me!!!!

brilliant - although I would have loved to see them first hand.

I've been reading bits of this post and enjoying it. Not so much a report - but here are a few things I can see from my front door here in Tamil Nadu, southern India.

A coconut tree. I always look at it to see if the breeze has started. It always seems to be very still (and therefore hot) in the morning until the wind picks up about mid-afternoon.

Carts (hand pushed, and bullock pulled) that pass by selling everything from coconuts, veggies, plastic buckets and bangles. They each have a different bell, or hooter, or call, so you know what is going past. (Or don't - depending on your level of Tamil).

Directly opposite our house is a small factory producing T-shirts for the export market. There is a sign on the door: no child labour.