Wallerfangen

Hej Ho Folks, So, going back to July, after all the last-minute cleaning, file copying, and handing over gigabytes of data files and masses of stock cubes to various nerdy and culinary types, I left Lulea to go to Wallerfangen. This is the 'village' Christina comes from, in the Saarland region of Germany in the south-west. Within a few minutes' drive are the borders of France and Luxembourg (which is notable for its low taxes and thus rows of petrol stations at the border serviced many german and french cars). Saarland was the last province to become part of Germany after the war, after voting down a motion to be independent. Being on the border, it has very French tendencies, and they do things there that no-one else does, like schwenking.

A friend into all things berliner said to me that Germans look at Saarland as mainlanders ("Australians") look at Tasmania. When I told this to Christina, (after explaining what a Tasmania is), she agreed and admitted that Saarlanders were very happy after reunification of the East, because now there was a new , younger, basket-case area in Germany to be picked on, and Saarland was now left alone.

I was there to visit Christina's family, and go with her to a wedding, and check out the region. Her family were very welcoming and tried very hard with their english (harder than I did with german). It was an interesting experience being scrutinised at every level ("Oh, so that's how you fold your clothes").

Due to the hassle of loading lots of photos onto Blogger, I am trying another way to show you the photos. Facebook is the name of the new game. I have a profile, but this gallery should be public. Check it out by clicking on the link:


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12791&l=6a33a&id=731953277

Double-click on the first pic to enlarge, and then use 'previous' and 'next' on the top-right to move through them. Descriptions are beneath them.

写真を見るため上記のリンクにクリックして下さい。最初の写真をダッブルクリックしたら大きなり、上右にある”previous" と”next" を押すと前と次に変わります。コメントは下に書いてあります。