Tell us about your country!

joiaco said
South Africa … the birth place and home of our beloved Nelson Mandela whom we call ‘Madiba’ which is a respectful title for ‘Father’. He turns 94 tomorrow so HAPPY BIRTHDAY MADIBA . He is being visited by Bill Clinton this week to discuss the building of a children’s hospital.

The picture is an exercise i did while learning Photoshop last year, before i could use Illustrator, which would have been much more successful

VIVA Madiba

@Tsafi, I really enjoyed reading what you wrote about Israel. I laughed with the walking on water part.

Stylius said
@Tsafi, I really enjoyed reading what you wrote about Israel. I laughed with the walking on water part.

Me too – his great sense of humor runs all the way through the post

AndrVlad said
Hi all, I am from Russia which is big country. Direct flight from place where I live to Moscow is about 8 hours. But we have China, Korea, Japan much closer (2 hour flight). i don’t have any idea about Cola price but gasoline is about $1 per liter which is about $3.6 per gallon here.

Saint-Petersburg

Situation

P.S. Coca-Cola sosts 1 US$ / 0.5 liter

aah, just adore this thread.. so many interesting facts about other countries that i would still love to visit in my lifetime.

my aim is to visit India next year and actually get the chance to see one of the most gracious and beautiful animals in the wild, the tiger .

I am Latvian (north-east of Europe, near Sweden, Finland and North European part of Russia) but I’ve been in Lebanon for 11 years now and it feels like home

Lebanon is a really tiny country on Mediterranean shore near Cyprus and Syria. It is so tiny that there is no space on the map to write the name of the capital leave alone other cities. Long ago it was Phoenicia, so many ancient ruins here. Phoenicians were first to discover a way to dye clothes in red using sea snails. It started in the city of Tyre (now Southern Lebanon). It brought them more wealth than gold. They were also famous traders, that’s why they were called “traders in purple” in Greece and Roman Empire.

Official language is Arabic, but many people speak English and French, because they concentrate on languages starting from kindergarten. So we are kind of mixing these three languages. If you are American or French you just can speak your own language and you will be understood. This of course might not be the case in mountain villages. I don’t really know the life there. A lot of different people here – really amazing.

Politically we are always in mess but we are having a lot of fun anyway. And when peaceful (thankfully it is for most part) it is a wonderful place to be in.

e8j1osla said
lol this thread suddenly became a weather forecast.

The Bad Side

Anyway my country is Philippines, Greed, Poverty, corruption this 3 words describe my country, but i love the people of my country, different tribes,cultures,race i love my country but i hate our government to slow in development cause all they do is spend people’s tax money for their own interest. politics is business here, win an election and live a luxurious life. my anger also grew stronger when my government can’t even defend itself from other countries that tries to steal our resources( spratly island shoal )

Sorry if the topic became political, just need to voice out.

The Good Side

If your on vacation we have alot of good beach resorts, all sorts of different spots and places to visit like the chocolate hills, Baguio, Banaue etc.. and on top of that exotic foods and alot of sea foods. hotels and accommodations are very affordable. see sample images of good spots.

Vacation spots

Vacation spots

Vacation spots

Vacation spots

Vacation spots

lol again sorry if things got a little more promotional.

Chocolate Hills is surreal! I traveled around the Philippines 2 years ago with a friend. I’d say Boracay is on the list of my favorite beaches in the world so far. And very nice people indeed

New fun fact. I know a guy who has finished 3 (THREE) universities, one here and 2 in the USA , and is looking for a job for months, even for a store or a kiosk.

I’ll elaborate a bit more on the Netherlands:

What you probably knew

We have a strong liberal culture. We have legalized prostitution (they pay taxes) and the selling of weed, but the part of the population that actually uses these is very small. Most visitors to the coffee shops (weed shops) are tourists in Amsterdam or people from Belgium / Germany around the borders. We also say directly what’s on our mind most of the times, which can be very offensive for other cultures.

We complain about everything, the rainy weather during the summer, high income taxes, traffic jams, politics but actually it isn’t too bad living here. It is pretty expensive here, but the incomes are also high. An average salary is about € 2 – 2.5k/month I think. Crime rates are low, there is good public transport in the cities here and everyone has a bicycle that we use for small trips to the supermarket or to go to work/school. We have decent infrastructure for cyclists, low pollution levels and most importantly a very flat country. Getting a driving license is pretty expensive (€2k) and gasoline prices keep rising, but almost every household has at least one car.

Nowadays probably the best known export products are Gouda cheese (we eat that a lot), Heineken beer, electronic dance music (we have a lot of large dance festivals for such a small country), water engineering knowledge (hundreds of years experience with keeping the water out – we live below sea level).

Great thread, I’d like to read more about freelancing in your countries, in NL the climate and work opportunities are pretty good.

I am from Kosovo. I love my country and my people. we have our problems but we will overcome them. we have lot of young talented people with multiple talents.