An unusual hobby: Adrian Leskiw designs fictional cities and nations, and then he draws roadmaps of them. In painstaking detail. He describes himself as a "roadgeek". You can browse through his collection of fictional roadmaps at The Map Realm. One use I can think of for these would be to sneak them into rental cars. (Mislabel them, of course.) Tourists would spend hours examining them, trying to figure out where they were.
But wait, there's more. Leskiw also collects covers of real roadmaps. He has an extensive collection of the official Michigan, Ontario and Ohio road maps. In the old days transportation departments apparently hired artists to design these covers. Now they seem to just slap generic photos on them.
Some might regard the phrase "German sense of humor" as an oxymoron. Nevertheless, the Caricatura Museum, recently opened in Frankfurt, is dedicated to exploring exactly that subject. According to the Telegraph:
Visitors are greeted at its entrance by a large sculpture of a moose wearing a hat and overcoat - a sight which Germans apparently find amusing. They are also fond of jokes which might not have much appeal beyond their borders. In one, a coast guard receives a distress call from a ship at sea: "Help, help, we are sinking." The coast guard replies: "Dass ist very interesting. Vot exactly are you sinking?"
It's first event: a Mohammed lookalike competition.
I'm posting this from a Starbucks in Bremen, Germany. (I'd prefer to be in a German cafe, but Starbucks turns out to be the easiest place to find an internet connection.)
Most Germans speak very good English. Which means it's not common to find the kind of bizarre translation errors that are a common feature of Japanese or Chinese English. But they do pop up occasionally. I walked past this sign outside my hotel in Bremen at least ten times before I noticed that something was wrong with it.
This German department store would probably have to change its name if it wanted to open a chain in America.
Finally, when I saw these "Berliners" (jelly donuts) on sale, it reminded me of one of the most famous mistranslation urban legends of all time: the claim that when Kennedy proclaimed "Ich bin ein Berliner" to a crowd in Berlin on June 26, 1963, that he was actually proclaiming he was a jelly donut. Yes, a Berliner is a jelly donut, but the word can also mean a citizen of Berlin, and everyone in the crowd would have known what he meant.
I was talking about food recently with a friend, and he mentioned enjoying Chow Mein Sandwiches while growing up in Fall River, Massachusetts. Chow Mein Sandwiches? I had never heard of such a thing.
Chow Mein Sandwiches are a Fall River specialty, and there's not many other places you can find them. Even in Fall River, they're becoming increasingly rare. According to Flavor & Fortune magazine, a Chow Mein Sandwich is:
a mixture of minced meat (pork), celery, onions, and bean sprouts in gravy over deep fried noodles. This combination or blend of ingredients is more like a thick sauce or a stew. It is placed between a hamburger bun or between two slices of white bread. For the latter, brown gravy is ladled over the works.
The key is that the noodles have to be crunchy. In other words, you can't slop Chow Mein from your local Chinese restaurant on a bun and expect it to taste like a real Chow Mein Sandwich. If you want to try one, and you don't live in New England, your only option seems to be to mail-order the "Original Hoo Mee Chow Mein Mix" from the Oriental Chow Mein Company in Fall River, and prepare your own.
Category: Holidays, Music, Regionalism, Stereotypes and Cliches