Resurrection Geography

Did you know that D.C. used to be a perfect 10 miles²? It's not anymore, Virginia officially accepted their side of the Potomac back into the Commonwealth on March 13th, 1847. Back in 1790 though G.W. drew four nice straight lines on a map and then sent out a crack team of surveyors to put a rock every mile, separating out his new Jurisdiction of The United States from Maryland & Virginia. 

Our plan for Easter Sunday—an olde fashioned hunt for the 4 corner stones of Old DC. Which, after a brief period of reflection, was whittled down to—find the northern corner stone of Old DC. So Jeremy got out his maps, put on his headlamp, and we set off on the Metro.

After a series of mishaps in the tunnels below our capital we had successfully run down an up escalator, lost Jeremy 1 or more times, witnessed the near-smashing of a baby in a stroller, found Jeremy, and were on our way to Silver Spring, MD. Our quarry would be just a short ½ mile walk, but first Jeremy & Katie had to be convinced to walk the right direction. It took a guaranteed payment of $20/person if I led them astray to convince them to follow me instead. It's rarely a good idea to bet against my parallel parking or my sense of direction inside of a city.

And then we found it. Inside a little wrought iron fence by the side of a road. Off the beaten path, as well as any other kind of path, and half-buried in accumulated sediment.

The Daughters of the American Revolution could stand to devote a little more time to excavation.

Juris | Mar

We left an egg with a short typewritten note, Jeremy's email address, and a piece of candy inside for the next person who visits. It may or may not be during our lifetimes. 

What kind of stones did you find this Ēastre?

Also, remember this from a couple of months ago? Look at that 170 year old ghost of DC's square still showing up in 2009 DVD rental rates!

It's Dutch, Just Sound It Out

Remember that bike ride out to Phoenixville I told you about yesterday? Well, it was out along the ever expanding Schuylkill River Trail, which runs along the old Pennsylvania Railroad right-of-way. Which is right next to the old Reading Railroad right-of-way. Did you know Monopoly® was patented by a guy who lived a couple blocks from where I grew up? It's true. And I drove by his house today; I didn't know it until I read his Wikipedia page though.

The Schuylkill, Phila.'s #2 river, is best known by its 3 mile stretch above the Fairmount Dam, home to boathouse row and overpopulated recreational trails. But it does a whole lot of other things too, like go to Reading and Phoenixville, not to mention Pottsville (home to America's oldest operating brewery). It also outlines the edge of Philadelphia's hairline. Did you know Philadelphia City/County looks like a lady with a big nose and huge hair‽ This is turning into a geography lesson.

Anyway, look at where we rode. It was about 50 miles round trip we figure. And the point of all of this is that Papa Barnebey says he's riding his bike across the country next summer. He's already done Miami to Philly, Philly to Maine, Iowa, D.C. to Pittsburgh, among others. He doesn't even have a real road bike, it's a hybrid. And he likes to sit bolt upright. Totally uncool.

Bi-Continental Twins

Have you ever realized how similar Tanzania and Wisconsin look? I hadn't until this afternoon's Jeopardy!® rerun asked us for the question whose answer is the island seen in red above. Look at Zanzibar sitting right there where you expect to find Door County. Some important facts about the two:

† Another multi-capitaled African state.

† † Depending on what a lake is.

Islands: Round 2(a)

As The Kee demonstrated, this quiz is really easy. Round 2 includes:

Cyprus

Celebs

Cape Verde
Baffin Island

Trinidad

The Falklands

Grenada

Hispaniola

Newfoundland

Sri lanka

Corsica

Grand Island
Bahrain
Singapore

1.

2.

3.

4.



















5.

6.

7.

8.




















9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

A Capital Review: Eastern Europe

The Baltics:
   · These countries are conveniently arranged in alphabetically order from N→S. The capitals are not.
   · Tallinn is on top.
   · Riga is the biggest and the one you're most likely to remember.  It sits on the Gulf of Riga, which is the only memorable geographical feature of the Baltics.
   · That leaves Vilnius. How do you keep Latvia straight from Lithuania? Lithuania has a 'u', so does Vilnius.

There's also the little mnemonic TRaVELL (Tallinn - Riga - Vilnius, Estonia - Latvia - Lithuania). Like everything else when you're dealing with the Baltics, there're two 'l's in 'travel'.

The Russias ( ± Moldova):
   · Regular (i.e. Big) Russian - Moscow
   · White (i.e. Bela) Russia - Minsk (of Seinfeld fame, "Rochelle, Rochelle: a young girl's strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk")
       ☞ Take home message: if you have 'Rus' in your name, your capital starts with an 'M'
   · Ukraine (formerly Little Russia) - Kiev, like the chicken.

   · Then there's the little step-child Moldova. Which sounds like Mulva, which rhymes with vulva. As opposed to Delores, which rhymes with clitoris. Its capital Chişinău, like clitoris, is all 'c' and 's'-y.


The Danube Bs:
   · Three capitals of Eastern Europe are on the Danube -  Bratislva, Budapest, & Belgrade. The river then goes on to form the Northern border of Bugaria.

   · If you can remember Slovakia, you should be able to remember its capital is Bratislava. And of course the capital of the other piece of the Former Czechoslovakia, Prague.

   · Then there's Budapest, which comes in two pieces: Buda (on the West bank) and Pest (on the East bank). Together they're the capital of the latter part of that empire famously of two pieces: Austria-Hungary.

That brings us to Belgrade and the Former Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was always a load of BS, so:

Bosnia ⇒ Sarajevo
Belgrade ⇐ Serbia

Slovenia is just weird. It's like a spelling of Slovakia that went terribly wrong, which goes well with its capital, Ljubljana, that also looks terribly misspelled.

The capital of Croatia is Zagreb. I know this because Dr. Kovač of E.R. (the one with the funny 'c' in his name) is Croatian and he's always making lugubrious references to his dead family back in Zagreb. It can get hard to keep straight which country is which in this little minefield of nations; just remember, Croatia is the one shaped like a C.

There's also the two newbies to the Independent-Country Club: Kosovo and Montenegro. Conveniently, both capitals are P-initial, Pristina and Podgorica, respectively.

T.S.S.st:

Tirane (Albania)
Skopje (Macedonia)
Sofia (Bulgaria)
Bucharest (Romania)
    ☞ Bucharest sounds like Eucharist, the eating of Christ's body and drinking of Christ's blood. Romania, home to Transylvania and Count Dracula, of non-Christ blood drinking fame. Coincidence?




To review: Travel in the Baltics requires 2 'l's. Seinfeld taught you everything you need to know about The Russias. The Danube: B's and divided empires. The B.S. of Yugoslavia. And TSSst across the bottom.