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I walked across Luxembourg

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Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#161

Post by gumby »

dghughes wrote: post #136
Symbiote wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relevant title for that action would be Queen of Australia, but the reality was considerably more complicated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...

Basically Governor-General (the Queen's representative of a country) John Kerr did it without approval from the Queen. We have the same system here in Canada but if such a thing happened here there would be riots in the streets. Especially Quebec and First Nations. But really anyone would be very mad and we would probably drop the monarchy that day tradition or not.

Governors General are more than a mere “representative” (though they re described that way in my passport), they are viceroys (vice kings) so exercise royal prerogatives.

Of course monarchy is nonsense but I have a thing for pedantry like this.

TBH the nonsensical nature of monarchy works out for Australia, as it costs essentially nothing and sort of acts as a ground strap to make the idea of “head of state” rather irrelevant. Just compare to countries like France or USA where the Head of State gets capital letters and is a person with actual power.

Next best would be a president like in Germany who is basically a nonentity with less power than a GG.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#162

Post by tasuki »

sph wrote: post #154
jvm___ wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my early pandemic habit. Watch a long, walking only, YouTube video of some far off place. The best ones had no talking, just the ambient sounds and sometimes a on-screen note about something you were looking at. The fascinating thing was watching pre-pandemic videos and your own response to groups of people and hearing coughs inside buildings.

Yeah those videos kept a lot of us sane. My jam was Martijn Doolaard's series of him restoring a rustic country house in the Italian Alps. I still put that on on days where city and modern living is too much and I need to remember what being in nature feels like. I strongly recommend it to anyone.

> need to remember what being in nature feels like

Have you considered... being in nature instead?

An audiovisual experience, no matter how great, will always miss the smell, touch, and taste of actual nature.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#165

Post by mcv »

developer93 wrote: post #89
martin_a wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, don't worry, they (Deutsche Bahn) hit the hour mark quite often without any problems. Funny story on the side: German ICEs are only allowed up to Basel, so they will not cause any delays in the Swiss train network. The Swiss fear that we would destroy their fine-tuned system otherwise. :-D

It's funny because externally Germany somehow has the reputation of perfect punctuality, I can only assume that country stereotypes tend to be outdated.

My impression of German Pünktlichkeit certainly took a big hit.

In the past, my trips to Germany rarely went further than Oberhausen or Essen, so that was never a big challenge to my belief in the German railway system. After this trip, my brother and dad (who have a lot more international train experience) were not surprised at all by our delays in Germany. Apparently confusion and delay are the normal state of things there.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#167

Post by yread »

uwagar wrote: post #99

how are people able to walk 100kms in 4 days with no rest days. i just can walk 8 kms every day :(

Napoleon's soldiers marched 120km in 2 days! With weapons and gear, in enemy country, without wibrams, gel pads, walking poles or socks.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#168

Post by ryankrage77 »

uwagar wrote: post #99

how are people able to walk 100kms in 4 days with no rest days. i just can walk 8 kms every day :(

I was wondering this too. Last time I did a ~15km walk, my legs and feet were really aching at the end of it. I think I could have done another 15km back if I had no other choice, but it would have been miserable. As it started to rain, I got a lift back instead.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#169

Post by developer93 »

mcv wrote: post #165
developer93 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny because externally Germany somehow has the reputation of perfect punctuality, I can only assume that country stereotypes tend to be outdated.

My impression of German Pünktlichkeit certainly took a big hit. In the past, my trips to Germany rarely went further than Oberhausen or Essen, so that was never a big challenge to my belief in the German railway system. After this trip, my brother and dad (who have a lot more international train experience) were not surprised at all by our delays in Germany. Apparently confusion and delay are the normal state of thin…

As someone who's lived here 10 years you're spot on. I hear it all went to pot when they tried to reorganise DB to prepare it for privatisation, which never really happened, and centralised everything around Frankfurt. So now it's in a quasi independent state which no one seems very prioritised about fixing. Hey at least there's the cheap (Deutschland) ticket now.

Re: I walked across Luxembourg

#170

Post by developer93 »

arcanemachiner wrote: post #91
developer93 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to keep your phone on, street complete can be very rewarding, especially in places with not so much osm coverage.

https://streetcomplete.app/

Haha that would have been helpful to include. Thanks for picking up my slack!
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