Reveal your country

People, i don't think we all realize how great an oportunity this is, we are here, united by one thing, or another, for ALL over the world. That's why, in addition to rae's Reveal yourself thread i think it would be cool if you all told us something about your country.
Lets face it, we don't know everything about everyone, unfortunately Sure you could jsut go to a library and read 50 year old books, but it's much mroe fun this way, plus, we have it live

Facts, population, currency, language and the history of your country. And don't skip the funny parts, stupid habits your nation does, and jokes about it.
If not for the others here, then for me please

Man i should have done this before my history exam..
I'll start
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Iceland

First i'd like to answer some very popular questions:
No i do not live in an igloo, and nobody here does, we don't even make them. THe kids might do it during the winter to have fun, but there are like 3 days a year when that is possible.

We speak Icelandic; It's a Germanic language, grammatic is similar to german and latin, and vocabulary very close to danish, norwegian and swedish. But it is very hard to learn, and unfortunately you can almost always hear when a foreigner is talking... even if he has lived here for 20 years.


We are currently around 290.000, and 180.000 live in the capital. This does tho not mean that i know everyone But the funny thing is you can always finda connection between two persons,"i know this one" -" oh hey so do i!" That's the beauty of it, you can know everything about a guy before you go out

Iceland is an island in the north part of Europe, very close to greenland, the biggest island on earth. So, iceland is green and greenland is ice There is not snow here the whole year around, and i have been in over 25° C here, unfortunately tho, that is the top heat i think.. or somewhere little above 30° C
During the summer, the sun can be seen all night. IF you go out in the evening, it can be bright the whole time you are out. Contrary to that is during the winter, there is very little sun. The shortest day is around 4 hours... i know, you get depressed

We have huge amount of stories about elves. THey are said to live in the stones, and if you see one for real you will never be sain again. We also have big trolls that liveinthe mountains, and little demons that try to trick you into deals, and instead they will get your soul if you loose.
However this is all old, and nobody really believes it today, except maybe some strange persons

The nature here is very beautiful, and also very untouched.. because it's not so good to live in the uplands, because there is nothign there. So the nature stays the way it is because people don't go there very often.. mostly tourists though.

The water here is however something to brag about . You can't buy water from the stores, you drink it right from the tap. It is very clean, and we don't add any chemical stuff in it to clean it, we don't have to. Electricity is very cheap too as well as hot water.. so 1 hour shower is no biggie

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That's a little summary of my country, see more on www.exploreiceland.net or jst ask me

Now come on, share with us something about your country!

i live in england and it rains a lot. oh and we have victoria beckham

i'm moving, asap

italia here i come!!!

I also live in England and i agree, it rains an awful lot

England is a strange country

we have produced great scientists like Newton and Darwin and countless great inventors who all helped Britain start the industrial revolution.

we have produced writers like Shakespeare, bands like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, and of course sports like football

These are all good but we have also done a some bad things, like fight wars against almost every country on earth (some justified, many not) and conquer half the planet

I blame bad weather and too many cups of tea

We have huge amount of stories about elves

we have elves too, if you count Tolkiens stories

Tolkien lived in the midlands when he wrote LOTR and alot of the things in his books are based in things local to me.

Croatia..small country for a great holiday
Placed in southern Europe, shares Mediteranian sea with Italy..beautiful coast with lots of small islands in the south, continental part placed north connected by mountains in the central part of the country..
As said, small country(53000kmx2) with uncharacteristicaly long borders(looks like a horseshoe on the map), has 4 million people with capitol Zagreb (around 1 million with suburbs).

Language: croatian(one of many slavic languages)

History: got independent in 1991. Pushed into a fuorius war (I will not talk about it as I noticed few fans from Serbia & Montenegro..no politics ) that ended in 1995. with complete liberation of my country and peace, finnaly..before that, from beginning of 12.-20. century we were one of many countries in Austrian-Hungarian kingdom..Most of the 20.century Croatia was a part of Yugoslavia(till 1991.).

Weather is great(lots of sun unlike in GB ), light winter, warm summer..
Beautifull girls..

In every sport Croatia is easy to recognize because of red & white colours placed like on chessboard..very succesfull in many sports also..

that's about it for now..

A few more things about England:

Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (God and my right)

Population: 50 million approximately.

Many people use the word England to refer to one or both of these. This usage is incorrect and can cause offence, particularly to people from other parts of the UK. It is of interest to note that England is far from being an independent nation since it has no national government, has no currency of its own, has no armed forces, and is not represented in the Olympic Games.

The name "England" is derived from "Engla-lond" or "land of the Angles". Other terms for England include "Blighty", from the Hindustani "bila yati" meaning "foreign"; "this Green and Pleasant Land", from William Blake's poem Jerusalem. "Albion" was used by writers such as Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy in the 1st century, in reference to the white (Latin: "alba") cliffs of Dover.

The flag is painted with a red cross on a white background. This is the St. George's cross, the symbol of the patron saint of England, Saint George. It became a symbol of the crusade in the 13th century (1200) and was used as a national flag until 1606 when it became a component of the union flag for Great Britain. At that time period, the Republic of Guinea used it also.

That should keep you going for a little while

trinidad...one word.....paradise!

Originally posted by Stezagud
we have elves too, if you count Tolkiens stories

Tolkien lived in the midlands when he wrote LOTR and alot of the things in his books are based in things local to me.

I know, his stories are awesome!
Did you know that Tolkien could read ancient icelandic, and you would be surprised on how much in his story, the lord of the rings, is actually from our old religion stories, for example, and all the names of the dwarves, they are straight from histories men here wrote with calf's blood on skin


Keep it coming guys! this is really cool

......

TAKE NOTE:


Hey.
I'm not a lumberjack,
or a fur trader...
and I don't live in an igloo
or eat blubber, or own a dogsled...
and I don't know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada, although I'm certain they're really, really nice.

I have a Prime Minister, not a President.
I speak English and French, NOT American.
and I pronouce it ABOUT, NOT A BOOT.

I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack.
I believe in peace keeping, NOT policing.
DIVERSITY, NOT assimilation,
AND THE BEAVER IS A TRULY PROUD AND NOBLE ANIMAL.
A TOQUE IS A HAT,
A CHESTERFIELD IS A COUCH,
AND IT IS PRONOUCED 'ZED' NOT 'ZEE', 'ZED'!

CANADA IS THE SECOND LARGEST LANDMASS!
THE FIRST NATION OF HOCKEY!
AND THE BEST PART OF NORTH AMERICA!

MY NAME IS BILLY!


AND I AM CANADIAN!






( Taken from onne of the most popular commercials in Canada for Molson Beer)

Oh Canada

Negaraku...
Tanah Tumpahnya Darahku..
Rakyat Hidup
Bersatu dan Maju
Rahmat Bahagia..
Tuhan Kurniakan
Raja Kita Selamat Bertakhta
Rahmat Bahagia...
Tuhan Kurniakan
Raja Kita Selamat Bertakhta !

(that's the sacred national anthem )
Virtual Malaysia : http://www.tourism.gov.my/
popular slogan :MALAYSIA BOLEH ! ( Malaysia we can ! )
nickname of the national flag :Jalur Gemilang ( Strips of glory )
DOB: 31st August 1957 but Sabah and Sarawak in Borneo ( last time with Singapore but Singapore left us in August 9, 1969 ) joined in the unite in Sept 16, 1963...
national blossom : Bunga Raya or Hibiscus Rosa sinensis
climate : equator ( heaven for beach and ecotourism lover )
Political system: Monarchy constitunal ( with The King as the head of Country and Prime Minister as the head of Goverment )
Currency: Ringgit ( 1USD approaching RM3.5.....sth )
National airliners : Malaysia Airlines and Air Asia
language: Malay ( a bit similar to Indonesian... so sometimes ppl not surprised that I hang around at Indonesian thread... )
We're another famous melting pot, unity in diversity... love to smile, polite and friendly ppl... The first location for TV series Survivor in first edition ( Pulau Tiga, Sandakan, Sabah )... famous for cheap foods and low at cost of living ...

Like Enzo Pires ever said to me, he wanna visit Malaysia one day... So ppl should keep Malaysia as their holiday destination one day !

Originally posted by AcMilan_Montreal
......

TAKE NOTE:


Hey.
I'm not a lumberjack,
or a fur trader...
and I don't live in an igloo
or eat blubber, or own a dogsled...
and I don't know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada, although I'm certain they're really, really nice.

I have a Prime Minister, not a President.
I speak English and French, NOT American.
and I pronouce it ABOUT, NOT A BOOT.

I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack.
I believe in peace keeping, NOT policing.
DIVERSITY, NOT assimilation,
AND THE BEAVER IS A TRULY PROUD AND NOBLE ANIMAL.
A TOQUE IS A HAT,
A CHESTERFIELD IS A COUCH,
AND IT IS PRONOUCED 'ZED' NOT 'ZEE', 'ZED'!

CANADA IS THE SECOND LARGEST LANDMASS!
THE FIRST NATION OF HOCKEY!
AND THE BEST PART OF NORTH AMERICA!

MY NAME IS BILLY!


AND I AM CANADIAN!



Taken from onne of the most popular commercials in Canada for Molson Beer)

If I'm not wrong, Canada also famous in aviation history for 'Gimli Glider' story.... salute to Capt. Pearson and his co-pilot Maurice Quintal... Both brave and cool pilots !

malaysia. the place for the most overly hyped EPL teams unfortunately. malaysia. a country where the education system is not effective. malaysia. a country where races blend together, but secretly backstabs each other in politics. malaysia, a country full of rape recently. malaysia. a country that is in need of more science and technology. malaysia. a country where the national disease for malays which is laziness rules. yeah, that's malaysia alright. malaysia. once ever so reliant of the english.

malaysia has many great things, but also bad ones not to forget. just being brutally honest.

Originally posted by Jim_UK
A few more things about England:

Population: 50 million approximately.

Oh Jeeesus, was there a war or a plague in your countrey, so that the population had decreased so
The last time I checked the stats it was almost 60 mio

I shall write about my country a bit later cuz I do not have enough time now I pledge that would be a huge story

P.S. Thread Sandra!

something I know bout germany : birth rates has decreased.

Originally posted by sehnsucht79
malaysia. the place for the most overly hyped EPL teams unfortunately. malaysia. a country where the education system is not effective. malaysia. a country where races blend together, but secretly backstabs each other in politics. malaysia, a country full of rape recently. malaysia. a country that is in need of more science and technology. malaysia. a country where the national disease for malays which is laziness rules. yeah, that's malaysia alright. malaysia. once ever so reliant of the english.

malaysia has many great things, but also bad ones not to forget. just being brutally honest.

Malaysia has more good than bad

Why go around showing the world Malaysia is a bad country Sally?