Where are you from?

[fajrdrako]

A meme from vands88, and I really love this one: I've long been delighted and impressed that the people who read my journal originate from far and wide. What I'd love is for you to comment below, and tell me which region/country you are from. And I'd love if you could add to that one particular thing that makes your part of the world unique. It might be music, a TV show, a recipe, a landmark, a specific historical fact. Anything you are proud of, whether other people might be aware of it or not....

Please do post something - I'd absolutely love to learn something about where you are.

Comments

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

Los Angeles is famous as a city designed around the automobile. Well, there's a neighborhood in LA that starts a block from Venice Beach -- the Venice canals. They're a patchwork maze of canals, built in the 1900s out of an eccentric desire to re-create Venice, Italy; now you can walk along them, past old bungalows, a few oddball ultra-modern houses, and the occasional flock of ducks or geese, with not a car in sight. Here's a link to a couple of pictures:

http://www.hillhaus.com/index.php?cat=83

And here's a more historically oriented link:

http://www.westland.net/venice/canals.htm

That particular page notes, "When Venice of America was first conceived by Kinney, life was literately in the horse and buggy age. By the twenties, the automobile had made its mark and was here to stay. The canals were not practical for the horseless carriage. In 1929 the majority of the canals were filled in and converted to roads."

But a few remain. And besides the ducks and the arching bridges, you can look inside people's houses and see pianos, artwork, and the occasional Emmy or Grammy award.

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

And as long as I'm here... I'm originally from New Jersey, the home of Lucy the Elephant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_the_Elephant).

[kensieg.livejournal.com]

I'm originally from New York City. What makes NY different?

We're famous. For our skyline, for our food and clothes, for the frenetic pace we live at. The thing that makes NY special to me besides the fact that it is my family's home is its variety. With thanks to L M Bujold "There's 6 of everything here."

New Yorkers are very cool. A UFO could land in the middle of Central Park and no one would blink an eyelash at it.

However when trouble comes we pull together and help each other. I guess in some people's mind's NY is the heart of America. Otherwise why would 9/11 have happened.

Wall Street is here, the Statue of Liberty is here, so is Ellis Island, Broadway, Harlem, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Columbia University and thousands upon thousands of dreams. "If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere."

Manhattan is only one part of NY City. It is an extremely complex city.

I'd to say that I was born and raised there.

PS Just for fun watch Ghostbusters I. It has a wonderful parade scene in it where you see many of the different types of people who live there.

[teaphile.livejournal.com]

Where I'm from: A small town near Niagara Falls, Ontario. Need I say what makes that region unique?

Where I am: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Nearly 35% of the population of the city was born overseas. It's the most diverse city I've ever lived in (that includes Toronto, Vancouver, and Los Angeles), and even though there are the usual ethnic enclaves, you don't have to be in one to hear the language or eat the food. It's wonderful.

[nuptse.livejournal.com]

I'm in Ft. Worth, Texas, aka "Cowtown". Was once the major hub of cattle drives-trail to rail (stockyards to train). There are cow pastures less than 1 mile from my house, and 2 stables within that same mile. I write for The Cattleman magazine, which is published by a cattle association founded in 1877. So in conclusion: Moo, y'all.

[luthien.livejournal.com]

I'm in the Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia. The "city" of the Blue Mountains is a string of little towns hugging the highway going west beyond the edge of Sydney, surrounded by a world heritage listed national park. The most famous landmark in the Mountains is a rock formation called the Three Sisters, at Echo Point in the town of Katoomba on the edge of the Jamison Valley. These are the Three Sisters:



And this (http://www.aussie-info.com/places/nsw/bluemts/legend.php) is the Aboriginal legend about them.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

I lived all my life til ten years ago in Tampa, Florida. The last neighborhood I lived in there features prominently in the opening credits of COPS!** XD XD XD

**US TV show following police teams in various cities and showing real-life, invariably stupid criminals getting arrested for half-assed crimes

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

I'm in the lovely (but expensive) city by the bay - San Francisco. Waves hello and offers you all a latte if you ever make it to the coast.

[dave7.livejournal.com]

I'm in Sydney, Australia. One thing that makes us unique? Our most famous icon is a building that was designed by a Dane - Jorn Utzon - to look like the sails of a ship. It took 30 years and over $100 million to build and is both an architectural wonder and one of the oddest buildings in the world.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

I'm in Oxford, UK, where you pretty much just have to walk down the street to fall over a couple of hundred years of history. And more than a few undergraduates.

All the colleges are beautiful (well, most of them - we don't talk about St Catherine's...) but my favourite building is the Radcliffe Camera (http://pics.livejournal.com/jadesfire2808/pic/0000x080/g8). It's now a history/theology/English library, and is simply the most wonderful building in Oxford to study in.

[justinej.livejournal.com]

I live in a beautiful part of Wales, place called Llandybie one hour from Cardiff at the end of the M4.

You can find out more about my life here: http://pics.livejournal.com/justinej/

[chatona.livejournal.com]

'm from Cologne and I love this city so, so much. When I went to Ireland, more people asked me how I was going to survive outside of Cologne than how I was going to survive without my family. Talk about priorities *facepalm*

We have Carnival. And thousands of traditions connected to that, most of which people have forgotten. We have a church with a clock in form of a face that, every day at twelve, sticks out its tongue into the direction of where the Bishop used to live. We have giant ice cones (http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n91/Chatona/Photographs/Cologne/IMG_2466.jpg) on top of buildings and cars with wings on top of others. We have a Cathedral (with another legend connected to it ♥) and an absolutely unique atmosphere in the traditionally cologne-ish pubs, where snarkiness is the main requirement for a waiter.
And, really. It's a damn pretty city (http://www.spanier.eu/koeln.jpg) when you ignore all the ugly stuff *grins*

In conclusion: I love my city ♥♥♥

[gillo]

I live in Kenilworth in Warwickshire, England. Shakespeare was born a dozen miles down the road and we have a very pretty pink castle which was built by Henry II in the 1150s, extended into a palace by John of Gaunt in the 1300s and extended again in the 1560s so it would be upmarket enough for Queen Elizabeth I to visit.



It's a great place to take small children as it's big, has lots of grass and interesting walls to clamber on and jump off.

[trialia]

South Staffordshire, England. *picspams you!* (Sorry about the size!)

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

I am from Amsterdam, born and bred. One of the things I love is the architecture. Not just the stuff we are famous for, like the grachtenhuizen (canal houses) but also the "newer" stuff like the work of Berlage. I love it that the street plan of my district is designed by this (by then famous architect) even though it was a social housing project to rehouse people from demolished slums.
I particular love the Berlage Brug, a bridge over the river Amstel (one of my other loves). his is an architecture of straight lines and lots of little details, so I am not sure whether a photo can convey its specialness

or alternatively a panorama view on panoramamsterdm (http://www.panoramsterdam.com/panos/berlagebrug.html)

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

bloody hell!! lovely pictures, but I can almost count the leaves. Just in case you ever want to use large size pictures again that you'd like to appear smaller when you insert them. All you need to do is insert size instructions in the code, just make sure you get the proportions right. So in this case your pic is 2272*1704, divide those by 4 andyou get a pracical size of 568*426 just add: width=568 height=426,/b> after you've written the URL and before the closing bracket. No " or anything like that)

[trialia]

Thanks. It's always the proportions I have trouble with in resizing - my mental arithmetic is terrible. I'll edit them smaller. :) Thank you!

[trialia]

Or, I would. Frak. I can't edit, so thanks for your input, and I'll take that to think next time!

[elebridith]

Germany here! The town - never mind, you wouldn't even find it on a map... Next biggest town - probably Hannover.
What do we have? Gorgeous castles like Neuschwanstein in Bavaria come to mind... or the sweet little towns on the North Sea coast. Or the Isle of Rügen. :-)
What am I proud of? Easy. The way in 1989 East and West Germany got united again. Peaceful demonstrations (mostly), people uniting and when they finally opened the Berlin Wall on 9th of November, I sat there and cried. Still do, if they show it for anniversaries. And I think they should show it again and again, to remind the people who are complaining today about the sheer rush of joy we all felt back then. OK, I have a lump in my throat now...

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

ah, but that is what calculators are for (if you are running a windows machine you automatically have one) just try dividing either by 2 or 3 generally that will help, if it is still too big, do it again. That should work :-)

(sorry if I am pedantic or something, it is just, if I assume you would just know how to do it, you might never try it out.

[trialia]

Please don't assume that. I run over a hundred websites, so I use everything I pick up. I just don't often think to go to the calculator first thing. Most of the time I try to work the math out in my head and I mess it up.

[majkia.livejournal.com]

Where I'm from.... Born in a poor part of Pennsylvania, coal mining town, raised and think of Connecticut as home, and after living in other places now live on the Emerald Coast of Florida, the Florida panhandle, the 'Redneck Riviera.' This is a view out my window of Sarah Ann Bayou and Osceola Bay, taken in the fall.

[aeron-lanart.livejournal.com]

I'm from Liverpool in the UK. South Liverpool to be exact, which is Beatles country. George Harrison used to live on my road, Paul McCartney and John Lennon both lived within 5 minutes drive.

We also have a beautiful half-timbered Elizabethan manor house also about 5 minutes drive away (right next to the airport!).

(http://s215.photobucket.com/albums/cc176/a_lanart/bits/?action=view&current=Speke_Hall1.jpg)

(http://s215.photobucket.com/albums/cc176/a_lanart/bits/?action=view&current=Speke_Hall2.jpg)

Liverpool is also the home of a rather unusual Catholic Cathedral, locally known as Paddy's Wigwam (the majority of the RC population in Liverpool is of Irish descent). I think it's official name is the Metropolitan Cathedral Church of Christ the King so it's no wonder it's known as Paddy's Wigwam!

(http://s215.photobucket.com/albums/cc176/a_lanart/bits/?action=view&current=paddys_wigwam.jpg)

If you go here (http://www.andrewcusack.com/blog/2007/01/the_greatest_bu.php) you'll find the story of the original design of the cathedral aka The Cathedral That Never Was...

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

I'm originally from Linlithgow (meaning loch in a damp hollow) in Scotland, birthplace of several historical characters like King James V and Mary, Queen of Scots. Practically every member of Scottish royalty from Malcolm IV to James VI have stayed in the palace, plus some evil sassenachs such as Edward Longshanks, Edward II, Edward III, Cromwell and the Duke of Cumberland (allegedly responsible for burning down the palace after staying) have also been visitors.

Palace with loch and St Michael's Church spire (http://www.loveofscotland.com/pics/linlithgow1.jpg) and from a different angle (http://www.scotsaver.com/scotland/cards/231097.jpg). James IV prayed in St Michael's before going to the Battle of Flodden and the story goes a ghost appeared to him and warned him that if he went he would die, a prophecy that came true. His wife, Margaret Tudor, had a bower on the highest point of the palace where she watched for him to return, but he never did. The shiny top of the spire is made of aluminium and catches the light in a striking way - originally it was oak.

According to Star Trek lore, it is also the bithplace of Scotty in 2222. I believe there is going to be a plaque of some kind.

At the moment, I live in Manchester (the original British one), home to the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Man United football team, the gay district of Canal St as seen in Queer as Folk, and a major centre of the Industrial Revolution. It was also the site of the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 and a 1996 bombing by the IRA in the town centre. Apparently the largest bomb detonated on British soil, it actually failed to kill anyone and is largely responsible for the regeneration and redevelopment of the city centre. Traditional Manchester terraces can be seen all over Life on Mars which was set and filmed in Manchester. There is also the Curry Mile, a large road full of various curry houses, Chinatown, and a fairly significant population of ethnic minorities. We get a lot of fireworks at Eid and Diwali - one year we had both of them and Guy Fawkes day all in the same week and I didn't see the cats for days.

It is also home to a huge number of British bands - Oasis, The Smiths, The Buzzcocks, Joy Division, New Order, The Happy Mondays, James, Take That etc. Past and present students or employees of Manchester universities include John Dalton (who came up with atomic theory), Niels Bohr, Ernest Rutherford (they still have his desk, and it is radioactive), Hans Geiger, Alan Turing, Anthony Burgess, Wittgenstein, architect Norman Foster and Martin Amis.

[fandom-me.livejournal.com]

I am from Marion Virginia.
Picture 1 (http://pics4.city-data.com/cpicc/cfiles24750.jpg)
Picture 2 (http://pics4.city-data.com/cpicc/cfiles14482.jpg)
Picture 3 (http://pics4.city-data.com/cpicc/cfiles26532.jpg)

We have one of 3 Mayan Revival Theatres in the States, the other (the Barter Theatre) had Gregory Peck (from to Kill A Mocking Bird). Both have been around for more than 75 years. We also have lots and lots of museums, the Appalachian Trail nearby, the highest mountain in Virginia (Mount Rogers), and more than 10,000 acres of State Park surrounding us.