26 June 2013

Cuba's Communism

Today I was searching the internet for a series of photographs of homes in Cuba and in my search for these pictures I remember vividly (but yet cannot remember the name of the photographer), I discovered Jan Sochor

13 June 2013

Putin Speaks English and German (and French)

I'm waaaay behind on all the things, but here's a belated Wednesday post highlighting Putin's linguistic capabilities.

Putin speaks Russian, French (obviously), German, and English.  Is there some other one I don't know about?  Not surprised about the French because I swear every Russian book I've read uses French phrases (even after translation) and Russia's power was during the height of French's fashionability.  It's not uncommon for anyone in Europe or Russia to know French in some capacity.


It only makes sense that he speaks German since Putin was stationed as a KGB officer in Dresden for 5 years.  I cannot help but think of Lara in Good Bye, Lenin! because the accent is the exact same. 

Then there's English.  This is the video that came out with him speaking English.  He obviously has used English before (doubt that Obama speaks any of the other three languages), but everyone is making note of this video.  I certainly did because I've never seen video of him using English, let alone for such a span of time.  Does anyone else notice that he makes weird facial contortions with certain English sounds?  It looks like it pains him to utter them out loud.  I worked with an Italian woman in Budapest who would always repeat the hideous "er" sound whenever she uttered it, just to make fun of how ugly it sounded.  We often would just start saying "er! er! ERRRRR!" to be funny because, let's face it, it really is a hideous sound.

No videos of French, and why would I even care!  France isn't part of this blog!

10 June 2013

Monday Film Review: 5 Elephants

The Goethe Institut in Chicago is always showing movies or having cultural events to promote German culture. Despite taking classes there and being generally impressed, I never made it to their events until now.  They were showing Die Frau mit den 5 Elephanten (The Woman with 5 Elephants) and I forced my husband to attend with me.

05 June 2013

Pilsen - Many Kilometers Away

A while back, I did a post about eastern European immigration into Chicago and their presence in various neighborhoods.  I became inspired to start searching in my own backyard for the comforts and culture of Europe, which lie thousands of kilometers and dollars away from me.  This is going to be very fun for me because it gives me a chance to dust off my camera, see neighborhoods I don't often venture, and get to know my city and Europe better.  My partner in crime is none other than the Ms. Christine Armbruster, who is slowly becoming synonymous with this blog.  She's an amazing adventure companion and her photography far, far outshines my own.  Christine and Taylor are taking over European Chicago, one step at a time.  Get ready for TONS of pictures.

03 June 2013

Monday Film Review: Dekalog

You'll have to excuse if this post waxes rhapsodic or if I get overly emotional.  I have never loved a movie/series so intensely at first viewing.  At this point, I have viewed all of them at least three times and I have deliberately sought out more of his work.  The epic Dekalog film series by Krzysztof Kieślowski is a work of brilliance.  It was my first introduction to the legendary director and by all means was the best one.