Well maybe we should start a small thread about our hometowns.

Guten Tag is the german saying for "good afternoon" as there are similiar expressions to "good morning" (Guten Morgen) and "good evening" (Guten Abend).

So I will restart talking about places where you live by presenting my hometown.

My hometown is called Bochum. The city is part of a densely populated area in Germany the so called Ruhrgebiet (Ruhr-area named after the river Ruhr). It once was a heavily industrialized zone with lots of mining and steel production. The area stretches from big cities like Dortmund to Essen, Duisburg and is close to Düsseldorf. Many millions of people live in this area.

Concerning fairs and parks there are two big fairgrounds nearby Cranger Kirmes and Rheinwiesen at Düsseldorf. There are also two bigger parks: Warner Bros. Movie World and Centro Park. The last one is part of a newly formed mega-shopping complex called Centro in the city of Oberhausen.

But back to Bochum. It has more than 400.000 citizens. It has a famous stage (Schauspielhaus), is home to a big car producer (Opel - part of General Motors), a very successfull soccer team (VFL Bochum), is the hometown of a very famous german singer (Herbert Grönemeyer), has a more than x years running musical show called "Starlight Express", a big shopping mall (Ruhr-Park) with an enclosed water-park (Medi-Therme) and one of Germany's first Multiplex-cinemas (well, it was big in 1991). Bochum is also home to a German museum of mining with numerous exhibits reflecting on the regions history as the coal-mining heart of Germany.

I live in the city centre in close vicinity to the Schauspielhaus.
Bochum is famous for its nightlife and "Bermuda-Dreieck" (Bermuda-Triangle) with bars and cinemas.

More about Bochum can be found here.

So were do you come from? What should users know about your hometown?

My hometown is Frankfurt - not the smaller city named Frankfurt an der Oder (at the river Oder) which is located in the eastern part of Germany, but Frankfurt am Main, one of the cities most people from outside Germany now at least by its name - especially in the U.S., Frankfurt is quite well known since we used to have a lot of American soldiers here from WW2, until many of them moved back to the U.S. during the 1990s.

Frankfurt is well-known for the banks that are located in the citiy center, these banks also gave the city its skyline by building some skyscrapers - I guess Frankfurt ist the city in Germany with the most "American-looking" skyline.
Here in Frankfurt we also have a large airport, it's the most important international and intercontinental airport in Germany.

We also have some quite well known historic buildings, alsthough almost all of them are reconstructed, since most of the city was bombed down in WW2.

Really close to frankfurt, there are only smaller parks, the next park with a bigger roller coaster is Holiday Park, which is a bit more than one hour to drive. There are also smaller fairs in and adrund frankfurt, but none of them is as well known as the Cranger Kirmes for example.
I live in the northwestern part of the city, quite close to the Taunus mountains, but by subway it's just 15 minutes to the city center - so it's an ideal combination og a quiet area to live while being able to go to the city really fast.

I think that's enough talk about a city almost everybody knows...

Didn't you forget to mention the Äpplwoi?

Well, I don'T like it, so I didn't mention it.
But for anybody who's interested, I tell you about it.
There is a very special kind of wine people in the area around Frankfurt (and also in Frankfurt, of course) drink - the to called "Ebbelwoi" (it's written like this, Tejay )

I don'T understand how anybody can drink it, I prefer apple juice, but mabye "gero" can tell us more about that.

Well, I didn't remember the way the word is written, but I remember that Frankfurt was host to Eurogames (gay/lesbian European sports contest, I think in 1994) and that I got drunk on Ebbelwoi in the cellar of the "Römer", the townhouse of Frankfurt.

Zitat

"...There is a very special kind of wine people..."

Drink wine is an art....

Parsons

Drink wine is an art....

Maybe this is true for normal wine (I don't drink anything containing alcohol), but this is not true for Ebbelwoi... At least it doesn't look like an art, when you see perople from Frankfurt or tourists in Frankfurt in a typical Ebbelwoi-Kneipe"...

I understand you...if you could see some tourist at San Antonio (Ibiza) on summer...

Is it considered on Frankfurt as...folk?

Well...I live in Madrid.

My neighbourhood is near of the city center, at Vallecas district.

Madrid is a city where you can see a lot of palace and churchs, because at 1567, Felipe II ordered to all the court of the old Empire to move here. Streets like "Paseo de la Castellana", one of the most important streets in Madrid (and most large too), have only palaces at the left and right side of this street...like "Edificio Correos", "Palacio Linares", "Museo del Prado"...

Part of the town centre is a reflect of the history of the "Austrias" and the "Borbones", with a lot of incredible buildings like "Palacio Real". The limit between the new and contemporary Madrid and the old and historical Madrid, is a monument called "Puerta de Alcalá".

Like in New York, Madrid have a "Central Park", called "Retiro", with the old zoo, incredible gardens, the lake...and the only statue at the world dedicated to the devil...called "El Ángel Caído" ("The Falling Angel"...."Lucypher").

Economy and financial centre of Spain are in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. Madrid has the political (and monarchical) center...All the Ministrys are here.

The only fairs and theme parks in Madrid are "Parque de Atracciones" (at "Casa de Campo") and MW Madrid (at "San Martín de la Vega"...outside of the city...).

The king-sport here is...the football. We have three important teams: "Atlético de Madrid", "Rayo Vallecano", and...(the most important)...Real Madrid CF...

Art, Music, Cinema, Fashion, Theatre...are very important at Madrid. The neighbourhood of "Chueca" is one of the most innovatory places of Spain, with design restaurants, shops of any kind...and...with all kind of people.

But, the most relevant characteristic of Madrid is...the night...

Since eighties...Madrid changed...to be the capital of the "Movida". All the centre district (for example), at night, is a different city. If you like to go out at night, Madrid is the best city to do it (in summer Madrid relax itself a little...because the people goes to the coast or to the islands...like "Ibiza", "Mallorca", "Benidorm" or "Tenerife"). Madrid have all kind of ambients...and itŽs not important how you are...always you have a place to go..."Chueca", "Alonso Martinez", "Huertas", "Malasaña", "Tribunal", "Gran Vía", "Sol", "Latina"...Always you will find a place to be in...or to have a drink...Madrid have a incredible night culture...

Well I'm from Belgium. To be specific: Lier. Lier is laying in the northern part of Belgium, close from the border with Holland. Lier is quit a popular city for people who like old buildings, so we have 'De Sint Gummarus toren", "Zimmertoren" and we still have an old beguinage, which seems to be popualr all over Europe. Lier has also it's own beer called 'Caves' whitch is only served in the cafés and tavernes in Lier. As Bruges in Belgium is called the 'Venice from the North', Lier is called the 'Bruges of Northern Belgium'.

For the partypeople, Lier is the place to be. It has 2 discotheques who are very popular, La Rocca and Illusion...

Lier is also ideal if you want to visit the Belgian themeparks. Bobbejaanland is 10-15 mins away, SixFlags Belgium about 45 mins...from Efteling Lier is a 1 hour drive away, for Six Flags Holland 1h30 mins...

So that's quite what I've got to say about my hometown...

Hello, I'm from Waterloo in Belgium, this town is famous for the war that Napoleon lost in 1815. There is the battle field and the lion of Waterloo:


Quelle: users.skynet.be Lion.jpg


There are various museums about this war.

This is a nice town, with many parks, trees, ... and many English people live here (there is an English school).

Waterloo is in the smallest province of Belgium (Brabant Wallon/Waals Brabant/Brabante Valón/?), it is located near Brussels, the capital of Europe. In Brussels you can see the Atomium, Mini-Europe, the Belgian Comics books (Tintin/Kuifje/Tim, ...) museum, the old and beautiful Grand Place/Grote Markt/Plaza Mayor/...

Six Flags Belgium is 25 minutes aways from Waterloo; Bellewaerde Park, Efteling and Phantasialand are 1h30 away; and Six Flags Holland, Parc Astérix, Warner Bros. Movie World Germany, Walibi Lorraine and Disneyland Resort Paris are 2h30 - 3 hours away from Waterloo.

Who doesn't remember the song "Waterloo" from Abba ?

"Waterloo - Napoleon did surrender - Waaa- Waaa-Waaterloo, finally facing my Waterloo."

Well, I don't know that song.

For the first 20 years of my life I lived in a small village in Southwestern Ontario, called Innerkip. With a population of about 600 people it didn't take more than 15 minutes to walk from one end of town to the other. That's where I went to school, a few minutes from my house. In the evenings in the summer we'd all go outside and play Capture the Flag or other games where all the kids would get together and stuff like that.

A friend of mine and I were really into Mountain Biking and there were a lot of bike trails that we would go on in the countryside just outside of Innerkip. It's about 125 km west of Toronto, 10 km from 401, Canada's biggest highway.

When I moved out I moved to Kitchener-Waterloo/Cambridge. It used to be called Kitchener-Waterloo/Preston-Galt-Hespeler but the latter 3 cities became one big city and renamed it Cambridge. In my area there are about 750 000 people. It's about 75 km west of Toronto. I'm still close enough to my parents that I go over for dinner after work some days but far enough away that they don't bug me too much.

It's a neat area, and those of you from Germany might find it interesting that Kitchener's Oktoberfest celebration is the biggest one in North America. Unfortunatley there aren't any rides... and since I'm not really into drinking beer I haven't gone to it before.

members.rogers.com apartment010.jpg - Here's a view over Kitchener-Waterloo from my apartment, on a very cold morning last winter.

Someday, I'd like to move to Montreal, Quebec, and start my own company. We would be into designing, constructing, programming, and installing large rotating-type rides. I've got a lot of great ideas and the experience I've gained in my current job of designing automated assembly machines and custom robotics for the plastics industry might just help make my dream come true.

-Iain