Geography

273’2022 (2022-09-30) – Friday

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Hoje, eu aprendi que:

Brasil pode não ser o país mais rico financeiramente, mas quando se pensa em riqueza cultural está definitivamentemente no topo.

Tive o prazer de assistir um show com o sambista Paulinho da Viola e sua família no Sesc em São Carlos na semana passada. A foto do cabeçalho mostra Paulinho flanqueados por Beatriz e João. Paulinho toca seu cavaquinho com mestria, Beatriz canta e João toca o violão, e ainda há um trio acompanhando por piano, bateria e guitarra.

Paulinho é uma homem muito carismâtico. Possui 79 anos, mas da maneira que ele age parece mais como um jovem artista de 29 anos, impressionante! No show foram apresentadas várias músicas conhecidas dele, de uma carreira com mais de 50 anos. Para quem quer conhecer as músicas, há amplas possibilidades pela internet, mas quero somentar acrescentar uma estória que ele contou.

Paulinho está muito ligado à escola de samba carioca Portela, mas uns atrás participou, sem querer, numa competição de canções de samba em São Paulo e ganhou um prêmio. Isso não foi recebido bem na Portela. Em compensação, Paulinho escreveu “Foi um rio que passou em minha vida”. A estória completa segue aqui, mas infelizmente a qualidade do som não está muito boa:

Paulinho da Viola conta a estória que fez ele compensar a Portela com a bela canção “Foi um rio que passou em minha vida”.

Mais sobre Paulinho na referência 1, abaixo.

Paulinho da Viola with daughter Beatriz, son João e and a trio performing at Sesc in São Carlos on 263’2022 (2022-09-20).

(The story above in Portuguese is about a show that the samba legend Paulinho da Viola held in São Carlos last week. The header photo shows him together with his daughter Beatriz and son João, as well as an accompanying trio. More about Paulinho da Viola can be found in reference #2 below.)

And, finally, soon there will be some photos from my May visit to Ouro Preto. In my blogs from 151’2022 (2022-05-31) and 181’2022 (2022-06-30) I already showed you some pictures, and during the month of December there will be more to come.

That’s what I learned in school today!

Ref.:

1: Paulinho da Viola (em português)

2: Paulinho da Viola (in English)

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212’2022 (2022-07-31) – Sunday

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Today, I learned about:

The World Athletics Championships, held in Eugene, OR, USA, just ended last Sunday after 10 interesting days full of exciting competitions. And as a Swede, once more I had to admit that “Patience is a virtue”. After two bronze medals in the race walk 20 km and 35 km by Perseus Karlström, we had to wait to the final competition, the male pole vault, to see a Swede (albeit dual American and Swedish citizen), Armand Duplantis, finish on top of the podium. And what a fantastic result, 6,21 m, new world record! As you can see from the screenshots below, if the bar had been placed on 6,29 m, in principle he would have made it at that height, as well!

Here it is, the new world record in male pole vault. Armand Duplantis closed the World Athletic Championships in Eugene in the best possible way. If he had continued, would he have made it even higher, such as 6,29 m ??? I think he will show that to us later on.

And there was another thing, that few people noticed, that also made me very content. You may remember that in my post of 212’2021 (2021-07-31) , I complained about the distorted names for all competitors who did not conform to the basic ASCII code, but had their names made almost illegible. Well, the organizers of the World Athletics Championships must have read that post, because they made a fantastic job in writing all names the way nature created them. As you can see below, the aformementioned medallist, race walker Perseus Karlström, finally obtained what he deserves.

This is only one example of all the correct spellings of the athletes participating in the World Athletics Championships in Eugene.

But there was one, tiny detail that failed in that context. The German heptathlon athlete Sophie Weißenberg got a dual personality!

In German, there is an old letter ß, which nowadays often is spelled ss. As you can see in this sequence of screenshots, the pentathlon athlete Sophie Weißenberg seems to be treated by the organizers as a transition between the old and the new style way of writing. Even though the old style is really the most correct way, the new style is normally accepted now. However, may we ask that next time Sophie appears in the World Athletics Championships, only one way would be used in all writing of her name? If you want to know more about these fantastic sports and their athletes, see reference # 1 below.

And, finally, here are some pictures from my tour in Minas Gerais. All of them below are from the town of Tiradentes.

Photos taken in the town of Tiradentes, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, on 143-144’2022 (2022-05-23–24). This is one of the historical places in this state that is being conserved to look like in the 18th century, when Brazil was a Portuguese colony. The name Tiradentes literally means a person who withdraws teeth, which in many cases were what the dentists then had to do. And Tiradentes is mainly connected with such person, whose real name was Joaquim José da Silva Xavier and who was leading a rebellion against the Portuguese reign over Brazil. He was condemned and hanged on April 21, 1792. April 21 is now a national holiday in Brazil, Tiradentes Day. The object in the middle of the lower row is a speciality of the town of Tiradentes. It is a hearth in which alcohol is burnt to produce a warm and cosy atmosphere, the same principle as the one used in the rechaud of a fondue equipment. More about Tiradentes can be found in reference #2 below.

And one more thing, I took today’s header photo, an ordinary street view with an extraordinary sunset, yesterday 211’2022 (2022-07-30) in Paranavaí, PR, Brazil:

An amazing sunset in Paranavaí, PR, Brazil, a photo I took on 211’2022 (2022-07-30).

That’s what I learned in school today!

Ref.:

1: World Athletics Championships 2022

2: Tiradentes

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181’2022 (2022-06-30) – Halftime

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Today, I learned about:

They say that time flies and nothing seems to be more true than that these days. One month ago I promised you some nice pictures from my visit to Minas Gerais, unfortunately I have not had sufficient time to complete them. But do not worry, here in Brazil they say “Promessa é dívida”, meaning that a promise is a debt, and I owe it you! In July, they will appear here! In Sweden they say “Den som väntar på något gott kan inte vänta för länge”, i.e. whoever waits for anything good cannot wait too long!

In the meantime, the photo you see below is yet another one from Ouro Preto, taken by Graziela Gabrielli on 146’2022 (2022-05-26) in the gardens of the Church Nossa Senhora do Carmo. That is what I call a tranquil view!

Photo taken in Ouro Preto on 146’2022 (2022-05-26) by Graziela Gabrielli in the gardens of the Church Nossa Senhora do Carmo.

While you are waiting for the next photos to appear, I do have a teaser for you, and it is also from the state of Minas Gerais. One week ago, the world knew that a Brazilian cheese, from Serra da Canastra in the Southeastern corner of the state, was selected as the very best in the world by the American culinary guide Taste Atlas:

If you want to learn more about the cheese from Canastra, see reference #1 below.

That’s what I learned in school today!

Ref.:

1: Canastra cheese

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151’2022 (2022-05-31) – Monday

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Today, I learned about:

What a fantastic world we live in! Last week I travelled to the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais (which means General mines) on invitation from my student of Swedish, Adriana Bizzotto, together with her colleague Graziela Gabrielli. Thank you both for a very interesting week!

The trip started in the state capital, Belo Horizonte, where we had some marvellous meals. Then on Monday, we travelled south to visit Tiradentes, a town named after the Brazilian revolutionary who is known to be the person who started the upheaval against the Portugese colonizers at the end of the 18th century. The town is always crowded with visitors who want to see more of this well preserved town. On Wednesday, we continued north to Ouro Preto, a well known town in the Unesco World Heritage Program. And there were even more tourists there.

During the coming months, I will publish some interesting photos from the trip. To start with, the following photo was taken by Adriana on 147’2022 (2022-05-27) in the center of Ouro Preto and it shows the church of Saint Francis in the middle and other interesting buildings to the right.

Photo taken in Ouro Preto on 147’2022 (2022-05-27) by Adriana Bizzotto showing the Church of Saint Francis in the middle and other historical buildings to the right.

Stay connected to see the other photos, coming soon!

That’s what I learned in school today!

Ref.:

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120’2021 (2021-04-30) – Valborg

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Today, I learned about:

We have experienced yet another interesting month in our lives, and what follows below is of course only a small portion of what I really wanted to publish.

Complement to my post about Vasaloppet

In my post of 87’2021 (2021-03-28) , I wrote about the traditional ski race Vasaloppet. It starts in the town of Sälen and ends in Mora, 90 km away. One of my faithful readers sent me a nice picture from the same Sälen, where he recently enjoyed a different kind of skiing, going downhill. You can see it here, taken at the peak Hundfjället (“Dog mountain”).

Hundfjället is a popular ski resort in the Swedish town of Sälen, province of Dalarna, close to the Norwegian border.

Making it easier to deal with the proposed numbering of days

In my post of 9’2021 (2021-01-09) , I suggested that we started to think about a new, unified way of writing dates, abolishing the months and changing to a sequential count of the days in the year.

Many people have expressed their support of the proposed scheme, but raise doubts about how we more easily can get used to it. Therefore, here is one way, turning the cell phone’s lockscreen into a monthly calendar, with both the current and the proposed day count and making it also function as a communications tool between peoples and languages.

This is an example of what I write above, and which also helps Swedes and Brazilians to know the holidays in each other’s countries. It is meant for the lockscreen of an iPhone SE with 640 x 1136 pixels, but can easily be adapted to any cell phone by anyone with a little patience and imagination. The picture at the bottom was taken last week in the Southern Swedish city of Lund, with its well-known university in the background. It shows how Spring is invading Sweden from the South. Thanks to my friend Eva Pulverer for her delightful participation!

That’s what I learned in school today!

Ref.:

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87’2021 (2021-03-28) – Only in Marss

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Today, I learned about:

Also the month of March has been quite interesting with some things that can only happen this month. Here they are:

The first Thursday of March

Although this special day started to be celebrated a decade ago, I only learned about it this month. It is a kind of unofficial local holiday for the Swedish landskap (province) of Småland in the South East of Sweden. I already spent five months of my military training there during the 1970s and so of course I had already notice that the locals have a big difficulty in speaking the combination of r and s in Swedish words. In normal Swedish, this is pronounced as a so called supra dental, where the r and s flow together. However, in Småland, that is not the case, they pronounce it as a sound containing two s’s. A linguistic explanation (in Swedish) can be found in reference # 1 below. It is linguist Jenny Öqvist at Institutet för språk och folkminnen (Institute for Language and Folklore) who has broken the sounds down into minute details. She also took the following photo of a cake served on this special day. It is a popular sponge cake in Sweden, with whipped cream and vanilla in between the layers, with a topping of marzipan, normally known as Princess cake, due to its connection with three Swedish princesses in the 1930s.

A man from Småland named Jonas Svenningson came up with the idea to start celebrating the pronunciation of ˜första torsdagen i mars˜ (meaning the first Thursday of March) in Småland as particularly interesting, because it is ˜fösta tossdan I mass˜. The idea spread like wildfire and now it is celebrated as Småland’s local, ˜national day˜.

A typical cake celebrating the First Thursday of March. Photo by Jenny Öqvist from Institutet för språk och folkminnen.

The first Sunday of March

In my post of 66’2016 (2016-03-06) , I wrote about the traditional Swedish ski competition Vasaloppet, which is held every year on the first Sunday of March. This year, due to the on-going pandemic, only 400 selected top athletes could participate and what a race they made! The excellent weather conditions, well prepared tracks, sunny weather and -6 degrees Celsius resulted in that both the male winner, Tord Asle Gjerdalen from Norway, and the female winner, Lina Korsgren from Sweden, broke the records for the race. More details can be found in reference #2 below.

Sweden’s floral emblem

Each of the landskap (provinces) in Sweden has its own flower, but so far there had not been any national flower for the whole of Sweden. Until now!

Svenska botaniska föreningen (Swedish botanical society) invited the Swedish population to vote for their favorite flower. In the first voting phase were selected ten candidates, which participated in a final round to decide the winner.

And the winner is:

Liten blåklocka, Latin name Campanula rotundifolia! See also reference #3 below for more details.

Sweden’s floral emblem, liten blåklocka (small bluebell). Photo by Leif Engquist

The Öresund bridge

And last, but not least, my sincere thanks to my friend Graziela Gabrielli, who so graciously gave me her permission to publish the beautiful photo she took from the Swedish side on the high summer day of 197’2019 (2019-07-16), showing the bridge that since 2000 connects Sweden and Denmark over the straight of Öresund, thus called Öresundsbron (Öresund bridge).

More about Öresundsbron can be found in reference #4.

That’s what I learned in school today!

Ref.:

1: Fössta tossdan i mass

2: Vasaloppet 2021

3: Campanula rotundifolia

4: Öresundsbron

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2020-07-31 (Clash of titans!)

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Today, I learned about:

At midnight today we will stand before a fact that only happens once in a calendar year. You might remember from your school days a mnemonic to remember the length of a certain month. Start with your left hand and where there is knuckle that corresponding month has 31 days, the valleys in between are for months with normally 30 days, except for February. Put your to hands together and you have two knuckles without any valley between them. This is of course July and August.

So how come this phenomenon? This, as many other things, has its origin in Rome, around the beginning of the Christian era of counting the years. The former month namned sextilis, meaning the sixth month, was renamed to that of Emperor Augustus as a tribute to his many feats during that certain month. But why 31 days also in August, and as in July? There is a common misconception, invented in 13th century, that Augustus wanted to have his month equal to that of the great Julius Caesar. Well, that is fake news! It is was already that way when the Julian calendar was introduced by Julius Caesar in the year 45 BC. And furthermore, the two consecutive months December and January, both also have 31 days. So, really, there is no good, plausible reason for this question. See also reference # 1 below.

Now over to some geography. My good old friend Arthur and his family recently visited the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. And as you have seen before, when they travel, my friends spread out over the world, remember me! They send me photos of the place, so that I can show them to you. My warmest thanks to Arthur, and all his predecessors in this great habit!

The High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community, the origins of what today has expanded to be the European Union, in Luxemburg. Photo taken by Arthur Ribas Teixeira on 2020-07-16.

The photo above was taken in the center of the capital of Luxembourg, which also is called Luxembourg (and sometimes Luxembourg City)! The building in the middle is famous for, among our things, to have been the seat of the High Authority of the ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community), consisting of six member countries. This was the origin of the current European Union (EU), and the High Authority these days is called the European Commission. So it is no coincidence that you see all those flags from Luxembourg and the EU in the forefront. See also references # 2 and 3 below.

Below are some more photos from Luxembourg, enjoy!

Photos from Luxembourg City, all taken on 2020-07-16 by Arthur Ribas Teixeira

You have probably heard and seen that NASA has sent another mission to explore Mars. It was launched yesterday, and as a tribute, all articles in a newsletter from HowStuffWorks (HSW) on the same day were also about Mars, quite interesting stuff! In reference # 4 below is an article the new NASA Perseverance Rover which will search for signs of a ancient Martian Life. Look up the article and while you are on the HSW website, I suggest you sign up for their newsletter, so that you will have many interesting stories to read in the future.

The following subject is something that is constantly on everyone’s mind these days, the Covid-19 pandemic. So, why not take it from the humorous side, for once?

BACK TO SCHOOL! Cartoon made by Benett, published in Folha de S. Paulo on 2020-07-30

Finally, tomorrow I will celebrate the 10th anniversary of my favourite online game, Wordfeud. I have been addicted since April, 2012. Don’t know Wordfeud? Look at my post from 2016-03-18 !

That’s what I learned in school !

Ref.:

1: Julian calendar

2: History of the European Coal and Steel Community (1945–1957)

3: Luxembourg City

4: NASA’s Perseverance Rover to Search for Signs of Ancient Martian Life

*: What did you learn in school today ?

2019-05-31 (Friday)

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Today, I learned that:

I owe a big apology to all my faithful readers for having been absent with new posts for almost two months, so let me make it up today with a quite few interesting facts:

1. Image of a black hole

During the month of April, we received the astonishing news that astronomers had finally managed to catch a black hole on film. The image was captured by the Event Horizon telescope (EHT), a network of eight radio telescopes spanning locations from Antarctica to Spain and Chile, in an effort involving more than 200 scientists. Read more about it in ref. #1 below.

The image of a black hole captured by the Event Horizon Telescope. Photo by the EHT Collaboration team, consisting of 200 astronomers at eight different telescope sites.

2. Late Easter (continuation from earlier post)

In my post of 2019-03-05 I wrote about the late date of Easter this year, and as you may remember my friend, the German-Swedish meteorologist André Franke explained it all for us.

However, I have received comments about this subject. In 2019, the March equinox occurred on March 20, and there was a full moon already the next day, March 21. So, why was not Easter Sunday celebrated on March 24? André can explain that, as well. It is quite complicated, but here is the short explanation:

It all started in year 325, when the First Church Council of Nicaea among other things decided that the March equinox should always fall on March 21, and then Easter Sunday would always be the first Sunday following the first full month after the March equinox. But as we know, the Earth’s rotation around the Sun is not exactly 365 days. It is approximately 6 h more, and that causes that the fixed March equinox day is not always the same actual, astronomical day for the same equinox, as happened this year.

If you want know the long story, take a look at reference #2. Unfortunately, it is written in Swedish, but there are many other sources around the internet that can tell the same story.

3. Baarle

Baarle is a village right on the border between the Netherlands and Belgium. 91 % of the total area of the village belongs to the Dutch, the rest is Belgian. But it is not a clean cut, there are in fact 16 Belgian exclaves within the Dutch territory, and they in turn surround seven Dutch areas. See also reference #3 below. Thanks to Radio Sweden’s Andreas Liljeheden for yet another idea to an interesting blog fact, see also ref. 4 below! (You may remember Andreas’s earlier contribution to my blog on 2018-10-20, when he presented the donkey steps in the EU headquarters in Brussels.)

Andreas Liljeheden posing on a selfie in Baarle, in a street where both the Dutch and Belgian flags are blowing in the wind side by side.

4. Different maps of the world

One of my interests is maps, traditional, historic, different kinds of maps – you name them! It is therefore a great pleasure for me to present a total of 45 different maps of the world, the big majority of them are without doubt something you have never seen before. Click on the link of ref. #5 below and start being amazed. (I like maps #1, 2, 7, 8, …)

That’s what I learned in school !

Refs.:

1: Black hole picture captured for first time in space breakthrough

2: Vårdagjämning, fullmåne och ovanligt sen påsk: därför ser almanackan underlig ut 2019

3: Baarle

4: Andreas Liljeheden om ett avgörande EU-val

5: 45 Amazing World Maps

*: What did you learn in school today ?