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Just judging by the views and foliage, Kosovo still felt and looked like Serbia. Then you take that valley down to Skopje and holy poo poo, it’s hard to wrap your head how little it looks like the rest of EE (and how much it looks and feels like Greece). But also, since I asked that question, I had a walk down downtown Skopje and yeah, it not only feels like EE but Russia too.
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Apr 4, 2024 20:05
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Mokotow posted:I thought Kosovo had absolute lunatic drivers, but then we came into Macedonia today and holy poo poo. It’s so bad that we decided to change our route and go around through Greece to reach the lakes on the other end of the country. im kinda surprised at how low Tajikistan is in the world list (because apparently Africa, Southeast Asia, and for some reason, Saudi Arabia are absolutely nuts), but it's still at ~16 deaths per 100k pop to North Macedonia's ~5 😬 i assume a lot of that is the post-Soviet practice of believing seatbelts are abhorrent though
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Apr 4, 2024 20:18
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Qtotonibudinibudet posted:i assume a lot of that is the post-Soviet practice of believing vodka protects you from anything bad happening and meth gives you matrix time freeze powers though
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Apr 4, 2024 20:21
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Looks like I’m in luck - the presidential campaign is kicking off today and there’s an VMRO DPMNE rally in Skopje. It’s super loud and there’s lots of (familiar) shouting about finally standing up from our knees and regaining lost honor. Also, another bucket of meat was had, this time I think it was a variation on a gulash but I chose it due to the name - svojske meso. Not sure how many more days of this my body can take. Oh! Also! Apparently you can still smoke indoors throughout the Balkans! It super sucks! (I’ll stfu for the next few days as I drive down to Greece, but I’m coming back through Albania, Montenegro and BiH next week). Mokotow fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Apr 4, 2024 |
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Apr 4, 2024 20:29
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I'm really, really glad that there was a widespread effort in Finland to make smoking terribly inconvenient if you're not at your house.
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Apr 4, 2024 20:39
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This made me look up stuff for US, and while I don't know what this site is, it seems consistent with other places that have numbers:
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Apr 4, 2024 20:55
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Is USA honorary Eastern Europe?
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Apr 4, 2024 21:03
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Wyoming looks like a strong candidate, yes
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Apr 4, 2024 21:07
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It's the trukks
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Apr 4, 2024 21:08
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Holy poo poo makes me glad I somehow survived my trip to Yellowstone
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Apr 4, 2024 21:29
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So that's why there are so few people in Wyoming, they crash their cars before they can reproduce
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Apr 4, 2024 21:35
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https://www.thezebra.com/resources/driving/car-accidents-by-state/#:~:text=1.,100%2C000%20people%20from%20car%20accidents.quote:While Wyoming only reported 114 fatal crashes in 2020, it had a death rate of 22 per 100,000 people. 
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Apr 4, 2024 21:47
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Mokotow posted:Oh! Also! Apparently you can still smoke indoors throughout the Balkans! It super sucks! I have bad news for you about Greece and smoking
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Apr 4, 2024 22:13
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Mokotow posted:There’s this undercurrent in developed countries that produce from less developed countries (also: less regulated) is better, fresh, etc. In Poland, we tend to consider bread as something that was “lost” due to, I dunno, EU regulations, and “you can’t get bread like you used to!”. The worst part is I agree! I think bread used to be much better, and I recon so was meat. Just get a stand mixer and make your own. I've never had good bread in Poland, Germany or other mid european nations, you guys are no Croatia, Italy or Hungary. T. Used to have an annual roadtrip through entire europe from 98-09 Whuda thunk having no standards for safety once the car rolls off the dealers lot isn't good. But at least the car manufacturers lobbied(bribed) the government to ensure those unsafe used foreign cars don't get imported and that you need to buy a truck just to tow. haddedam fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Apr 5, 2024 08:56
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I'll poke fun at what's over here all the time but if you think Italian bread is better than Polish bread then you are objectively in a tiny minority. I did have bread almost as good in Norway whenever I was there. They're real proud of their bread. Almost as much as their coffee (for which they're mostly correct in being). It was nice and not leagues away from Polush bread but ours is still better. Bright Bart fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Apr 5, 2024 |
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Apr 5, 2024 09:07
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I guess weak people are afraid of rye
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Apr 5, 2024 09:08
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haddedam posted:I've never had good bread in Poland, Germany or other mid european nations, you guys are no Croatia, Italy or Hungary. Wie bitte‽
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Apr 5, 2024 09:22
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Rinkles posted:Can’t say I agree about the bacon. It’s one of the things I try to buy at Polish stores (I’m in NJ) because it’s so much better. Maybe I need to try fancier American bacon because what I’ve eaten really doesn’t compare. Maybe they are shipping the good stuff to the US, but any bacon I've ever had here* hasn't been salty enough and doesn't crisp up properly, it's always kind of wet and flaccid. *I actually had some GREAT bacon this morning at a place in Warsaw called SERSO in praga. Delicious bagels, which is also a rarity in Poland.
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Apr 5, 2024 09:42
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Bagels aren't the best in Poland but I don't really blame anyone for that. They're getting better. And to make real bagels you need either a multi-stage process involving NYC municipal water or a special oven from Montréal. I'm not sure anywhere in Europe has proper bagels outside of one or two places in metropolises like London/Paris/Berlin that specifically advertise that they use NYC/MTL recipes and equipment.
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Apr 5, 2024 10:21
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Bagels and such are complete unobtanium so I just make my own. Most good food I have to make my own cause iron curtain stunted gastronomic development in baltics and made it go back to survival mode.
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Apr 5, 2024 10:25
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I really enjoy reading the road trip reports, this is so much fun. By the way, what's with the invasion of sci-fi Clinton avatars?
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Apr 5, 2024 10:32
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Bright Bart posted:Bagels aren't the best in Poland but I don't really blame anyone for that. well i think herr hitler may deserve a lot of the blame
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Apr 5, 2024 10:45
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Torrannor posted:I really enjoy reading the road trip reports, this is so much fun. Clinton is a cool chick who is maybe juuust corrupt enough to seem relatable in our neck of the woods. Poland can into space And the Stars & Stripes? Haven't you see everything from pierogies to vodka being stamped with 'em on the label for positive association?
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Apr 5, 2024 10:57
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Torrannor posted:By the way, what's with the invasion of sci-fi Clinton avatars? Someone bought them en masse to more than 30 regulars at the GBS Ukraine war thread as a punishment for being mean to the glorious Russia, and kept rebuying them if someone tried to switch back.
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Apr 5, 2024 11:08
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Political avs is always CSPAM nonsense. It's whatever.
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Apr 5, 2024 11:16
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armpit_enjoyer posted:A radioactive source came up missing in Kraków. Knowing this country, we’ll put the Goiana incident to shame. Reminds me of the German guy who just walked off his job with a licence to buy Plutonium and the idiots didn't realize, for years, that he actually wasn't allowed anymore to buy radioactive materials From memory, he kept hoarding Plutonium in his cellar, until the police came to arrest him. Someone had tipped them off that the guy was collecting unreasonable amounts of dangerous chemicals in his house, as a hobby. He then panicked and buried the Plutonium in his garden when the police arrived, but then got arrested anyway, because of all the other dangerous poo poo in his collection. He then told the police during interrogation about his hidden Plutonium stash, and the police called for specialists. They walked over the idiot's grounds with a Geigerzähler, found and then dug out and confiscated the Plutonium. I remember reading this in our local news a couple years back and checking twice that the article wasn't posted on April 1st.
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Apr 5, 2024 11:31
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Just a quick blurb here that while Skopje as a city sucks ballz, Macedonia is shockingly beautiful and the highway from Skopje to Greece is one of the most wonderful roads I drove on. Both Greece and Macedonia are stretching the definition of toll highway. In Macedonia, people have houses with drives connected directly to the highway shoulder. Right now in Greece I’m on a pay highway that’s one lane each way and allows overtaking
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Apr 5, 2024 12:35
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Bright Bart posted:I'll poke fun at what's over here all the time but if you think Italian bread is better than Polish bread then you are objectively in a tiny minority. people don’t buy ciabatta or focaccia, people across the world line up to buy uh ah chleb ziemniaczany and szołdra  🤢
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Apr 5, 2024 13:23
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had to google what a szołdra is and lol at the alt name on wikipedia
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Apr 5, 2024 13:30
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Never heard of szołdra and holy poo poo that alt name
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Apr 5, 2024 13:37
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Forget the name, almond meal bread with ham and sausage? 
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Apr 5, 2024 13:38
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advanced statsman posted:people don’t buy ciabatta or focaccia, people across the world line up to buy uh ah chleb ziemniaczany and szołdra Actually, yes, depending on what we mean as the world over. I have lived in places with more Italians than Poles and Germans combined and yet Polish and German bakeries are more popular than Italian ones which also exist there. And I don't know any place flying over frozen ciabatta bread from Italy like they do sourdough rye from Poland and the Baltics.
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Apr 5, 2024 15:24
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haddedam posted:Bagels and such are complete unobtanium so I just make my own. I think it's less the iron curtain and more our bland-rear end palate, Caucasus food owns
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Apr 5, 2024 16:22
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I had the best Central Asian meal on my life in Vilnius. Ranks in my top 10 meals eaten for sure.
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Apr 5, 2024 16:47
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Yo, śledzie i sałatka jarzynowa are delicious.
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Apr 5, 2024 16:52
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What's that Polish movie where a kid goes to a boarding school but it's scary I think maybe he finds out that he's actually a robot or the other kids are. Maybe one is built there while he's attending. I distinctly remember being real scared when skin os pulled away to show metal innards.
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Apr 5, 2024 19:38
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I’m thinking Akademia Pana Kleksa
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Apr 5, 2024 19:51
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Bright Bart posted:Actually, yes, depending on what we mean as the world over. Polish immigrant lines outside of a Polski Sklep in London/Hamburg shadow the fact that you can literally buy focaccia the world over I'm sure. Like I don't get it, what's the defensible line to state that "people think Polish bakery is superior to literally world renown Italian bakery--present literally in every continent and in every large city" (and that right after "Polish luxury brands are the real 1% stuff" lol). Poland, nor anywhere in EE/CEE/whatever, doesn't need imported nationalism, especially not in areas where pride is only about locality and not quality. It's mind boggling tbh.
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Apr 5, 2024 21:18
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advanced statsman posted:(and that right after "Polish luxury brands are the real 1% stuff" lol) We're not going to go back to this, but I mentioned specific examples of publications saying this. I would look them up but I'm not sure it would do much good. If I found the Economist articles and Monocle articles and Robb Report articles saying this, would you get around the paywall to read them? It's not nationalism. I genuinely think this. I may be wrong of course. But I have suspicions as to the claim that Italian bread is world famous for its quality. While I have seen with my own eyes upscale grocers selling 10 GBP loaves of frozen Polish and Lithuanian bread. And it's not working class Polish immigrants buying them. If I told you that Polish pastry is better than French pastry you could call me out. But I'm not doing that.
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Apr 5, 2024 21:29
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Cuisine wars are the stupidest arguments. Putting a pineapple in a pizza might be a war crime in Italy but who cares, the entire Nordics are enjoying the pepperoni/chicken, pineapple and blue cheese pizza because it works. What are the Italians going to do about it, write an angry letter to EU and try to ban it? EDIT: And pineapple is ananas, its not from pines, its not an apple, and it should not be named universally as pineapple because some drunken hicks from Southport UK though that it kinda looks like something that came out from a pine tree.
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Apr 5, 2024 21:34
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