Where In The World Is Scotty Sandiego?

Alrighty! First things first! Time for a little geography lesson! Some of you peeps have been inquiring about my whereabouts. Now I know that all of you know where I am, but many people are like "So you've moved to Prague! That's great! Ummm....where, exactly, is Prague?" Let the geographer in me enlighten you! :-)

Prague is a city, not a country. In fact, it is the capital city of the Czech Republic.

SPECIAL NOTE: Prague is NOT the capital of Czechoslovokia! Czechoslovakia no longer exists! In 1993 the Slovak half decided to go solo and has since then left us with two new, fully indepedent nations - the Czech Republic and Slovakia. If I catch *any* of you asking me about how life in Czechoslovakia is you'll get a firm and prompt spanking from yours truly!

Okay the above map is a little small and hard to read, but if you look for the dark green ovalish blob in the middle of Europe - that's Czech Republic! If you want greater detail, click here:

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_MAP/1_map_europe_2001_enlarged.htm

I don't remember Prague's exact latitude, but I believe it's around 50 N, which incidentally is pretty much the same latitude as Vancouver! (Or just a degree or two further north than ol' Thunder Bay.)

And, as you can see from the super-handy map that I've included, it is located in the heart of Europe and shares borders with Germany, Poland, Slovakia, and Austria. I heard the other day day apparently there is a field near a town just about 30 or so kilometres east of Prague with a post that supposedly marks the geographic centre of Europe. At least according to the local tourism market in such said town. I'm a little skeptical of this myself as who the bloody hell knows exactly where Europe begins and ends? Okay obviously on the west side with the Atlantic, but how far east does one have to travel before you're 'not in Europe' anymore? In high school we were taught that the Ural Mountains in Russia mark the boundary, but no one in Europe seems to know about that, and it *is* their land after all...

So what does one include as Europe then? (consulting my Risk boardgame didn't help me very much either with this situation, if including 'Siam' and 'Kamchatka' as political entities within asia are any indication, I should not use the ol' 'whatever is blue in Risk' as a means of answering this question.) So what do I include then? Half of Russia? None of Russia? Only EU members?

God, good luck with using that as a means to measure Europe's frontier! With new members being added every year who can keep up? I mean yeah we're thankful that the Czechs are members now, but these days the once exclusive club seems to be willing to let in just about anybody. Apparently all one needs to do in order to be accepted into the EU is to remotely vaguely share a geographic proximity, be willing to drop capital punishment, and be able to spell E-U-R-O-P-E. Romania and Bulgaria are about to be admitted in January, things are lining up for TURKEY of all places, and there's even talks of Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus being added in the future. Okay the Ukraine I could maybe see - things with Chernobyl have settled down a bit so now only 44% of the country remains uninhabitable, but no one in Brussels can even find Moldova on a map, and HELLO! Belarus remains as the only military dictatorship government left in the Western world. So now they can come to the EU party too? I'm all about being inclusive and welcoming, but let's get serious here folks - someone's gotta draw the line!

However... *pondering deeply*

These invitations en masse do seem ripe for hatching my long-planned ultimate goal of having Canada ditch NAFTA and join the European Union. CLEARLY this is in our best interests. Canada keeps getting screwed around by the States (example: softwood lumber, salmon, oil and gas deposits in the Arctic), we started off as a European colony and many of us have grandparents that were born in the 'The Old Land', and we're still a happy member of the Commonwealth. God save the Queen and all that shit, right? Our dollar has been gaining strength (and could potentially pass the US dollar in value one day?) and, these days anyways, culturally we have more in common with our trendy and fashionable Euro cousins than our neighbours to the south. (The decision to stay out of Iraq, the legalization of gay marriage, the decriminalization of small possession of marijuana...) And hey I don't know about you but I'd give up my left nut to have in my hot little hands a real proper EU Passport. It would sure as hell save me from a lot of bureaucracy over here in the Czech Republic, and it would also mean that I could don a fake unidentifiable Europeanish accent in order to impress friends back home! And that is *definitely* something worth ditching NAFTA for! ;-)

Okay this entry was just supposed to be an excuse for me to test out the images section of blogger, and include a map of Europe, but now I've rambled on and on (quelle surprise!) and in the process pissed off both the frontier Eastern Europeans *and* my American pals. Uh-oh - looks like Scotty's blog is back in business! ;-)