Talking about mountains.....this mounatin, Ulriken (643 m), is what I see from my window. (In fact I see more of a grey stone mass, as I live closer to the mountain than the point of view in the photo):
This mountain and the six other mountains that surround Bergen are very irritating, as they transform all clouds from the North Sea into rain.... _________________ Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen. = Those who don't know foreign languages, know nothing of their own. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Location: San Francisco, Noord-Kalifornië, Noord-Amerika
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:26 pm Post subject:
fab wrote:
But that's actually very subjective, in Champagne region there is a place which is called "la montagne de Reims", while it is only a little hill of 50 meters !!
My host during one of my trips to Moscow took me one day to what he described as "our mountain" in the quite flat region where his family's dacha was. He said it even had a waterfall. (This was after I'd shown him pictures of Yosemite.) The mountain turned out to be a respectable hill, high enough that I didn't feel like climbing it, having a bad hangover. But my friend insisted I had to see the waterfall, so I climbed the hill. The waterfall turned out to be the place where the water dropped about 1 foot (30.5 cm) from the pipe which was inserted in the opening of a spring on the side of the hill. My friend got a chuckle out of that.
I know the feeling. Right outside LC (only a little ways from my house, actually) there is a place called Dripping Springs Park. After a nice little 30 minute hike into the mountains:
you get to see the full eponymous glory of this little trickle:
I must admit that what that I often associate with extreme 'Northerliness' or extreme 'Southerliness' are grassy mountains, dry stone walls, lakes, small isolated cottages, and lots of sheep.
When I think of the so-called „extreme Northerliness“, then wooded landscapes, i.e. the taiga, enters my mind like in Finland, Sweden, Canada, Alaska and Russia. I wouldn't call the landscape of Scotland as being „extreme northern“- but maybe that's just subjective. _________________ Jeder hat ein Recht auf meine Meinung!
Lots of sheep in cold places, too, though -- like Scotland and New Zealand. And in hot places, like Australia and here. Sheep are pretty versatile.
Cattle are bred for various temperatures as well. European cattle tend to be adapted to cooler climes -- I know many breeds don't give milk well in the heat, lose weight, and don't reproduce as well. That's why many modern hot-climate cattle are the result of outcrosses between better milk and meat-producing European cattle (Bos taurus) and the tougher and more disease/pest/heat-tolerant Indian and African cattle (Bos indicus):
The Santa Gertrudis of Texas (a shorthorn/Brahman cross)
The Brangus (Angus/Brahman cross) -- also comes in black - first developed in the US, also popular in Australia
The Australian Milking Zebu (Jersey/Red Sindhi/Sahiwal cross)
That may be why they were not historically as favored in Southern Europe as sheep. Although we know that there a few good cattle breeds in Southern Europe -- the (now rare) Texas Longhorn is a Spanish descendant:
And of course, Greek mythology is full of bovine references, from minotaurs and Cretan bull dancing to Zeus seducing (apparently rather freaky!) Io as a bull, and Hera's symbol being the cow.
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