Strange things we do over here

Hi guys, the idea of this thread is that everyone post about something tipical in his country/region/town… Just a fun way to know something about other parts of the world.

I start: I’m from “Vilafranca del Penedès” (45 km from Barcelona - Spain), one of the most tipical things here is the wine, but thats boring and tipical in many other places, so I show you something different:


That is, as you can see, a human tower, there are competitions every year in many towns over here so if you come to Barcelona, don’t miss it. It is done only in Catalunya and the north of Valencia (north-east of Spain), so you won’t see it in the rest of the country.

BTW, the picture is made by me

I live in Rolla, Missouri. Nothing interesting happens here and nobody does anything.

lol

Well I live in Canberra… Nothing as interesting as you guys, but probably the only first-world capital city where you have to swerve out of the way of wildlife when driving through the CBD! :S

^As an ex canberra-ite I can say that having an MX5 was rather useful for dodging wildlife - also, don’t forget the Canberra motto of “Why have a straight road when a circular one would work!”

Now I’m in Melbourne and probably the unique thing we have is is clarkson voice “The biggest tram network… In the WORLD”

Practiacly every 3rd road in Melbourne has tram lines on it, leading to the delightful oddity known as the hook-turn, where to turn right, you wait in the LEFT lane until the light goes red, then turn across everything :open_mouth:

:astonished: You crazy Australians… :laughing:

swerving out of the way of wildlife has to be funny the first 5 times “wow, look at that cangaroo…”, after that i bet it becomes annoying.

P.S. I have no idea of what “CBD” stands for…

No its not all Australians just the crazy Victorians and there crazy drivers.

Only thing i can think of is http://www.lamrocklodge.com/bondi-pics/bondi-hot-day-800X600.gif

I dont think you could get any more people on a beach…

[quote=“armandkat”]
swerving out of the way of wildlife has to be funny the first 5 times “wow, look at that cangaroo…”, after that i bet it becomes annoying.

P.S. I have no idea of what “CBD” stands for…[/quote]

Yup, we get Kangaroos, which move at 25kph, weigh 80kg or so and randomly hop onto the road, and wombats that are a small roughly foot long stone ball with fur and eyes glued onto it, and an attitude that cars are something to have a headbutting contest with (fair enough given they have a decent chance of just running straight THROUGH your car :laughing:

Basically Kangaroos are for denting all your front panels, and wombats are for ripping off your bumper, ruining your suspension and flipping your car onto its roof.

CBD = Central Business District, so bascially the city centre with all the office blocks etc.

I googled wombat… never seen one before… you have really strange creatures in there… :open_mouth:

Strange, cute and deadly.

I live in America, we do this crazy thing here where we search the entire nation for the two biggest idiots in America, then have a presidential election between them every four years.

Seriously though, we have this weird thing in Cardiff-By-The-Sea, California (crazy town name too) where there’s a statue by the coast of a surfer riding a wave. The statue is officially titled “Magic Carpet Ride”, but locals call it “The Cardiff Kook” and it’s become a local tradition for anonymous people to do strange things to the statue, each one stranger than the last.

Everything from a bra and panties to a papier mache shark to a giant PVC and cloth pterodactyl has been tried, and yet we never run out of ideas. Sometimes these things make sense, such as when the breast cancer 3-day jog was going by and it was dressed in pink. Sometimes, however… I don’t even know if the people messing with the statue know what is being done to it.

Invariably, within a few days the statue is returned to normal. The first few times, it was considered vandalism and the police were involved, but eventually people got the joke and now some, like me, make a point of driving by it every week just to see what’s going on now!

There’s even a blog featuring some of the better pranks now: cardiffsurferstatue.wordpress.com/
The statue as it was originally designed:

The prank that put it on the map, though it wasn’t the first prank:

I still don’t know how this one was done:

Even the more normal ones have a lot of thought and work put in to them: this one features a painting of the street from the statue’s point of view:
http://www.lataco.com/taco/wp-content/uploads/vg-good-close-WEB.jpg
There is literally a new prank on average every 3-4 days, and they all have a lot of thought put into them!

@machalel & daffy

Well in the midwest states we have deer to avoid. And in alaska they have Moose who think that a highway is a perfect place to take a nap. :laughing:

But as for my hometown, this is what we do every st. patrick’s day…

Yes…we dye it green. Why, you ask? because we can.

And they are all poisonous or deadly. Don’t even get them started on the Drop Bears.

That drop bear took my bingo…
http://wallabydown.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/15.jpg

Yeah, Australian animals are pretty hardcore - but not in a Grizzly Bear way, more unexpected.

Wombats are pretty much the closest thing to a solid block of volvonium :stuck_out_tongue:
That is actually their natural defence - literally their ass is so hard that predators can’t bite it.

Copied from wikipedia (bolded for emphasis): The wombat’s primary defence is its toughened rear hide with most of the posterior made of cartilage. This, combined with its lack of a meaningful tail, makes it difficult for any predator that follows the wombat into its tunnel to bite and injure its target. When attacked, wombats dive into a nearby tunnel, using their rump to block a pursuing attacker. Wombats may allow an intruder to force its head over their back and then use their powerful legs to crush the skull of the predator against the roof of the tunnel, or drive it off with two-legged ‘donkey’ kicks.

They are hard enough that they will rip the sump etc out of your car if you run over one (not kidding)…

Oh, and they used to be even bigger :wink:

http://www.50birds.com/extan/images/extangiantaustralianmarsupial-diprotodon-ea.jpg

Yep they are natures mobile speed humps

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/files/imagecache/news/files/news/20110527_wombat_1.jpg

Here is one setting up now…

Here is another Australian animal that is forgotten a lot

Found in and around the rainforests of northern QLD, this is a cassowary and they can be a little angry.

Not to be confused with a EMU

ahhhh yeah… known for their fetish for head-butting and disembowelling :slight_smile:

In Norway, you simply don`t drive over the speed limit… Amry has little to do, and itchy triggerfingers :sunglasses:

And every year instead of a military parade (they are out shooting guns at speeders) we give every child between 6 and 18 a flag and march dem out into the streets in a hot-dog and ice-cream orgie to celebrate our indipendence from the evil danes!

http://www.elsfjord.no/Elsfjord_Bygdelag/hjemmeside%20bygdelaget/Leikarring.jpg

youtube.com/watch?v=ebqdwQzmSHM