The Real Life Adventures of Emily Sinclair

On July fifth, around eight-thirty in the evening, the McConnell home was invaded by a foreigner of viking origins. A Dane. Or, in other words, Louise came all the way from Denmark to visit me for a week! This blog post is way, way, wayyy overdue, but better late than never, right? I first met Louise on a penpal site about two years ago, and we’ve been good penpals ever since. She taught me so much about Denmark and even did a special on the blog a couple years ago about her country. (See Country Spotlight: Denmark ) This spring we were discussing our respective churches and I made the joke she could come visit my church but it might be a long commute. Her response? “Oh, I’d love to visit your church. And you.” “That would be so much fun,”I replied, thinking of it as another “someday” thing of many someday things. “I would love to meet you too! We could go on grand adventures while you are here.” “That would be great!” She then paused, and said, “I’m not busy th...

Good morning, my dear readers! Oh, I can just imagine the excitement in the eyes of a few of the followers at seeing the title of this blog post. That’s right, folks, today we are spotlighting the historic land of Scotland, brought to you by a real Scotsman and friend of mine, Lee! Lee has agreed to join us today and talk about Scottish history and culture with us. Are you ready for some good ol’ Celtic traditions? Good, because we’re about to get this interview started! First off, Lee, why don’t you introduce yourself to the readers? Lee: Hello everyone, it is an honour to be invited to talk about my homeland.  My name is Lee and I was born in a town called Fraserburgh in the North East of Scotland. The youngest of two, I grew up with my grandmother in a small town called Laurencekirk which is 30 miles from both Aberdeen and Dundee. I went to both primary school and academy here and I graduated in 2014.

Dannebrog. Image provided by Morguefile.com Helllooo readers! Well, it’s another Monday. And it’s another month. And since last month Lina was so gracious to to a spotlight post with me on Sweden, today I’m bringing along another friend to do another country spotlight for you. This surprise comes from the waters across the way of Sweden, a small country that has held a giant role in the history of the Nordic countries, and Europe in general. Today I want to introduce you to my good friend Louise! Louise, thank you sooo much for joining us here on the blog today and doing an interview with us. Why don’t you tell the readers about yourself? Louise: Thank you for letting me join you, and I’m looking forward to tell you something about my little country!

Image from Morguefile.com Could it be? Has it finally come true? It is, dear blog readers! I promised you a surprise, and I am going to deliver it today! So what was in France but isn’t from there? What hasn’t been in America and was very busy? *Drum roll* *Pause for dramatic effect* *Put in 'read more' gadget to make you get really excited*

Image provided by Morguefile. By the way don't text while you drive! ;) Bad example of that, hehe. ;)  I'm a huge fan of personified country comics/stories. They make me laugh every time, the idea of our countries as people communicating with each other makes reading the news headlines so much funnier. I mean look at this headline: Russia's Deadly T-90 Tanks vs. America's TOW Missile: Who Wins? Now imagine this as personified (meaning a country represented by one person) Russia vs personified America. It makes it a lot funnier, doesn't it? ;) Not that we should do this with all  news articles, but it does bring a little more of a lighthearted feel to otherwise depressing headlines. Unfortunately most (if not all) of the personified country comics I've read have a lot of dirty ones mixed in between, which is too bad. So I don't recommend them. But it got me thinking that someone should create something that is clean and funny about personified count...

I was having a childhood flashback the other day. When I was younger (haha, makes me sound old but it's true, some of you didn't grow up with this.) we had cassette players. I had a list of my favorite cassettes, and one of them was called Wee Sing Around the World.

So a while ago I mentioned I was going to show off my coin collection to you wonderful blog readers. Today has come to be that day. B-) So here we go! I will show you the coins I've managed to collect from around the world, courtesy of friends and family! I labeled each country according to what we call it and what they call themselves, but I didn't write it in their original languages and used the English equivalent, because I figured you wouldn't be able to read it. Hope you learn a bit about coins and other countries. :) AMERICA (United States of America) American coins, and some random squished coins I have that are American... along with a Olympic archery entrance token, some token to a game place and a quarter with a hole in it. ;) These came from my Mom, Uncle(s) and older brother.

I promised you all I would let you hear the real Russian song, Polyushko Polye, so here it is! in Crylic it's  Полюшкo Поле. Earlier I got a request from one of the readers for the sheet music because she couldn't find it online, so it you would like to find the sheet music you have to write in Russian полюшко поле ноты для пианино, which literally translates as "Field my field (or meadowland) notes to piano". You won't find the sheet music in English, but the notes are the same no matter what language you speak. ;D  I'd like it to be noted that this song has been around for a long  time now (1933) and since then it has gone through several spelling and name changes changes. So here are the lists of known names for this song.

Greetings, readers! It's time for our very first Our World  post! Hope you enjoy as I give you a little background history and story of a hat that many of you are probably familiar with... The ushanka is famous for its fur ear flaps. These make it very nice for the winter! Chances are, you've either worn or have seen an ushanka before. It sounds like a strange word, but in reality we use lots of ushankas, all over the world. Pronounced "Ooo-shank-ah", most of us who have ever spent time in the cold have worn one. When folded up, the ushanka becomes the classic military hat we're all familiar seeing in Cold War movies.