This intel originally appeared on my blog "The Journal of an Ex-Philosopher." Good day to you, gentle readers, no matter where in the world you are. Welcome to another zencath post by me. This one will not greatly presume on your patience or your time, because I have to confess to being a trifle fatigued, having only recently returned from Spain. I was on vacation there, and in the course of that vacation I visited every one of the autonomous regions, except the Basque country.
Let no one try to fool you into thinking of Spain as a small country. It may not look all that big on a map, but when you are inside it, you realize that it is truly enormous, full of deserts and mountain ranges. You may not know this, but it is a fact that Spain has mountains over a greater percentage of its land area than any other European country, except Switzerland. The land of Spain has many many towns, and I feel like I actually visited every single one of them during my stay.
My neighbour has declared, with typically Gallic logique, that such a thing is impossible, the adundance of the cities it is too great in order that one might visit to them all with much of ease. My reply is to try to patiently explain that he, being French, has too rigidly scientific a mind to comprehend the English love of hyperbole.
I toy with the idea of pointing out that the ancient Romans recognized this, since their name for us was the "Hyperboleans" (the lovers of exaggeration) but this would not be strictly accurate. They actually called us the "Hyperboreans" (the people from the back of the north wind).
I am sure that my neighbour and most of his countrymen believe that the English are crazy. However, I KNOW that the French are crazy - splendid fellows though they are.
For example, there are more tight rope walkers from France than from any other country. Also, the hot-air balloon was invented by the French inventor, Montgolfier. Need I say more?
Incidentally, when they made the first flying balloon, they had to put sandbags in the basket to hold it down on the ground. When Montgolfier was asked how he would fly if the balloon was full of sand, he replied that, in order to fly, why of course they would throw out the bags of sand.
So how would he get back down again? Montgolfier answered, But naturally, it is very simple, monsieur, we will just put the bags back in the balloon again.
