[PJ-Comix]

As you can see, the people in Portugal are VERY friendly. Because of their close ties (oldest alliance in world history) to Great Britain, many people there speak English. And if they don't speak English most of them can speak or at least understand Spanish. Therefore I had little trouble communicating with them. Even reading Portuguese signs and other material wa fairly easy since it is so similar to Spanish (although pronounced differently). One thing interesting that I didn't think about until I met a Japanese tourist there was that the Portuguese word for "thank you" is "Obrigado" which sounds a lot like the Japanese word "Arigato" which means the same thing. Did the Portuguese pick that word up in Japan where they had a prescence in the 16th century or did the Japanese pick it up from the Portuguese during the same period?

[PJ-Comix]

PING!

[maro]

You are not the first person to notice the (slight) similarity. But the two words are not related. “Obrigado” is a a past participle of the verb that through another chain leads to English “obliged.” “Arigato” or a form thereof is apparently found in some 8th century document, well before contact with the Portuguese.

[Thank You Rush]

For one of your journeys, make a trip to Finland some day and report back to us. I’ve never forgotten a particular video from years ago that showed how people in Finland treated strangers - and perhaps everyone.. Very cold weather and cold shoulder to EVERYONE.. This is a good example so I guess the video I remember wasn’t far off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d54KE01wH0

Where I grew up, there were a lot of Finnish people and never a problem - only thing that I recall when hearing the “oldsters” discuss them were the “steam baths” they built on their farms. Several of their kids were in school and as normal as any of us were - LOL!

[GingisK]

So, what issue divides them?

[Rummyfan]

SO WHAT IS THE ISSUE??????