International Ladies

I've been working on a series of tags with international themes, and here are the first of them...

Snag Only:



Italy is called "il Belpaese" (Italian for beautiful country) by its inhabitants, due to the beauty and variety of its landscapes and for having the world's largest artistic patrimony...



The name France originates from the Franks, a Germanic tribe that once occupied the region... More precisely, the region around Paris, called Île-de-France, was the original French royal demesne...



The characters that make up Japan's name literally mean "Sun's Origin" (Nihon) - thus Japan is known as "The Land of the Rising Sun" a name that comes from the country's eastward position relative to China...



Africa is a land of many names and tribes, but one name has long fit all of them well - The Dark Continent... Dark for it's wild and impenetrable jungles, dark for it's lovely ebon peoples, and dark for all it's mysteries yet to be uncovered...

I'd like to make a few more of this series, but haven't decided on which countries... If you have suggestions, leave a comment...

Happy Independance Day!

I've been horribly remiss in updating here, and to be honest, I was just not in the mood to make any tags... I think I was just burned out... But I've gotten the bug again, and just in time for the 4th of July...! So here's a new tag (the first of many) and a bit about this American holiday I've come to enjoy:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

In the United States, Independence Day, also called the Fourth of July, is a Federal holiday celebrating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Despite the genesis of Independence Day, it is largely uncommon for Americans to express anti-British sentiment on the day or to view it as a celebration of anti-colonialism. Indeed, most Americans today consider the United Kingdom their greatest ally. Rather than specifically as an opportunity to commemorate the end of British rule in the 18th century, contemporary Americans generally perceive the holiday as a celebration of the U.S.A. itself and the political values that motivated the United States Declaration of Independence, including explicit principles of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and implicit ones of democracy, liberty, freedom, and equality under the law.

Independence Day is commonly associated with parades, barbecues, picnics, baseball games, and various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the U.S. Fireworks have been associated with the Fourth of July since 1777.

In 1777, British officers noted the firing of 13 guns, once at morning and again as evening fell, on July 4th in Bristol, Rhode Island. Philadelphia celebrated the first anniversary in a manner a modern American would find quite familiar: an official dinner for the Continental Congress, toasts, 13-gun salutes, speeches, prayers, music, parades, troop reviews and fireworks. Ships were decked with red, white and blue bunting.

And so the celebration continues...! I wish you all a very happy 4th and be careful out there - don't burn the house down with your partying...! (Except in the figurative sense...) God Bless America...!

This one is Snag Only: