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Praising Poland can be dangerous [45]
Draw a line from Malmo to Rome.
Draw a line from Nordkapp to Athens and repeat the experiment. I've never heard of Malmo as a yardstick of Europe. Does their City Council know about this new role? :)
Everything to the right is Eastern Europe ; )
Ventian gondolas work the tough waters of Eastern Europe? The things you learn online...
Put it this way, if it isn't, then what is?
Central Europe. Why does your north-south divide cut Europe in two exclusive parts, as if you've never heard of a center? There's Central America, Central Africa, and Central Asia. Is Central Europe M.I.A.?
Prague was in eastern europe but Vienna far to the east was in the "west"
I see Finland referred to as Western Europe, while, curiously, it's one time zone east of Poland. Western Europe is apparently quite an acrobat, as it assumes the most geographically contorted positions just to avoid Warsaw and Prague. :)
The East/West divide from 20 years ago lives on in the popular mind and defines geography, whether people admit it or not. It's rooted in how the human mind works: the subconscious sense of tribal affiliation is always defined by the last long conflict in memory, the Cold War in this case. That's why Helsinki and Vienna are in the "West", while Warsaw and Prague are in the "East". This won't change until a very long time passes or another long-term conflict comes around. Imagine that tomorrow Moslems launch a war against Europe (a purely hypothetical scenario), their armies take Slovenia and the Italian Trieste, cut Austria in half, take Slovakia and the Ukraine. Let's say this situation lasts 30 years or so, displacing memories of the Cold War. After 30 years those Moslem parts would become "Eastern Europe" in the popular mind, while Poland would suddenly find itself in "Western Europe".
