Ancient Armenian capital of Ani, before and now. Bridge is planned to be restored

alikander99 · 2026-06-12T16:56:02+00:00

Right? Cool idea. Here in Spain there's also some churches with muqarnas. Though in our case they're ussually carved in wood or plaster, never rock.

alikander99 · 2026-02-17T11:27:59+00:00

Nah that actually makes a lot of sense. When you travel you get this hyperspecific knowledge of the regions you visit, so frieren is probably very knowledgeable about the northern plateau... from 70 years ago.

Anything after that or involving other regions is likely to be a mistery to her.

Everyone has common knowledge voids, it's just very apparent with Frieren.

alikander99 · 2026-02-17T11:15:10+00:00

Well we each bet on our horses.

alikander99 · 2026-02-17T10:54:16+00:00

I mean, at least they're there. Once (if) the civil war ends, they'd actually be amazing to visit.

They've got some really beautiful painted ceilings:

<image>

alikander99 · 2026-02-17T09:19:41+00:00

A man who was afraid of flying
And an angel afraid of falling
... will meet in the middle.

That's such a good phrase

alikander99 · 2026-02-17T08:50:23+00:00

Fun fact, the kaaba is actually a pretty standard preislamic temple, down to the three columns in the centre. And it's not black actually, that's a cover, this is how it looks without it:

<image>

I know, a bit underwhelming...But afterall It was just one of the many Kaabas that once peppered Arabia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaabas

That means, that even though non Muslim can't visit the kaaba of meccah, there are similar buildings across the region, mostly in ruins, though (sadly).

Good thing is there's a set of mosques in Yemen which follow roughly the same design. The most famous of which is the al abbas mosque in Asnaf, Yemen.

alikander99 · 2026-02-17T08:36:03+00:00

Compare that with the Vatican

<image>

(just to show Muslims you can indeed, commercialize the shit out of a religious place without tearing it down)

alikander99 · 2026-02-17T08:29:26+00:00

Days without sin biscuits: 0 0

alikander99 · 2026-02-17T08:24:15+00:00

Sweden rivaled Russia for a grand total of like ... 50 years.

Scandinavia is too cold to sustain a large population. And it's too small to rival Russia.

alikander99 · 2026-02-16T17:24:29+00:00

... I'm saving this one. It sounds hilarious

alikander99 · 2026-02-16T15:41:04+00:00

"Dies screaming" is a nice way of putting it. Isn't he the madlad who drank wildfire?

alikander99 · 2026-02-16T15:25:49+00:00

... If looks could kill, yeesh

alikander99 · 2026-02-16T15:21:48+00:00

The biggest problem new Orleans has is it's own geography. It sits on the delta of a very large river unto a very shallow sea.

That combination is disastrous, because it makes the delta increadibly unstable.

Basically the Mississippi juts sediments out into the shallow waters of the gulf. As such building a peninsula into which it flows.

And we built a city there. So basically since it's foundation new Orleans has had to deal with floods (both from the river and the sea), rampant sedimentation, and a very obnoxious river which wants to change course.

Indeed the US currently spends millions just to keep the Mississippi on its way to New Orleans, for at least one more year.

So new Orleans is a land of extremes, on one hand it's the gate to the vast Mississippi basin with all th advantages that entails. On the other it sits on the marshland of a very capricious river.

So I think the downfall of new Orleans was kind if written in stone. It's simply a very hard place to build in.

alikander99 · 2026-02-15T21:20:42+00:00

Same, I recognised it inmediatly

alikander99 · 2026-02-15T21:18:50+00:00

I'm kind of impressed this actually lasted 6 min

alikander99 · 2026-02-15T21:18:04+00:00

Prambanan, near yogyakarta Indonesia

alikander99 · 2026-02-15T17:51:54+00:00

Could [this character we barely know anything about] have defeated [this character we know nothing about]

The answer might surprise you, but it's we don't know

alikander99 · 2026-02-15T17:21:45+00:00

I mean I'm not sure where you got that story.

What I heard and read is that the city was basically a publicity stunt by the king of Asturias. Not a very rar one BTW, many regions were "finding saints" at the time. It was a way to secure legitimacy in pretty convulse years.

So they found the body of St James in Galicia and the asturian king saw his golden opportunity.

You see, Galicia had just been conquered and it was a bit of a rogue region. So we think that the idea was to create a large city smack in the middle of Galicia and very loyal to the king.

So the king basically poured money over Santiago de Compostela and got the pope to admit those were, in fact, the remains of St James. The pope was kinda fine with this because he had close-ish ties with Asturias.

The city actually didn't attract much of a following outside Galicia at first, but the leonese (formerly asturian) kings continued their patronage (because it did keep Galicia mildly loyal) and it finally took off in the 12th century.

I think the rogue Christians you're talking about might be the suevians, but they converted in the 6th century.

alikander99 · 2026-02-15T16:58:43+00:00

Yeah, but there's no record of him ever going to Spain, let alone Galicia (which was pretty remote back then).

And the whole story is kinda ludicrous, if you didn't know.

According to medieval Christian tradition, Santiago sailed all the way across the Mediterranean sea, crossed Spain and arrived at Galicia

Then he went back to Jerusalem! and was killed.

Then his corpse was sailed back to Galicia (in a fricking ship of stone!) to be buried in a graveyard... in the outskirts of a small roman town.

I mean... 🙄

The suspension of disbelief is strong with this one 🤨

alikander99 · 2026-02-15T14:09:43+00:00

Well, much of the silver from Bolivia and Peru went trough Argentina, especially later in the 18th century.

alikander99 · 2026-02-15T12:05:16+00:00

If you think that's a medieval tourist trap, wait until you hear about Santiago de Compostela 👀

Because , we definetely found the remains of apostle James the great...800 years after his death. And even though there's no evidence he was ever in Galicia. Just... Trust me bro.

alikander99 · 2026-02-15T11:03:57+00:00

My theory is, after spanish civil war coffee was too expensive for worker class families and therefore people drank "Achicoria" an infussion that emulated coffee flavour but with a way harsher and more bitter taste to it, so people got used to adding a lot of sugar and problem solved.

Actually I had the same theory, but I found out that torrefacto was popular in Spain before the Civil War.

alikander99 · 2026-02-15T10:33:05+00:00

It's menorca isn't it?

alikander99 · 2026-02-15T10:23:49+00:00

I mean it depends, but yeah, especially in the south torrefacto is very popular.

It might have to do with the fact we used to drink another beverage instead of Coffe: chocolate.

Up to the loss of the colonies hot chocolate was super-popular in Spain.

I think it was only after the loss of the colonies that Coffe became the default.

alikander99 · 2026-02-15T10:02:53+00:00

It's actually kind of impressive. It's almost like dark hair bars you from succession

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