The interview game

In former times it was always me questioning people, but last year I got my first chance: I was interviewed by a German broadcasting company. Yet the questions weren't about me, but about a book I wrote (exactly: The book's a biography and my "subject" became 70 years old the very day. So I was interviewed about him). Nevertheless it was kind of fun. So I wanted do another interview - and pigwidgeon37 gave me a go in the interview game. This make me now the next candidate for doing interviews - so here the rules for the game:1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.3 - You'll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.4 - You'll include this explanation.5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.And here, pigwidgeon37s questions plus my answers:1. What do you like most about London?That it is the place where my lord and master lives?No, just kidding - I'm sure I'd love London even without loving an "adopted Londoner" too. And the reason is a mixture I can hardly describe (I even would have a problem in German with doing so). The one thing I love about London is history. It's a place on which I feel in a very special way connected to European history, to my roots. In certain London districts I got always a feeling as if every house, every stone, every wall breaths history. And there's so much to look at in London. I think I'll never become tired of all the beauty this city holds - like Parliament, St. Pauls, the after brand churches (I really love them), Westminster. But London - and this is the next thing I find so very special and wonderful about - isn't a museum. London is one of the most alive places I've ever knew. It changes daily, it's always new and exciting and it seems to burst with creativity. Although I'm far away of being interested in clothes - I love walking through London and looking to people. You get every kind of people here: Very, very elegant women with a style you hardly find in another place (okay, okay - perhaps with the exception of Paris), old-fashioned, but nevertheless great dressed men, young people wearing the most extravagants and interesting outfits. And the next thing I really love about London is "culture" - theatres, concertos, the opera, even the musicals. You can't get such a lot of different events in one evening at another place, methinks. 2. When visiting a new city, what interests you most?History - historical places are always first. I love to visit old churches, castles and buildings and mostly by coming to a new city, I've already an "agenda" from what I've read before. I'm absolutely not interested in shopping or something like that - from my experience it doesn't make a big difference if one shops in London, Paris, Stuttgart or Los Angeles - except perhaps for a few regional specialities (though I must say I always buy tea in Stuttgart - not only because it's cheaper as in London, but because the Germans are obviously more demanding in tea, so the offering of real good German shops is mostly higher in the quality). Except from running around in old churches and castles I love to watch the life in a city. Seating a street caf?, looking to people, hearing their accent - I think it gives me a "feeling" for a city. And I like talking to people like the Fiaker drivers (in Salzburg and Vienna I have had long and nice conversations with them), the waiters (I rarely visit cities during their "tourist season". I mostly come before or after, so the people there have more time to talk), the guy in a shop. This often brings me to getting tips about restaurants or other places tourists hardly get - and I love this. Besides I'm mostly traveling with P. - and he's a kind of "pied piper". Let him loose for a few hours in a foreign place - and he comes back, having five new friends who are very keen to show him things like the work space of a boat maker in Venice, the place where wonderful fabrics are done, the restaurant, hidden in a tiny street, where the grandmother of one of the guys he met is cooking wonderfully and such things. 3. Who is your favourite German/Austrian/Swiss author?You're going to like this, Susanna. ;-) I have two favourites and both are Austrians: Stefan Zweig and Friedrich Torberg. Besides I'm a typical German and so I'm of course in love with Goethe - especially the "Faust". And I like Schiller's plays - especially "Don Carlos".4. Do you have a favourite conductor?</ib>In former times I'd have say Sergiu Celibidache. But since he's death, I'm with Brits: Sir Neville Marriner and Sir Simon Rattle.5. If you could travel back in time, which era would you choose?</ib>Oh heavens - that's a very difficult question. Actually I like the time I live in very much, so I never felt a wish to be in another time (especially not in being a woman there - I think for us women this time is one of the best). Yet if I could go to another time for a few days, I'd like to visit Rome in the time of the Emperor Augustus or perhaps Italy during the Renaissance.OK, friends and everybody else--leave a comment if you want to be asked five questions :)