The world's most romantic postbox

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180213-in-germany-the-worlds-most-romantic-postbox

by MiriamWeiner • 8 years ago

132 26 8 years ago

goldenkey• 8 years ago

Incase you are in a rush and scanning for how it works: You send a letter to the tree. It gets placed in the tree. Someone who is looking for a partner, goes to the tree and picks out a letter. If they don't wish to reply, they place it back in the tree.

I wonder what the oldest letter stuck in the tree is...? Would hate to have mailed it from another city 20 years ago. Finally get the time to trek up there, and find out it is still in the tree :-)

Happy Valentines day hackers!!

n0tme• 8 years ago

I doubt it will last more than one winter due to weather conditions.

vog2• 8 years ago

Small nitpick: It is "Die Bräutigamseiche", not "Der Bräutigamseiche".

(That is, even though "Bräutigam" (bridegroom) is of course male, the last word "Eiche" (oak) is female, so the composed word as a whole becomes female. German grammar is strange sometimes, but in this case strict and consistent.)

Tech-Noir• 8 years ago

As with many small nitpicks, very interesting. Do I understand correctly that "girl" is a similar thing, where it might naturally be expected to be female, so die Maedchen, but is actually das (neuter) due to the -chen? And/or that all -chen words would be das?

lb1lf2• 8 years ago

Not a native German speaker, but yes - it is my understanding that any German word ending in -chen is neuter.

(My guess: as the -chen ending is used to signify that it is a smaller version of the stem of the word, this takes precedence over the gender of the stem - and then some German at some point decided that such smaller items were neuters and be done with it.)

rowyourboat2• 8 years ago

Yes. "Mädchen" is the diminutive of "Magd", and thus neuter, as are all words in the diminutive. This not only goes for the diminutive suffix -chen, but for all German diminutive suffixes.

vog2• 8 years ago

*> die Maedchen (Mädchen), but is actually das (neuter) due to the -chen

Yes, that's true. Roughly speaking, little and cute means neuter. [1]

To confuse you even more, however, note that "die Mädchen" is still correct, but for an entirely different reason: It means plural! ("the girls"), because it happens that the plural of "Mädchen" is the same word "Mädchen", and that the plural neuter noun marker "die" is exactly the same as the sigular female noun marker "die". (Moreover, also the male and female plural noun marker is "die".)

[1] Now that I think more if it, that's quite progressive in terms of gender-equal language and early childhood. (But many other aspects of the German language aren't, so don't expect too much here.)

xiconfjs• 8 years ago

Fill a tree with trash...this have to be the true valentine gesture...

wavefunction2• 8 years ago

We have some people in my city who put up tinsel on trees along a certain road each year at Christmas. Of course they never come back to clean it up, so it quickly becomes trash and litter on the edge of a preserve.

I've wondered if I could make a citizen's arrest for littering but knowing the authoritarian state of the US police I'd likely be the one formally arrested.

pc86• 8 years ago

I'd likely be the one formally arrested

If you spend your time going around trying to execute citizens' arrests, I should hope so.

theBobBob• 8 years ago

I know that citizen's arrest obviously varies alot depending on country etc, and even then seems to be a somewhat grey area. However would assume (and hope) that you couldn't perform a citizen's arrest anywhere for simply littering.

jacquesm• 8 years ago

Brautigamseiche.com is still free, just think of the monetization potential. /s

norlys• 8 years ago

You don't have to turn all cultural characteristics into money.

nashashmi• 8 years ago

Is the expectation and posture different for people who are brave/curious/willing to write/look to the tree for a relationship?

Do they behave differently and cause such positive outcomes?

nsxwolf• 8 years ago

I thought this was going to be about how you can mail your letter in a second envelope to the postmaster in Romance, Arkansas and ask them to mail the contents so that it gets postmarked from there.

You can also do this with Loving, New Mexico.

Aleroniponi• 8 years ago

Also Valentine, Nebraska

efm• 8 years ago

And in Loveland, Colorado.

The world's most romantic postbox

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