Groningen

Groningen is the most important province of Kitten-o' Livia (it is actually bigger than the katlands itself due to a sewage system connection with Moscow and its surrounding areas), known to most Belgians and Scotsmen as faraway Holland, which is a suburb of Paris, the European capital. It borders on Amsterdam to the North, Lake Titicaca to the East, Wembley Stadium to the South, and Västerårit to the West. It also shares borders with Paraguay via an intricate system of underground tunnels that link the local University to the basement of famous Paraguay pedagogue Fernando Álvares. Though the village officially borders on Germany as well, inhabitants have repeatedly denied this. Recently, the village was shown in a number of CNN reports, when Groningen was stricken by great water damage following the overflowing of the river Danube. Other recent sightings of the village in international news include the story of a small fleet of British Navy vessels entering Groningen just after these floods, filling their holds with as much fresh water as possible, and attempting to ferry the water to the drought-stricken London area. US president Bush referred to Groningen as "what?".

History

Roman Empire and Dark Ages

Groningen was founded around the year 250 B.C. by a lost Roman cohort that was forced to spend the winter north of the Rhine when it was discovered that rushing an army (most of which had health insurance)over thinly frozen-over lakes was potentially detrimental to the average legionary's health, especially since warm blankets were notoriously hard to come by. The settlement was in these days known as Absolutissimus Mediae Multo Nix, or Quite-in-the-Middle-of-a-Lot-of-Snow. With the fall of the Roman Empire, the settlement was overrun by the Visigoths, which led modern scholars to believe Groningen is in fact part of the West. The Visigoth King Alaric gave the settlement its name Groene Dinghen, meaning Green Stuff, on account of the local population's tendency to paint things green (cf. Irish-o-philia), and that phrase later evolved into the modern name Groningen.

High Middle Ages

The town came to be inhabited by the Frisians. Since the Frisian language presents a number of linguistic difficulties for its speakers, i.e. incomprehensibility, interpersonal communication within Groningen remained virtually non-existant during most of the Middle Ages, which led to twelve city-wide fires between 1134-1322 AD, the founding of such disputes as Albertus and Vindicat (disputes that still seem to struggle with an utter lack of purpose), the building, burning and subsequent re-building of the Martini Tower and the construction of two equally grand marketplaces at five feet distance from one another for no apparent reason (i.e. the Fish Market and the Big Market.) The area around Groningen was in these days inhabited by the Saxons, who attempted to communicate with the Frisians using traditional means of diplomacy on three separate occasions (i.e. shouting moi! at them very loudly), but were met with no success, unsurprisingly, as Saxophone is an extremely difficult language to understand for speakers of most human languages. After diplomacy failed, the Saxons proceeded to conquer the village in 1577 AD, or the Year of the Cow according to the local calendar. Surprisingly, after the Saxons won their monumental victory over the later to be reviled Frisians, the Saxons proceeded to adopt Frisian family names for themselves, leading to such common last names as Dijkma, Dijkema and Dijksema.

The Reformation

During the Reformation, the city came to be under siege from the Archbishop of Mönster Bommen Berend. Groningen withstood all these German invasions with the aid of an unusually large cannon dubbed Groote Griet (Big Griet or Overweight Girl). A local holiday reminds the village's inhabitants each year of these monumental victories, and two bars named Bommen Berend and Groote Griet are strategically placed 'george was here' exactly opposite one another on the Big Market. The Hollish language in these days made big strides in becoming the most-spoken language of the region with the ascent to power in The Hague of William of Orange, famous orange-farmer from the Dutch orange colony of Kalimantan. This led to the introduction of a whole new lexicon into the Saxon language, including such words as house, shoes and the numbers three and above.

World War II

Hitler invaded The Neverlands some time between 7:30 and 7:31 AM, and the whole of the country was conquered approximately around 7:32 AM or mabey 7:31:30 The Queen fled to Canada to hunt elk, use the word eh more often, and form a government in exile. Inhabitants of the village ate light bulbs for lack of transistor bulbs during the Winter of Hunger in 1944-1945. Capitulation followed late 2004. Traces of the war can still be seen on the coastline and islands, where holes on the beach with blankets, parasols and Germans in them are left as grim traces of Groningen's darkest hour.

Post-World War II

After the war, approximatley 100% of the Dutch population fled the ravages of Holland to build up new lives in The US, Australia, Canada and Brazil. Groningen was abandoned. The only life left is currently three cats named Rinus, Menno and Jelle, a hermit proclaiming the coming end of the world, and an old bicycle that has no saddle.

Transportation

The lovely village of groningen is a very execcible one. Its main method of transportation is the Bicycle, which outnumbers the number of inhabitants with a 1:1.21 ratio, especially in its canals, where the bicycles are grown and sprout seapocks which later grow out to adult bicycles. These are harvested annually. The second method is the bus, which is not thoroughly reliable during rides through the red light district. One event is noted that a bus got so distracted that it drove into an canal to join the bicycles, pissing them off intensely. The other method is per automobile, whom both the bicycles and busses hate intensely for frequently driving into them. Their war resulted in the cars driving a special enormous ring road shielded with high walls to protect the automobiles from bicycles driving into them with unfriendly intentions such as braking windshields. The bicycles recognised this as a form of bitchcraft and blamed The Antibitch.

Wikipedia reads: "The village is home to the highest number of bicycles in any one city in the world (i.e. one), and buses are occasionally operated. The city is conveniently connected by railway to Amsterdam and Utrecht, which leads to the occasional stray tourist entering Groningen, and also to Leeuwarden, which leads to incomprehensible hordes of Frisians entering and pillaging the city, looting the shops, stealing the women, and leaving something of a mess. Groningen Airport in Eelde provides aerial connections to Antananarivo and Bakhchisaray. Interestingly, Groningen is the birth-place of the skateplank, essentially a skateboard without wheels, and shaped like a clog."

Tourism

Being the greatest city in the northern hemisphere of the netherlands, groningen has a history to offer! its main tourist feat is of course the incredible Martini Tower! which actually looks a lot like the Dom (dutch for 'stupid') Tower in Utrecht. The magnificent look and feel of the glorious Martini tower still casts an actual shadow over the Tower in Utrecht, keeping a part of groningen out of actual sunlight each day. Other famous feats are the canals of groningen. Though inhabited by unfriendly nests of bicycles people still risk their life touring them in specialised low boats that sail along them. Because some angry bicycles managed to throw themselves through the windows of those ships, the city also organised and executed the Tourist Defence Act, which resulted in most of the bicycle population in the canals being wiped out by pouring them full of sand and building roads to seal them of forever. This resulted in some very pretty shopping streets. Shops of any kind can be found here. your ordinary grocery shops, clothing, fashion, second hand tramp dumpings, game shops, cafés, coffee shops fuming so much half the centre of the city is permanently stoned and even tramps are shops on themselves! During markets you can buy blocks of hashish, melons, live or dead fish, artists and adult canal-grown bicycles for a scratch! all ornated by lovely golden age buildings, richly decored and still having that authentic smell of hard working slaves. The other tourist act is the Art Academy with its recognisable weird looking students that smell like weed. Its population is mostly female and males are suspected of being females too. True hardcore nerds can be found to the north, visiting the lovely Rijksuniversiteit Groningen or simply RuG (which for obvious reasons has been embroidered into the entrance rug). Of lesser beauty is the Museum Of Nature, which after the outbreak of hundreds of trees, bushes and flowers into the city, saw no need to continue on an empty hall. It's been sold to the Hanze University for the storage of lesser students in the hope of converting them to compost and set the previously imprisoned trees and bushes at ease.

Local Language

The local language spoken is called Gronings, or Grunnegs, and consists of a lexicon of roughly seven words. The language's grammar provides for a present tense (e.g. I go), and an imperative mood (e.g. Go!). The language appears capable of abstractions and mathematical constructs, but research is still under way concerning those areas. Gronings is the only language in the world where sentences may never exceed three words in length, leading to such fine examples of erudicity as:

"Hou is t?" "Nou, kon minder."

meaning:

"How is life treating you this fine day, my friend?" "Truly my brother, my spirits are high, for the cup overfloweth."

There is also a variant which only uses 1 word in a sentence.

"Oeist?"

"Kominder."

"Zalekisievertelle?"

"Gaüwegang."

"Derisdusnainamerikoandeehaitbuseninzienboksemplaast."

"Dadebbekiknognaitheurd."

meaning:

"How is life treating you this fine day, my friend?"

"Truly my brother, my spirits are high, for the cup overfloweth."

"Would you want me to tell you a tale of myths and legend?"

"Go your way, my noble brother."

"Once upon a time, in a vaste strange mythical land which went by the name of America, there was a man, he was a stupid man, he was an ugly man, he was Bush, he wasn't noble in any way, but every day, he had to fulfil one noble deed, what does he do every day of his life: he wets his pants."

"I have never heard such an epic tale of love, betrayal and heroism, I thank you for enlightening my soul."

The generic greeting used for all times of day is moi!, pronounced as loudly and extended "moooi" as possible. If you greet someone you know it is usual that you add the words "mien jong" (my boy) or "mien wicht" (my girl). Be sure to frown while pronouncing this greeting, as not frowning or scowling is often mistaken for a sign of being a homosexual or a woman, or both.

Because of its efficiency the language has gained popularity in the rest of the Neverlands and it is only a matter of time before every single citizen of the Neverlands will speak this great language.

Politics

The village and surrounding province have been home to left-wing politics since the introduction of democracy to the Neverlands in 2002. Main political parties include the New Communist Party of the Neverlands, with party headquarters in neo-stalinist Beerta, and the Party for Partying, with its headquarters in Beer-Rum (not to be confused with Sex-Beer-Rum, which is in Friesland.)

World Domination

Even though no one knows about this and it's still a great secret, we'll still add this. Groningen started their plans for world domination in the late '40's. After the '48's hamster oppression the government created the first BWOGS (Bond voor WereldOverheersing door Groningse Superioriteit) Eng: UWDGS (Union for World Domination by Groningse Superiority). As a weapon they wanted to use the duo Lucas en Gea, this weapon is powerful and life threatening to all human life in the immediate vicinity. From recently leaked documents from the BWOGS it has been made known that the Rijsuniversiteit Groningen in collaboration with undercover operative Hans Klok have obtained plans for the production of cloned supersoldiers. Unfortunately it is not clear what the parts of Lucas en Gea are in this plot.