This event is a get-together over dinner before the start of the busy Holiday season. It's appropriate for all ages. Please note that parking in downtown Redwood City is never easy...street parking is free on Sundays, but the underground lot on Jefferson Ave. will charge for stays longer than 1.5 hours.
Background: It may be puzzling that this event's title is in a foreign language. The idea for the cache came up the last time I saw eggzie, about a month ago at Dr. Flonase's birthday event/ CITO. That day, he told me he was interested in caches that had titles in foreign languages, and asked if I could create a cache with a title in Hebrew. Unfortunately, I don't speak Hebrew, but repeated the old joke about how everyone from New York is at least half Jewish ;-) I think eggzie enjoyed the idea of presenting other cachers with the puzzle of deciphering unfamiliar Hebrew characters. Not one to do things by halves, he mentioned planning his own cache with a title in Basque. I did agree to come up with a foreign language-titled cache, and filed this away for later planning. As I considered this cache, it occurred to me that I'm familiar with one unusual lanuage...it was spoken by generations of my ancestors and is still used somewhere on planet Earth. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to figure out where. By now you've realized that my ancestors were not really owls...
Contest: To enter the contest, please send the following two answers to Micro-Owls by private message or e-mail, NOT as a note or will-attend on the cache page: (1) what is the name of this language, and (2) provide an exact translation of the cache title into English. In this era of instant information, it probably won't take very long. The first person to send the correct answers will win an unactivated geocoin. There will also be a prize for the second correct answer. Winners must be present at the event to receive a prize; otherwise prizes will be awarded to runners-up who are present. Anyone who provides the answers online will be disqualified.
** Congratulations to rragan, the contest winner, who solved the language and translation within a couple of hours of publication. The language is Neapolitan, and the translation of the cache title is "November Night: a silver moon rises in the sky" Neapolitan is a dialect of Italian that is also recognized as a language, with its own unique grammar, literature and music. The wave of immigrants to the US from Southern Italy at the turn of the 20th century brought the language with them and passed it on to the next generation.
**Dedication: In case it needs to be said, I intend no offense by this dedication- I knew eggzie through geocaching, and share the sadness of our local community at the loss of someone I've come to respect greatly, for his keen intellect, patience, humor, and readiness for all kinds of adventures. My sincere sympathy to physb and all eggzie's family and loved ones.