Arkansas: Its Arkansaw not Ar-kansas

Today I will be finishing the synthesis of Boc-B-Ala-OH and Boc-Gly-Gly-OH. Wo!

A German asked me the size and population differences between Arkansas and Germany and I had to do some research. I really should go back to 5th grade AR history:
1. Arkansas is 137,733 sq km (53,179 sq mi)(28th state by size) and has 2,673,400 people
2. German has a total area of 356,970 sq km (137,827 sq mi) (the 7th largest country in Europe) and has 82,424,609 people.
3. This is how you explain why we say "Arkansaw" and not "Ar-kansas": The name Arkansas comes from Arkansa, the French name for Native Americans of the Quapaw tribe and the region they inhabited. The s was added as a plural, though it remains silent in the pronunciation formally adopted by the state'’s legislature.

*All information taken from Encarta.com

I finally got to do some outdoor climbing, and it was great. The cliffs we were climbing were about 30m high. It was nice to get to use my new harness(Kletterguertel) and shoes(Klettershue) on real rock and not just on the wall in the gym. I've learned lots of climbing jargon in German (and some in Italian: corte=rope). I guess I should brush up on my Italin since I'm going to Roma tomorrow.