- published: 17 Jan 2012
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The Gers (French: le Gers, Gascon: Gers, pronounced: [ʒɛʁs] or [ʒɛʁ]) is a department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in the southwest of France named after the Gers River.
Inhabitants are called les Gersois or Gersoises.
In the Middle Ages, the Lordship of L'Isle-Jourdain was nearby.
The Gers is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Guyenne and Gascony.
In 1808 it lost Lavit on its the north-eastern side to the newly created department of Tarn-et-Garonne.
The culture is largely agricultural, with great emphasis on the local gastronomical specialties such as:
Also, some prominent cultivated crops are corn, colza, sunflowers and grain.
The Gascon language is a dialect of Occitan, but it is not widely spoken.The department is characterised by sleepy bastide villages and rolling hills with the Pyrenees visible to the south.
Alexandre Dumas, père created the famous Gersois d'Artagnan, the fourth musketeer of The Three Musketeers. A museum to d'Artagnan is found in the Gersois village of Lupiac.
Marco Borsato (born December 21, 1966) is a Dutch singer. He started performing in Italian before switching to Dutch in 1994. He is married to Leontine Ruiters and has three children.
Marco was born in the Wilhelmina Hospital in Alkmaar as the son of Roberto Borsato and Mary de Graaf. He has a brother, Armando, and a sister, Sylvana. The family moved to Italy, where the father started up a restaurant in Garda. Marco spent a significant amount of time in Italy and speaks fluent Italian. In fact, Marco admitted that his Italian is much better than his Dutch.
When Marco was 12 years old he decided he wanted to be a sushi chef. Marco, though brought up with Italian cuisine, had a great love for raw fish bound in seaweed. When he was older he went to school during the week and he worked in a restaurant during the weekends. During his conscription he was bound to the cavalery, where he was conscripted as a NCO. Success stayed out after Marco Borsato won the Dutch Soundmixshow on April 6, 1990 with his rendition of Billy Vera's song "At This Moment." During that time he was indeed working as a chef.
The Opposites are a Dutch rap duo. The duo consists of the rappers Willem de Bruijn (Willy) and Twan van Steenhoven (Big2). The two rappers started rapping when Willem de Bruijn had to make a rap for his teacher as a punishment. Willem noticed he had a talent for rapping and decided to go on with rapping, together with his pall Twan van Steenhoven they became addicted to Hiphop so they say. The name The Opposites comes from the fact that Willem is black and small and Twan big and white.
Via a demo contest on internet the duo gets in touch with Mastermind Records which wants to make a follow up on the very populair album: Streetremixes from D-men. The duo has a part in both Streetremixes 2 and 3 along with other later famous Dutch rappers like: Yes-r, Brace, Lange frans and Baas B. The debute album is called "Youngsters" and is rapped in English but the duo doesn't like that and after "youngsters" they decide to rap in their native language: Dutch. The duo makes a mixtape "Vuur" which can be downloaded on internet for free, this mixtape even reaches the Dutch radio. The Opposites want to make a studio album and to do this they switch to the record label TopNotch. The same year the duo makes real name with their coöperation on the hitsingle Wat Wil Je Doen from The Partysquad and their own single Fok Jou from their then still unreleased album De Fik Erin. Their album De Fik Erin is released in late 2005 and the second single from this albumis released in early 2006: Slaap. Slaap is The Opposites first big hit it reaches number one on the Dutch popcharts.