While in France I happened on the Paris Airshow. It was totally unplanned. It was a bit freaky that Angie and I were able to get there and be part of the world's largest commercial airshow that happens every two years. Where else can we see the latest Mig 29 Fighter demonstrated a few minutes after the Eurofighter Typhoon? I swear those jets are so loud you might think they run on sound power! The whole show is (of course) very impressive; the low-slow demo of the Airbus 380 was particularly impressive.
Central Asia
We are back from our most recent crazy trip. This time it was Central Asia and the "five stans" - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. We made all of our objectives. And we have now been to 104 countries. Angie has 95 and I have 94 countries. Together it is 104. These five countries were packed into 12 days, 7 flights, 2 high speed trains, 1 cable car ride, 1 horse ride, and lots of hours in car trips. They are all Muslim countries, but they are better characterized as former Soviet countries. Russian langauge is a strong second language in all of these countries. There isn't much English spoken in any of them. Angie being fluent in Russian made all the difference and did intrepreting for me as well as a couple of British backpackers we met in Turkmenistan. Tajikistan is the Country with the distinct langauage being a derivitive of Persian with the others being Turkic. Ethnically, Southern Uzbecs are Tajik. Interesting, the spelling of many...
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