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Showing posts from April 13, 2014

100 and Done! (Countries that is...)

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We are back! This last trip brought the total countries visited to 100! It is a crazy milestone. It is difficult, time-consuming and can be (IS) expensive. After I got back from Antarctica in 2007, I started thinking about it. After 2010 I was thinking about it more (as I moved from NY to Georgia) and in 2014 it had become a real goal. Between Angie and I we have been to 109 Countries. We are tied at 100 countries each. We have 9 countries different in our lists. For example, I have been to San Marino. She has not. She has been to Israel. I have not, yet. There has been some fun competition in this area. That's why we had to establish rules. 1.) Must be listed (as a country) with the US State Department 2.) Being in an airport doesn't count. You have to get through immigration somehow and not in a DMZ or a no-mans-land 3.) A passport stamp is not required. I have been to Canada, Paraguay, and Uruguay without getting my passport stamped. There are friendly borders in many places...
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I am home in Duluth doing the domestic stuff, yard work, car work, cleaning, painting, blah blah blah, all the stuff that makes life "normal". I had quite a trip in Brazil. It was over a year since I had last been in Brazil. I had studied quite a bit of Portuguese in that time. Although I have a ways to go, it was quite a thrill to have a much better understanding of what folks are saying. My speaking was much better even if I was politely saying "I didn't understand" in Portuguese. In these situations they would rephrase or I could perhaps read some Portuguese to get it. Actually, it is a simple "thrill of alchemy" to look at people in the eyes say something and have them understand without hesitation, or embarrassment (mine or theirs), and overall have the ability to articulate in THEIR native tongue. Too cool, in Portuguese, "LEE-Gow". I remember watching a movie in high school intended to motivate studying foreign languages. It was a lot ...
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