Interesting plant. Some years ago I found myself in Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris around Midnight waiting for Angie to arrive. I was unable to buy any flowers in my travels during the day and it was too late at the airport. The airport shops were all closed. Hmmm.. what to do? In pacing around the airport I found some large potted plants and I snipped a small cutting from one. I presented the cutting (flower) to Angie when she arrived. (BTW, I did end up getting some nice flowers in Rouen the next day.) The cutting made its way to Moscow after we had parted ways. Given to her Friend Anna, it was rooted, transplanted and is doing quite well in Moscow. I like the picture. It shows the cutting all grown up with a Soviet style building in the background.
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. It was a packed trip in 12 days. 7 flights, 2 high speed trains, 1 cable car ride, 1 horse ride, and a lot 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 words is dis...
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