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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Angie and I went to a rock concert Tuesday night at the Fonda Theater on Hollywood Blvd in LA. I hate traffic, so we took the Metrolink train to Union station in LA (we ate our dinner on the train) then 10 metro stops to Hollywood/Vine. It took about about an hour an 45 minutes.

It was a Мумий Тролль (Mumiy Troll) concert. He is from Angie's home city - a 9 hour flight from Moscow (Vladivostock). He is very popular in Russia. He has a unique whimsical style that is a cross between Russian folk Balalaika, and David Bowie. He uses decent poetry placed on top of simple -sometimes mocking melodies for popular effect.

He has been called "Russias biggest rock band, Mumiy Troll began as one of the most socially dangerous bands in the world as noted by a local Communist party chief in the former Soviet Union; yet, was hailed as Best Band of the Millennium by leading Russian music critics after the fall of communism. Mumiy Troll are the most influential and successful independent artists in Russia today. Part of Mumiy Troll's success can be attributed to their multi-genre sound, a hybrid of rock and pop which songwriter Lagutenko calls "rockapops". The Los Angeles Times has described the band "a nuclear meltdown of The Bravery, Tom Petty and The Afghan Whigs."

Angie interprets the poetry for me.

Russian

English



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