My Own Private Empire
Saw a site on my friend Tina's blog where you can create a map of where you've been. Since you showed me yours, Tina, I'll show you mine (above in red) :^)
It turns out I've stumbled and bumbled my way through 35 countries. That makes up 15% of the world according to the site.
Not many people would choose to vacation in most of the spots I've visited. Still, sorta cool to get a first hand look at things.
The graphic is pretty misleading though. I visited Moscow and St. Petersburg about ten years ago and that single trip to those two cities gets me crimson dominance over much of the Eurasian land mass.
Messing around on the site feels a little bit like playing Risk.
After seeing my completed map I'm planning a pre-emptive invasion of South America, Greenland and Australia, the three most obvious holes in my world empire. I'm consulting with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld on the appropriate strategic moves.
posted by Wordcat at 11:44 AM
5 Comments:
What are your rules on what makes a country count? I have a well-traveled friend who insists that you must travel at least ten miles from the airport/border of entry to count the country.
(my map would be fairly blank by any system.)
Yeah, that's my rule too. I've been in some airports in other countries but those don't count. In a couple of these countries I've had 10-12 hour layovers where I head into the big city (normally at least 10 miles from the airport)and run around for a half day, then come back and catch my flight. That's the easiest way to 'country bag.'
I spent twelve hours in the Istanbul airport. Turkish Ground, not Air, was waiting to pick up half a plane full of folks coming back from Mecca, only they didn't tell us anything during the twelve hour wait.
I must have contact smoked three packs that day waiting for the flight. I should have went into the city.
That's one the the things that drives me most nuts about traveling in some places--they assume folks are simply willing to wait indefinitely with no explanation. India used to be the worst for that though things have gotten a lot better in the bigger cities. The old western traveler's joke about Air India (playing off the Hindu worship of cattle) was "Air India: They Treat You Like Cattle" :^)
I once bought a train ticket in India. The train schedule and the ticket both stated that I would arrive at my destination at 17:00 (it was leaving at 22:25), so I figured that I would be up for about a 19-hour train ride. There were no dates listed anywhere on the schedule or on the ticket, so I was about 10 hours into the trip before I realized that the "17:00" the schedule was referring to was not on the following day...
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