Foor for Thought #5: Travel

Today Lee asks us about our travel adventures. Or lack of them.

Appetizer: Have you ever travelled outside your native country?

Why, yes, I have. I have been to Canada (barely), Mexico (twice), Ireland (lots of times), England, Wales, and Switzerland (one day, with jet lag). I have also been to the US Virgin Islands, which technically is the US, but also is sorta not.

Soup: What's the farthest from home you have ever ventured?

I guess that would be Switzerland. It was on a work trip for my ex, and we tacked a visit to his family in Ireland onto that. I had a baby and a toddler at the time, so rousing their jet lagged selves to do anything at all in Switzerland was hard. The promise of seeing a train got Tuba Boy motivated, so we got to enjoy the famed Swiss punctuality with a little train ride, followed by a mandatory Toblerone purchase. The next morning, I had to fly to Ireland alone. The worst part was getting them on and off the plane, and through customs, since both were asleep (Tuba Boy kept falling asleep standing up, and Beccano was at his Michelin Man portliest) and I had to part with my stroller. Thank goodness for total strangers who helped. The ex joined us after his work conference and that became the infamous trip where we left Beccano in the middle of downtown Dublin, asleep in his stroller. Ha, good memories, since we got him back, and he never even knew he'd been abandoned. Henceforth, we developed a very strict "who has each child" checklist.

Salad: Do you plan to travel abroad any time in the future, however long it may be? If so, where?

Well, I guess some day I won't be a contractor living in the middle of the Even Greater Depression, so I guess I'll go. It appears I will need to go to New Zealand or Australia, which are OK, I guess, since they lack people who will attack me and killer parasites (see below). If it were up to me, I'd like to visit pretty much everywhere in Scandinavia, Iceland, everwhere in Europe, every single inhabited island off the coast of Europe, all of the Virgin Islands, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, and perhaps Argentina.

However, I have no immediate plans to go to any of these places.

Entré: What would deter you most, fear of being targeted as an American, the security considerations of your on nation, or something else?

The following things would deter me:

• The fact that I am a woman will keep me out of any country that is predominately Islamic until I have a lot of proof that the country is moderate and doesn't plan to kill me if my ankle accidentally shows. It will also keep me away from some Asian countries
  


• I've already learned to deal with anti-Americanism by not talking whenever possible and dressing like the people who live where I am going, not like an American. I'd wear Obama buttons right now if I went to Europe, since I hear that helps. But there are many places I just would not go. Right now, Russia is one place. I am fine with not going where I am not welcome.
  


• Then there are diseases and parasites. Sorry, but I have had enough friends get horrible things that live in them then pop out, contract malaria, or get some really awful, long-lasting illness after travel. I am just gonna skip the Amazon, thanks. And most of Africa (seems like every country there has a disease/parasite issue, a crazed government issue, or fundamentalist Islam issue).


• I am not overly worried about US security. I think I am boring enough that they won't throw me in jail when I come back, and since I don't have too much money, I think I'll be OK on the customs form.

Dessert: If you could go anywhere in the world for free, where would you most want to go?

Right now, honestly, I'd either go to my dad in North Carolina and help him move or go home and hang out in Gainesville, Florida for a while. I'll go all those other places in my head, I guess.