Continents Visited & Your Favorite

[thongd4me 69]

*With Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey, choose Europe or Asia at your discretion.

[DanielParul 50]

Visited Asia (Thailand, Japan) Europe (lived in England, visited Germany) and N. America since I live here now.

Can't decide on a favorite coz every continent and country I have visited is so different.

[thongd4me 69]

Favorite Country =>

Question #2 only - responses should actually INCLUDE the USA as it's only fair.

For questions #1 and #3 continent visited & the continent of non-USC,

N. America would indicate Mexico, Central America & Canada,

and logically exclude the USA, because it would have 100%

responding that they visited the US and a fair question

should mean N. America except the US.

[Nikita2Charles 31]

Each places and continent is different

Live in Europe for a few months

Burghausen Germany, right across the Austrian Border

France

Coudraix de Monceaux, Essonnes, Every sur seine

Been to Lyon, Bordeaux, Normandie and recently Marseilles(Droit aux but)

South America

Brasil(Rio De Janeiro, Bahia, Manaus, Belem, Fortaleza, Sao Paolo, Marinhao) Peru, Venezuela, Colombia

North America

Canada, Mexico(cancun, Tijuana long time back before this border mess, Acapulco

Love the carribean

Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, St Vincents, Bahamas.

Asia/South/East Asia

Hong Kong, Seoul South Korea, Japan, Shanghai China, Singapore, Malaysia, India.

[thongd4me 69]

I started out, of all places, in Beirut Lebanon from where I traveled to

Egypt, Syria, Jordan & Israel (Tour to Egypt and the others by mostly hitchhiking).

Hey it was the 1970's and things were different then.

Afghanistan (4 months), Ethiopia (2 years) France (2 months) and England (few weeks).

Japan (3 trips for 3-4 weeks each) and Thailand (5 times over 6 years, a month each).

Mexico & Canada, yada yada yada.

Oh yes, and the planet "Remulak"

[TBoneTX 43,057]

South America, si man (?). Riddle yourself this trip from last year, si man:

1. The 5.5-hour flight to Quito featured two constantly screaming googies in the row behind, & an unaccompanied, massively hyperactive, completely unoccupied 8-year-old in the adjacent seat. Four hours in, T-B. went to the stewardi (stewardess, pl.) and said (verbatim), "PLEASE kill me NOW!"

2. The TSA held T-B.'s suitcase for "extra inspection," & it missed T-B.'s flight. Luckily, we were staying in Quito another day, so T-B. went back to the airport to snatch it 24 hours later. However, see 3.

3. T-B. spent a 12-hour day having to be 100% social amongst Mrs. T-B.'s approximately 5,982,801 relatives in Quito & four cities north... in airplane clothes.

4. Flew south to Loja on Mon.; airline efficiently put a plastic lock on T-B.'s suitcase, and T-B. had no scissors with which to cut it open.

5. Taxxied to Peru up & down 1.5-lane-wide, avalanche-inflicted quagmirish mountain roads for 10 hours, with terrified wife's clawprints permanently adorning T-B.'s forearms.

6. Brand-new hotel in Peru had no hot water upon 3 askings, then no water at all thereafter (their efficient solution to the original problem). Hotel owner went back with a can of propane and sign-languaged that it was fixed. Water thereafter vacillated between scalding and polar, multiple times during same shower.

7. Only open restaurant in fifth-world Peruvian hamlet (with a turkey walking down Main Street) served us "carne de res," which was supposed to be beef but was really burro.

8. Terrified wife awakened at 5:40 a.m. to announce that it had rained again, and that we had better hit the re-muddied road early. Arrived at Peruvian immigration (narrowly avoiding a convoy of cows & a gaggle of chickens) promptly at 8 a.m. only to learn that the immigration "officer" had decided to sleep in. Had to track him down (through mud, dodging roosters) at his house to awaken him and get the "gringo exit stamp" from his completely dried-up inkpad.

9. After 12-hour drive back up Quagmire Way (including two near-head-on collisions with convoys of cows), newest hotel in Mrs. T-B.'s town (prequalified thoroughly by Mrs. T-B.) had no hot water, had NOT finished LOUD construction (began at 7 a.m. Monday), and was semi-infested with mosquitoes. A day later, it still had no hot water, and Mrs. T-B.'s mom frantically prepared a spare room in her house for our imminent advent.

10. Due to no sleep, constant rain & cold (it was winter's near-end), icy showers, & hyperactive nieces/nephew, Mrs. T-B. was getting sick (& claimed that it was the "porcina" -- Puerco Flu). Turned out to be severe allergies. Weather then turned massively hot, with of course no air conditioning anywhere in town, & voraciously hungry mosquitoes.

11. No one in Mrs. T-B.'s town (a casual place at best, & 99.44% dysfunctional during Independence Festival week) could be trusted to provide any accurate answers or information about anything whatsoever.

12. Roosters crowed and dogs woofed, all constantly. One rooster began at midnight; his brothers continued at 3 a.m.; all chorused together usually at 5:30 a.m.

13. Three-hour taxi trip to Loja (for flight back to Quito) took an extra 2 hours because of avalanche-removal stoppages.

14. Airline personnel tried to impose a "gringo exit tax" on T-B. at Loja airport until Mrs. T-B. interceded and convinced them that the venue was inappropriate, and that T-B. would be duly nailed in Quito.

15. An extremely vocal, energetic rooster resides in downtown Quito and cannot particularly distinguish night from day.

16. Quito airport security confiscated two statuettes that turned out to be pull-apart models that had knives inside. Maybe this was part of the "gringo exit tax."

17. Airline had no record of T-B.'s online check-in (done specially at o'dark-thirty on Sun.) and GOOD seat choice; T-B. had to sit on hot/bright side of plane (windowshade far too hot to lean against or touch) and got zero sleep.

Good news was that the Houston Immigration/Customs Puercos did NOT give trouble (a first), and remote-parking shuttle pulled up right as T-B. exited the Houston airport.

Overall, a completely restful & massively groovy trip!

T-B. (who, if he ever uncorks a genie, will immediately wish to shoot a BILLION roosters)

[thongd4me 69]

I've encountered those rabid roosters in Ethiopia too.

Actually I think the only time that roosters crow only in the morning is in 1930's American movies and cartoons.

Reminds me of some of my travels.

Si, man.

Edited May 18, 2010 by thongd4me

[Penguin_ie 5,985]

Am from Europe, have visited everywhere (used to work for an airline= cheap flights). Loved Antarctica best, I am a big penguin fan!

[thongd4me 69]

Am from Europe, have visited everywhere (used to work for an airline= cheap flights). Loved Antarctica best, I am a big penguin fan!

What does a passport stamp from Antarctica look like?

- a chip off the old block

What happens when you cross a penguin with a razorback?...a Pig-Guin

Edited May 18, 2010 by thongd4me

[Nessa 23]

man, I must be old. back when I was in school America was only 1 continent. There were only 5 continents.

[Marilyn. 340]

By convention there are seven continents: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and Antarctica. Some geographers list only six continents, combining Europe and Asia into Eurasia. In parts of the world, students learn that there are just five continents: Eurasia, Australia, Africa, Antarctica, and the Americas.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/faq/geography.html

[thongd4me 69]

http://www.nationalg.../geography.html

By convention there are seven continents: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and Antarctica. Some geographers list only six continents, combining Europe and Asia into Eurasia. In parts of the world, students learn that there are just five continents: Eurasia, Australia, Africa, Antarctica, and the Americas.

Yes, and often the islands surrounding Australia are referred to as "Oceania" in which NZ would be included.

I lumped Antarctica together with the locations that were "neither here nor there" because they would

have so few respondents. I was surprised to get one who had visited Antarctica but I don't know if

the ladies from there are as popular as from other continents...

Resumé item: "ability to keep husband warm on cold nights"

Edited May 20, 2010 by thongd4me

[redglasses 1]

.

[GabiandVi 34]

I've encountered those rabid roosters in Ethiopia too.

Actually I think the only time that roosters crow only in the morning is in 1930's American movies and cartoons.

Reminds me of some of my travels.

Si, man.

I LOVE the sound of roosters. It does remind me a bit of Africa, but it also reminds me of the small town I grew up going to church in. Someone in the middle of the town had a rooster in their yard who was fond of crowing at the moon. Finally, one morning at about 3:00, the neighbor had enough and called the police. The one who was on duty (there were only two in the town) came and arrested the rooster and literally locked him into the single-celled, antebellum jail house.

It became the joke of the town and a few months later, someone put up a rooster crossing sign at one of the intersections in town. At Christmas, the town set up a display along the river bank of a rooster pulling Santa's sleigh. Both those things remained until the town was discovered by the city-folk and the Hollywood stars who have homes there. Broke my heart.

Edited June 2, 2010 by GabiandVi

[GabiandVi 34]

I had a hard time with the second question. I finally settled on Europe because I like pretty much the entire continent, but my favorite place in the world is probably Thailand.

I have the most quintessential Africa story. It was the day we flew out. The flight was almost at midnight, but thankfully on these flights, you check your bags in the morning.

When it came time to make our way to the airport that night for the flight, we had a house full of my husband's family. I had unloaded what I had brought to Benin with me that I hadn't packed to go back - empty suitcases, piles of baby clothes, a pack-n-play - to my in-laws. (That almost erupted into a fight.) I still had with me a backpack with everything I would need in the 24 hours it would take me to get home, the front carrier with my 8 month old, and her stroller for the 8 hour layover in Paris.

We piled everyone into the car and headed toward the airport. About a mile from town, we hit a traffic jam. It wasn't moving, so my husband pulled the car in front of an eatery. We flagged down 2 zemis (motorcycle taxis). We planned for my husband to carry the stroller and the backpack and me to carry our child, but the zemi drivers said they couldn't get through the jam either.

We began to walk. I had the backpack still on my back and the front carrier on my front. My sisters-in-law were carrying the suitcases now filled with clothes and the pack-n-play on their heads and my husband carried the stroller and a couple of other things from the car.

People were making disrespectful comments about a White woman walking that I couldn't understand but that pizzed off my s-i-ls. We got to a point where it was almost impossible to get through even on foot. We finally got through the jam and traffic opened up. We flagged a taxi to take us to meet a friend of my husband's who was waiting on at a corner to take us to the airport.

Meanwhile, my daughter had developed a bad case of diahrea and she leaked all down my clothes. I had several changes for her, but none for me, so I had to travel the rest of the trip with sh!t on my clothes and on the front carrier. Fortunately, she was still on formula so it didn't smell too bad. I had waited to wean her because I didn't want to battle finding appropriate food for her in Africa. And what I was wearing was chosen to not show baby vomit too much, and the stuff was thin and almost clear, so it didn't show.