Monday, April 26, 2004
Know the place you live
There was a post on Mamamusings that lets you create a map of the places you've visited. You can do the same at My World66
So here's my map of the countries I've visited in the world:
5 countries, for 2% of the world. As a person who likes to travel, that really makes me feel I have some catching up to do.
But then I think..."Hey, it's not like I've never been anywhere." It's easy for us Americans to look at all the other places in the world and think, "Man, I've been to hardly any foreign countries--I've never traveled at all." But then, our sense of space is different. I've traveled all over the United States--here's the map for that:
You can tell I'm missing some of my corners, but I've pretty much been everywhere else. I'm sort of amazed to look at it that way; it makes me realize that, yes, I have indeed been traveling, and it reminds me that the United States, while not the biggest country in the world, is still pretty darn big. I figure last summer (yes, quite literally, just in the four months of summer) I drove over 10,000 miles around the Midwest, South, and East portions of the States. To drive the same amount in Europe, I could start in Lisbon, Portugal, and drive all the way to Russia.
When in Ireland, I was surprised to learn that it took only four some hours to drive across the country; that was less than it took me to drive home from college. I also had the chance to do some traveling over there, to use Ireland as my hub for European exploration, but time--and money--prohibited me from doing so. The more I got to know Ireland, the more I learned the value of knowing the place you live, and knowing it well.
Besides, a long time ago I had a friend who was horribly dumb, but whose world map would look like my state map. She taught me that more travel is not directly proportional to one's intelligence or wisdom--and, honestly, I'd rather have the latter two than a filled passport.
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