Foreign Travel

[Gopher]

The other day I heard that only about 1 in 10 Americans had been outside the USA. Can this be true? Does anyone know the accurate figure and have any idea how this compares with other countries?

[kitten]

I wonder if they were counting in all the day trips to Tijuana.  Cross the line, have a wild party, come home and be part of the statistics.

[Gopher]

Could those people count?

[kitten]

They'd probably count rabbits crossing if it improved their tally.

[Gopher]

This reminds me of when I went to the Czech Republic during the Iron Curtain era. On every occasion that I entered there was an hours long delay at the border (if I recall correctly there were about three sorts of borders to go through). Well, one of them featured barbed wire, and I was always impressed how sparrows used to perch on it before flying off  either to the west or the east or vice versa. - WITHOUT the hassle of visas and over-regulation. It taught me just how 'privileged' mankind was at that time.

[kitten]

I went to Hungary while it was still under occupation.  I was quite appalled by their poor standard of living.  And the Customs at the airport needed to know every detail about each item in my luggage.  Fo instance, why did I need several pairs of nylons for only one month!  Later I learned that the women would darn them very neatly whenever there was a run.

[Gopher]

The standard of living was very poor indeed, but I always found that 'they' had retained a lot of the values that we'd thrown away.

Anecdotally, I always used to buy some Chanel No. 5 to take over to one of the girls over there, thinking it would be the utmost luxury, only to be latterly ishown a cupboard full of the stuff - evidently every western visitor had obviously had the same idea. She no doubt thought it was very cheap.

[kitten]

True enough.  What would have been a luxury would have been a dozen pairs of nylons.  That was something they had difficulty obtaining.

[Gopher]

Also plastic carrier bags (especially if they had western advertisements over them). Where else have you been?

[kitten]

Just down the east and west coasts of the States.  On the east coast, the highlight of the trip was the Smithsonian and the National Art Gallery in Washington, D.C.  On the west coast, driving through the redwoods was fascinating, and I also remembr a Japanese deer park that was beautiful.

[Gopher]

Never been to the Sates at all. I wonder why I had some feeling that you had  once paid a visit to Scotland?

[kitten]

I would have liked to visit Scotland.  My brother-in-law was a Highlander from Inverness.  A very fine gentleman, indeed.  

[Gopher]

I'm sure he must have been - to have such a sister in law.

[kitten]

Even better, he had my sister.  He was a fortunate man.

[Gopher]

Indeed. Did your sister move over to Scotland?