Steve -
You can't taste the food on the Internet. You can't appreciate the
special French love of beauty and nature on the Internet. You can't feel
the excitement of colors and scents at the weekly outdoor markets on the
Internet. Most of all you can't appreciate the wonderful French sense of
humor on the Internet. Doesn't matter if you don't speak French or
whatever language is spoken in the country you're visiting, as long as
you learn the basics--hello, goodbye, please, thank you, and a few more
phrases--and use them politely, you'll be welcome almost anywhere in the
world. Lots of people will gladly practice speaking English with you.
And if not, you can have an amazing conversation by pointing to pictures
on you cell phone or notebook, and haggle effectively with a calculator.
But you have to go, as a traveler instead a tourist, not on a tour,
without a group, and meet lots of people [even the charming gendarmes
who were taking classes at our hotel near Perpignan]. After all, that's
the best reason to travel--people [and shopping]. And you can keep in
touch with friends and family using their very fast Internet and
ubiquitous cellular networks while you're away from home. Most
important, never let a lack of money keep you from traveling. Go! Now!
I hear the weather in the Canary Islands is delightful this time of
year--or maybe Brazil, Uruguay or Chile.
Did I mention the food? All that delicious unprocessed non-GMO food?
Betty
> Like this...
> http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/02/11/france.quality.life/?hpt=T2
It often surprises me that the Internet does not really seem to have
done all that much to broaden how well a lot of people in the United
States understand and view the rest of the world and how our nation
fits into the mix. So much information is available, yet so many of
the same and tired old myths and misperceptions abound.
We are not the top dog in many areas that are commonly used to
determine quality of life, yet so many in the United States continue
to maintain that we are. Yet, these same people, a lot of them in
influential positions and claiming to be experts, are quite computer
literate and routinely ply the ether of the Internet. They must have
very powerful filtering algorithms at work in their computers that
prevent them from discovering what so many others can easily find and
plainly see.
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