where in the world

I love this: Maps you can create of where in the world you’ve traveled.

Here’s my World Map. (Um, it’s way down because I babble on and on here.)

Reminds me of two things: 1) I really want to travel more and 2) I really need to write some posts about my 2004 trip to Thailand. Oh, and I’m cheating there on South Korea. During the trip home, we had a LONGGG layover in Inchon — so long we were hoping to leave and see some sights while we waited. Nope. The price to escape the airport at Inchon was waay too high. Seriously, it was like they made you post bail or something. Forget you, Inchon.

And, right then, I remember the bad mood really kicked in.

Because, basically, I’d been up for 30 hours straight, been trapped in a torrential downpour in Bangkok right before the flight, and was now walking around in clothes that I’m pretty sure were starting to mildew. Oh, and one of our pastor’s bratty kids HIT me. This, of course, did not go unnoticed (ahem) by ME. Here I was, on a missions trip for our Lord, puffed up by my own rampant goodness, and I suddenly wanted to throttle a little kid. Trust me, you would’ve wanted in on that action, too. He was not a little kid; he was a little snot. And I STILL think that. I’m sure God understands. I mean, HE made ‘im. He knows. Oh, I remember before we even left on the trip — during one of our planning meetings where the holy terrors were engaging in blatant, unchecked floor-rolling, a practice I DETEST — My Beloved leaned in to me and whispered, “Those kids have international incident written ALL over them.” Haha!

(Although maybe he hit me because I smelled like a load of rotten laundry. I dunno. Whatever Snot’s reasons were …. he did NOT hit me again.)

Oh! I just remembered something else about that airport — sitting there in that modern, eerily empty space, peeking over the shoulder of a bizarre teenage kid who’d come on the trip with us. I am being kind when I say he was bizarre. He was not so much bizarre as he was BIH-ZARRE. When we wasn’t randomly flicking his pocket knife open-closed-open-closed, he was suddenly practicing aikido, and when he wasn’t suddenly practicing aikido, he was scribbling in his journal, and at this particular moment, he was scribbling in his journal, and I was, frankly, bored. So what was the harm in a little peek? This kid fascinated me because after two weeks of observing his behavior and that vacant, thousand-mile stare he had, I’d decided that one fine day he’s going to go Mosquito Coast on someone’s ass and I’ll be able to say Hey! — and I knew him when he was just a weird random knife flicker. Peeping over his shoulder, I could see his scrawl and I got a gander at THIS: “I dont know what to say. I am so filled with imosions.”

I jumped up, moved away. I was choking with laughter. From all the imosions, you see.

Oh, yeah. South Korea counts.

So — Yes! The map:

(Hmm … it doesn’t all fit. Why doesn’t it fit? Oh, well, this portion covers my world travels thus far anyway!)

create your own visited countries map

And my USA Map:

(Not enough room here either. Um, what’s missing from my USA travels here? Oh, Massachusetts.)

create your own visited states map