Sunday, July 06, 2008

I Went to Yemen Today

I'm sure most of you have noticed the latest additions to a lot of blogs lately - the maps or listing of places that have viewed that blog recently.  I know some of the blogs have gotten some hits from some exotic locations - but I was tickled that I was hit by more than from St. Louis.  
As I check these locations I find myself trying to figure out if it's someone I know or just an accidental hit - who are you guys anyway?  When I actually got one that wasn't even in the USA I was really stumped.  It says Izmir, Izmir.  I checked and it's in Turkey - that had to be accidental.  But it made me wonder - how many countries are there in the world?  I've always been lousy at geography but lucky for me - we have the internet.  
Actually the answer depends on who you ask - it is anywhere between 192 and 195 - countries, that is.  Have you ever heard of Qatar, Chad, or Bhutan?   Of course there is also the complication of names changing and borders moving, etc,.  There are also somewhere between 58 and 61 colonies and territories that belong to about 8 of these countries.  The USA either owns 12 or 14.  I know of Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, & Guam - but where is Baker & Hawland Islands?
I know you're wondering 'where is she going with this?' - to Yemen and San Marino of course.  One of the web sites was Global Web Explorer which invites you to visit some of these places via internet.  I checked out quite a few but most of them were in a foreign language (imagine that!) or you had to have 'clearance'.  Anyway I did visit Yemen a little and I chose it because I remembered it from "Friends" - remember when Chandler claimed he was moving to Yemen?  And I checked out San Marino because it claims to be the oldest republic in the world and it's the 3rd smallest country in the world - it's a rather interesting place I think I'd like to visit.
So actually this blog is nothing but rambling and a few statistics - but just in case you were wondering what I did today - I went to Yemen.  You all have a great week!!

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