Meeting Nuts in person...

leatherback said:
Big words for a little sponge! When will you come and visit!?
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Finances are the only issue, Friend.. If our LAND was connected, It'd be much easier.. But providing airfare for 2 adults, 2 kids, and One "under 2" get's more pricey..

However.. The Boys and Andrea (The boys mother) are going to Kentucky, financed by Nikos grandma, for June 20-27.. So any travel during THOSE dates would be cheaper!!

😂😂😂🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓
 
Clicio said:
View attachment 438581
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I used to know a couple orchid growers in SaoPaulo, if I ever made the journey, I would definitely look you up. Unfortunately, the orchid growers I knew, moved to Florida. My brother once was part of a camera crew doing a documentary in the favelas outside Brasillia. Unfortunately, age and health are making long distance travel more and more difficult for me. I regret not travelling more as a younger man.

You BNuts under 50 years old - travel to as many foreign lands, as far as you can, while you can. Best trip I ever did was Singapore and Malaysia back when I was about 40 years old. Going somewhere, where you do not speak the dominant language really helps to "shake your brain up" and give your mind more room to grow. Its humbling, and fun. And it helps to be adventurous with tasting and eating food. The entire trip I never once had "American Food" while I was out of America. Ba ku te, durion, gado gado (spelling?), and many, many other foods were absolute delights. The midnight markets in Kuala Lumpur and the smell of giant sticks of sandalwood burning, mounted on street lamp posts in Malacca, while walking at night, all was so exotic that 35 years later I still remember and talk about the 2 week trip. I did not go with a traditional tour group, our group was Tai Chi practitioners, mostly from Taiwan, only 7 in our group were fluent in English. We saw Malaysia not as "ugly American tourists" but as what Taiwanese Tai Chi teachers would have wanted to see. Not so many night clubs, kind'a like travelling with the Minneapolis Lutheran League, but they loved food. We saw beaches, mountains, historic temples, attended induction ceremonies (graduation as full fledged teachers) in a tong in Malacca and in a temple in Kuala Lumpur. Most of the group were Chinese nationals abroad, religiously more or less Taoist. Which is an interesting religion, as there is no deity per se, only the Tao, "the Way", which is not a deity.

Long and short of it, you younger BNuts, travel while you can, even if you don't think you can afford it, scrap the money together and do it. If you wait until you "have the money", you will be to old, fat and miserable to walk around Machu Picchu, or visit Koto Kinabalu, or swim the beautiful beaches of Palau Pankor, or visit the lava lake in Vanuatu. or hike Tierra del Fuego, or visit @Clicio in Sao Paulo. Drop in on him in time for Carnival, its sure to be a good time.
 
Leo in N E Illinois said:
I used to know a couple orchid growers in SaoPaulo, if I ever made the journey, I would definitely look you up. Unfortunately, the orchid growers I knew, moved to Florida. My brother once was part of a camera crew doing a documentary in the favelas outside Brasillia. Unfortunately, age and health are making long distance travel more and more difficult for me. I regret not travelling more as a younger man.

You BNuts under 50 years old - travel to as many foreign lands, as far as you can, while you can. Best trip I ever did was Singapore and Malaysia back when I was about 40 years old. Going somewhere, where you do not speak the dominant language really helps to "shake your brain up" and give your mind more room to grow. Its humbling, and fun. And it helps to be adventurous with tasting and eating food. The entire trip I never once had "American Food" while I was out of America. Ba ku te, durion, gado gado (spelling?), and many, many other foods were absolute delights. The midnight markets in Kuala Lumpur and the smell of giant sticks of sandalwood burning, mounted on street lamp posts in Malacca, while walking at night, all was so exotic that 35 years later I still remember and talk about the 2 week trip. I did not go with a traditional tour group, our group was Tai Chi practitioners, mostly from Taiwan, only 7 in our group were fluent in English. We saw Malaysia not as "ugly American tourists" but as what Taiwanese Tai Chi teachers would have wanted to see. Not so many night clubs, kind'a like travelling with the Minneapolis Lutheran League, but they loved food. We saw beaches, mountains, historic temples, attended induction ceremonies (graduation as full fledged teachers) in a tong in Malacca and in a temple in Kuala Lumpur. Most of the group were Chinese nationals abroad, religiously more or less Taoist. Which is an interesting religion, as there is no deity per se, only the Tao, "the Way", which is not a deity.

Long and short of it, you younger BNuts, travel while you can, even if you don't think you can afford it, scrap the money together and do it. If you wait until you "have the money", you will be to old, fat and miserable to walk around Machu Picchu, or visit Koto Kinabalu, or swim the beautiful beaches of Palau Pankor, or visit the lava lake in Vanuatu. or hike Tierra del Fuego, or visit @Clicio in Sao Paulo. Drop in on him in time for Carnival, its sure to be a good time.
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Around 1991, right after the Gulf War, my family spent a year living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I was only 9 or 10, but the experience was one of the greatest formers of my life.
I went to an international school of mostly Europeans. My best friends were an Italian and a German. My mother felt cooped up for the first month or two because she wasn't allowed to drive, but eventually she figured out how it worked there and did a good bit of her grocery shopping in the street markets in stead of the commissary. My family is still confused on what shawarma is supposed to be like because the first stand we found and became regulars at was actually run by a Turk. We met a group of young university men who saved money by camping in the desert in a Bedouin tent, and the youngest, named Ahmed, immediately became taken with me older sister- 13 at the time- and was actively courting my parents with promises of great prosperity for her once he graduated. The national camel races were a spectacular event that anyone in the country could enter, not like the roboticized, wealth dependent joke it is now.

Later in life, in the US army, I spent another year between Kuwait and Iraq. Three different dialects so I never did get any good at the language, but was able to settle in very easily and became one of my platoon's go-to guys for dealing with haji, as they say, because I wasn't intimidated by the cultural differences.

War or peace, some of the best moments of my life.
 
ShadyStump said:
Later in life, in the US army, I spent another year between Kuwait and Iraq.
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Yeah... the military and overseas duty was one of the best things to happen with me. Lived in Germany for two years in the Army, picked up a lot of the language, and more importantly, became very familiar with the culture. Took several years of German in college, and studied in Luxemburg for a summer. On my last visit (over the last two weeks), the best praise I would get (in front of my kids) were waitresses who would say "wow your German is really good!" :)

I've been trying to convince my kids to work overseas... at least for a year or two.

DSC00539.jpg
 
Bonsai Nut said:
Yeah... the military and overseas duty was one of the best things to happen with me. Lived in Germany for two years in the Army, picked up a lot of the language, and more importantly, became very familiar with the culture. Took several years of German in college, and studied in Luxemburg for a summer. On my last visit (over the last two weeks), the best praise I would get (in front of my kids) were waitresses who would say "wow your German is really good!" :)

I've been trying to convince my kids to work overseas... at least for a year or two.
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Army Vet, also! Small world, and great wisdom/advice from @ShadyStump & yourself. SOP, PM, & Discipline go hand & hand with Bonsai.

c4W4ry.gif
 
I love that so many BNutters appreciate travel. Travel to a foreign land where you don't know the language is a humbling, beautiful, invigorating experience. One glimpses what it's like to not be able to understand the simplest things or express yourself at the most basic level. Everyone, EVERYONE should be an immigrant at some point. Humanity needs more understanding of our fellow folks.

And more trees!
 
Leo in N E Illinois said:
@Bonsai Nut - where were those 2 photos taken?, I feel like I should know, just can't place them.

Peru could be one of my guesses, but I'm not sure.
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The first was taken at Hohenzollern Castle (Germany). The second, as @leatherback knows, is the peak of the Zugspitze (Germany).
 
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Leo in N E Illinois said:
visit @Clicio in Sao Paulo. Drop in on him in time for Carnival, its sure to be a good time.
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Yes, definitely.
@leatherback did it more than once, and we have become friends.
Carnival week? Fun, but very hot and humid. But Brazil is much more than summertime and jungle.
I think @Leo in N E Illinois advice is a sound one. Travel, travel while you can.
The only things robbers can't get from me are my travel memories; I have lived in NYC, Madrid, Athens, and was lucky to have been to China, Japan for 5 times, all of Europe, all of the USA and Canada, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Singapore, Dubai.
I don't regret a single moment.
 
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