Do you own a passport?

[CindyE]

We need to go to Argentina.

Every lunch is a Brazilian steakhouse, cases of ammo for dove hunting, no limit on geese. Have I snapped you out of your funk, Harry?

Argentina has wine, too.

 

[CindyE]

I don't have one, never have. It's been at least 25 years since I've been out of the USA, I've only been to MX and Canada. I've never flown, not sure I want to.

 

[Kutnupe14]

I own a passport. Just recently got back from southern Australia. Beautiful country, beautiful women, weather was phenomenal.
Expensive as hell and a pain in the rear to get there, but would recommend to all

Melbourne?

 

[semperfi211]

The wife and I have passports, mainly for our annual escape from winter to Punta Cana.

 

[JettaKnight]

I would expect that we're over 10% here. Firearms make for a relatively expensive hobby, and those who maintain expensive hobbies tend to be people with more disposable income.

2011 is the most recent year that I spent entirely in the U.S.

Yeah, but we have a lot of this attitude here on INGO:

Expired, haven't been out of the U.S. in 12 yrs now. I see little need to go where I'm not wanted.

That's unfortunate for a whole host of reasons; I'm a firm believer that travel to foreign lands and interacting with foreign people makes you a better person.



The whole poll is skewed sincemore people with a passport and/or affinity for travel will click on the thread, while most isolationist will avoid it.

 

[JettaKnight]

Argentina has wine, too.

And hot women.

If tickets weren't so expensive, I'd be looking there instead of the Balkans.

 

[HoughMade]

In the police state you don't own the passport. The passport owns you.

 

[Sylvain]

And hot women.

If tickets weren't so expensive, I'd be looking there instead of the Balkans.

I should have another thread with a poll on the reasons why people how passports.

Hot women and wine will probably be at the top.

 

[Alamo]

...

We had a student from Germany live with us during my senior year in high school. He kept complaining about why we didn't just go see the Grand Canyon or something like it on the weekend. We finally took a trip to see Washington D.C. and he was utterly astonished at how long it took just to get to the Ohio state line.

When I was stationed in Germany I found a lot of the locals (including Dutch, Belgies) did not really grasp the size of CONUS. Once I found a map of US and map of Germany that were the same scale, traced an outline of Germany and lay it on top of Texas. They would be stunned and give up their plan to rent a car and drive from NYC to Miami to Los Angeles.

I stationed there pre-EU, so all locals had a passport, but I never needed anything more than my military ID. I had a personal US passport just in case and for personal security reasons, but the only thing I ever actually did with it was lose it on base one day. Got a replacement from Bonn, and then during reconstruction of a building on base they workers found my passport wedged under the guardbooth at the building entrance.

Uncle Sam gave me a black diplomatic passport when I was stationed in Saudi Arabia. That was nice to have.

 

[historian]

We've got ours. We try to get to Canada once a year to visit my Canadian "family". Would love to use it more, but with three (soon four) small kids, that's about it.

It is a blast going to Canada. Since we visit so often, we just tell them where we are going and they wave us through. I don't think we've stopped for more than five minutes on the Canadian side.

The U.S. Side...that's a whole other ball of wax. "Why were you in Canada?" "Who is in the car with you?" "Why do you hate America?" Usually takes 15 minutes at the window. Plus another 30-45 waiting in line to get there.

My favorite question on the U.S. side is, "Did you bring any weapons back?" From. Canada. I always want to respond with, "I'm from Indiana. We have more weapons at the crummy gun shop two blocks down from my house than they have in the entire province of Ontario."

 

[JettaKnight]

I should have another thread with a poll on the reasons why people how passports.

Hot women and wine will probably be at the top.

Meh. I'm married, so hot women isn't a big draw, and I'm a certified beer judge, so Belgium would come before France these days (I did spend three weeks in France).


For me, I want to go where Americans rarely go. I want to go where it's rarely traveled, but still accommodating (i.e. decent amount of English and flushing toilets). I'm quite fond of Eastern Europe.

 

[historian]

We had a student from Germany live with us during my senior year in high school. He kept complaining about why we didn't just go see the Grand Canyon or something like it on the weekend. We finally took a trip to see Washington D.C. and he was utterly astonished at how long it took just to get to the Ohio state line.

I had a visiting professor on Nazism who did a half term class for us. My wife and I took him out to dinner one night (Grinders, because America!). I asked what was the oddest thing about America and he said it was the space. The apartments we were living in were arraigned in quads. He said that there was about the same amount of green space in one quad as there would have been in a normal park in Germany.

 

[Kutnupe14]

I had a visiting professor on Nazism who did a half term class for us. My wife and I took him out to dinner one night (Grinders, because America!). I asked what was the oddest thing about America and he said it was the space. The apartments we were living in were arraigned in quads. He said that there was about the same amount of green space in one quad as there would have been in a normal park in Germany.

Europeans are fascinated at the size of anything in America. Vehicles, roads, food portions, people (lol). And they have no concept of lemonade. Order one, and they'll bring you a Sprite.

 

[HoughMade]

Europeans are fascinated at the size of anything in America. Vehicles, roads, food portions, people (lol). And they have no concept of lemonade. Order one, and they'll bring you a Sprite.

What happens if I order an Arnold Palmer?

 

[Kutnupe14]

What happens if I order an Arnold Palmer?

It took me years before I taught my bartender how to properly make a Jagerbomb.... and that was in Germany. So I betting that asking for an Arnold Palmer will result in someone making an announcement looking for a person with that name

 

[Sylvain]

When I was stationed in Germany I found a lot of the locals (including Dutch, Belgies) did not really grasp the size of CONUS. Once I found a map of US and map of Germany that were the same scale, traced an outline of Germany and lay it on top of Texas. They would be stunned and give up their plan to rent a car and drive from NYC to Miami to Los Angeles.

I stationed there pre-EU, so all locals had a passport, but I never needed anything more than my military ID. I had a personal US passport just in case and for personal security reasons, but the only thing I ever actually did with it was lose it on base one day. Got a replacement from Bonn, and then during reconstruction of a building on base they workers found my passport wedged under the guardbooth at the building entrance.

Uncle Sam gave me a black diplomatic passport when I was stationed in Saudi Arabia. That was nice to have.

There's a website where you can move US states and drag them over the world to compare their size with other countries.
You can see the state or country you pick will change size depending on where you drag it on the world map.

Europe and the US are not to scale in most paper maps you see.

Here's the Lone Star state compared to Europe:

Alaska over Europe:

Indiana over the UK:

France over Indiana:

 

[gregkl]

There's a website where you can move US states and drag them over the world to compare their size with other countries.
You can see the state or country you pick will change size depending on where you drag it on the world map.

Europe and the US are not to scale in most paper maps you see.

Here's the Lone Star state compared to Europe:



Alaska over Europe:



Indiana over the UK:



France over Indiana:

That's cool. Do you have a link to the website?

 

[spencer rifle]

Our oldest had to have extra pages put into his passport. His goal was to have 27 countries before age 27, and he exceeded that. Plus going to some several times = not enough room in his passport. Ours are not so well-used, but have been around a bit.

 

[CampingJosh]

Our oldest had to have extra pages put into his passport.

That's harder to do anymore. I visited Poland, Hungary, Germany, and Austria last fall, but I only got stamps in Warsaw.

 

[Sylvain]

Europeans are fascinated at the size of anything in America. Vehicles, roads, food portions, people (lol). And they have no concept of lemonade. Order one, and they'll bring you a Sprite.

The Belgium military got some Humvees a few years ago but had to get rid of them because they were too wide for most European streets.

The other day I saw a Ford F150 truck parked in front of a store here in France.
They are very rare over here and a few people stopped to look at it because it was quite a large truck compared to the other cars parked around.
Peopled asked the owner what kind of truck it was.The guy was a real French redneck and proud to own an American pick up truck.
I've seen F150's in the US and never noticed their size.It's probably just a medium size truck over there.

There's a city in France that bought 3 Ford Crown Victoria for their police department a while back (2003 I think).
People complained about it because they were too large for the small streets they have downtown and expensive (50K each to import it from the US).
They finally had to sale them.