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jack
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Likes it here |
Location: England
Registered: September 2006
Messages: 304
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what is you favourite country to visit.
life is to enjoy.
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jack wrote:
> what is you favourite country to visit.
Probably Scotland. I spent seven very happy years living there, and have a number of very close friends from that period of my life. But the weather - at least on the East Coast - usually sucks big-time, and many parts of the country still have a narrowmindedness that is the relic of the strong Presbyterian tradition.
As a country to visit as a tourist at the moment, probably Portugal: it still has un-built-up areas, the climate is warm but not hot, and the history is fascinating.
The country that I most enjoyed visiting, and that it is now impossible to return to, was one I spent some time in when I did the "hippie trail" back in the 1970s. The father of a friend was a senior UN official there, and I got a pretty good insight into the country, between his advice, and the day-to-day contact with the people that one gets when roughing it in a clapped-out Land Rover. The scenery is utterly spectacular, the culture was - and is - typical of a cross-roads of the trade routes. Alas, the Kingdom of Afghanistan is no more.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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Greece, I've been there 7 times.
aqua
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love. Washington Irving
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13801
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It depends what I want to do. I like sightseeing in old cities in Europe. I love beach and sun and sand. I had many happy holidays in Wales, north and south. I think my favourite is the one I am visiting at the time
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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I like the islands....
Europe is good....
If i had to pick the country I want to visit most..... Ontario Ca.
[Updated on: Fri, 13 July 2007 15:16]
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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Jedediah
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Likes it here |
Location: Made in NZ
Registered: March 2006
Messages: 170
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Holidays? What's that?
But if i could, i'd be in England - of course!
E Te Atua tukuna mai ki au te Mauri tauki te tango i nga mea
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I love France, is easy to get to and I don't have to fly I just got back from two weeks in Malta, was an amazing place and I loved it, but I hated the flying
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Zambezi
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Toe is in the water |
Location: Various (!)
Registered: January 2004
Messages: 40
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Ten years ago I would have implored anyone to visit Zimbabwe: reliably predictable weather, breathtaking scenery, big game hunting, the mind-boggling scale of Victoria Falls (twice the height of Niagra, more than twice the width of Horseshoe), and the colonial history/heritage. All it was missing was access to an ocean. Alas, the place has imploded under Mugabe's "rule" and although tourists are officially still welcomed you'd have to be devoid of common sense, decency, or shame to even consider it.
South Africa is a pale imitation, but because it is not landlocked it is for my money the most complete country in the world today although crime is a serious problem. SA is also a very gay-friendly country: it is, as far as I am aware, the only place in the world where gay equality is enshrined in the Constitution.
Within Europe Portugal has a charm of its own, with really nice people, good weather, and a good mix of culture, recreational distractions, amazing beaches, low crime, the least intimidating capital city in Europe, good wine and great food, all at low prices. Unlike the UK as a nation it has come to terms with the end of its imperial history and its new place in the world, and it has a sense of purpose about the future too.
If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving isn't for you.
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Zambezi wrote:
> Within Europe Portugal has a charm of its own, with really nice people, good weather, and a good mix of culture, recreational distractions, amazing beaches, low crime, the least intimidating capital city in Europe, good wine and great food, all at low prices. Unlike the UK as a nation it has come to terms with the end of its imperial history and its new place in the world, and it has a sense of purpose about the future too.
I suspect the coming to terms with a post-imperial future largely came about as a result of the enormous popular support for the almost bloodless 1974 "Carnation Revolution" which finally saw off the much-loathed Fascist regime of Salazar (which had been strongly pro-colonial). My first visit to Portugal was just after Salazar left, but the Fascist regime was still in power - I remember vividly being shown the imposing hulk of a prison just offshore and being told "the best men in Portugal are on that island".
But I agree that modern Portugal is a truly fantastic country!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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Zambezi
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Toe is in the water |
Location: Various (!)
Registered: January 2004
Messages: 40
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Actually, the best men in Portugal would have been in the "Overseas Territories" - Mocambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau along with 100,000 of their countrymen fighting and losing a war to keep their Empire. Those members of the intelligentsia not fighting in Africa were either in Macao, if they hadn't yet fled the Empire, or were working as waiters and road-sweepers in Paris and Brussels if they had.
There was indeed enormous popular support for the 1974 revolution, but it wasn't a popular "bottom up" revolution in any sense of the word: it was a coup d'etat by the military who were bearing the brunt of the colonial policy. It was only once Antonio Spinola, having seized power despite little involvement in the MFA (Movimento das Forcas Armadas - Armed Forces Movement) which actually carried out the coup, created the Council for the Revolution and stepped aside that the people really believed they weren't having one tinpot dictator replaced by another, and there was then a groundswell of public support for the Movement despite two further coups in 1975. Spinola himself was a pro-colonial and only became involved in the revolution because Marcelo Caetano (Salazar's successor from 1968 to 1974) refused to hand over power to anyone else.
What really made the difference about the nation accepting the end of its place as a major world power was the circumstance of essentially losing a war over it. The self-delusion which allows Brits to think they're still a major player simply isn't possible in Portugal. Once they woke up to the fact that they are a tiny insignificant little nation on the edge of Europe, they realised that the only way forward was European integration.
For anyone who is interested about Antonio de Oliveira Salazar he rose to power in 1932 about six months before Hitler, who was all of eight days his senior. Despite being a Fascist he managed to keep Portugal out of WW2 by adopting an appeasement stance, but the remarkable thing is how he came to power. He started out as the Finance Minister and from there controlled the budget so closely that the rest of the cabinet was essentially emasculated. The Prime Minister of the day eventually stepped aside saying that since Salazar controlled all the money he controlled the government anyway, and he was actually more popular. Cheered into power with thunderous applause from his party, he slowly appointed all his cronies into high office, dismantled the checks and balances of the democratic process without opposition in the name of constitutional reform, and quietly assumed the mantle of dictator.
Those who clapped Gordon in last month, beware. You have been warned.
[Updated on: Sat, 14 July 2007 18:18]
If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving isn't for you.
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I'd have to say the favorite country I've visited was Kenya. The breathtaking sights of the migration season on the Masi Mara Game Reserve and the Great Rift Valley, the spectacular views of and from Mt. Kilamanjaro, etc. It is the one place I'd love to go back to and take someone with me to show. Crime seems to be a problem in the country. I'd much prefer to be on a group tour as there seems to be some strength in numbers, but I loved my visit there.
“There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.” - Terry Pratchett
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