One of my classes was asking me some personal questions. They think their English is much better than it really is, so they have a bit of an attitude problem at times. One of the things they asked me was how many countries I had visited.

 
create your own visited country map

I feel that my list is fairly respectable. 20 countries so far, with plans to visit a few more this year. I’ve certainly slowed down since getting married, having only visited China and North Korea in the past two years.(I walked across a line in a room at the DMZ. IT COUNTS!)  We plan on making a swath through Western Europe this summer if things go well.

My students started going down my list. One of the girls had been to China, so she was interested in where I had been. She said she went to Shanghai, not Beijing. Another girl went down the list and said, "Oh, he hasn’t gone ANYWHERE in Europe!" Yeah, except those NINE countries, no where at all. Then she revised her statement in an incredibly snotty way to say, "Oh, he hasn’t been to FRANCE!"

"Yet children," I corrected. "I haven’t been to France, yet."