June 12 – Day 9 – We took a bus out to the Summer Palace today.

The drive was very interesting. This is 2008 and the streets are like the wild west. Cars going all over the place and stopping on railroad crossings and so forth. Its just crazy. Check out the internet and see for yourself if you haven’t experienced this yourself on vacation in Russia.

The Summer Palace is beautiful. It is fit for a king and his lovely wife. I would be quite happy living there. The fountains and the gardens are lovely. Its amazing to see what people of this era could do without power tools and modern equipment.

I suggest that everyone travel and see the world as much as possible. We are not rich by any means. These trips have occurred over several years for us. Russia is a must see, however. Get there as soon as possible. Who knows what will happen there next.

We seemed to have just missed trouble many times in several countries. The risk is always there, but don’t let that keep you at home. Here is a short list of trouble spots that we got out of unscathed.

Ecuador, the president was asked to leave in 2000, while we were there. We had no idea why the city was filled with troops as we walked through it.

Nepal, we left a week before the king was assassinated and while the Chinese insurgency was going on.

Italy, we were there when they refused to sign the paper work to align completely with the EU. The Europeans dislike each other even more than they dislike us. History has shown that over and over again.

Spain, marching in the streets for the creation of a new state of Catalan. It wasn’t too bad actually.

I think a book could be written about tourists trapped in different countries during troubled times. Perhaps several already have and I’m just not aware of them.