ttt

I live in South Africa. Was born in the Free State, moved to the Northern Cape where we lived for 11 years - close to the borders of Botswana and Namibia - have wonderful memories of the Kalahari desert. I am now in Pretoria - 40 km from Johannesburg - and within an hour's drive from wonderful private Game reserves - so Croque Madame - if you want to extend your travels to Africa?!

My heart belongs to France - I try to go there once a year. And when possible to Italy - a piece of my soul was left in Rome!

St. Louis has been home for most of my life. Escaped for a few years to Denver as an undergrad, dragged to Ft. Worth as a bride, returned to St. Louis (with hubby in tow). Telluride is our future home...after college tuition.

Meanwhile we visit Europe as often as the bank account allows.

I am very confused about that question myself, but will try to answer..:)

Part Greek, part Yugo, though fundamentally American. Washingtonian more specifically..Lived in Italy, France, Switzerland. Now I live in Brussels, but think I am going to go back to DC..Only to come back to Europe in a few years. 8-}

Born in Krakow,live Chicago nortwest suburbs,great post

I was born in Wichita, Kansas. When I was 14, we moved to Manassas, Virginia. I moved to Williamsburg, Virginia when I was 22 and will probably stay here for ever!

Randy....close by you in Petoskey, Michigan, home of the "million dollar sunsets"!!! Grew up in Detroit and left the big bad city when I was old enough to do so! Would never go back to the smog and traffic in my lifetime!

Mimi ---- I live in Elyria, Ohio.(near Cleveland) Just out of college, about 35 years ago, I spent four years living in Paris. I love my American life, but my heart wanders often to Paris. Fortunately, I have been able to return there several times over the years ----and now I am in the process of planning a trip for about 15 people for September of next year --- I love playing "tour guide!

Maryann, that is my birth name! My older brother could not say Maryann (so the story goes) and called me mimi. I hated it back then when kids are cruel and would say, mimi the moocher.
Now I like it as I'm more a mimi than a sweet Maryann :)

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Born, raised, and still physically residing in Brisbane, Australia - but my heart is in NYC (with Rome a very close second).

Born:US
Live:Monaco

Thank you, Lekker, for the challenging invitation to South Africa, but I must decline. Even if South Africa were the most wondrous, the most beautiful of all the countries on the face of the earth, I would still have a problem with South Africa.

Which is that it is located too far away from the Artic Circle.

I have lived in a country where blinding sunlight riccocheted off every white surface (and in Greece, there were many) and I amused myself skating across the sizzling terra cotta tiles of our second floor patio with ice cubes clenched between my bare toes.

I have lived on a island, where, like most islanders, we bought our groceries in bulk. An entire case of applesauce, a side of beef. One sweltering August day, I went outside to the deep freezer (which, due to lack of room in our miniscule house by the water, was kept outside like an unloved dog) only to discover that, sometime in the past two weeks, the freezer had become unplugged. I was looking down into a blood filled vat of heavy, soggy, slumpy, white paper wrapped bundles of what felt like raw liver and which exuded a foul miasma that immediately felled several passing pelicans. Which, for reasons of public health and economy (salvaging the costly freezer) had to be bagged up for disposal by someone, namely moi.

I have lived in a country where the tropical climate and room to stretch encourages small creatures to grow to mammoth proportions and, before putting on your shoes for school in the morning, you first shake them to dislodge any hairy,teacup-sized spiders that may have taken up residence in the night. And you didn't complain as the inconvenienced spider stalked off, because you still had to insert your feet into those shoes, from which the spider's stealthier cousin, the scorpion, was notoriously resistent to eviction.

For these and other rigors, I have renounced travel to any country known to be hot. Thank you for your offer, but this policy pretty much limits my excursions to the Northern Hemisphere.

Croque Madame, I know exactly how you feel! Why do you think am I desperately trying to buy a small house in the Limousin? The rolling green countryside and water is so tempting to me!

Lekker: Notify me the moment the guest room in your Limousin house is complete. I will gladly come lollygag about with you there: will, in fact, make lollygagging in Limousin my goal in life.

Croque_Madame, I had no idea that the northern hemisphere is cooler than its southern counterpart. This discovery that will surely revolutionalise climatology and meteorology as we know it! The last time I ventured into the northern hemisphere (Vietnam, on that occasion) I sweltered. Perhaps I really hadn't left the southern hemisphere, my little corner of which is currently on the cool side, with a little snow on the mountains to the south of my fair city of Canberra. And to cap it all off, a few weeks ago my son phoned from Beijing and reported the daytime temperature as 43C (for Americans, that's 109F). I'm sure I found Beijing north of the equator in my old school atlas......

What, Neil? Are you telling me that I must restrict my travels to an even smaller portion of the globe? Egads!

Please forgive my ignorance of global weather patterns and general cartography. I was referring vaguely, very vaguely, to places associated (in my dim mind, at least) with the words "North" and "cold".

I'm sure the snow on the mountains south (that word again!) of Canberra are a glorious sight. Should I be dropped atop one from a helicopter, I would flop around like the happiest of snow angels. It's the overland trek TO the mountains I find less appealing.

Did not mean, truly, to insult your home country, nor any other. It's just that I become so... bedraggled... in hot weather. Again, my apologies.

Currently living in Dublin, Ireland. Went to college in Birmingham, England and worked for 2 years in Indian Wells, California. Travels have taken me to France, Italy, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Bali, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Hoping for many more trips in the years to come!

Croque_Madame, please excuse my Antipodean sensitivity. I'm not a hot weather freak either - a daily range of about 10-25C (50-77F) with low humidity sounds about right to me. I just wish I could get more of it.

Lekker: did you know there is a store in Boston called "Lekker"? I was surprised to find an ad for it this afternoon in a magazine called "Lucky". Strange coincidence after having just had an interesting Fodors contact with someone named Lekker. www.lekkerhome.com

Neil: that's OK, all is forgiven. Standing face to the wall in the corner, wearing my dunce cap all day, gave me time to mull my many mistakes.

I know precisely what you mean about wishing for cooler temperatures. Guess where I live?

Florida! Penance for my countless transgressions. Ironic, isn't it?

CM, where is that store? I live here. What do they sell? where is is located?
curious here, mimi