Country Counting

There's been a lot of comment on this site and many a private email regarding country counting. It seems as if a regular correspondent to this site has had enough and wants explicit details of said count. Well with the prices of Brataslavan internet so low, today is a great opportunity.

We have decided to use the official list of countries produced by the United Nations as our guide. Therefore this list http://www.un.org/Overview/unmember.html (with some exceptions) is the one that will establish whether we count a country or not. The exceptions seem to be Macau and the Vatican which are not members of the UN. Cathy has agreed to forego Hong Kong and I have foregone Scotland in the name of consistency. My revised count as at today's count is 35. Cathy is on 40. I realise this will make David Wilson happy as he has never accepted Scotland is a country. I now agree that this must be correct.

We have both been to Australia, USA, Germany, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Italy, The Vatican, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Turkey, Greece, Tunisia, Switzerland, France, Monaco, Andorra, Spain, Liechenstein, Austria, Slovenia, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro and Slovakia.

I have been to Mexico and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland where Cathy has not been .

Cathy has been to Fiji, Singapore, China, Macau, Japan, Samoa and Thailand where I have not been.

We intend to visit Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Great Britain and Thailand in our last 34 days. Therefore Cathy will return home with 46 and I will be on 41. (Sorry Shelley - hope you remain on 46 after reviewing the UN list linked above!)

In accordance with a recent request I offer the following observations:

1. The country with the most mangy dogs is Romania with apologies to Mexico (or at least in Tijuana where I have been).

2. The country with the weirdest train platforms is probably Belgium. Brussels as the European capital really should have a better signed train network. It appears however that everyone is happy with the mystery of where their train is actually going to stop.

3. The best place to buy Coca Cola in the world is Montenegro. 500ml for 80 cents (Australian). The cheapest Espresso shot was Bulgaria where Cathy scored a super strong Bulgarian type coffee for 25 cents (Australian). The worst is the island of Capri in Italy. 5 Euro for a 250ml bottle was a sting in my tail that I was not expecting.

4. The best place for free glassware is either The Netherlands or Hungary, with my vote going to the Hungarians for being so damn nice about it.

5. I've made numerous statements about English language guides in museums across Europe and my comments have been interpreted as meaning that I am only happy with those countries that speak my language. This is not however the case. It just seems funny that 30 countries can provide English (and generally German, French, Italian or Spanish where appropriate) but not France. It seems to be quite arrogant that the money of English speakers (ie USA and the Commonwealth) seems to flood into French museums (such as the Leuvre) and they can't teach those people about the art using our English. Its arrogance in the extreme and it reaks of the French having a chip on their shoulder regarding the lack of importance of their language in the 2000s compared to the 1800s when they were actually a power.

6. Toilet facilities are always an interesting topic. The best in the world are in the Vatican city, 6 star toilets (with hot running water and soap) which cost nothing to use. The worst are the portaloos on the railway stations in Italy and the ones that were available in Africa. In our experience you were better off with the Hyenas than you were using the facilities at African truck stops.

In country counting we have never included passport stamps as a valid criteria as in the EU you wouldn't score any points when travelling between those countries for which you do not need a visa. It was however amusing to see Cathy chastasing a Croatian official for stamping my passport and not giving her book a stamp. He looked ready to explode but then saw the funny side of it and provided the stamp.

I look forward to regular readers of this site providing their stats and experiences in the coming weeks.