Within the next couple of weeks, I will be spending time in two countries I have never visited before.

[caption id="attachment_1207" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Noordwijk"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/noordwijk1.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-1207" title="noordwijk1" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/noordwijk1-300x196.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="196" /></a>[/caption]

This Saturday, assuming that Delta is ready when we are, Nicole and I will be flying to Amsterdam for a scientific conference (her, not me) in the Netherlands. We will actually be in <a title="Noordwijk" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noordwijk">Noordwijk</a>, which is in the western part of the country on the North Sea. I have never been to the Netherlands, but we will only be there for a week until the conference ends and we hop on a couple of Lufthansa flights and head down to Greece.

That's the vacation part of the trip. We'll be in Athens visiting our son and his wife. Virgile and Sterling have been in Greece a little less than a year on their first tour with the Foreign Service.

I'm actually fairly excited about going to Greece, which I figure is one of the most interesting countries in the world that I have yet to visit. So much of western history, so much of our philosophy and our politics, comes from the ancient Greeks.

I'm not a world traveler. If you compare me to my parents, I come off as one of those old-fashioned hillbillies who never went more than 100 miles from where they were born. On the other hand, if you compare me to my friend Mick, who has never been outside North America, I'm Phileas Fogg.

There are still places in the world I would like to see before I die. Australia is at the top of my list, with Egypt and Israel next and possibly Brazil and/or Argentina after that. But really, I almost feel like I would rather return to some of the places I love -- London, Paris, Venice, a few others.

Well, traveling is fun.

But after three weeks away, I know I'll be glad to get home.

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