In today's post I'm sharing a list of places I've always wanted to visit. With some of them I had the chance to do so, but for one reason or another, I didn't. Now, you'd think all of them would be in balmy tropical locations, but a surprising number are in colder climates where the temperate may fall well below 32 degrees fahrenheit. Also, keep a sense of humor as you read this, I get a little nutty sometimes when I talk about travel. Let us begin.

Greenland

When I went to Germany in 2017 on a fellowship, there were two possible routes open to me. Since I always wanted to visit England, I needed to avoid a direct flight at all costs. The first route was US> Iceland> England> Germany. When people here found out that Iceland was on the itinerary, I may as well have announced I was visiting the far side of the moon. Of course no one knew where it was, with some even thinking it was near Australia, not that many of them knew where that was either.

The next choice was US> Greenland> England> Germany. And if you thought the inclusion of Iceland was problematic, you should have seen the response to Greenland which a surprising number of people here had never even heard of. A few thought it was some sort of amusement park in New Jersey like Six Flags Great Adventure. And if you think about it, "GreenLand" does sound like some sort of fun place with thrill rides and everything located somewhere in the Jersey Pine Barrens, you know, which the mafia uses as a body dump.

I ended up making the Iceland choice, cause it only had a 2-hour layover, and I wasn't planning to run into that weird singer Bork (or whatever her name is). I really only wanted to get one of those cool coins with the hole in the middle, and then get the hell out of dodge onto England which I use interchangeably with the UK, cause they own all of that over there anyway. (Sarcasm alert). BTW, half the people couldn't find England on the map either. We yanks are not known for our proficiency with geography. They know Canada, cause lets face it, it's the 51st state anyway, and Mexico. But after that, the knowledge begins to fall off rapidly.

Russia

I'm gonna be honest here. Russia's on the list mainly because I wanna see Lenin, or whatever's left of him before Putin closes that mausoleum down. I think that's super-cool that they take his body out every three years and bathe it in a solution that has preserved it for almost 100 years. But that's not the only reason I want to visit the worlds largest country.

When I was a boy, we moved into an old house where the owners had let the basement go all to hell. (That's another thing they don't have in some parts of the rest of the world: basements). There were piles of dusty old boxes, and to tell you the truth, as a horny 14-year-old, I was actually hoping to score some porn mags, but no such luck.

What I did find were old copies of National Geographic, and the creme de la creme: Soviet Life Magazine. The old dog-eared copies of these mags were filled with articles about Russia, which was some exotic far away place to a young boy like me.

Everyone over there seemed to be rosy-cheeked and picking strawberries, living on a farm in the country, or working at a factory. The wild landscapes pictured in each issue, were a welcome escape for a city boy like me. I don't know whether the original owners were secret commies during the height of the cold war, or just world travelers interested in learning more about far away places across the globe.

The country has some of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world, and I have a lot of respect for the orthodox faith. The Hermitage is yet another draw, as I was fascinated by reading about the Romanovs as a kid. We don't have a monarchy here, so I've always been interested in countries with a tradion of one, and love reading about the different royal families througout history. Since America has only one official royal palace Iolani Palace, in Hawaii, I've always wanted to visit one to see how the other half lived.

The Hagia Sophia

While in Germany, my original plan was to take a trip to Turkey so I could step inside the magical church of the Hagia Sophia. I learned about it ages ago while reading The Secret History of Justinian and Theodora PDF, by Procopius, where he dishes the dirt about how she screwed her way to become the Empress of Byzantium.

Theodora was a piece of work, and would have your throat slit if you so much as looked at her sideways. She would threaten to have the skin peeled from the bodies of anyone who crossed her. Visitors to the royal palace in Constantinople, faced sharp questions from both her and the Emperor, and didn't know who to fear the most.

Theodora was not a woman to be messed with. She had her own private dungeons, and wasn't afraid to use them. I've always thought Angelina Jolie was born to play her in a movie, instead of the much softer Cleopatra.

Reading about the epic battle at the fall of Constantinople, was a reminder of the rich history left by the Eastern Roman Empire. The Hagia Sophia was at the center of it all, as a building that has stood the test of time. While in Germany, illness prevented me from going, and now sadly, it's been converted from a museum, to a mosque, so I don't know if it's possible for tourists to visit.

However, there are plenty of other things to see in the seat of the eastern empire, which abounds in not only ruins, but many well-preserved edifices that can still be seen today.

Antarctica

Yep, the cold spot on the map! Always wanted to visit this place. I think there's what, from a few hundred to a thousand people at most, who inhabit this icy land. We have a number of bases down there, but the most well-appointed one is said to be the Zhongshan Chinese research base, which has better accommodations than anyone else.

We send a lot of flights there, but for some strange reason, the US has no territorial claim in the cold "down under." Come on President Biden, we're spending all that dough building the place up, we should at least claim Marie Byrd Land, since no one else has. Just imagine, that area was once warm and wet, with evidence found after excavating ice cores, and doing geological work. Russia even has a little church there, which supports their own base.