Travel essentials: Charmin to go!

I thought I'd do a short blog series related to travel essentials. A few years ago I discovered the most wonderful invention. Someone came up with the bright idea of portable toilet roll. It comes in a handy size and a plastic, resealable cover. When traveling in rural parts of the world or just about anywhere in Asia, it is a must.

On my recent trip to Lesotho one of the ladies from Ireland had to go to the "loo."

She asked if anyone had "paper."

I offered her my handy-dandy Charmin-to-go. She was intrigued by it. Then she said the nicest compliment, "That is clever! An American must of come up with that." Though, I'm not sure she was meaning it as a compliment...I just took it that way. What can I say, I am proud to be an American!

signs of our weakened position

"China called for the creation of a new currency to eventually replace the dollar as the world's standard, proposing a sweeping overhaul of global finance that reflects developing nations' growing unhappiness with the U.S. role in the world economy." Wall Street Journal

As a follow-up to yesterdays post I just wanted to illuminate the growing problems of our weakened position...and by that I don't mean the recession, I mean the large amounts of debt we are creating through our deficit spending.

If it doesn't work in my household budget, why would politicians think it works with trillions of tax dollars? Deficit spending leads to the same outcome regardless of scale...ultimate demise.

agree with Europe?

It isn't often that I find myself agreeing with European ideas. I am born an American and thus my ideas are formed from that perspective. In the interest of watching my home country rise from it's current financial crisis I have been concerned about the lack of economic restraint. These stimulus packages and oversized budget appropriations do not come without a cost. I pray it isn't true, but I predict a future financial crisis based on this extravagent spending...a future of hyperinflation and falling value of the dollar. Some day the bill will come due. Already it has compromised our negotiating position with countries such as China. We are endebted to them and with that debt comes bondage to our benefactor.

Anyway, the EU president recently said the US Economic Policies are the road to hell and Europe should not follow suit because "such a path could lead to unsustainable debt and runaway inflation." I agree. Read the rest of the article from the Washington Post here.

What are your thoughts?

Interesting International Facts: cuisine

Did you know?

Uganda has the biggest and best avocados I have ever tasted! Okay, maybe this is less a fact and more of an opinion, but I look forward to eating avocado on every visit to Uganda.

Did you know?

Llama tastes more like a pork chop than chicken. I ate a plate of llama meat on my recent visit to Bolivia. It was a first for me and definitely a unique travel experience.

Easter report

We had a great time at the second annual Warren Easter Egg hunt. Last year I hid 133 eggs, we found 124, so 9 eggs went missing. These are eggs of the plastic variety filled with candy. I assume some animal ran off with them. This year, I hid 124 eggs, 121 were found, 3 went missing. Are missing eggs just part of the Easter tradition?

My husband had a question that made me laugh out loud, "what do bunnies laying colorful eggs have to do with Easter?" He went on a rant for about 10 minutes about how that doesn't make any sense. I agree. I did an online search and discovered that there isn't a clear answer. In Germany, they claim credit for these traditions according to their paper Deutche Welle. I found an article on yahoo that said many people are conducting the same yahoo search, with mixed results, including explanations counter to the one above.

So, I ask you: "what do bunnies laying colorful eggs have to do with Easter?"