Airports Totally Count
Over at chez Yglesias, there’s a discussion going on about when one can and cannot claim to have visited a country or state. The consensus is, as usual, that a layover in an airport does not count as a visit to its location. And, as usual, I am the lone dissenter.
I ate food, bought souvenirs, and talked to people during layovers in Narita and Keflavik that I would not have encountered anywhere but in their respective countries. In Narita, I even got online and trolled elementropy for saying nice things about Justice Hugo Black, author of Michelle Malkin’s favorite decision. Was I lying when I said I was in Japan at the time?
Anyway, I won’t do one of those maps, because there are big countries of which I’ve visited very small pieces, and I don’t deserve those big blotches of red. I’ve also been to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, which takes up no space on the map, but of which I’m much more proud. So the maps mean nothing.