THE LIST

[punkinberry]

What we've all been waiting for: the list of posts which I must bid on by noon next Tuesday! Ready?

Ankara, Turkey
Brasilia, Brazil
Bucharest, Romania
Caracas, Venezuela
Helsinki, Finland
Kabul, Afghanistan
Kuwait, Kuwait
Lusaka, Zambia
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Vilnius, Lithuania

What are your thoughts?

Comments

Languages, for starters.

[misterweasel]

*Turkish is pretty hard
*Brazilian Portuguese is relatively easy, it's just like spanish
*Romanian is a lot like latin, probably not hard, also in romania Russian will get you pretty far
*Spanish is spanish... no problem
*Finnish is pretty hard
*Pashtun is pretty hard, and speaking Russian might not be appreciated
*Arabic is pretty hard
* Damn, Zambia has about 73 languages that are spoken there, but english is the "official" language...
*Haitian creole is wierd, but probably pretty easy. Otherwise it's french, which isn't super hard.
*More spanish
*Lithuanian is a lot like Russian, and lots of people speak russian anyway there.

Re: Languages, for starters.

[fuzzyscribble]

Turkish is not hard. They switched to the Latin alphabet in the 1930's. It's pronounced exactly as it reads...and it has a very simple grammar. I picked up conversational Turkish in two months. I did my foreign exchange in Turkey in 1988. I'd go back in a minute. (Sorry Sam...)

Ankara is in a really beautiful part of Turkey...but the city itself is very industrial...think Pittsburgh.

Brazilian Portuguese is very close to Spanish...but very casual...full of idioms. Otherwise I can read it ok with a dictionary...and my knowledge of

[nekosensei]

Out of the list, I suppose I would pick either Caracas, Venezuela or Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Also, Brazil sounds interesting.

I think out of all of those, my first choice would be Venezuela. What languages do you speak again?

[punkinberry]

I speak a lot of Russian and a little bit of Spanish.

Right now, I've got Finland and Lithuania near the top of the list.

[nekosensei]

Knowing what you said about what you'd like those are the two I would have recommended for you. Unfortunately I don't know much about either place so I can't give you a lot of help there. But I'm guessing language-wise Lithuania would be easier on you because it would be more similar to a language you already know.

[ordinary]

oops, that was me. :)

[davimye]

I have been to Venezuela for half a day. Parts where nice but also lots of slums, and pickpockets. You did not want some where to hot so Romania or Finland might be best. With Finland that is probally the safest spot and you could also do a bit of traveling around. If you do go to Romania you will have to go see the home of Vlad the impaler.:)

[punkinberry]

I've actually been to Transylvania in Romania, and it was incredibly depressing. They were so not ready for tourists in 1998. In fact, Bucharest in 1998 was far worse than Moscow in 1992.

where oh where

[forestdruid]

Might I suggest staying out of Haiti and Afghanistan. Both are very, very unstable as well as depressingly poor and dirty. Kuwait, while better, is not better enough and will likely degrade when we pull out of Iraq (migration of terror to the next closest US presence). My assumption is that you would go with Lithuania or Finland - both stable with large Russian speaking populations.

[punkinberry]

Afghanistan and Haiti are definitely at the bottom of my list.

[crainefish]

Crainefish seconds that, in exactly that order.