Happy Birthday blog! Three years on!!!

It's now three years since I started this blog - 25 countries and 172 blog posts later, it has been visited by 10,568 unique visitors from all over the world!
 

Flag of Zanzibar

To celebrate another year of Learning about the World, I thought I would use this blogpost to remind myself (and you, my loyal readers) of the things that I have read, cooked, listened to and watched so I could increase my understanding of this amazing world we live in :-)

This time round, I can't list everything I've read, cooked, watched and listened to (as there is so much!) but here is a summary of the learning adventure I've been on since September of last year.

The Books

Flag of Amazonas (Brazil)

Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar by Emily Reute (Zanzibar)
Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Zanzibar)
Feminism: A very Short Introduction by Margaret Walters (Amazonas)
The Fate of the Forest by Susanna Hecht and Alexander Cockburn (Amazonas)
River of The Singing Fish by Arkady Fiedler (Amazonas)

At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen (Amazonas)

To Hell or Barbados by Sean O'Callaghan (Barbados)
In the Castle of my Skin by George Lamming (Barbados)
Song of Night by Glenville Lovell (Barbados)

Books for Dorset Research

Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Robinson (Cambodia)
First They Killed my Father by Loung Ung (Cambodia)
River of Time by Jon Swain (Cambodia)
Remarkable Creatures by Tracey Chevalier (Dorset)
Dinosaurs: A Very Short Introduction by David Norman (Dorset)
(part of) A History of British Trade Unionism by Henry Pelling (Dorset)
The Black Tower by P. D. James (Dorset)
Eritrea: Even the Stones are Burning by Roy Pateman (Eritrea)
Ciao Asmara by Justin Hill (Eritrea)

The Food:

Flag of Barbados

Peixe Assado com Farofa (Amazonas)

Pwewa wa Nazi (Zanzibar)
Peixe Assado com Farofa (Amazonas)
Cou cou and Fried Fish (Barbados)
Somla Machou (Cambodia)
Tea Bread (Dorset)
Lyme Bay Fish Pie (Dorset)


The movies:

Flag of Cambodia

Road to Zanzibar (1941) dir. Victor Schertzinger (Zanzibar)
The Emerald Forest (1985) dir. John Boorman (Amazonas)
Amazon - TV series (2008) with Bruce Parry (Amazonas)
The Tamarind Seed (1974) dir. Blake Edwards (Barbados)
Fire in Babylon (2010) dir. Stevan Riley (Barbados)
Legends of Cricket: West Indies (2008) (Barbados)
The Killing Fields (1984) dir. Roland Joffe (Cambodia)
Voices of the Killing Fields featuring reporting of Thet Sambeth (Cambodia)

Still from Road to Zanzibar (1941)

Comrades (1986) dir. Bill Douglas (Dorset)
Tess (1979) dir. Roman Polanski (Dorset)
Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) dir. John Schlesinger (Dorset)
Jude (1996) dir. Michael Winterbottom (Dorset)
Trishna (2011) dir. Michael Winterbottom (Dorset)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) dir. Karel Reisz (Dorset)


The music:

Bi KiDude (Zanzibar)
Ghazzy Musical club (Zanzibar)
The Rough Guide to the Music of Brazil (Amazonas)

Flag of Dorset (United Kingdom)

Square One (Barbados)
Rihanna (Barbados)
Dengue Fever (Cambodia)
Songs for Cycles of Cambodian life (Cambodia)
The Cambodian Space Project (Cambodia)
Electric Wizard (Dorset)
Black Sabbath (Dorset)
Asmara All-stars (Eritrea)
Faytinga (Eritrea)

If you would like to find out more about my research from G(uatemala) to Y(emen) - just click on the link to my birthday post from last year.  

Some Stats

I use a couple of different tools to keep an eye on who's reading my blog, which countries they come from etc.  It's always exciting to get the first 'hit' on my blog from the place I'm blogging about.

The blog has had visitors from 100 countries worldwide.  The top twenty countries that read this blog are:

A snapshot of visitors from around the world

1. USA
2. UK
3. India
4. Australia
5. Canada
6. Germany
7. The Netherlands
8. Belgium
9. France
10.Russia
11. Italy
12. Saudi Arabia
13. Ireland
14. Taiwan
15. Pakistan
16. The Philippines
17. Malaysia
18. Brazil
19. Sweden
20. Turkey

I started using Google Analytics in June 2012, so hopefully, this time next year, I'll have even more precise stats for the year 2012-13.  

Flag of Eritrea

One of the reasons I started this blog was so I would read, watch, listen to and taste things that I wouldn't otherwise have read, watched, listened to or tasted.  Three years down the line, I feel incredibly enriched by the cultural experiences I've had through my 'armchair' travelling - I look forward to another year and all the learning it will bring.

In the languages of some of the countries I've blogged about:

Happy Birthday!  
Pongezi kwa siku ya kuzaliwa! 
Feliz aniversário!  
  
ጽቡቅ  ልደት!

Happy Birthday Blog - Two Years on!!

It's now two years since I started this blog - 19 countries and 133 blog posts later, Learning about the World has been visited by 4,348 unique visitors from all over the world!
 

To celebrate another year of Learning about the World, I thought I would use this blogpost to remind myself (and you, my loyal readers) of the things that I have read, cooked, listened to and watched with the express purpose of increasing my understanding of this amazing world we live in :-)

This time round, I can't list everything I've read, cooked, watched and listened to (as there is so much!) but here is a sample of the learning adventure I've been on

The Books

The President by Miguel Angel Asturias (Guatemala)
An Insular Possession by Timonthy Mo (Hong Kong)
Independent People by Halldor Laxness (Iceland)

History of Jamaica by Clinton V Black (Jamaica)

The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J Maarten Troost (Kiribati)

Singing Away the Hunger by Mpho 'M'atsepo Nthunya (Lesotho)
Hearing Birds Fly: A Nomadic Year in Mongolia by Louisa Waugh (Mongolia)
A Heart of Stone by Renate Dorrestein (Netherlands)

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (Oklahoma)
(part of) I, the Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos (Paraguay)
Remembering Babylon by David Malouf (Queensland)
A Princess Remembers by Gayatri Devi (Rajasthan)
Cities of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif (Saudi Arabia)
An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie (Togo)
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (Urals Federal District)
Miss Garnet's Angel by Sally Vickers (Veneto)
The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney (Wisconsin)
Wild West China by Christian Tyler (Xinjiang/Uyghuristan)
The Hostage by Zayd Mutee' Dammaj (Yemen)

The Food:


Tapado (Guatemala)
Sweet and Sour Pork Hong Kong style (Hong Kong)
Liffrarbuff and Plokkfiskur (Iceland)

Jerk Chicken (Jamaica)
Palu Sami (Kiribati)
Chakalaka and Pap (Lesotho)
Tsuivan (Mongolia)
Stamppot and Limburg Beef Stew with Apples (Netherlands)

Cornbread, Choctaw Catfish and Fried Okra (Oklahoma)
Sopa paraguayana and Zoo-Tosopy (Paraguay)
Kangaroo Fillets with Mushroom sauce (Queensland)
Daal Baati (Rajasthan)
Chicken Kabsa (Saudi Arabia)
Chicken Groundnut Soup with Fufu (Togo)
Beef Stroganoff (Urals Federal Region)
Risi e Bisi (Veneto)
Bratwurst and Blue Ribbon Chilli (Wisconsin)
Da pan ji (Xinjiang/Uyghuristan)
Saltah (Yemen)

The movies:

Reykjavik 101 (Iceland)
Dancehall Queen (Jamaica)
The Fourth Man (Netherlands)
Gunfight at the OK Corral (Oklahoma)
The Mission (Paraguay)Swimming Upstream (Queensland)
Dor (Rajasthan)
Lawrence of Arabia (Saudi Arabia)
The Merchant of Venice (Veneto)
The Last Kiss (Wisconsin)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Xinjiang/Uyghuristan)
Solomon and Sheba (Yemen)

The music:

Sammi Cheng (Hong Kong)
Sigur Ros (Iceland)
Phyllis Dillon (Jamaica)
Egschiglen (Mongolia)
Bettie Serveert (The Netherlands)
Woody Guthrie (Oklahoma)

Savage Garden (Queensland)
Jagjit Singh (Rajasthan)
Mohammed Abdu (Saudi Arabia)
Yawo (Togo)
Smyslovye gallyutsinatsii (Urals Federal District)
Negramaro (Veneto)
Violent Femmes (Wisconsin)
Mohamad al-Harithi (Yemen)


Some Stats

I use a couple of different tools to keep an eye on who's reading my blog, which countries they come from etc.  It's always exciting to get the first 'hit' on my blog from the place I'm blogging about.  With the exception of Guatemala and Kiribati, I've had hits from all of the places I've blogged about!

The blog has had visitors from 91 countries worldwide.  The top ten countries that read this blog are:

1. UK
2. USA

3. India
4. Australia
5. Canada
6. Russia
7. Ireland

8. France
9. Netherlands
10. Germany

It gets an average of 12 unique visitors per day, which is around 144 unique visitors per month.

One of the reasons I started this blog was so I would read, watch, listen to and taste things that I wouldn't otherwise have read, watched, listened to or tasted.  Two years down the line, I feel incredibly enriched by the cultural experiences I've had through my 'armchair' travelling - I look forward to another year and all the learning it will bring.

In the languages of some of the countries I've blogged about:

Happy Birthday!  Feliz cumpleaños! Sun yat fai lok! Til hamingju með afmælið! Letsatsi le monate la tswalo! Tєрсєн єдрийн баяр хvргэе! Vy-Apave Nde Arambotyre! जन्मदिन पर हार्दिक शुभकामनाएं! Janam ghaanth ri badhai, khoob jeeyo! كل عام وأنتم بخير! Medzi dzigbe njkeke nyuie no wo! С днем рождения! Bon compleano! Tughulghan kuningzga mobarak bolsun!