Over the course of my life I have traveled a lot throughout and around the world. I have made trips to Prague , Hungary , Thailand ,Argentina , Africa , Mexico , California , Ohio, Florida , Maine ,Minnesota , Uruguay , Mozambique , Zimbabwe , Dominican Republic , Colorado , Arizona , Alaska , Canada , Italy , New Jersey , South Africa and a few more . With each trip I have learned a different part of world culture and had plenty of memorable experiences. An example of this is when I went to Africa I learned how fortunate I was to be living a very fastidious life. I was able to trade my aged, tattered hat from America for striking wooden carved sculptures of all the big five safari animals (lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino). I felt bad ripping the artisan off but then realized that he actually had valued my old, sweaty hat. That encounter made me rethink if maybe my values and Americas values as a whole are off. Another experience from my travels was when I went to Argentina in 2005.When shopping and eating in Argentina everything was much cheaper because you divide the currency by three to figure out the American equivalent. I learned that this is because the peso is not as strong as the dollar and now appreciate having such a consistent currency due to stable government and many more reasons. Furthermore, from all my travels I have seen so many sad sights as houses built of straw in Mozambique where kids would sleep right on the ground. I also saw poor African kids that did not know where there next meal would come from or what their next meal would be. From these same visions I learned that outside of America and even in different parts of America people are not living with great conditions and just putting food on the table is an everyday struggle. Therefore, I feel that I should make my best attempt to help others that are not so lucky and fortunate. From my trip to Thailand in 2006, I learned to be grateful for free speech and am thankful that I can not be killed or arrested for speaking out against the president. On the other hand, people in Thailand suck it up if you don’t like what the king is doing because if you were to speak out against the king you will pay the price with jail time for doing so. Therefore, I am happy that the United States is a democratic government in which I can speak as I feel. Lastly, in Peru I got sick from the drinking water and learned that every one does not have clean drinking water like America or good doctors to help heal special or simple illnesses. In conclusion, my travels have enlightened me on the rest of the world and how lucky I am to live a super swell life and to be lucky enough to see all the parts of the world, good and bad.