How lucky am I that www.TravelTalesAndStuff.com has recently been nominated for the Liebster Award by Mr. Ben Pastore of TripAccomplice.wordpress.com blog fame.  Thank you so much!

As a fairly new blogger, I needed to peak at the Google data bank as well as Ben’s nomination post to learn what the heck the Liebster Award is….I’ll quote Ben Pastore here:   “The Liebster Award is awarded to bloggers with under 200 followers to try to promote their blog and also bring together a community of bloggers. The rules of the competition are as follows: The nominated user must provide a link back to the person who nominated them (me). Provide 11 facts about yourself. Answer 11 question set by the person who nominated you. Choose 11 more people and ask them 11 questions!”

So as per the rules, here are 11 facts about myself:

1. Tennis is my favorite sport
2. Before I was 25, I had traveled the equivalent of around the world 5 times
3. I have seen Mount Everest
4. I am lucky enough to have 10 young people call me Aunt
5. One day I WILL speak a foreign language well
6. Writing was the first thing I wanted to do when I grew up
7. I once had 9 addresses in a 12 month period
8. I have met two astronauts
9. I cannot do a back handspring
10. I still know people that I “met” when I was a baby
11. Other than babysitting, my first job was working in a tennis pro shop

Secondly, here are answers to Ben Pastore’s questions:

1. What do you picture yourself doing 5 years from now? Being in great relationship and successful in a new line of work
2. Who is the person that has had the greatest influence on your life?  I’ll combine my parents in to that answer.
3. If you were given a blank ticket good on any airline, where would you go and why?  Antarctica, because that is the only continent I have not visited and I would love to see vast space.
4. What makes you sadder than anything else? The idea of lost hope.
5. What was the last kind act you did for someone? Baked chocolate chip cookies from scratch
6. Do you consider yourself a person open to new ideas? Yes
7. What was the single coolest experience in your life? Perhaps trekking the mountains in Nepal, having researching nothing about it prior to my arrival.
8. Would you still write if no one else could see what you wrote? Yes
9. To your mind, what would you need to accomplish to consider yourself successful in life?  To actually have a positive effect in someone’s life.
10. Who is the best ‘unknown’ author that you’ve read? I don’t know
11. Would you be willing to change your thoughts and behavior if your life were in the balance? Yes

Thirdly, I nominate http://awhiskandaspoon.com,  http://thedailybubbletea.com and http://nohangingaround.com .  My questions for these three  Liebster Award nominees are:

1. If you could go to the moon would you?
2. Which is the hardest part about foreign travel for you – having enough time, speaking the local language, or figuring out logistics of where to go and what to see?
3. What would you study if you had the chance to return to college (or attend for the first time)?
4. Do you ever re-read a book?
5. How many hours a week do you watch TV?
6. Would you ever move to a foreign country and renounce your citizenship for tax purposes?
7. How many dishes can you cook/prepare without using a recipe?
8. Is your garage so full of stuff you have to park in the driveway?
9. Have you ever given money to a friend just because they needed it more than you?
10. How many books have you read about writing?

Lastly, as a Liebster Award nominee the rules are that you post your own facts/answers/nominees/questions on your blog and leave a link in my comments so I check on what you wrote.

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