I live near Washington, D.C. and it's 4800 km across country to California :-) I guess she does go that way though but it's the "Far East" in US terms so I suppose I didn't think about that, LOL. Thanks for reminding me. We're so "isolated" here in our own area that I think we get into a lot of our national troubles because we don't live cheek-by-jowl :-) with other nations and have to learn to speak other languages or get along with anyone else and we get kind of arrogant in our ignorance and wealth. I was part of a university program last semester where I had to represent Venezuela/Hugo Chavez and that was an "education" all on its own! LOL I work hard now not to take anything for granted and like I understand since I'm in this "backwater" country :-) Despite our freedoms, we don't really get much news because what's "important" or interesting enough to be reported doesn't usually have anything to do with the rest of the world, only ourselves. I couldn't even have told you where Venezuela was (other than South America :-) before I took the course nor could I have named more than about 4-5 other South American countries and I certainly couldn't have told you where they were on a map. At the end of the class I had a children's 50 piece jigsaw puzzle of Central and South America I did while the professor was doing his last lecture :-) and it still took me an hour and a half to put together!