31 Day Photo Challenge - Childhood Memory - Day 10

Today's photo challenge is "Childhood Memory" and I have many childhood memories, such as one dreadful story that involved my favourite red baseball hat. I loved my red baseball hat and I wore it sideways all the time.  One day while I was hanging out in a tree, something terrible happened.  A bird came and pooped on my hat.  Yes, on my favourite red baseball hat.  I was so upset that I climbed down the tree as fast I could, and ran home in tears thinking my hat was ruined.  Now I don't remember what happened after I made it home.  Did my mom save my hat?  I hope so.  I loved it.

Another childhood memory of mine relates to my school atlas that was bought in 1984.  I loved this atlas (I still own it) and would look at over and over and over again.  I circled places to visit and wrote notes throughout my atlas.  In a way, it gave me a chance to escape within my imagination and dream of future travels.  Yes, I have always wanted to travel.  When I was 11 I asked my parents to send me to a Swiss Boarding School.  They said even if they could afford it, they would not send me away to school.  After almost 30 years, I still bring this up to my parents and try to make them feel guilty.  They laugh at me.

Whenever I heard something on TV or in the news, such as The Falklands War, I would go to my atlas and see where it was located in the World.  For some reason, I circled the Falkland Islands to visit in the future.  Perhaps back then I wanted to see the islands in person and figure out why Argentina and the British were fighting over them.

Map of South America in 1985

If you look closely at the picture of Eastern Europe, you will see many places circled, such as the Transylvanian Alps because this is the homeland of Count Dracula and I also circled Bucharest and Sibiu (not sure what's special about this place).  Another circled place is Odessa, Ukraine and I circled this city because figure skater, Viktor Petrenko is from there.  Warsaw, Poland is circled because of it's history during World War II.

Map of Eastern Europe 1984

If you look closely at the picture of Western Europe, you will also see many places circled, such as, Madrid, Paris, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Nice, Rome, Switzerland, and Belgium.  Obviously, these places are circled after seeing pictures of them in Encyclopedias (do you remember these?), picture/coffee table books, television and movies.  They are all rich in history with beautiful architecturem great cuisine, and stunning landscapes.

Map of Western Europe in 1984

If you look closely at the map of Africa, you will notice, I circled Swaziland because I used to have a pen-pal from there (I wish I kept those letters and remembered her name), Ethiopia because back in 1984 Bob Geldof co-founded Band Aid to raise money for Ethiopia and they released the famous Christmas tune "Do They Know It's Christmas?", Timbuktu because that was always a joke with family, friends and on TV that you'll be sent to Timbuktu if you don't behave.  I also circled South Africa and wrote down Gold beside Southern Ghana and near South Africa.

Map of Africa in 1984

I chose this picture as my final picture for my "Childhood Memory" photo challenge because it best represents my childhood, which is evident by all the circles.  These 2 pages are probably the most circled pages in the entire atlas.

31 Day Photo Challenge - Day 10 - Childhood Memory (final picture)

Speaking of travel, I saw this picture today taken by Callum Snape (@calsnapephoto) of Lake Ohara, BC on Instagram and it took my breath away. The view is stunning and now I want to hike it and see it in person.