A fun question! And I’m not going to win. But I do live in God’s Own (Australia), which gives me an unfair advantage.
I’m listing people I’ve had conversations with In Real Life.
- Albania: random guy at a shopping centre cafe a months ago, several in Greece in various capacities.
- Algeria: boyfriend of a fellow intern I was visiting in France
- Armenia: went there
- Australia: live there
- Austria: went there
- Belgium: went there
- Bulgaria: fellow conlang geek, met in Scotland
- Canada: went there
- China: several fellow engineering students, several programmer colleagues
- Taiwan: programmer colleague
- Croatia: fellow linguistics student
- Cyprus: went there
- Czechia: my massage therapist
- Denmark: a conlanger, met in Scotland
- East Timor: fellow research assistant
- Egypt: parent’s neighbours
- El Salvador: server at my local Del Taco in Cali
- Ethiopia: linguistics lecturer
- Fiji: fellow engineering student
- France: went there, a few French lecturers
- Georgia: owner of Georgian restaurant I go to
- Germany: went there, lots of German lecturers
- Greece: lived there
- Hungary: fellow high school student
- India: several programmer and BA colleagues
- Indonesia: fellow engineering students
- Iran: fellow linguistics students
- Ireland: I live in Australia 🙂
- Israel: fellow high school student, fellow BA
- Italy: went there, lots of Italian lecturers
- Japan: fellow linguistics students
- Kazakhstan: fellow linguistics student’s boyfriend
- Lichtenstein: some tourists I met in Crete
- Luxembourg: CEO of assessment software company
- Macedonia: uni student I befriended while working tech support
- Malaysia: fellow engineering students
- Malta: wife’s best friend
- Mauritius: former boss
- Mexico: I lived in SoCal
- Netherlands: went there
- New Zealand: I live in Australia. Latest was a data architect just this week
- Norway: linguist at historical linguistics conference
- Philippines: fellow linguistics student; admin in linguistics department
- Poland: fellow linguistics student, student I co-supervised
- Romania: neighbour’s daughter in law
- Russia: fellow high school students, fellow linguistics students
- Saudi Arabia: students I lectured
- Serbia: student I lectured
- Seychelles: neighbour’s wife (deceased)
- Singapore: fellow engineering students, fellow high school students
- Slovenia: solutions architect at work
- South Africa: owner of bike shop next door to my parents
- Spain: Spanish lecturers
- Sri Lanka: fellow high school student
- Sweden: Swedish lecturer
- Switzerland: programmer colleague
- Syria: My dry-cleaners in SoCal
- Turkey: been there
- Ukraine: friends of fellow linguistics student, boss
- UK: been there, boss, personal trainer
- US: lived there
- Uruguay: boss’ wife
- Vietnam: French lecturer; fellow PhD student
If I add restaurants with cuisines from those countries (who, it stands to reason, will likely employ at least one person from that nationality—so I’ll have met them if not spoken to them):
- Afghanistan
- Argentina
- Brazil
- Cambodia
- Jamaica
- South Korea
- Lebanon
- Morocco
- Nepal
- Pakistan
- Peru
- Thailand