Entering a Building is Not Equivalent to Entering a Country

A TCC member, while living in Rome, said he had visited the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM) and wondered if that could count as a TCC country. It cannot − and the rationale goes back to the 70s when some U.S.TCC members were trying to get credit for having visited Albania at the time when they could not enter the country legally. The question was raised as to the status of the Albanian embassy and whether one could claim to have been to Albania if they entered the grounds of the Albanian embassy. TCC’s official answer was “no” because even though the grounds of an embassy are recognized as sovereign, entering a building is not equivalent to entering a country.