I'm jealous, you haven't missed a thing! <vbg>
Last I heard Carter was in Cuba and the rumor was that Bush was going to impose tighter sanctions
on Cuba....
Well, you missed my course of antibiotics that I am taking now.
I've never been to Turkey b4. Istanbul was overwhelming. I was scared to go, but, as the fellow who picked
us up at the airport pointed out, Turkey knows how to deal with terrorists. And there were police everywhere
but they never bothered us. Usually, I felt the security was transparent although I was startled on a couple
of occasions. On our last day we took the tram to a stop for the famous museum Topkapi. At the top of the
hill, there were two policemen. One was a regular policeman. The other had a machine gun.
The purpose of the trip was business so we were tied up with that for an entire week. The business trip took
us out of Istanbul to a small city about five or six hours in a mini bus with other foreign guests who had
been invited to make presentations at a prestigious conference. When the high-ranking Turkish VIP's arrived,
there were plain clothes police and regular police swarming all over the place. Yet, no one bothered me or
asked me what I was doing there.
On the other hand, on our way home, the airport security in Amsterdam and even after we arrived in
Seattle was unbelievable. I was so taken aback by it all that I asked the cabby if there had been
a terrorist attack. I phoned my mom last night. She said there was a security alert but she wasn't too
sure about the details. She mentioned that a plane exploded between Hong Kong and maybe China
awhile back but she wasn't sure of the details. Do you know anything about the plane explosion?
We stayed at official hotels. Although there was a tv in our, English stations were not broadcast.. I didn't see an English newspaper either. The one time I tried to log onto the net. I couldn't get on because the server was too slow. (Is anyone from SUNW reading this?)
I must unpack my suitcase. It is open on the bed but my cat sits in the middle of my clothes! (LOL)
Ray, it was a stressful but wonderful trip. We learned a great deal. Talk to you later. I'm so glad to see
you back on SI. I was wondering where you had been.
Cheers,
Mephisto |
