Blogs from Middle East - page 881

Tried to get out all last night. I am still sitting at the airport. My back hurts from sitting on the concrete all night. July 3 - Still stuck. I made friends at the Airport. In the movie Fight Club, Brad Pitt talks about single serving friends - these are becoming several serving friends. We are all stuck together in a perpetual sleep and eat cycle. The only flight I can get is to Kuwait later tonight. I will have a much better chance of making it out of Kuwait. Keeping my fingers crossed. ... read more

Shalom friends from Israel!!!!! We made it just fine, just got back from making a quick bus trip down to Jaffa, we couldn't find anything worth reporting so had a quick bite in a shwarma shop and took the taxi back to the hostel. We are turning in soon to get some really needed sleep!! Tomorrow we head out to Jerusalem to meet Bridgette and get aquainted with our new nighbourhood. Nite and Shalom!... read more

Here in Shiraz, the city of the poet Hafez, wine, grapes and poetry, nightingales and roses; the people are even friendlier and more relaxed than elsewhere in Iran. They pride themselves on their liberal attitudes and sophisticated way of living. Shiraz is most famous for the ancient site of Persepolis which is nearby. Someone who will remain nameless, and should know better, said ‘Oh you saw the film in Iran, I wouldn’t have thought they would show it there!’ They have shown the film a few times in Tehran apparently, so that is a small victory. But no, I saw the ancient Achaemenid site, one of the most complete sites from this area of the world. It was started by Darius the Great in 518BC as a summer palace for ritual purposes, where the many peoples ... read more

Poverty and Boredom should not be combined in extremities.... After coming home to small Hocomo from the hip college town of Columbia MO, I was becoming desperate for adventure. It was almost eating at me like the raven maddens Poe....I had to do something. I had to make plans. What were my plans? What was I going to do for a whole summer? I need to pay bills I need to get out of here I need to stop wasting my time time time time is wasting wasting wasting I cant be bored I cant waste a summer I will go mad mad mad mad mad mad mad... Every second of changing my mind was making it worse, increasing the tension, increasing my madness.... Where and what could I do that would get me out of ... read more

Yazd is a small oasis city in southern central Iran, in the middle of the desert. The landscape during the journey from Esfahan did not look like it changed much in seven hours, though admittedly I was not looking out of the window all the time, allowing the bus to rock me to sleep.The city's water comes from underground qanats miles away in the mountains. Here the women are almost exclusively dressed in chadors and the men a little too friendly! The weather is hot, hot at 35 degrees C, but as a dry heat was bearable as long as you were not too Gilbert and Sullivan about it. Water ran everywhere though. And, like all over Iran, many street corners have their water cisterns where you can refill your water bottle. It is fine to ... read more