Here's What I Think...

Wouldn't it be nice if once in a while a woman would raise the toilet seat for us? I mean WE don't like to to touch the thing anymore than THEY do. It's only common courtesy. I'm not talking about every time. But, an occasional effort would be appreciated.

That's all. No big deal.

(OK, OK, thanks to Mick for the inspiration on this. Easy to see THAT acorn didn't fall very far from the tree.)

If I Wasn't Going To Be Cremated I'd Almost Go For This...

A Mobile Phone Coffin
It would be my last tech toy. Check out the results of the Caption contest sponsored by engadget.

What An International Recruiting Fair Looks Like

I write much about my trips. But, rarely do I go into the actual nuts and bolts of what we do over "there." For a good sense of how educational fairs feel check out Jason's Blog from India.

But, here are some pictures from this last trip:

This Was At Al-Jamama College in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The Interest for a Particular University May be Rather Intense. Especially if it Happens to be a Well Known Mid-Western School Whose Mascot is a Boilermaker.

Occasionally There Will be an Ambassador on Hand to Open the Festivities. This Business IS Serious You Know.

Before Each Fair We Get A Briefing on Each Country's Educational System from Either the US Embassy or AMIDEAST

Often There Is A Media Crush

If We Visit a Local School They Will Often Put on Entertainment For Us.

At Some Point We Herd Everyone Together For a Group Shot

And Always Joseph Paces...

The Balkans Campaign

Our plan was to get a Railpass and run throughout eastern Europe like the Wehrmacht. Turns out travel in the Balkans is not quite so easy. But, we made the best of it hitting five countries (Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia) and four UNESCO World Heritage sites (Kotor, Montenegro; Dubrovnik, Croatia; Mostar, Bosnia; and Nesebar, Bulgaria). All this within five days.

The first major stop was Kotor. Kotor was founded in the fifth century BCE. The Emperor Justinian built this massive wall over the city in 585 CE. Check it all out in Wikipedia.

The Natives Were Curious But Friendly

The View From the Hotel Window

As Was This. Check Out the Guy Checking Her Out! I Think She Had a Late Night.

The Walled City By Night

Kotor was a beautiful city, one which would be a great place to spend a few days. But, we had miles (or kilometres) to go. On to Dubrovnik!

Crack(berry) Head

So Jason got this new toy before the trip. A Blackberry. A useful tool, but with a tendency to be addictive. To be honest it did provide good information on our Balkan Campaign. More of which to be posted later.















Guess He Didn't Spend The Whole Trip On The Thing

Game Over... LONG Over!

This was taken in front of a grand old building in Baku, Azerbaijan, a former Soviet Republic. It's the only time I've ever seen evidence remaining of the Soviet presence in eastern Europe. If you can't figure out what I'm talking about check the artwork above the door behind me. Hammer and Sickle. They had them on the ceiling inside too.

Ski Dubai

Alright, I've been implying that the Middle East is not all Baghdad. Still there are those who don't believe me. Check this out...skiing in in desert. They built an indoor ski resort in Dubai. It's attached to one of their mega-malls. Six hundred meters in length. I don't know how far it drops, but they have a black diamond run, which I didn't do. For less than 50 bucks you got two hours on the slopes, all gear including ski pants and jacket. They give you a plastic card which you put in a sleeve packet. Every time you get on the lift a meter scans the card and tells you how much time you have remaining.

You can tell people about this place, you can show pictures and videos, but there is no way you can explain it. You just have to go there. It's more dangerous in Youngstown, Ohio. By far.

Thought For The Day

Buddha - "Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it."

I'm Back

The Blog Triumvirate, Hani, me and Jason (Not necessarily in that order)
I'll be posting more in the coming days. So much ground covered it's hard to remember everything. But, thanks to all my friends who helped make this trip special. Even the young lady in Amman, Jordan who tried to get me to convert to Islam. (Good thing it wasn't at the point of a sword. I might have caved.) You know who you are.

Two years ago I started this blog. It came about as I decided to make some big changes in my life. All that has been laid out in the posts before. No need to rehash. I will say that no one has ever enjoyed their retirement more than me.

We Were All So Much Younger Then. October 2005

New Graffiti

They may kill the evolutionary but they'll never kill the evolution...

The Glamorous Life of the International Recruiter

Haydar Aliyev International Airport. Baku, Azerbaijan. Three AM.

It seems like a year since we were in Casablanca.

Weekend Update

This Is Where I Shop When I'm In Baku
The work part of the trip is over. Jason and I are in Sofia, Bulgaria this morning. This afternoon we're hopping a train for our Balkan run. Due to scheduling it looks like we won't have time to hit Romania or Vlad the Impaler's digs. Drat!

But five other countries are possible. Our take on the Bulgarian women thus far is they dove into sexy, but came up skanky. Sometimes skanky is good.

I'll bring all my posts up to date when I get back to the states next week. But for now I can say the movie "Borat" is outlawed in Azerbaijan and five Red Bulls only kills a decent night's sleep.

This Is What Jason Calls "Americanistic"

Go here to get the "textbook" definition. More or less...

This Was a Little Weird...

We popped over to the mall outside our hotel after the recruitment fair. This is still in Kuwait. Jason was in the mood for grilled cow, so we hit this Johnny Rocket place. It's designed to evoke memories of an American experience that in reality only happened "American Graffiti." Peter, one of the recruiters was with us. At one point I looked up at a poster above our booth. Whadya think?

Pimp My Ride Comes to Kuwait

Taken in front of my hotel. The only option missing on this sucker was wings.

CNBC in Kuwait

It's like in the States only in Arabic. And you thought they are all about chanting "Death to America."

You gettin' all that?

This Just In From Kahlil Gibran

I am forever walking upon these shores,
Betwixt the sand and the foam.

The high tide will erase my foot prints,
And the wind will blow away the foam.

But the sea and the shore will remain
Forever.

Nice.

Bus of Babel

So we were riding the hotel bus back from Al Yamamah College in Riyadh. You'd think after a 12 hour day people would be too tired to talk.

Wrong!

Yet, in an odd way it made it easy to meditate. It all becomes a drone after a while.
Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

This Is Our Rathole in Kuwait

What? Did you think we stayed in tents in the desert?

Rick's Cafe Was Just So Cool

We're going back in the fall. Can't wait. Might get a white dinner jacket ala Bogie.

Back Across the Pond

Many if not most people in the US have a certain picture in their minds when we talk about the Middle East. Everyone is always telling me to "travel safe," "be careful over there," " Are you SURE you want to go there?" Visions of Baghdad dance in their heads. Certainly there is that.

But, my Middle Eastern voyages take me to places with no connection to those images. I'm going to try to show what my experiences "over here" look like.This is Moroccan countryside between the cities of Casablanca and El Jadida. Could be rolling Ohio countryside if you didn't know. Four lane highway too.


They added this bath (1o5 degree water) beneath the mosque for a community thing unrelated to the religious aspects. There are actually two, one for Gents, one for Ladies.These pictures are from the Hassan II mosque in Casa. It was built between 1997 and 2003 at a cost of $800,000,000. Except for the lights all the materials come from Morocco. A mandatory contribution (might call it a tax) from the citizenry paid for two thirds of it. The King (theirs, not Elvis) kicked in a third. It's the third largest mosque in the world behind Mecca and one other (I forget). Also, it's the largest in the world that kafir or infidels like me can enter.

Impressive, but a waste of capital allocation in my mind.
Our group went out to a typical (read: tourist) Moroccan restaurant for dinner. The food was OK, but the music was great and the belly dancers sublime. At least this one was. There was another one, but she lacked that certain something...

Rick's Cafe
Jason and I booked bus tickets to El Jadidi down the coast for a UNESCO World Heritage site visit. While we were waiting we took a stroll through the "Ancien Median," basically the souk near our hotel. We found this place. Could it be? Well, it was close.

The food market in Ancien Median. Tough place to be a shark. OK, so THIS may fit your image of the developing world.
Mazagan on the Atlantic coast was started by the Portuguese in 1502. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site, number 41 for me. Pretty cool. People still live in it. El Jadidi had a beautiful cornische with lots of cafes. Too bad we had a recruitment fair back in Casa and had to roll out to make it in time.
These kids were playing soccer at the base of the fort. Jason and I were walking the walls when they saw us and immediately started showing off for our cameras. I doubt there was a video game among them.
Coming back into Casa we passed this humongous mall/office complex. You might recognize some of the companies. It's like this all over.
So after that night's fair four of us hopped down to Rick's Cafe for a late night bite. This was our waiter bringing me a "Casablanca" beer. It was pretty good. It's hard to tell in this shot, but he was wearing a Fez. Rick's is owned by an American lady, very nice. She sat at the bar just like Bogie. Except no white dinner jacket or cigarette. It's pretty darned authentic, though not a replica of the one in the movie. Upstairs they have a lounge where Casablanca is shown continuously. Natch I scored a T-shirt.

Check my next post for the Youtube video of the place. Too cool.
After Casa it was onto Amman, Jordan. I've posted lots of pictures of Jordan before so I'll be brief. This is the traffic circle looking out of my hotel window. Not a donkey cart in sight.
In keeping with the "Piles of Rocks" theme I slid down to old Amman for a visit to the Roman ruins there. I was there last November, so no need to add too many pix here.
Welcome to Saudi Arabia. Please Turn Your Watches Back 500 Years.
From Amman we were off to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Women here are expected to dress "modestly." Modest, in this case means what you see above. It's an Islamic thing. Supposedly. It's always a kick (for the men) to see our fellow female reps gussied up like this. For some reason they don't see it in the same light. In Saudi it's a man's, man's, man's man's world. But, it still sucks.

This was the morning view outside my hotel window in Riyadh. Nice full moon over the desert.
We are not supposed to take pictures of the "Kingdom Centre" tower/mall complex (security issue)in downtown Riyadh. I got nailed last time taking pictures inside. They made me delete everything. But, I love a good challenge (I was taking surreptitious photos of the "Bridge of No Return" in Korea over 30 years ago). Anyway, it's a cool building. This turned out nicely I think. I tried to look at pix of Riyadh on Google.Earth from where I am in Kuwait, but I think they're blocked. I want to download this one when I get back to the States.

OK, I'll start with Kuwait pictures and comments tomorrow. For now I want to add my Rick's Cafe video.

Carry on.