Just so's y'all know, Internet access had been available, but not in the ways necessary for me to make spiffy blog posts. I've been trying to keep track of everything on me ol' laptop as I go along, and of course there are pics and vids clogging up my computer--the hard part is going to be getting it all in a nice presentable format.
SO
I hope you will al forgive the fact that a few of these posts won't appear until I am already home and recovering from the Jetlag.
Today is officially thursday, which means I come home tomorrow. I am a little sad about this, but I think I'm also ready. Three weeks is a nice long vacation, long enough for me to forget about what working is really like. In the mean time, here's a pic of me at Petra--ok, pic won't post because the internet connection is weird and doesn't support whatever it is I'm trying to do.
So, my dear readers, you will have to console yourselves with my words, and know that I love you all.
Peace in the mid-east!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Fujeira- Day 11 Dibba
Um, I think it's Wednesday.
We got up and lounged about for a while, then Sulaimon came and fetched us from our apartment. This is Sulaimon's home town, so we're in his territory now. We started by looking at some gold and mailing letters. Then we went to get my shoe fixed. The guy who did it was chilling on a mat in the shade. It took him all of ten minutes and cost less than a dollar. My sandal is better than ever now, and I wish I had kept the ones I broke 4-wheeling earlier in the week.
After this we went to the Friday market, who knows why they call it that, but that's its name. This was basically for my benefit because I was interested in getting some rugs to bring home.
The Friday market is like all of the guys selling carpets out of their vans in Chicago, times 100 and smooshed together in one spot. They alos have plants, and pottery and other things, but there would be no way for us to get this stuff home so we ignored it.
It was pretty hot and we ended up going to three or four merchants until one guy finally got us to hang around long enough to bargain. All I can say of these few hours is that Sulaimon blew our minds with his negotiating skills. I don't know what ws being said, but he ended up getting three rugs, three silk sheets (for lack of a better name), eight hand sewened pillow cases, and four sodas for 625 AED, which is like maybe $150. My share was 300 AED not bad for the haul. Best of all I got a Sheik Zayad rug to hang on my wall. Try getting handmade crap like that back home for that cheap! I dare ya.
Next we bought lunch for us and Sulaimon in celebration, then he had to go do some stuff for his wedding and we chilled for a few hours. He came back, picked us up, and we cruised around Dibba for a bit. My sister and Lynn went into his wife's house for some mysterious womanly stuff, and we, the guys, went to find something else to do.
First we went to a bookstore where I got a few things for Miss Sage. They had some great books in here: translations of Michael Moore's Dude Where's my Country and Stupid White Men, and a bunch of books about Bush, most of them had fire and explosions on the cover, so that couldn't have been good. There was Mein Kampf (a bit scary IMHO) and a trilogy of boooks studying the Freemasons. Sulaimon had never heard of the masons, and was enthralled when I told him about them. He promptly picked up the first book in the series. I'm interested to see what the Arabs have to say about Masosns.
Next we picked his friend up and went to Le Meridian, a 5 star hotel down the coast. We wandered arouind the hotel, saw girls in bathing suits (first time since Dubai) and had some coffee. Then we headed back, got the girls and called it a night. It doesn't sound like a lot, but these days can be long.
Then I came on down to the Internet cafe and wrote the last two entries. They keep playing the same 7 80's songs over and over again. I don't understand, but if I have to hear Peter Cetera and Amy Grant again, I'm going to gouge my eyes out.
After this
Fujeira- Day 10 The mountains
After lunch we hit the road for Dibba which is coastal city divided by two Emirates (Fujeira and Sharja) and Oman. To get ther we had to cut through the mountains in the northeast.
We stopped to take pictures of a Wadi, which is a dry riverbed that floods during the rainy seasons. Then we pressed on to an amazingly lush and beautiful mango farm hidden up in the mountains. Apparently, this is ahmed's uncle's farm and it is build on the site of an ancient fortress. There aren't any national historical societies in the UAE, so if you live there, it's basically your old ruined fort, so we took some pictures and wondered about the history of the old place.
After the Fort we walked down the path to the Cool-Old-Guy-of-the-Hills' farm. He was abuot to smoke his old wooden pipe, filled with some suspicious green plant, but when we arrived, he jumped up ans gave me a snappy British salute.
He directed us around the side of his farm and had one of his Bangladeshi helpers climb a tree and shake some fresh fgruit for us. We were a bit overwhelmed by the enormous bag of fruit he gave us because we had no clue what to do with it all.
He demanded that we have dinner with him, but our plans had us travelling for the next few hours so we couldn't. It was heartbreaking to refuse, but if we said yes to every family that invited us to dinner we'd be eating once an hour and would have to ditch our luggage to meet the weight requirements needed to get home.
Next we stopped at another farm with lots of goats and a pair of gazelles. There as a little girl here who had a littler baby goar in her arms. It was very very cute. This family invited us to their house for dinner as well, and again we had to decline.
For the next hour or more we drove through the mountians, stopped at a quaint mountian town for water, and headed into Dibba where we were going to spend the night. We had to wait for Sulaimon to call us about our hotel, so we hitched over to the Omani side of DIbba and took a look at a dam they had built to stop mountain flooding. It was nice, but a tad bit underwhelming after the other things we'd already seen.
After this we got a call from sulaimon, went to our very comfortable apartment, and I think I was asleep in about 30 minutes. All in all a very beautiful and scenic day.
We drove through Hammoudi's town and saw a hotel that was built and then shut down as the mountain hill it was built on crumbled underneath it. OOPS!
We saw a natural hot spring fed by water from the mountains. A lot of the people come here and take little baths to get some of the magic water in their system. Very nice.
We cruised around a bit and say Hammoudi's grandfather's farm where we met up with his uncle Ahmed who was going to take to a few other notable spots in the mountins. The trip in the mountains was breathtaking and fun since we had to drive along a dusty unpaved road which went almost straight up the mountains.
We cruised around a bit and say Hammoudi's grandfather's farm where we met up with his uncle Ahmed who was going to take to a few other notable spots in the mountins. The trip in the mountains was breathtaking and fun since we had to drive along a dusty unpaved road which went almost straight up the mountains.
We stopped to take pictures of a Wadi, which is a dry riverbed that floods during the rainy seasons. Then we pressed on to an amazingly lush and beautiful mango farm hidden up in the mountains. Apparently, this is ahmed's uncle's farm and it is build on the site of an ancient fortress. There aren't any national historical societies in the UAE, so if you live there, it's basically your old ruined fort, so we took some pictures and wondered about the history of the old place.
After the Fort we walked down the path to the Cool-Old-Guy-of-the-Hills' farm. He was abuot to smoke his old wooden pipe, filled with some suspicious green plant, but when we arrived, he jumped up ans gave me a snappy British salute.Ii saluted back, we had a larff, and walked down into his amazingly lush farm. Up to this point, I had been getting used to seeing 'farms' which were basically fenced off squats of desert where goats and camels hung out. This was something else entirely. It was actually cool in here, and mangoes fell from the trees right into your hand ready for eating.
He directed us around the side of his farm and had one of his Bangladeshi helpers climb a tree and shake some fresh fgruit for us. We were a bit overwhelmed by the enormous bag of fruit he gave us because we had no clue what to do with it all.He demanded that we have dinner with him, but our plans had us travelling for the next few hours so we couldn't. It was heartbreaking to refuse, but if we said yes to every family that invited us to dinner we'd be eating once an hour and would have to ditch our luggage to meet the weight requirements needed to get home.
Next we stopped at another farm with lots of goats and a pair of gazelles. There as a little girl here who had a littler baby goar in her arms. It was very very cute. This family invited us to their house for dinner as well, and again we had to decline.For the next hour or more we drove through the mountians, stopped at a quaint mountian town for water, and headed into Dibba where we were going to spend the night. We had to wait for Sulaimon to call us about our hotel, so we hitched over to the Omani side of DIbba and took a look at a dam they had built to stop mountain flooding. It was nice, but a tad bit underwhelming after the other things we'd already seen.
After this we got a call from sulaimon, went to our very comfortable apartment, and I think I was asleep in about 30 minutes. All in all a very beautiful and scenic day.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Fujeira- Day 10 The Morning
Greets!
Day ten, looks like we're rounding the bend here in the old (or not so ol') U.A.E.
For those of you who don't know, and if I didn't write any of this yet, the U.A.E. is a confederation of city states called Emirates. These were brought together under one Sheik Zayed sometime in the 1970's (hold on...checking facts....) ok, December 2, 1971 to be exact. The government is officially a Federal Constitutional Monarchy...kind of like ours.....hmmmm
Basically, Sheik Zayed, the then Emir of Abu Dhabi, pulled all the other emirates togther and federated them into what it is today with Abu Dhabi as the capital and Dubai as it's very rich, very fancy, and very congested little brother. There are five other Emirates: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. As of today, I have now visited every Emirate and the country of Oman, not bad I think.
Our final ex-ex-patriot frined, Abdullah Hammudi, or Hammudi (Yeaarrggg...Peter Cetera is playing in the background!! Gods above! Oh no... Amy Grant too! Curses!) came and picked us up from our most recent domicile, Sun City, in the emirate of Sharjah. A final word about Sharjah: it is considered the cultural center of the UAE, so if you are looking for theatre and dancing and book stores and nerds, this is your place.
Hammudi took us around in his SUV and we visited an old (or maybe new) fortress which the people used before the Brits came and ran the Arabian Peninsula. It was nice enough, but kind of lacking in much real historical content. It was sort of a juimble of stuff, with hastily written notecards, many of which made no sense to my keen grasp of the Engrish language. Also I was sleepy because I keep waking up at like 5 or 6 in the morning; it's a real pain in my ass.
Anyhoo---
We pressed on and saw some stuff, like a graveyard that some guy had managed to use to scam a Kuwaiti and a camel racing track. The graveyard scandal went like this: during the 1991 gulf war, all the Kuwaitis ran for the hills and many came to the UAE. One such man proclaimed to another his interest in buying some land (of which, there are no rules about as far as I can tell). The native told him that he had the perfect spot of land for him just a short way down the road. The two set off, and mind it was the eve, to see the spot of land in question. Once there the Kuwaiti, impressed by the scope and size of the land (YAHHHHH!!!! more Peter Cetera!!! MERCY!!!) instany resolved to give the local man 100,000 Dirhams on the spot ( about $28,000) and another 200,000 after the government finalized the deal. They resolved to meet the next morning at the local constabulary to finish the deal, but guess who never showed up and got away 100,000 AED richer? After three days of waiting, the government official finally asked the Kuwaiti what piece of land he was waiting to purchase. I'm sure you can guess the color of his face when they told him it was the local graveyard. Moral: don't give thousnds of dolars to strange men in dark graveyards.
The camel track was interesting, but nothing was really going on. Apparently, if you win a camel race they give you a huge brand new SUV, or maybe 1million AED.
Next was lunch. It was pretty cool. We got to meet Hammoudi's family, the Hammoudis. The lunch was goat with rice and a some yummy bread and veggies, and fruit, and sweets, and more than 20 people could eat let alone 5. After lunch some visiting with the family, then we hit the road for other destinations. One thing about visiting families, I pretty much only get to meet the men and boys and maybe a baby, if she doesn't scream at the sight of me. It's not because I'm ugly (yar!) but because it's not customary to see a family's womenfolk. On the other hand, my sister has met everyone. Ususally there are about 5 to 15 people that I don't get to see. Sometimes I'm even alone in the room for a while as everyone else does what they gotta do. doesn't bother me though.
Day ten, looks like we're rounding the bend here in the old (or not so ol') U.A.E.
For those of you who don't know, and if I didn't write any of this yet, the U.A.E. is a confederation of city states called Emirates. These were brought together under one Sheik Zayed sometime in the 1970's (hold on...checking facts....) ok, December 2, 1971 to be exact. The government is officially a Federal Constitutional Monarchy...kind of like ours.....hmmmmBasically, Sheik Zayed, the then Emir of Abu Dhabi, pulled all the other emirates togther and federated them into what it is today with Abu Dhabi as the capital and Dubai as it's very rich, very fancy, and very congested little brother. There are five other Emirates: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. As of today, I have now visited every Emirate and the country of Oman, not bad I think.
Our final ex-ex-patriot frined, Abdullah Hammudi, or Hammudi (Yeaarrggg...Peter Cetera is playing in the background!! Gods above! Oh no... Amy Grant too! Curses!) came and picked us up from our most recent domicile, Sun City, in the emirate of Sharjah. A final word about Sharjah: it is considered the cultural center of the UAE, so if you are looking for theatre and dancing and book stores and nerds, this is your place.Hammudi took us around in his SUV and we visited an old (or maybe new) fortress which the people used before the Brits came and ran the Arabian Peninsula. It was nice enough, but kind of lacking in much real historical content. It was sort of a juimble of stuff, with hastily written notecards, many of which made no sense to my keen grasp of the Engrish language. Also I was sleepy because I keep waking up at like 5 or 6 in the morning; it's a real pain in my ass.
Anyhoo---
We pressed on and saw some stuff, like a graveyard that some guy had managed to use to scam a Kuwaiti and a camel racing track. The graveyard scandal went like this: during the 1991 gulf war, all the Kuwaitis ran for the hills and many came to the UAE. One such man proclaimed to another his interest in buying some land (of which, there are no rules about as far as I can tell). The native told him that he had the perfect spot of land for him just a short way down the road. The two set off, and mind it was the eve, to see the spot of land in question. Once there the Kuwaiti, impressed by the scope and size of the land (YAHHHHH!!!! more Peter Cetera!!! MERCY!!!) instany resolved to give the local man 100,000 Dirhams on the spot ( about $28,000) and another 200,000 after the government finalized the deal. They resolved to meet the next morning at the local constabulary to finish the deal, but guess who never showed up and got away 100,000 AED richer? After three days of waiting, the government official finally asked the Kuwaiti what piece of land he was waiting to purchase. I'm sure you can guess the color of his face when they told him it was the local graveyard. Moral: don't give thousnds of dolars to strange men in dark graveyards.
The camel track was interesting, but nothing was really going on. Apparently, if you win a camel race they give you a huge brand new SUV, or maybe 1million AED.
Next was lunch. It was pretty cool. We got to meet Hammoudi's family, the Hammoudis. The lunch was goat with rice and a some yummy bread and veggies, and fruit, and sweets, and more than 20 people could eat let alone 5. After lunch some visiting with the family, then we hit the road for other destinations. One thing about visiting families, I pretty much only get to meet the men and boys and maybe a baby, if she doesn't scream at the sight of me. It's not because I'm ugly (yar!) but because it's not customary to see a family's womenfolk. On the other hand, my sister has met everyone. Ususally there are about 5 to 15 people that I don't get to see. Sometimes I'm even alone in the room for a while as everyone else does what they gotta do. doesn't bother me though.
these pics are of the meal. Ahmed is showing us the proper way to open a goat's head. As a visitor, it's a good thing to know how to do. first you rip the jaw off and pull the meat off of it. Then you pull the tongue out, then the eyes. Next you clear the meat of the rest of the head, and finally take the jaw and use it to crack open the skull so you can et to the nice juicy brains.
YUM!
Monday, June 18, 2007
Important! Supplemental
Sharjah- Day 9
Today, our friend Sulaimon came back to take us out.
We left our hotel around noon ( I had been reading and writing all morning of course!) and cruised around a bit and then went to lunch. It was a decent buffet, nothing to write home about.
After that, I made my one request of the day, which was to sit somewhere and drink some American style coffee. Arabic coffee is ok, but I don't like to drink a lot of it. It doesn't seem like it's been roasted long enough and the taste is tangy and bitter. We had some coffee, laughed about how much all teenagers are the same EVERYWHERE, shopped for a minute ( I got my Sheik Zayed T-shirt. YESSSS!!!), and left.
Next we hit the historic district of Sharjahm and let me tell you, this is where the REAL shopping is. Like Sulaimon so sagely put it, "stuff in a mall you can buy anywhere, but thiese things are unique." Well, that's sort of what he said.
The first thing I looked at were some woven wool rugs. I like the kind that are about 1.5' x 3' and the first vendor spread a half dozen beautiful rugs out for me to choose. When I asked him how much for one, he came back with 350 AED (Arab Emirates Dirham), or roughly $95. Abargain in the states, but WAY too high. Sulaimon admonished the guy and he told me to make an offer. How could I? I had no idea what they were really worth. Sulaimon told me we could get them for AT MOST 150 AED, or $40, so when the guy came back with 200 AED we just walked away.
If you've never had to haggle for prices before, I can tell you it can be heartbreaking, but you must be firm. It also helps to have someone with you who knows what stuff is actually worth. The next shop had all sorts of brass, copper, pewter, silver and other types of jewelry and trinkets. There were swords, rifles, tea-pots, rings which bore the seal of some animal or Arabic phrase, necklaces, bracelets, and more stuff I just can't remember. There were ancient Arabic vinyl records too, which I was eyeing greedily.
He wanted to have us look at his rugs, and having heard the last guy try to ruin us, he sarted at 200 AED. He wouldn't come down below 150, so we walked off again. They tried SOOOO hard, I swear I thought I was killing his children.
At this point I must give all praise and honor to my friend Sulaimon and his masterful bartering abilities. I did pretty good, but without him to give me a price baseline, and to haggle a few more Dirhams out of the merchants, I could now be a poor poor man. Instead I'm am a slightly poorer man with a lot of interesting stuff. Huzzah!!!
Next came some more stuff, which I can't write about here because it involves secret gift detials that should not be divulged. All I can say is that this place is probably the coolest shopping experience I've had in this land of shops and malls. In fact, I think that as a tourist, Sharjah is a cool place to visit. It is much more down to earth than Dubai, has really beutiful mosques and other architecture, has a nice lake front Corniche (street by the water), decent shopping malls and hotels (gotta have those), and a really nice fine arts and historical area. One thing of note is that there are realtively few Arabs around here; most of the people are foreign workers--Iranis, Bangladeshis, Indo-Pak, and Filipino. Another thing to note is that like Dubai, the city is completely under construction, and if I came back in a year, I doubt I would recognize very much of it.
Let's see.... after this time killer it was full on rush hour, and that is a very very bad thing in the Emirates. You have three choices: wait in it, wait it out, or go the opposite direction. We went the opposite direction of everyone else and came to another mall type area with a bunch of restaurants. We ate some stuff, and then called it a night.
Now I'm here typing this, and soon I will be done. In the morning we are off to the emirate of Fujiera to see our friend Hammoudi and prepare for his wedding feast.
In Sha Allah!
We left our hotel around noon ( I had been reading and writing all morning of course!) and cruised around a bit and then went to lunch. It was a decent buffet, nothing to write home about.
After that, I made my one request of the day, which was to sit somewhere and drink some American style coffee. Arabic coffee is ok, but I don't like to drink a lot of it. It doesn't seem like it's been roasted long enough and the taste is tangy and bitter. We had some coffee, laughed about how much all teenagers are the same EVERYWHERE, shopped for a minute ( I got my Sheik Zayed T-shirt. YESSSS!!!), and left.
Next we hit the historic district of Sharjahm and let me tell you, this is where the REAL shopping is. Like Sulaimon so sagely put it, "stuff in a mall you can buy anywhere, but thiese things are unique." Well, that's sort of what he said.
The first thing I looked at were some woven wool rugs. I like the kind that are about 1.5' x 3' and the first vendor spread a half dozen beautiful rugs out for me to choose. When I asked him how much for one, he came back with 350 AED (Arab Emirates Dirham), or roughly $95. Abargain in the states, but WAY too high. Sulaimon admonished the guy and he told me to make an offer. How could I? I had no idea what they were really worth. Sulaimon told me we could get them for AT MOST 150 AED, or $40, so when the guy came back with 200 AED we just walked away.
If you've never had to haggle for prices before, I can tell you it can be heartbreaking, but you must be firm. It also helps to have someone with you who knows what stuff is actually worth. The next shop had all sorts of brass, copper, pewter, silver and other types of jewelry and trinkets. There were swords, rifles, tea-pots, rings which bore the seal of some animal or Arabic phrase, necklaces, bracelets, and more stuff I just can't remember. There were ancient Arabic vinyl records too, which I was eyeing greedily.
He wanted to have us look at his rugs, and having heard the last guy try to ruin us, he sarted at 200 AED. He wouldn't come down below 150, so we walked off again. They tried SOOOO hard, I swear I thought I was killing his children.
At this point I must give all praise and honor to my friend Sulaimon and his masterful bartering abilities. I did pretty good, but without him to give me a price baseline, and to haggle a few more Dirhams out of the merchants, I could now be a poor poor man. Instead I'm am a slightly poorer man with a lot of interesting stuff. Huzzah!!!
Next came some more stuff, which I can't write about here because it involves secret gift detials that should not be divulged. All I can say is that this place is probably the coolest shopping experience I've had in this land of shops and malls. In fact, I think that as a tourist, Sharjah is a cool place to visit. It is much more down to earth than Dubai, has really beutiful mosques and other architecture, has a nice lake front Corniche (street by the water), decent shopping malls and hotels (gotta have those), and a really nice fine arts and historical area. One thing of note is that there are realtively few Arabs around here; most of the people are foreign workers--Iranis, Bangladeshis, Indo-Pak, and Filipino. Another thing to note is that like Dubai, the city is completely under construction, and if I came back in a year, I doubt I would recognize very much of it.
Let's see.... after this time killer it was full on rush hour, and that is a very very bad thing in the Emirates. You have three choices: wait in it, wait it out, or go the opposite direction. We went the opposite direction of everyone else and came to another mall type area with a bunch of restaurants. We ate some stuff, and then called it a night.
Now I'm here typing this, and soon I will be done. In the morning we are off to the emirate of Fujiera to see our friend Hammoudi and prepare for his wedding feast.
In Sha Allah!
Sharja- Day 8
Today was a complete breather. It was Father's Day actually. Happy Father's day to me and all! And as such, I instinctively felt the need to sit on the couch and veg all day.
I was feeling very sore and beat up from the day in the desert, so I took my last 600mg Ibuprofen and lounged about sleeping, writing, and watching some Arabic TV.
The weirdest thing I saw on the telly was this music vieo from Iraq. It was sort of like a children's song, led by two Raffi type guys and a chorus of Iraqi children. The raffi type guys (RTG's) were aping about on the tv, flashing american money, climbing trees, and looking really sad as they were rotting in a jail cell. When the chorus came the kids all sang and clapped, and then it cut to a row of about 5 people all dressed like the Abu Ghraib tortured prisoners. It was surreal, grotesque and shaming. Try to tell me were screwing these people up royaly. (One good thing about 'liberating' Iraq, however, is the fact that a bunch of Iraqi hotties now have a music video show where they all dance together in some kind of late 70's disco hall. One of the guys here called it arabic pole dancing, even though these girls were all fully dressed and hardly being erotic)
After sleeping off my pharmaceutical coma, I went out and took a trip to the Mega Mall down the street. By the way, the girls were out doing their own thing today, Al Hamdelela (God is Great), so I could be by myself. I bought a few books at the bookstore and had some coffee in the crappy cafe they had there. I bought a nice sci-fi book for mind fodder, and two other ones for later.
One book is calle 'The Alhambra' by Irving Washington of Sleepy Hollow fame, and the other is excerpts from the travells of Ibn Batuta. Ibn Batuta was a middle ages traveller, much like Marco Polo. He is pretty famous in the Arabic world, I think, and it looks really interesting becasue it's basically history, philandering, and adventures. My kind of stuff!
I went home and read till my eyes popped out and I fell asleep.
I was feeling very sore and beat up from the day in the desert, so I took my last 600mg Ibuprofen and lounged about sleeping, writing, and watching some Arabic TV.
The weirdest thing I saw on the telly was this music vieo from Iraq. It was sort of like a children's song, led by two Raffi type guys and a chorus of Iraqi children. The raffi type guys (RTG's) were aping about on the tv, flashing american money, climbing trees, and looking really sad as they were rotting in a jail cell. When the chorus came the kids all sang and clapped, and then it cut to a row of about 5 people all dressed like the Abu Ghraib tortured prisoners. It was surreal, grotesque and shaming. Try to tell me were screwing these people up royaly. (One good thing about 'liberating' Iraq, however, is the fact that a bunch of Iraqi hotties now have a music video show where they all dance together in some kind of late 70's disco hall. One of the guys here called it arabic pole dancing, even though these girls were all fully dressed and hardly being erotic)
After sleeping off my pharmaceutical coma, I went out and took a trip to the Mega Mall down the street. By the way, the girls were out doing their own thing today, Al Hamdelela (God is Great), so I could be by myself. I bought a few books at the bookstore and had some coffee in the crappy cafe they had there. I bought a nice sci-fi book for mind fodder, and two other ones for later.
One book is calle 'The Alhambra' by Irving Washington of Sleepy Hollow fame, and the other is excerpts from the travells of Ibn Batuta. Ibn Batuta was a middle ages traveller, much like Marco Polo. He is pretty famous in the Arabic world, I think, and it looks really interesting becasue it's basically history, philandering, and adventures. My kind of stuff!
I went home and read till my eyes popped out and I fell asleep.
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