It's been almost three months since we returned from our stay in the UAE, and we are blissfully happy to be back in America, back in Virginia, back in Fauquier County. Friends -- and people with whom we only have a nodding relationship with -- have been united in what they have said to us: "We're glad you're back." That has been most heartwarming.

You see, we live in a community. It's not just a bunch of houses close together. People care about each other here, and many were worried about us and praying for us while we were in the UAE.

(Actually, where we live really isn't a bunch of houses close together. We live in the outskirts of Orlean, where cable TV will never arrive, and where one cannot see another house nearby when the leaves are all on the trees, as they are now.)

Now, only three months later, our time in the UAE seems to be a long, long time ago, and the country seems far, far away. Since we've been home, people we know here and there have been sending articles about what is going on there. It hasn't been good. Sheikhs have been accused of beating people and of fondling a man in a bar. A real estate development connected to the ruling family in the UAE seemingly has collapsed, taking innocent investors money in the process.

Seems like another day in the office in the UAE to me. Same old, same old.

Would I go back there? No. It simply isn't interesting enough to visit, and the attitude of the natives is feudal, and, therefor, un-American. For me, I really don't intend to comment about the place again. It's just not worth my time.

So we're home. Rita is heading off to Moscow on Sunday for about a week. George Mason University is working on a partnership with Moscow State University, and Rita is going to help introduce George Mason to the MSU students. Michael and I tried to go along, but with air tickets, hotel rooms and Russian visas, it just got too complicated to get together in about a week.

We are planning on going to Montreal and Quebec City in July. Michael and I are both looking for jobs, but I'm keeping myself busy with a fair number of freelance articles for Warrenton Lifestyles magazine and for the Bull Run Observer. Perhaps I will go on to a new and different career. I've done this before. I was a lawyer, a thoroughbred stable manager, a real estate agent, a drama teacher, a reporter, editor and a published author. Must be something out there that can combine that eclectic set of skills into something meaningful. Personally, I would love to find a way to help local businesses and organizations through these trying economic times. Maybe I will.

People have asked me to continue this blog, and I will. Check back in from time to time to see what is going on and what my thoughts are. Again, I want to thank you all for keeping us in your thoughts while we were in the UAE. It meant everything to us to know that so many cared about us.  

When people hear that we spent three months in the UAE, their reaction usually is something like, “You lucky dog! That place looks fabulous!”

It's true. Some of the buildings that are going up there truly are amazing, and they are building islands with fancy hotels and homes on them, but you know, “Looks can be deceiving.”

I'll tell a story I heard over there the first month we were there. We went to an art show in our emirate, Ras al Khaimah, and I met an American ex-pat who had lived there for a decade or so. I asked her how she liked it, and she said, “Do you remember the movie, 'The Fly?'” I said I did. Then she said, “Well, remember when Jeff Goldblum had the two transporters, and he put a nice, thick steak into one, and pushed the button. The steak then appeared in the second transporter, and it looked the same. It looked like the same steak, seemed like the same steak, but when you cut into it, it was horrible. That's what the UAE is like. I call it 'The Fly Syndrome.' It may look good on the surface, but when you cut into it, it's horrible.”

I'd say that about sums up the UAE. Like most other places, visiting the place and living there are two different things.

The dirty little secret is that Dubai and the UAE are third world countries with money – at least for now. But they have third world ideas about how life is to be lived, and it doesn't include such things as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and the due process of law.

I walked into the Dubai World Cup media center in March, and when I opened the souvenir magazine, I almost laughed. There, on the first page was something called, “Ruler's Message,” with a photo of the unsmiling Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

So the place is “ruled” by people whose only claim to legitimacy is the fact that a couple of generations ago, their great grandfathers were the toughest guys in the tribe, so now they get to decide how people get treated, and how the money gets spent. Basically, it seems, other people don't get treated very well, and the money gets blown on whatever crazy idea the ruler comes up with.

The stories of how the people who actually work in the UAE – 90% of whom are not local – are rife with horror tales. The guys doing the construction work make 50 cents an hour ... if they get paid at all. Their passports are taken from them when they enter the country so that they can't go home again. They live 10 in a room in un-air conditioned places. The temperatures get to be 130 degrees or so in the summer.

Filipina women who come to work as maids often find themselves trapped, unable to leave their employers, worked 12-14 hours a day, often unpaid, and, according to an ex-pat friend who had been there for a decade and a half, subject to sexual assault by the males in the family.

People in America complain – rightly – that there are too many lawyers and too many lawsuits in America. But try living in a place where the law is what the sheikh says it is. If an Emirati runs into you going 140 miles per hour, you are the one who may end up in jail. If you get laid off from work, your bank account can be frozen, even if you've never bounced a check. If you have a contract whose other side is a company owned by the ruling family, good luck enforcing that thing. They can cut you loose without a second thought and without any compensation.

You see, you don't really understand the UAE until you realize that the place is set up to benefit the ruling families. And, evidently, you don't get to be the ruler by being Mr. Nice Guy.

Right now, the UAE is hurting, though they don't want that to get out to the world. Oil revenues aren't what they were, multinational corporations are cutting back, not expanding to new places like Dubai, and the UAE seems to be banking on becoming a high-priced tourist destination. Every emirate seems to be building an island with fancy resorts on it. One problem ... people are being laid off in the UAE, and they are leaving in droves, so the residences are sitting there empty while the building keeps going on.

There are several big problems with the idea of the UAE as a tourist destination. For one thing, the weather is good about three months a year, maybe four at the most. After that, it's pretty much over 100 degrees every day and humid. Going outside is like sticking your head in an oven.

For another thing, what do you do when you get there? After you see the buildings and go to the shopping malls – where there are no bargains – then what do you do? This place is Las Vegas without gambling, Disney World without the rides. There's no history to see, and you won't get to mingle with the locals since they consider themselves above people who have to work for a living, so what actually do they think will draw the tourists?

True story: There are a lot of septic tanks in the UAE, and drivers are hired to go and pump them out. Then they are supposed to take the sewage to a treatment plant in the desert. The only problem is that they are paid by the load, and the lines to get into the place are long, so the longer they sit waiting, the less money they make. Some came up with a solution. They started dumping their loads into storm sewers in Dubai. Which went right into the ocean, next to the Royal Yacht Club. They tried to cover that up, but people notice when raw sewage washes up on the beaches.

Would I go back to Dubai? No. There's really nothing to see there. The people don't make anything, so there are no local crafts to buy. There is no history, so that's out. The weather is lousy most of the time, unless you like living in a sauna. And the buildings seem phony. They built a shopping center with an Egyptian theme, but the stores are the same you'd find in any big American city. Yes, they do have a ski slope in one of them. You skiers want to pay more for a couple of hours on man-made snow than a lift ticket to Deer Valley, Vail or Aspen? Probably not.

The UAE is a facade. They want to seem to be just like the West, but a place that still has rulers with unlimited powers can hardly be called an enlightened place to live. Sure, there are people who have lived there a long time. We met some. But they all were aware of the thin ice they all were treading. The UAE? It's “The Fly Syndrome.” That sums it up pretty well.

On Saturday evening your Fauquier Times-Democrat will be one of the few -- maybe the only -- American newspaper covering the Dubai World Cup live from the track at Nad al Sheba in Dubai. This reporter is eager to see the event -- first made famous when the mighty Cigar won in 1996.

One thing: while the purses for the races tops out at over $21 million, there is no betting. Wha? What is the deal with that?

People who have been say that the fashionistas are out in force, with some ladies' hats fetching $3000, and that there are contests for the best dressed, best hat, etc. What a waste of good racing. Sounds like there was a fashion show going on and a horserace broke out.

In any case, catch next week's Fauquier Times-Democrat for the article. Think I should buy a new outfit?

I was trying to think when was the last time I flew with a passenger holding two trained and hooded falcons. Let's see ... it was ... hmmm ... never!

And when was the last time I flew to an international airport and a woman came down the aisle with a large package whose cover proclaimed “Nine-piece kitchen cooking set.” In a box. On her head. In the plane ... hmmm ... never! Again! And she was, as Clark Gable remarked about Jean Harlow in that great movie, “Saratoga,” “struttin' like a pacer.”

I'm thinking that I don't get out enough, because I have never seen things that I saw in our three day trip to Jordan last weekend.

We decided to go to Jordan primarily to see Petra, the famous city carved in stone that was used in the last scene in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” and we threw in the Dead Sea as a side trip.

The Dead Sea, famous for being about 1000 feet below sea level is so salty that even the muscle bound can float easily. It looked murky, probably from all the minerals that are supposed to be in it, and it was too cold for a couple from the UAE – that's us – to swim in it. A couple of Germans went in and floated around, but it really didn't look that appealing. Still, its demise seems greatly exaggerated, though it's supposed to be sinking. That's not surprising to me. There are hundreds of shops selling hundreds of varieties of products made from Dead Sea mud. My wife bought several of them. I'm not that keen on the idea. I fear that I will come home one day and find that she's just exfoliated herself away with Dead Sea mud.

We had a driver pick us up and take us around for the three days that we were in Jordan, and we found it to be a country of contrasts. It's dry in most areas, but it's not sandy desert like much of the UAE. In fact, different parts could pass for parts of other countries. Some of it looks like the American Southwest, and some of it look like Sicily. Other parts – green areas that apparently receive adequate rain – seem a lot like parts of France, with long, green rolling valleys. It's very picturesque, and the people are pleasant, but they don't have the cash that people in the UAE do. Unlike the UAE, there is some severe taxation. The sales tax runs a startling 16 percent. There is none in the UAE.

But I found disturbing the heavy security presence. Along the road to the Dead Sea, we were stopped twice at checkpoints by soldiers carrying machine guns. Nearby were Humvees with mounted 50 mm machine guns. When one went into every large hotel in the country, one had to pass through metal detectors, and in some of the hotels, you can't even get onto the grounds unless you have a reservation. No matter what, you are met at the gate by bomb-sniffing dogs and guards who keep the gate closed until they have looked in your trunk and under your car with mirrors. There are large spikes blocking the road entrances to most hotels in case one decides to run the security. Not even run-flat tires could run through these spikes. I asked the driver what they were looking for, and he was vague. I'm sure that what they fear most are Islamic suicide bombers trying to make a big splash by blowing up major tourist hotels and killing foreigners. And there were ordinary police every couple of miles along the major roads, checking for speeders – they'd make a million dollars a day in the UAE if they did that here – and just checking to see if you might be a threat. It's creepy after awhile. I kept thinking, “Why are they so afraid for my safety? What do they know that I don't?”

We spent a large portion of one day in Petra, which was worth it. We spent hours walking through the canyon walls that are probably 100 feet tall in some places while being only 10 or so feet wide. Then you get to the carved buildings, and all I can say is that those people must have had a whole lot of time on their hands because they carved so many tombs, houses, stores ... even an amphitheater. It is impressive.

The Roman ruins at Jaresh are terrific. There were two amphitheaters, both in great condition, and maybe the best Roman forum I've seen anywhere. Well worth the one hour drive from Amman.

Funny story: we're walking in Amman. To our left in the Four Seasons Hotel, probably the best in the city. To our right is the Sheraton Hotel, a close second, I'd say. In between is a six lane highway. And there, right there, in an empty lot next to the Sheraton is a herd of sheep bedded down for the night, together with their Bedouin shepherds in front of a fire. Strangely Biblical in nature that in the middle of a modern city there are still living remnants of life from a thousand years ago.

Coming back to the UAE, we got on the flight and discovered that there were a couple of interesting characters flying with us: two trained, hooded falcons and their handler. They got on first and off last. Don't see that too often.

My wife used to be afraid of bugs. True. Once, when we were dating, she called me up to come to her house to kill a spider. (Don't tell the PETA people!) So I went and did the deed, becoming a hero in her eyes, I think.

Then, when she was a travel agent, she took the opportunity to travel to the Amazon Basin with a bunch of other travel agents, and there, she had an epiphany. For what does the Amazon Basin have in sweet abundance? Bugs. Lots of bugs.

When she came home, my wife reported that when she was in a hut near the river, there were some ... large bugs.

“There were flying bugs in the hut that were as big as some small birds,” she said, excitedly. “And when I killed one that was on the door, it hit the floor with a whoomp!”

After that, no ordinary bug back home seemed to amount to much to her. It was a real case of immersion therapy for her. And it worked. Her fear was eradicated.

I think something like that has happened here.

You see, my wife used to ... comment on my driving habits, the way that wives comment on their husband's perceived failings. I would be driving along at something around the speed limit, and I would come upon some slowpoke doing the speed limit, and I would start to zip around him on a two-lane road, and my wife would gasp and grab the handle above her seat. (My mother calls them the “Oh, God” handles as in, “Oh, God, please slow down!” Or something.)

“Whoa, whoa, Bobby Joe!” the wife would say. (And, as you can see, that's not close to my name. Poor dear was really confused, it seems, by the danger of the moment.)

And whenever a car would begin to start out into the highway as I approached, she would draw in her breath and make a sound like someone on a respirator.

“Be careful!” she would shout. “Do you see that car?”

It always made me agitated.

“Of course I see that car,” I would say through clenched teeth.

Driving over here in the UAE, however, has improved my wife's temperament, it seems. Now she urges me to speed up when I approach a stop sign.

“Go on!” she says, “Get out there!”

Now my driving is ... creative, in the way that jazz is creative. It's based on some sound practices, but it's modified in ways that aren't considered correct by people who actually follow the “law.”

I mean, I cut through lots to get to the next road quicker, take right turns from the far left lane, and vice versa, and generally take chances that I would never do back in America. And the wife? Not a single word of rebuke. Like the immersion therapy she went through with the Amazon bugs, driving in the UAE seems to have persuaded her that I'm not such a bad driver after all. I mean, as unconventional as my driving has become, it's not like I've been driving on the sidewalks or something!

(Actually, I take that back. I have been driving on sidewalks. Kinda fun, too. Not as much fun as driving on your neighbor's lawn, but fun nonetheless. The odd thing is, nobody seems to think it unusual when you're driving on a sidewalk. They just walk out of your way. And nobody ever gets mad if you do something that Americans would consider bad form in driving. The only time they honk the horn is when – or just before – the light turns green. They've got some mighty important tea to drink somewhere, and they cannot wait one second too long!)

So I'm thinking that when we get back to America, my wife's stress level will drop considerably when I'm driving. See, something good can come out of any time of trial!

If you're interested in Oriental rugs, Istanbul is one of the places to go. There literally are thousands of them here. There are streets full of stores full of oriental rugs, and they all seem to employ people that our son Michael came to call “Pullers.”

“They're supposed to pull people into the store, so they're 'Pullers,'” he announced. They can be very persuasive.

They will greet you on the street, shake your hand, ask where you're from, offer you tea, and on and on. It's nice in the fact that they don't get too upset with you when you don't come in, but I have to admit it: some of the rugs they display are absolutely spectacular.

One gent stopped us coming out of the Spice Market.

“Where you from?” he inquired.

“Washington DC,” we said. Okay, we lied a little, but how many of them would know of Orlean, Virginia?

“I love America!” he said. “I love Washington! I love your wife and son! Come! See my carpets. Money means nothing! Friendship is everything!”

We went and looked. We had seen better, but his was such a winning personality, we just had to stay a bit.

“This rug,” he motioned to a small Oriental. “This rug I sell for $800 in America. Here, you can have it for $290.”

It was a rug that looked very much like a rug that could have been made by Native Americans in the Southwest, maybe lending some credence to the idea that our “natives” actually came from Asia in the first place. We really weren't looking for rugs as we have three cats with claws, and they managed to tear up two other Oriental rugs we had at home already, so I didn't want to offer them fresh opportunities to get their exercise. We demurred and headed out. He gave us his card and continued shouting as we left.

“I love your wife and son! (Hey, what about me?) I love America! Money is nothing! Friendship is everything!”

We got up early last Friday to take our son to the airport to catch his flight home to America and then, back to school. The connections in Paris were a lot easier this time. Coming in, he had a 45 minute window of opportunity between landing on one plane and catching the next one to Istanbul. Going back, he had hours to spend in Charles deGaulle International before catching the flight back to Washington Dulles. A reader by nature, he had a 1,000 page book – “Infinite Jest” – to keep him occupied, and some jingle in his jeans if he felt the need to frequent the duty free shop. (Those places, by the way, are hardly as inexpensive as one might imagine. I doubt that I have ever been in one where I couldn't buy the items offered more cheaply in stores at home. Now if you are from a place that doesn't offer what you want – say, liquor, then I understand why you might go in. Otherwise, there's not much reason to go in.)

We zoomed through the early morning rain, the van driver completely ignoring the slick pavement, the curves in the road and the fact that we had plenty of time before the flight. We made it, of course, and the check-in was a breeze. Then came that awful time when he had to go through security – there were three levels of security at the Istanbul airport – and we couldn't go with him. It doesn't make it any easier if you stand there, trying to think of something to say that will prevent the coming separation, so the best tactic, we think, is to simply ... let him go. Michael put his carry on bag onto the belt to be scanned a second time, turned and gave a jaunty wave to his parents, and soon was out of sight behind the screen.

We had seven hours to kill before we were to be back at the airport for our return flight to Dubai, and we hitched up with a couple of friends and went to the Hora, a church with fantastic Christian mosaics that date back to 1300. we had an artist with us, and he pointed out just how fine they were, and how much effort went into putting them up and keeping them up. There was a lot of gold leaf on the tiny chips of stone, and the domes were probably 30 feet high, so putting them up – and keeping them up for 700 years – was quite a feat. Well worth seeing.

One of my favorite things to do here is to sit in the breakfast room at the top of the hotel and watch the harbor traffic. There are all kinds of ships, old trawlers, modern tankers, tiny fishing boats, ferries and tourist boats. I haven't seen any pleasure craft, but in a city this big, there has to be a posh yacht club somewhere with impressive sailboats and power boats that are probably used ... about once a month, if they're anything like American boaters.

We had a last lunch – it was, surprise! Kebabs! – at a place overlooking that harbor traffic on the Bosporus and then we caught the tram for the last time to get back to the hotel. It was a tad crowded, so my wife sat down with her female friend while we two guys stood up. No big problem. As we approached the first stop, the guy next to my wife got up – he was getting off, anyway – and offered his seat to me. I declined, but then he said something that made the Americans roar in laughter.

“You should sit down,” he said to me, “because you are,” he was stumbling for the right word, “old.”

I argued back that I wasn't old, but only that living in the Middle East had made me seem old, but he laughed and left. I sat down.

So we left Istanbul, carpetless, and arrived in Dubai where it's about 90 degrees and where the air conditioning runs almost all the time now. It's the middle of March and it's 90. What will the middle of July be like?

We had lunch in Asia today. Took a ferry across the Bosporus and ended up in the Asian part of Istanbul. Even though it's 15 minutes away, there was a different feel to the place. There seemed to be fewer people who spoke English as we wandered through the streets looking for a restaurant that had been featured in a story in the New York Times, and the people looked different physically. The ones we saw seemed more Slavic, more Russian looking They all looked like they could be Chicago Bears fans, but then again, we were only there a couple of hours.

We did find the restaurant, and the food was quite good, though I hesitate to add that it didn't seem any better than most of the other meals that we've had here. They were all quite good, though I think I'll have to spend some time soon in a kebab-free zone. On some menus, that's all they had.

We also found a classic old bookshop, the kind that used to be in every big city, the kind that said out loud, “Yes, we are a major metropolis.” It carried a strong scent of tobacco, though nobody in the place was smoking. The books were in Turkish on the first floor, but downstairs there were a ton of English language books, from Shakespeare to the latest trashy novel, they all seemed to be there. I found one that I couldn't resist. It's called: “I Paid Hitler,” and it's the story of a major German industrialist who bankrolled the Nazis and Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s but who broke with him when he invaded Poland, and who left Germany – and all his possessions, it seems – and went to Switzerland and then to France, where, I think, the Germans finally caught up with him and pitched him into a concentration camp with the usual results expected. The book was written before America got into the war, so it is interesting to read a contemporary account of what Hitler and the Nazis were like, from an insider.

Standing outside the bookstore, I chanced a look across the street and saw a pleasant sight. It was a small shop with a picture of a couple of horses racing to the finish line.

“Ah, a betting shop,” I said as I walked over. Inside were all the familiar sights. An electronic odds board, racing papers pinned to the bulletin boards on the walls and denizens of my world – though a world away – trying to figure out which horse was going to win the next race. I looked around the room and a thought came to me: I can take these guys. Even though I'm 7,000 miles from home, and I can't read the Turkish racing paper, and I've never set foot on a Turkish racetrack, I was confident that if I stayed there, I could walk out a winner. But, alas, I didn't get to prove out that confidence. The first race was more than an hour later, and we had to keep moving.

Another good day in the area of the Golden Horn. One more and then we head back to the UAE.

It was chilly today in Istanbul, with a breeze off the Sea of Marmara. The temp probably never made 50 degrees, and the wind made it feel something like late October in Virginia. Yet we still had a great day.
We went on a long bus tour around the city to make certain that we saw everything important, and then we stopped off at the fish market. There were thousands of fresh fish and fresh veggies, and we three ate copious amounts of both. The bill? About $10. We walked back through the city near the Blue Mosque and the Hippodrome and found a place that does terrific hand-made ceramics. One of the artists even threw some clay onto the wheel and made a piece while we were there, and then my wife Rita put on some dirty work pants, sat on a stool, pushed against the wheel to get it spinning properly and worked some clay herself. She made and decorated a bowl that ... we didn't keep. We did, however, buy a couple of things – they gave us a 50% discount – so, if you're lucky, maybe you will see what we bought when we get home, or even get something we got for you! (Forget I mentioned that 50% discount thing. We think so highly of you that we'd have bought it for you, discount or no discount. At least that's my story, and I'm sticking with it.)

Later, just around dinner time, we went into the famous Spice Market where they have ... spices of all kinds, teas, leather goods, candy, pots and pans and on and on. My wife is so adept at bargaining now that I'm sure that she will suffer withdrawal symptoms when she gets home and she goes into a store that has the price already set. Now she bargains over items that she doesn't even want to but, just to keep her skill set in good shape. We bought a few minor items. No, we did not buy the "Love Tea," nor did we buy any “Turkish Viagra.” Should we get some for you and your spouse?

Then we walked under the bridge that goes to the other side of the city, and there were probably 10 restaurants there. People were fishing from the top of the bridge above, and we could see their lines going up and back down into the water. Nobody seemed to be catching anything, which was odd, considering the fish we had seen at the market earlier in the day..

Walking by the restaurants, we were approached by a guy or two at each place. They all wanted us to frequent their place. They asked us where we were from, and not one of them guessed that we were from America. If anything, they thought that we were British. The restaurants were not expensive, but my wife couldn't help herself.

“Will you give us a 10% discount if we come back?” she asked. The guy at the first place promised to do that, and she had him sign a card – a tiny contract – that said as much. Then she took that card to each of the other restaurants and tried to do better. By the time we finally settled on one, the owner was promising a 10% discount, free salad and French fries, coffee after the meal and a dessert. We chose that one and enjoyed the meal and the maritime views right outside our window. The ferries were operating from both sides of the city and the harbor was filled with commercial traffic. Lights twinkled in the hills that rise gradually away from the harbor, and the evening was mighty fine.

Istanbul is a great city to visit. The people are hard working and pleasant, and even the ones that try to get you to buy something don't get mad if you turn them down. For the most part, Turks like Americans, and the city isn't expensive to visit. Most cab fares are in the $5 range or less, and there are modern trams that are even cheaper. The meals have been very reasonable, and the hotel we're staying in is about $70 a night, and that includes three free breakfasts every morning. Americans don't get here for a vacation much, but there are a lot of attractive things to see and do here, and maybe more Americans should consider this place. There is a culture here that goes back thousands of years, and the place is genuine. There's a lot to like in Turkey.

We went into the Blue Mosque today, which is an enormous house of prayer for Muslims. Astonishingly large and beautiful, the place is open to non-Muslims as well, which isn't the case with many mosques in this part of the world. The only thing is that you have to remove your shoes before you enter. They give you a little plastic bag for your shoes before you go in, and you see people carrying them around like they're ancient relics. There you are, looking up at the incredibly beautiful and colorful arches, with your trusty pair of boat shoes by your side in a plastic bag. Takes something away from the moment, I think.

Today was cool and rainy, so you can imagine what sort of odor a couple of hundred people wearing wet socks and carrying wet shoes could make. Think of your dog having been outside all day in the rain, and now he's come in and lain by the fire. Now let's say he brought 100 of his doggy friends with him. It was something like that.

We also went to the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul and spent several hours wandering around in that place. It seems that Istanbul has 8,000 years of history, and this place has items from pretty much every era. There are a ton of sarcophagi that Turkish archaeologists found in places as far away as Lebanon and then shipped to Turkey and put them in the museum, a curious pattern as the Turks passed a law more than 100 years ago that banned people from coming to Turkey, finding some antiquity and taking it back to their museums. That discrepancy aside, they are impressive. They have Egyptian tombs, Turkish tombs, Roman tombs, Greek tombs ... about everything but the Tomb Of The Unknown Archaeologist Caught Trying To Smuggle Something Out Of Turkey. One is called “The Alexander Sarcophagus,” in honor of Alexander the Great. No, he's not actually inside the thing. He was killed in Babylon – or died of malaria, poisoning, typhoid fever, viral encephalitis, or from the consequences of alcoholism, the encyclopedia isn't sure. I mean, it was 2,331 years ago, and the encyclopedia writers' memories aren't as sharp as they used to be. Think you could do better? What did you have for dinner last Tuesday?

It's called “The Alexander Sarcophagus” because there is a carved relief of Alexander killing someone on the thing, and what the hell, why not throw the guy a bone? He may have been poisoned, after all. Or he could have died at the age of 32 from too much booze. In either case, let's show a little sympathy to one of the greatest conquerers who was married to two princesses at the same time. “Alexander Tomb” it is.

Walking back in the rain, we passed the Hippodrome, where they used to hold chariot races to amuse the sultan. He could sit high above the crowd in a little box attached to a palace, eat dates, drink tea, crack jokes with his posse and win bets race after race, even when his horses didn't finish first. Who would be man enough to say, “Hey, Sultan, you know, your chariot didn't actually come in first in the last race?” You do that, and I'm betting that your spouse wouldn't have to worry about what present to get you for your next anniversary. The Hippodrome sports a great obelisk in the center of the track, sort of a miniature Washington Monument, but with hieroglyphics on it. Not withstanding the Turkish law mentioned before, it originally came from, that's right, Egypt. You know, there are laws and then there are laws. And somebody other than you, Mr. Foreign Archaeologist, gets to decide which ones get enforced and which ones get winked at.

Right now I have four different kinds of money in my pocket. I have US dollars, European euros, Turkish lira and UAE dirhams. Buying things here is an adventure in multiplication and division. And one can pay a bill with any of the currencies, or a combination at the same time.

“Now, let's see ... a dollar is 1.75 lira and 3.66 dirhams, but it takes 1.4 dollars to buy one euro, so if something is for sale for 100 lira, how many dollars do I need to give him if all I have is 65 lira?” It's a mess, but as the Turks say, “Money is money.” They should know. A couple of years ago, they revalued the lira. Inflation had gotten so bad that the lira was almost worthless. So they made new lira buy taking six zeros off the old lira. That's right, a couple of years ago it cost 2 million lira to buy a Coke, but in Turkey at that time, everyone was a billionaire.

We're in Istanbul, a city of 15 million in Turkey, which is one of America's staunchest allies in the region. It's the second time that we've vacationed here, but the last time was 15 years ago, and even in a place that boasts thousands of years of history and culture, there are changes.

We're here with our son, Michael, who is on spring break. Last Friday at noon, he was presenting a project in a class in Blacksburg, Virginia. Then he went back to his room, packed the car, drove to our home in Orlean, grabbed his passport, drove to my mother's apartment in Manassas, got something to eat, and was driven to Dulles International to catch a flight to Paris on Air France that left at 10:25. He carried one bag on board because he had to catch a connecting flight in Paris for Istanbul, and he only had 45 minutes between the time he was scheduled to get there and when he left again.

We were waiting to hear from him to hear if he made the connection, and we never did. We took that as a good sign, we were rewarded when he stepped out of the customs area at about 5:30 pm on Saturday afternoon. He looked great, especially considering the fact that he had been in transit for about 23 hours. He said that he liked the Air France flights. The flight attendants were awfully pretty.

It's cool here in Istanbul and rainy, and it's a refreshing change for us coming from the UAE. There we are using the air conditioning in the car all the time now, and the air conditioning at the place we live in the late afternoons. The temperatures have to be pushing 90 degrees, and it is dusty and sandy. We were gone for a long weekend two weeks ago, and when we got back, there was a lot of sand that had blown under our front door. I suspect that it's going to be like this for awhile, but we should miss the brunt of it as we are heading home around April 1.

Compared to Dubai, Istanbul has the feel of a real city, while Dubai seems like something Disney would put up as a tourist attraction. We're in a small hotel that is in the heart of the old section, near the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. We have a great view of the Bosporus from the breakfast room every morning.

I've taken to wearing my cowboy hat when I take trips in this part of the world, and it never fails to create a stir. Buying a USA Today in Dubai before our flight, the cashier – an Asian – looked at my hat and said, “Wow,” in an appreciative way. In Istanbul the first night we were looking for a place to eat, and a guy stopped me on the street.

“Hey, Cowboy!” he said, a phrase I heard numerous times that day and since.

American culture – and in particular – American movies have been pervasive here, and the idea of the American Cowboy really resonates. And Americans – and Australians – are the only ones who can pull off wearing a cowboy hat without looking foolish. A Japanese in at cowboy hat is a joke waiting to happen. One of the Indians who works at George Mason, when he saw my hat, he said, “I've never even seen one up close!” I offered him the chance to put it on, and his face lit up. You want to break the ice with locals in a foreign country? Wear a cowboy hat.

We chatted with the Turk who had stopped is, and before we knew it, he was taking us way out of his way to a little restaurant he knew that served two good meals to us for about $10. He had been to America several times, selling expensive Oriental rugs to people in Rhode Island, but he had driven across America a couple of times. Loves the place.

We went to the opening of an art show here the other night, and we ended up being participants in a long-term project that one of the artists is doing. He's shooting photos of ... everybody he meets, and he just finished a different project for National Geographic. So we had our photos taken. We also met the ambassador from Afghanistan, who has – as my wife reminded him – a large task ahead of him pacifying that country. He nodded in understanding.

The food here has been quite good. In fact, we haven't had a bad meal since we got here, and it isn't expensive. Americans don't come to Turkey nearly enough. This is where the Greeks were, and the Byzantines and the Romans and the Ottomans. The Crusades came through here, and Helen of Troy started a big fight because of her great beauty. One could spend years looking at the remains of the cultures and peoples who have populated this area, and this is a very strategic part of the world.

When the Ottoman Empire fell after World War I, Turkey had a real leader, Mustapha Kemel, who became known as Kemel Ataturk (“Father of Turks”). He was a strong man who shook up the country and dragged it into the 20^th Century. In spite of the fact that this is a Muslim country, he wanted Turkey to be secular. So, after knocking together a few heads – okay, a lot of heads – it was. And it remains to this day. It sits on the Black Sea, next to Iraq and Iran and close to Russia. It's good for America to have friends here.

One thing that we have noticed is how well liked our new president is. Unprovoked, people will ask us what we think of Obama, and when we say that he's a smart man who has an unbelievably difficult task ahead of him, they all smile and say, “He's good,” which they emphasize by giving thumbs up. One taxi driver said, “Considering where America was 140 years ago, the fact that you've just elected a black man is incredible.” last night we saw Obama's image in an advertisement for what we think is a bank CD or bond or something similar. People see him in a positive way for America.

Right now we're going out to see some sights. I'll be back blogging when I have something else to say, and hopefully I will have some photos as well.