It’s 5:55 AM, Beirut time, and I’m finally settled at the gate, waiting for my 7:10 flight to Istanbul. From there, I’ll catch an afternoon flight to Belgrade. Even though all airports are basically the same, I’m looking forward to walking around the Istanbul airport during my four-hour layover. Everywhere in the world, big airports have a different feel—as do the people hurrying through them. Only cell phones seem to be totally ubiquitous. I only slept four hours last night—or was it only three? Actually, by the time I fell asleep it was after one. I got up at four. After five wonderful days in Lebanon visiting my daughter, we met for one last dinner out—we split a lamb tangine and one with chicken and apricots—a delectable feast of Moroccan food after days and days of Lebanese mezze: ... [Continue Reading]

Okay, maybe it’s an exaggeration. Maybe it’s because I have six hours to kill here. Maybe and probably, it’s mostly because I only slept three hours last night. But the Sabiha Gökçen Havalimanı airport in Turkey is really scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of amenities. It’s small, there’s no free WiFi, and very little in the way of a comfortable place to sit. All you can do is walk in a horseshoe shaped hallway of consumption: store after store, fast food joint after fast food joint with a couple of restaurants and one bakery with baked goods that actually look quite yummy. From the looks of it, Turkish bakers know what they’re doing. Oh yeah and suddenly I'm looking at Roman characters again—Turkish uses them—and they are on all the signs, not that I can read them, of course, ... [Continue Reading]

Back in the Istanbul airport (I learned this was a “lesser” airport for connecting flights—not the main Istanbul airport at all), when they finally posted the gate for my flight to Belgrade, I made my way there and sat on one of the hardest waiting room seats I’d ever sat upon. I picked up the novel I’ve been reading, The Bridge on the Drina, whose author, Ivo Andric, won the Nobel Prize for Literature for the book in 1961. It tells the story of Serbia, and its long domination by the Turks, from the point of view of the bridge which crossed the River Drina. At first, as I read, the waiting room was empty, but gradually, it began to fill up—and I began studying the faces of the people readying for the flight—many of whom must have been returning to Serbia. I noticed different facial ... [Continue Reading]