Travel The World

Finally, I took some pictures from here in Afghanistan. Nothing special because I'm limited to what I can see nearby. Hopefully, I can return here in the future as a tourist when it's safer. Anyway, the mountains in the pictures are quite majestic with those in the background being around 20,000 feet. We are living at 7,000 feet in Kabul as it is. 42 days to go. http://picasaweb.google.com/mccoy4984/Afghanistan1

Here are the final pictures from the Hungary trip in 2006. I enjoyed the trip but it was definitely a different atmosphere from my life in Slovakia. Hungary is a nice place to visit, but I'm not sure I'd want to live there. You can see the pictures at the link below. http://picasaweb.google.com/mccoy4984/BudapestOctober2006Part3

I got distracted from this trip due to my impending trip to Afghanistan. Anyway, here are some more pics mostly of the downtown area. The next time I post some pictures, I'll show you some of the countryside. http://picasaweb.google.com/mccoy4984/BudapestOctober2006Part2

I had an interesting thing happen this week. I was told I was having a visitor in one of my classes, an Afghan translator. What I didn't know was that the translator was a woman. Having lived in Saudi Arabia for several years, I never expected to meet a woman under such conditions in a conservative Muslim country. I didn't know whether/how to speak to her. Anyway, in the end, everything went well and the male trainees acted normally around her. Just another example of how Afghanistan is changing as of late.

Yes, AF is a dangerous place and people certainly die over here. However, my biggest fear is dying from boredom. For security reasons, I can't leave the compound. Supposedly, we have TV but I can't recall it ever working. Really, there's nothing at all to do here besides work. On a more upbeat note, I really enjoy the Afghans I've been around. They're very polite, accomodating, and even fun-loving. Still, I can detect, for lack of a better word, a certain wildness in their character. I suspect that if they like you, they would defend you to the death. If they didn't, they would probably do the opposite. It's a shame I can't get out and meet more of them. As I said, another exciting weekend in AF.