Sunday, July 30, 2006

Bush's delusions about the Mideast further undermining US credibility
by Joe in DC - 7/30/2006 11:26:00 PM

Contrary to most of the rest of the world, the White House has been saying that the latest Mideast war is really an opportunity:

"This moment of conflict in the Middle East is painful and tragic," Bush said in his radio address Saturday. "Yet it is also a moment of opportunity for broader change in the region. Transforming countries that have suffered decades of tyranny and violence is difficult, and it will take time to achieve. But the consequences will be profound for our country and the world."

That viewpoint is openly mocked by foreign policy experts:

[Richard] Haass, the former Bush aide who leads the Council on Foreign Relations, laughed at the president's public optimism. "An opportunity?" Haass said with an incredulous tone. "Lord, spare me. I don't laugh a lot. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what's Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?"

Good point. Bush and his foreign policy crew talk a good game. But their track record is one of abysmal failure. What in anything Bush has said or done in foreign policy (or any policy for that matter) provides even a sliver of hope that he's right this time? NOTHING.

Monday, July 31, 2006

The war in Iraq really is still happening -- and Americans are really still dying
by Joe in DC - 7/31/2006 09:50:00 AM

Frank Rich has a brilliant column today about how the US news media is basically ignoring the war in Iraq:

CNN will surely remind us today that it is Day 19 of the Israel-Hezbollah war — now branded as Crisis in the Middle East — but you won’t catch anyone saying it’s Day 1,229 of the war in Iraq. On the Big Three networks’ evening newscasts, the time devoted to Iraq has fallen 60 percent between 2003 and this spring, as clocked by the television monitor, the Tyndall Report. On Thursday, Brian Williams of NBC read aloud a “shame on you” e-mail complaint from the parents of two military sons anguished that his broadcast had so little news about the war.

This is happening even as the casualties in Iraq, averaging more than 100 a day, easily surpass those in Israel and Lebanon combined. When Nouri al-Maliki, the latest Iraqi prime minister, visited Washington last week to address Congress, he too got short TV shrift — a mere five sentences about the speech on ABC’s “World News.” The networks know a rerun when they see it. Only 22 months earlier, one of Mr. Maliki’s short-lived predecessors, Ayad Allawi, had come to town during the 2004 campaign to give a similarly empty Congressional address laced with White House-scripted talking points about the war’s progress. Propaganda stunts, unlike “Law & Order” episodes, don’t hold up on a second viewing.

The steady falloff in Iraq coverage isn’t happenstance. It’s a barometer of the scope of the tragedy. For reporters, the already apocalyptic security situation in Baghdad keeps getting worse, simply making the war more difficult to cover than ever. The audience has its own phobia: Iraq is a bummer. “It is depressing to pay attention to this war on terror,” said Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly on July 18. “I mean, it’s summertime.” Americans don’t like to lose, whatever the season. They know defeat when they see it, no matter how many new plans for victory are trotted out to obscure that reality..

He's right, of course. And even though Americans aren't paying attention to the war in Iraq, those American soldiers everyone talks about supporting are still dying in Iraq:

The Marines, from Regimental Combat Team 7, died Saturday in Anbar province, the heavily Sunni Arab region west of Baghdad that includes such flashpoints as Ramadi and Haditha, a U.S. statement said without further details.

So far this month, 44 U.S. service members have died in Iraq -- including 10 in Anbar province during the past week. That underscores the threat to U.S. troops from Sunni insurgents, despite the attention paid to recent sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Baghdad.

Iraq is a real bummer for those soldiers and their families.

July 28, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

Reign of Error

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Amid everything else that’s going wrong in the world, here’s one more piece of depressing news: a few days ago the Harris Poll reported that 50 percent of Americans now believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when we invaded, up from 36 percent in February 2005. Meanwhile, 64 percent still believe that Saddam had strong links with Al Qaeda.

At one level, this shouldn’t be all that surprising. The people now running America never accept inconvenient truths. Long after facts they don’t like have been established, whether it’s the absence of any wrongdoing by the Clintons in the Whitewater affair or the absence of W.M.D. in Iraq, the propaganda machine that supports the current administration is still at work, seeking to flush those facts down the memory hole.

But it’s dismaying to realize that the machine remains so effective.

Here’s how the process works.

First, if the facts fail to support the administration position on an issue — stem cells, global warming, tax cuts, income inequality, Iraq — officials refuse to acknowledge the facts.

Sometimes the officials simply lie. “The tax cuts have made the tax code more progressive and reduced income inequality,” Edward Lazear, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, declared a couple of months ago. More often, however, they bob and weave.

Consider, for example, Condoleezza Rice’s response a few months ago, when pressed to explain why the administration always links the Iraq war to 9/11. She admitted that Saddam, “as far as we know, did not order Sept. 11, may not have even known of Sept. 11.” (Notice how her statement, while literally true, nonetheless seems to imply both that it’s still possible that Saddam ordered 9/11, and that he probably did know about it.) “But,” she went on, “that’s a very narrow definition of what caused Sept. 11.”

Meanwhile, apparatchiks in the media spread disinformation. It’s hard to imagine what the world looks like to the large number of Americans who get their news by watching Fox and listening to Rush Limbaugh, but I get a pretty good sense from my mailbag.

Many of my correspondents are living in a world in which the economy is better than it ever was under Bill Clinton, newly released documents show that Saddam really was in cahoots with Osama, and the discovery of some decayed 1980’s-vintage chemical munitions vindicates everything the administration said about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. (Hyping of the munitions find may partly explain why public belief that Saddam had W.M.D. has made a comeback.)

Some of my correspondents have even picked up on claims, mostly disseminated on right-wing blogs, that the Bush administration actually did a heck of a job after Katrina.

And what about the perceptions of those who get their news from sources that aren’t de facto branches of the Republican National Committee?

The climate of media intimidation that prevailed for several years after 9/11, which made news organizations very cautious about reporting facts that put the administration in a bad light, has abated. But it’s not entirely gone. Just a few months ago major news organizations were under fierce attack from the right over their supposed failure to report the “good news” from Iraq — and my sense is that this attack did lead to a temporary softening of news coverage, until the extent of the carnage became undeniable. And the conventions of he-said-she-said reporting, under which lies and truth get equal billing, continue to work in the administration’s favor.

Whatever the reason, the fact is that the Bush administration continues to be remarkably successful at rewriting history. For example, Mr. Bush has repeatedly suggested that the United States had to invade Iraq because Saddam wouldn’t let U.N. inspectors in. His most recent statement to that effect was only a few weeks ago. And he gets away with it. If there have been reports by major news organizations pointing out that that’s not at all what happened, I’ve missed them.

It’s all very Orwellian, of course. But when Orwell wrote of “a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past,” he was thinking of totalitarian states. Who would have imagined that history would prove so easy to rewrite in a democratic nation with a free press?

The Damned

Posted by James Wolcott

The war crimes of the United States compound by the minute, the hour, the day. I predict that George Bush, upon leaving office, will be the most despised president in American history. He will have his core support, the clotted, stunted brains that collect at sites like Lucianne.com and Powerline, but he will enjoy no Reaganesque orange sunset afterglow (or Nixonian self-rehabilitation), so deep, lasting, and tragic is the damage he's done, a damage abetted by a craven, corrupt political class and a press that even now, as the full dimensions of the disaster unfold before us, is unable to sound alarm, so accustomed as they've become to their role as sponges and clever snots. History will not forgive Bush or the United States, nor should it, for raising and destroying the hopes of the Iraqi people, and presiding over the dissolution of their nation into a failed state. Robert Dreyfuss at TomPaine.com:

"Iraq is engaged in a full-fledged civil war. For those remaining defenders of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, who argue that the United States needs to stay put in order to prevent civil war, it’s too late. It’s here, in all of its brutality and ugliness.

"The violence is not only engulfing Baghdad—home to approximately one-fifth of Iraq’s population—but Basra, Iraq’s second city and its only port. In the north, there is violence in Kirkuk, in what has been, until now, the relatively unscathed heartland of the Shiite south, as well.

"What is unfolding in Iraq is a staggering tragedy. An entire nation is dying, right in front of us. And the worst part of it is: It may be too late to do anything to stop it."

[snip]

"The blame for this carnage must be laid squarely at the feet of George W. Bush. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was ordered against the advice of the CIA, the State Department and most U.S. military officers, and in defiance of the United Nations, America’s allies, and the Arab world. The United States attacked and destroyed a nation that had never attacked the United States, which had no weapons of mass destruction and which had no connection to al-Qaida."

As Dreyfuss observes, the death spiral will continue because the Bush administration is in self-hypnotic denial and, I would add, there is no peace movement or political opposition with any upward force. Compare Iraq with Vietnam, and the sense of resignation and futility is apparent. I will never forgive Joe Lieberman for undercutting John Murtha and muffling the urgency of Murtha's warnings about how rapidly Iraq was unraveling by issuing one of his classic mushmouthed pieties. He immediately gave the White House and the War Party bipartisan cover, helping ensure the policies that weren't working would continue not working as the death-toll tabulator rose and rose.

But it is not enough to blame Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair, Lieberman, the neocons, the liberal hawks, and other useless idiots. By our actions in Iraq, and our complicity and collaboration with the Israeli assault on Lebanon, American citizens are culpable for letting 9/11 turn them/us into passive accomplices. "The complicity of the American public in these heinous crimes will damn America for all time in history," Paul Craig Roberts rages at Antiwar.

The scope of those heinous crimes won't be known until the air raids end and the smoke clears, but Robert Fisk escorts the reader on a scenic introductory tour of ravaged Beirut:

"I lived here through 15 years of civil war that took 150,000 lives, and two Israeli invasions and years of Israeli bombardments that cost the lives of a further 20,000 of its people. I have seen them armless, legless, headless, knifed, bombed and splashed across the walls of houses. Yet they are a fine, educated, moral people whose generosity amazes every foreigner, whose gentleness puts any Westerner to shame, and whose suffering we almost always ignore.

"They look like us, the people of Beirut. They have light-coloured skin and speak beautiful English and French. They travel the world. Their women are gorgeous and their food exquisite. But what are we saying of their fate today as the Israelis - in some of their cruellest attacks on this city and the surrounding countryside - tear them from their homes, bomb them on river bridges, cut them off from food and water and electricity? We say that they started this latest war, and we compare their appalling casualties - 240 in all of Lebanon by last night - with Israel's 24 dead, as if the figures are the same.

"And then, most disgraceful of all, we leave the Lebanese to their fate like a diseased people and spend our time evacuating our precious foreigners while tut-tutting about Israel's 'disproportionate' response to the capture of its soldiers by Hizbollah.

"I walked through the deserted city centre of Beirut yesterday and it reminded more than ever of a film lot, a place of dreams too beautiful to last, a phoenix from the ashes of civil war whose plumage was so brightly coloured that it blinded its own people. This part of the city - once a Dresden of ruins - was rebuilt by Rafiq Hariri, the prime minister who was murdered scarcely a mile away on 14 February last year.

[snip]

"At the empty Etoile restaurant - best snails and cappuccino in Beirut, where Hariri once dined Jacques Chirac - I sat on the pavement and watched the parliamentary guard still patrolling the façade of the French-built emporium that houses what is left of Lebanon's democracy. So many of these streets were built by Parisians under the French mandate and they have been exquisitely restored, their mock Arabian doorways bejewelled with marble Roman columns dug from the ancient Via Maxima a few metres away.

"Hariri loved this place and, taking Chirac for a beer one day, he caught sight of me sitting at a table. 'Ah Robert, come over here,' he roared and then turned to Chirac like a cat that was about to eat a canary. 'I want to introduce you, Jacques, to the reporter who said I couldn't rebuild Beirut!'

"And now it is being un-built. The Martyr Rafiq Hariri International Airport has been attacked three times by the Israelis, its glistening halls and shopping malls vibrating to the missiles that thunder into the runways and fuel depots. Hariri's wonderful transnational highway viaduct has been broken by Israeli bombers. Most of his motorway bridges have been destroyed. The Roman-style lighthouse has been smashed by a missile from an Apache helicopter. Only this small jewel of a restaurant in the centre of Beirut has been spared. So far.

"It is the slums of Haret Hreik and Ghobeiri and Shiyah that have been levelled and 'rubble-ised' and pounded to dust, sending a quarter of a million Shia Muslims to seek sanctuary in schools and abandoned parks across the city. Here, indeed, was the headquarters of Hizbollah, another of those 'centres of world terror' which the West keeps discovering in Muslim lands. Here lived Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Party of God's leader, a ruthless, caustic, calculating man; and Sayad Mohamed Fadlallah, among the wisest and most eloquent of clerics; and many of Hizbollah's top military planners - including, no doubt, the men who planned over many months the capture of the two Israeli soldiers last Wednesday.

"But did the tens of thousands of poor who live here deserve this act of mass punishment? For a country that boasts of its pin-point accuracy - a doubtful notion in any case, but that's not the issue - what does this act of destruction tell us about Israel? Or about ourselves?"

I think we know what it tells us. And yet I feel confident that if U.S. support for the Israeli campaign results in violent blowback, our politicians, pundits, and editorialists will once again don the American bridal veil of innocence, and profess bewilderment that anyone would want to harm us. Larry C. Johnson at No Quarter spells out the shock that may be in store:

"During the next two weeks we are likely to see combat in southern Lebanon intensify. Most of the action will be on the ground rather than in the air. Both sides will suffer significant casualties. If the United States is perceived (emphasis on perceived) as encouraging or directing the Israeli response [we're already beyond that point, given the NY Times front page story this morning about the US rushing precision-guided bombs to Israel], the odds increase that Hezbollah will ratchet things up another notch by playing the terrorist card.

"We should not confuse Hezbollah with Al Qaeda. Unlike Al Qaeda, Hezbollah has a real and substantial international network. Unlike Al Qaeda, Hezbollah has a real and substantial international political and financial network. They have personnel and supporters scattered in countries around the world who have the training and resources to mount attacks. Hezbollah has no qualms about using terrorist attacks as part of a broader strategy to achieve its objectives. The last major Hezbollah attack against the United States was the June 1996 attack on the U.S. military apartment complex in Dharan, Saudi Arabia. Hezbollah also organized the attacks on the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992 and Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in 1994. But they also have exercised restraint when they felt they could achieve their objectives through political means. The ten year hiatus in major mass casualty attacks could come to a shattering end in the coming months, and American citizens are likely to pay some of that price with their own blood."

07.22.06 11:57AM

Ok every body I made it back to the US in one piece. I arrived at DFW at about 1040 pm or so and got to sleep at about midnight. So all together I was up 24 hours or maybe a little less. This morning we headed back to Comanche with a quick stop at Central Market to pick up some groceries. Finally at 12 we were home and after about 5 hours or so we had finshed packing and now I am making my finall entry for the trip to Europe. I may try to post a few pictures later in the week!

Overall it was a great trip and I met many great people. I learned alot about the world and the trip helped to reemphazie some of my political fealings as well as heat my want to travel more of the world. I have been asked severl times what my favorite place to visit was but that seems like a hard and unfare question to ask. Everyplace I visited was beutifal and unique in its own way. Sometimes the people were not as friendly but maybe they had a harder life then other places.

I plan on continuing to make entries on this blog as the future unraviles and I would like to post my politcal thoughts as well. Sometimes its ranting and raving but its important to speak your mind because if you never do 2 plus 2 will equall 5 and big brother will become a reality more so then it is. Let us hope that the events in the middle east do not worsen and that things can be worked out; the problem is however, I doubt this and think they will only get worse.

Peace, love, courage to speak your mind,

TY

Istanbul has been a very interesting city. It is def. one of the most beutifal cities I have ever been to. The biggest problem or hassle that takes a few days to get used to, is the constant bombardment of sales men on you as you walk the streets. No matter a resteraunt, rug shop, gift shop or any tourist like place you are likely to get hassled by a sales men or waiter. They pretend to want and talk to you and then of course try to sell you something. The thing to do is just pretend you are deaf and mute and keep walking by, ignoring the different languages they try to trow at you. The food is usally a meat, vegetable and bread with fruit for dinner. If not that its Meza's which are simmilar to the Spainsh Tapas or American appitizers with a plate of girlled fish fallowing the appitizers.

Yesterday I returned from a short jounerney to central Anatolia and the area of Cappidocia. It reminded me of the Besties in the four courners or the Wheeler geological area in the Southern Colorado Rockies, except bigger and of course many more tourist. I did two days worth of tours which if coming back I would not do because they are set up generally for Koreans who want to just take pictures and not necesseraly explore or hear further information on the area. Besides that the area was beutifal and a nice break from a city of 17 million. I stayed the night in a "cave hotel" which was more posh then in sounds, although the family was having a huge BBQ the night I stayed there and probally made the trip. In addition, I saw many Anatolian dogs, which my mom has two of, working either as guard dogs or with sheep and goats.

My stomach has been bothering me a bit, so I think I will take it easy today..maybe the military muesem. Tonight I am going to a Wurling Dervish/Belly Dancing show which will proabaly be antoher ploy to get more tourist money. I head back Saturday monring and arrive in Dallad Saturday night.

Ty

Istanbul is very beautiful but a huge city, 12 million plus, fucking crazy. Everyone tries to get you to buy something from their store or get you to eat from their restaurant and at times its very overwhelming. I finally went to the barber today and shaved my beard and got a hair cut, I went from looking like I was 26 to looking like I was about 17.

Ok just a quick note to say that I made to IStanbul after a long bus ride. I got about 3 hours of sleep on the bus and the whole border potrol ordeal took about 2 1/2 hours. I will write more in the days to come.

Ty

Ok Sofia is a nice city, filled with street venders, western clothing stores, orthodox churches, one mosque and one synagogue to name a few. The first day I got here I did a walking tour of the city with four other people. It was a great tour and gave me all the needed info on the city. The hostel I am staying at has free breakfast and dinner, which helps save some money. I watched the world cup at the hostel with a group of backpackers. Yesterday I wandered the city with a Brittish guy who works at at Ford plant and DJ's on the side. SOfia is the cheapest city thus far so I have been buying all the needed gifts. Tonight I leave for Istanbul and should arrive tomarrow morning around 6 or 7.

Ok so I guess no body can have a adventure without some sort of stress filled evening/night. Yesterday, I walked around Bucharest with four Brittish lawyers I had met in Brasov. We wandered the city untill be got to the peoples palace and a beer festival with the cheapest beer I have ever seen (55 cents for .5l). Soon it was time for me to make my way back to the hostel to get my bags and catch the train. We walked for about 40 min to the point where we could finally catch the right bus to the hostel. I said my goodbyes and headed out with about 40 min of spare time at the train station. I got to the station and could not find the train anywhere on the timetables so I headed to the info desk to figure out what happended. The train had left 45 min earlier, so I instatnly went into a panic. SOme Romaninan (with obvious arab or gypsy in him) said he could take me to Guigli, the border town with Bulgaria to catch the train. This seemed like kind of a sketchy sitiuation but I really did not know what else to do. Soon I was raceing down the streets of Bucharest in a late 80s ealry 90s car, swearving through traffic. Soon we stopped for a ATM, where he told me how much it would be.........500 Lei (150 bucks or so). I knew that I was probally getting ripped off but it was a 45 min drive. So the next stop was at a generic gas station to fill up and then back to speeding. Generally the speed limit was 40-60 kph and he was driving 80-110kph. By the time we arrived there, I had lost all hope and was contemplating walking to the border, tying a brick around my legs and jumping intop the Danube. Thankfully, the Romanian border check takes a long time and the train was still there. It took about 20min more as mosqutios sucked the last of my pumping blood untill I got on to the train and into my sleeper. A short nap and we arrived at the Bulgarian border check. Fianlly it was back to sleep or at least in and out of sleep untill about 545, as we approched Sofia. I have made it the hostel but have not eaten a meal in two days, and my stomach is aceing for food. The hostel is very nice and deffinetly the cheeapest yet. Bulgarian is impossible to read because they use a different alphabet. All for now, a worn out TY singing out.

Ok everybody I made to Bucharest in one peice. The reason for the mass e-mail was becuase this blogger site did not work in Brasov. Since my last e-mail I have done several things. The town of Brasov is not that awmassing but seems to be very popular with tourist. In Brasov there are a few things to do, climb this meandering trail to the top of a hill with an amassing view of Brasov below it....which I did....and of course I refused to take the tram up or down, climb two old towers perched on the side of the opposite hill....one I climbed up but was not that great, check out the churches and other historical buildings and finally go see bran castle. I did the climbing and city site seeing on the first day. Yesterday I made my way via taxi and then bus to Bran, the castle made famous for all false reasons. I was very disappointed with the castle and to me it was just a tourist trap with literally hordes of tourist flocking there in search of vampires, I guess. The best part about the castle was a hidden train behind it that led up to the top of a hill to a medow filled with wild flowers and one solitery tree. Like the tree, I sat out in the field and enjoyed the tranquilty of no people and ate some bread and drank some water. From there I headed back to Brasov, oppting not to stop in Rasnov to view the ruins of the citidal.
Once back in Brasov I got a big traditional Romaninan lunch with vegtable soup, and some sort of main course....something wrapped in cabbage, a beer, and a shot of some liquor the waiter recommended as a digestive. Then I headed into town in search of new shoes because my boots were ripping my feat apart. I baught some puma running shoes, only sold in Romania and the differnce is ten fold. I went back to the hostel for some RR and to read my new book....I finally finshed the first. At 6 I went to the Black Church to watch the Danish choir staying at my hostel perform. They were amassing but the organ inbetween sessions reminded me of a reoccuring nightmare I have. So out for a couple beers at night, where I met a Senegal futbol player playing professionaly in Romania, it was bed time. Today I caught the train here, about 3 hours, then headed for the hostel which is nice as well. Tomarrow at 9pm its a night train to SOfia, where I get in at 6:10 am. I will leave to Istanbul on Wed. probally on a bus because it is 4 hours shorter.

All for now.........
TY

Ok made it to the next town in one piece. My nose kicked into full gear and was running so bad I had to take off the bandana and use it as a tissue rag. This is a beutifal town and hopefully I will be hiking tomarrow, we shall se. The hostel does not have internet so i found a internet cafe inside the citidal. I ate lunch with a couple from outside philly who I had met in Cruj, They were here only for 4 hours before they caught their train to Bucharest. The lady is actually from Romania although I never asked how she ended up in the States. The hostel Im staying at is very interesting and defenitly not the nicest but its a bed. I think I might cut my stay in Bucgarest to one night, since the train ride to Sofia is 14 hours. I will just catch a night train and then two nights in Sofia and then a night bus or train to Istanbul. That is real tenative but looking more like a reality. It all depends if I like a town or find some girl.....which has not happened yet. Im hoping the anti biotics kick in soon becuase I cant handle my nose being this plugged. I got some decongestint that has not worked. Well maybe more tomarrow if not, then Wednesday from Brasov.

TY

Update from yesterdays post....I meant beaf stomach soup. I went to the train station today and bought my ticket for tomarrow and walked up to the top of the hill overlooking the town. I did all this with a Canadain girl and a german guy. The we went to the national history mueseum of Transalvania which is free on sundays. I finished early and lost them so now im at the internet cafe. I finally got some antibiotics (doxiciclina) what ever that is. I guess I will be celebrating the 4th of july either in Shigisoura or Brasov depending on how many nights I stay in the first. Hope all is well with everybody, and JA I will try and stay away from Draculas girls, even though I have some of my own fangs. Dad, thanks for the e-mail, I stopped the mass e-mails because this way is easier. Peace Out

TY

Ok I made it Romania in one piece and its day two of a crazy couple of days. The receptionist in Budapest gave me the wrong town to go to in Romania. I did not realize this untill I was already on the train, so I decided just to go ahead and go. So I set out on a 7 hour train ride to Southwestern Romania and the town of Timisoura. I met a HUngarian college student going to visit his girlfriend and luckly he spoke english. SO becuase I met them they helped me by my ticket for today, exchange money and take me to my two star hotel that was was probally worst then a hostel. Later in the night I met up with them again and bought them beers for healping me out. They were extremely nice and he was eager to learn english by praticing with a english speaker. So bed at 1215am and up at 450am to catch my 6am train to Cluj-Napoca, the old capital of Transalvania and the home to Romainas biggest University (Graduation day was today). Monday its off to the home of dracula, which should be interesting. I ate some typical Romanian foor for lunch, beer stomach soup and chicken in mushroom suace with palienta. I think I might be getting sick so I tired to go by the pharmacy to get antibiotics but the language barrior was to much and they gave me some medicated caugh/troat dropplets. So hopefully I sweat off the infection. Romania's train system is very interesting and most of the time there is only one train track so you have to wait at designated stopping areas for another train. The beginning of Transvania was very nice with rolling hills of both trees and grass! I cant wait to see the mountains. Have not met anyone here yet but the day is young....till next time,

TY