Peace Like A River


It was a wide river, mistakable for a lake or even an ocean unless you'd been wading and knew its current. Somehow I'd crossed it... Now I saw the stream regrouped below, flowing on through what might've been vineyards, pastures, orhards... It flowed between and alongside the rivers of people; from here it was no more than a silver wire winding toward the city. - Leif Enger, Peace Like A River

Thursday, March 27, 2003

I poked around the Web a bit and found something about the newer US Embassy building. You'll notice the top two floors are solid, and don't have the greenish windows like the rest of the building. Apparently that was part of the cleanup process after all the bugs were discovered. The top floors were lopped off and rebuilt in a secure fashion. The rest of the building is perhaps not secure, so all sensitive work would be done on those top floors.

One news story says: "The future nerve-center of U.S. operations in the Soviet Union was quickly dubbed “The Great Transmitter.” A nearby Russian Orthodox church, (across the street I think) which U.S. security specialists believed to be the receiving center for the devices hidden inside the new embassy, became known as “Our Lady of Telemetry" or "Our Lady of Perpetual Observation”. "

Apparently a snowstorm is headed our way. Should get here tonight, and we could have as many as 4-7 inches on the ground by morning. Ick. Some parts of the state could see 10 inches. Yay.

When we were in the Vienna airport, it was strange because there wasn't much seating available, almost none in the round hub that had all the gates for the section we were in. So, there were benches stretching back down a long hallway, but there was smoking in there, so not a tolerable place to sit. We went back downstairs near where we entered the airport, where there were more seats available. We passed most of our long wait there. Back in the corner where we were, there were some young Arab looking folks. One time a couple of security guards came by, and had many of them stand up against a door and took pictures of them. I thought I heard one of the guards ask in a thick accent "Palestinian?" It seemed like they were taking photos of Muslim people and perhaps checking them out in some database? Who knows. Probably just routine checking they do there. Another Arab young man came over, and they went up to him and asked to see his ticket and passport. There were some women with them, and were using a laptop, with lots of baggage, so seemed like average travelers. Still, in this day and age, one couldn't help looking with a suspicious eye.

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