Happy Turkey Day!

First of all Happy Thanksgiving Day to my American friends. But that is not quite what I meant by the headline. As of yesterday, I leave for Turkey in three weeks.

At least I hope to fly in to Istanbul. As of this writing my passport is in the hands of the Syrian government while I await the results of my visa application. I'm pretty sure that I will get my passport back, I'm a little less sure that my visa application will be accepted.

A Syrian visa application asks you to list a reference in Syria. It also states that the application must be filled out in full. It also asks you if you have ever been to "occupied Palestine". In most Arab countries, if you have an Israeli stamp on your passport you will be denied entry.

Also something that I have never encountered before on a visa application is a request for entry and exit points. I could not find the exact name of my border crossing from Antakya, Turkey to Aleppo, Syria, so I put down the route.

Even better, I did manage to figure out the name of my exit point from Syria to Lebanon: Mansaa. I was able to confirm this because a Lebanese soldier was shot there in a drive by shooting the other day.

And now on to Lebanon, where things get even better, with a big nod to Ironyman. Thanks to a rare fit of actual journalism, Lebanon "is on a knife edge", a "storm is brewing" and apparently the "country is holding its breath" as it awaits a UN report that indicts Hezbollah on the Hariri assasination.

Ironically, it is my own government sponsored news agency that released this story that set off a firestorm in the Middle East. It is a fine piece of journalism, even if it makes my itinerary problematic.

All I know at this point is that if I get my passport back, I will be landing in Istanbul on December 16th; and if I don't get my passport back, I won't.

http://www.goyestoeverything.com