i'm kind of busy this morning, so this will be quick. mostly this is just personal update stuff. so skip it if you don't care about such things.
i've been meaning to plug mambo movers since they moved us last week. they really were a joy to work with on what otherwise would be a miserable day. if you're moving in or around philly, i highly recommend them. hell, i even recommend clicking around their web site. it's a moving company made up of local artists and musicians. as an added bonus, the three strapping lads they assigned to our move all happened to be comic book collectors. and so they didn't seem to mind hauling long box after long box up three flights to the room that happens to be the farthest point from the front door.
in other news, i got my syrian visa last week. i was actually mildly worried about it. first, i had to send my passport to washington with $100.00 as a processing fee. just after i sent it a friend of mine said "are you crazy? you just sent $100.00 to the syrian government. have you read the syria accountability and lebanese sovereignty restoration act of 2003?" "uh, no" i stammered. "you can't just send money to syria, stuff like that is illegal!" said my friend. well, now i've read the syrian accountability and lebanese sovereignty restoration act of 2003 and i can definitively say my friend is full of shit. there's nothing illegal about paying a visa processing fee to the syrian government. in fact, i could give my entire fortune (such as it is) to the syrian government and nothing in the act would make it a crime.
the second worry came from another conversation with another friend. this conversation actually took place before i even applied for my visa. i mentioned to this friend that i was going to syria and she asked "have you gotten the visa yet?" "no," i replied. "well, there's no way you're getting one. your last name is too similar to a former israeli prime minister."
to clarify, if you spell my last name differently and pronounce it completely wrong, it does kinda almost sound like the name of a certain former israeli prime minister. i am referring, of course, to binyamin noztanyahu. so at the time this conversation occurred i didn't take my friend's concerns all that seriously.
anyway, a few days after i sent off my passport to the syrian consulate in washington and while i was waiting for them to send it back with the visa, i thought again about this conversation and began to worry. should my visa really take this long? what if they never give it back?
i called the consulate a couple of times casually asking about the status of my visa request. the syrian visa officers were very friendly on the phone and they always assured me that i would get my visa (and passport) soon. i resisted the urge to call them more, for fear that i would be branded a nuisance and banned from syria forever.
on friday, my passport arrived at my office, with a fresh new tourist visa printed inside. they gave me a double-entry six month visa (i was told the best i could do was a single-entry three month one). score! not that it matters. i'm only gonna be there for 2 weeks. but still, its more the principle of the thing. like when i was in uzbekistan and the other backpackers wondered how i ended up with a multiple entry visa when all they could get was a single entry one. there's nothing like street cred from the greasy backpacking subculture
so now i am definitely going to syria, barring invasion or other such things. and yes, i have read the profile of bashar al-assad that appeared in yesterday's new york times magazine. everyone can stop emailing me the link now.
