Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Doing My Part for World Peace

I am a diplomat, I just don't get paid for it.

So there I was wandering around the Olympic Park built for the 1972 Munich Olympics, when I asked a couple of guys (I'm thinking maybe they're from Turkey) to take my photo.  He asks where I'm from, I say Washington, DC, and he gets a big grin on his face and looks at his friend.  He says he is from Iran, a town in the center of the country.

We are both excited at this news, he especially.  He's a civil engineer over to look at some buildings, and is apparently eager to tell his American counterpart that our peoples are friends.  I agree, telling him the American people like the Iranian people, but that our governments have problems.  He completely agrees with this, and is also excited that I worked for Obama, and with the Army Corps of Engineers.

In one respect, he was like many Turks I have known, in that he immediately asks if he can give me his phone numbers so that I can call him, this after speaking for probably 5 minutes.  So, I can now call my friend Timor, and his friend Parhus, although I don't think a conversation with Parhus would last very long.  He didn't seem to speak any English.  How much is a call to Iran?

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