There are currently more police officers in New York City than troops in Baghdad.

Not sure if I spelled that correctly – no spell checker until I return to Ankara. My bus leaves in about 5 hours so I’m at the Internet cafe being Turkish again and drinking coffee and gearing up for backgammon in a bit.

Today everyone said goodbye and some were sad. Can’t say that I was too much. Being with that many people for so long and no alone time is hard for me personally and I definitely exchanged some words here and there. I did meet a few people here that became good friends and I will certainly make an effort to keep in touch with them.

But I did get to say by to one of the LTs here who so reminds me of my father…but that post will have to wait for a few days.

FYI – I still haven’t checked any of my many email accounts – that fun is for late tonight after a few beers…

I can’t wait until I step off the bus in 11 hours from now. I’ve been waiting…

I’ve got Zelda. Many of us love Zelda, but Link couldn’t cure diseases.

Kids aiming to persuade their parents to buy the PlayStation 3 have some new ammunition — donating their PS3’s down time to researchers could help cure Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or mad cow disease.

“It has so much horsepower and, of course, when you’re playing a game all that horsepower will be used for the game. But there are a lot of times during the day when somebody’s not playing the game,” said Sony’s Richard Marks. “It seemed like a good idea to be able to use that horsepower for something else that is, in this case, good for mankind.”

Sony worked with Stanford University’s Folding@home project to harness the PS3’s technology to help study how proteins are formed in the human body and how they sometimes form incorrectly.

Time is short – today is my last day in town. I’ve been taking notes and have blogs de jour for everyone when I get back. Right now I am sitting in an Intenet Cafe in Burdur, Turkey. Just had an all-you-can eat breakfast and now enjoying some coffee and second hand smoke.

I’ll save many of the details for later, but must say that after a difficult past month I am very glad that I did this. It had been a goal of mine since I was little and I’ve met many people here that have given me quite an interesting outlook and clarity about things in life.

As much bitching and complaining I did – I wouldn’t take it back for the world.

Oh, and I totally got completely screamed at the other night – got to almost get my ass kicked by some authority figure before I left. haha – great stories to come…

Know that all is well and that I’ve got all of my limbs and life. We get let out at 8am tomorrow with my bus to Ankara leaving at 2pm (about a 6 hours trip). We are 7 hours ahead of US Eastern Standard Time for those of you counting.

Can’t wait for some food and beer tomorrow night. The 23rd is the end of Ramazan and a 3 day holiday – my first “bayram” (holiday) in Turkey in a very long time. Gald to hear from all of you and hope that the site has kept you entertained and informed over the past few weeks. Many live updates to come – and keep writing and commenting! It’s been great hearing from everyone.

A bientot,
aop