Not good. Today, I woke up early--very early, at 4:00AM. I knew that I have been saving my trip to the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art. I spent 2 hours at the GYM, and then got ready. First, I had somebody at my hotel write down the full name in Turkish. I asked a cab to take me and he pretended to know. He then tossed me at Sulaymaniyyah. I started arguing but he knew no English. I was fuming. I made him read the full name in Turkish. I asked around, and most people did not know. I then asked somebody who insisted on walking me to the door. That was nice. As soon as I entered the beautiful palace (belonging to Ibrahim Pasha, who visited our shores uninvited), something was unexpected. It was rather empty. I wondered why this seemingly most important museum would be empty. I paid the fee and entered. You climb many stairs and after I do my cardio, I feel I don't want to do any physical activity. I did my share for the day. So I started my tour. I see some tablets from the Umayyad era: Arabic inscriptions. I was so excited. I started taking pictures. With the third one, I was told that I can't use a flash. I was not happy. I then got very very very hot: (and I did not have my fan-around-the-neck for fear of more damage to my hair). I asked them how they have no AC. They said they did. That was that. It became to hot that I expedited the tour. But the news is not there: I was most shocked how small and modest the entire collection is. Did I miss something? Where are the stuff I saw in DC during the Sulayman the Magnificent exhibit? Did I miss something? Oh, and on the way out, I ran into a.....lizard--a museum lizard (not to be confused with house lizards of Islamabad). It has been very hot here. What time of the year is it best to visit? I now have decided to be in Istanbul at least once a year. It has become officially my favorite city in the world. And the Turkish people are just like Arabs: in looks and mannerisms. Their poolr people look like our poor people and their rich people look like our rich people. They play backgammon and listen to music just like Arabs. (Here, you are supposed to quote Rodney King ("Why can't we all get along?"). Socially, it is more open and liberal here: like the secular environment shows. There is a pub named "Sultan's Pub". It made me think: when will there be a King's Pub in Saudi Arabia. Somebody will now say is that important? I say: but there is hypocrisy in the Arab world: people ARE DRINKING in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. The veiled women and the unveiled women here seem to comfortably co-exist. In Lebanon it is more tense: there you get the impression that veiled women seem to think that unveiled women are rather less moral; and unveiled women seem to think of veiled women as backward. A disturbing aspect of Istanbul is child labor. You see little children selling items on the street. Are there no laws against that here? We have that in Lebanon too (and I also saw that in Pakistan). And then I was disturbed to hear Walid Al-`Umari (a very talented and dynamic bureau chief in occupied Palestine) of AlJazeera say that "civilians were killed on both sides" in last year's war. Give us the numbers and percentages, o Walid.