To all of you shblog readers, the following story will give you a view of the Middle East that is the polar apogee of Dear Megan´s lovely pictures. Nadir to her Zenith, if you will. Well, maybe it ties in a little with the second picture.
Today and tomorrow in Granada my fellow students and I are attending the Conference of the Euroarab Foundation, an attempt for Spain and Morocco to get together and just work it out, you know? Anyway, things are all well and good, the panelists are well informed, the discussion is lively and it seems that everybody has a pretty good grasp on the fact that neither Europeans nor North Africans are the devil incarnate.

Except for this one guy.

I can´t remember his name, and thank goodness, but at the end of every session he has stood up, stretched forth his hirsuite little arms to grab the mic and begun to revile all us evil Westerners as the successive angels of the apocalypse. Well, we all would sit quietly and nod and whatever until the last session of today when the cheeky son of his mother gets up and says, "The Great Assassin George Bush should be condemned for entering our nations after what was a simple act of self defense." I can only imagine that he was referring to 9/11. I think every face in the room turned a slightly darker shade of red and no one said a word for a little while. Finally the conductor of the panel cleared his throat and said, "we´ll pass over that question since it doesn´t have anything to do with what we´re doing here today."
Not to further a stereotype, but I half expected him to tear his shirt off and reveal the four kilos of C-4 he had taped to his chest.

I´m going to go get some lemon soda and stare at chick mullets.