OK, so I leave tomorrow. Yes, on the 4th of July. Yes, I really do still love this country, and I am wearing my boxer shorts with the little American flags on it.

I am taking advantage of the low demand due to the holiday and terrorism warnings, so I can get a flight, and cheaply. I think it is particularly important for Americans to be defiant in the face of these "threats" and warnings. We are Americans, and we didn't come this far to cower and hide in our rooms at every rumor of a threat.

Supply and demand - a most American enterprise - dictated the time of my flight. American can-do spirit, dictated the motive.

I seem to have most everything worked out. I arrive in Frankfurt and "I" will pick me up. We get my tickets from my German travel agent, and drive off to Heidelberg, where I remain somewhere for about 10 days, where "E" might visit. I am not sure where I will be staying, but I hear it is being taken care of. Then off to Beirut. about 6 days there, where I stay in some hotel with an Arabic name in the Hamra District.

"B", a friend in Beirut, is starting to worry me. The picture she is painting of Beirut is not as rosy as the one she has been painting till now. I think I might be confusing her personal life with her descriptions of the city. Mind you that everything I know about Beirut comes from the movie "Delta Force" with Chuck Norris, "Spy Games" with Brad Pitt and Robert Redford, and a bunch of books I read about wars in Lebanon, and some Lebanese people I know. And of course "B". So, knowing what I know, I naturally think that Beirut is a scary place to be. So naturally I am scared. I just don't know what to expect. I really need to be reassured.

Then I fly off to Jordan, and stay there overnight, and take the bus across the Allenby bridge, and hope to end up in Jerusalem before the Sabbath there. I am glad I am not superstitious. If I was I would realize that my stay in Beirut coincides almost exactly with the 9 days.

Then it is 10 days in Jerusalem where I meet some friends and academics, and return to Berlin for a month to hunker down and write my dissertation.