from the comments thread

This is cut and pasted from my response to the comment on another post--once I got going I found I had a fair amount to say, so I thought I would bump it up here for the reading enjoyment of those who don't click on the comments.

Thanks. I've been turning this trip over in my mind, trying to decide what, if anything, more I want to say on this blog. I got some pretty good advice about what to say/what not to say (apparently if I want to get another visa in, which I do, I've got to avoid using certain googlable keywords...not that my blog exactly comes up first on any google searches, but you can't be too careful, I guess) from someone who lives there, but it's still difficult to know how much detail to go into. The government is trying to get tourists to visit this country, but both their own Nobel Laureate and Tony Blair have called for a tourism boycott. The people I met there, though, were so incredibly happy that I was there. Granted, I wasn't exactly the average tourist, but still, the people I met wanted to show me how things are. And I think that going there, and just seeing, can only be good. It's hard for a person who grew up in the U.S. even to imagine what this place is like. It's not that I think everything about the United States is wonderful--far from it. We've got our problems too, and all you have to do is watch the news to see some of them, but I really think that Americans (or maybe it's just me) tend to take things like the First Amendment for granted.