I have been busy over the previous couple of weeks ..with an influx of visitors and am grateful that the trend will continue until August 16 - when my last scheduled visitor is booked to leave!

Instead of quiet and gloom.. it has been busy here .. with breakfast every morning in the bright sun, shopping expeditions and hanging around tourist sites and pretending to be one .. just to hype up my visitors!

The trip takes on a new level from tomorrow - as we raid the Big Apple and then move on to the Windy city of Chicago! There is a excitement in the air and lots of anticipation. The girls are excited and have already exceeded their airline quota of allowed checked in baggage! We will leave the loaded bags behind as we make our way around NY and Chicago (!!) and I wouldn't be surprised if we returned from there too with excess baggage!

But aside from all this - what really is exciting me is that I have not looked back at Bahrain since the Bahrainis arrived at my doorstep. I have not read the papers or checked the news. I have not worried or concerned myself with what the papers were saying or what was happening. I haven't had a chance to reflect on the daily chaos and madness... and letting go is sort of liberating .. and enjoyable .. in a way I never thought was possible before!

6 comments:

Xevi said...

Coinciding with the opening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the world-wide Internet debut of Èric and the Army of the Phoenix (Èric i l'Exèrcit del Fènix). Subtitled in English, "Èric and the Army of the Phoenix" documents the odyssey of 14-year-old Èric Bertran, unfairly accused of terrorism. Èric has since been popularly dubbed the "Catalan Harry Potter".

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3666585673568780060

Èric and the Army of the Phoenix documents the truth and the personal consequences -and the politics at play- in the case of Èric Bertran, a boy from Lloret de Mar, a town some 75 km north of Barcelona (Catalonia). When he e-mailed a grocery chain to demand they label their products in Catalan, the language of Catalonia, 14-year-old Èric and his family were subjected to the midnight invasion of their home by thirty police officers bearing a search warrant from the Spanish government. The accusation: terrorism. A big fan of the "Harry Potter" series, Èric created a website that he called Army of the Phoenix, inspired by the famous J.K. Rowling stories, signing his e-mails with the name from his website. Even though they knew full well that the website belonged to a 14-year-old, from that point on, the Spanish authorities insisted on accusing Èric of being a member of an army of terrorists. His family has since taken legal action against the government of Spain for moral and psychological harassment of a minor, taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg and to the United Nations' International Court of Justice.

Èric Bertran and his brother Àdam tell their story in this documentary by Xevi Mató, with English subtitles by Heather Hayes. The film features statements by author Víctor Alexandre, who supervised the book about the case. Alexandre himself has also written an entertaining and controversial play about the incident, which débuted in Barcelona in 2007. Also featured in the film are contributions by Member of Parliament Joan Puig, who defended Èric before the Spanish assembly, and by Èric's attorney Emili Colmenero, who explains how the Spanish justice system connected a child to an Al Qaeda cell.

U.S. press enquiries:
Emily Moore, tel. (865) 254-5244
OgleMoore@gmail.com

Ammaro said...

I see Xevi's trying to do some marketing up here. Anyhow; yes, its a very liberating feeling letting go.. Always is.

New York is amazing, you'll love it. Only thing to hate is the dog sized rats in the subway!

New York Trip

Cerebralwaste said...

When will you and the good Doc grace us in Beantown with yourselves?

Christine said...

It was such a pleasure meeting and hanging out with you at BlogHer this past weekend. You must come to SF to visit! Please keep in touch with me - I'll have to make my way out to Canada soon enough to see you.

Roberto Iza Valdés said...

You are looking good too!

SillyBahrainiGirl said...

Beantown.. here I come.. I mean not immediately .. but sometime this year! I will let you in on my travel plans :)

Christine,
the pleasure was mine!

Roberto,
Thanks!

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