By Bob Van Leer

  (OVER UTAH - Thursday, May 28, 1987) - Wednesday was an uneventful drive from Gold Beach to Medford with a side trip to Ft Dick to look over start of construction of the new prison of the Redwoods. A lot of dirt is being moved - this prison is under construction. This is going to have a profound effect on Southwestern Oregon as well as on Northwestern California.

  After checking into our motel, we visited with old friends Jerry and Lois Latham and found from them a new development that could affect the Rogue River. The City of Medford is considering selling a city-owned tract of land at White City outside of Medford for a pulp mill. The Rogue doesn't need one of these. I called Jerry Laussman, Mayor of Medford, but he was not available and left a message and will contact him later.

By Bob Van Leer

  (AMSTERDAM, Friday, May 29. 1987) - Betty and I are now at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, waiting for the last flight that will finish our trip to Athens.

  Last night at JFK in New York we boarded a KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) Boeing 747 for a night flight to Amsterdam. The seating was much more spacious than we are accustomed to. Our stewardess, Andrea was the picture of what you would expect to find on a Dutch airline, an apple-cheeked blonde.

By Bob Van Leer

  (ATHENS, Saturday, May 30, 1987) - Today we started the morning with a short briefing on Greek politics and then the day was free. We spent most of the day visiting the Flea Market area of old Athens in the company of Paul and Marie Creviere of Depere, Wisconsin, whom we met last year on a tour of South Africa.

  The Flea Market area is composed of tiny shops on narrow streets set up for the benefit of tourists. Tourism, we are informed, dropped 50 percent in 1985 after hijackings and bombings. It is now coming back, although not yet up to former levels. This is serious because tourism is the largest income earner here.

By Bob Van Leer

  (ATHENS, May 31, 1987) - We began the day with a tour of Athens centering on a visit to the Acropolis, a limestone plateau in the middle of present day Athens that rises to 500 feet above the surrounding plain. On it are several of the greatest works of Green architecture. The hill had been used since the beginning of time for monumental purposes, but the present buildings that give the Acropolis its fame date from the Golden Age of Pericles, about 400 years before the birth of Christ.

  The Parthenon is the largest building on the Acropolis and the finest example of Doric architecture anywhere. In 2000 years no one has been able to surpass it. It is a monumental building with columns six feet in diameter and 34 feet high, a building without a straight line. The architects varied the lines just slightly so they seem to be straight to the eye.

By Bob Van Leer

  (ATHENS, June 1, 1987) - Today was devoted to meetings, starting with a representative of the Associated Press at 7 a.m., then to the Greek Foreign Ministry for the rest of the morning and to the American Embassy at noon, winding up with an unscheduled meeting with the mayor of Athens at 8 p.m.

  Greece's relations with Turkey dominate everything concerned with government. The mistrust of Turkey is almost pathological. Even at our meeting with the mayor, Turkey was part of the discussion.

By Bob Van Leer

  (ATHENS, June 2, 1987) - The outstanding event of today was the rally of the New Democratic Party (ND) held in Constitution Square in front of our hotel this evening. The stated time of the rally was 8:30 p.m., but preparations have been underway all week and the crowd began to gather this afternoon.

  This was the largest crowd we have ever seen. Early estimates were to expect 200,000 to 500,000 and someone will give an estimated figure tomorrow. There were just an awful lot of people out there. We watched the crowd assemble from our hotel and then Betty and I went out and mixed with the crowd.

By Bob Van Leer

  (NAFPLIO, GREECE, June 3, 1987) - Today we set aside politics and economics and left on a tour of the Peloponnese (spelled several ways), a peninsula that is the southern part of Greece. We traveled by bus on a toll way from Athens to our first stop, The Corinth Canal.

  One impression is of the many buildings on which construction was started but never finished. Our guide says this is because of the Greek passion for building. Construction stops when money runs out, and starts again when money is available. This seems a little too simple an explanation, for some of the buildings are large commercial ones.

By Bob Van Leer

  (OLYMPIA, GREECE, June 4, 1987) - Today we looked at scenery as our bus drove us from Nafplio on the Aegean Sea across the Peloponnese peninsula to the Ionian Sea.

  After leaving the Aegean coastal plain, the pattern was up over a range of mountains and then down to a valley, then up over another range. The Mountains were up to 3000 feet high and most of the valleys were rather narrow.

By Bob Van Leer

  (DELFI, GREECE, June 5, 1987) - We began the day with a tour of the Sacred Precinct at Olympia, dominated by the Temple of Zeus and the site of the original Olympic Games.

  The official start of the games was 776 B.C., although there may have been local games there earlier. Lists of winners were kept of the games from then until the games were banned by the Roman Emperor Theodosius in 393 A.D., an existence of more than a thousand years.

By Bob Van Leer

  (ATHENS, GREECE, June 6, 1987) Today we completed our four-day tour of sightseeing and visiting ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine ruins.

  We began the day with a visit to Delphi (or Delfi), one of the most famous cult sites in Greece. It was renowned throughout the ancient Greek world and beyond as the sanctuary of Apollo and the seat of his oracle. The Sacred Precinct of Delphi is dominated by the Temple of Apollo, built on a deep subterranean fissure from which mysterious exhalations originally emanated.

By Bob Van Leer

  (ISTANBUL, TURKEY, June 7, 1987) - We started early today to catch an 8:30 a.m. flight for the hour trip to Istanbul. At the airport there was a noticeable difference in the people. Instead of being mostly European, here the passengers were from several continents.

  We noticed Muslim women in the chador, the dark, flowing robes covering everything except the eyes; Japanese; blacks; bearded Jews in skull caps and a babble of languages, mostly unrecognizable. We saw one large man with an oriental appearing face, dressed in flowing white robes and headdress, followed by three women who appeared to be his wives, along with a number of children. 

  Customs at the Istanbul airport were perfunctory. We were taken by bus to the Istanbul Hilton, an older hotel but considered one of the best. After lunch, our group went on a bus tour of Istanbul, crossing the Bosphorus which took us into Asia. The Bosphorus is the division between Europe and Asia. It is one of the busiest waterways in the world and at any time you can see ships underway in the strait. 

By Bob Van Leer

  (ISTANBUL, TURKEY, June 8, 1987) - Today was a day of sightseeing with the standout being a visit to the Covered Bazaar in the old section of Istanbul. There are some 4000 tiny shops in a covered rabbit warren of some 70 acres. It is a fascinating maze of crowded streets and alleys.

  Thousands of people fill these streets in a never-ending stream and a constant barrage of noise in a dozen languages assaults the ears. In addition to the shops, there are hundreds of peddlers roaming the streets with T-shirts, belts, candy and other goods. These are thrust into your face and the persistent peddlers won't accept a turndown easily. They follow you, lowering the price with every step. Haggling over price is expected here.

By Bob Van Leer

  (ANKARA, TURKEY, June 9, 1987) - Our party today left Istanbul aboard a Turkish Airways (THY) Boeing 727 for the 40 minute flight to Ankara.

  The security was tighter than anything we have run across before. All our baggage, including that checked aboard, was run through an x-ray. We were all patted down and then went through and received boarding passes.

By Bob Van Leer

  (ANKARA, TURKEY, June 10, 1987) - The weather is warm this evening and our air conditioner isn't working, so the windows of our sixth floor room are open and through the windows we hear the muzzein calling the faithful to prayer.

  We are told that in earlier years the muzzeins climbed the slender minarets to make the prayer calls. Now it is done electronically, but still from the minarets. An examination usually shows wires dangling from the minarets. 

  Today we met with the U.S. Ambassador, Robert Strausz-Hupe and some of his officials. We find that problems we have never heard of are poisoning U.S.-Turkish relations. There are three principal ones.

  One is a proposed resolution in the U.S. Congress setting aside a day to commemorate a massacre of Armenians alleged to have been done by the Turks in World War I days. Modern day Armenian terrorists have assassinated 41 Turk diplomats around the world, including in the U.S. and other people as well. The Turks are incensed by such a resolution, saying "Friends don't treat each other this way". The Turk contention is that such a resolution would be encouraging the terrorists.

By Bob Van Leer

  (ANKARA, TURKEY, June 11, 1987) - Today was a series of meetings with the standouts being a meeting with Abu Firas, PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) ambassador to Turkey.

  Security was very tight getting in to see Firas. We had to be checked into the grounds, bags searched, and then inside his building had to produce identification. Firas has good reason for this. He said there have been six attempts on his life. 

  The PLO is an organization of organizations. Firas said that in 1969 there were 63 groups and PLO Chief Yasir Arafat united them into eight. The PLO was formed, after the creation of the state of Israel, out of Palestinians who left, or were driven out of Israel.

By Bob Van Leer

  (NEW YORK, June 12, 1987) - Today started at 5 a.m. in Ankara, Turkey and wound up in New York City some 18 hours later. There was an initial mix up at the Ankara Airport and it looked as if we might be marooned there for another day, but everything finally smoothed out and we started our journey home.

  At Istanbul we transferred from Turkish Airways (THY) to KLM, the Dutch carrier that would take us to New York with a change of planes in Amsterdam. Incidentally, Istanbul is pronounced by the Turkish people as if it were spelt Stambul. The Is is almost silent and the n sounds more like an m.

By Bob Van Leer

  (NEW YORK, June 13, 1987) - Today was a low-key day of sightseeing around Manhattan. Our hotel is the Mayflower on Central Park West near Columbus Circle. It is a good starting point for a morning walk down Broadway to Times Square.

  New York has its share of contradictions. Times Square isn't a square, it's a triangle. Most Broadway theaters aren't on Broadway. They're close, but on side streets. The Times Square area appears to be on the road to improvement. A lot of old buildings are being torn down for new construction. The neighborhood has been pretty sleasy in recent years, but now there aren't nearly as many porn shops as the last time we were here a few years ago.

By Bob Van Leer

  (GOLD BEACH, June 14, 1987) - The trip home from New York was an uneventful one. A cab ride from our hotel took us back to JFK airport where we boarded a United Boeing 747 for the 5 hour, 12 minute flight to San Francisco.

  After a several hour layover there we boarded a small Boeing 737 for the flight to Medford. There we retrieved my pickup and headed down the Smith River Canyon home On arriving home we found a delightful surprise. Molly and Jim had just mowed the grass for us.

  June 15 - back to work. While we were gone everything went smoothly, thanks to a very efficient crew. It was a great trip but we're glad to be home.