http://blogs.bootsnall.com/mbsloney Wherein our protagonist, the Gentle Dragon, probes the underbellies of lands and cultures darker than thine... Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:35:12 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Will try to keep this entry relatively short, despite a news- and event-filled week.  Met up with a b-school classmate who’s from Istanbul named Asli, she was a year ahead of me at Darden but we both think we probably met once or twice while there.  She was kind enough ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/mbsloney/wars-of-many-nations.html My final day in Odesa, and by extension Ukraine, was fairly lazy, even by my standards.  It had gotten pretty cold and felt a lot like New England…the old buildings, the falling leaves, the crisp air.  My overnight bus trip had worn me out, and I just ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/mbsloney/turkish-delights.html Weird week.  First, the global financial system got bent very badly and almost snapped.  I had to intervene and pump huge amounts of capital into the system to maintain liquidity.  As you might expect, I had some tough choices to make – save Lehman or save AIG?  ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/mbsloney/charge-of-the-lightskinned-brigade.html I’m in Odesa.  It’s the 7th anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks – they seem like yesterday, but also a lifetime ago.  I woke up today with a nasty thought – what if, sometime in the next two months, we ‘receive’ another video clip from Osama bin ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/mbsloney/if-you-read-this-you-are-my-slave.html <!--[if gte mso 9]&gt; Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 &lt;![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]&gt; &lt;![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]&gt; /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/mbsloney/games-people-play.html Had a meal at a little Georgian restaurant called Alaverde – to try the cuisine and to show a little solidarity with that beleaguered land.  Georgian food is hearty stuff – bubbling cheese, dolmas (grape leaves – just like Greek dolmades, wouldn’t you know), and plates of ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/mbsloney/si-tacuisses-philosophus-mansisses.html Thomas the German had told me about a special lunch served at the Indonesian Embassy in Tashkent every Friday…went over there to check it out.  Took a gypsy cap from nearby my hotel – the driver turned out to be 1) clueless and 2) dishonest.  Dropped me ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/mbsloney/sweet-home-chornobyl.html Traveling from Bukhara to Khiva required going through the Kyzylkum Desert – surely the world’s most vowel-challenged desert.  At times the desert looked likely to defeat the road…and I saw three or four wild camels wandering in the distance, reminded me of Australia and of India (Jaisalmer).  ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/mbsloney/disappearing-acts.html Samarkand proved to be more of a normal city than I had imagined.  Its claim to fame is that it was Tamerlane’s capital, and the home of several renowned monuments like the Registan, but it’s also Uzbekistan’s second-largest city, with about half a million people.  It’s not an officially-designated ‘museum ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/mbsloney/george-washington-vodka-lord-of-the-great-silk-road.html My final hours in Osh the Great were fairly calm. I exchanged some US$ for Uzbeki sum, one of the world’s most ridiculous currencies. The largest bill is worth about US$0.70, so if you hand over a Ben Franklin you get a stack of bills held together by an elastic. ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/mbsloney/persona-non-grata.html