Just got back from Cyprus: Another Country Torn Apart by Religious Crazies and Right-Wing Nutjobs!

[MOBIUS]

It was pretty cool passing through all the military checkpoints along the UN buffer zone and visiting the last divided capital in the World...

Maybe Religious Crazies and Right-Wing Nutjobs aren't so bad from a tourism POV...?

[MikeH]

Where's next? Israel? Belfast?

[KrazyHorse]

Brussels?

[MikeH]

DC?

[KrazyHorse]

DC sucks. It's almost as bad as SAN DIEGO

[MOBIUS]

Well, I only got back from Belfast last month and I've been to Brussels and DC already.

Israel I refuse to go to on account of not wanting to **** up my passport for other middle east countries. Ironically, now would be a perfect time to visit seeing as my current passport runs out at the end of May 2011...

[MOBIUS]

I quite liked DC, but then all I did was a bunch of touristy stuff and got the **** out after a couple of days.

But it did seem a terribly sterile place.

[Zevico]

Well, I only got back from Belfast last month and I've been to Brussels and DC already.

Israel I refuse to go to on account of not wanting to **** up my passport for other middle east countries. Ironically, now would be a perfect time to visit seeing as my current passport runs out at the end of May 2011...

There's a method of avoiding this. Google it.

[MOBIUS]

Israel I refuse to go to on account of not wanting to **** up my passport for other middle east countries. Ironically, now would be a perfect time to visit seeing as my current passport runs out at the end of May 2011...

I imagine I could if I wanted and not get my passport stamped in the same way as for entering TRNC (Turkish Republic of North Cyprus) by getting a stamp on a separate piece of paper, because there is the same sort of issue for visiting South Cyprus and Greece after you've been to TRNC.

Basically I just refuse to visit Israel as part of my overall boycott of the country.

[Az]

Basically I just refuse to visit Israel as part of my overall boycott of the country.

[onodera]

It was pretty cool passing through all the military checkpoints along the UN buffer zone and visiting the last divided capital in the World...

Maybe Religious Crazies and Right-Wing Nutjobs aren't so bad from a tourism POV...?

The last divided capital? What about Jerusalem?

[MikeH]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem

Jerusalem (Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם (audio) (help·info), Yerushaláyim; Arabic: القُدس (audio) (help·info), al-Quds Sharif, "The Holy Sanctuary")[ii] is the capital of Israel, though not internationally recognized as such.

[MOBIUS]

Not to mention the fact that it is entirely under the control of Israel, as they stole the eastern part from the Palestinians...

Or the fact that, to this day, they are continuing to colonise it little by little.

[MOBIUS]

It certainly opened my eyes though. I'd had the impression that the Turks were bastards for invading the country in 1974, trying to prevent Cyprus from being a fully independent country. But now I've come to realise that they were only protecting their minority population from a concerted campaign of ethnic cleansing by a vicious nationalist/terrorist organisation (EOKA), working in tandem with the Orthodox Church to try to hand Cyprus to Greece...

So, yay Turks!