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We quickly learned that an Arab could not out drink a Mexican, but we had a good time finding it out.

Of all the topics that filled our conversations, none was discussed with as much passion or fervor as travel. By the time I reached twenty, I had already lived in, visited and seen more places than the average person. Still, I was always amazed at the extent of Qahaar's travels and experiences abroad. He had uncles and cousins in London, brothers in Rome, a mother in Spain, sisters in Australia, and on and on. Regardless of where our travel conversations began, they always ended up with talk of Spain and Italy. He would invite me to one day travel with him to his mother's home in Seville and his brothers' homes in Rome and say, "Those people in the south of Italy and Spain know how to live. You can't tell them anything about it. They wrote the book on it." We spoke like young men with a vast and wondrous world before them because that is what we were.

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As the temperature around the newsstand began to get hotter, around the world people became increasingly on edge. A terrorist attack on the London train and bus system killed twenty or so people. More significant than the number of people was the fact that it marked the beginning of a wave of suicide bomber attacks in the West. As if that were not enough, there was a failed attack three weeks later in which terrorists attempted to simultaneously attack both ends of the Channel tunnel. Only luck and an opportunistic informant helped to thwart it. Despite its failure, it rattled everyone and greatly affected the number of people willing to ride it.

Due to the two attacks, the first half of that summer turned out to be a game of cat and mouse played across Europe and the Middle East. Police did their best to track terror cells that had spread and crept into the sleepy little suburbs and townships surrounding Europe's great capitals. In America, most people just put on their iPods, turned up the music and tried to keep the impending danger away with work. As for me, I had to work continuously harder at filtering out many things I wanted no knowledge of, and that was just the first half of the summer. People had no idea how much worse it would get.

It was not until they destroyed the Eiffel Tower that even we, the iPod-wearing Americans, took notice. When the scene at the Eiffel Tower was broadcast around the world, the images of bloodied Parisians and tourists on their knees, sobbing in disbelief at the mangled base

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