39......
Marhaba 40!
First of September commemerates Qadafi's coup against King Idris in 1969. The coup got it's start over in Benghazi. This billboard illustrates the announcement to the people. "And so it came from the East, from Benghazi. The words that freed that people and the land."
Today was the big celebration here in Tripoli. There were flyovers throughout the day. I spent most of the afternoon up on our roof watching the migs go by.
After dinner a group of us decided that we would actually try to make it down to the Green Square. This is the main part of the Medina down by the waterfront. For the last several weeks they've been erecting stages and lighting all over. There was a military parade that was supposed to start around 4pm. We were going to try and make it down for it, but we were told it was closed to the public. We settled for watching it on tv until around 8 when we able to get a driver to try to take us downtown.
Unfortunateley/fortunately, on our way down there we got stopped at a road block. This actually turned out to be great. The 4pm parade had become 8 and we just in time to watch them disembark from the parade route. We got out of the car and got to watch all of the tanks, trucks, and missiles go by that we had seen on tv 3o minutes earlier.
After the procession finished, we continued on foot towards the square. We managed to get within about a mile of it before we couldn't go any further down the road and were forced to turn back. The crowds weren't too bad, but like I said, we didn't get all that close to the main area. From what we had seen on tv, and what I heard from a few other people that tried to walk in from the other side of town from us, the entire square area was completely closed off. The only people anywhere close were the dignitaries from Libya and elsewhere.
Apparently our roadway specs for asphalt don't take missile trucks and tanks into account. The roads were torn up all over the parade route. This road was just resurfaced a few weeks ago.
It definitely wasn't as crazy as what some of the security advisories made it sound like. The only bit of excitement I ran into was when a 'blue zebra' with a nightstick tried to confiscate my camera from me. It all worked out ok though.
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