Matt joined us for breakfast then we walked up to his house, stopping at the juice shop en-route and drinking delicious freshly made smoothies in the park. Matt's roof garden has great potential and we are looking at getting a load of plants from the nursery to green it up. We got a taxi back to the Old City to visit the museum of Arabic Science and Medicine. Matthew went back to teach while Tim, Terry and I visited the botanic garden for lunch. The cheese and mint wrap was delicious and Tim got a giant ice cream but unfortunately I had to leave before I could offer to help him eat it. 
I walked up to Matt's house to give the students a lesson on earthquake prediction. It was great teaching natural hazards again and there was quite a buzz as we got the students debating the ethics of predicting earthquakes and who you should tell! Matt and I then walked back to the hotel to pick up Tim and Terry for the final trip of the day - a pancake evening at Richard's house, half way up the steep northern rim of the city. The views from his balcony were breath taking but the conversation with Hannan and Madeline were tinged with poignancy as they recalled stories from their fathers childhoods when the city had green orchards and fields around it and a wide lush river flowing through the middle. Now the city is a huge, noisy and polluted sprawl; all the Islamic architecture and aesthetic swallowed in an ugly cancer of unplanned concrete.I also enjoyed some fine conversation with Kate - the latter ranging from koranic literature and culture through to her exile from Khabul and her final return. I returned to our hotel feeling a glow of pride, that our son had surrounded himself with such a great group of people whose hearts and souls matched their intellects. Meanwhile, our youngest son (who had made us equally proud at the way he handled all the expectations) stayed over with his big brother, giving Terry and I the luxury of a little time together.
Images - view from Matt's roof terrace (top) and minarets at night (bottom).
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