Places I will go – part one

1. I will go to the Jamarat Pillars just outside of Mecca. I don’t know when but I will go someday.

I will go and I will throw seven tiny pebbles at the pillars. This represents the stoning of the devil. The stoning of the devil! Millions of people do it every year and I will, too.

The pillars used to be plain old pillars just standing out in the open like this:

But as you can imagine, with so very many people always throwing stones, people were hurt. People were trampled. The Saudis, a few years back, built this multi-level parking garage-looking thing around the pillars...

...making it safer now to stone the devil.

It sounds amazing and bizarre and I am going to go there someday.

2. I will go to Alamut Castle in Iran, where the legendary Hassan-i Sabbah once trained his assassins. It’s said they were feared by all, and they smoked drugs and saw Paradise and they were so loyal to Hassan-i Sabbah that they’d plunge off the top of the castle at his command.

They’re long gone now so far as we can tell, but I have to see the castle with my own eyes.

3. I will go to Howard Hughes’ grave. It’s like five blocks from my house. Sure, it’s not nearly so exotic and exciting as those other places I mentioned, but its locality makes the chances of a visit ever so much more likely, and soon.

I will go to all these places and more (Inshallah…).

Where will you go?