There are very good reasons why I should never, ever be allowed behind the wheel of a car. One of those is the fact that after bumbling happily along the road (lets not count conking while turning left on a blind turn, shall we?) for a good twenty minutes, it began to strike me as a bit odd that the car only apparently had a speedometer that went up to 70.

Ah no, for that is the rev counter.

Happily, me and my little dark blue Clio with power steering drove 463km without major incident[1], mostly in third gear at about 40kph [2], thereby seeing rather a lot of Lesvos over four days, although a fair amount of that probably accounts from wrong turns (aka "adventures down dirt tracks")

[1] but, um, several minor ones
[2] I got into 5th gear at about 6:30 on Monday morning on the islands only piece of straight road, and decided tht 70kph was WAY too fast and settled back down to 50.

Anyway, once I had the car there really was not much point in economising, so Visa and I have been having fun. The chocolate milkshakes in Petra are something else!

So now I am in Bergama, where I have done vast amounts of laundry and met lots of Germans. Also I have been teaching six year olds up dusty backstreets a few words of English. I can't stop myself!

(There's a Baris online to talk to so I shall stop now.)

* posted by nat 8:13 PM

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

So I am in Ayvalık, where horses and carts keep trying to run me down, and later on this afternoon I am Visa Running off to Lesvos, which will be quite interesting because at present I have all of 70 Euros and I appear to be in the one place in Turkey that is without döviz. Also I have forgotten the pin for my visa card (as in forgotten to bring it. I never knew it in the first place).

Oh well, planning spoils things!

* posted by nat 12:49 PM

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Saturday night was lots of fun, except we did go all the way from Üsküdar to Çubuklu by very bumpy bus and I was not happy. But it was worth it to groove to Main Project out by the Bosphorus. Hakan and cousin gave us a lift home which was quite brilliant of them (even though Hakan only lives around the corner, it was still very nice of them!)

On Sunday there was a lot of sleeping and TV watching, and then I did more of the same on Monday, and now my joints are feeling much better again and I have been ambling around sorting out whole heaps of stuff in order to actually get going properly. I still don't quite have a plan formulated, but I think so far it has boiled down to this, which I have decided to call the lazy but rather compelling option.

1. Go and look at faience.
2. Get out of Turkey. Greek island calling!
3. Return to Turkey. Rejoice!
4. Find a beach, some beer, and a few ruins.
5. Go to the next place down the coast, repeat.
6. Repeat 5 until have run out of ruins or coastline, or visa time, whichever comes first. I suspect it will be the visa time.

So just a few more things to buy, money to acquire, money to pay off, a cardigan to return to Barıs, and things should be good to go.

Whee!

* posted by nat 12:46 PM

Saturday, August 14, 2004

I have been to Bursa. There were hot mineral springs. I spent a lot of time in the bath-houses. I feel all clean and fluffy. There were also chestnuts. In conclusion: Bursa is a Good Place.

Now I am back, and have seen Barıs and fed him chestnuts too, and watched some Olympics (although I feel that the true Olympic spirit is a little lacking - even the swimmers are virtually fully clothed! Where are all these naked and rubbed in oil athletes? Hmm?), and there is Hayal Kahvesi to go to, as DJ-Hakan is doing his DJ-thing there tonight.


Edit: But you don't look sick - excellent web site. Especially the spoon story.

* posted by nat 2:33 PM

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

I am being traumatised, in no particular order, by the rain, idiot terrorists causing people to worry about me, the dentist, clearing out my locker, and a complete inability to organise anything.

But I think I have everything out of my locker that I need now, and I am abandoning all my supplementary files, and now I think I ought to go and find some ice-cream.

* posted by nat 1:18 PM

Monday, August 09, 2004

... and then they cancelled, too.

So I'm finished! Yasmin's on her way back from Onaysan, and beer awaits!

(This is me, attempting to be all positive and excited about it. Well, about the beer, anyway!)

* posted by nat 5:57 PM

On Saturday after work Barıs and I went and had a beer, or rather Barıs drank all of his beer rather fast and then started in on mine almost without asking, and I thought, well, I suppose this really does make us a couple!

Afterwards we went to the park, made friends with the cats, watched a rather nice fireworks display which was going on down at the mouth of the Horn. It was a little too loud, as we were a little too close, and there were a few too many trees in the way, but this probably made it safer.

I'm still going to hell, and we also decided to run away to Italy. Or at least that Barıs should run away to Italy. Or anywhere really.

*

Today is my last day of work. So far, I have: rolled into school at about 1pm, done Conversation, played tavla out on the balcony, had nachos for lunch in the English Pub, and tried and failed to write some emails.

At 9pm it will all be over and I shall be off to the pub again!

And then tomorrow I am going to the dentist's as a way of celebrating my new, workfree life. Or something like that.

I bet I shall end up in school anyway, mostly as I have made no start on clearing out my locker and I still have a pair of shoes and a whole heap of books in some drawers. Not to mention an awful lot of stuff that needs cleaning up on this computer!

* posted by nat 3:36 PM

Saturday, August 07, 2004

Out to Kadıköy last night for teacherly overconsumption of beer. Not Efes! Yay! Very nice, very sociable, very summery, very oh my god the football season has started again already?

Now I am craving pide, so I think I will visit the pide place, then take home my latest company freebies (Nescafe Ice with its very own plastic shaker! Woo!), and then it will be about time to head over to the other side.

* posted by nat 2:04 PM

Friday, August 06, 2004

Yes! I have finally got my hands on the notes for Alı durnam bizim ele varırsan (hums along) ^la_la^la_la^la_la^la - so I can stop messing about and forgetting it halfway through.

Of course, the written music only bears minimal impression to what you actually play *practices flourishes, twiddling, twiddling*, but it's a start!

^la_la^la_la^la_la^la!

* posted by nat 3:22 PM

Thursday, August 05, 2004

I was full of good intentions yesterday, I thought I would try some sightseeing, having done shopping therapy on Tuesday (new backpack, new orange shirt). But by the time I got over to Besiktas a huge black cloud had appeared, so I walked up to Taskim instead and hit Istiklal for more shopping therapy. I bought a new halhal, sticking to the cheap ones as they seem to just, well, fall off. This one jingles when I walk and will probably fall off soon, but never mind.

Then I found a rather nice orange and red scarf, which I don't need, but seeing as I have just been paid I made a hash of the haggling and bought it anyway. I resisted Robinson Crusoe's, just, and took a break at Galata Tower before going down and over Halic and up to Cigdem, because I felt by that point I deserved cake, as in the meantime it had rained a bit, but I managed to get slightly sunburnt despite regular applications of the factor 50. Oh well.

So then I got into the Bazaar to discover Barıs had had a haircut, which I apparently thought made him look far too good, so I was sent off to Iç bedesten to have another go and finding someone who could mend my bracelet. I found someone who gave me a cup of tea, and gathered three men who wanted to be my 'special friend', so I took all their business cards and took them back to Barıs to ask if I could have a 'special friend' or not.

Apparently not!

Went for melon nargile, which is my new favourite, and actually managed to just be silly and hedonistic for once. We wandered down to the docks, got sidetracked halfway down one of the sidestreets - my black biro had leaked all over my bag - got sidetracked in the trying to clear it up stage, and just made tons more mess. My bag is slightly ruined, but I have at least learnt that wet wipes make that kind of thing worse instead of better, and that Camel cigarettes are still perfectly foul, and camouflage nothing.

Also, I am going to hell.

* posted by nat 5:17 PM

Monday, August 02, 2004

Root canals are evil. Also, they make my dentist upset and worried, because they make me feel horrible so I don't bounce out of the chair at the first opportunity yelling "Exit! Where's the exit?" but rather sit there and blink a bit going "No, really, I'm fine."

Have realised my dentist is human. Obviously this makes him disqualified to be a dentist. Oh no!

One more week of work, and This Is Not Good. I am strangely apathetic about the whole thing. I do not want to leave. I do not know where I am going next week. I am not at all excited about going on holiday, about all I can think is 'Why do I have to leave the country to renew my visa, this is not fair.' I still have not managed to find a reasonable sized backpack, this would be because I have had very little desire to look.

In the meantime, there is Pimms, strange-but-good Milka joghurty chocolate, and millions of peaches. There are no boruvky, which isn't surprising, there aren't even any raspberries.

* posted by nat 3:40 PM

Sunday, August 01, 2004

It turned out that chocolate was more readily accessible, so chocolate it was. Things are progressing; we now both fall asleep in Gülhane Park!

I woke up this morning to find myself alone which was a bit of a shock, so I am now worrying unnecessarily that Yasmin has driven herself into a ditch or something else silly. Hazırkart sent me yet another 40 free kontors this morning so I have been texting a bit, no reply tells me she's probably stopped off somewhere and is sleeping. Or has driven into a ditch. Hmm.

Have to run off now, Emre is waving an awful lot of computer stuff at me and wants to know about making queries about specifications. My brain hurts already!

ETA: Yasmin has just got home: phone battery was flat. Mobile phones are evil things and I think I need to get rid of mine! It would mean a lot less worrying.

* posted by nat 11:30 AM