Which File Extension are You?

Intend to spend the rest of the day sitting there and looking pretty.

Yesterday I got asked where I'd learnt to speak such good English! Score!

* posted by nat 10:51 AM

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Mustafa is not much good at giving presents.

This is not to say there are no presents; there are several: small pretty pebbles from the beach, the odd piece of chocolate, strange-shaped leaves and all different kinds of flowers - it is mostly flowers - like yesterday morning, when he bought a large sprig of lilac upstairs (at the point where I was having hips-from hell and limping up and down the corridor.) But this is where is all goes wrong, it gets dumped in my lap or left near me on the table and then he tries to look like it just arrived there and he didn't bring it to me at all, and if I happen to pick it up then what can he do about it?

But I have flowers to stick in my hair, so in the end I don't really mind about the method.

Anyway, time for links, one is what I am becoming addicted to: Web Boggle. Utterly fabulous.

The other one is a lovely story of post-tsunami help: CdM & his wife and a child from Khao-Lak - How they met Neung.

* posted by nat 1:09 PM

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

So after two nights of being full up everyone (bar one) has moved on today, which is a good thing as it means I might have somewhere to sleep tonight, unless hordes of post-ANZAC-types turn up; let's hope not. I have nasty stiff hips today and have spent about three hours walking up and down the corridor before having a nice hot shower and now I'm feeling better. Except when I tried to get out the shower and discovered all the benches had been piled up in front of the door(!)

Mustafa took my camera up to the top of Barla mountain yesterday (if this contiunes my camera is going to be more well-travelled than I am!) and some other people wnet off orchid-hunting, so I stole their photos - the joy of digital cameras! - so I have lots of photos to peruse today. I was going to go to Isparta market but can't face the half hour in a dolmus. Instead I shall sit here and look at the lake... it's a hard life!

* posted by nat 10:20 AM

Sunday, April 24, 2005

On Friday we gained three English gentlemen aged between 63 and 70 with full packs on their back, finishing one leg of the St Paul's trail. They'd got to the top of Sivri and been intercepted by the commandos on exercises, and were thus forcibly bundled off the mountain and into a tea-house and questioned long and hard about how much they liked Turkey, after which they were dropped off at our front door.

"Do our registrations quick!" said one, "they might be back to check up on us!"

A soldier did return half an hour later, but only because one of the men had left his coat in the back of their car.

These Englishmen are responsible for bad joke of the week: What do you call a Chinaman who lives near Stourbridge? Yow min Lye.

After yesterday's exciting lightning shenanigans today has been beautiful, so perhaps summer is on its way at last. Müslüm and I were slightly delayed from our walk up to Akpınar village by being unable to get out the front door: the house opposite being gainfully emplyoed in chopping wood had discovered a snake in the woodpile! Major excitement as the dozy snake is cajoled into a glass jar - given the women determined to sit around and scream, it was probably very glad to go in!

* posted by nat 6:12 PM

Friday, April 22, 2005

Late on Wednesday night Mustafa crashed into my room, flopped down on the end of the bed, drank a whole bottle of Fanta and then announced, 'One of my friends is dead.'

I woke up and said something really helpful like 'Oh.'

Mustafa then rambled on for ten minutes about one person being pulled out and then searching for two hours and not finding him and there was absolutely no chance and people not swimming and then announced dramatically that he was about to exit into the dead of night before doing just that, and I said 'Oh', again.

When I woke up this morning the wind had finally died down a bit and most of the fishing boats were gone from the harbour. Rabia, apparently, knew everything. "... not so far from the shoreline and there was so much shouting, and the one man got out but the other one didn't."

"I wonder what he was shouting?" said Neriman Teyze, absent-mindedly.

"Probably 'Save me!'" snorted Rabia, and went off to do the washing-up.

By this point I'd pieced together that somebody had fallen off a boat last night, and after Ibrahim and I had finished the weekly shopping in the market we went for a cup of tea and he asked me where Mustafa had got to (to which I usually reply that he has far more idea than I do, but that never stops him).

"I think they're all out looking for the body," I said.

Which turned out to be precisely what they were doing; the little flotilla sailed back in from Yeni Mahalle at about two, when the wind started to pick up again. At four-ish we all had a gossip session on the terrace over tea and kandilli simit.

"Of course he wasn't a fisherman," Mustafa grumbled in a slight state of self-righteousness, "Nothing would happen to a fisherman on the lake." This was followed up with general mumblings about the family and what the parents would be going through and whether alcohol had been involved or not and when the funeral would be (when they find the body, obviously). Afterwards Mustafa and I snuck downstairs for five minutes of vague English practice (for him) and chocolate (for me). "Boat... battı" he explained.

"You mean the boat sank?" I squeaked, abandoning English. "Why did it sink?"

"I don't know," said Mustafa long-sufferingly. "We haven't found it yet."

The boat turned up that evening knocking against the harbour wall just past the football pitch, and they got one of the bigger boats to go and tow it round. We watched from the terrace; it only took three men to pull it out of the lake and turn it over to drain all the water out, and we all squeaked "Good grief it's tiny!" at about the same time.

This morning the winds were up again, and an ambulance turned up down on the quay, closely followed by a vast stream of men from the town centre, and a few of the more inquisitive women who hung over the railings back on the road. We all hung out the windows on the terrace and watched the boat come over from past Yeni Mahalle and into the harbour, then lots of fumbling around with sheets and blankets, and then the man's poor father was taken up to the boat to identify the body. After which there was much wailing, and everybody jostled around to get to help carry the body off to the ambulance, and then they all streamed off after it, leaving a few divers and half a dozen fishermen standing around on the quay shaking their heads.

I'm perfecting my "Allahramhetedersin"s, anyway.

* posted by nat 9:54 AM

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Hmm. The TV channel is full of people demonstrating how to make kandili simidi. I therefore extrapolate there's a kandili gunu coming up. Apart from a chance to eat bread rings, that's about all the excitement there is. Life is very nice, apart from the wind which is interfering with potential boat time! All of a sudden there are about 2 million birds in the vicinity, so tonight I am going to stalk the little old German man and steal his bird book. It's a plan!

Tarık, from apparently out of nowhere, has learnt the word 'heffalump', and decided it definitely applies to me. Fortunately he's spent most of this week in Isaprta so I haven't quite been driven to fulfil my promise to throw him out the window.

* posted by nat 3:50 PM

Monday, April 18, 2005

Last night's and this morning's excitement has consisted of nasty gales sweeping across the lake. The harbour wall is taking a spectacular drubbing - but alas, I cannot get FTP to work to show off my photos - and the wind actually blew a great chunk out of one of the terrace windows. Two little men beavered up the stairs and put a new window in within about ten minutes of the loss of glass. Nevertheless it's still ice-cold.

We have gained a few Germans and my brain has officially gone into meltdown. It seems that anyone over the age of 40 is determined to speak to you in their own language even when you have managed to conclusively prove that their English is far, far better. So I have been spouting dreadful German all morning and wondering how I ever passed my GCSE, let alone got a degree in the subject! (The other night I was wobbling along in French, which for some reason seems to be much better than my German. Perhaps it is because I have made a huge effort to forget how to speak German). Anyhow, my Japanese is apparently more fluent than my German at present. Frightening.

I shall give up and just speak Turkish, I think.

In the meantime Rabia and I are watching Mustafa bail out the boat. (Tee hee!)

* posted by nat 12:38 PM

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Mustafa and I should possibly not be allowed to converse on MSN. See here: (Yeah, it's Turkish. Live with it.)

mustafa: basim agriyor cok
a small green frog: neden?
a small green frog: havadan?
mustafa: bilmiyorum galiba ölecegim
a small green frog: yo yo yo ölme!
a small green frog: önce adada!!!
mustafa: taman adada dan sonra öleyi

(I'm slightly overexcited about going to Adada...)

We also discovered the existence of tortoise icons on messenger. We also discovered if you type in two icons one after the other they look slightly suspect, unfortunately I haven't worked out how to save them, so pretend that the tu's are turtles.

a small green frog: (tu)(tu) hmmmmmmm napiyorlar?
mustafa: bence tak tak tak sonra eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

(This last possibly will only make sense if you've ever been up a mountain with a couple of tortoises.)

Anyway, he'll be back early tomorrow morning, which is good as the sexy Argentine-Italian has gone, so no entertainment here at all today, sadly.

Ooooh! Have just remembered won an ice-cream off Müslüm in tavla this morning! Hello ice-cream shop!

* posted by nat 11:45 AM

Saturday, April 16, 2005

Sagalassos is a city in the clouds - at least it is in the clouds on a cloudy day like Thursday, when it's threatening to rain and you can't see the valley below and certainly not the mountain up above. But this means you get the place to yourself (and the one person you're with), so you can spend vast amounts of time experimenting with acoustics int he ampthitheatre, jumping up to catch at the wisp-end of clouds from the highest tier, drinking from the Hellenistic water-fountain that's still intact and working - ice-cold! - then hiding inside the library with its mosaics and inscriptions.

It also means that you can safely ignore the keep out signs, and nose around the Heroon and other temples, balance your way along the edge of the Nyphaeum, take a seat in the Bouleterion, and plough down the hill to the lower agora and the three-storey bathhouse at breakneck speed.

At which point you might declare yourself defeated by hail, but never mind, it was good enough. So it's back to hide in the caretakers' office and drink horrid, warming Nescafe and be shown umpteen articles with the statues that were carted off the the museum, and the mosaics that are well hidden under layers of sand.

*

Friday was picnic day, and we went to Kovada, so we wandered along the nature trail, barbecued vast amounts of chicken (and aubergine for me, cos I'm special!), then let the boys go fish and went rock-clambering, following goat trails over to the lake's narrowest point.

*

Today I have been in recovery. I had a very earnest conversation with a Czech man who asked me why I was speaking Polish to him. Whoops. On the plus side of things, managed to beat the heck out an unsuspecting commando at tavla (5-0) and won a beer for my pains. Also had to go through the following conversation:

'Where are you from?'
'A-I'm a-from, mmm, Arrrgentina!' (I unfortunately cannot reproduce the amazing quality of this man's voice in print. Ah well.)
'Ohhhh. Maradona! Batista!'
'Mmmm. Hakan Sukur! Rrrrrrrustu!'
The conversation then moved on to the army boys trying to explain, for some reason that this Argentinian's long hair would not be allowed in the army.
'Oh, but I must a-have it,' he says. 'I am a-police, you know. Anti-a-narrrcotics! It is necessary! Because secrrret, you know!'
Unfortunately this flew way over their heads, but I have decided I am going to pin this man into a corner and talk to him all evening.

* posted by nat 5:16 PM

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

News the first: been on a boat trip, woohoo!

News the second:

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Howitzer of Desirable Mindfulness.

Get yours.

So there!

* posted by nat 3:11 PM

Sunday, April 10, 2005

I have made a very important discovery! The ice-cream shop down in the middle of town has ice magic! (That, for the confused among you, is the chocolate sauce that freezes when you put it on the ice-cream.) How did I not know this before?!

The weather is delicious, and I've caught the sun already - time to bring out the sunblock! It's a good thing I have a digital camera as I can now take a picture from the terrace as many times a day as I want to. Yay!

* posted by nat 10:25 AM

Saturday, April 09, 2005

I have escaped to Eğirdir, where the weather is beautifully sunny, the tavla is unending, and life is good. I would take lots of photos, however my camera has been abducted and spirited away up Barla Mountain by someone who shall remain nameless but whose name begins with M and ends with A. I have been left a packet of cigarettes as surety (although frankly half a pack of nasty Samsun cigarettes is really no use to anybody!)

I've been occupying myself anglifying the English information book in the hostel. So far my favourite misspelling is 'Agueducks'!

* posted by nat 11:53 AM

Monday, April 04, 2005

So I continue to be moved in at Yasmin's, but I think she would like her house back, so I will be off soon. For some reason Winter has returned, and it was attempting to snow while we were stumbling from the dolmus to home on Saturday night (during which time Yasmin lost her jacket, nearly got tripped up by her jacket, thus finding it again, and attempted to trip herself up over a bollard - makes a change from me doing it!) Despite it being about two in the morning, we cursed the heavens loudly. Very Turkish of us - the noise, that is. I make no claims about the cursing. We got home to discover that the 24hr continous Popewatch had morphed into what looks likely to be a never-ending Popemourn.

Saturday night was slightly bizarre, as Yasmin and I started off with dinner in the Nevizade restaurant with the scrumptious Topik - which I now know is called Demgah - and were swamped just before we got our fish with a horde (ok, 6) of teachers/students/hangers-on. We then repaired to a reggae place at the end of the road where there were more students, and the evening deteriorated into beer and dancing of various calibres. One of the hangers-on called Ilker and I spent half the evening trying to work out why we thought we recognised each other while the rest of the table had an inane conversation about The Matrix, which did not help.

On Sunday the sun was shining, and as Yasmin and I flopped post-Efesly on the sofas we decided we needed a burger. So we drove down to Burger King in Idealtepe, scared the staff, pigged out, came home via the DVD shop and the patisserie - where we bought 1/2 a kilo of petifors, and spent the rest of the day with Charlie's Angels and a lot of Boggle. Over on the news channels, they were still interviewing queues of priests.

Today I have been film festivaling over in Taksim: Serbian post-war tragedy full of Slavic humour, allegorical scenes and of course piles of death, followed by American victims of child abuse go off the rails in their late teens. Very good, just possibly a mistake to watch them both back to back.

* *

Last Thursday I had a series of phone calls in the morning which I ignored as I didn't recognise the number. I then had a text message informing me it was Mustafa calling, so I called him and he turned out to be in Sultanahmet! So over I went and we went out for dinner with Musa (who I also know from Egirdir) and his wife Donna (who I hadn't met previously, but I'd heard about) - and then we went into a lovely bar which had an open fire going. Donna and I splashed out and had cocktails and we also had a strawberry-banana nargile, which was tons better than it sounds. It all made for a rather gorgeous evening.

Mustafa had hitched a lift up with his friend driving a apple lorry, so was only there for the day. But I don't think I shall be resisting the 'When will you come to Egirdir?' question for much longer now...

* posted by nat 7:20 PM