Baci di Napoli

The Italians are insane.

More than Istanbullites, Neapolitans have mastered the art of living in a city on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

It's a full year and a half since I last visited the Kingdom through which far too many have passed and left their mark.

I captured this photo of Orlando and I somewhere in the Spanish Quarter this afternoon.

The Municipal Council need to seriously reconsider how they are tackling this city's waste management. Quite strange in a city with a high population of bidets.

Probably not the first person to write about this.

The most distressing part of my job is waking at 6am every morning. More calamitous still is that my body, even when on holidays, chooses to stir at the very same hour. I tossed and turned in my comfortable bed for about ten minutes until giving in to the fact that I was not going to get a sleep in. My body wouldn't allow it.

A lot of old things without much town planning.

Showered, shampoo-ed and shaved I went downstairs to my Internet-booked hotel marble lobby where breakfast awaited me. Italians need sugar for breakfast like a smack addict craves heroin. After a couple of fresh doughy puffed donut-shaped things and three caffe lattes, I was high and pumped on a sugar fix that made me feel strangely energetic yet aggressive and belligerent at the same time. I was ready to conquer the Forum.

Looking across the lower level of the Vittorio Emanuele memorial to Trajan's Column.

I retraced my steps from the previous day and worked my way over to Trajan's Market and more history that any one soul can inhale in a single breath. The vista of the Fori Imperiali from the wide main thoroughfare is one of the most dazzling steps back into our humanity's past. The Forum was once the centre of political, judicial and commercial life in the largest city of the most powerful empire the world had known. What remains still commands my respect; what must have been is beyond my imagination. However, clearly not beyond that of a number of erudite archaeologists and historians who together with some clever publishers have put together one of those smart little tourist publications to present a then-and-now portrait of the Eternal City. I browsed through the book stands for a while, eventually deciding that it was indeed foolish to waste further time perusing when the ruins actually it stood before me. I just lack imagination, and that, no money can buy.

Either Castor or Pollux gracing the entrance to the Piazza Senatorio.

I picked up the pace and raced about. The temple of Saturn aside that dedicated to Castor and Pollux, buildings raised and then fallen to the worship of Gods long discredited (see, it happens to all of them sooner or later). Rome's beauty is bewildering. I wandered about trying to reach what I considered would be the best vantage points for photographs, somehow ending up in front of the country's foremost monument to an over-sized ego - the massive white colossus to Vittorio Emanuele that backs onto the Campidoglio. And adfter climbing the stairway I admired both sides of the Piazza Senatorio structures designed by Michelangelo. Impressive.

Looking west from the Campidoglio.

I got waylaid while heading for the Vatican and ended up in across the Tiber in Trastevere, though I did manage to visit the fab Santa Maria in Cosmedin before completely losing my way. In Australia my hometown was at one time considered the City of Churches but that is one Hell of a misnomer. More truthfully it's home to the mullet people who like cars even if other cities might also fight for such an honorific title. After admiring a mosaic floor that was about a millenium older than any structure at home, my stomach cried out for foccacia.

God, Italian food is scrumptious. Even the take-away version is spectacular in comparison to what I suffer in Istanbul. Don't get me wrong, it's just that after two years I have no desire to fill my belly ever again with döner or dürüm. Sated with Parmesan and prosciutto, I moved progressively into shabbier picaresque neighbourhoods, decrepit buildings the colour of rich ochre ever so patiently awaiting renovation. Unlike Sydney, it'll be some time before the chrome and pine wood craze materialises here.

After gaining two kilograms from a single Italian breakfast. I resolved to diet immediately. The temple of Vespasian and Arch of Septimus Severus are in the background.

At some stage in the afternoon the river re-appeared. I crossed it and spent the rest of the afternoon in near-postcard-perfecto Rome. Campo di' Fiori, the Fontana di Trevi and the Piazza Navona, where Bernini's masterpiece stood unhappy, shrouded in scaffolding while encircled by a market hawking every Christmas stocking stuffer that 10 Euro could buy. While I was desperate to grab a Pope Benedict dartboard, as luck would have no-one would change a 100 Euro note, which is strange in a city where everything costs more than that. I settled for some chocolate for friends at home but unfortunately had consumed it before exiting the square.

The bell tower of Santa Maria in Cosmedin and the Temple of Hercules.

Intoxicated from history and European glamour, I did what I always do when visiting another city; looked for work. Born without the right to a European passport was once the bane of my existence. I think differently now, but for many years it was my sole focus and a debilitating chip on my shoulder. Yet again I was turned away from the reception of a reputable Roman English teaching school for mot having the correct working papers. These days I don't worry so much. Istanbul remains, 9 days out of 10, where I want to be. It would be just be pleasant to have some options from time to time. But I no longer wish for Europe to cave in on itself. Well, not that frequently.

And so my day ended. My feet very sore. I felt elated. I was asleep in the hotel by 10pm. Ready to awake for sugar at 6am.

Fontana di Trevi.

La citta

Rome is an impressive city, stuffed with history and a lot of people wearing glamorous clothing and miserable expressions. I am, after all, in the heart of Europe, where long ago good manners gave way to haughty expressions and a judgments based on the quantity of instantly recognisable brans names worn. Luckily, Europe has history, otherwise I’d be just as happy to see the place bombed into Hell.

The rather outrageously decorated facade.

It has to be said that Rome is without a doubt one of the most beautiful cities on Earth and I cannot help but compare it with my beloved Istanbul, with whom it shares some of its past but little of the spoils of which empires usually profit. Constantine moved the capital of the dwindling Roman Empire eastwards in the 4^th century and Rome was reduced not to long after to a city of several tens of thousands of inhabitants. Meanwhile, Constantinople blossomed and underwent a spectacular transformation as Constantine and his successors directed public works that would stand the test of time and still remain among the city’s best fifteen centuries later. Istanbul under the Byzantine Emperors and afterwards the Ottoman rulers was for many centuries the City of the World’s Desire. Rome, for its part, the Eternal City, knew the Renaissance and some of the most splendid artistic expression ever known. I kinda like both.

As the French would say, le plafond.

Still, both metropolises are aging none too well. Traffic chokes the thoroughfares, infrastructure is generally of poor quality, and it’s telling that in both cities successive governments have failed miserably to provide inhabitants with an adequate underground train system. It’s fair to say that you would expect certain delays owing to archaeological digs when working on an underground transport project in either of these great towns. However, the delays are outrageously long and unacceptable. Either dig or don’t dig. And if you find something, then weigh up the value of the find with the fact that whatever is there has probably been buried and long-forgotten and would have continued to be so had the metro system not been undertaken in the first place. People in these cities deserve fair transport systems and probably would find them more valuable than than a few more artefact's stuck on shelves in glass cases. In fact, it would be interesting to discover just how many of the inhabitants of Istanbul and Rome actually visit their own museums. I'd pretty much better they opt for better public transport over another glass-encased collection of Phyrigian artefacts.

Anyway, all I’m saying is that to my friends, Romans, countrymen and Istanbullites, you should be expecting more from your local representatives. Especially in the way of transport.

Rome’s weather was surprisingly mild and I was able to manage without the heavy coat and warm socks that I seemed to need so much at home. Istanbul has a chill factor that requires a scarf and gloves during the months of December to March. Here I was able to walk out of the hotel almost naked.

Overkill. But I like it.

Interestingly, within moments of leaving the hotel I came across a multitude of Muslims finishing prayer. I think it very interesting to find a large population of practising Muslims in the very centre of the Catholic world, trying to picture a gathering of Christians in Mecca. Still, that was pointless.

The fabulously rich facade of Santa Maria Maggiore stood out as I strolled down Via Carlo Alberto and wondered how much money had it actually to taken to construct all of this. And if the Italians of today can barely manage to maintain a place within the G8, it must have clearly been a different situation in earlier days. It takes a lot of cash to construct stuff like this.

The original church was established on the Esquiline Hill in the 4^th century on the very same spot where snow had magically fallen during the middle of the Roman summer. Since then Popes have added to the edifice until it became one of the great Basilicas of the city. Santa Maria’s interior is rich. Lots of gold. Apparently, the first boatload of it brought back by Colombus and his buddies from the Americas was used in the construction of the coffered ceiling. Mosaics line the nave above 4^th century columns and the whole thing is quite spectacular indeed. Best of all it a mosaic depicting the Coronation of the Virgin. Damn impressive.

I left the basilica feeling as though 12 years between visits had been too long a time. Thought that I might make it back again tomorrow.

San Pietro in Vincolo is another favorite because I love a good legend-cum-story and this one has it. The chains that held St Peter in the dank Mamertine Prison somehow ended up in Constantinople. In the 500’s the Empress Eudoxia popped one of them into a church and sent the other by FedEx to her daughter in Roma. Pope Leo I received it as a gift, which should come as no surprise since the church has always received much more than it has given in return. Long after being correctional accessories for St Peter, the two chains somehow ended up together in Rome again and are now displayed below the high altar.

Climbing the stairway to see St Peter in Chains

I believe none of it, apart from the fact the Pope Leo got one as a present since almost everything of worth in the whole of human history has passed through the rapacious paws of the Catholic establishment. Glad to be a protestant.

The same building also contains MichelAngelo’s Moses adorning the tomb of Juluis II, a latter-day pope I quite like since Raphaels’ painting of him is a triumph. A laminated A4 size version of it helps me to teach adjectives of description to my private students, however, that is irrelevant.

Michaelangelo has initially planned to adorn Papa’s tomb with a lot of marble fixtures, but since the Pope himself became more excited about up-and-coming basilica of St Peter’s, Mike only every got around to finishing Moses and a couple of The Dying Slaves when he was asked to start work on the Sistine Chapel.

From this very moment in time can be pinpointed the inability of Mediterranean peoples to finish what they started or to concentrate on only one thing at a time. Now there's an article waiting to be written. Anyway, the painting of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel took precedence, The Dying Slaves ended up in Paris and Florence and today the father of the Jews sits alone among empty niches with a couple of horns in his head that should in fact be beams of light. Such was the poor quality of biblical translators from Hebrew to Italian during the Renaissance.

I am loving Rome.

The very polished interior of St Pietro in Vincolo.

I have a new moustache. It's excellent.

With the run up to the Turkish elections and in celebration of the recent opening of the Nationalist Party branch in my neighbourhood, I thought I'd add a touch more style to my look.

Men are winking at me a lot more often out in the street. In broad daylight. And in view of their wives.

Pistachios and sugar and more pistachios and more sugar.

Jen eats more than her fair share of the kadayıf.

My fondest memories of my grandmother, and there are many, revolve around sweet food. Back in the days before some idiot invented nutrition, when most parents understood that a balanced diet was all that was need to spare a child from obesity and dieticians were thought of with the same abhorrence as African dictators, my grandmother would all but force feed me unending sickly sweet chunks of shortbread topped with glistening red glacé cherry. How I never ended up with a higher Body Mass Index score is anyone’s guess but I suppose I’ll have to thank genetics and the people who invented that particular branch of science.

And so we come to Gaziantep, clearly the sweet capital of the world. What a French bakery might require in sugar for a month’s worth of pain au chocolat goes into the making of a single tray of baklava. Dentistry must be profitable in this town.

As with all places in this part of the world, there’s plenty of history to be had. Unfortunately, we weren’t really up for it in the heat and realized that in fact we’d spent the entirety of the previous day mooching about Urfa during the hottest parts of the day. It had taken its toll. We wandered about languidly in the heat, usually in search more of shade and fresh orange juice than the ethnographic museum, at which we conveniently arrived ten minutes after it had closed.

Gaziantep was a break from Urfa’s heat and surliness, and it did feel good to be back in what we felt Turkey ought to be like. The moustaches were friendlier, the heat less draining and the kebabs forever ubiquitous.

Now it was time to leave the planet altogether and head for the wonderful landscapes of Cappadocia.

Not so much fun

The only living creatures in Urfa able to find respite from the heat.

Please, staring like that is just rude.

Şanlıurfa or its shortened form Urfa as most Turks call it, lies several hour’s drive directly west of Mardin. Though as far as the culture spectrometer reads, it’s indeed quite a lot further away. Urfa is Arab, not Turk. Geography and borders confused us into thinking we were holidaying firmly in the Turkish heartland, but only ubiquitous kebabs and lack of vegetarian food remained the same. Urfa, or Şanlıurfa as I insisted on calling it, was a bit disconcerting. Well, not for me, but for Jen, because she’s a woman, and often it’s a man’s world.

Mardin had been as warm as and welcoming as the sun’s rays which enveloped the city. Therefore, upon arrival we were disappointed to be in the territory of people who stare, furrow brows and ruffle bushy moustaches unfavourably in our general direction. Urfa was clearly an Arab town and at times like this I’m glad to be a man, although some of you who know me personally might actually dispute that.

the very latest in safety fencing for wet areas.

For females travelling among the Arabs lands, it can’t be all inane giggles and laughter. Since I love getting attention I often forget that for others there is an unwanted variety of it that makes them feel uncomfortable, out of place, and can push limits of cultural sensitivity. A glance is fine, because yes, we are probably exotic to you because yes, you are certainly exotic to us. Even an extended that’s-the-first-time-I’ve-seen-a-woman
-with-two-legs-since-those-two-blonde-
Dutch-women-rode-through-here-on-bicycles
-wearing-little-else-but-their-jewellery kind of look is not discomforting for me. However, an outright thirteen second stare with fly-entering-mouth expression is, in my opinion, a bit, you know, villager. And more truthfully, it ain’t the staring that concerns me, rather the accompanying body language, as though someone had just swung a Gorgon head through their line of vision. I’d like to think my beauty has that effect on people, that an Arab man with an unkempt eyebrow and incongruously jet-black moustache be so taken aback by my svelte form for a man in his late thirties that he is rendered awestruck. But I think not. Then again, the Arabs do have a reputation for boys, but a boy I no longer am. I simply act like one.

Do you look this good in a tea towel? I doubt it.

So, I’m not really sure how women cope with the lingering, sometimes predatory I’d-like-to-forcibly-exchange-you-for-my-wife look, but I personally recommend you employ the very handy and usually ineffectual stare-off. We’ve all done it. All of us. Truth be known, I like a challenge. I can’t compete in the moustache stakes and Allah has blessed me with two distinctly separate and non-furrowing eyebrows, but I can mimic disdain as well as any South Sydney City Council public servant, or for sheer vehemence, a Woolhara retail sales assistant. (Sydney customer service and the appalling standards of it accepted by the city’s population are a continual bugbear and sense of bitter humour for me, but I digress). Suffice it to say that our time in Urfa was not the Wilkommen Bienvenue and Hoş Geldiniz diagonally stencilled in stark baby blue Comic Sans font (another pet hate) on the side of our ailing inter-city bus.

Urfa is birth place to Abraham, father of the Arabs and devoted vandal of idols. He also tinkered with human sacrifice but as you well know, thought better of it at the last minute, substituting a ram for his son. As the son I actually would’ve been feeling a little rankled. I mean, it’s hardly a gesture of equivalent stature. Ram for son. How about son for ten kilos of gold? How about no sacrifice at all? Maybe just going without dessert for a week? That particular Koranic and Biblical scene will no doubt be familiar to you as every painter worth his mettle from Giotto to Ruben, passing by Caravaggio and countless other have depicted it in oils on canvas. If you haven’t seen it, pop along to your local major European capital city art museum and have a peek. Along with Judith making Holophene into two distinct pieces, it’s a winning combination. Isaac, the goat, Dad and his big sharp knife. Whoever believes video games are violent for children should not at the same time be a literal reader of the Old Testament. If so, your hypocrisy starts here. Maybe time to rework your ideas. Oops, more digression.

Urfa attracts serious pilgrims and though I write like a prat I am respectful and sensitive to other cultures. I’m especially sensitive to woman wearing all-encompassing black shrouds in thirty-seven degree heat. Thank you Saudi Arabia. The sooner you deplete you petroleum sources, the sooner you will be reduced to the pointless cultural backwater that you deserve to be. May your wells run dry that your women may revolt and the world be free of your nefarious cultural influence.

I like the word pilgrimage because the medial syllable is grim. Apt. Pilgrims are thus. People stared and wandered ever so poignantly and unsmilingly about two wonderfully enigmatic pools abundantly brimming with plump carp, the fish apparently the descendents of logs on a pyre built to punish Abraham. Legend dictates to us that King Nimrod, riled by Abraham’s idol-breaking incursion into the temple, broke from the tradition of crucifixion and creatively treated the latter to a Joan of Arc form of death. Extreme heat. Fortunately for Abraham, at the last minute and not unlike his own timing with human sacrifice, God entered the scene turning the logs into fish and scorching flames into water. I like a good legend and I especially like a good piece of architecture that has grown up around it in the following centuries. Jen and I wandered about too in the stifling heat, too seriously for my liking but then this was not a place for mixing fun and worship.

I feel, while we both experienced something unusual, we were glad to be heading out the following day. And with all the thousands of pilgrims in town, how is it you can only get kebabs? I’m a little let down by all of this. All that meat makes you constipated. Perhaps I’ll end here.

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

Methinks rather spectacular. Checkin' out what the Syrians are up to from high up.

There are very few places left on the planet that allow the imagination to soar, that bedazzle the senses and that truly transport you to another world. I like these kind of places.

Mardin, a hilltop city perched high on a flat-top hill and overlooking Syria, is simply beautiful. If you've visited magical Jaisalmer in India, and even if you haven't, then throw together the pictures that your mind conjures up of the Middle East (or northern India). Swirling arabesques, pointed arches, elegant minarets, shaded tea gardens, moustachioed men, countless children, cobble-stone stairways leading to more cobble-stone stairways, donkeys, wailing Arab music, massive hewn stone, hummus, eggplant, olive oil, the odd madresse or two, and soak the whole in a bath of golden light from a cloudless sky with a cool breeze sweeping across recently reaped wheat fields. And you have Mardin.

Once you veer off from main square of Cumhuriyet Meydanı, you leave behind the already slow pace of a city far from the bustle and grime of Istanbul and fall under the spell of the Middle East proper. Jenny and I spent the entire day strolling aimlessly throughout the town, walking perhaps ten kilometres in no particular direction, backtracking across narrow lanes of walled houses where fig and apricot tress stood listlessly under the burden of ripening fruit, children played among themselves and women sat chatting in doorways.

Kurds are an affable bunch. Like the rest of the people inhabiting the giant swathe of lands from Lahore to Cairo, we were treated to smiling and quizzical looks at every step. These men have the best moustaches in the world and also like most of the Middle East any woman not of those parts invites some general interest. Well, stares actually. Personally, I love getting attention, in fact, I clamour for it, so I was pleased that Jen took it all in her stride and wasn't bothered at the fact I probably could have sold her for a few dozen donkeys. Which I would never have done because who else would listen to my daily monologue?

The newly-opened Antik Tatlıdede Butık Otel. You ought see the view in the other direction too...

We were invited into the home of Memur Bey who introduced us to his family and showed us the vaulted ceiling of his wonderful 400-year-old home while his wife, mother of seventeen children, offered us the perfectly sickly sweet lemonade that I've developed a taste for recently.

Mardin, for the time being, is not on the tourist map. The fighting of the last decade between the fairly angry Turkish government forces and some fairly angry Kurds has all but scared off most intrepid visitors but it's a town that is truly remarkable for the friendliness of it's inhabitants. As the sun sets, Mardin is among a handful of cities that can truly be called gorgeous. As the late afternoon sun descends stone walls glow yellow-orange and fields stretching down the hillside and into Syria turn a golden shade of brown. Nice postcard stuff.

The interior of the very recently restored Sultan Isa Medresesi.

Completely unrelated to this spiel is that Jen called me a chatterbox today. Well, I think that's what she said but I couldn't hear her properly as I was in fact talking at the time. I make no apologies, I have many varied and interesting things to say. Besides, I may talk a lot but she can certainly eat for someone with such a petite frame. A course of action she may later come to regret when we hit the Aegean coast in a week or so, you with me?

Jenny starts to eat everything at once and doesn't seem to care that she clearly ate the greater share of the dishes. Likewise for the dessert. I barely got a bite.

After hours of wandering we settled onto a terrace overlooking the cropped wheat fields and ordered up big. Sebzeli patlıcan salatası, kurtulumuş domates salatası, humus, zeytinyağlı yaprak dolması and muammara, followed by irmik helvası. Just think the best of Mediterranean food with a dash of the Middle East. Eggplant, tomatoes, olive oil... you know the drill.

The stars came out and we got sleepy. It has been a very good day indeed. Jen went to bed with a full stomach and I didn't. Tomorrow we have to catch a bus and I don't like buses.

It's so hot I think I might actually die

Relaxing at home on another gorgeous day in my life, waiting for a terrorist attack. Note the fab new sandals.

According to one of my all-time favourite websites that displays time-zones and 7-day meteorology forecasts for every inhabited village across the globe, it is currently 34 degrees in my fair city. Which, in my fair opinion, is probably misinformation. I am currently on the balcony, trying to stay out of the cleaning lady's way, watching the world go by and wondering how strong the heat actually has to be before it can bleach the colour out of an entire city.

Today, Istanbul is white-hot. I'm dressed in enough clothes to appear modest and I'm drenched in my own sweat. I'm barely even moving and yet a hitherto undiscovered delta is forming at the base of my feet. The clear gain here is weight loss: at current speed I anticipate losing approximately 30% of my body mass between now and three pm, and since you can never be too rich of too thin things are certainly looking up for me in one aspect of my life. Anyway, the sun has changed my city into something reminiscent of a Turner canvas during a particularly abstract and mad painting frenzy. The contour and outlines of buildings and people have morphed into a swirling haze of pastels and if I didn't know already know the difference between the ground and the sky I might well get confused.

Blood suckers, and possibly a young terrorist.

So I'm hot and bothered but extremely excited since in a few hours I will haul myself off to the airport to greet a dear friend from home who I haven't seen in almost two-and-a-half years. And since it's over a year since anyone from Australia came to visit me, I'm feeling mighty joyful. 'Joyful' is a in fact I word whose existence I refuse to accept but that is otherwise over-employed by every Turk learning English. I have absolutely no idea in which module of which chapter of which poorly written English Language text book this particular vocabulary item is to be found but it's not a lexical chunk that I ever choose to use. I mean, call me old-fashioned, but when was the last time you even used the mother-ship word 'joy' in a conversation? Can't remember, can you?

Truth be known, the last time you saw this word was on a Christmas card sent to you by someone you inadvertently forgot to send a Christmas card to and it was already too late to send one without them understanding that in fact you had perhaps intentionally left them off your Christmas card list. So 'joy' and its derivative may be an adequate simile to 'happy' and the less-easy-to-use 'enjoyable', but in my book it a word to be avoided at all cost on the basis that it reminds me of defect Christmas card lists and the overwhelming Catholic guilt I feel on a daily basis as a non-practising Protestant. In another life I might have started an Inquisition against writers of English as a Foreign Language publications who choose to include words in vocabulary lists that no intelligent living English speaker would ever use outside of a church pew.

Anyway, Jenny's arrival will shortly inject an enormous amount of joy into my life and I'm sure she won't be too tired. It'll be thirty-six hours since she passed through Melbourne customs but hey, she's clearly here to see the sights.

I'm allowing ten minutes to collect luggage, another three to acclimatise to intense heat and then the necessary half-day to understand that yes, these people don't drive very carefully.

People who claim to be my friends/harem, but who may well be guerilla leaders.

(Can you believe the woman upstairs just chose this moment to beat the dust out of her rugs over my frickin' head on the balcony upstairs? I feel even better now that a layer of the filthy muck, which according to another interesting website I visit is principally composed of dead human skin, has adhered so quickly to my sweat-streaked skin and given me an appearance of those man might have spent the morning mining chalk. There is also someone making wheezing panting noises upstairs but I've decided he's probably lifting weights because that would be the natural thing to do on such a warm, sunny day).

It must be clear from my rants how much I'm in love with this city and how much I become joyful when showing it to friends, acquaintances and random people I meet on the Internet.

Linda and I waiting for an attack to happen at any moment, anywhere in the city, while joyfully sampling fine summer fare.

Over the last three weeks I've been treated to the company of French, Canadian, Irish and American guests in this here fine city, and if I didn't have enough free time to spend with them, I still had the wonderful opportunity of showing each something special about this city. It was also a practice run for when Jenny arrives this afternoon since we have three weeks to tour as much of this country as the private bus system, our feet and the sweltering heat will allow. Although every one of my private students has advised against going to the south-east of Turkey, terrorist attacks and nothing other than kebaps to eat cannot deter me.

The overzealous souls at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have recently updated their travel advice to my adopted home country:


A caution from people who live in the world's most boring city. In fact, I've seen more verve in graveyards. However, they do know how to format a document well, which is admirable.

" Attacks could occur at any time, anywhere in Turkey." How's that for irresponsibility? Could you actually write anything more vague?

Misinformation and scaremongering at it's best. The last time I visited the Australian Vice-Consul I was struck how relaxed, even comatose the man was. He didn't look like he oversaw the welfare of my nation's interests in a country where your life was on the line every gooddamn minute of the day. Stuff like this makes me less than joyful.

Don't accept it. He's a terrorist and it's a bomb.

I would like to state the that chances of being involved in any kind of unsavoury event in south-east Turkey are minute when compared with the chances of being unfairly harassed a by aggressive inebriated revellers in any given city of my native country at 11:36pm on Friday evening. That is fact. Besides, what is life for if not to make an adventure of it? I don't want to look back in 17 years on my death-bed (according to my most recent fortune teller) and passively watch a life of lawn-mowing and Ikea knick-knacks pass before my eyes. If my last view on this planet is of a bearded man of indeterminable age with an acrimonious grimace brandishing a kebap over my head, so be it. I want my life to be glamorous.

Ok, think I've sweated my way down to 70 kilos. The heat has made my head go a bit funny.

Rather amusing.

Quite.

How we threw our heads back and laughed

I know what you're thinking, but it IS the man himself.

You know, there are days when you think that life just couldn't get any better, one of those rare moments when both the forces of creation and elements of nature coalesce in a swan song of rapture and joy.

Well, today was not one of those days. However, something rather special did happen.

As a child I longed for K.I.T.T. Aged 11, I knew it wouldn't be long before my father substituted his lemon Ford Falcon sedan for a vehicle that actually contained some hint of street-cred and a touch less of suburban hell. Talking cars were but a moment away in time I thought, and naively assumed that my own first car would be black, sporty, and capable of speech.

It wasn't to be. I lived disappointment on a daily basis through my early teens, until I thought the best way to capture that certain je ne sais quoi of Knightrider would be to emulate, if not the personality, then a least the hairstyle of The Hoff. I can proudly that without any hint of irony that no teenager carried longer or more assiduously, with greater care or more hair-care products, the Hasselhoff-inspired bouffant that made me the envy of every... where am I going with this?

The Hoff has arrived. On my doorstep.

God, what a reunion it's been. It's been a non-stop love-in since he fell out of my early birthday present bubble wrapping.

A reunion of gargantuan proportions, we threw caution and good taste to the wind and dived deep into nostalgia. The man himself launched into a Hoffologue that has sent me into an emotional time machine as I've relived every episode of perhaps the best public television program ever to have graced the television screen in my lifetime.

I was treated to stunts after posing for my Hello magazine.

We've laughed and cried. Tears of joy, shrieks of hysteria and moments of pure tristesse have accompanied his constantly entertaining plethora of tales, on-screen, and perhaps more interestingly, off-screen. Pamela's woes, the difficulty of shooting boogie boards from certain angles and those annoying crevasses full of sand are only the tip of the iceberg. I was treated to a no-holds-barred, access-all-areas, intimate and at times undeniably personal insight into the lives of the greatest multi-talented artiste of our times.

There are so many things I'd like to share with all of you out there. However the betrayal of friendship for the glib satisfaction of fleeting fame on the blogosphere is a poor trade indeed. The Hoff knows my word is my word. There is just so much that will forever stay between us both, unknown to those of you looking in from the outside.

Blokey talk: The Hoff gets intimate

But I will say this: the Hoff has lost none of his edge, none of that esprit that kept him and continues to elevate him beyond the peak of his field. As with Sylvester Stallone, plastic surgery has been kind in the medium-term and further small surgical procedures will ensure he maintains the mystique and charisma of stars such as Melanie Griffith and Mickey Rourke, well into the middle of this century.

Action pose and face shots. A physique like this at 54. Never!

And even though I know not an iota of German, The Hoff entertained me for several hours with a new soon-to-be rereleased version of 99 Luftballoons, all the while allowing me to rub peppermint massage oil into his tired but famous feet. I am left with no shadow of doubt that he is indeed Germanophonia's answer to Edith Piaf. What that wizened old crone did for French chanson the Hoff has done for Teutonic rock. So it's no wonder that today almost every German speaker on the planet goes about his daily Arbeit humming some ditty or another a la Hoff.

I was enraptured. Perhaps in love? Certainly in awe.

The Hoff's busy schedule didn't allow greater intimacy, but since he comes with a neat gold-plated fastener I attached him to me. We're inseparable.

I love my Hoff. And I'm fairly sure the feeling is reciprocated.

More than just affection... the magnetic attraction is undeniable.

Footnote: This article is based upon the rather brilliant creative mind displayed at http://kezzaroo.blogspot.com/. See her Etsy link for more fabulous present ideas for me.

Like sands through the hourglass...

As a child, I rarely fell ill. My mother belonged to that group of parents who bemoaned lax discipline, slovenly manners and sparing the rod. As such, I never bothered to fall sick because it just wasn't at all like the comforting couch-potato ice cream-eating and pyjama-wearing stories that school friends regaled me with. All I got was re-runs of The Restless Years and Days of Our Lives with dry toast, hardly the stuff of which to boast during school breaks. Back then we only had a black and white TV so you can imagine all these years later how I've come to equate personal illness with 1980s West coast soap operas. But not CHiPs. Never CHiPs.

Kratos, my new best friend.

Last Sunday, while forcing Kratos's hand against Zeus in an early stage of God of War II, I suffered acute dizziness. Realising I wasn't drunk, I tried to stand up and briefly afterwards crashed with full force into my Playstation console, which inadvertently shut down. Nauseous and wincing at the thought of having to rematch Colossus again before I could save my progress, I made it to the bathroom with minimal energy loss. However, I suffered many attacks, mainly from butting into walls that constantly appeared out of nowhere, that I could neither evade nor appreciate, as the landlady had painted them beige.

Shaky on my legs, I fell into bed and spent the next twelve hours sleeping and hoping that I would awake fresh and rejuvenated. It wasn't to be. A good friend whisked me off to the closest hospital where I underwent two MRs, an audiogram, and an ECG. Some woman removed my sweat-soaked shirt and randomly shaved parts of my chest. My initial thoughts that she was creating a simple join-the-dots puzzle for her workmates were banished when she proceeded to attached coloured electrodes to my body, exciting me immensely because I've always liked things that are colour-coded. Feeling akin to a lab monkey, the nurse completed my look by dressing me in a white string vest, apparently designed to keep the wires in place. Really, I looked great.

Nurse introducing IV drip with minimum of fuss.

So Mehmet zealously organised all the details while I sat in the same emergency room for the second time since coming to Istanbul. I looked at my leg angrily but it didn't seem to understand the significance of my menacing glance. Next some orderly brusquely whisked me past a lot of -ology departments and I was unceremoniously dumped into private room 1108 which was home for the next 24 hours. Majella, long suffering flat mate that she is, brought me things I needed and read the latest hot gossip from The Economist until I sank into a heavy slumber.

Doctors weren't able to shed further light on my condition, but we were all pleased that a brain showed up in the MR. It put a lot of questions to rest, forever. The medics couldn't fathom what was causing my problem when brain, ears, and heart were functioning adequately. During my time in hospital I drank as much as the flavourless, colourless IV drip would allow and caught up Turkish daytime soap operas, the bulk of which consist in a nubile woman pouting astride a beast of a man, the latter cowering to no-one and looking all the more ridiculous since he's always overburdened with make-up. Some one ought tell Turkish television make-up artists that you can't cover up a five o'clock shadow in this part of the world. An exercise in futility.

Eventually the doctors discharged me. No idea what was wrong but hey, I didn't want to stay any longer either. Medication being exceptional value-for-money in this metropolis, I spent up big and commenced on my course for the next ten days. Frustratingly, nothing seems to be working and almost a week later I feel only a little less nauseous... I'm stumbling about like a northern Englander at 5pm on a Friday evening. Albeit with a lot less aggression.

My mate, not yours, taking an interactive tour of the local sights during sick time.

For an entire week I've been able only to sit or lay down, which excludes many activities such as washing dishes, ironing, and most other house-centred tasks. But I can eat. I can't focus well for extended periods of time and my thoughts are erratic disjointed, now more than usual. So I've to dedicated this spare time to God of War II as Kratos isn't looking for friendship based on intellectual compatibility, he just wants dedication and loyalty.

I'll attempt to catch up with world news later in the week. I have a feeling that a number of important events have occurred that are likely to shape the course of Turkish politics over the next few months. Still, now it's back to the Steeds of Time. I'm trying to meet up with the Gorgons but can't seem to get an easy ride over to the islands... So are the days of our lives.

Oh ha! Language Learning 1

I had a moan on a previous post about how difficult and time consuming it has been for me to learn Turkish. Well... I haven't finished.

Enrolling in Modern Languages at university has been without a doubt the single most influential choice in my life. In some way languages other than English and the multifaceted cultures using them as a medium have affected my daily existence for years. First and foremost my professors were excellent educators, technically flawless, patient, sympathetic, organised and they loved their jobs. Secondly, university being the social environment that it is, I studied with good people, namely Duncan (Sporto) and Angela (Princess), who taught me many of the principles of life.

Tomes of wisdom to get me through my day in Istanbul

Enjoyable and productive hours spent in lecture rooms, libraries and language laboratories ensured I came away with my first degree feeling proud of my achievements and rather pleased that I could read, write, listen to and speak French, Spanish, and to a lesser degree, Italian and Rumanian after four years. Following which a long stint in France helped me achieve near-native fluency, and if I've somewhat lost proficiency over the years, my passion for language learning has never waned.

I state all this now to make you understand that no matter what is written hereunder, there remains no question in my mind that learning the language of the culture in which you live is the single most important factor for happiness and fulfilment in that country.

I came to Turkey. Thus my need to learn Turkish. And reasons to learn the language are manifold.

Stupid, unpronounceable vowel sounds.

I started enthusiastically, stole a flatmate's copy of Colloquial Turkish and within weeks was making some headway. By night I worked my way devotedly through several pages of grammar... until the realisation several months later that I was retaining newly acquired vocabulary and grammar on the shortest of short term bases.

Some days would deliver a linguistic high, I could understand and make chit-chat with taxi drivers, dürüm and kebap vendors and wax lyrically with new found friends on topics ranging from yesterday's weather to today's forecast. I was empowering myself and getting out of the Turkish language rut into which many of expatriates naturally fall for some time when they can't quite master the art of thinking in reverse order, which is what some commentators would have you believe is the trick to speaking Turkish. I think that last sentence was too long.

With my 2007 to-do list neatly displayed on my recently acquired whiteboard, I began gleefully to scrawl verb conjugations and personal suffixes, slowly but surely increasing my understanding of the importance of order in the Turkish tongue. While in Paris I purchased the fabulously and exotically titled Grammaire du Turc and randomly opened to page 148. 'Simply, to form the suppositive verb tense you need only apply the following rule: add to the verb root -(y)E2cE2k + -sE2 + -SPV2, where E stands for either e or a depending on the preceding vowel and SPV2 is a set of personal suffixes dealt with earlier in the book. Y is inserted only where it would otherwise bring two vowels into contact'. Simple.

Simple, my arse.

The ability of the Cartesian French spirit to reduce a entire linguistic system to a set of neatly defined rules means that I no longer have to trawl my way through endless grammar books written in English. The French, even if they have elected Sarkozy, are concise, systematic and very special people indeed. Having reduced the entire Turkish tongue to a smattering of formulaic expressions means all I need do now is memorise, then apply, forty or so formulae to express myself in every conceivable tense, aspect and mood. And my mood fluctuates often.

It's OK... it's OK. It's not you, it's the book.

What I cannot abide is Turkish vocabulary. People have criticised modern Turkish, which, purified of numerous Arabic and Persian borrowings, seems to suffer from a paucity of choice. There is no doubt that modern Turkish has fewer words in daily use than English, but even these I cannot seem to remember. I often confuse one word for another or simply rearrange consonants at any given moment. The appearance of the letter h in various positions of a word causes endless grief. I am awash with rage at my inability, after almost 18 months here, to splutter a stream of words that can count as a grammatically correct and meaningful phrase. If you pick up any guide book on Turkish you will no doubt come across some article about Turkish. The author will supply an lengthy multisyllabic word to astound the English speaker and which confirms Turks, like their language, as incomprehensible and barbarian.

Turkish people are patient, hospitable and kind. Their language is tortuous and sadistic. My private language tutor is neither patient nor sadistic, but I'm sure she'd happily whip me if it were still considered standard practise for wayward pupils. The ability to acquire a second language diminishes with age. I disagree. The acquisition of new grammar and words is easy enough. Retaining all that newly acquired information demands an environment in which to use it.

I think I am swearing at this point in time.

I am an English teacher. My students can or want to speak my mother tongue. My relationships with my Turkish friends began in English and it is hard to make the crossover into their native language as it feels like a step backwards. And I have one criticism. Whether it is the natural eagerness and effusive nature of the Turks or their Mediterranean ardour, they rarely, if ever, speak slowly. We've all heard before how the Italians, Spanish and French join all words together in a single utterance. With the Turks, I tend to believe it is true, but think it is more likely that they come from a culture where they are less likely to hear people speaking Turkish as a second language, and are thrilled to hear someone doing so. Ineffectual requests to my interlocutor to speak more slowly reduce me within a few sentences to short grunts or nods of the head. You see, Turkish verbs can be extremely long to the untrained ear and since they contain many add ons (or plug-ins, if you will), I can work out the verb but never know whether I am hearing past, present or future. I try to explain this to my private tutor but she unenthusiastically rolls her eyes.

And like you're gonna answer my prayers. I bet you can't even speak Turkish.








I shall persevere.

At least I've learnt a lot of obscene words. Thank you, Taxi Drivers of Istanbul.

And suddenly it was 2007. A year in review.

About to sit down and attempt to write a blog, looking a little tough and Turkish.

Allah allah… is it really a year since I jumped off a wall and broke my heel bone into several pieces? And thus it’s almost a year since I wrote to many of you and to be fair, I’ve been rather crap at staying in touch. Since I’m too old to make New Year resolutions and too cynical to believe I’d carry any of them further than the second month of the year, I’ll do away with much needed apologies for negligent behaviour and get down to the task at hand.

I’ve gleefully ridden another twelve months on the charmingly decrepit roller coaster that is Istanbul, City of the World’s Desire (who wrote that? – I cannot recall). And if you failed to grasp the pathetic imagery in my previous sentence, well yes, it’s been an emotional time. Those of you who are either mentally retarded or cerebrally stunted in some way will, like me, appreciate what living in a foreign culture can do to a healthy state of mind. I’d like to write that I’m closer to understanding life in Asia Minor, that I comprehend the insane babbling of my local green grocer, that I’ve grown used to people feeling sorry for me, single and childless. I’d be happier if after a year I understood the necessity to dollop yoghurt onto every dish consumed, or if I’d located a single 10 metre unbroken stretch of footpath in a city encompassing five hundred square kilometres. I hate having to look down when I walk because it’s damn annoying. And why does the woman on the ground floor keep telling me I’m a quality person? Her house is brimming with plastic rhododendrons, so clearly, she knows nothing.

Lighting inside the Blue Mosque.

Why do I have to eat so much eggplant? Surely there’s a limit to the number of culinary delights that can be fabricated from the dull, dry and tedious chick pea? It would seem not. Being robbed seven times in fourteen months has given a strangely bewildered look to my once handsome face, which, added to grey hairs rapidly spreading across my beard that comes from a the thankless task of being a teacher, makes me appear old ahead of my years. I’ve reduced the number of flatmates from four shrieking single females to a sole little Irish lass but am still no closer to understanding why women just don’t find me amusing in the mornings, the time of day when I’m at my most witty. And if you think I’ve mastered the paradigms of the aorist tense in this incredibly agglutinative language then you can look sharp and think again – I ain’t ever gonna get my tongue around Turkish. This city would kill a weaker person, you know what I’m sayin’?

March 4 2006. After the doctor removed my plaster cast and I recovered from the shock of just how unappetising an unwashed foot can look and smell after two months, I was thrilled to be back in the land of two footed persons. Unfortunately, I hadn’t figured on a recovery period after cast removal (or so the medics said) and was pretty miffed when I couldn’t just start racing about the place as normal. Medicine might have found a cure for smallpox but personally I feel it remains an undeveloped science if you can’t just swing back into full gait eight weeks after smashing your heel into four pieces. And for the record, I didn’t receive a single Get Well card. Niente.

Late March brought sleet and rain, snow turned into ashen slush under an army of shuffling feet and not a few cubic tonnes of vehicle exhaust; I began to experience for the first time a sentiment known in this land as hüzün. Now, at the risk of sounding like a pretentious git, the word in italics denotes a certain etat d’esprit that infiltrates Istanbullites after months of gloomy skies without a hint of sun, a cityscape of endless concrete, a lack of birdsong - dour faces all round. If you like a good read, then you’ll know the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature is Orhan Pamuk, who dedicates a vast chunk in one of his books to this sufferance that leaves you teetering somewhere near profound melancholy but not quite yet depression. Clearly, he knows something.

Can you feel the hüzün?

Hüzün prevents you smiling. You pull your collar up around your ears and furrow your brow. Inclement weather turns the Turk lugubrious and in turn you become dispirited, cheerless and downcast. You stop meeting your friends for çay and instead pass your free time nose stuck in a book. Your anti-social instincts come to the fore and you reject invitations to go to the cinema, meet for a drink, whatever. Still, I can’t stay in a state of misery for long. It’s just not my nature. I like to smile.

Sooner or later the whole month of March began to feel like a trashy Cold War spy movie. Frequently I crossed the paths of snarling Turkish men on shadowy Istiklal Caddesi and the insalubrious neighbourhood descending to Tarlabaşı - district favoured by thieves, gypsies and hookers - I felt this hüzün affair to be a little forced, a little too much as though people had nothing better to do than pout, feel sorry about everything and nothing in particular, and since I’d made eye contact they might as well look surly. Frankly, I grew weary of it all and soon enough realised that I had no genuine idea of what hüzün actually was.

When you consider, depending on statistics you wish to quote, perhaps forty percent of Istanbullites are living on less than a third of what I’m paid, many of them lodged in inadequate housing and dealing daily with the petty frustrations that Turkish bureaucracy and State throw at them, then I have no experience of what might act as a catalyst to plummet you into hüzün. I was simply acting the spoilt Western brat who felt by mooching about with a downtrodden glare, I’d suddenly touched upon the essence of being a native of this city. Clearly, I know nothing.

Maşallah! Simone arrived from Australia via London in the knick of time to put stop my emotional tomfoolery and admire my new handlebar moustache. Previously I had received but scorn and contempt from my jealous female cohabitants but Simone knew that within me lay the innate sense of style to carry off such a daring and chivalrous addition to my image. It was not only super to reduce time devoted to shaving, but I started to think of all the new possibilities that lay ahead...

Simone gets close up and personal with my moustache.

Sadly, facial hair is oft perceived as a political statement in this otherwise moderate State. It is impossible to comprehend the effect a moustache or full beard can have without some knowledge of history. Turkey is a country not yet one hundred years of age, a fatherland that experienced massive upheaval throughout a turbulent twentieth century, climbing out of the remains of a moribund Ottoman Empire to look towards Western Europe as it forged a new society based on a democratic, laic and secular State. A certain moustache can brand you a Nationalist, a full beard a Islamist – the latter is an image that the Western press also love to use to instill fear of the Muslim world into the heart of nations built of good Christian values. Just as veiled women have no right to work in the Public Sector, so too is a beard healthily discouraged for men. As a foreigner I am generally exempt from such rules, but since I’m a tad swarthy it’s better to avoid suspicious looks that a full beard can draw. Still, policemen seemed to like the handlebar moustache. They started smiling at me.

Fishing from Galata Bridge
looking towards Eminönü and the New Mosque.

Anyway, Simone, me and my moustache enjoyed the tourist sites of Istanbul, sipping on tulip-shaped glasses of tea and mooching about the famous mosques and sites of the city. We scoured Eminönü, a famously old market district near The Blue Mosque with its narrow streets, screeching hawkers and stalls burgeoning with enough kitsch to keep any lover of brass, copper or iridescent coloured plastic kitchen utensils well pleased. There is nothing that cannot be bargained over in this neighbourhood – it is the nec plus ultra of cheap and nasty. Entire streets are devoted to similar products; a lane with shops containing only buckles and buttons, thoroughfares selling only toys, another leather goods, yet another pink plastic Barbie drinking cups. If it’s sad Soviet-made junk that you’re after, spices from the East, Bangladeshi textiles by the ton or genuine Turkish rugs made in the Chinese People’s Republic, you can get it here. And not a price tag in sight.

I detest - no - loathe bargaining. Turkish has a great verb to describe the action. Pazar means both Sunday and market. Pazarlamak means ‘to go shopping, Minor Oriental style’. I long ago learnt to gesticulate like a wailing Arab without losing face and although I can obtain a bargain when I want, I just find the whole experience tiresome and trite. And even if my hirsuteness allows me to blend into the average Istanbul streetscape, every shop owner in Eminönü can pick me for the yabancı foreigner that I am so it’s harder to commence with a fair price. Clearly, these people know something.

Soon enough it was time to see Simone off to less polluted skies. I was left alone in this enormous city and suddenly, I hated my job. My students were wonderful, I got along well with the majority of my colleagues. However I found unbearable the infantile lies and deceitful behaviour of the Director of Studies, an unqualified mental wreck whose working hours consisted in cementing everyone’s opinion of him as a Class A jerk. An expert in the super-paranoid, he would spend his day imagining then extrapolating conspiracy theories, of those he imagined plotting against him in his unloved position of power. The man (and I use that term in it broadest possible sense) preferred laminating pretty pictures to doing actual work and sincerely believed that by dressing in a suit all who approached him would be blown away by such professionalism. This was The English Centre, a sole proprietary business employing twenty-odd souls and paying a pittance, not Microsoft & Co.

Özkan, Kuzey and me at the Arap Camii

Employees at The English Centre were generally well-travelled, slightly jaded yet humorous misfits, most of us roaming the world because of our inability on some level or another to live a worthwhile life in our respective home countries. We weren’t career-driven people who longed for meetings, carried business cards or talked about the latest in communication technology. We worked and expected to get paid. Slowly it dawned that the pay was coming late, then in dribs and drabs, then not at all. Well, I needed money to survive in this city so I gave my month’s notice as per contractual requirements, and went on my way.

At first my requests for the two months owed in pay were politely refused. Time and time again my request for monies came to nothing, citing some facile reason or another dreamt up on the spur of the moment. Sure, I understood they didn’t have the money. So why not treat me like an adult and tell me the truth? Why the lies? My blood boiled quickly after that and despite many more visits to the office and telephone calls to the same it was clear that The English Centre wasn’t about to meet its financial obligations.

One night in late November, a full five months since my departure, I climbed the steps to my ex-employer’s office to request money, even more determined this time as I’d discovered my flatmate, also an ex-employee, had managed to get her monies owed that very day.

Ahmet Bey wasn’t about to cough up. One of the least attractive parts of the work culture in this part of the world is that high unemployment, together with a strict hierarchical organisational system, and some sad leftover from the Ottoman era about unquestioning sycophantic respect for the boss fuse to create an ambience not conducive to negotiation. My boss knew he held all the cards and simply refused to cough up the cash.

What his cards couldn’t tell him was that old age has made me more philosophical about money, that my upbringing has ensured a ongoing healthy disrespect for any supposed male role model, that as a native speaker of Australian English I possess a unsurpassed back-catalogue of award-winning expletives, and that quite frankly, I’d had enough.

I know that the word f*** is in poor taste, and that my mother would cringe if she were to hear me use it. That such a word ought be used, if not at all, then sparingly. Here was the perfect moment to show, as a competent teacher, the use of the word in all functions of speech. As noun, adjective and adverb, in every tense, mode and aspect that I could possible utter, I propelled a string of the vernacular that ended with the impolite suggestion that he roll the monies owed into a cylindrical form and insert the aforesaid package deeply and with great force into his rectum. I felt great, my neck muscles de-tensed and I walked out of the office feeling relieved and comforted, not of course before shouting the foulest word in Turkish I know, dallama. Reasonably effective. I shut the office door quietly and moved on.

Now, I know there are people who believe that expressing anger is a bad thing to do, that anger begets anger and that I should have dealt with the situation another way. I know several long term friends who will just sigh when they read this and know that in many ways I still remain, psychologically speaking, a child. Well, your ideas are rubbish and clearly, you know nothing.

'Kids, please, listen for just a moment... you're going to need... '
Yet again my words of wisdom fall on deaf ears.

So, yes, in the meantime I found a new job.

I’m now teaching in a private school, located about twenty kilometres from the centre of town in a newly constucted affluent neighbourhood of Lego-inspired compounds abounding in oversized abodes and sleek imported luxury vehicles. My students possess PSPs, nano-pods, and mobile phones that would cost me a month’s salary. They go skiing at Les Trois Vallées and wander through Nike Town on Fifth Avenue during school holidays. Every one of them has visited EuroDisneyland. They have maids to clean and cook and drivers to whisk them to and from school. Yes, they are spoiled, but since they’re children they remain for the time being, adorable. They still possess a wonder of the world and have that particular Turkish affection for their teachers which I lap up without hesitation.

The little angels on a day out with Mr Heywood.

It’s a hugely rewarding time for me as I struggle in my new career. I’ve always believed in the value of education and its ability to make the world a truly better place. New experiences are vital to a better understanding of those around us. A good education promotes tolerance and provides a child with the tools to find happiness and ultimately fulfilment in a world otherwise obsessed with careers, money and youth. Whether or not I’m imparting knowledge that will assist my students in the right direction, well, it’s too early to tell. However, I enjoy what I do and to be honest I’m gaining as much from my students as they are from me, not something I’d anticipated in my remuneration package.

Each morning at six o’clock I awake for the shower-shave-shirt-and-tie ritual that sees me waiting by seven outside the Marmara Hotel for the driver who takes me to school. Classes start at half eight and continue until three thirty, just like at home. I’m currently entrusted to 6^th and 7^th grades, corresponding roughly to twelve and thirteen years of age. I’ve always been well organised so lesson plans are done in advance and I’m usually prepared for any unforeseen glitches in the day.

Another meeting from Hell

Alas, I never counted on so many meetings. Now, I know there are amongst you those who are also obliged to participate, actively or passively, in modern society’s greatest ill, the after-work meeting. I empathise. No word in any linguistic treasure chest expresses my feelings of aversion to the agenda, the PowerPoint display, and the inventor of the wireless microphone. The combination of these three elements is almost enough to produce an embolism and I often find myself harking back to days of yore, when boring someone to death was a crime punishable by flaying or disembowelment. For me, meetings are the perfect examples of how not to teach. Imagine standing in front of your students and talking at, not to them, for one and a half hours sans interruption. I fail to grasp how modern teaching methodology that has long since moved away from chalk-and-board and copy-this-down-into-your-notebook techniques still produces teachers who, microphone in hand, become monotonous and wearisome in the extreme, making me want to commit heinous crimes. Clearly, these people know nothing.

So I’m getting paid and loving my new job and thinking that after all these years I’ve found something that I’m actually pretty good and that might actually hold my interest for longer than two years. We shall see.

Also, I’ve moved from the bohemian and groovy part of town, Tünel, to Cihangir, the neighbourhood of actors, foreigners and people who prefer not to be mugged on a frequent basis. My view has altered from that of an austere Aya Sophia and delicate architecture of Topkapi Palace to the overwrought and baroque ice-cream monolith of Dolmabahçe Palace, a spectacular testament to a dying Empire with little other to do than build outlandish edifices for pointless aristocrats. Cihangir has a fine mosque which sits only a few metres from Majella’s and my balcony. The call to prayer floats into the house five times a day, though I’m rarely about to hear it.

The ezan blares out across Istanbul, and for that matter, across cities stretching from Rabat to Yogjakarta five times a day, every day of the year. It reminds the practising and the faithful to pay their respects to Allah. It’s a sound that reminds me of fabulous moments spent in many Muslim countries, and to boot, it often acts as an alarm call in the morning. Handy.

Majella above, Nihal to the right, and Orlando below.

Anyway, Majella and I started living together and working together but after a week we both tired of that so it was off to Ireland for her to stock up on duty-free gin while I grabbed the opportunity to take a break from hectic Istanbul and visit the tranquil Italian city of Naples.

Ten years between visits had clearly dulled my memory. Though no Italian and by extension no Italian city could be considered quiet, Naples is a locale that positively bursts with life and energy and noise. Orlando was born under Mt Vesuvius and within him lies approximately the same amount of energy as was released during the eruption that destroyed Pompei and Herculaneum all those years ago. Orlando kept me laughing, walking, dancing, sunbathing, gossiping, discussing and eating in the company of his friends Loredana and Franco. He even made me cry, which is no mean feat. I visited the Museo Archeologico, the excavations at Pompei, the fabulously lemon-scented town of Sorrento, and scoured the cities, streets, and alleyways from La Merghellina to Spaccanapoli, stopping to eat gelato, cornetti and every other baker's delight that had been denied me in Istanbul – metropolis of baklava and too many things dripping in sugary syrup. Napoli was heaven.

Back home I unpacked then repacked my bags pronto to spend a few days in the south of Turkey with Uğur, Serkan and Ercan. For the first time in my life I was booked on a package holiday. With a large amount of trepidation I entered the Green Lake Holiday Village and wondered whether in fact I was about to spend the next five days in what would be considered my personal vision of holiday hell.

Serkan, Uğur and Ercan relaxing in Gündoğan.

Hundreds of Roman-roofed villas strained under blossoming bougainvillea and other assorted things that flower prodigiously in pleasant climates. I could hear water slides in the distance and people chinking champagne glasses. Slavic persons were hauling oversized suitcases in undersized swimwear. Let me tell you, the sight of a fifty year old Russian ex-schoolmistress scraping her Louis Vuitton across faux-Paris paving, two pieces of orange twine stretched across her frame masquerading as a bikini… well, it wasn’t pretty. Her high heels offered no shock absorption and for a moment I felt she was in danger of blinding herself permanently should any part of her ample bosom escape.

Check-in was another hour spent among the riff raff of the Ex-Soviet Republics. Can’t say I enjoyed it immensely until I remembered how much John Waters has brought to my life. My way to get through the next five days was to imagine myself starring in one of his movies – an easy feat considering props and cast were already on-site.

To be fair, most of the above about the Slavs is nonsense. I made it up because I was on a roll, it’s late at night and I’m in need of a break. Back in a moment.

Right. Package holiday. I adored it. For five days I paddled the warm waters of the Mediterranean, feasted on seafood and lazed on a deckchair lapping up every last carcinogenic ray. And in that time my Turkish improved dramatically, as did my suntan (see photo).

Me with most excellent shorts and tan.

Most of you know something of my paltry attempts to achieve fluency in the planet’s foremost Altaic tongue. I landed in September 2005 and by November spoke considerable Taxi-and-Restaurant Turkish. By January 2006 I could speak like a two year old child but then reached a plateau where I dawdled aimlessly for the following months. No amount of study eased my pain and I never thought I’d truly master the art of talking backwards, what Turkish is all about. If you take an English sentence, reverse the order of the words and then join them together for utterance in a single outburst, you are probably speaking fluent Turkish.

Learning French and by association Spanish and Italian, is simply cheating. Porte, puerta and portello are clearly the same thing. Kapı is not. Ouvrez la porte, abra la puerta and apra il portello don’t ring a bell with kapıyı aç. I’m having a lot of difficulty.

Serkan and Ercan spoke little or no English and Uğur patiently acted as translator for a number of days. Luckily childish humour requires no decoding and all four of us enjoyed each other’s company while poolside or on waterslides. I put on four kilograms because I ate like a Russian ex-schoolmistress.

The days flew faster than the overnight bus journey back to Turkey’s foremost city. Arriving tired but sated I swung into work. I returned to school and to my private students.

A personal favourite - blending in perfectly to the surroundings.

The latter part of the year went by in a blur. I was balancing a full time job at the school, eight private students over six evenings, Turkish lessons and my new found passion for Play Station. Especially Lego Star Wars – very cool. My pirate DVD collection trebled in a matter of weeks, my book collection overflowed its shelves and suddenly I felt middle-aged. I remember one night looking up sadly from my Ikea sheets to glance my backpack sitting forlornly at the top of my cupboard. Allah, my life had stability, something I’ve resisted since time immemorial. The routine started to get me down and by the end of November I was climbing the walls with despair. For the very first time in my life I sunk into what I thought was depression. Melodramatic maybe, but I was hugely miserable. I’m having massive issues with the absence of concrete achievements in my life. Christ, is this what middle age is all about? Clearly, I am missing something.

Still, Özkan and I flew to London to celebrate New Year, so that kept me happy for a while. It was six years since my last trip to the fabulous English capital and open spaces, green parks, clean air and wide streets were the perfect antidote to my ravaged state of mind. I zoomed about Assyrian exhibits in the British Museum, nosed through tomes in the National Library, bored my mate stupid on Caravaggio in the National Galley. I wandered through Covent Garden, down Drury Lane and Baker Street. London is place that could never feel like home but that, as an Australian, I have to be jealous of. It is without a doubt, the world’s best international city. There is nothing that can’t be found here, no language that isn't spoken on the street, no food that can’t be sampled and perhaps the only race of people I didn’t see in four days were members of Masai tribe. London is world-class.

With only twenty days of school to teach before the next break, I set about planning another trip. And yesterday I returned home after a few days in what is the city without peers – Paris.

Paris, but you didn't need a caption to tell you that.

Seriously, I could bore you even further with my love affair for La Ville des Lumières, and will. It’s been a decade since I left this place that I once called home. I missed it for a long time, then accepted it as being out of my league. Paris, more than any other place on Earth has shaped for better and worse the person I am today. The people I met inspired me, the museums, art, cafes, book stores, and cityscapes have ensured that no matter what happens to me in life, I’ve already seen the best.

If there’s one place on Earth you should visit before you die, this is it.

The highlight of the trip was running into Joël on the street, a friend I lost contact with years ago and with whom I passed hours drinking coffee and watching the world go by. We strolled along the Grands Boulevards and slunk about the medieval remains of Le Marais, all the while scoffing on croissants aux amandes and wishing I had never left this place. I overdosed on art in the big museums, climbed the Arc de Triomphe and purchased a number of Turkish grammar books, knowing well I’ll always speak French better than I will Turkish.

Returning to France was like coming full circle. In the last decade I’ve visited twenty other countries, travelled tens of thousands of kilometres in planes, trains, buses and automobiles, and generally had a very good time. It worries me that I have no home of my own or a pension plan in place, I still live from one pay check to the next and waste all my money on guide books and language references. I’m single, as per usual.

Nick, Kuzey, Özkan, Lieve, Josephine, random child selected from crowd and me at Eyüp.

Still, between Paris then and Paris now I’ve done a bit. I’ve sipped tea on a lost island off the south coast of Bangladesh, been drugged and robbed in Thailand, held my breath at the wonder of Angkor Wat and spent time with the kids in Mahaballipuram. Iran proved to me once and forever the arbitrariness and bias of the Western media, and Pakistanis will remain forever the most hospitable people on Earth. I’ve held my first Kalashnikov, cross the Howrah bridge on foot and scared myself stupid in the border town of Peshawar. I’ve travelled the road to Santiago de Compostella, built a few Spanish castles in the sky and seen a million cherubs smiling down from cupolas of a thousand Italian churches. I’ve spent hours upon hours in the world's best museums, hours upon hours attempting to communicate with strangers with whom I could say very little but who offered me limitless friendship. I’ve waited for decades on train platforms, in passport control queues and in front of automatic ticket machines. I’ve been treated with respect by total strangers in countries that our governments would classify as hostile and inferior and I once spent a very long afternoon stuck in a hammock with two lizards and a coconut filled with white rum. I’ve danced at the full moon party on Kho Samui, dined with pilgrims in the Baluchistan desert and vomited from my seat on a camel in Rajasthan, without losing my balance. Clearly, I want to see more.

Right, I’ve dived into tawdry nostalgia. Sickening. For those of you who arrived this far, congratulations. Be good to yourself, your loved ones and those you encounter on the street. Lastly, remember that not all Muslims are tea-towel wearing fundamentalists as the Sydney Morning Herald would have you believe. I’ve been keeping up to date with the news in Australia and I’m not very impressed.

Take care.