Monthly Archive: April, 2013

Time to leave the loop.

If Istanbul struck me immediately as awesome, Antalya is just the opposite. Within a few minutes of arriving in the giant bus station I wanted to leave again, and the rest of the… Continue reading

Let’s get lost until we bleed

The hostel in Fethiye was full, but they let me sleep on one of the hookah-smoking platforms on the covered terrace for half the price, so I woke to a view over the… Continue reading

Grandpa for the day

When we got to Aydin, the driver of the dolmuş shuttle bus gestured me to go with an older Turkish man who was also headed to Fethiye, and could show me where to… Continue reading

Zeus is just the beginning.

Today was a beautiful day for love at first sight, and then heartbreak. I took a local shuttle bus, a “dolmuş” in Turkish, to The Cave of Zeus, (one of three hereabouts) named… Continue reading

I enjoy being abandoned on the side of a highway in a foreign land.

I woke up on the side of a warm highway, somewhere in Turkey. My bus was getting smaller in one direction, while from the other a tractor was approaching with more noise than… Continue reading

Shock and awe

I’ve reached saturation point. I can’t take any more. I am in stunning-mosque shock, have had all the beautiful Istanbul views I can handle…and I feel like a toy with the battery taken… Continue reading

Istanbul makes a man out of me

It was K who noticed the barber shop. “Did you want a haircut?” My head felt like a chia pet left untended somewhere with plenty of water and sunlight, and it was speeding… Continue reading

“I” is for Impressive, I am for Istanbul.

I’m not sure when the last time was that a city struck me so quickly, so strongly, so impressively as Istanbul has done. We’ve only been here two days, but it is rapidly… Continue reading

It’s all ending; it’s all beginning.

On the night I left for Nicaragua, a year and a week ago exactly, I took a moment on the drive to the airport to take my hands off the wheel (the road… Continue reading

Walking in the world, Brussels, Belgium.

They spoke Dutch when I got on the train and French when I got off, though the ads were always English.   Brussels North Station is next to the Red Light District and… Continue reading