The nights are now mild enough for me to wear my 'shalwar qamiz' as pyjamas. I bought them in Lahore at the end of last year. What reaction would I receive if I wore them on the Turkish street?
Last night I walked to Peter's place to watch Australia play Sri Lanka in the Cricket World Cup final live from Bridgetown, Barbados. Also watching, and learning the sport's rules at the same time, was Darryl from Canada, another expat resident of Mersin.
Despite a delayed start due to rain, the game made good watching, with Adam Gilchrist smashing the cricket ball all around the place and the Sri Lankans giving the run chase their best shot. I left once the Aussies were close to victory. This meant I missed the farcical finish.
Peter loves his meat pies so last night wife Cansin made the closest Turkish equivalent, a delicious "kiymali borek" (mince meat pastry).
The traditional accompaniment to an Australian meat pie is tomato sauce/ketchup. Peter didn't just squirt the ketchup on top but carefully crafted a work of art:
Note for Turkish readers: the "OZ" on the artwork above is short for Australia and not the Turkish word of similar spelling.
Following are the SMS messages I've saved on my mobile phone for various reasons. Note: I've kept the spelling and formatting exactly as typed in the SMS except for the bolding.
2002-11-04:
YO BROKE MY HEART JOE..WHY DID YOU GIVE UP SENDING E-MAIL ME?WHEN ARE YO GOING TO GOING BACK YOUR COUNTRY?DON'T FORGET THIS:YOU BROLE MY HEART..
- from a girl at a Mersin school I visited for work. I must have been one of her first ever secret crushes - I certainly didn't know about it. Ah, the innocence...
2003-11-01:
Hi¿o€!while i was thinking smth ,i thought that u are very kind-hearthed suddenly it occured to my mind when i was tried to sleep,i wanted say it;>
- from another girl whose school I visited around the same time as the previous one. Warms the cockles of one's heart...
2004-04-23:
" A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words " i just wanna share it,I lowe this words
- from a third former Mersin high school girl and a friend of the previous SMS sender.
2004-09-15:
YES!YES!YES!!!IT'S TRADITIONAL 2 B UNHAPPY ON TURKISH WEDDINGS!! >:-(( (I have 2 find something with australian boys>:-) do u like the oil?
- A newly wedded Turkish friend sometime after I had explained to her that, by tradition, a Turkish bride should be sad on her wedding day as she is being taken away from her family to join her husband's.
2006-07-21:
You should be a journalist!
- so wrote the Age's Europe correspondent James Button when he was in Mersin for the Lebanese refugee crisis.
I'm surprised and gladdened to read that loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) are now nesting on Mezitli beach, just a short distance down the coast from Mersin.
I would have thought Mezitli was too polluted by the untreated sewage flow that blights Mersin's bay. Indeed, when I used to live at Mezitli, few people swam there because of the pollution.
When I next go to Mezitli I will keep my eyes peeled for the turtles. Besides birds, there is very little evidence of wildlife around Mersin.
When Dafne and Levent visited Mersin from Gaziantep back in February we had to go to the beach. Dafne comes from the Colombian coast and, living in landlocked Gaziantep, she was missing the beach.
I took them to the beach near Soli, just west of Mersin. There, the setting sun provided fantastic light for photography. The following photo of my boss's Volkswagen Beetle shot on location is the favourite photo I've taken so far in 2007.
The light and backdrop help turn an average, old car into a beautiful, superb machine.
Marga, my Grandmother on Mum's side turned 80 on Friday. To celebrate, her family had a birthday party at the Ceduna Sailing Club on Thursday evening. Unfortunately, I couldn't go. Instead, I produced and sent the following video tribute to Marga. I hope you enjoy it.
Readers may have noticed several changes to the website design recently. I've moved the left column to the far right, removed some of the links from individual post and archive pages and added Amazon, AllPosters and Google Adsense advertisements.
The main reason for making to these changes is to try and monetize the traffic I receive. Currently this website has been receiving over 200(!) unique visitors per day. Most visitors find my website via Google image search results and then leave, using lots of my bandwidth in the interim.
My aim is to optimise the pages to maximise the revenue from random visitors without making the adverts too obtrusive for regular readers. I welcome and will listen to any feedback concerning either the blog design, content, layout or adverts. The more specific the feedback the better.
I plan several further changes to this blog and will be implementing them incrementally. Any thoughts or suggestions?
In 2 days I've received 2 emails from friends who have added me as a friend on the social networking website Facebook. This is 2 more Facebook emails than I've received in my previous 10,000 days.
The emails go as such:
I've added you as a friend on Facebook...
Hi Joe,
I've requested to add you as a friend on Facebook. You can use Facebook to see the profiles of the people around you, share photos, and connect with friends. Now everyone can join Facebook, even if you couldn't before.
If you have used Facebook, what are your thoughts on it?
- Toroslar Belediyesi, one of the 3 local suburban Mersin councils painted a 4,500 square metre flag on the side of a hill overlooking Mersin. As this editorial concludes, the flag was a piece of self-promotion. Unfortunately, all levels of government waste far too much money promoting themselves at the expense of decent services.
The flag in question
- Plans for a ski resort at Karbogazi in the Gulek region of Tarsus, Mersin Province were made.
- Today's Zaman, a new English language daily newspaper began publication in Turkey.
- Hrank Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, was shot dead in Istanbul. This incident shook the whole country. Here is an editorial surrounding the incident I largely agree with.
- An American basketballer, Nikki Blue, shared her experiences living in and playing for Mersin
- I went to the Adana races with Peter. This was my first ever day at a Turkish race meeting. I didn't win any bets.
- Vodafone has quickly taken over Telsim's name after purchasing the mobile phone service provider.
- After seemingly years under construction, the multi-storey Marina Vista Shopping Centre opened in Mersin. Located next to Burger King and adjacent to the yacht harbour, Marina Vista is in a very good position. The centre was opened prematurely with most of the spaces then still vacant. That is slowly changing. The top floor has a 4-screen cinema and below that is a food hall including a McDonald's restaurant. McDonald's has not had a Mersin presence for 3 or 4 years. When I first came here there were two restaurants, including one I went to for my second ever Turkish date (she chose the venue).
Hani and Mahwish's second wedding reception was held at the Pearl Continental Hotel, Karachi, two days after the first reception. As with tradition, this second wedding dinner was hosted by the Groom's (Hani's) family, in effect, as a thank you to the Bride's (Mahwish's) family for granting her hand in marriage.
Finally, I'm posting the photos from brilliant couple Hani and Mahwish's wedding receptions in Karachi. Hani and Mahwish have already returned to Pakistan after their honeymoon in Australia!
As with tradition, Groom Hani and Bride Mahwish had two wedding receptions. The first one, held in a large marquee, was hosted by Mahwish's family. This was the more important reception as Mahwish's family was, in effect, giving her away to Hani.
Although the receptions were very formal events with no singing or dancing, the traditional suits and dresses made the event very colourful. Many of the females also sported intricate henna tattos on their hands and feet.
The food was open-buffet style. There is almost always heaps of food left over as the hosts cater for everybody invited to the wedding, often several hundred people, despite the fact that lots of people do not turn up.
Winter is wedding season in Pakistan and locals have to plan their schedule carefully as with so many weddings occuring at the same time, with several events per wedding, clashes between events inevitably occur.
Arriving to the event
On the stage
Siblings Huda, Hadi and Hani along with Mahwish and her sister
A beaming Mahwish in her stunning wedding dress
'Guarding' the wedding couple
With Hani's parents
The reception marquee
Huda's hennaed hands
Surrounded by Hani's friends
Sampling the wedding cake. Note: although the wedding cake looks like a traditional 'Western' wedding fruit cake, it was in fact a delicious chocolate cake.
I'm in Alexandroupoli for a short visit from Istanbul. Last night I stayed in Hotel Erika, not a bad hotel although its free wifi access was not operating, much to my annoyance (I'm in an internet cafe at the moment).
This is my first ever time to Greece. From the little I have seen, it shares many similarities with Turkey, as expected.
Some of the differences between Turkey and Greece I have observed (not 'facts', but generalised perceptions) are:
- Greece is slightly more religious. Many of the Greek flag poles have crosses on top of them, there are many small shrines on the sides of the road and every second TV channel seems to feature a Greek Orthodox priest.
- There is much more pork! I've stocked up on bacon, ham and salami.
- There seems less differences between men and women in Greece
- The average standard of living is higher here
- The alphabet and language are different - It is difficult not being able to understand and express myself as much here, although on the whole more people speak English.
- Prices are on the whole about 1&1/2 times to double those in Turkey
- The cafe/bar culture is much bigger
- Based on a tiny sample size of one, I think the Greek 'yiros' is better than the Turkish 'doner'
I hope to visit Greece again in the future, see more of the sights and try more food and drinks.
Today I will go back across the border and eventually arrive to Ankara tomorrow in preparation for a fair on Thursday.
ADDENDUM: I forgot to mention a few things when I originally wrote this post:
- I found out the reason why the Greek yiros tasted better than the Turkish doner: the yiros was made of pork! When I found this out from the woman at the restaurant I bought a second yiros along with the pork sausage I originally intended on buying.
- Alcohol in the Greece is much, much cheaper than in Turkey. The supermarket prices are only slightly above those in the duty-free shops at the border.
- Easter was coming up in Greece. This may have been why there were so many Greek Orthodox priests on television. I did buy some Easter eggs to bring back to Turkey.
- In Greece there were outdoor cigarette advertisements. These are banned in Turkey.
, just west of Mersin. There, the setting sun provided fantastic light for photography. The following photo of my boss's Volkswagen Beetle shot on location is the favourite photo I've taken so far in 2007.
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