Thankfully, my employers take care of all the paperwork required for my residency permit. The only thing I have to do is sign on a few dotted lines and go to the police station a few times. If I actually had to set up my own appointments at the police station and figure out all…
About a week ago, I was taking the metro, on my way to my Turkish lessons after work. I had been conversing with another teacher about other cities we’d like to live in, or maybe we were talking about places we’d like to go for our Bayram holidays, I’m not sure. For whatever reason, I’d…
There are lots of blogs out there, and I’ve also seen youtube channels, where people put up artsy photos of meals they create. Their recipes. Things that look appetizing, must smell pleasing, and, I would imagine, must dance across your palate. I know a number of people who really enjoy cooking, can create quite pleasant…
That weekend in Edirne stirred up memories from two different weekends in Bratislava. Oh, Howard trips to Bratislava. Considering my two trips there, why do I think of that city fondly? My first trip to Bratislava was in the fall of 2004. Dad and I were shaking in our boots before going to Edirne, fearful…
I’d been disappointed that my dad wouldn’t be able to visit me, but with one week’s notice, he told me that he’d found a way. He’d be here in a week for a week. He scrambled to get things in order on his end, and I scrambled to get my life in order over here…
“It is getting toward dinner time and people are straggling back to their rooms with that weary, dejected air which comes from earning a living honestly.” Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer I made an error when I thought I’d be teaching in Beyoglu. The university where I teach does have a location near Taksim, but…
The school I will be working for is in the Beyoglu district of Istanbul, and is very close to Taksim square. Taksim and Beyoglu are the heart of modern Istanbul, and this is where I now find myself. Taksim is a huge transportation hub, and the busy square is surrounded on all sides by restaurants,…
Then there are the dogs, mentioned by every Western traveler to pass through Istanbul during the nineteenth century, from Lamartine and Gerard de Nerval to Mark Twain; they continue to bring drama to the city’s streets. They all look alike, their coats all the same color for which no one has a name – a…
While walking through Sultanahment on my way to see Omer, my buddy who worked in the hostel I stayed in last fall, and whom I ran into by circumstance when walking past a new hostel he’s working in this past spring, I had an odd conversation about gerunds. I was walking down the main touristy…
Just about a year ago, I went camping a few weeks before I departed for my three month stint of traveling through the Balkans. I remember that weekend really giving Joni Mitchell’s Hejira a good listening, and was really struck by the mood of the album. She said of it: “I wrote the album while…