Letter 12

When we tried to check out of the caravan park we found ourselves with a problem. Alicja tried to pay the man at reception but he told her that he wouldn't accept our money and stamp our receipt until we could prove that we'd exchanged enough money to pay for our stay. Of course, we'd exchanged most of our money on the black market and didn't have enough official receipts to cover the amount we now owed. I offered to pay a bribe in dollars but the man said that this wasn't the problem. He said that he'd be in trouble when, at the Turkish border, we showed his caravan park receipt and didn't have enough exchange receipts to cover it - he wasn't allowed to put his official stamp on a receipt without first checking that enough money had been exchanged in a state controlled exchange office.

We didn't want to exchange any more money into Bulgarian Leva because we already had too much and there was nothing in the shops to spend it on. But there was nothing for it, we'd have to exchange more or face the fines at the border. When we found the exchange bureau all the man behind the counter was interested in, was trying to get us to change dollars with him on the black market - this was the officially appointed government exchange man trying to persuade us to commit an illegal act. I asked him if he would care to do the black market deal in reverse I.e. I'd sell him Leva at a favourable rate in return for dollars but he wasn't at all interested.

We had queued for well over an hour at the exchange bureau and while we were there, people were queuing up at reception waiting to get out of the place but they wouldn't serve them until we were finished with. I thought we would be terribly unpopular with the people in the queue but they were so used to this sort of thing that they didn't bat an eyelid. The staff was, of course, bone idle, and could have served other people in line behind us while waiting for us to return from the exchange bureau but they were working within their job specifications.

It was a short trip to the Turkish border but before crossing into Turkey we wanted to spend our excess Bulgarian money so we stopped at the last town before the border but there was nothing to spend it on. All the shops had empty shelves and the only shop with anything at all interesting had a sign in the window saying that the shop assistant was in hospital. We found a hardware store in the back streets and bought eight electric hair curlers and a hammock, which we didn't want, but the only other choices in the shop were galvanised milking buckets scythes and rat traps.

At the border was a line of cars about 20 long and it looked as though we were in for a wait so the kettle went straight onto the stove and I grabbed a book. Soon afterwards, we got talking to some Poles who had been there for two hours and said that no cars had passed through the checkpoint while they had been there, so we wandered up to the front to have a look and found half a dozen border guards and customs officers just sitting around smoking. They were just being lazy and the Poles who did this trip every year, told us that you just have to wait until they feel like working. It might be an hour or it might be four hours depending on how they felt or when their card game finished. The border crossing we were at is called Malko Tarnovo and, because of it's location, is seldom used by Westerners. Hence, the service is much worse than on transit routes where there are hard currency bribes to be had.

Waiting at borders didn't concern us much anymore, we had no appointments to keep and could eat and sleep, read and listen to music in comfort. The computer, being 12 volt worked from the van battery and when we were held up at border crossings I would often sit and type notes for this book. It took a little over 2 hours before we saw any action at the crossing and only then because six truckloads of "Turkish Bulgarians" who were being expelled from the country, arrived. This meant that the border officials had work to do so they told us to get going. They didn't check anything at all.

The so called Turkish Bulgarians were being expelled because the Bulgarian government needed a scapegoat to explain it's ailing economy. It had announced that the Turkish minority were a drain on the country's resources and that they were largely responsible for the country's poverty. Suddenly this minority found that they had no jobs but could get passports to leave the country and an exodous was underway.

These people had been classified as a Turkish minority by the Bulgarian government but in effect they could hardly have been called Turkish. The only thing they had in common with the Turks was the Muslim religion. They didn't even speak Turkish because their ancestors had been in Bulgaria for four hundred years. Now, as refugees, they presented a pitiful sight, arriving at the border in tip trucks overflowing with their belongings hastily thrown in the back. Everything they owned, beds, wardrobes, sawbenches, farming tools were in the trucks and once they reached the border they had to unload it themselves and carry it across to the Turkish side.

Many of them are old and their sons hadn't been able to come with them because they were in the Bulgarian army which wouldn't let them go. We saw old men and women carrying wardrobes and other heavy loads across the no- mans land between the borders without any assistance at all from the Bulgarians. On the other side were the Turkish soldiers beckoning and shouting encouragement to them saying -come on, you can make it, don't give up. One old man with a wardrobe on his back sank to his knees only twenty or thirty metres from the line and his wife dropped what she was carrying and tried to lift the wardrobe to give him some relief. She could manage no more than to lift it enough for him to extricate himself from under it and they left it there in no mans land, picked up her bags and continued walking.

The soldiers couldn't step across the border to help them, all they could do was to shout words of encouragement to them. Once the refugees stepped onto Turkish territory there were dozens of strong young men to relieve them of their loads and I could hear them trying to communicate with each other. It was obvious that the two languages were totally different and that to classify the people streaming across the border as Turkish, was simply wrong. We were parked out side the customs office on the Turkish side and before going inside I couldn't help but notice the immediate difference between communism and capitalism.

On one side of the border were ugly looking grey trucks on their last legs and a bunch of miserable looking border guards watching old people bent double under heavy loads of furniture. On the other side were gaudily painted new Mercedes and British Leylands and a bunch of smartly dressed soldiers shouting encouragement. When we finally got to the Turkish side there was a do it yourself passport and immigration office, by which I mean that instead of coming to your car and taking the documents from you as they usually do everywhere else, they told everyone to park and go into a building where you fill out a form each and queue up at a counter to get the forms stamped. It was incredibly confusing what with people standing in the wrong line because they couldn't understand the signs and officials getting angry because of it, the whole thing took over an hour. This was a border post seldom used by Westerners but normally by the eastern bloc people, those lucky enough to have obtained passports that is.

We went into an office to see the customs man about bringing the car into Turkey on a permanent basis and Alicja noticed a sign in Polish on the wall which said "no camping or stopping within 200km of the border". She mentioned it to me because we were looking for somewhere to stop and get some sleep and she was overheard by the officer who said "don't worry, that doesn't apply to you, only to Polish people because they come here to sell things and they want to sell at the first village and go back to Poland to spend the money. This makes it a bit more difficult for them", I guess that this way, they at least have to buy some Turkish petrol. For the next two hours as we drove into Turkey we saw many truckloads of refugees and their belongings and at a couple of points there were lines of white conical tents with the Turkish flag painted on them in which the refugees were temporarily housed. The country changed after 50 kilometres or so and became drier with outcrops of rock all over the place in stark contrast to the areas close to both sides of the border which had been well watered forest country.

There wasn't much sign of habitation, just the odd mud brick house with a thatched roof, the inhabitants obviously not too well off and there were people riding donkeys with elaborately woven saddle bags. A bit further on, the first village hove into view just as dusk was descending and as we drove through it we suddenly realized that after a long trip, we were in civilization again. There were men sitting at tables drinking coffee and watching the traffic go by and what's more they were sitting under electric lights and not only that but nothing was painted grey. The roadside vegetable stalls were still open and we could see bananas, peaches, aubergines, carrots, grapes and all sorts of things we had forgotten about, and there were some signs advertising washing powder and Fanta and toothpaste and stuff. This may not seem big deal to you but you've no idea the effect it had on us, just the thought that we could walk into a shop and buy something.

Then we decided that we would really lash out and we spent the night in a cheap hotel with a bath at the first town we came to. It was a town of I'd say 30,000 population and they were having their annual festival that week and the place was all decked out in coloured lights and full of traffic. We drove around looking for a parking spot and found a place at the back of a hotel and as we were locking up, a soldier stepped out of the shadows with a rifle in his hand which at first sight had us worried but he gave us a broad smile and indicated that it was OK to park there.

So, with the military looking after Raelene we set out to look for a meal, moving very slowly down the street looking in all the shop windows at the clothes, washing machines and all the consumer goods we hadn't seen for so long. I never ever thought I would miss advertising, in fact it's one of my pet hates in the western world but it sure was good to see all that colour. As we passed a small restaurant, one of many, the proprietor came running out to entice us in, telling us which dishes he had and that everything was fresh today. He sold us and we went in. It was such a contrast to have someone try to sell us something, it just doesn't happen in the communist world where nobody gives a stuff if you buy the governments products or not. This guy was literally running up and down the restaurant giving good old fashioned service and he saw to it that all his clients weren't kept waiting for anything. Give me capitalism any day. We had a delicious meal with tastes we hadn't experienced since March when we last went into the Turkish restaurant which our friends have in Melbourne and it cost something like $6 for the two of us. With full bellies we staggered out onto the pavement and walked up and down the town twice just to make sure that it was all real.

There were people with tubs of boiling water on wheels pedaling along the streets selling sweet corn and others with charcoal grills selling toasted corn and there were all manner of things to eat being sold by these peddlers with little gas lights swinging above their wares. There was pop music coming out of the radio and record shops and a couple of illuminated mosques to look at and the whole thing had an air of excitement about it. We found a hotel for $15 for the night in a room on the fourth floor and out of the window we could see a party going on in the open air, they were playing traditional Turkish music which wasn't too easy on the ear but it was great to watch it all happening. They had a string of coloured lights under a palm tree and tables full of food and on the other side of the wall were the chickens, pigs and the donkey all walking about probably unable to sleep at this late hour because of the music and in the background was an illuminated minaret. It all seemed strange after what we'd seen of late but it also had an air of normality which had been missing in the places we have been lately.

In the morning we awoke to the wail of the muezzin, he's the man who calls the people to prayer from the top of the minaret and I opened the window to hear it more clearly only to find that it was a tape recorded message and there were four loudspeakers on the minaret. We left the hotel and went in search of breakfast which we found in a lovely neat and clean lokanta and I saw some of the locals consuming this porridge looking stuff so I thought I'd do as the Romans do and try some. The first problem was the language, I couldn't communicate with the waiter. In most places we've been we have been able to get by with Alicjas Polish and a few German words which are close to English but here the language is totally and utterly unlike any tongue I'd ever heard. And I say that bearing in mind that we have had a few Turkish lessons while living in Australia.

This wasn't a tourist town where most people know some English but to cut a long story short I got my porridge. And as most of you will know, my tastes are very cosmopolitan when it comes to food but this stuff was revolting. I think it was mutton soup and the guy who dished it up went to great pains to see that I got a spoonful of the fat which floated on top and appeared to be a delicacy. It stuck to the roof of the mouth or in my particular case the plastic of my false teeth pallet and I'd be hard pushed to say what it tasted like but I guess pterodactyl piss comes close to it. I just had to be rude and spit it out whilst grabbing for the water jug. I've since described this stuff to our Turkish friends but they can't imagine what it was.

Istanbul was the place we most wanted to see after reading so much about it and this is where we set sail for after buying some peaches to take away the taste of breakfast. It was only 9am but already the fruit stalls at the roadside had been open for two hours and some of them were quite sizeable with eight or ten stall holders grouped together in the middle of nowhere in lay bys. The displays are worth photographing and it must take a long time to set them up but most of all, the quality and the taste are the things that get you. Turkey has the best quality fruit and vegetables on the planet in my opinion and Turks refuse to buy anything that isn't fresh. The stall holder was very friendly and wished us a happy stay in the country and as he could see that we intended to eat the fruit straight away, he washed it for us without being asked.

The drive down to Istanbul wasn't very nice, lots of industry, dust and mad drivers. The Turks have a bad reputation as drivers and it's warranted, they're bloody mad. Someone in Melbourne told me that he read in the paper that last year, they issued licences to seventeen people who were later found to be clinically blind and I believe it. They have little or no road sense and overtake when they can't see a clear road ahead, they just pull out and hope for the best on corners and before the crests of hills. They all use the horn all the time and never fail to beep you when they are passing and it seems that their thought is that provided they blow the horn to let you know that they are there, then you will brake to let them in. The buses have extremely loud musical horns and horns which make a loud whistle and they draw alongside you and press the button so that you know they're passing. It still frightens the shit out of me.

The bus service in Turkey according to the travel books ranks amongst the best in the world and it certainly seems believable. There are thousands of them criss-crossing the country all day and all night. They are all big, powerful locally made Mercedes and faster than most cars, particularly on the long hauls because they don't have to stop so often for re-fueling. They are air conditioned and serve free cologne to freshen up with and always free cold bottled water. The long distance ones serve free coke and tea as well. The fares are dirt cheap and it's a good way to see Turkey, going from one place to another and staying at hotels. A lot of people do it this way.

We drew into the outskirts of Istanbul and tried to find the brother of some friends we have in Melbourne but it wasn't easy. We asked different people the way and found that they are unbelievably helpful but if you can't understand what they are saying, it's not much good. Eventually we stopped outside a shop and I asked a passer by and showed him the address we had. He didn't speak English but he took me into the shop and got the shop owner to telephone the people for me and then told me to stay right where we were because Hakan’s brother was sending someone to pick us up.

Nothing happened for half an hour and then the shop owner came over to see us again and explained that the number we had given him was a business number and someone else had been ringing around trying to contact the person for us and found out that he was out of town on vacation. As far as I could make out, chasing this man had involved five or six people, only two of which I had actually spoken too. This sort of thing has happened to us time and time again in Turkey, I've never met such helpful people. Eventually we drove into Istanbul and the traffic was a nightmare, I've driven in a lot of cities in many different countries but it was all child’s play compared to driving in Istanbul. They have a saying here which says that red lights are just a dark shade of green and it seems as though everyone goes by it. Get in the wrong lane and you're stuck there for ages as you watch your destination go by and wonder how the hell you are going to get back there.

We parked, after driving around town three times, slap bang outside the Blue Mosque about 200 metres from the Aghia Sophia and we were in a line of something like 200 campervans from all over the World. It's quite a sight to see, all this history surrounded on all four sides by campervans. The city council charge $2.50 per night to let you stay there and there is a public toilet where you can wash and shave right next door. It must be one of the most spectacular places to park your van anywhere in the world. As you look out of the van at night you can see these wonderful minaretes all lit up like something out of a fairy tale. The Blue Mosque, Aghia Sophia and Topkapi Palace are three places which everyone should see before they die, it's a sin not to see them and this city as far as I'm concerned is THE city in the World. Lots of books have been written about it and I've read a few but this is a city you have to experience, it's simply the best there is.

While we were there, we were walking down the street when we saw a sign which said that under the ground there was an ancient water cistern to see. We thought that we should have a look at it so we paid our 50 cents and down we went. What a sight! This used to be the city’s' water supply and was built by the Romans and it has been restored, although it didn't need much restoring. It has been drained so that you can go into it and it has a metre or so of water in the bottom. There are 364 Roman columns holding up an enormous vaulted ceiling and the authorities have built walkways so that you can get around the place and have illuminated the bottoms of these columns from under the water. It's fantastic and at the bottoms of two columns the bases are sculpted into the heads of women.

Probably some goddess who I've never heard of, but the point is that being under water for so long, they have escaped the ravages of time and vandals and they are still in perfect nick. There they are staring at you just as they appeared all those years ago without a blemish. I've seen ancient Greek stuff and I've seen the temples down in Mexico and Guatemala but this is the first time I've seen something of this size completely undamaged and it's so good that if the sculptor had even put one pimple on the nose, it would still be there. It wasn't any better when he finished the job and went home for the night. Yeah.

I read in a guide book that this cistern had been completely forgotten for centuries until a Swiss traveller in the early nineteen hundreds noticed that a man near where he was staying, used to sell fresh fish every day outside his house and the traveller noticed that they were fresh water fish so he asked the man where he got them and was told that they were caught through a hole in the cellar floor which of course turned out to be the cistern. When I was off getting water one day, Alicja was approached by a slick eleven year old postcard salesman who after loosing the sale asked if she had any children. She said that no, she didn't have any, and he must have quickly put two and two together and thought to himself that I couldn't be much of a man because his next sales spiel was "you, me make sex, you have baby" and he went on to boast that he had fathered two already.

Topkapi palace is astounding. In it's hey day 5,000 people lived in it and the jewellery collection, said to be the largest, most valuable in the world is just too much to take in. The various sultans had presents sent to them from all over the empire and other parts of the world and they've all been kept in perfect condition. These presents include books, ceramics, precious stones, jewellery, weapons and all sorts of things. As you wander around the display, you get so blaze about it after a while -"oh yea, look it's the biggest emerald in the world and there's another one of those diamond encrusted dagger things, shall we look for the coffee shop"? No kidding, it makes the crown jewels in the tower of London look pretty insignificant and they have another large warehouse full of stuff that they don't have room to display. There was a hair from Mohammed’s' beard and one of his footprints cast in cement or some such substance and the paintings on the walls and ceilings are so intricate as to be indescribable. There is also a restaurant there where you can sit with your cup of coffee overlooking the Bosphoros and the Golden Horn and watch the ships and ferries go by. For me, I can't think of a better place to have a cup of coffee. The coffee is lousy but that's got sod all to do with it.

The Blue Mosque and Aghia Sophia - well I've run out of superlatives. Westminster Abbey, Notre dam, Cologne Cathedral eat your hearts out. There just isn't anything in Europe to compare with these two places of worship. Istanbul, although mostly on the European side of Turkey is an Asian city but unlike all the other Asian cities we've seen, it doesn't smell like an Asian city, in fact it doesn't have a distinctive smell at all. I rather expected some parts of it to stink but it wasn't any worse than London. Around parts of Singapore, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur as well as a thousand places in Asia there is this same smell, slightly unpleasant but not stomach turning. I can never quite make out what it is but as soon as I smell it, I identify it with Asia straight away. We call this smell "Asian drains" but it doesn't exist in Istanbul.

The grand bazaar is big, very big, almost overwhelmingly huge, generous in its' immensity, enormously huge - its a fucking great place. It's old, very old, almost overwh..... oh never mind. There are over four thousand shops in it. Have you ever seen a shopping centre with four thousand shops in it? Well just let me say this, it's big, very bi.......how do you spell de ja vu?

There are banks and mosques inside it and enough gold jewellery to fill Imelda Marcos's shoe cupboard, carpet stores, tea houses guys beating the shit out of bits of tin and copper and making kettles and things - you just have to see it. And it's all done in the best poh sible taste. We walked for miles in that city I said I wouldn't go on about, and the first night while we were walking, we came across a small two man take away food shop selling small take away food, so in our extremely broken Turkish we ordered two of them. Two what? I hear you cry. Well we don't know either but it tasted good. We were about to walk away from the counter when we were motioned to sit inside at the only table which at that moment was being used by one of the proprietors. As we were getting stuck into this lovely food thing we'd bought, one of them came up and gave us a can of beer each.

I was very wary to start with because I thought it was some kind of con' and they would show us a menu afterwards with a $20 price on the stuff but they were genuine guys just trying to be friendly to a couple of western tourists. They gave us hazel nuts afterwards and a handful of them to go on our way with and they didn't charge us for the beer. Admittedly this was in a side street rather than next to MacDonald’s in the centre but all the same it was in Istanbul, not some remote country village. I've never been treated like this before, I like it. People, as I mentioned before are so helpful, in fact it's a basic tenet of the religion that they have to look after a visitor because any visitor is a gift from God. This means that if you are hungry, you can knock on any door and they will take you in and feed you. It doesn't seem fair really does it? I mean, they think I'm a gift from God but in fact I come from Dibden Purlieu in 'ampshire.

Of course there are a lot of hustlers trying to sell you postcards and wooden flutes and things but if you say no, they don't push. Their standard approach is "where are you from?", and when you tell them, they tell you that Australia or wherever is a very good country and then the conversation leads onto you buying what they have to offer. I told one of them when he asked, that I was from Iceland. He said "Iceland very good country" I said " no, not good" he said "why" I said "too many political prisoners" and he said "that's OK, everywhere same". I told another that I was from Tristan da Cunah and it really had him stuffed. He asked what language we spoke and I said Nahual. He said "what's that" I said "it's a language" and went on to tell him that we Tristan da Cunah people are very proud of our language and its' continued use was helping to preserve our national identity. He said "so you don't speak English then", I told him that no I didn't and he shook my hand and left. All the time we had been speaking in English but he didn't seem to notice.

Unfortunately we had to cut our stay short in Istanbul because Alicja became ill. Sickness is one of the biggest headaches when you are traveling and it had us worried because the only two families we knew in Turkey were both over 1,000km away. However I met a carpet salesman a few days previous to this who said that if we needed help with anything, we were to call him so now was the time to see if he was genuine about his offer. I went to his shop and told him that we needed a doctor who spoke English, I had already told him previously that we didn't want to buy a carpet. His name was Seyfi and he spent nearly the whole day with us running around in taxis (which he wouldn't let me pay for) from clinic to clinic and waiting for an hour in one waiting room while the doctor was out on a call. We eventually saw a doctor who had worked in Canada for a few years and spoke perfect English. He gave Alicja a thorough checkup and a prescription for medicines and said that she had to have two weeks rest without traveling.

We had a job to get out of his clinic because he wanted to talk about our trip and give us advice and he kept ordering tea to be sent in. All the time Seyfi was waiting patiently in the waiting room to take us back to the van and he wasn't at all worried about the time it was taking, he kept saying "take your time". I was sure that there must be a catch in it somewhere but I couldn't figure out what. Maybe he was going to take us down some small alleyway and rob us or something or maybe his friends were already going through the van!
In the end he took us back to the van where we left Alicja in bed and then he telephoned our friends in Mersin for me and found out that they were on holiday in Kusadasi which was only a day’s drive away. Only problem was that there was no address. Seyfi wouldn't even let me buy him lunch, he was just trying to help a foreigner who had a problem. His boss at the carpet shop didn't mind him taking the time off work and in fact he shook my hand and wished us all the best. It was terrific, the doctor had also given us his home address in case we had any problems and told us to ring any time day or night.

We left Istanbul at five in the morning because I just couldn't face driving in the city during the waking hours, especially without a navigator, and that evening we reached Izmir which is about two hours drive from Kusadasi. Alicja stayed in bed for most of the journey which was unbearably hot and at 6pm we arrived at the address of Farouk, the brother of our friend. He wasn't in. I didn't know what to do so I went down to the local shop and tried to ask if the proprietor knew Farouk and what time he would be back home. The shop owner didn't speak English but he made a few phone calls and said that he thought Farouk would return at 7pm so I told him that we would get some sleep in the van outside his shop and try later.

When we woke up, Farouk hadn't shown up but the shop owner had telephoned an English teacher who had come to the shop and had been there waiting for an hour to talk to us. They didn't know where our man was so I got the address of a hotel and told them that if they saw Farouk, would they please tell him that we would be staying at the hotel. It's a very long story but Farouk wasn't living at the address we were given and when he found out that there was an Australian looking for him (he'd never heard of us) he spent hours trying to find us, going to the wrong hotels etc.

I was having a meal in the hotel restaurant when he arrived and Alicja was sleeping in bed. He had brought with him his own family and also his brother in laws family, one of whom could speak English. It was a very cumbersome conversation through the interpreter and when I finally got the message across that I desperately wanted to see Ahmet, his brother, he said that he didn't know that Ahmet was on vacation in Kusadasi. It took him an hour and a half of telephone calls to find where Ahmet and family were staying and when he found out he also learned that Ahmet didn't have a telephone at the holiday house. He said that the next day at two o'clock he would come and collect me and drive me to where Ahmet was staying, a three hour drive

I felt a little bit guilty for having caused so much trouble but they didn't mind a bit. We got to know Ahmet, Toulay and their kids when they lived in Melbourne and the last thing Ahmet said to me when he left Australia was "when you arrive in Turkey, just ring me and I'll come to wherever you are". Well, first thing in the morning when I was cleaning out the van, he arrived. Apparently one of the people that Farouk had phoned had contacted Ahmet and he came straight away to help us. What I didn't know was that he didn't have a car and was staying in a place where there was no public transport. He had set out before daylight and walked a couple of kilometres, hitched a ride, caught a taxi, got on a bus and then hired another cab at the other end, and there he was smiling at me and telling me that all our troubles were over. We all left for Kusadasi a few hours later and spent two weeks with them in a lovely house by the sea while Alicja got the rest which the doctor had recommended.

It worked out well because they didn't have transport and would have been stuck in the same spot for two weeks but as it turned out we were able to go on a few outings with them. Kusadasi is a lovely little holiday town on the Agean coast, very touristic but with lots of character what with its' boating marina and the bazaar and the Friday market which is great to walk around for an hour or two and there's even a castle there which dates from the fourteenth century. The castle used to be on an Island which is now connected to the land by a causeway and at night it is illuminated and you can sit at a waterfront cafe on the mainland with your glass of beer looking out over the perfectly calm water at this castle which is bathed in an orange light and you just want to stay there for ever.

There are dozens of restaurants and cafes along the waterfront in Kusadasi and they are very cheap for a tourist town and outside one of them one night was a display of a big, locally caught fish with an orange in its' mouth. There was a waiter standing next to it talking to an American couple and the husband was really interested in this fish. He said "can you tell me what kind of fish this is?" "yes" was the reply. It went on. "But what kind is it, what species is it"? "Yes, this one call him big fish. Over there, that one small fish". "Is it a Tunny?" "Yes, this one we make him good, cheese sauce we make him called mornay and sometime cook him in garlic butter but not call him mornay". This Yank must have been incredibly thick because he still kept on asking questions about what kind of fish it was and it was obvious that he could stand there all night and still not find out.

Something which still seems strange to me after living for twenty years in a "mans country" is seeing men walking around holding hands. In England and Australia, men aren't allowed to show their feelings for each other for fear of being labeled homosexual. It's drummed into us when we're kids, girls can hold hands but not boys, girls can dance together but not boys. Here, if you have a friend that you get along with it's perfectly legit to walk down the street with him arm in arm and no one takes a blind bit of notice. You often see soldiers walking like this or with their arms around each others shoulders. I think it's great but I couldn't do it, firstly because I've already been programmed against it and secondly because no one likes me that much. Sad isn't it?

Storks are dying out in this country because they eat frogs and people in Turkey catch the frogs to sell them to the French for eating. It's a shame really that scientists haven't developed the legless frog yet because then it wouldn't be worth catching them if there was nothing on them to eat. The storks would get fatter too because it would be easier for them to catch frogs without legs. I suppose that it would be a difficult project though, because they would have to re locate the frogs ears. Frogs ears are in their legs you see. Isaac Newton found that out by simple deduction, I do so admire Isaac Newton. He found out that if you take a frog and poke it with a stick and say "jump", it jumps. If, however you cut the legs off of the frog (or as the Hungarian menu writers say, the forg) and poke it with a stick and say "jump", it doesn't move. "This then", said Isaac Newton "proves conclusively that the frogs ears are located in the general mid to upper thigh area" (that's where he poked the stick). No not that Isaac Newton, Isaac Newton the milkman in St Kilda. No - the other one was Jewish.

Hungarian restaurant menus were funny but so are the Turkish ones. At one place yesterday they had: Wedding soup, lamps on a skewer, mixed of dried fruits, cigarette pie w/minced balls, fired aubergine, sheep’s cheese in crocket, brain on frying pan and tentil soup. I had the cheese pie just to be on the safe side.

Keep taking the stress tablets


Alicja & Pete.