Kervansaray Bursa

... br>need/want one. Instead, he took us around the corner to see a<br>felting shop, where workers were creating large mats of felt, cutting<br>pieces and using them to create scarves, runners and hangings. It is<br>an old, traditional art form, from this area.<br><br>When Osman discovered we hadn't seen the Dirvishes because our hotel told<br>us we missed their Saturday performance, he took us to a friend's<br>travel agency, where we were able to purchase tickets for ...

... Edebali. Since, I have reviewed the story about this man. "The early Ottomans, struggling to plant their authority, were less concerned with the date of the founding of their state than with the vision that underpinned their right to rule. To them, empire began quite literally with a dream. One night, the first sultan Osman, was sleeping in the house of a holy man called [Seyah] Edebali when: 'He saw that a moon arose from the holy man's breast and came to sink in his own breast. A ...

... as Golden Horn Social Facility. But, it was also associated with the municipality of Istanbul (Ýstanbul Büyksehir Belediyesi). So, I couldn't make up my mind if is was private or not. I decided to make a test run. I went in the front door and when I met the first guy asked if I could have an evening meal. There wasn't a lot of discussion, my Turkish was limited and their English even more limited. But they weren't saying no. I was escorted in, noticing that all the tables ...

... art camp, and a third location where all of the other participants were housed. I did not sleep at the housing location, but returned to my rented house in Bursa each night. This was not because of any elitism as far as I was concerned. All the other volunteers were on short holidays. I am away from my own real home now for seven months as it is. So I was reluctant to pack up for even a short move across town. Furthermore, it seemed that the shuttle bus driver lived in my ...

... then, so no computer along then). In another Georgian town on the way back to Turkey I stayed a couple of nights in a "home stay" found in the Lonely Planet guide. It was a pretty poor town (though with a few Mercedes and BMWs tooling around). It was sort of like being back in the nineteenth century. I went to a neighborhood Sunday Orthodox church service with a blind woman from the house I was staying at. I was a little late in getting dressed ...

Don't read furth** unless you want a toxic dose of it. <br><br>About a year and a half ago I began assembling what I call "Apocalyptic Notes." I read fairly widely, although v**y concentratedly in the New York Times. But, in a wide range of obs**vations. Taken cummulatively they "fuel" my cynicism. Below is my preface to the collection. Note that the first entry--at the end of a long list--actually predates by about nine months my law professor friend's being "scared" by an even more ...

Sunday was my "hiking day." (And I'm thinking of changing to Saturday, as I usually hike myself into such tiredness that I'm not able to get going very well on Monday (See notes with pictures). Then Sundays I can do the lighter diversionary excursions)).<br><br>From the previous Sunday's hike, in which I fell into a family picnic, I had seen the other side of the gorge and wanted to explore up into that far side. Which I did. Nothing much to say about it. (Although I can ...

... of other noted mosques, then taking a dolmus up to the Teleferik station. We bought picnic makings: bread, tomatoes, sausage links, green peppers. The Teleferik is a cable car that goes high up into the mountains that rise steeply out of Bursa city. We just went up to the first station, then hiked up through the woods to a spot Mesut and some mates have for camping. Basically we just made a lunch, enjoyed the scenery, and went back down to the city.<br ...

For the foreseeable future this will no longer be a travel blog. It will be a blog about an American in Bursa. About a somewhat eccentric retiree as he tries for the first time to establish a life in a foreign country, no longer the traveler, but a resident. I have seen, though, that I will always be the yabanci, the foreigner. More about that in later days. Once I've got some sort of a pattern going, I will begin reading Ottoman history, and visiting local sites pertaining thereto.<br><br ...

... consulate in Cannakkale. The Aussies have a consulate there because of its being the closest city to the Gallipoli battlefields, remembered each year on ANZAC day, and consequently (even more so in recent years) mobbed with Australian tourists. When I commented that her English sounded very Australian she said, "Ah, you've made my dye."<br><br>I, in fact, found a rental by the aid of another individual. But before that came to be, this young woman spent of ...