Otel Le Grand Adana

... while cooking
my dinner in the twilight. Bedtime for the children and dinner time
for the strange but funny stranger. After ingesting my fine garlified
vegetable and cheese supper I was invited by what turned out to be the
mayor to pass the evening drinking still more tea with the rest of the
village's men folk. Somehow I got talked into going to the nearest
town the next day to the visit the school followed by the hospital and
then ...

... cheap fuel since some fuelstation were run out of fuel! Then a last annoying customs-circus to leave Syria with the usual go here, go there, pay there and pay here, again and again! Finally, after giving out last pounds to the officials, we said goodbye to Syria and entered the by far better organized Turkish borderpost.
Adana, Adana Province, Turkey pajas

Early in Zadie Smith's On Beauty (I l*st it ab*ut a third *f the way in but wasn't *v**ly aggrieved, it being the m*st b*ring *f h** 3 b**ks), H*ward Belsey launches a rant ab*ut the unenlightened B*st*nian p**cepti*n *f English weath** t* the effect *f "Ohh, it must be s* c*ld *v** th**e!" He sn*rts back that yes, L*nd*n summ**s are n*t as warm, but f*r the rest *f the year, which is t* say, when it really c*unts as far as c*ld is c*nc**ned, it's m*re temp**ate.

Adana, Adana Province, Turkey david_chung

... of Turkey seemed to be in these rural areas.

When I finally got to Adana I was desperate for a bed and despite by best efforts it took me over two hours to eventually find one. And when I eventually did I regretted by rashness in rushing into paying for this room. It was by far the dirtiest room I have ever stayed in and it the whole hotel seemed like it was straight out of a horror film and I bolted out of there with my tail between by legs first thing in the morning.

"I cant afford to stay here, this is the Hilton for crying out loud! My budget is already completely broken. Not only that, but I have been travelling for hours and look like a real bum!" These were my first thoughts as my lift dropped me off in Adana. After a very prolonged conversation with 2 random men fixing a bus, he decided to drop me here. I was relieved as at least at the Hilton I knew they would be English speaking. Realistically I knew I couldn't stay there even if the security ...

... in the Sea, but Turks have this fear about getting sick from any chilliness outside, so they just stared. Its been a little difficult being away from a coast this long for me, living on the east coast for almost four years now, so being on the coast in the water was such a comfort! It was very rejuvenating for my spirits! AFter being in the water for a little while, clouds started to roll in bringing in waves and a few lightning ...

... It was build by a man named Paulus in the honor of Saint Mary in the 5th or 6th century A.D. The stream cannot be seen anymore unless you go deep into the cave. While we were here, I got to RIDE a CAMEL. It was so much fun. I have never seen a camel before. There was a guy here that had two camels that he gave rides to the tourists for 5 lira. I think that is one of my favorite things that we did. They have sharp teeth and the one camel I pet was wanting me to feed ...

... a Beiruti favourite (and could become one of mine) is halawat bi djeben. This is the mild, chewy, halloumi style local cheese layered under grainy semolina cake. Slabs of this, drizzled with sugar syrup, are served in sesame buns. We've had some cultural misunderstandings on the nature of meals after breakfast. Habitually we would order hummus, tabbouleh and fatoush for lunch with unlimited bread, olives and the plate of pickles that ...

[continued from last entry] ... the sleep that I got on the bus couldn't be considered more than a slight doze, because the sun comes up so early in this part of Turkey. The time zone that I'm in starts in Greece and continues all the way to the Iranian border. My bus neared the eastern city of Adana, and the sun came up at an ungodly hour. Sometime around six o'clock, my counterfit ball cap couldn't keep the sun out any longer. And when I awoke, the ...

... It was a lovely little town and the beer was cold, so as dinner came, we went to a little restaurant with Glenn and Jewls. Being the type of people that Lucy and I are, we ate traditional food. Jewls, seeing that they served pasta, asked for pesto pasta. This would be easy, pasta with pesto on it. Our dinners came, Jewls pasta arrived, no pesto though, just four cloves of garlic ...