Dear friends and family,

I am still living and working in Mersin. The summer is hot and humid with no rain for 2 months. It’s hard to believe Istanbul flooded earlier this week.

In a few days I will visit Iran for a 2 week holiday. Iran borders eastern Turkey and it is one of the most historic and interesting countries in the world. As the centre of the former Persian Empire, Iran has a large amount of fantastic architecture. Besides Turkey, the other countries Iran borders are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iran also lies on the Persian Gulf across from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Exciting, hey?

Despite what many uninformed people think, Iran is not an Arab country. The two most important events in modern Iranian history are the overthrow of the Shah in 1979 and the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. Iran is now controlled by a religious theocracy and the rules are very strict. Sex outside of marriage is forbidden; alcohol is not easy to find; the mixing of the genders is limited; and women must wear a head-scarf in public. 70% of Iranians are under the age of 30 and there is a large generation gap between the older and younger generations.

In the right-hand column of my blog at www.taheny.com I have several links for Iran, including other travellers’ photos and accounts of their time there. On my blog you can also comment after each posting I make and place your figure on my guestmap of the world (also in the right-hand column. I expect many more tiny humans on the guestmap!

I am very much looking forward to my trip. I will be travelling with a Swiss friend. Whilst I’m in Iran I plan to update the blog every couple of days. The cities we plan to visit are Tabriz, Tehran (home of the world’s craziest traffic!), Shiraz (where the grape got its name), Esfahan and Yazd. The internet access will be limited on my trip and the blog will be first priority so I may take some time replying to emails- be patient!

This will be my first visit to an ‘axis of evil’ country 🙂

Cheers,

Joe

Well, not actually Mersin but the ancient town of Soli, of whom the word “Solecism” is named after.

The Chicage Tribune newspaper has a whole article dedicated to “Solecism“. A solecism is a breach of grammar or etiquette.

I had never heard of the word before but a Google search brings up more than 11,000 hits.

Soli is on the outskirts of Mersin. Currently all that remains of this ancient city is a row of columns and a few other ruins. The first photo of this posting is of Soli.

As one needs to register to visit the Chicage Tribune website I have uploaded a copy of the article: Solecism.doc

Asli took longer than usual to come on the train from Adana to Mersin. On the way the train collected a female pedestrian. I believe the pedestrian died on the spot. I haven’t seen any online reports of this accident.

Today I read two interesting articles. One concerning Turkey’s improving economy and the other regarding Turkey’s food culture.

In the last 30 minutes there was a small earthquake stretching from Erdemli to Mezitli, just west of Mersin. I used to live in Mezitli. I’m sure there will be further reports soon and I will update if I hear anything more. In Mersin I didn’t feel anything.

UPDATE: [7:15 pm] I cannot find any news articles concerning the earthquake in English. The earthquake registered 4.6 and was centred at Erdemli west of Mezitli. Articles in Turkish: Zaman and Mersin Haber.

The earthquake obviously didn’t cause much damage because there aren’t any pictures. Turkish media just loves showing controversial and exciting images and footage.

Coincidentally, almost 5 years to the day was the major earthquake in Izmit.

UPDATE [18/08/04]: NTVMSNBC has an article on the earthquake in English.

This time it is 2 drivers from Tarsus, 30 kilometres east of Mersin.

See here and here.

Late spring flowers around the ancient columns of Soli/Viransehir.

Adana = Kebab and Kebab = Adana: AIESEC summer tour in Adana

Narrow houses along the Bosphorous north of Istanbul

Where the Bosphorous meets the Black Sea

Olivia, Brad and Beer!

The above 3 images are from this trip.

Oral and Yeliz at their wedding celebration. Notice the flower arrangements in the background and the money and gold pinned on the newly-married couple.

Iklim (Oral’s brother), Sebiha, myself, Brad, Olivia, Buket and Serkan at the wedding.

Olivia with Hanifi amca using the hair-dryer to encourage the coals to burn and cook the kebabs.

Hanifi amca, Brad and Olivia with the cooked kebabs.

On the Mercedes Benz official website there is a feature on Turkey, more specifically, HAS Turizm, a bus company headquartered in Antakya (Antioch). Along with the expected Mercedes-Benz slant, the article contains many useful insights into the Turkish bus system, one of the best bus systems in the world.

The 4-paged feature article is here. The links to each page are on the top-right of the article.

If you are interested in Turkey I recommend you read it!

How good was that tuna, tomato, roasted capsicum, mushroom, onion, lettuce and tomato paste roll? Sensational!

The thick fresh cream with jam and honey on bread that followed was almost as good.

I also picked up my latest photos last night. This roll of 36-exposure film took 2-3 months to finish like most of my rolls seem to so there is a good range of photos. At Muhammed Ali photography shop, the attendant mentioned about drinking as if I drink a lot. Looking through the photos, most of them are of social situations when alcohol either was or could have been involved. All drinking was in moderation of course (true – my previous hangover was new years day).

Oh, the Olympic opening ceremony was meant to be on last night. I didn’t have the TV on so I wouldn’t know. The most interesting Olympic news of yesterday in my opinion is the Iranian refusing to participate against the Israeli in the judo.