Turkish wedding music is again blaring in the street near home. This is the third evening of the past four or five I have had to put up with it. If tonight’s wedding follows the previous wedding times, the music won’t finish until after 11 PM.

The music for Turkish street weddings is almost always similar in style, with two main variations:
a) a ‘davul‘ (drum) and ‘zurna‘ (clarinet) for poorer weddings and
b) a band, including vocals and keyboard at more expensive weddings.

Turkish weddings are generally exciting for newcomers to Turkey. However, living here for close to five years, they are now ‘a dime a dozen’. I could close the windows but then I would suffocate from the heat. At least the weddings are better than the Ramazan drummers… On that note: Ramazan begins in less than a month.

In just over two weeks I will be winging my way towards Central Europe to see my favourite band play 4 concerts.

In the space of 7&1/2 days I’ll take 4 flights and 6 intercity train rides travelling the following itinerary: Mersin-Adana-Istanbul – Basel-Bern – Bologna-Verona-Milan – Geneva-Basel – Istanbul-Adana-Mersin.

The concert tickets are paid for, hotels reserved and flights booked. I’m really looking forward to having a break, eating Italian and Swiss food, meeting friends and seeing Pearl Jam in concert. Pearl Jam began their European tour in Dublin on Wednesday.

As a prelude to the trip, I made bruschetta, the Italian favourite, last weekend. I found a few perennial basil plants on a random street in a different part of Mersin and ‘borrowed’ a few leaves. It is a national tragedy that Turks don’t feature basil in their cuisine.

I can’t wait to eat real bruschetta in Italy.

Depending on ones sensibilities, for a native English speaker, ‘Ufuk’ can be the most-liked or least-liked Turkish name. In English ‘Ufuk’ means ‘horizon’. ‘Ufuk’ is both a male and female name.

As I have a very lame sense of humour, ‘Ufuk’ is one of my favourite Turkish names. I particularly like the nightclub poster I saw the other day promoting “dj u.f.u.k”‘s visit:

On a vacant block of land one street away from my flat in Mersin is my dream ute, just waiting for me to take her away.

She’s a beauty, isn’t she? Just a little bit of work and she’ll be back on the road in no time…

The film viewed at Mersin Cinemall (formerly Metro Sinema) was “The Lake House“, a fantasy/drama/romance starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. I first saw Sandra Bullock perform in The Net a decade or so ago.

Whilst waiting for the film to begin it was a pleasure to sit in the smoke-free cafe area, despite the air-conditioning not functioning due to a power-failure. This weekend the power failed 7 or 8 times.

Without giving the plot away, the film’s concept, involving weird time sequencing, was very difficult to pull-off. I thought the film was confusing and unclear, although sometimes suspenseful. If you are desperate to see a movie go see it. Otherwise, don’t worry.

Last night I attended a fun gig. It wasn’t quite up there with Everclear destroying Silverchair @ Thebarton Theatre in 1996, all areas access @ Nibe Festival in 1999 or front row Pearl Jam @ the Entertainment Centre in 2003 but it was still good. This is despite my stomach ache gained from eating too much humus and felafel at Lido’s earlier.

Radar are a cover band I had seen several times previously at Bad-Lik Bar (now sadly closed) and Tribu. However, tonight there was something extra in the air (besides the mary jane). The underground concert area was buzzing with moshing, sweating punters and the crowd kept singing even when power failure stopped the music. I wonder what made the difference tonight? 3 lira 1/2 litre beers perhaps…

My Dell D410 Latitude laptop is one of the models involved in the massive battery recall. Luckily my computer’s battery was made in Korea and not Japan or China, so it is not one of the four million-odd batteries to be recalled.

Tonight, close to where I found the dog tag, were up to 15 stray cats feeding on food scraps provided by a local.

Feeding the stray cats is common in Mersin and is probably the main reason thousands of them survive each year. I’m not sure why locals feed the stray cats, but i suspect it is either:
a) as a form of rodent (rat and mouse) control; or
b) out of pity