Things are happening here. I took 1 British and 2 Aussie journalists out to lunch today.

Citizens from several countries have or will arrive to Mersin in ships evacuating them from the violence in Lebanon. Early tomorrow morning at 2:30 AM the first lot of Australians are due to arrive.

I will write more on this story soon.

Amazing as it seems, but Turkey’s non-smoking revolution has begun. Months ago an Istanbul municipality introduced a law requiring restaurants and cafes to set aside a minimum area for non-smokers.

I thought Turkey would take many years to change its smoking habits but events are happening very quickly. Here are a few local examples I’ve observed:

* Istanbul Pastanesi (a cake shop near work) has a sign in Turkish that translates something like: “Smoking is allowed every second day, today is the other day.” This sign is on the wall everyday.

* Visitors to work are now far more likely to either smoke outside or ask if it okay to light-up inside instead of assuming it is okay

* The controller on the train from Mersin to Adana warned a man about smoking in the gangway, a practise previously ignored

* More places, including cinemas and cafes, now have non-smoking areas.

* The other weekend I saw my first quit-smoking business in Mersin:

One of my main dislikes of Turkey is the amount of cigarette smoke I have to tolerate. I will be very happy when I see the day smokers become the minority and respect non-smoker’s rights.

This year I had hoped to visit Lebanon. Now I doubt this trip will be happening.

On Thursday evening (13th) workmate Nesibe gave birth to a son, Ali Osman, by Caesarean Section at the Mersin State Hospital. Mother and baby are doing fine.

Nesibe worked throughout her pregnancy and hundreds of jokes were made about Ali Osman (most of them started by her).

Congratulations to Nesibe and husband Bulent!

Earlier this week Auntie Barbara passed away in the Netherlands. She died from cancer. Condolences to Bill and all her other relatives and friends.

The France-Italy World Cup Final in Berlin begins very soon.

Following are photos from the evening Italy kicked Australia out of the round of 16.

So who do I want to win tonight?

France, of course!

Both my and my bosses’ cameras have returned from repairs in Istanbul and after 60 YTL each are now in working order.

On my early morning walk today I saw the following nightclub promotion:

With my limited Turkish, “DANSCI KIZLAR” means “female dancers”. Unless I have completely misunderstood, there is a misspelling in “DRUG QUEEN”.

Some advice to the poster producer: “DRUG QUEEN” and “DRAG QUEEN” have completely different meanings. U should have bought A vowel:

On the same roundabout was the following sign:

“Plant” should be “Paint”, as in: Natural Paint Project. Mistakes like this are common in Turkey. What makes this one notable, though, is the sign subject is a Turkey-European Union joint project.

I received the above postcard from my sister Anna the other week. It features Anna and cousin Rebecca handling a baby crocodile from Cairns, northern Queensland.

The office workers did not believe the girls on the postcard were my relatives. I guess they had not heard of personalised postcards before.

PS: according to my Blogger Dashboard, this post is Joe’s Rambling’s 500th!