During the blog downtime:

– Dragos and I moving to a larger house closer to the city. Moving washing machines and fridges up flights of stairs is not recommended!

– Natraj, an AIESEC trainee, arriving from Bangalore, India, to help out at work. My aim to travel overland to India has not weakened.

– Ronnie and Bob visiting Mersin on their way through to the Middle East. The party involving Ronnie, Bob, Natraj, Dragos and myself will go down in history as one of the great parties.

– Spending a week with C. Gizem and friends in a cave home in Cappadocia. Being stuck for several hours on the side of a valley cliff was not planned. Thank you Gulcan and C. Gizem for your heroics rescuing me.

– Mum and Dad spending 8 weeks in Turkey. The end of Ramadan holiday venue was Syria. As well as seeing the always wonderful Bangali and Celine in Aleppo, we also visited Palmyra, Damascus and Hama. Palmyra, with all the old Mercedes and the date palms in the desert was probably the highlight.

– Seeing Mum’s cousin, Carol, and her husband, Danny, in Ankara. Danny is on the verge of retiring from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and one of his last stints was in Ankara. Mum and Carol had not seen each other for more than 30 years and it was a brilliant reunion. The Red Lion Pub, parties, full English breakfasts and education protests added to the fun.

– Receiving a couple of mentions in the Language Travel Magazine.

I’m sure there were other highlights I can’t remember at the moment. Apologies for any I have missed.