– Heat and humidity all of the day and most of the night

– Deliciously fresh cherries, apricots, watermelons, peaches and melons

– Being disturbed at 6 in the morning by the rubbish truck consuming its load

– Beautifully-shaped ladies everywhere one looks

– Thousands of people relaxing in the city parks until late every night

– Escapes to the summer houses down the coast and up in the mountains

– Beachside outdoor nightclubs pumping out the latest Turkish and Western hits

– Terrible body odour, especially on the crowded buses and trains

– Many German, Dutch, French and other European number-plated cars belonging to folks returning to their homeland for holidays

– Boys swimming in the polluted city bay sea

– People wearing shorts (rarely winessed outside the beach in all but the hottest weather)

– Ice cream!

– And, this year, political campaigning for the 2007 Turkish general election

PS: cryptic types may have noticed something unusual about the post title: by moving a space, one can make the following word sequence:

sum mersin mersin mean

The place name ‘mersin’ is written twice in a row and surrounded by two of the most important statistical terms: sum and mean

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