Turkey
TUE, 2/27: 2:25PM shower; 2:55 read "films" on my list and I'd almost FORGOTTEN them! I lock door as I leave at 3 and then think "Leave NY cards and add to my (1) JOYI cards!" Into car, which rang early at 2:58PM, at 3:03PM, HOT! SLOW Long Island Expressway, to airport at 4PM, Turkish Airlines in middle of terminal 1, and NO one is on line, so I get to gate 3 and meet 6-7 Grand Circle Travel people, then out and upstairs to get ham and cheese and beer at Greenwich Village Bistro at 4:30, watching planes taking off and various customers in the huge new terminal. Paid $35 for car, feeling sorry for him having to get BACK in even worse traffic, all for only $35 for two hours' work. The ham and cheese, $5.99 on the menu, is $6.99 "in the computer," and the Bud Light draft is $5, and they ADD the tip, so it's $14.85 on Visa, but I take along half the sandwich and eat the smaller half and all the fries and beer and water with my evening pills. STUFFED! To blow gas in the john at 5:10, try to get frequent-flyer miles but "Try Istanbul, the system is down here." Board at 6PM, a little over half full, for the announced 9:25 flight. (AND I just took over three minutes to take the alarm off my watch, and came back to find that this laptop had shut OFF!) Off at 6:45, take two Sominex at 6:55. Get booties at 7, can't sleep. Woman in front (Mary!) talks CONSTANTLY and INSISTENTLY through most of the night. 8:05 eyeshade off for the white wine and water. Take two MORE Sominex at 8:10! Try AGAIN to sleep. CAN'T sleep! Watch last of "Meet the Parents" with Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro, no need to rent it because he's ON only a little sexily, and it's too silly to get.
WED, 2/28: Look out to see lights in Ireland and Scotland, then as dawn comes up there's lots of snow in France. Write this to 9:01AM. Reset watch. Clear view of east shore of Lake Balaton and ring-roads of Szeged at 9:49. LOTS of snow and clouds. #1 South Hungary snow mountains, #2 Smoking factory chimneys and villages in Northern Rumania at 10:10AM. #3 Closeup of "railroad" villages at 10:13. 8075km trip! 10:35 start down. 11° Centigrade which is 50° Fahrenheit in Istanbul, but still all snowy below. Clouds break and we're over water at 10:40: Black Sea! Land 11:09, NO view of Golden Horn from my side. Off plane 11:22; visa and passport INSTANTLY. To pee and baggage at 11:32. Then remember: didn't pack-in strap and when it rounds at 11:42, one side is loose and I take if into A&K bag. Woman in WHEELCHAIR? Heard of some accident, and later today she's walking OK. Someone has to be HUNTED to claim their luggage. Woman drops earring! Mostly couples. Outside to wait for bus at 11:57, which comes at 12, when I get on first, alone next to front. Cripple, Rimash, whines for money bag, begging all's pardon. I hate her, particularly when she finds it under her own seat after sending menials into the airport to check all over. Great ride to hotel past 15th-Century city walls, good view from bridge over Golden Horn (only a 7-mile dead-end) of five mosques on horizon, Hagia Sophia leftmost, in back. To Hotel Taksim Plaza at 1:26, told that 3PM walk leaves from lobby, 6PM introductions at "A" on left, and 7:30 dinner on A, but lunch is not included. Leave tomorrow at 9, breakfast starts at 7AM. I AM alone in my room 417 at 1:30. Fuss with SAFE to 2:02, the secret being the code is set with the door OPEN, and THEN it works to open or close it when the code and #-sign are pressed. Open 1/2 liter bottle of water from the fridge for $2, and finish the sandwich from yesterday, unpack, consolidate clothes and stuff, and down at the stroke of 3 to see them leaving the building for the tour! He shows us where to get TWO liters of water for $1, where the Cambio is for the 900,000 lira/$1 rate, where the PTT and American Express and the pedestrian street and good neighboring restaurants are, and back to hotel at 4 to try to shit, get the laptop out of the safe which I could only manage by propping it up with a glass they'll probably charge me for on my bill, and start typing my notes. Keep spacing out with fatigue, since I slept NOT AT ALL last night, but it's now 4:42 and there's a meeting at 6, so I MUST stay awake. The drive in also showed picturesque streets ending at impassable embankments on main roads, lots of young men making fun of the tourists toddling after the guide, then clumping to block traffic almost completely, though a car almost managed to take care of us single-caredly. Mustafa bought sesame-seed encrusted rolls that sell for 40 cents, Lahmacon vegetable pizza for 90 cents a slice, and finishes off in front of the hotel. Now I AM yawning---guess I'd better get out the New York Times puzzle! Dream: wake for third time at 3:22AM on 3/1 and decide that THIS is part of what I brought this for: I'm waiting with group (rather in the format of seated around a table with the interviewer calling off the names as Mustafa did last night) and the guy comes out and calls "Zolnerzak and Southers," and I say "Southers isn't here, so you might want to call another person," and he does. He talks to me about my training, and I observe that the people he'll be talking to have the same kind of vocal training, and he takes notes and seems impressed with me, and I have to figure out how to tell him (if I tell him at all) that I'm not going to be here next week when they phone with the results, because I'll be going on a vacation like the one I'm on now. Later, I'm talking with someone rather like the gal from Mattachine I spoke with, saying she'd like a performance space like the Thalia, and she says she was in the audience when someone she likes very much did something noteworthy that got into the papers, and I was impressed that she had actually been there. (Turns out that this keyboard isn't flawless, I make a LOT of typos that I catch and sometimes don't, so I'll have to READ the whole thing when I enter it to make sure it's READABLE. Anyway, now is the time for my THIRD pee of the morning, and it's not even seven hour's sleep yet!) (Now at 3:33, and at least the machine turns on and off MUCH more conveniently than my other one did. Imagine, TWO computers and TWO laptops so far!) Typing now at 6:27AM on 3/2, catching up from yesterday's notes from 6PM group introductions: Elizabeth Bentzel went to Mexico (but I later find it was only to Guadalajara, which she praises as a resort, so I'm not interested), to Copper Canyon? Ayers and Jones went to Eastern Turkey with GCT and says it's been off the schedule because of political problems, but it's due to return in 2003. Tomorrow's tour will last until after dinner, starting at 9AM. The optional tour starts at 9AM and costs $45, including Dolmabahce Palace, fish lunch on boat, boat trip to Asia, and back to hotel, leaving again for dinner out at 6PM, early, since Saturday we leave at 7AM for Ankara flight. If we want leather coat, we might wait for Kusadasi (ku-SHA-duh-SEH, emphasis on last "EH" sound) or Antalya, where most of the leather comes from which would then have to be shipped to Istanbul. Dinner next door to meeting, I talk briefly to Bentzels, who don't seem that great, and find Ayers and Jones, and SHE'S great, rather like Penny from Actualism, smart and quick. The Maniscalcos ask to join our table of six, and he's not quite as old, mentally, as he first appeared, and she's pert and quick in her short gray haircut. Someone asks about my first trip to Turkey, and I mention the Trafalgar trip from Beyreuth, and everyone is immediately interested in the opera experience, so I talk a lot about Wieland Wagner and his awful impression on me, though I can't remember what he SAID, and talk of my tearful reception of the seventh opera ticket, then the trip to Turkey (which, I check, was in 1988, so it was thirteen, rather than fifteen, years ago). Then get them to talk about Eastern Turkey, the huge heads, tours around Ararat, ruins hardly touched and appreciated, and it sounds like a good trip. Then somehow I get into talking about how good Rohypnol is for sleeping on planes, but how I can't get it because now it's noted as "Ruffies" for date-rape, and later I remark "Well, we talked about opera, Turkey, and date-rape," and Ayers makes my face red by kindly observing it was I who brought up each topic in turn. Salad is so sharp with vinegar that both Dorothy and I are coughing from it. Chicken wrapped around rice isn't bad, but it's not great, and when I finish last due to my excessive talking, my flan doesn't have any orange slices with it, but Barbara gives me one of hers to taste the combination. Have a glass of white wine (had vodka and fruit juice for my freebie drink for the talk) which at first they charge me $6 for TWO glasses (when a bottle in a restaurant costs $6), but then lower it to three, apologizing for mistake. Dinner goes to 8:30, and they clear the plates away as SOON as you finish. Back to room to try to finish double-crostic, but my eyes are closing and though we're told to stay up to 10PM to get used to the time change, I flake out at 9:20PM, taking whole melitonin, leaving a wake-up call for 7:30AM. Get to sleep with some tossing, starting with two pillows and going to one, starting with thick duvet-type blanket but getting too hot (and crotch-rot has set in to the point that some hair seems missing! I fan it to dry it off) and deciding (what the hell) to sleep under the thick bedspread since they don't furnish a blanket I can wrap snugly around my neck as "required." PHONE rings 5-6 times at 10:40PM, waking me in a fog, but when I answer they'd hung up.
THU, 3/1: Pee at 1:39AM and at 3:22, write a dream, and at 4:50AM, after 7 1/2 hours sleep, DEBATE getting up, pee, take two aspirin for a slight headache (from the melitonin or from the jet-lag?) (or the vodka and wine?), take the bandage off my throbbing finger from the aluminum-tray cut on the flight and put on Bacitracin antibiotic, also on sore spot in left groin! Wake with a jolt to the 7:30AM phone wake-up, shower with good soap and shampoo, down to breakfast with the Burtons to start, and SHE was a librarian and is very interested in my being an indexer, and he worked for Libby/Owens/Corning and went from mid-west to Long Island to just-south of Toledo. Decent eggs and rolls with butter and honey, good fruit, cut, and slices of orange and grapefruit, lots of juice, and back to room at 8:45 to get down at 9 to see group filing out door to bus already. Rains on bus, but stops as we get out at Hippodrome and look at various columns and remains from the past, beseiged by hawkers for postcards and books. #4 and #5 of Hagia Sophia from Hippodrome at 9:30AM. #8 390AD Theodosius erected 1500BC Karnak column, broken, twin AT Karnak. #9 1609-1616 Sultanahmet (blue) mosque. #10 and #11 inside, "Elephant" foot columns supporting dome at 10AM. #12 zoom for "delicate coloration" at 10:10. #13 column. Nicean tiles only in MIDDLE range, top is PAINTED and restored. Leave Blue Mosque at 10:30, SUNNY after rain. Not TopkapEE, but Top-kap-UH. Domes in size: 1) St. Paul's in London, 2) Vatican, 3) Duomo in Milan, 4) Sophia. Where's Florence? #14 Workmen atop Sophia. #15 17,000,000 lira for $20 exchange inside Topkapi's second court. Then buy six postcard-stamp-sets for 6x350,000 or 2,100,000. Sesame bun is 150,000. 500,000 for Topkapi book of cards, and 4,225,000 for card of stamps from Turkey at face value, for total of 6,800,000, or $20, about 1/3 gone! Topkapi started in 1454. 36 Turkish kings there. #16 Topkapi model at 11:20AM. Osman -> Ottoman! I get to see new (to me) exhibits of silver and European porcelain, review Chinese porcelains from before, in the kitchens. #17 squinches in kitchen at 11:56AM. Celadon and serving ware to noon. #18 Sarayi entrance at noon. #19 Queen Mother's room, with bedroom above nicely decorated. #21 Abdul Hamid's room at 12:23, MAZE of SMALL confusing rooms and suites. #22 innermost bathroom, #23 UNLIT room comes out OK? with flash to about 11-foot-away wall? #24 Imperial (not good, lots of THUNDER outside as I type this at 7:05AM!) Hall and throne. #25 musician's (female only) balcony. Murat IV was GAY! Good Konyali lunch IN Topkapi 12;50-1:40: chicken in pastry, Tuborg beer and chocolate "mousse" with a dough-layer in middle and vanilla cream below for 6,750,000, about. Then to sacred "no photo" rooms: Koran recited WHEN we ENTER, not before; sword of David, sword and bow of Mohammed, and hairs of his beard, cask of tooth, gold case of mantle, 3-4 letters, cooking pot of Abraham and staff of Moses, sure. Swords of first four caliphs and LOTS of keys to Kaaba, and gold case of Kaaba STONE, which Mustafa says is NOT in Kaaba but on Mt. Arafat; and two footprints of Mohammed, vastly differing in size. #27(?) 2:20PM, four parrots and crow in tree. Sophia 2:40-3:25, up spiral ramp to gallery for first time, scaffolding up for three years giving scale to dome, 90 feet high. Buy Istanbul book and Sophia cards for 1,500,000, only about 2M left. 3:40 into bazaar, saying to stay til 5:15! Get just over 18M for $20 WITH 2% commission. Wander: jewelry, junk, clothes, corridors, and "Want to see my rubbish?" causing me to smile. BACK to bus at 4:40, raining, read Istanbul book, third person back. We leave at 5:20, to Sulimanyi Mosque, where I take difficult pictures #35 and #36 of interior in dark. We must leave by 6:03, prayers starting, delayed by enormous traffic jams. They wanted to build tunnel under Bosporus until the earthquake. Walk to "soup kitchen" for which I pick up a brochure on leaving. Start 6:15, nice-smelling john, and leave 7:15 after same vinegary salad of carrot slaw, lettuce, tomato, and cabbage slaw; meat which may be lamb wrapped in phyllo dough, a pillow of white rice, and a okra-shaped pepper. Like the chicken pasty for lunch, the meat is interestingly spiced. Irun, I think, is the watery yoghurt I have three large glasses of, in preference to the pear-tasting too-sweet beverage they serve because there's no alcohol in the soup kitchen. Lots of traffic back at 8PM. I finish puzzles, leave call for 6:30 (since it'll be 7:30AM departure tomorrow!) and bed at 9:05 with another whole melitonin, having forgotten daily quarter until 6:45PM dinner. Wake at 10:35PM for some reason.
FRI, 3/2: Wake again at 12:14AM, MUST have slept. Up to take FORGOTTEN night-pills! Shit and pee to 12:23 (it's a couplet!). Wake to "doorbell" sound at 2:07AM (#3), again at 3:33AM, again at 5:35AM to pee and shower and fuss to 6:15. Start typing, loud rain against window, lightning, and at ONE point the power went off for about half a second! Finish this at 7:20AM, ready for breakfast. Most eating, crowds at food stations, and I sit near cold window with Thurstons, who also pack light, take their bags aboard (but were eyed when they took their own wheelies off the GCT truck and passed through customs on their own), and talk of the "second-grader" quality of the questions asked and re-asked by the stupid tourists. Tallahassee is at the "bend" of the Florida panhandle, reminding me of Destin, where Edward is; saying that Naples is one of the most expensive real-estate areas in the state, and I'm sure Avi is happy about that. Eggs and rolls and fruit and juice, and back up at 7:50 to finish this to 8AM, ready to brush teeth and get ready for day's tour. Watch TV. Dolmabahce 9:15, large charge ($5) for photography, built in 1856, rococco and neo-classical: UGLY, overdone. 285 rooms, 6 Turkish baths, 60 toilets, 1000 servants, 200 family between 1856-1923. 4.5 ton biggest English crystal chandelier spectacular in Coronation Hall, 105 feet high. Tour til 10:40, and out to sunny weather. 11M credit-card charge for 5M slides and 6M book, bargain! Lunch 12-1:10, at Garaj Restaurant on Bosporus, chicken OK and appetizers good and flour-cake for dessert, but I resent getting charged $2 for a beer that's on the menu outside for 500K. Great coastline we drove along! Onto boat, and #1-7 of Roll 2 for Sultan Mehmet Bridge over narrowest part of Bosporus, 1/2 mile long built in 1989, 8-lane bridge. #8 too-bright main Istanbul at 2:24PM into sun. #9-11 Bosporus Bridge, about a mile long, and Dolmabahce Palace at 2:48. Dock in Asia at 2:55, walk a few feet, and onto bus to drive along Uskadara coast and see Florence Nightingale's tower and LOTS of great houses with views over the Ancient Peninsula. Start back at 3:15 and get stuck in traffic again, back to room at 3:50, TIRED! Read a bit, but eyes are closing, so I lie down, taking forgotten 1/4 melitonin at 4:30. DEBATE going out to the road to watch the people or the streets, but lie down and rest until 5:20, then up and put things from the day away, and get to finish this at 5:45PM, just time to wash face and get downstairs for the bus for the 6PM dinner. Told Barbara about AlphaSmart and she'd like to see it. Notes for tomorrow: wake-up call to everyone at 6:15, breakfast starts at 6:30, bags out at 6:45, leave 7:30; a nice improvement over 7AM. Mustafa meets me in the hall and asks for a favor: the five-minute walk from the bus to the restaurant is KNOWN to locals, who might try to rip us off, so would I bring up the rear and help fend off the pickpockets. Can I say No? So I board the bus and glumly get off last and follow the grimly staggering Rimash as she totters at the end of the group with her handbag clutched in her street-side hand. At one point I SAY she should keep it toward the crowd, and she says "You're right," but a few moments later there she is in the same compromising position. Then she speeds up and there's the Spanish couple, aided by a gullible wife, struggling along with the cripple in the middle, but at least no handbags are obvious. Mustafa points out the turn, and suddenly there's Morla, and I frankly say to her "Where the hell did YOU come from?" "I got lost," she said blithely, "And just caught up." How can ANYONE watch these clueless incompetents? Ayers hangs back with me so much that I ask, "Did Mustafa talk to you, too?" He says he didn't, but he still hangs back. The restaurant is a roofed intersection like my first hotel, and we get a plate of cold mushrooms, eggplant, potatoes, and peppers, then two eggroll-shapes of cheese, and the couple next to Iris (since she's also single, it seems there's always an empty chair next to her!) are ordering a bottle of red and a bottle of white, which puzzles me until I see that they're all HALF bottles, for which the price is 4M, but they don't take plastic, so I can't get their cash. Chicken-without-kebab with rice and fries with a side-plate of ketchup shows up, followed by baklava and then a birthday cake for Guevara, who's not HERE, but they sing anyway. Leave about 8:15, following the group, and sure enough at the corner of the bus there're three squabbling teens, pushing and shoving near the group, and out of nowhere there's Mustafa, shoving one and saying "Break it up," and they move off, leaving me (so paranoid!) wondering whether he STAGED it---or else WHY would he be at the END of the line where he would usually be at the front? Anyway, he shakes my hand in thanks and we're all in the bus and he gets off "to have a drink" and we get back to the crowded streets around the hotel to get in about 8:15. I pee copiously, feeling vaguely headachey from the wine, and put things away and get this out to type until 8:45PM, still thinking that 9-6:15 is over nine hours, minus the numberless wake-ups, so I might get up early to type more later. Leave packing to between 6:15 and 6:30, since I'm not about to shower for THREE straight days! Shut this off, actually, at 8:42PM. Wake, at 11:22, feeling SLIGHTLY feverish. It FEELS like I don't sleep, but then I've had at LEAST two dreams: 1) Maybe a PAIR of dreams about a poor captive squirrel, in a waxed paper prison, held by an odd friend who refuses to tell me WHY the squirrel seems either sick or drugged. 2) An extended dream where I'm having a snack in a tall gay-oriented building where everyone is arguing about who's paid the bill and who still has to pay the bill, and I exit by going down a LONG stairway which could have little stairs off to the side which only lead back to the main, direct, descent to a street littered with ruined cars, and I cut my finger on the edge of one of the cars while clambering over it to get to the actual street, where I'm picked up by an attractive guy in a VERY nicely tailored pair of pants who seems to be very much on the make but of questionable safety.
SAT, 3/3: Look at my watch at 1:44AM and type this to 1:52, making MANY mistakes, then pee and try to get BACK to sleep. Have QUITE a feeling of unreality as I pee, and absurdly think that Mustafa arranged some kind of drug in the wine at dinner which has affected my mind rather in the same way Marc Cram plied me with kif in Morocco with Jean-Jacques that led to a decidedly SIMILAR feeling of "I'd better watch out, because I'm under the influence of a drug and things might not be PRECISELY as they seem to be, so I have to be VERY careful in what I do and say." Wake 3:35; pee 3:53. Wake 5:06, after weird dream, then type it at 5:11: I'm looking for a cab very early in the morning, after I'd waited for Ken in a roadside bookstand where I got my feet VERY muddy looking at old books with very low pricetags, like a colored-cover Scott's Stamp Catalog from 1935 for $3, and photography books for equally low prices. Ken doesn't show up for breakfast, doing someone a favor for some charity, but when they ask me if I want to go to Hartford, I say "No, I don't." Taxi to 58th and 5th, and some Indian keeps running behind my taxi, whom I try to ignore, but when we stop a few blocks short of where I want to go, it turns out to be my taxi-driver (but the taxi's really more like a rickshaw now) who'd PUSHED the rickshaw rather than peddled with his feet like a bike, and he stops and rather threatens me by saying, "I can do what I want, but you have to pay anyway." "How much?" I ask warily. He thinks, then holds up two fingers "Two dollars." I figure that's OK and pay him and walk into the dirty-spoon restaurant he'd left me off at the back door of, thinking it might be an omen of a good place to have breakfast, or a good hamburger if it's too late to order from their breakfast menu. Down a flight of stairs, past people eating at tables, and to the lower level where there are a few people at a counter, but when I round the corner to the front windows, there are only two tables, and they've been wetted down and the floor beneath is wet from washing, and I mock moan, "But I can't sit where I want to!" "There were only two chairs, anyway," the waitress says. So I figure I'll sit at the counter and see what's being offered, but that's the end of the dream. 5:21AM now, less than an hour to wake-up call. Pee 5:22. Wake-up call 6:17. Pack and bag out 6:40. Breakfast at Hollenbachs and "new" people without nametags. Pay $5 hotel bill with Visa and board bus at 7:25. Guevara and friend not down til 7:37! They DO have a dotted i for ee sound and an undotted i as eh. #13 Sulimaniye Mosque from Galata Bridge from bus at 7:44AM. To airport by 8:05. This coast has planned to be elegant, with a few tall hotels "sticking out like a sore thumb," as a tourist said, but it hasn't quite caught on as much as the Bosporus coast. All bags piled on little carts, mine among the last, and Mustafa goes to check in the group for 15 minutes, when the plane is due to depart at 8:50, so things will have to go quickly. Group seated together, so we may not get seats we want. I sit and get this out and finish at 8:20, no one curious about what I'm doing. But then Barbara DOES come over just after I'd packed it away and asks to look at it, but she can't even type, just putting in a "barbara" in file 2. So much for selling one to her. Board at 8:40 and CHEAT by moving from 21E to 21F, at the window nicely behind the wing. Still loading our people and luggage at 8:50, our scheduled departure time. Standbys load from REAR and the plane is FULL. It's a 45 minute flight, but we have to wait a half hour for takeoff with six planes in front of us. It's 3° Centigrade in Ankara, they announce, but it never feels anything near that cold, or anything as cold as Istanbul, in Ankara. Take off at 9:30. Hills and snow and FEW trees and land at 10:07 after Mrs. Harris bends my ear about her father inventing the crimped side of the tin can, making the family incredibly rich, but she only saw her father at Christmas and one week during the summer before she was shipped off to eight weeks of summer camp, and she HATED her rich family and went from being the snob of the world at 18 to marrying a simple man and making their own way and raising their own three children very differently, and now that she's poor she's very happy and would never be rich. Yeah. Onto bus at 10:25, watching them load my bag, and Mustafa talks at 10:35 of matriarchy, honoring Cybele in 10,000BC. Hittites FIRST rode horses and used iron (oh, "irun" is spelled "ayran," which I see on various menus). Have "brunch" of plane-breakfast cheese sandwich and cake at 11AM when my stomach demands it. Anatolian Museum 11:30-12:45. #15 Clay goddess, giving birth, from level II Catal Huyuk about 6000BC. Hittite goddess Hepat, or Sun Goddess of Arinna, equals Late Hittite Kubaba and Lydia's Kybebe. #16 Carcamesh, sacred file of animals on shoulders from 950BC. #17 general view of interior, ALL of Carcamesh, at 12:21. #18 13th Century BC Fasillar, Konya, Beysehir, enormous cast of Greater God stepping on Lesser God. #19 Ankara town from museum. #20 Museum [start file 2 about 7:45PM 3/3] view of cases. #21 Carcamesh griffins carrying the firmament (basalt) 950BC. #22 Late Hittite Long Wall from 920BC. #23 King Tarhunza, limestone, Aslantepe near Malatya, 8th Century BC, 3.2 m high, with Mustafa to give scale#16 Carcamesh, sacred file of animals on shoulders from 950BC. #17 general view of interior, ALL of Carcamesh, at 12:21. #18 13th Century BC Fasillar, Konya, Beysehir, enormous cast of Greater God stepping on Lesser God. #19 Ankara town from museum. #20 Museum [start file 2 about 7:45PM 3/3] view of cases. #21 Carcamesh griffins carrying the firmament (basalt) 950BC. #22 Late Hittite Long Wall from 920BC. #23 King Tarhunza, limestone, Aslantepe near Malatya, 8th Century BC, 3.2 m high, with Mustafa to give scale. All photos with NO flash allowed, and I could find the switch on my Pentax that thankfully worked for that. #24 outer castle-wall of museum. #25 hill-slums from museum road. Leave museum 12:55, tasting more sesame circles. #26 Ataturk Mausoleum on hill. #27 Ankara center (cutie in lower right?). #28 Ataturk in Jandarm monument, jandarms are country police, part of military, in which everyone before age 32 has to serve 18 months, second biggest NATO army after USA. Through Saturday-busy Ankara, U-turn at construction, to cloudy, treeless, countryside with Turkish music playing. Pass a shop named Kebabestan. Stop at 2:40 for lunch, poor salty meat pancake and mediocre yellow-vegetable soup, but 1.7M price is quite acceptable, though I stiff both table and john with no tip. Out at 3:10 and put two 2 1/2-cent coins in pocket for future john-stops. Leave 3:20 with three hours to go. #29 Mt. Hasan at 9000 feet at 5:05PM, sun just setting, walked five minutes to get away from highway photo-clutter. Stop from 5 to 5:27, waiting for Mr. Maniscalco, whom Mustafa had to go fetch, as he did Guevara this morning. Loan museum book to Mary to read on bus. Guy in front of me asks his wife, "Pass it (chocolate bar) to you?" "You could pass it back here (pause) that was a joke," and they made NO move to TRY to offer me some. VERY few handsome men, maybe one out of a hundred. Turn left on SILK ROAD that ended in Ephesus, which had to turn to sea when Turkey expanded to control the northernmost route through Hungary, this middle route, and a lower route that ended in Aqaba in Jordan, all of which Turkey controlled. Caravansarai (camel-stop inn) every 20 miles. At 5:40 Mustafa starts on Turks, Armenians, and Kurds, essentially saying the urgency of WAR forced the generals to march the Armenians south, killing probably no MORE than 300,000, without a real PLAN, like Hitler's, so this could NOT be classified as a Holocaust, as the French were hasty to do, but of course the Turks CAN'T agree to apologize to the Armenians, because that would be admitting they OWED them REPARATIONS, and how could they pay them? So, of course, they'll never apologize, even though the Armenians are peaceful now totally enclosed by Turkey as they are. So many questions are asked he never DOES get to the Kurds, and finally, at my request, turns off the bright lights so we can enjoy the last of the sunset through Nevsehir, arriving at "Country Club Kapadokya Lodge," at 6:30 in the total dark. Gather in lounge and drink VERY dry acidic red wine free, and Mrs. Burton won't even offer me a TASTE of her white wine. Mustafa "has mercy" on our early, long day today by saying that breakfast tomorrow is at 7-8 and we don't start until 9:30AM. Dinner is starting at 7:30, Mustafa in room 315. I get 303 key at 6:45 and wait for my bag, hidden in the middle, and get both bags to room by 6:55. Put stuff away, deciding not to hassle a safe key but put everything for the DAY, including passport, in my A&K bag which I'll LOCK in my blue bag with my camera and computer when I go to dinner. Everything away and book looked through for references and finish typing this at 7:54PM, delaying dinner to let the doughy late lunch settle in, but not so much that waiting up another hour after dinner will cause terminal fatigue, since my eyes were REALLY CLOSING over the boring sloping, treeless hills with the scars of finished winter-wheat fields and ever-nearing Mt. Hasan, until we get to a point where there's no good photo, where we stop. Of course we DO come back this way, so there's maybe another chance. Wash face for dinner and get out at 8PM. Have a ghastly thought: what if this was a fixed-course menu that started at 7:30 and I've MISSED the first few courses? But get down to find everyone lined up at buffet tables, and I find a place across from the Johnsons, who seem to be alone at the first table, and go get a plate of "mystery food", though Ray Hollenbach says it isn't even though he can't identify what I at first take to be anchovies in a cream sauce, but turns out to be something unidentifyably else. Turns out THEY sit at our table also, but leave the seat next to me vacant so they can sit across from each other, Marilyn next to Margaret. Order a half-bottle of white, which is much more palatable than the red, and he doesn't even ask me for my room number until I'm the last to leave the table at 9:15, $7, not bad at all, and I'll be sure to have more, hoping it will finally give me a SOLID night's sleep tonight, or at least tomorrow, reminding myself that this IS only the fifth day into a seven time-zone change. My second plate is fried chicken, beef stroganoff, minced lamb, a roasted pepper and tomato, some sort of vegetable fritter, and something else I don't remember. Hollenbachs talk about their Relais et Chateaux experiences in the south of France, mainly around Vence, and I tell them about Ousteau de Beaumaniere, Hiely, Pierre Gagnaire (except isn't he one of the names in PARIS??), and I can't think of the name of the knife town---LeCompte? Largierre---LAGUIOLE! Write a note to give to them, not able to think of the hotel we stayed in in Les Baux: Le Forge du Midi? Le Trou aux Cerf? Le Pinot Noir? DOESN'T come to mind! Then I go for a plate of desserts, the Johnsons leave, and Marilyn zooms in to ask, "What have you thought about the trip so far?" "The places are wonderful, but the food's been pretty bad." They agree completely, and I encourage them to write a letter to Grand Circle giving the DETAILS they know about WONDERFUL restaurants and neighborhoods in Ankara that Mustafa steered us COMPLETELY away from for that awful doughy pancake lunch in the drive-in off the highway south to Aksaray. Really feel great talking to them, the whole place clears out except for a shouting kid across the way, and I get asked to sign for my wine and get a glass of somewhat diluted cherry juice (the glass on the plane was the BEST!) to ask to take to my room. Feel pretty good getting into the elevator, away from the screaming kids, and get to my room about 9:15 to pee and write all this and unpack my locked bag and check the list to find that I've really only MISSED the Polettes, Lukes, and Hubers! Lester Polette is quiet and usually intelligently nice to me when we interact, and HIS might be the only really PRETTY younger wife of the lot (though she turned out to be Mrs. Luke), whose name, if it's she, would be Germana! Guess that Stella Willcox is the missing one of the 40 to 39. Now 9:47, pleasantly full and buzzy from the wine. Remember the place to stay near Ousteau: Le Cabro D'Or! Glance through booklets picked up (in German, Spanish, and English) downstairs and we're not seeing hardly ANYTHING yet! Get ready to brush my teeth at 10PM---latest on trip yet?? Bed 10:32PM.
SUN, 3/4: 12:06PM: Wake with a nice erection from a dream: I'm in the shower in the gym and a rather abstracted, or drunk, fellow tries to come barging into my shower, but I push him back with one determined finger. "I think he was Scandinavian," muses one gym-mate. "I think he was drunk," I reply. Without transition, I'm in the shower and a cute kid is standing in the doorway, looking out idly, and I figure "Why not?" and reach avid fingers forward to fondle him, and can almost FEEL the touch of his flesh on my fingertips when I wake, aroused by the dream and the feeling of the soft-wool blanket around my body. I debate with myself, "If it's after midnight, I'll jerk off," but decide that would be too quick and modify it to "after 1AM." Look at my watch and it's 12:06AM. "Fuck that," I almost think, and get up to turn on lights and search for and find second rubber band, and with my bare feet up on either side of the mirror in the hall notice the unmistakable stains of PREVIOUS orgasms on the mirror, though so low it was either a dog or a two-year-old. But there are three spurts, nevertheless. I try it there, but it doesn't work, then take off the cot-pad and put it on the chair to heighten my crotch to mirror-level and work over it quite quickly, feeling very good, until I cum and spasm and spasm and spasm without actually ejaculating, and I bend over to watch and almost as an afterthought a huge glob of jism spills out onto my belly. Lick it up, get up, put things away, wipe it off, pee, look at my watch to find it's only 12:41AM; figure this has come to a new level of recovering from jet-lag, and finish typing this at 12:49, taking, say, 50 minutes out of my sleep-time between 10:30 and 8AM, still a comfortable eight hours and forty minutes, and let's HOPE a smaller number of actual wake-up occurrences. Check alphabetization of entire file to find that there's no "e" in "unmistakable." Now it's 12:57AM. Read and shit to 1:16AM. 3:22: Wake with dream of either having created or having bought a shopping bag with the figure of a girl somewhat like a Kewpie doll on either side, with tinsel going from bra to ankle so that, when shook, the girls look like they're doing the shimmy or hula with the tinsel glittering back and forth. I seem to think that it's a great idea; others say it's trivial or ugly and it'll never sell, while I think it would be a great investment. Don't bother to get up to write it down. 5AM: Dream of being in John Vinton's apartment on Central Park West, and I've tried to describe this situation to him without using a diagram, but he seems unable to understand what I'm describing, so finally I grab a piece of newspaper or telephone book with a street map on it, and I slash a vertical, saying THIS is Central Park West, and then I draw emphatic squares: "And THIS is the Plaza Hotel (obviously impossible on Central Park West; I've drawn what would be Central Park SOUTH), and this is the abutting building with the balconies where Bill Angel (the person I'm trying to make a point about) lives (and would be about 4 CPS), and this is your building (maybe 8 CPS), and suddenly John sees what I'm saying but refuses to admit he'd been blind not to have understood it without a diagram, dismisses the whole thing as trivial, adding "Anyway, he doesn't think you're interesting enough to even know, and certainly aren't sexy." That hadn't been my point either, but I don't bother to press it. Meanwhile, the people for whom I'd been trying to make some kind of point are now absorbed looking at a thick stack of glossy photographs which at first I take to be a stack of duplicates, wondering what John is undertaking now that would require a two-inch stack of 4x6" glossies with what I think is one identical photo on one side and a series of smaller photos on the other side. Others are going through photo by photo, so I pick up a small stack and see that John's been engaged in another of his long-term projects (this probably stems from Mildred's asking what John DOES with this time): "I'll do anything for 20 cents," proclaims the main banner, and it shows John in the top photo asking someone (probably someone different on each photo) for 20 cents "So that I can support myself without working." The first one I look at specifies some unidentified act with a theatrical agent who, it would seem, would have no way of profiting from her expenditure of 20 cents by asking John to do anything, but the result was he couldn't do whatever it was, and the last photo has the caption, "Sometimes it turns out worse for me than I would have expected," (except that the photo looks very posed, rather than dangerous or spontaneous) and four or five roughnecks are threatening or performing slightly degrading forms of physical punishment on him: punching his shoulder, grinding a fist into his hair, menacing him in some minor way, with the agent, looking rather like Sandra Bernhard at the side, looking on with a sneer. When I wake from this, I can't resist getting up, peeing, and typing this whole thing out until 5:17AM, still having almost three hours to "sleep" before my wakeup call. Wake 7:05. Wake-up call at 8. Lounge and shower and wash glasses and change underwear to 8:50; down to breakfast. Breakfast has a handsome omelet maker (he's handsome, but the omelets are too), but NO meat, bacon, or ham (Moslems eat no pork), just small rounds of bologna. No orange or grapefruit slices (but fresh juice squeezed for $2!), but lots of cherries and yogurt, which I guzzle. Up to room to get bag and into bus at 9:28AM. Barbara M getting "rice soup" with her diarrhea, the first to be hit. Leave 9:37. 1952: Government says "out of cones" which contain asbestos causing cancers. #30-33 Valley of the Pigeons, where they made coops for their guano, look for PEOPLE on ridges of 32-33 for scale. "Pile" is Uchisar "Summit Castle." #36 at 10:32 INSIDE tuff-house with flash. Start #Roll 3. 4-5 smaller valleys LIKE this around volcano, the back of which is steep and inaccessible. Into house and drink two glasses of apple tea. Ask to climb Uchisar. Bus leaves 11:17. To Valley of Hunters 11:20-11:50. INFINITE possibilities for photos. #1-8 from "Hunter's Point." Stop in Sedef Restaurant in Goreme for "Everything" (and it turns out that Karisek DOES mean "mixed") pide (cheese, beef, sausage, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, egg) for 2.5M and large beer for 1.5M. #9 Sedef Restaurant at 12:10. GOOD lunch, I tell of Frieburg "Paul comes out, Countess comes out of my room" and Marilyn does DOLL clothing! They take Visa! Onto bus 1:03PM. Next, Goreme Open Air Museum. Had two beers. Stop in open-air museum 1:10PM. #10 Open-air museum (frescos, no photos, 900-1000 years old) WHITE is RESTORED: mud, tin, mud on top. INCREDIBLE Apple (from Raphael holding Earth like apple) Church: eye-paint mixed with FOOD cures illness, so EYES GONE. #12 FROM balcony of "dark" church $6 to enter! SHOD Church had it ALL in BEST detail: Transfiguration, Ascension, Carrying cross, Three kings, Helen and Constantine, Pancreator and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; Mary holding Christ, St. Basil, St. George, Raphael, naked Crucifixion---but not as odd as woman-into-man with round tits and a long gray beard, naked except for a genital-covering FAN! in Apple Church. To bus 2:24, after I run around to higher churches while rest of group poses for group photo which I won't be in, which fits, since today I don't really feel part of the GROUP. Went to WC and waved off his demand for 150K when I only threw 25K coin into box. To Urgup, not able to take photos of combination houses and cave-dwelllings because of angles of sun, bus windows, people, and rapidity of passage. #14-16 Fairy chimneys at 2:36 with Erciyes volcano at 12,000 feet in background. It's WARM, some people even down to tee-shirts, and Mustafa comments that this is EXCEPTIONALLY good weather. Leave 2:50. Guevara chatted up two cute Ankara students. #17 FAMILY at 2:51. Hubers are the male Khruschev-like blob and the Midge-wrinkled-face tall thin hyperactive woman. Polette was talking into his camera, and each of his 900 (low resolution; high-resolution would only be 90 per chip) photos takes a ten-second commentary! 3:10 stop at top of "Red Valley." #18 across valley at 3:16. I walk with group, then WAY past where bus waits for us, taking #19-27 of odd shapes. Pee on tuff. Leave 3:37 to Avenos. #28 stones at 3:53. #29 Goreme at 3:57 stone rooms and windows. For Uchisar, turn left and ask for Robinson Club or Capadokia Lodge for 20 minute walk. Leave bus 4:08. Dinner 7-9:30, start tomorrow 9AM. Into Uchisar 4:15. #30 Uchisar at 4:27. Enter 4:30 for 1M. #31 at 4:35, mountain in upper right. #32 Goreme overview at 4:40. #33 down-view at 4:43. Start down at 4:55. Onto road at 5:10. Back 5:45 and COLLAPSE onto bed to 6:30. Make "wake list" and get to dinner at 7:55 with Don and Dot, later the Hollenbachs to whom I give the list I made of southern French Michelin goodies. Up at 9:10, full, paying 10M for half-bottle of Catanya, "best in Turkey" per Hollenbach. NOTHING for it: bed at 9:25. Wake 11:05.
MON, 3/5: Wake 12:55 and have INCREDIBLE, slightly larger, green and yellow mympths show. Pee. Pee 4:52, look at watch at 5:23. Up at 7 and write dream to 7:19: 7:08AM, 3/5: Dream of riding in a car with three or four others, Mary Vilaboa driving, and she faints or goes to sleep and the car threatens to go off the road unless I get around her to apply the brake and steering wheel to save us. She tries again, but this time the car is more like a motorcycle (I guess influenced by all the motorcycles who passed me on the road last night) which has a tiny flexible lever for an accelerator which is difficult to maintain a pressure on, though I realize this makes it safer, because your foot can so easily slip off it when you lose attention that the cycle will automatically stop before any accident could happen. The group decides to wait on the corner of 118th and Madison until I can get back, and I go somewhere and then try to get back, but the road at 119th Street suddenly goes into an enormous hump (which, as I explain to the group after I get back, is necessary because the Park Avenue tunnel is coming out of the ground there and the street thus has to accommodate the ceiling of the tunnel) and I simply can't motor the cycle up the slope. Try the next street, and it looks OK until the SIDEWALK starts up in a metal arch, which narrows with enormous metal bosses on the top, so that it becomes almost like riding a tightrope, again becoming impossible. I finally manage to get back to the group and explain lengthily why I was so late, though it was great they waited for me, otherwise it would be impossible to predict which street they would go down and which avenues I would go up in search for them. Without transition I'm walking with someone like Joe Safko, who's making very cruel jokes that are physically hurting me, and I retaliate by taking a small metal box and striking him lightly across the fingers, which somehow hurts him more than anything he'd done to me, and he moans to his friends, "Look how he's hurting me!" Again without transition I've managed to get him back to me and we're dancing closely, me with my arms firmly around his back and waist, holding him to me, and he's distant, saying, "Maybe this is the end of the relationship, because I just can't take---" But I cling even harder to him and bury my head in his chest and begin to sob, either out of relief in holding him or in remorse for what I'd done to him, and he stops talking and I feel a great sense of relief that he's forgiven me. Wake and look at my watch PRECISELY as it clocks over to 7AM. I then transcribe yesterday to 7:40, then shower to 8 and finish this at 8:09, feeling hungry for breakfast, but my stomach in profile is truly enormous and I'll have to cut down on food---and no more two beers for lunch, which gave me a slight headache (and awful goof: thinking Mr. Harris was Mr. Smith, and solo, I looked down at Mrs. Harris and asked "Who are YOU?" and then pretended not to have seen HIS nametag, but remained embarrassed for the rest of the day and even now. To breakfast 8:20 and sit next to Mr. Luke, from Raleigh, the last to be identified on my list, though it's hard to characterize him except to say that he has a small head. See french toast as I go in, a good antidote to eggs, and put on a bit of honey and have very thinly sliced cold cuts. Follow that with a big bowl of fruit, and sadly the cherry juice has become red-colored slightly sweet water. We all joke about computers and Gates and non-showering persons. Back up at 8:40 and make my person-note and take out my empty pill box and make sure I've packed water and the three chocolates I got from the reception-woman at the exit from the restaurant. Guevara was alone at the desk when I went in and alone reading a book by the fireplace when I went out: only I wish he'd remain alone in the back of the bus when he jokes about his drinking with his cronies, drowning out whatever Mustafa is saying, as if it didn't MATTER what we were seeing, only Guevara's REACTIONS to it. Maybe I'm annoyed with him because he reminds me of ME? Sparrows sitting chirping loudly right outside the window at my left shoulder. Bed was VERY comfortable, but they insisted yesterday on moving the head back to the wall. See if they do it again today. Pity TV isn't more entertaining. Put everything away at 8:50 and maybe get on bus early to be closer to the quieter front! Down 8:54 after quick little shit. 9:02, Claire still missing; Mary: "She doesn't have a watch." How COPELESS! Driver hands out "blue eye" for luck and grapes for fertility. Leave 9:07. Kymakli is second-largest underground city. Attila and Ghengiz Khan BOTH had Turkish mothers. From Russian steppes, first rug is in Hermitage from 400BC, wool on wool, then wool on cotton. To Avenos carpets 9:30. To clean wool carpet, SHAMPOO on sponge, organic, like hair. Cocoon (took one) has 1/2 mile of thread. Soak in hot water and take 25 filaments to one thread. Pupa inside. #34 silk threads at 10AM. #35 spinning combined 200 strands. TAKE a string. 10:35 to exhibit room. #36 carpet colors at 10:24. MUST be silk on SILK---if COTTON fringes it's cotton on cotton. Silk fringes nubbled, like spaghetti (and mine DOES seem to be silk!). $900 and up, THEY pay customs for 6x9'; little silk rug is $500. Tiny 2420 knots/inch is $55,000, a museum piece. Have glass of araki (weak Pernod) and white wine. Show over at 10:50. Find map for $5 and Capadokia book for $10, but they take no credit cards, but I buy five cards for 250K and take LOTS of chocolate, given on second day of "sacrifice" holiday. Off at 11;16. Guevara STAYS, and later shouts at Mustafa that he thought he said he'd be picked up in an hour, not in three hours, missing the underground city, and he sulked in the bus the rest of the day. Off to Kymakli at 11:46. First two floors, Hittites kept food and animals in 1500BC. #37 old town of Nevsehir at noon. Turkish fort on top. #Roll 4, #1 Abandoned (Gore) Greek town above, below Turks sent from Greece in 1935 trade. VERY like what I missed a photo of in Urgup. Ask Cabanis how Guevara will get back: "He's 60, had 20 years in the Air Force, he'll cope. He probably met someone." Arrive Kymakli 12:28. #2 town map at 12:33. 2000 people could live a month here. #3 inside at 12:51. Bottom: 50 meters down. Pay $14 for $15 stuff, on Visa, yet I hear that it's down to about 700,000 lira/dollar, so maybe I was the one who got cheated. Out 1:25, on bus 1;45; Elizabeth (Betty) admits I was RIGHT on her tv-camera-light advice. Another GORGEOUS day. Leave 1:48 to Tashan Restaurant in Uchisar at 2:10 for lunch. There ARE busses with toilets, but Mustafa chose not to have "problems" with them. Volcano is under clouds today, not as good a shot as yesterday. Chicken schwerma, kofta, tomato soup, and 1/2 whole bottle of white Tarasan at 6.5M shared with Floyd, from whom I borrowed 5M. On bus 2;57, feeling GOOD! Floyd lost his wife of 53 years 1.5 years ago to cancer. To Zelve, Valley of Pashas. #5 south of Goreme. Arrive Pasha Valley at 3:15. #6-9&10 pan and non-pan of same shot. I'm last on at 3:32! Through #13. Tomorrow 6:30 wake-up call, 7AM baggage out, leave 8AM for 11 hours to Antalya. 3:55 at entrance to Uchisar castle, better yesterday, windier today, and weather will get WET tomorrow. This WC 250K! Hotel 4:18. Lie down 4:35; up 5:30, read. Type 5:50-6:18, determined to write postcards and send them tomorrow to be RID of them! Something odd just happened to typing that cleared up when I went back a bit. Not end of file message yet. Babies crying from adjoining room, and I'm next to Trelacks: Cynthia told me on bus of international organization of singers who go to different countries to present operas. Mustafa keeps talking about my climbing Uchisar yesterday and lots keep asking me about it. I feel good on the trip, having talked to Mrs. Luke today, admired the picture of Polette's dog, completing my "introduction" to everyone on the list. Postcards to Sherryl, Pope, Carolyn, Mildred, Rita, and John (who hasn't gotten it by 3/18!) to 6:40. No address for Fred and only OLD address for Vicki make my choices easier: not sending the "Knights" cocks, getting used copies from John. Shit while reading the rest of the astounding Fujimori article in New Yorker, feeling oddly hot, hoping I'm not getting sick. Just TIRED all evening. Now at 7:10 decide to get an early dinner so I can at least digest before going to bed. 9PM: HOOOO, boy: sit across from Iris, who's next to the Polettes, and we start talking about computers but get into "outer space" with Mr. Polette explaining Harold Gordon's (or some name like that) "Fingerprints of the Gods" that says the Pyramids were built 10,000 years ago because their alignment and sizes agree with the stars of Orion's belt at that time, as the dawning of the era of Leo (insisting that the Egyptians had the same name for the zodiac that we have) had to correspond with the lion-bodied Sphinx, which agrees with the water-erosion at its base and the "fact" that the Great Pyramid is much different from the others in sizes of stones and in having NO inscriptions, whereas the others are "covered with them." I get back to Velikovsky (of whom they hadn't heard) and HIS now-ignored theories, and SHE gets into some Pictish Tower "on an island north of Skye" with its GLAZED exterior, and I mention Nan Madol, and they get into WHY someone would do [start file 3 at 9:03PM on 3/5] something like that. I say "That's why I want to live to be 105, so that some of these problems may be solved, maybe by finding that one of the eleven dimensions of Superstring Theory accounts for ESP and clairvoyance and telepathy and levitation ("That's how they built the pyramids," says Polette) and other currently unexplained puzzles. He gets back to the Piri Riis map that shows the mountains UNDERLYING Antarctica, and he started by saying that this book asserted that Lake Titicaca has risen to its current 12,000 feet altitude IN THE PAST 20,000 years, and when I, in jest, when they bring up the increase in altitude of Everest, say "Well, say it rises an inch a year, how many inches in 20,000 years?" and am nonplused when it turns out to be not THAT different from 12,000 feet----WHOOPS, no, it would have been more like 1,200 feet!! So much for table-side mathematics. He's VERY enthusiastic about these things; I get into my search for the Wyndham book, and it turns out that Iris REMEMBERS being impressed when she read "Day of the Triffids." So now it's 9:09:09, and I want to brush my teeth. Watch some really SICK, totally CONSTRUCTED, music videos until 9:40, and figure to get to bed by 9:50PM. 11:25 wake with dream: I come home to 167 Hicks, and on the table is a package of laundry marked "Vaya," which is for Judy, upstairs, and MY laundry from the Chinese place next to Teresa's, and I figure it's OK, because I DID pay!
TUE, 3/6: Wake-up 1. Pee a VERY small amount! Wake at 1 and 2:18 for 2 & 3, really RIDICULOUS! Look at watch again at 3:28 and 4:30 and 5:40 for 4 & 5 & 6, middle one with frustration dream of trying to show slides on a new projector (from "new" video camera which wouldn't work yesterday afternoon?), and though I could hear the changer putting slides through, nothing came out on the screen. I couldn't even figure out which SIDE of the projector had the switch for the light! Then, when picking it up to look at the underside, slides began leaking out of the container, dribbling like sand into various grouplets along the arms and legs of someone like Mr. Hollenbach, who I told to please remain still, but he suddenly raised his arms to his head, totally throwing the slides into disarray, and I cried out in frustration "I TOLD you to sit STILL," to which he replied with equal intensity, "I just moved my ARMS!" Lay in mild agony over the NUMBER of times I'm waking up now---anticipation of today's long bus-trip? Fear engendered from Polette's statement that the Mayan calendar just ENDS in 2012? Some vague medical prodrome? Too much to eat? Not enough or too much alcohol? Finish this at 5:47, back to bed for less than 45 minutes before wake-up call at 6:30. Lie and think about future trips, my past philosophical positions, what I have done and what I want to do, and the upcoming day's adventures. Wake-up call comes at 6:26AM and I determine I'd better shower before packing and putting luggage out at 7AM. Finish showering (they DID refill the Dove creme wash so full that it dripped onto then shelf below) by 6:50 and start packing. Bag out at 7AM exactly. Down to breakfast 7:08, pay 17M Visa, up 7:40 to wash grapefruit-sticky fingers, and pee. Shit a bit and down at 7:53. Most of the "good" seats are taken and at first I take a "poor" (meaning it had a post in the MIDDLE of vision, rather than out of immediate range of sight) seat on the left, but looking at the map for the route for the day, it appears a north-facing seat would be better, so I move to the right, behind Cabanis and in front of the Maniscalcos and beside Polette, who at first seemed determined to talk with me the whole way, but then settled into reading his book next to his wife reading her book and constantly rustling the plastic bag she had to hold on her lap because of all the bags at their feet. He sat sideways on his seat, holding onto my armrest, which explains why he had "seatitis" on the long drive down to Antalya. People fussing at 8. Leave 8:07. 9:05 "15-minute stop" in Aksaray, same place, mountain much more hazy today, though it's still warm. Tempted by 1M comic book in MAD "Mad" style. Leave 9:25. Kitaro's "Silk Road" (which I turn out to HAVE) written for Japanese documentary that took five years to film from Xian to Istanbul, available "in good video shops" under that name. But he plays it too low to be anything but monotonous and boring. #14 pre-Konya plain at 10AM, broken only by herds of sheep and an occasional cluster of adobe buildings. #15 Sultanhani caravansarai at 10:06AM, built 1229. #16 inside at 10:15, unusually high, like a cathedral, but dark and somewhat smelly; it must have been a-REEK in winter. In the restaurant/gift-shop across the street there's still free candy and the WC is free, men's taken first by Mrs. Polette. He later tells me he ground his own 6" telescope lens in high school and talks about the computer-controlled auto-focus stellar telescope for $2000. Leave 10:45. Shiites descended from Ali, Mohammed's son-in-law and designated leader, killed by the army leaders who established the Sunni line. Sufis branched off later with Rumi; all Sufis are all Whirling Dervishes, and can even be non-Moslems, with a branch in NYC. The head Sufi is "secret," elected by four men, one of whom is Turkish; they have about 2M followers. December 15 they meet in Konya and whirl. Get to Konya and Dervish Mausoleum and Museum at 12:20. #17 outside museum at 12:24. #18 models of eating Sufis. #21 tombs, with colorful niche #22 holding Rumi and his son (though the body is only a vessel and should not be adored); the green minaret is right over that. #23 colorful jars for sale outside "suffering rooms" at 1:02. #26 cemetery with green whirls for Dervishes at 1:27. Poor Mustafa: "Regular lunch cafeteria closed." He tries another in town but it's not big enough. We get a great view over Konya going into the hills and ride up and down and around until we get to Upcinar and Ali Bilir Restaurant at 2:40, and I eat so slow I get out the back door FIRST and am first in line while manager smiles at me and says it'll take a minute to rewarm the soup, and that's chicken, that's meat, and I look down and there's Mary, pushed to the front of the line! I say nothing, and blessedly the manager looks at me and says, "Yes, sir?" at which Mary mumbles something like "Well, I guess you WERE here before me." I take the meat without rice and the soup, then pick up a Tuborg and a rice pudding, paying 4M and getting another 5M from Floyd, who asks to join me, joined by Birger and wife who ask "Are you exclusive?" and we both say "We are, so you can join us." We pull out at 3:33. #27 across lake to mountains at 5:15. #28 lake at 5:22, hoping for a good view, but don't know camera well enough to predict what will turn out. Pull into Egirdie ("g" silent, so it's like "ey-EAR-dee-eh") at 5:32 for 20-minute stop. I go to restaurant to pee a bit, then take off following Barbara along the shore, getting to the end of the spit before the causeway to the blob of end-island, and turn back down the main street and get back at 5:52, pee again, shop, tempted by SILK carpet-cards, and bus leaves at 6PM, getting dark, too dark for palatial (castelatial?) military headquarters outlined in neon on acropolis over lake, surmounted only by Army motto emblazoned on cliff-side, something like "We're here, we're strong, we're ready." Everyone says Turkey pays an ENORMOUS amount to support its army. Mustafa tells about Brzynski's book about "inevitable" water wars in Middle East, Turkey taking water from Tigris and Euphrates before they get to Iraq. AGAIN, my laptop gets that odd "upper box" shape for a whole line, and then at the END of the line, but when I shut machine off and turn it back on, I can continue to enter characters. Hope this doesn't mean I've lost anything. First trial always the hardest: this and camera on same trip! I hide behind window-curtain to block out lights, and EVERYONE notices and laughs, and when they agree the lights are poor, I shout out "Would anyone mind if the lights were out?" And Mustafa expresses surprise, but the lights go out and no one complains; except MY READING light is stuck on, and I try and try, and Barbara tries, so I ask Les for a knife and JUST as I'm raising the knife to the switch, the light goes off and the RED emergency-call light goes on, since I'd pushed it in desperation to get the reading light off. Everyone laughs again, I push it off and say loudly, "What NEXT?" and everyone laughs. Haven't heard from Guevara AT ALL, and the wizened-faced Cynthia is the only lights-on reader through the rest of the two hours of the trip, annoyed when I THOUGHT we were 10-15 minutes from Antalya, by a sign "Antalya 70km!" Moon bright, I CAN read headlines until John M. notes the auto-lights from behind helped me on the second word. His mind might be going: she has to repeat almost anything, and for a bit he INSISTED there was a lake outside the window when Barbara and I were quite sure it didn't even LOOK like one. Arrive Talya Hotel at 8:16 after applause for driver (driving from 8AM!) and exhaustion for everyone, though Mustafa still sounds game and chipper, describing Antalya's growth from 40,000 ten years ago to 400,000 now and 2.5M during "summer beach" season: July and August when it's too hot to do anything BUT go to the beach. RIGHT in to introductory drinks (and I cadge most of the Harris's second one, but I think he didn't approve) and a GREAT buffet, getting garlic cloves because Mrs. Shapiro so approved of them. Drank lots of water but no wine. Up to room 114 for bag outside at 9:30. Look in mirror and I'm really FAT, and tired! Bed 9:59PM after taking thin quilt out of duvet-sheet and finding hard bed VERY comfortable, but don't care for light coming in even NOW from drapes overlooking Mediterranean faint light.
WED, 3/7: Wake 1:12AM, first time NOT before midnight! Wake 2:38 after VERY erotic dreams in which Michael Tepper and I were VERY close to cuming, and I wake with a THRUST into the sheet that feels VERY good. I get rubber bands and try chair before mirror, but that's no fun, so put second pillow under hips, get two bolls of cotton which feel VERY good instead of llama-wool, and cum VERY nicely, but very liquidy, and get back to bed at 3:06. Wake at 6:04, lie and think the traditional travel-morning thoughts: don't FEEL like getting up, getting TIRED of trip, WORRY about what today will bring, but KNOW that the day will be exciting and new ANYWAY. Up at 7:18, so I THINK (unless I woke from cock-hard dreams TWICE, which I actually think I DID) I only woke THREE times during the night, rather than the ridiculous SIX of the previous night. Shower and distribute the pills for the last four days into the vacant box-slots, and unpack to 8:08AM. Then start typing to 8:50, getting warm in the room even though I turned down the thermostat to 18° Centigrade. Now to dress and get down to breakfast: cloudy day outside and it feels CHILLY at large windows looking over foggy sea and minimal city-view from first floor. Down at 8:55AM. SMALL breakfast to 9:30, only french toast and a bit of veal ham and hot chocolate and fruit and yogurt. They said heat controls worked NOT AT ALL, nor did their TV until someone fixed it. Mailed cards to desk clerk, who started to READ them! They say ATM is down street to left. When I go to left, nothing's there, but on the right, on a small square, is an array of about five bank machines. Go into the last one: neatly labeled for Cirrus, enclosed, clean: try ATM and get "bank doesn't authorize, contact them." Try Visa and it doesn't recognize my code. Go next door to ratty, outside, marked-up one and the ATM card WORKS for 50M!! Talk to Iris on the way back, and up stairs to room with Johnsons who show me their pool view, better than mine. Get this out to type up to date at 10:20, and now rush down to bus for day's tour, and can pay off Floyd! Everyone jabbering. Pay Floyd 10M. Are seats scarcer? More singles? Leave 10:38. Mustafa says it's 21M for 25 minute turkish massage, but all services are free: Turkish bath, pool, internet; change down there. Arrive Antalya Museum 10:55. In at 11:05, told to meet at 12:30. #29 Emperor's room at 11:18 (Trajan and Hadrian). #30 Gabriel, 6th Century AD, SWEET face, if it comes out without flash, though LOTS of people are taking flash anyway! They have a "horny trumpet." Exhausting exhibits to 12:05, most rather tacky: icons, rugs, coins, coffee preparation items, wood, statuary remnants. Look HARD, but no GOOD reproductions of the Gigantomachy or Centauromachy from Perge. Out at 12:21 with 5M "discount" Antalya coast book. Bus leaves at 12:34. Off bus 12:41 in town. #31 Ataturk Monument and Yivli Minaret (13th Century), the symbol of the city at 12:46. He quits us at 1:22, VERY awkward in busy streets, he being constantly beseiged by restaurateurs trying to get him to tell us to go to them. #32 Hadrian's Wall (130AD) at 1:25. #33 Antalya harbor at 1:43 after walking narrow streets down from clock tower. #34 looking west at 2:17 after sitting on the dock and watching the hawkers trying to fill up the tour boats, the busses bringing Germans to the boats, and kids goofing off, some of them maybe gay drinking beer. Walk to other side but can't see Talya Hotel from the Harbor, then back to top to Kristal Restaurant next to Sultan Doner for Iskander Kebab for 2M and Efes beer for 1M and I watch people competing for customers, some VERY ugly tourists and one or two good-looking Turks holding hands, sit and drink beer until 3:21, needing to pee and unwilling to pay 250K for it! Walk to room at 3:45 to pee. Buy 3M Turkey map and sit on terrace looking at places to 4:23. Then decide to go to Turkish bath, so take bathing trunks and go down to -1, get a towel, get shown a place to change and watch some massages with lots of soap and ugly bodies, hardly recognizing the cascading tits of Dolores Dwelis until she says hello to me. They just pour hot and cold water to SIMULATE different temperature tubs, so I shower in WARM water, rather than cold outside, and they've finally gotten the two girls and family out of the Jacuzzi, so I go in and soak for awhile, then into the sauna where suddenly everyone joins me, and I try to stay for 15 minutes but can't take much more than 8, providing the hourglass is accurate: it MIGHT have been slow, or even stopped for awhile. Then sit outside and drip, trying to come to temperature, and decide to simply leave at 6PM when everyone else has gone. Back up to room still feeling hot, so I undress and spread stuff out to dry and turn on TV, getting excited about "Reap the Wild Wind" by DeMille, until it turns out to be dubbed in Turkish. Flick back and forth, watching some OUTRAGEOUS totally unwearable Indian-style clothing, some silly other stuff, and then a collection for men that absolutely looks taken from an everyday street! Totally outrageous. Then watch some MTV, including some sexy group that shows their bodies a lot, but most of it is posed and silly---or inadequate animation that I'm watching now. Decide at 8PM I've got to get SOMETHING done, and type this from 8 to 8:22, still trying to see if there's anything on MTV, and dress for dinner. Down, and almost everyone's finished, and though I ask around if anyone wants to share a bottle, everyone's finished. Then wonderful Joyce Johnson suggests I can put my NAME on the bottle and finish it tomorrow, and by coincidence Mustafa is serving himself dinner, and he agrees, so I order the bottle of Altineye for 5.75M and share it with him and the Lukes, and we talk about arthritis, and they like Coenzyme-Q10, which is expensive but he feels it works. Talk with them and FINISH the bottle of wine, getting back to my room about 9PM to watch more TV, getting hooked into a Danish program called "Cash" that I can't even understand the questions to but find it fascinating. Finally shut the thing off and finish typing this at 10:55, deciding to phone for a wake-up at 7:30, since we have to leave at 9. The wine is REALLY affecting me: NOW we'll see how many times I wake up tonight! Bed 11:02PM, new late?
THU, 3/8: Wake 1:05AM. Wake 5:40AM and pee, with memories of two dreams: 1) The old "gotta-get-a-subway-but-can't-run-fast-enough" dream: coming upstairs, trying to make every step as fast as I can, getting to the top to see the last people entering the doors, pulling on every available stanchion to pull me along faster, but still the doors close just before I reach them. 2) This was VERY elaborate, but I don't remember the preliminaries: some woman and I have worked VERY hard to make a successful stage production, and we booked it into an enormous theater like Radio City Music Hall (with a sidebar of a man sitting on the extreme side, saying it was easy enough to pick up a good ticket at the box office without worrying about planning ahead and buying a ticket through telephone or mail services), and we're gratified to see streams of people on both sides of the bus which is driving up the center of the street to take us there on the evening of the performance, and there seems to be an air of acceptance of us as producers that makes us feel very good. Maybe (no maybe: of COURSE) doze again, because when I look at my watch at 7:16AM there's another dream: I'm in a kind of gym, doing various exercises, but I'm supposed to be listening to an audio tape at some point, and my trainer comes up behind me when I'm sitting in a chair, and I perform an effortless flip so that I'm lying on my back on the floor with my calves resting in the chair where I'd just been sitting, and she smiles down at me and says "I guess you know you have to take your shoes off before you hear the tapes," and clearly I'm letting her prove my shoes are off by letting her take them off herself, though I'm vaguely embarrassed because I'm aware that my socks smell, as they actually do now, since I'm also aware that this is the 10th day, the center one of the trip, and I'm ready to change my underwear for the second time, gaining time because I wore the first set five days and the second four days. Finish this at 7:27, the strange back-of-throat soreness mainly gone: when I felt it I thought either I'd snored a lot during this night, with the almost-bottle of wine drunk, or I'm getting some kind of illness, since I feel vaguely feverish, but better now, maybe helped by the morning light coming through the drapes since 5:30 this morning. Now waiting for wake-up call, knowing from the television-time last night that my watch is correct to at least a minute, and it now shows 7:29:30. Idiot rings TWICE at 7:32AM! Shit (for the second time?) and edit this for earlier pee at 7:40AM. Luxurious shower until 7:55, but there was NO bathrobe in room, as stated in the Turkish bath. Thirsty, but will wait for breakfast momentarily, hoarding my last water though I'll have to buy some today. No recurrence of the tiny pill-bug I found on my pillow getting it from under the covers on the first day. Down to breakfast at 8:05. Back here 8:34, content to have had "only" two half-slices of french toast, one with bergamot jam (a bit like marmelade: tart and undefined-fruit tasting), the other with eggplant jam (actually not very different from a slightly-off honey), 4-5 tiny slices of very tasty veal ham, raspberry tea, a bowl of mostly apples, tinned-tasting grapefruit juice, and two glasses of refreshing water after the blitz of tastes, ignoring the eggs with ham and the made-to-order omelets. How sad to have to fast at a table of plenty. See Mary sailing toward me in the hall and decide to try a "Good morning," but she completely ignores me. Quelle bitch. Iris still hasn't gotten a replacement Amex card, though she should have, but we still tend to blame the now-ending holidays in Turkey. Decide to brush teeth, but THEN figure it'll be better to do it in the afternoon when I have a lot more time to waste watching TV. Walls between rooms here are THICK, because I've never heard neighboring noises, even in the bathroom, where my bathtub creaks plastically when I move around on it. Lone bird flying desperately around dining room. Lots of sparrows outside, and a few large doves. Crickets sounded last night. The sea-sky horizon indistinct this morning, but the eastern mountains were somewhat clearer and would be spectacular in summer clarity, but then I guess without the snow to add drama. Thinking that this file should be about to end, but I keep on going. Nothing captures my mind, now at 8:43, so I guess I'll pee and get down to a more-front seat on the bus. Sit in first big window on right for first time, and actually leave at 8:58AM! 9:14 waterfall stop, #35 Duden fall at 9:18 and stay to 9:34. Pass LOTS of greenhouses, glass and plastic. #36 aqueduct and bean pickers? 10:51 from MOVING bus. #Roll 5, which is actually good, since I'm starting the second half of the eight rolls on the day that starts the second half of the trip. To theater at 10:55. #1 Aspendos acropolis at 11:07. #2-3 from top of hill. #4 wildflowers on the trail 11:16. Theater built in 170AD. #5 from top tier 11:28. #6 11:30. #7 theater and acropolis (flash) picture. #8 panorama from car parking at 11:44. #9 cow, aqueduct and clouded Taurus Mountains, never really clear yet. Leave 11:56. Was 15,000 seats, for 150,000 people in area and 40,000 in Aspendos itself. Mustafa in room 120: call him when I get back from my taxi-trip to Perge, which Bob Harris talked about but backed out of. 12:30 off bus for Perge. In at 12:36, paying 2.5M for entry-ticket (glad I borrowed 10M from Bob!) and agreeing to 15M for taxi. #10 general Perge at 12:39. Towers are Hellenistic doors from 3rd Century BC. #17 "End" in view at 12:57, hot as summer in the ruins, this after wandering enormous halls on the left as I entered, much area still under bloom. #21 Foundation of round edifice in agora in center at 1:10. #22 stadium 1:22. Quick ride back to Talya at 1:37, just over one hour. Phone Mustafa, change to tee-shirt! Leave camera and bag behind and out at 1:51 in adequate heat. Stop for touted "free" Coke (without ice) and Margareta pizza for 1.5M, but then get a SMALL glass of Efes for which he charges 1M, so they get even in the end. Sit awhile over beer waqtching people pass, then leave about 2:30 to walk the usual route, determined to find the Information kiosk, and walk into sun for a long time and finally find it beyond where the bus left us off for the first tour of the town. NOTHING on any shelves, but I ask for a city map and get a good one, then for a Turkey map and can only get one in German that might have something interesting. Across road to belvedere over fishing port, possibly a cruising area (ugly guy smoking a cigarette on the rocks, uglier fellow in yellow-green jacket looking at a possible blond cutie in jeans, almost following him but stopping short for some reason. Feel sorry for the cute kid trying to sell pistachios by first offering some "for free" and then eating them himself, selling none that I saw. But he was trying so HARD! Leave maybe 3:30 and walk back around looking for a place to sit and watch more people, QUITE warm now, and pass all the familiar places until I get to the corner of the stadium and the Ataturk Museum (closed now that I was ready to see it) and see the ad for 3DM/$1.50/1M giant draft beer which tastes VERY good and affords more good looks at mostly unattractive people except for one or two beauties and only ONE filled crotch in the tight-topped pants. Leave there about 4:30 back to hotel for a pee, taking off most clothes and watching TV in a dead funk, at least SOME sexy guys in Fashion Week show, and British Music Awards with everyone presenting and winning that I don't know (except Elton John, of course). Tired of that by 6:50 and start typing until 7:12, watching a more-and-more boring MTV. Bought 1.5 liters of water across the street for 300K, a REAL bargain! Drink a lot, and will probably have the promotional wine this evening too, since yesterday was so successful. Also waiting for 8PM for the (ug, female) belly-dancer in the dining room. Oh, and also got 100M, 20 5M notes, at the working ATM, so I can repay the 10M borrowed from Bob Harris. Down at 7:37, taking the seat FARTHEST from the center with the Johnsons, and they promote the SAME wine at 5.4M, so I get it again with three glasses, and they DRINK it with pleasure. Betty has finger cymbals and dances with the dancer, which is just dreadful. I eat a plate of food and a whole plate of NINE desserts, just to have something to do. #23 is dining room and belly dancer in distance, probably not visible at all. Up at 8:54 to brush teeth while watching television. Turn it off about 9:50 and clip mustache and type this to 9:57; wake-up 6:30 tomorrow, with luggage out at 7 and bus leaves at 8. Stomach still feels full after an hour, but I'll put vicks up my nose and get to bed at 10:02PM.
FRI, 3/9: Wake 2:20 (over four hours!) and pee; wake 5:18 with two dreams: 1) I'm getting rid of stuff from a library, or someone's personal collection, and come across many old letters, some of which have perfectly ordinary stamps, some of which have many 12 and 13-cent stamps that I seem to have somehow missed, and then there are larger foreign-origin envelopes, but most of the British and Greek stamps on those seem to be torn or ruined around the edges, hardly worth the trouble of taking off the envelopes. 2) In a stage-play a [start file 4 at 7:03AM on 3/9] very pregnant woman is supposed to be giving birth, and she goes behind a curtain and a midwife goes to attend to her, and very quickly there are cries that sound halfway between a cough and a crow, and I suppose that's supposed to be the baby being born, but I think it's somehow "too much" for the stage at this time. Shit tiny turds. Call at 6:29 and I lie there for a moment, then up to shower without washing my hair and pack (the blue bag getting stuffed, but I haven't really started packing "neatly" yet), and hear the luggage cart outside, and see it down the hall, already loaded, when I put out my bag at 6:58AM. Back to type this, at last getting to File 4, which I'd been expecting for a few sessions already, and NOW (the last morning) I can hear a baby crying in an adjoining room upstairs or downstairs---well, I guess not DOWN, since I'm in room 114. The horizon-line is VERY clear this morning, with a striking white cruise ship in the middle distance and the rising sun on snow-capped hills to the east. Debate taking a picture, but I really don't have many left. Decide to keep my new-minted cash in my trouser pockets, so if my A&K bag is ripped off I don't lose EVERYTHING, and now that I have adequate lira I can put my remaining eight American singles away so that an overlooker can't say, "But you have dollars," as they did yesterday. Starting to count the days: only nine days left, over half through. Bag already too heavy and film-reserve too light. Stop now at 7:10AM to get to breakfast in my tee-shirt without nametag. #24-25 from balcony 7:40AM getting down LATE puts me at "refuse" table: Guevara at one end, Mary at the other (later she smokes alone on balcony) with photos; pass desk and remember to pay BILL, 12.3M who knows HOW. Stop to shit WITHOUT "do not disturb" sign and get THREE knocks on door! Looking to STEAL? Get second seat on left, overlooking SEA for day's ride around cape---and also morning SUN. No early start. Clair flew HOME yesterday---she was "physically" unwell, it seemed (later Mary said she'd not been drinking and became dehydrated, and not eating and getting weaker!). Leave 8:01. 9:09 off at Phaselis. #26 Phaselis 9:15. #27 Agora and mountain at 9:25. #28 theater for 1500 at 9:34. Lovely wooded, warmish water. Back to bus 9:53, leave 9:57. Rest stop at entrance 10AM-10:19. 10:40 phone to Mustafa: I left COMPUTER in ROOM!!! Stop 10:48-11:08. #29 mountains and greenhouses, like artificial snow. They give pita-samples and I get 750k TART glass of pomegranate juice. They threw out bubble case! Grow eggplant, tomatoes, and cucumbers in greenhouses. Into Myra 12:20. Then AROUND road, meet 1:15 at church. 1/2 liter beer for 1M and Mustafa gives me sesame roll to 1:19, to St. Nicholas Church. #30 inside St. Nicholas at 1:35PM. #31 floor mosaics. #32 exterior at 1:50. Rather "strained." Leave 2PM. To OLD Myra at 3:07. #33 Myra theater at 2:11. #34 Lycian tombs from 1200BC. #35 TRY for sculpted closeup at 2:19: Hermes taking hero, with shield, to heaven. #Roll 6: #1 1200BC mid, 200AD theater below, 12th Century AD Crusader Castle above at 2:43. I'm wearing down. Obviously computer-loss depressed, but GROUP and STOPS and PUSHES wear down MORE! Leave 2:48. Piss-stop 4:08-4:27. 1.5M for same .5L Efes that was 1M in Myra---but at least we get free holes, one for men, one for women. Piss-break 5:27-5:45. #2 mountains in sunset at 5;35PM. 6:15 women start SINGING! Into Gocek-Marina at 6:30 to room 219, unpack to 7, TV to 7:38, not much. To dinner with Shapiros, LOTS of fun, to "town" to buy Altinye red for 1.8M!! To their room to drink and laugh to 9:30. THEIR TV volume went DOWN at each channel change! TV to 10:22 and bed! DRUNK!
SAT, 3/10: Wake at 3AM to pee; probably due to prayer call at 5:50AM, dream of trying to prove the effectiveness of some chemical on paper, shit to 6AM. 7:24 semi-dream of showering, standing in front of a crowded bus next to Fred and a couple, of which the guy is smooth-skinned and sexy and I try to get him excited by the closeness of my soapy sexy skin. Up 7:30, bright, perfectly clear day! Shower to 8:05. FREE afternoons Saturday, Monday, and Wednesday. Look at books to 8:30. Breakfast outdoors til 9AM. Read; talk to Mr. Hollenbach about New York orchestras. To bus of shrillness at 9:30. Bus 9:30-10:30: in 1922 Greeks transferred away, 5000 of them. #3 village at 10:43, Oludeniz, "Dead Sea" of dead city. #4 pebble mosaics outside 17th Century church. #5 restorers in distance at 10:57. Seems MORE than 5000 houses: blue walls, chimneys, restorers, lace-sellers, tourists, walls, walks. Kayakoy=Karmylassos. Perfect weather. Stone-cobble mosaics in and out of church, to 11:15. Lovely wooded drive. Gas bus 11:35-11:52 and piss. Fethiye lunch 12-1:01, walk WAY down dock and back on Main Street to Chiradoglu for SLOW service; to 12:40 chicken kebab WITH lettuce and small beer 1.5M. Back 12:50, past parts of group walking AWAY---1/2 chocolate bar for dessert. Sit in bus 1PM. Leave 1:01, stop 1:07. #7 PRE-Amyntas tomb at 1:10. #9 "real" Amyntas at 1:15. #10 view over Fethiye at 1:18, from 240BC. Leave 1:34. Back 2:20; lie down to 3:20. Turn on TV and read magazines. Had enough by 6:10, walk to quiet marina, stare at silence, and get LOST coming back at 7:15. Dine with Floyd telling about Yangtze! Back 8:15. Clean teeth, watch TV to 10:05, TIRED!
SUN, 3/11: 12:25 wake and pee. Wake 3:23 and pee. Wake 4:30: dream of mild earthquake sitting next to Ray Hollenbach in Avery Fisher Hall center audience; pee number 4 at 5:25AM. Dream of me taking Mom back to nursing home she hates and me being as awful as I can when I have to write CHECK for MY entry fee! Wake at 5; up 7:15 to shit. Power shuts down at least three times for 1-10 seconds. Writing and big-toe arthritis BAD! Pack and bag out and to breakfast 8:10. To bus 8:50 (turning OFF good Indonesia film on TV) and leave 8:59. To Dalyan 9:45. Onto boat 10:10. #11 rock-cut tombs. #12 large tomb: King Mithradates and family "lowered from windows" at 10:20. To outer-island beach at 11AM. Back on boat (collect shells) 11:12. Dock 11:55; dog HAD two, HAS four, GOING for six pups. Leave 12:10, not QUITE so cloudy, not much to see to Mugla (moolah) at 1:40. Leave 2:31. Into 3 minibuses 4:20. To Marina Vista 4:30, ON docks. Got room 120, corner, lights don't work in one-half, TINY TV, almost no drawers, musty smelly room in pool corner that'll be quiet. Waiting for bag at 5PM. Finish "New York Magazine" at 5:05. BBC has wonderful one-hour "Rock and Roll History." Bag comes 5:35, repairman for lights leaves at 5:50. Wine for 3.25M. Read, spend 15 minutes wrestling with wine-cork! Dinner at 7:30. Dine to 8:20; when I'm drunk, even Mary Morla is tolerable! Watch TV to 9:20, QUITE drunk, and bed 9:23.
MON, 3/12: Wake 12:23, 2:09, 4:08 to pee. Dream of World Trade Center elevators, 747 and ??? and murders. 5:25 not for a while the "impossible-to-cross bus-catch frustration drag? [Draw diagram on back of page 11]. Up 7:04 and shit and shower to 7:34, roosters STILL crowing! My mosquito bite from Saturday PM walk still itchy on left inside forearm. Fuss to 8 and to breakfast. Back 8:35, having STARTED omelet line, watch TV to 8:55, minibuses go at 9:05. Durum=chicken. #13 Halicarnassus general view at 9:12. Seventh wonder of the ancient world was the Statue of Zeus at Olympia. This was 120 feet high on hillside, built by Artimisia, wife AND sister. Sign says Mausoleos tomb chamber for his ashes. Original frieze in British Museum: Greeks versus Amazone. www.sevenwonders.com. #14 tomb chamber "drainage" full of tadpoles. STREAM flowing in at top! #15 bottom real, drawing, cast top. Out at 9:40! Danes in 1980s found lots of "new" stuff. 3-4 pieces museum quality. Off minibus 9:50. Bodrum Castle started in 1406, construction went to 1522, using stones from Halicarnassus by Hospitallers. Into castle 10:05, closes at 12. #16 7th Century ship and COAST of Bodrum at 10:35 (flash too little?). #17 Bodrum from castle 11AM. Saw Carian princess from 420BC---just-found tomb. #18 14th Century BC Phonician wreck. #19 "modern art" cylinder seals from wreck. Peacock has TAIL up! Leave 11:47. [Tomorrow: luggage out 8:30, we leave 9:15.] Minibus back to hotel at 12:07. Watch TV til 2: word-quiz, capital punishment, just clicking. Hungry! Walk to "corner" and back, finding NOTHING that appeals! In front of hotel at 2:58, Mustafa says "I'll leave you off on highway to theater on our way to Turkish Airlines." OK. Off at 3 and walk highway to 50-row theater deserted but for a cock, at 3:07. Leave 3:32 after trying Actualism to "raise some feelings," but fail. Find almost direct way back, via back wall of Halicarnassus, to 3:40. Shop has NO half bottles, so buy TWO Efes .5L for 1.3M and give 1M and 250k and 100k and get 50k coin back. To room for TV and drink one can by 6:04, numb. GOOD gay advocate on BBC. To dinner at 7:05. Back 7:45, eating little, and get out WINE. TV off, disgusted, at 9:30. Bed 9:35.
TUE, 3/13: pee 1:25, wake 5:23 with two dreams: 1) writing poems about Arabian stallions racing along hillsides together, manes streaming in the wind, hooves striking fire from stones, tails magnificant. 2) Mom and Rita and I at church; I leave at communion, but miss them as they leave after and hunt for them, leaving our VW in parking gear, but it creeps forward and bounces off a chain-link fence. Then find Mom and have to walk to 320 E. 70th, but she's tired, we stop on Park, she pleads "Don't drink water, I have to take a pill." "ONE more block," I plead, and wake only SECOND time after EIGHT hours, a RECORD. Up 6:45, to breakfast 7:20-7:40, brush teeth to 8:12. Bag out 8:23. TV to 8:50. Start reading "The Writer" on minibus at 9:15. LAST one onto bus at 9:25. Mrs. Polette, like my mother, says ANYTHING that passes through her mind. Leave 9:30. Temple of Apollo in Didyma is THIRD largest temple. Didyma had prophetess, like Delphi. Bus will go 3000km on trip, which is 1800 miles, or an average of 100 miles/day. Hills COVERED in red poppies and yellow daisies. Silt from Meander River MOVED Ephesus Harbor six miles AWAY. Lykian tombs and Roman arches just STANDING in fields outside villages. Cows and roosters and cats (and burros) EVERYWHERE. Stop on Lake Bafa 10:50-11:07. Large and small Meander watered Ionia. Off at Didyma 11:42. In at 11:53. #20 Didyma Medusa head at 11:55 (3 feet high). 206 columns, started 7th Century BC. Columns are 75 feet high. Pilgrims walked 15 miles from Miletes barefoot to Apollo Temple, ask question, and clerk takes question to seeress. Third largest: 1st was Artemis in Ephesis, 2nd Athena in Athens. 1896 earthquake brought ALL columns down, re-erected in 1986. #21 column with people at 12:06. #22 fallen column. #23 SIZE at 12:13. #26 from INSIDE rear. #27 plan: BLACK columns have bases, white have NO bases. #28 gryphons from TOP rank at 12:29. #29 from side road outside at 12:34. Buffet for 3M, lunch from 12:38-1:11: GREAT cheese blintzes: had NINE! And beer for 1M. Temple NEVER FINISHED: too big! GREAT music: Vangelis "Direct" from 1995. 1AD: LARGEST town was Rome, 2nd was Alexandria, 3rd was Antioch, 4th was Ephesus at 250K people. Largest libraries: 1) Alexandria, 2) Pergamon, 3) Ephesus. Book was parchment (calf-skin) FIRST bound at Pergamon. Ephesus worked on since 1903, now 25% uncovered. #30 Miletus theater from fast-moving bus at 1:30. Pass four hill-columns of Priene at 1:46, just before town just before Soke. Into HUGE Kusadasi at 2:30 and leave 3:45. #31 from town at 2:45. #32 Ataturk and friend at 3:04. Walk route traced on map I got at City Tourism. Lots of shops closed "inside" bazaars, and I buy SAME wine for SAME 3.25M and water for 250k. Back on bus at 3:45 EXACT! Leave tomorrow at 8:30. To hotel 3:53. KoruMar Hotel, 500k Dolmush to town. Breakfast on -1. Dinner in Kybele Restaurant. Get key to 712 at 4:12. Get safe coded; TV has CNN and no sports. Wait for bag at 4:35. Get it 4:45 and sort souvenirs by size to 5:45. NOW what? GREAT VIEW from room! WRESTLE with cork when corkscrew BREAKS, and finally use KNIFE to prize 3/4 cork OUT and rest IN at 6:15. Watch lights come on while drinking wine on balcony, listening to surprisingly loud waves. In at 6:57 to do this and dress for EARLY dinner. #33 over city (too dark?) at 6:10PM. Down at 7:05, OK main dish, lots of desserts, two with GREAT tart cherries, and lots of water. Then about 7:40 decide to go to -1, around pool, down stairs to "beer garden," not yet done, and along dark alleys and down more stairs, all nicely landscaped, and down to "blow-holes" and ladder DOWN to them! Count up 42 steps and see ANOTHER branch to BACK of hotel with tennis court and playground and "beach" of a concrete slab above pounding waves! Back up 158 steps, challenge the Johnsons to do it, and then go up to "the bar" on 8, ALSO not finished, but with GREAT ROOF VIEWS! Down to see Johnsons coming and take THEM up to 8, and they LOVE it. Show them my "small" balcony but they do NOT offer to show me their LARGER one. Write this to 9:37. DELIGHTED with my activities. Pill and bed at 9:43, after safety-pinning drapes together to keep SOME morning light out!
WED, 3/14: 4:28 (wake-up #3) dream: woman-friend recommended that I try to solo lead in a reading of a new play by a new, difficult, author. Author seems to see me as a competitor, and doesn't like me, refuses me. Friend takes me through "Old Radio City," including a barn-like room with THREE "41st Street" theaters of contiguous rows of seats. (Bar upstairs last night?) By chance we meet group around author and want to try again, except that my left-front incisor is loose, and as I argue, comes OUT in an unending drip of warm, sweet blood that seems to turn everyone ON and I may get the part yet! Up at 6:40 and shower and breakfast to 7:15. Good omelet and CHERRY juice (WAS other pomegranate??) to 7:50, out with camera and take #34 Hotel KoruMar from natural pool at 8:10AM. Tiny CRAB runs over dock. Paths not NEARLY so mystical in daylight; sea MUCH more calm. Two small brown fish on "middle" stairs, but none in LOVELY natural pool "to left." Sun rises BEHIND hotel. Leave 8:30. Delores is 65 today. [Tomorrow 6AM wakeup, luggage out 6:30, leave 7:30.] In 1962 Pope John-Paul something came to Mary's house, said "OK." German nun dreamed and found 6th Century AD basilica cistern and 1st Century AD house foundations. Stop for WATER 8:50-8:57. To Mary's house 9:09. #35 "Mary's House." Below 2-foot purple line FOUND, rest rebuilt. 9:24AM: Mrs. Polette is 68, Mary is 71. Down to souvenirs 9:30. Buy $4-marked Ephesus book for 2.5M. Read it as bus loads and leaves at 9:50. #36 gate and Crusader Castle at 10AM. Out of bus at 10:02. #37 State bath 3-arch and 140-500AD Council House at 10:04. #Roll 7: #1 6th Century BC necropolis; forum beyond at 10:12. In first century AD Ephesus had 50-60,000 people. #2 Council house at 10:15. #3 halfway up Council rows at 10:19, it was roofed. #4 view from Council to harbor at 10:35. #5 toward museum of inscriptions 10:38, square of Domitian. #6 main road and library at end at 10:48. #7 fountain of Trajan of 102AD at 10:56. #8 DORIC column on right, CORINTHIAN to left at 11:01. #9 down from baths at 11:10. #10 carvings left on Temple of Hadrian, missing only wooden gate. Keystone-arch head is Tuke, goddess of Luck. #11 Tuke and Medusa inside at 11:16. #12 men's toilets, wood covers mosiacs at 11:20. #13 Library of Celsus, parchments on left; 4 ladies L-R: Wisdom, Aesthetics, Beauty, Episthemology. #14 construction details at 11:38. #15 up inside porch at 11:39---all 110AD. #16 Agora at 11:42. #17 left-hand of agora from 300BC-700AD at 11:47. HUGE PLACE! #18 in sun at 11:53, leaving. #19 marble road at 11:55. #20 rear agora at noon. #21 Greco(500BC)-Roman(800AD) theater, 24,000 capacity at 12:10. #22 library from side at 12:15. #23 theater at 12:20. Shopping break 12:22 to 12:46. Into bus at 12:34. 12:50 stop for lunch. Good lentil soup for 1M, but pissed at 1.5M 33cl. Efes! Back to bus 1:23, leave 1:30. Stop at St. John's 1:37. #24 ONLY remains of temple of Artemis in Ephesus at 1:42. #25 Church of St. John and Japanese tourists at 1:45. #26 "Grave of St. John" in foreground, column, and Crusader castle, with minaret from mosque in middle. On 7/26/67 Paul VI came and prayed here. Stones from Artemision. Rain NEAR? 2:03 back to bus and leave. To museum at 2:06. 2:17 starts raining! 2:35, meet at 3:15. #27 Priapus. #28 fountain of Trajan. #29 2nd Century AD IVORY frieze. #30 Artemis, 125-175AD, found in Ephesus, CLEAN! at 2:51. Bull's testicles for fertility; zodiac on neck. #31 head of "Temple" from 1st Century AD. Major pieces in Ephesus Museum in VIENNA. Back to bus 3:11. SLIGHT mist. Leave at 3:14. Back to hotel at 3:36. TV depressing: stocks crashing, hoof and mouth disease spreading (Mustafa on 3/16 said it was first found in TURKEY!), Paraguay indians are revolting against system, Indian government is falling, Near East is awful again, birds threatened in Hong Kong, China threatens US if we sell rockets to Taiwan, ETC! At 6:10PM I start to finish wine. 7PM get to dinner. "Dispose" of wine bottle in bag around corner of -1 doorway! Dinner uncomfortable---I'm (as usual) beginning to dislike EVERYONE! Up at 9:05, same "burnt hair" smell in elevator, still RAINING out. Worn out from doing nothing; pee and bed at 8:40; thunder a monotone, like an earthquake rumble.
THU, 3/15: Wake twice, last at 3:14 and pee. Then at 4:33 wake with dream: Flying home, we're flying VERY low, and LAND in Nepal, where pilot lets out a hippy village he'd taken aboard as cargo, and I pass a daddy encouraging his baby to squat and pee before leaving the plane. Shit at 4:43. Up at 6, finish shower at 6:22 and bag out at 6:29. TWO birds in EACH nest. Down to breakfast at 6:35, Mrs. Polette has the LOUDEST goddam "good morning" of ANY. Up at 7:05 to brush teeth, down at 7:25. Fuss for seats on bus; "Ann went back up," leave 7:31. Dramatic sunny-misty morning. FOG til 8:30, up to Izmir! Really ugly city. Stop 9:38-10:08! DON'T pay to pee. Finish "The Writer." Bored at stop, warmer. Pergamon was CAPITAL of Greek Turkey. Zeus altar was considered "The Throne of Satan." Stop at Asclepion at 10:43. #32 columns and theater at 10:54. Six days only for stay, because "insurance ran out." Water-running "persuasion" tunnel. Psychiatric treatment with water, drugs, and darkness: #33 at 11:11. #34 Pergemon from below at 11:18. Leave at 11:20, people STILL SHOPPING! Leave at 11:25, missing Cynthia! Leave 11:27. Stop at Pergamon at 11:41. #35 from Sanctuary of Athena. #36 Trajan Temple columns, only ROMAN ruin. #Roll 8: #1 Largest Greek theater and library to LEFT and "entrance tower of theater" for 15,000 people and PINE trees at site of Zeus altar at 12:07. #3 PLAN of Trajan's temple. #4 from REAR of temple at 12:11. #5 Library of 200,000 scrolls given by Anthony to Cleopatra (and lost at Alexandria) at 12:16. #6 last look back at 12:18. Guidebook at ticket office cost $10. Lower was $8. "How many lira?" "8M."---I'm back: "Wait a minute---" 500k back. "Wait a minute!" 1M back, so 7M, STILL too much. But good PLAN inside. Down at 12:30. #7 Egyptian temple/church/mosque "Red Basilica" from bus at 12:39. Stop for lunch at 12:43. Ask for museum three times and enter for 1.5M. #8 Hadrian from Asclepion, museum without flash at 12:52. #9 warrior from Pergamon Marble Hall at 12:56. #10 man in armor, Roman, from Bergama city. Museum to 1:02. GOOD gyro and TUBORG beer for 1.5M! Same as museum entrance! Quite nice: he lit lights for ONLY patron: me. Bus leaves 1:24, stop in Edremit at 2:46. Free pee. EVERYONE eats! Lots of Pasha tour busses. 3:03 Mustafa: get water. Leave 3:09. Bright ride. To Troy 4:50. #11 horse at 4:55. #12 6-level; Homer's Troy. #13 from horse. #14 LITE-board map at 5:08. Homer's Troy is VI. #15 1800BC Troy VI defense wall. #16 more walls at 5;22. Troy I built 2920BC on bedrock. Priam's treasures found in Troy II (2800-2500BC). #17 GREEN II, Homer VI. #18 Troy II: ramp. #19 ROMAN ruins VIII-IX. Sanctuary 7th Century BC. Leave 5:49, still sunny. Shop-stop 5:50-6:02. [Tomorrow 7AM wakeup, 7:30 luggage out, 8:30 leave.] At Hotel Tusan at 6:22, orange sun JUST set [Aydin was name of HIGHLY recommended Eastern Turkey guy guide.] Holy shit! 9:10PM: WHAT an evening! This is the place (WAS Monica my guide?) Trafalgar brought me 15 years ago! I go to beach and see that I forgot road and remembered a small cove rather than this wide beach. To bar to celebrate and buy an 8M bottle of wine and talk to Mustafa, and Johnsons join us (after Mustafa says Birger, at 81, is OLDEST, and Ann, at 50, is youngest), and then Hollenbachs, and then Don Ayers, and I drink and eat peanuts and joke, and Shapiros come in and we all share sips of drinks, and at 7:30 we go to dinner and Ayers talks of tears at Fatima and Trelaks join and talk of Turkey and travel, and I get mixed grill and ice creams and we TALK to 9PM and back STONED on booze and try to shit and can't, writing this. Take pills, and at 9:15 COLLAPSE into (room VERY warm!) bed!
FRI, 3/16: Pee and take two aspirin at 2:05. At 5:32 wake with dream from about 3:30: I'm walking in park and a bird like a peahen tries to bite my hands, head swiveling back and forth with a vicious, hard, hooked beak. I finally fight it off, but as I'm leaving, feel a hump on my back, centered on my waist, and a basilisk-like lizard has hooked its claws into four corners of my back and can't be dislodged. Then at 5:05 wake with VERY erotic dream that starts quietly in a Mexican village when a very young boy, maybe 8, wants to walk close to me, maybe holding onto one finger of one hand, but as we walk we move closer, and I'm conscious of my hand following the flexing of the front of his upper thigh and there's more little-muscle play than I'd expected, but fear people will think I'm nearing his crotch. Then he grows to maybe 11 years and our adjoining legs are stepping together in perfect synchronization, then he wants to stand and hug, and his head is just under my chin, maybe 13 years old now, and then there's an older brother, maybe 16, with a thin handsome adult face, saying he has to do his show, and he lays down on a bed in front of a table of 7-8 tourists, some women, and starts an elaborate sex-show, and his younger brother now has a coarse adult-peasant face and says "Maybe we could, soon, go to Lima, Peru, and---" and I wonder how I could possibly leave my job and apartment and friends and become lover-agents to the two of them as they perform for their Spanish audiences. An enormous dildo, huge hairy balls, orange foreskin over an orange-size cockhead, stands in for their planning sessions, and I suggest, "You could film them," and the older says, professionally, "But it would be very difficult," but I think about filming many sessions and editing. Then there's a session where "people would rather use their mouths," and now his cock is thinner and more normal-sized, though looking as if stained with purple ink on the head-details. His cock comes and goes in stiffness, and I wake hard and fantasize how I could surprise him using his secret personal tricks to achieve maximum hardness for his own pleasure and he would delight and benefit from some of my teasy tricks, and we could be very happy all together. Think about cuming now (with slight headache from wine-orgy last night) or waiting for the magical tomorrow night at HOME! Then start thinking about melitonin dose, then decide I MUST write, finishing this on toilet after a "non-go" sitting for a shit that ends with me back in bed at 5:54, dawn JUST starting its dark blue light beyond spotlights that keep windows glowing behind drapes all night. Shit at 6:30. Up at 6:55 and shower and bag out at 7:30---NO bags out or have all already been taken? Wash glasseses and to breakfast at 7:40 to 8:10. Clerk HAS Trafalgar brochure from 25 years ago! Mr. Salthouse has LYME disease! To bus 8:18. Bus goes 8:26, record early, Mustafa thanks us. On ferry, just about last, at 8:50. #20 Gallipoli "painting" at 9:10. Dock at 9:34. To museum 9:48. #21 museum memorial and on HILL (R-L) French, Turkish, and New Zealand memorials. #22 museum, awful "military displays" and worse sculpture at 10:17. #23 trenches and machine gun at 10:19. Depressing. 500k died, for NO military advantage except for Ataturk. Leave 10:26. Past STEEP Anzac cove. #24 Ataturk's 1934 Anzac Memorial at 10:32. #25 Ari Burnu Cemetery, end of Anzac Cove, bus, more of peninsula at 10:36. Water nice. Leave at 10:45. Stop 12:11-12:25 for pee. Lunch at 1:21. At RELIGIOUS place with NO beer. Kofte for 1.5M is undercooked and rotten-lettuced! Uh-oh! Leave 2PM. [This evening: 6:30 meeting, 7:30 dinner; leave 9:30AM, luggage out at 8:30.] #26 downtown Istanbul at 4:03PM, desperate for SOME picture of a [start file 5 at 9:03PM on 3/16.] Turkish city. Hotel at 4:07, tired, and exhausted thinking about immanent departure tomorrow. 4:20PM: Blessed, blessed, blessed! GOT the package at the desk and Mustafa opens it and there's the BUBBLE-WRAP that they said had been thrown out! Get to SUITE room 604, corner on street, but with an L-shaped SITTING room apart from the bedroom, and check all the files and they're ALL THERE---nothing was ERASED! Now all I have to do is CATCH UP!! BLESSED!!! 4:56PM: bag came, unpacked what was needed, found all the missing pages in various bags, and located where I'd stopped transcribing on page NINE, and I'm currently writing on page NINETEEN, so I actually have MORE TO TRANSCRIBE than I've already transcribed! Implying I have MORE than four files left, FILLING THIS COMPUTER!! Well, at least get TO it. 4:20 type into laptop! Type to page 15 at 6:25. Down and get Araki and fruit juice drink. Give Rafet envelope with 15M, hoping it'll be enough. Meeting ends at 7PM but no one LEAVES. I do. Type to 7:25 and down to dinner at LAST table available with Ayers and Dot and the inevitable Mary! Then Hollenbachs join for some decent conversation, interrupted every so often by the inane Mary, once asking about the stock market and being COMPLETELY ignored. I eat much too much, not even finishing the steak, drinking lots of water, taking my pills, and trying hard to leave, and Mrs. Hollenbach takes my hand and says she's staying on, but she really enjoyed my company, and I even kiss her on the cheek. Say goodbye to the others and get up at 8:35, sated! Finish typing this and now at 9:08 actually UP TO DATE, not taking NEARLY as much time or storage space as I'd feared. Walls quite thin, I can hear my neighbors clearly. But I'm exhausted mentally and physically, so I can ONLY think of going to bed, hoping to stretch things out til at LEAST 9:30. Some were VERY well dressed for dinner, but many besides me still had jeans on, so I simply did NEVER use my blue dress shirt and black trousers. So there! Again remove sheet from duvet---madness! Try to shit and can't. Bed 9:26. 10:50PM: Up with dream (after finally getting to sleep through horns, an emergency horn that tried to sound like a fire alarm, and something that sounded like a doorbell) I'm walking across a campus with a girl friend, saying that I found two---no, three, as I see a third quarter on the sidewalk. And it could have been four since I see one ahead in the snow, except that the woman in front of me puts her high heel right on it and slips on it and looks down and sees it. Then pass a classroom window as a passerby uncovers a silver "Stockard Channing" plaque from the snow, and there through the window is Stockard Channing, who SEES the man pick up the plaque, but she looks away as he pockets it. "He could have at least said hello to her," I said, and am immediately challenged to prove how I would know how she would behave. "Well," I admit, trying to be as honest as I can, "I've only had six or seven teachers here so far, and all of them have acted as I predicted she would act," and the fellow can't really call me mistaken. Up to type this until 10:56PM.
SAT, 3/17: 3:18AM dream: I'm stacking up my manuscript pages, very much like the Holt Literature pages, and there are so many additions and pages clipped on that I take off the top third of the stack and put it upside down to balance the height of paperclips and paper. Someone rather like Gladys Garabedian looks on. Pee. 4:57AM: Dream of being in the ground-floor room of what one of the owners calls a "three-unit house, with two smaller units sharing the top of this enormous room," which appears to be at least 15 feet high and maybe 20x30 feet, seemingly padded in a light brown felt. One of the two or three owners is lending me a stack of records I wanted to borrow, and when I pick them up they're thicker and heavier than I expected and records and jackets spill out of my weak grasp, fanlike across the suitcase in which I intended to carry them, but they react like it was no problem, so I gather them up and put them into the capacious old-style hard-sided suitcase, noting that I'd filled the bottom with small articles of clothing and containers of food. Lie in bed, thinking of upcoming flight, do a fairly complete Actualism session, and begin to feel what might be called happiness: I've DONE everything on this trip that I could have wanted to do, and I'm still in good health, reasonably well rested, thinking of a small list of things to do when I get back, like 1) ordering film, 2) taking out laundry for Mexican trip, 3) catching up on newspapers and videos, etc. Up at 5:48, blue light outside, seemingly cloudless sky; dogs wandering street with surprisingly many pedestrians for so early in the morning. Not doing this time-change well: waking at 5:30 is already three hours away from a "normal" waking time of 8:30AM, added to the seven-hour time difference gives TEN hours to adjust to in the coming twelve days before the Mexico departure. Doable, but JUST. Will be SO happy to be in my apartment, doing what I can do there, sleeping when I want, phoning friends, being lazy, rather than the demands of "see this, do that, tour here, photo there." Now 6:15 and will start repacking, shower, take my melitonin at 7, and get down to breakfast. Get everything packed away after the momentous decision that all my "cold-weather New York" stuff can be in my CHECKED bag, not my carry-on, because I'll HAVE that in NYC when I NEED it! Unless, of course, it's lost, but warm clothing would pale next to the loss of books, film, etc. Now 6:55 and I'm sort of AHEAD of schedule---maybe tune in TV to find what the temperature IS in NYC? Put 49.2M, at 900k/$ about $54, or $3 for 18 days, with note "apologizing" for ratty 250k bills and 200k in coins. Take pill, shit AGAIN: not loose, but not tight. 7:21 finish shower; sky still flawless except for 1/3 moon high in sky and one lone jet-trail. Really getting down to last minutes. Down to breakfast at 7:30. Mrs. Luke says "Enjoying your solitude?" when she sees me eating alone. When she comes back, I say "My solitude quotient is sadly deficient in the past two weeks, and if I hear a 90-decibel "Good morning!" once more, I'm gonna KILL!" She laughs. Iris joins me and tells me about the tables of people SHE avoids: the "raucous" ones. AND says that the alarm last night was the HOTEL'S alarm as the lights went out over a period of time around 10PM! She fumbled for her flashlight in the pitch blackness as she was repacking and went into the hall to see other heads popped out, asking what was going on. Eventually a man came around to say there was a short that was being fixed, so there was no problem. And I simply lay in bed right through it, assuming nothing was REALLY wrong. Back up at 8:12, seeing the other bags gone and one elevator full of our group, so I add mine to the stack. Now 8:16 and time to brush my teeth in time to TV. Just miss the NYC weather; everyone still saying stocks "will be OK." Now at 8:48 the minibar has been checked and I'm just about ready to finally pack my shoulderbag. At 8:51 really decide to pack THIS away as I've blathered on enough about nothing. TV off and last pee at 9:15. Give Mustafa his envelope and board bus 9:20, and leave 9:22. Dollar is now 1M Turkish lira! #27 Golden Horn at 9:31. At airport at 9:55. At 10:10 I'm held up for my KNIFE! Blue bag 10.5kg at airport, 13.9kg total. FINALLY through at 10:36, seat 10K in FRONT of wing! Through passports 10:45. Pick up liter of Cointreau for about $15! FOUR bag checks: 1) enter, 2) before passports, 3) before gates, 4) AT gate. Through dop kit THREE times. Finally in lounge of gate 218 at 10:10, board at 11:20? Read Scientific American, rush to line at 11:36. At 12:07 captain says 10:15 to destination! Seat behind is QUIET, seat next to me is EMPTY! People STILL boarding. Off at 12:30. #28 two mosques at 12:35. #29 view south of Golden Horn at 12:36. All clouds below at 1:25 after CLEAR Bulgaria. TV map goes on at last, clouds clear at 1:30. The big city was Bucharest. Have two beers and HUGE lunch at 2PM, and big pee, too. 2:14 cloudy again. 3PM above Hamburg already. "Nurse Betty" starts at 3:30. Turns out (when map comes back) that I saw aprt of Ireland, not Scotland. 5:50 start watching "Unbreakable." 8:14PM have first glimpse of Canadian snow. #30 Mt. Katadin at 9:24, near Millinocket? #31 huge town west of Boston at 9:54. SOLID CITY south of Boston! 10:05: landing at 10:30! #32 New Haven at 10:07. Quick glimpse of PINK Long Island new Town Hall. #33 Jones Beach at full zoom at 10:24. BUMPY landing at 10:29 over UGLY southeast city. Plane stops at 10:40. Finish without getting knife back at 11:21, with Iris and her fingernail scissors. Home at 12:25, cab $32 after U-turning from blocked Hicks at Atlantic and walking from blocked Hicks again at Pierrepont. Sort mail to 1:30AM (6:30PM NYC time), eat a bit and take pills. Bed at 6:55PM, up at 7PM to j/o! J/O to 7:30, TV to 8, back to bed and wake at 10:55 to type the following dream: traveling through Italy and passing series of monuments to various heroes: 5 fasces for X; 7 busts of Y; 9 columns for Z, who became a villain by doing something bad; 6 portraits of Q, who assassinated Z, etc. Take 1/2 (1.5mg) melitonin. 11:36PM can't sleep, take ambien and manage to drop off fairly quickly, probably trying Actualism.
TURKEY SUMMARY PAGE
TUE,2/27: Dine at Greenwich Village Bistro at JFK airport before Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul takes off at 6:45PM. Watch "Meet the Parents."
WED,2/28: Land 11:09AM and to Hotel Taksim Plaza, lunch in room on remains of too-large dinner last night. Walking tour of neighborhood. Introductory meeting of 38 others on tour. Dinner in Taksim Plaza Hotel, flaking out at 9:20PM.
THU,3/1: Tour Istanbul: Hippodrome with Karnak column, Hagia Sophia, Sultanahmet (blue) mosque. Topkapi Palace for porcelain, silver, kitchens, harem quarters, sacred and public rooms. Lunch at Konyali in Topkapi. Bazaar sightseeing. Dine in Sulimanyi Mosque "soup kitchen," with Ayran (yogurty) hit.
FRI,3/2: Dolmabahce Palace tour; lunch at Garaj Restaurant on Bosporus, great
coastline tour and boatride under Sultan Mehmet and Bosporus Bridges. Walk along asiatic Uskadara coast. Dinner in roofed restaurant nearish to hotel.
SAT,3/3: Fly Istanbul-Ankara 9:30-10:07AM. Anatolian Museum great. Lunch in restaurant off Aksaray. Drive on Silk Road to Kapadokya Lodge outside Nevsehir.
SUN,3/4: Kapadokya tour: Valley of the Pigeons, inside tuff-house; Valley of the Hunters. Lunch in Sedef Restaurant in Goreme on Karisek pizza. Goreme Open Air Museum for frescos in Apple and Shod churches. Urgup for Fairy Chimneys and to Red Valley; Avenos and Goreme; Uchisar Castle climb and walk back to hotel.
MON,3/5: Rug-weaving factory and demonstration; Kymakli underground city tour. Lunch at Tashan Restaurant in Uchisar. To Zelve, Valley of the Pashas.
TUE,3/6: Aksaray pit-stop and Sultanhani caravansarai stop. Konya for Dervish Mausoleum and Museum. Lunch at Ali Bilir Restaurant in Upcinar on road to Antalya. Hike Egirdie almost-island on lake in twilight. Talya Hotel in dark.
WED,3/7: Get ATM cash before Antalya Museum. Walking tour of Ataturk Monument and Yivli Minaret, symbol of Antalya. Hadrian's Gate. Walk to small harbor and enjoy sitting on wall looking at boats and tourists. Lunch at Kristal Restaurant of Iskander Kebab. Turkish bath and pool at Talya Hotel.Hours of TV.
THU,3/8: Duden Falls on way to Aspendos Theater. Perge tour on my own. Margareta pizza and beer in local restaurant. Walk to Information Kiosk, down to belvedere over fishing port, drink beer and look at locals from sidewalk. Fashion Week and British Music Awards on TV. Belly dancer in hotel dining room.
FRI,3/9: Phaselis agora and theater. Mustafa: I left laptop in Talya Hotel! Pita-samples and pomegranate juice at pit-stop. St. Nicholas Church in Myra. Lycian tombs. Swisshotel in Gocek-Marina for wine-shopping and drinking: drunk!
SAT,3/10: Breakfast alone outdoors. Oludeniz, "Dead Sea" of dead city outside Kayakoy. Lunch at Chiradoglu in Fethiye. Amyntas Tomb. Wander and get lost in the tiny dark town of Gocek, past the Jandarms, repeating steps, getting tired.
SUN,3/11: Bus to Dalyan for boat to turtle beach past rock-cut tombs, one of King Mithradates and family. Via Mugla to Marina Vista in Bodrum. Watch good "Rock and Roll History" for an hour on BBC. Drink much wine and bed drunk.
MON,3/12: Ruins of Mausoleum of Halicarnassus before Bodrum Castle for 1400BC shipwreck and 420BC Carian princess. Walk waterfront and Mustafa drives me to highway where I sit in Bodrum Theater, drink beer for lunch, wine for dinner.
TUE,3/13: Temple of Apollo in Didyma before Lykian tombs and Roman arches near Meander River. Lunch buffet with great cheese blintzes. Pass Priene hill-columns and into Kusadasi for town-walk before bus to KoruMar Hotel and dinner in Kybele Restaurant before wonderful walk down to Mediterranean wave-splashes.
WED,3/14: Walk to KoruMar natural pool before bus to "Mary's House." Walk whole length of Ephesus: Council House, Trajan fountain, Agora, Celsus Library, Greco-Roman theater. Temple of Artemis column, St. John's Church, Museum: rain!
THU,3/15: Fog via Izmir to Asclepion Hospital and Pergamon Acropolis for Trajan Temple. Red Basilica and myself to Bergama Museum. Troy and return to Tusan Hotel where I'd stayed in 1988 with Trafalgar tour. Bar wine and stoned to bed.
FRI,3/16: Bus to ferry to Gallipoli and Memorial Museum, Anzac Cove, and Ari Burnu Cemetery. Religious lunch-stop with no beer. Hotel Taksim Plaza and my laptop! Final meeting and dinner with group and transcribe rest of my notes.
SAT,3/17: Lose knife at gate; fly Istanbul-New York 12:30-10:29PM(3:29NYCTime).
(RETURN TO JOURNALS 2/27/01).