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TURKEY EAST TRIP

 

July 26 - August 16, 2011 (20 days)

TUESDAY, 7/26/11: 8:14PM: Standing in the hallway, waiting: usually Promenade is EARLY, but now they're not, and I try to wait to 8:20 to phone them. Very cloudy and dark to the north, but I hope the south is spared the rain. Pick up the phone at 8:19 and it's strangely dead; I hope there's nothing wrong with IT! But after clicking a few times, I get a dial tone and reach someone at Promenade, who puts me on hold for a moment when I say, "Checking the 8:15 car for 101 Clark," and he says, "The Lincoln town car is outside." I go down and put my bag into the trunk, and the driver asks when I got the call; I tell him I had to call Promenade at 8:20. He says he's been waiting here since 7:55! I ask him to check if they called the right number, last four digits 0591, and he talks on the phone, sometimes in Russian, and ends up saying, "We're training a new woman, first day on the phone, so she probably didn't know what to do." Someone could have TOLD me. We drive onto Atlantic Avenue and it starts to POUR rain about 8:40. "What time is your flight?" "Eleven." Silence. We get to a rain-allowing overhang, and he waits a few minutes past 9PM and pulls up under a protective overhang, but the wind blows the rain onto him anyway as he thanks me for my $52 ($7 tip) and puts my bag onto the sidewalk. Onto check-in line 9:03, and to desk at 9:20. Have to take my CHECKED bag to a point where someone takes it to be x-rayed and loaded at 9:22. To personal check-in at 9:29 and through x-ray (shoes and belt off, computer out, key in pocket doesn't register) 9:39. Pee, get water, and sit at gate 5 at 9:46PM. Start puzzles, doing the first one without timing it, but as I wait and the puzzles satisfy my yen to occupy myself, I record that I finish my second one at 11:10PM and my third one at 11:59PM, still feeling pretty chipper.

WEDNESDAY, 7/27/11: Finish the fourth one at 1AM, still absolutely no news about boarding or departure time. Go to the desk and the board says "Delayed one hour," but it's already been THREE hours. Take my earplugs out (the place is OVERFLOWING with noisy, running, yelling, moaning, screaming KIDS!) to hear they're giving out vouchers for food. Stand in line to get one for $10, and then stand in line at 1:20AM at the inefficient food stall to get an Italiano wrap for $9.99, having to pay 88 cents myself for the tax. They pop it into a microwave, which doesn't do much for the mozzarella and red peppers inside the strangely orange flat-wrap crust. Eat it with my water (the cap of which has flipped open, but it clicks shut again) at a table for one that's somewhat distant from kids, except for a preteen who's loud ahead of me on the food line and is loud with her angry-looking mother sitting at the next table. At 2:15AM they announce that they could only find 29 rooms in nearby hotels, and priority will be given to families with children and people in wheelchairs, and I THINK she adds "and the elderly," but they later deny they said that. So I note: do I WAIT or spend $100 for two taxis to sleep at home? Finally, a TERRIBLE scene involves a shouting Turk who REFUSES to listen to anyone but himself, and an older man who CONSTANTLY complains that he's missing his important business meeting this afternoon, and losing lots of money (and he INSISTS on getting a room, pissing off the trying-to-be-courteous stewardess filling out the forms for $150 rooms and $20 breakfasts for families of three and four and five). Four women agree to share the same room, so THEY get one. The Turk continues to shout as security threatens to show him out, but he continues to demand, "Are you the boss? Are you in charge? Give me your last name so I can report you!" He refuses to shut up even when someone wants to make a public announcement over a handheld bullhorn. And the "businessman" constantly thrusts his boarding pass under the face of the pretty stewardess, who tries to remain calm. But at 3AM the last room goes, as they count the stack of statements twice to make sure, and the businessman parts with a "Fuck you" to the stewardess, who smiles and says, "Thank you." They say the terminal has to close, and Terminal 4 is open 24 hours, though adult men protest, "What are we supposed to do, WALK there?" Many want to reschedule flights, but I can't, since I'm on a tour. The reservation desk is jammed when I pass it. I ask where the shuttle bus to the Howard Beach subway stop is, and I have to walk down stairs because the escalator "is being cleaned" and has stopped. People still loudly complaining as I walk into the cool evening (evening?! it's 3AM!) air and ask the first driver (whose bus says "Short-term parking") if he goes to Howard Beach and he tells me I have to take a bus labeled "Long-term parking." I talk to a fellow sitting on a pillar base, and he says he just got there, but the buses come every fifteen minutes. I get onto bus to Howard Beach at 3:11AM, two tired security workers the only other passengers. Think I hear "Howard Beach," but the driver snaps that it was only the radio, not him. SORRY! We go from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2, waiting at every intersection for a red light, and slowly make the rounds of ALL EIGHT terminals, and then endless parking areas, and FINALLY get to the Howard Beach stop at 3:40AM. Frustrated because my PEN works only intermittently. At least I'm going HOME and can CHANGE it. To the A-train station at 3:40AM, am told I don't have to pay to exit the airport, and get a transfer when I show my Medicare card to prove I'm a senior. Down to the platform and mercifully a train comes at 3:43AM! Goes local through stations I've never even HEARD of before, usually someone getting on at each station: usually black working people looking aggrieved to be up so early. Finally start recognizing names at Franklin Avenue and get off at High Street at 4:20AM! Not going to get MUCH sleep tonight! Around to front, since back door is closed, HARD even walking up the two flights from the subway to the street: I MUST be tired! Into apartment at 4:28, pee, drink water, and take sheets out of hamper and put all my stuff onto the floor in the hall so I don't FORGET anything later. Decide at least to change socks and shorts, since I've now worn them, technically, three days: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Put the drape over the window and KNOW that I'll wake before I have to. Bed at 4:40AM, and then get up to take a melatonin and a Valium and go back to bed, relieved but not sleeping INSTANTLY, though quickly enough. Up to pee at 9:23AM, clear and bright out. Up at 9:40, and call OAT at 9:45AM. Diana Castile answers and puts me on hold while SHE calls Turkish Airlines to verify that we're leaving at 2PM today and getting to Istanbul at 6:30AM on THURSDAY---THIRD day of trip; I've missed a FULL day in Istanbul (thank goodness I've been there at least twice before), and the very next MORNING we leave early for a flight to Lake Van! Ask if anyone ELSE from the group was on this flight, and she says NO. I ask WHY, and she can't tell me. I get the data that we're staying at the Richmond Istanbul Hotel, with a phone number that starts with EITHER 090 OR 90, and bizarrely has a 212 exchange. She gives me an "in transit" number to call in ANOTHER emergency: 617-346-6090. Off with her at 10:08 and phone MILDRED, who expresses surprise and sympathy, and still wishes me a good trip, but asks WHY I wasn't traveling with the REST of the group. Call OAT back and get Brian Parker, who says that Diana (and gives me her last name of Castile) is busy, but she's left notes that he can read, and everyone on the trip has a different itinerary, so was booked independently. I ask: if I'd checked and found that there was a Turkish Airlines flight at 4PM that got in at 9AM (rather than 11PM and 3:30PM), I could have asked for a change? He says I could have IF it were according to their requirements (price?) and were available. I do NOT repeat my request that OAT pay for my Cappadocia balloon flight as "consolation" (Diana's supervisor had said no, it was Turkish Airlines' fault, not OAT's fault). But they WILL make sure that someone is waiting for me when my flight arrives tomorrow morning. Let's HOPE! This goes to 10:34AM, notes on my slip that I take with me. Check my phone machine to see if Promenade called, maybe, when I was taking out the garbage just before 8PM, and there IS one call, but it's from SPARTACUS, WELCOMING ME BACK! Call him about 10:35 and we end up ARGUING about whether I should get off the subway at some stop and get a BUS, "since there's no free shuttle bus," even though I got off it just hours ago. He ends up hanging up on me. I put sheets back into hamper, make sure everything's off again, and leave at 10:50AM, going out the back door, so I don't even think Ron saw me. To subway at 10:55 and onto a Far Rockaway Express at 10:59, checking that it only took 37 minutes for the LOCAL to get me HOME, so I should be at the airport well before noon. Two cute gay guys talk about their trip to NYC, and when and why they were last at the Jay Street-Metrotech station, and the foreigner (he has to have demonstrated what the verb "choke" means, though his English seems perfect enough) is reading the issue of New York magazine that I just finished, so they talk about things I'd just READ about. Get off at Howard Beach at 11:35, the faster express taking only one minute less, but there are more passengers getting on and off during daylight. But I can't avoid paying $5 for the Air Train, the clerk almost apologetically saying that I "got lucky" when I had a free bus ride to the station earlier this morning. I almost curse him out, but refrain. Put a clean, crisp $5 bill into the machine and get a MetroCard for the turnstile. The train comes quickly at 11:44, goes to a number of stations (Federal Circle, some bus stop---NO free bus around from Lefferts?---and others) and finally to Terminal 1 at 11:54AM. To LONG check-in line at the D section, confirming with a stewardess that EVERYONE had to wait in line again, and I start a sudoku to keep my mind occupied to 12:37PM, when I'm quickly checked in AGAIN for flight 012A, boarding at 1:30, she says. Quickly through x-ray to 12:44, going on a newly opened line, and get water, take a pee, and sit at gate 4 at 12:51AM. [This ends my first card.] No one at the desk to ask for my breakfast voucher. Start typing at 12:53. At 12:59 a kid TROMPS on the radiator under the windows, DEFYING me with his "I can do this" look. I change seats and continue typing, headache starting behind my left eye. At 1:19PM there's STILL no one at desk, and the kids start crying and SCREAMING. The plane is going to be a ZOO! Catch up with my notes at 1:49PM, ready to go to desk to ask for food! At 2PM we're told the supervisor is CHECKING the plane; whatever had been wrong has been FIXED, but it has to be TESTED, and no one knows when that will be finished. I'm hungry enough to buy a mozzarella and prosciutto for $9.79 at 2:05 for myself. The desk is just a MAD scene, with people talking in Turkish trying to get stewardesses to do something they have absolutely no way to do: fix the plane, change their schedules, refund their money, solve all the problems, and fly the plane without bothering to collect the crew. At 2:32 the head woman repeats, "The meal vouchers are coming." At 2:48 the phrase "Pull back the plane" heard, and I fantasize that an incoming flight (like the 4PM Turkish Airlines departure) has arrived and needs the gate, meaning that our plane, not yet prepared to fly, has to leave the gate! But that seems not to happen. At 2:57 it's finally announced that boarding will start at 3:30 and the flight will depart at 4PM. Pilots and fleets of stewardesses have been arriving and departing for the past half-hour, and this time they're applauded when they appear. At 3:09 the STAMP, for the vouchers which had arrived before, finally arrives, and people start pushing THEIR cards into the faces of two others who are filling out forms, but finally I push MY form forward, saying, "There's GOT to be ORDER here," and she fills out my voucher for $10 at 3:09. I request a brownie and a mixed fruit bowl, which comes to $10.79, and I give her a $10 and a $1, but she gives me the $1 back, saying it's OK, at 3:21. The ONLY bit of good luck during the day. I'm STARVED! Sit at QUIET gate 5 and take Wednesday BREAKFAST pills at 3:21PM! NIGHT pills will be like 2AM NYC time. At 3:27 I hear the astounding "Final call to gate 4 for flight 012." Get there at 3:30 and everyone's already BOARDED! I'm on and seated at 3:34, a young Japanese guy sitting next to me after I sit down. Put my brownie in my bag, since I didn't have time for it before. Take my shoes off, my feet obstructed by a large, TV-size metal case under the right side of the seat in front of me. Flight is announced as 9:15. Guy next to me moves to the aisle seat in the row ahead of me! I look through the magazine and see many movies I wouldn't mind viewing, and start off the wait by doing a few of the sudokus given with the Turkish Airlines literature, as the fellow next to me has been doing. We back out at 4:29 and are off at 5:05PM (18 hours late). Start watching Battle: Los Angeles (promising, with Aaron Eckhart) at 5:55, and order a little bottle of red wine! Drink it with some ice, and when I ask for more ice she asks if I want more wine and I say yes. I eat my brownie with the wine, wonderful. We're only over the ocean, since we flew south over Rockaway, and now curdled clouds far below, obscuring the ocean, are all that's to be seen. Chicken kebab comes at 6:06. The movie is chaotic and too dark to tell who's who, let alone what the monsters look like. Hot rolls a lovely touch with dinner, AND metal forks and KNIVES. They might have poor planes, but their service is sure good! Lights off at 7:20PM, and the movie is over at 7:24, just awful and barely watched---and of course we won. Take Valium, Ambien, and simvastatin at 7:25PM, pee, and at 7:55 try to sleep. Go through Actualism, anxious that the plane is bumpy most of the time, and don't get anywhere near sleep. The guy behind me keeps knocking the back of my seat. At 9:15 I start Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is brighter and more interesting. By 11:30PM I note that the sun is rising in the north, pink rimming the sky. Fly over clouded Paris.

THURSDAY, 7/28/11: Change my watch and camera to 7:17AM. Breakfast is served at 7:24: omelet, potatoes, tomato, mushrooms, Sprite, salad, pudding, and another hot roll served by Chinese females at 7:55. 8:13 take #3 of town near Nis, old Jugoslavia. #4 Nis at 8:16. #6 cliffs south of Nis. #8 misty valley north of Sofia, Bulgaria. #9 elaborate road bridges. #10 terraced mountain, Kounese (?) at 8:20. #11 Edirne at 8:45. Land at 9:14 for 9:11 flight. 28°C. NO kids' noises at ALL on flight. Stand at 9:26 in aisle. Out the back door and sit on the bus at 9:32. Take picture of plane from below. Baby screaming on BUS for sure. Into terminal 9:46. Onto visa line 9:48. GOT visa easily for $20 with almost no line at 9:49. To passport line 9:52. Passport stamped at 9:58. LONG wait for luggage to 10:25 and have to be SHOWN the way out. Adnan himself meets me at 10:29 with his red "OAT" sign and at 10:31 we're into taxi for Hagia Sophia to meet Fulya and group (and his cell phone is 05346840105). Off taxi at 11, meet group at 11:20, when Judy recognizes my OAT tag on my shoulder bag and introduces herself and her husband George, who's quiet. We're into museum through special line thanks to Fulya, and she starts tour at 11:24 outside with carved sheep from second of two prior churches on the site, saying that GREEK architects helped with the design of the unique dome, which is STILL fourth largest in world after St. Paul's in London and two others, but built 600 years BEFORE them. To gate of Topkapi Palace to get the small bus for us at 12:10, and I take Teddy's seat, so he has to sit next to Joan. To ferry at 12:24 and cross sitting in back, taking pictures of receding Europe, and get to Asia at 12:48. Yellow "castle" is ASIAN train station. Get 200L (about 50 cents each, she says) at ATM. Restaurant Ciya (see ya?) (but it's with a cedilla, so it's CHIE ya) 1:05-2:05, for 28L for good cherries and meatballs, a small bowl of tasty lentil soup, and a kibbe filled with chopped nuts and mushrooms, with three bottles of water for which they don't seem to charge. Lots of shared food around the cheerful table. To bus hilltop view over Bosporus with many family groups and sales kiosks, pleasantly cool on top, with breezes. Into room 119 at 3:56 at Richmond Hotel on Istiklal Road in Para section. I was nodding off on bus and missed some details. [Meet for dinner at 7PM.] I shit and lie down for two minutes to 4:15 but decide NOT to nap until nightfall. Skim TV to 4:32, mostly Turkish of no interest, but CNN talks of minor matters. Then LEAVE TV on to drown out what sounds like DRUMMING coming from next-door room 120, and then WHISTLES loud in the hallway, then LOUD talking from people that I HOPE are checking out. One couple complained about noise from pedestrian street outside their first-floor window keeping them awake last night, but I'm thankfully not facing the street. Take Tuesday PM pills at 4:55PM. Sudoku and doze to 5:13. I BLARE Turkish TV and noise stops for a bit, but I leave on Japanese movie to muffle loud talking from next door and in hallway. Shower at 6:10 in slippery tub, change shorts and socks, and dress to 6:32. Take pills and still AGHAST at loud neighbors. [Told to go to 7th floor for breakfast at 4:30 tomorrow, luggage out by 4:30, leaving at 5AM for airport for Van.] Back from good dinner of sea bass and LOTS of varied appetizers---but I never got a taste of the Raki, said to be like ouzo---at the Palmier Restaurant in a Gum Department Store-like atrium in a narrow side street off the VERY festive pedestrian Istiklal: musicians, arched lights across street, vendors, crowds of people scattered by streetcars on tracks as only vehicular traffic aside from little police cars cruising. LOTS of red wine with ice, lots of food, and search until 9:30PM for LOST flight-itinerary sheet to give routing number downstairs to Adnan, along with changing my 4:30 wake-up call from room 116 to room 119, excusing myself because I'm so tired. Bed at 9:51, sad to get only 6.5 hours' sleep.

FRIDAY, 7/29/11: Wake at 2:18 and type DREAMS:7/29/11. Pee, pack to put bag in hall, then unpack to get out acet and comb, but then find a new comb given by the hotel, so take an extra one. Actually feel almost functional after only a bit more than four hours' sleep. Then shit a bit and get back to bed at 2:48AM. Up at 3:30 to type file 6 to 3:39AM, MAD AS HELL: ANGER: Try to sleep after getting up to pee and put my bag in the hall, but my various angers with 1) Turkish Airlines, 2) OAT, 3) the medical profession, get me down so much that I decide to try to get it out of my system at the expense of sleep. 1) Turkish Airlines: yes, it was unfortunate that whatever was wrong with their jet couldn't be fixed by 3AM, but did we REALLY have to sit from 11-3 without being given the chance to get some DECENT sleep, maybe not at a nearby hotel at the expense of Turkish Airlines, but just to make MY LIFE easier? At least they gave me (after the---artificial, greedy?---delay in getting the stamp for the food vouchers) two $10 food vouchers. 2) OAT: Yes, it wasn't their fault that the Turkish jet wasn't ready to fly, but they COULD have had some compassion, and in exchange for Turkish's $150 room and $20 breakfast, given me a $210 Cappadocia balloon flight! And, after listening to Providencia's wonderful description of "space class" just behind business class with larger footroom, for the OTHER SEVEN of the group---WHY was I excluded from that group (though I WAS happy that Adnan met me at the airport and helped fill me in on what I missed by my EIGHTEEN hours of Turkish Air-caused delay). 3) Take it up with Chin: you DENY my Rohypnol, a PERFECT airplane sleeping pill, because SOME misused "roofies" as date-rape drugs---and now I'm denied medical marijuana because I'm not in the right STATE, and he doesn't WANT to, and I have to choose between NSAIDs (which ruin my liver) or acet (which has to be taken multiple times to relieve my arthritis pain THAT WOULD HAVE BETTER RELIEF, except for the "social opprobrium" attached to marijuana for no good MEDICAL reason)! I'm just MAD AS HELL, and hope this partial "letting it out" will help me get to sleep now at 3:38---and I've got the frameworks for my letters to OAT, Turkish Airlines, and my discussion with Chin! 4:24AM: Lie thinking, fuming, mulling over thoughts, but gradually I come to a feeling of HAPPINESS: I'm getting to know some very interesting people, even if I haven't learned all their names yet, and I'm feeling good, even without much sleep, rather like on my 4-day odyssey to North Cape. Looking forward to Van this morning, looking forward to breakfast "in the usual place" that I had to identify as "seven" with Adnan's raised fingers, and thrilled about using the large flannel towel as a cover instead of the sweat-inducing duvet---feeling good in general, and I get up to look at my watch, since my few abortive starts at Actualism didn't help, and now at 4:28 the phone rings and I answer, earplugs still in, with "Thank you," and am rather surprised to hear "You're welcome." And I'm into my DAY! And my bag's gone ALREADY! Up to floor 7 at 4:40 to find everyone there, and I share a table with three others, filling my plate with cherries, cheese, and cold cuts, and get orange juice, and then have some precooked eggs with a roll and butter---quite a nice spread for so early in the morning---and get into the elevator last at 5AM to go downstairs to bus at 5:11AM. Flight number 2746. To airport in dark at 5:50AM, having passed HUGE lit 300AD walls, some reconstructed, some with the original alternation of brick and stone to withstand earthquakes and water erosion. Get to airport and dig out United card so that the two-hour flight can be credited to my Frequent Flyer miles, since Adnan said only Dennis had had his flight connected with another carrier. Check in at 5:56 to REAR window at 6:01 thanks to something Adnan whispered to the stewardess after she said the flight was full and there were no window seats left. To gate 408, downstairs, at 6:01. Get GREAT Kindle introduction by Sigrid and John to 6:28. I give them my card for my website. Boarding starts 6:33; onto crowded bus (I get no seat) 6:37. Bus goes WAY out 6:41-6:46. 24F is next-to-last row, and I oust young girl from MY window at 6:53. Shoes off, tear out Turkey map from flight magazine. I'm feeling, in general, GREAT! Root out sudoku at 7AM. 1:45 flight announced. Move back at 7:15, and off at 7:28, over parts of city, one of the trans-Bosporus bridges spotted amid low clouds. Many clouds, but also many farmlands, villages, and major towns with roads leading in and out, looking fairly prosperous. Cheese sandwich with cucumber and tomato and mayonnaise, with orange juice and water and "homemade apple cake." Lots of terrain pictures to try to capture the hills, desert areas, farmlands, rivers, and their deserted banks stark into motionless water. Lake Van comes into sight at 9:01 and we land at 9:10 with Turkey's third-highest mountain to the east. Into terminal at 9:20, bag quickly out at 9:26. To bus at 9:38, and it's a wonderful BIG bus we can spread out in, and I take the seat right behind Adnan. To Tamara Hotel at 10:06, through colorful narrow streets, many filled with tables for restaurants. Lobby is HOT while we wait for our walk before our rooms are ready about 1PM. 32° on town-square display. I'm in room 407. Walk slippery tile walks (Jill takes a nasty spill on a hot sloping sidewalk) and sandy pitted streets, past a line of restaurants at one of which Adnan reserves us a table for noon, and we get to the Urartian Museum at 11, garden full of steles from what turns out to be the National Geographic site whose name I don't have in front of me. I take pictures and read charts and am amazed at how much they've found from the third and fourth millennium BC. Cabinets light as you step in front of them, and though it's free, hardly anyone other than our group is there. Take shots of the classic guy outside, including the description, and get to gate to find the group GONE. Remember which way we came, figuring they went early to the restaurant. Sure hope they didn't continue in the direction we were going when we turned in at the museum! Look down a few side streets and see the overflow from our group in front of a bakery from which Adnan has ordered fresh the wonderful, thin, puffed-surface bread. Then we're early to Sutci Firozi lunch with dozens of appetizers with sour cream, yogurt, and cheese over "butter"; breads of two different kinds, one like a quilted blanket; and a wonderful honey-nut-butter concoction that's heaven on ANY bread. Also glasses of hot tea for which sugar is necessary. Eat lots of tiny stuff, including olives, but not the peeled and cubed cucumbers and the unpeeled tomatoes that look fabulous. They give each of us two or three containers of water, and Adnan says there'll be a pool in which users contribute 5L, and the driver fills the fridge (not very cold) in the back of the bus with the bottles. We hear the noon call to prayer, and then walk past the loud-speakered demonstration against the government for the Kurds, some of whom are just beautiful with their black arched eyebrows, square jaws (some with beards), and intense glittering black eyes with long lashes. Walk through, taking a picture (after which everyone is staring at me), and I catch up with Adnan asking people where the Tamara Hotel is, and getting five different directions, and finally Dennis identifies the white building with the facade of air conditioners. [We meet in the lobby at 5PM to talk about the trip.] Back to Tamara at 12:35 and our rooms are ready, and I take my own bag up to avoid any discussion of tipping, which is supposed to be included anyway. To room 407 at 12:46. To bed at 1PM, sleep, and Adnan SAID he'd leave a wake-up call for 4PM, but I never get called. Up, reluctantly, at 3:55, adding three hours to nine previous hours, making a total of TWELVE hours' sleep in three days, needing twelve MORE hours to catch up. Take two pain pills at 4:02. Get FINAL flight number (001) from Providencia to make sure I'm going BACK with the group, and get TWO Tepe names to ask Adnan about. Shit, get pills for dinner, fill out form for Adnan, and again shit, fuss with details to 4:33, and type to 4:53 to the middle of note 4. Out at 5 to wait for elevator in warm hall in long-sleeved shirt. I'm third last in group, Ry again bringing up the rear---and leaving his cap against his chair, which I see, and Sigrid captures and holds onto a stick and takes credit for finding for him. Adnan reads off the three who are NOT VIPs, and announces Providencia's record of 24, then Joan at 19, Dennis at 18, someone else at 14, and I stated as 12. [But George and Judy were champs with 29 trips!] We wait for Ry to 5:23, then leave hotel at 5:30, bus goes at 5:35. It's 33°C at 6PM. OLD city center devastated in 1923 by Russians and Germans alternately, until it was too ravaged to rebuild in the same spot, so it moved. It has 300,000 people, and was burned and sacked. Try for inscription above "The Door of Darius" on the distant wall, and finally find it at the lower left of a general craggy photo, identified from a sketch in an enormous book on Urartu. Out of bus 6:22, still hot, and then start up the rocky, slippery trail, Jill not even trying it with her cane, but Murray gamely going on without Providencia. I carry one of the two bottles of red wine up that Adnan stopped to buy in a supermarket that he said we'd get a chance to tour tomorrow. #106 of Darius's palace at 6:02PM. Start up at 6:30. Murray is 84! AWFUL red wine---I only had three glasses (small), and rest saved for five who went to the top for the Mosque and the view. The ferry takes RAILROAD cars across the lake, which we can, in fact, see across from Tuspar. We're at 5800 feet, so I can excuse my panting as I climb slippery slopes. Sunset (after many photos) at 7:20 and start down. See two Van cats, one of which just WON'T hold still for a picture: I erase three WORSE ones than the one I keep. Maybe we'll find another tomorrow. Back to bus 7:35, waiting for Murray at 7:44, and leave Tuspar. 25°C at 8PM. Off bus at 8:01 and to hotel at 8:02, and to restaurant at 8:21, having gotten rid of stuff in the room, and finding the stupid elevator stops in BOTH directions when you punch a button. Up to dinner to 9:05PM: GREAT eggplant and yogurt, awful meat loaf on mashed potatoes and white rice. Down at 9:07 to find no desk lamp for Neo. [Leave 9AM tomorrow, breakfast on 7 from 7AM for us.] Start typing at 9:18, but stop to dig out bathing trunks for the swim in Lake Van tomorrow (looking for antibiotics for my sore fingernail-skin edge but not finding any), and fuss to 9:32 and start typing in earnest, finishing note 5 at 10:14PM and FOOLING myself into thinking I'd started note 6, until I realize I really hadn't finished the bottom of note 5 yet. Really am losing it for lack of sleep. Dial the air conditioner down from 22° to 25°, so I can sit on the chair and type the notes until I digest enough to get to bed. Finish now at 10:16, concerned about the sore fingernail edge on the outer side of the middle finger on my left hand---just hope it isn't getting infected! Now to brush my teeth and get to BED at 10:26PM. It takes only a few minutes to fall asleep.

SATURDAY, 7/30/11: Wake at 12:43AM and type DREAMS:7/30/11 to 12:50AM. Phone in a wake-up call for 8AM. Pee, tempted to take an Ambien, but don't; try to express pus from around my finger-sore, but can't do it. Drink a few mouthfuls of water, put Vicks up my nose, and decide to use Actualism to try to get back to sleep at 12:59AM. 4:28AM: Wake and try to think who the GROUP is, particularly the lawyer next to me at dinner [Malcolm], who seems to be a single, but Joan, Teddy, Dennis, and I are singles---he must be the fifth, but who's Jill's partner---Ry? Yes. Shit a bit; worry about finger; put A/C down to 23; get two plastic bags for swimsuit and towel, and back to bed at 4:51. 5:43AM: Try Actualism, but my mind goes to SO many other things that I get up and type TRAVEL FUGUE in file 6 to 5:57AM: 5:45AM 7/30/11: [Even THAT format is wrong!] Think of the five women and eight men on the trip, and the travel adventures I could tell them about: Kilimanjaro, lost in wilds of Borneo, Sete Quedas, Angel Falls, Sutherland Falls, tuataras and keas in New Zealand, Khajuraho erotic temples---which takes me onto a diversion of incredible PEOPLE: Al JaKenta, Louis Love, Nye Wilden; not to mention my lovers: Bill Hyde, John A., Dennis Southers. Other travel places: Axum and other Ethiopian sites, the Rwanda gorillas and Uganda chimps; Dubai, with its towers and deserts and emirates, the Burj el-Arab hotel lunch and the Burj Khalifa 125th-floor observation platform. The Five Stans, the wilds of China for Dunhuang, the other two cave sites whose names elude me now [Yungang and Longmen], the Yangtze River, the Amazon twice from Peru to---the island at its mouth [Belem] in the Atlantic, not to mention my Tristan da Cunha, Ascension, and St. Helena trip; the temples of Borobudur and Angkor and Lopburi and Sukothai, Iguazú, Machu Picchu with my dawn climb of Huanya Picchu, Lake Titicaca---and my travel companions of Dale and Fred and John and Ken---the meals in France; Antarctica and McMurdo Sound and the mountain-climb to the south of it---the unphotographed Sigiriya (and the guy in the hotel in Kandy), not to mention the temple of Tirupati, and the illicit visit to the inner chamber of the Virgin Goddess in Kathmandu---and the exhausting climb to that camp at the base of Annapurna. But, sadly, I go through the roster of people here and whom do I want to talk to: Piri-like Jill with her incompetence, her silent partner Ry, the ever-jabbering Providencia and equally loquacious Murray, the taciturn Malcolm, the nerdy Teddy, the faintly distant Dennis, the truly ugly Joan, the attractive Sigrid and her quiet John, Judy (who had no dinner last night because it was too late, said George). Adnan with his goods and bads---and WILL I get the title of the Urartian book to order on Amazon so I won't have to tote its weight around for the rest of the trip, though they might sell it at the Museum in Ankara. Out of my system now at 5:56AM and I can try to doze in the two hours before 8AM breakfast. 6:10AM: Start Actualism and get the great idea to take the Hotel Tamara slippers for the Lake Van swim today! Up 7:58AM. Breakfast 8:10-8:33: cheese omelet, hunk of bread with butter, bit of cheese, and lots of watermelon and honeydew, and glasses of awful Tang and good Sour Cherry. Warm in upstairs room, convenient by one flight of stairs. Sigrid chipper, Teddy talking of rent control, all agreeing Congress is stupid and ruled by the millionaires. Adnan brings his iPad, saying it's better than Kindle because it can ALSO include books and newspapers, which he reads, saying there might be a coup in Turkey! "Violent? Of course!" Oh. Joan actually has a different T-shirt! Pack passport and spare cash in locked suitcase: just like Ken. Forgot to take simvastatin last night. Where's my coin purse? In my "finished souvenir" bag? Down to lobby at 8:50AM to see who's there to talk to. Lots. Bus goes at 8:58 to Cavashtepe at 9:45. The place dates back to the 7th Century BC, and retains a basalt facade-base that is every bit as impressive as some of the monolithic walls in Sachsuhaman and Machu Picchu. Take a picture of the word "America" in cuneiform on the back of the shirt on Mehmet, who's been a guide here for 40 years and still shows up, one of the few people who can actually read cuneiform; and he held out a handful of 2700-year-old grain, saying not to worry when some spilled on the ground, because there were still about five tons of it in storage. Pots on top were cisterns, the palace covered the hilltop but was obscured with mud bricks that melted into heaps that looked like mountaintops that disguised the pristine basalt below until they were excavated. Urartu was a modern invention: the people called themselves the Beninis. Take lots of pictures, including the world's first toilet, they say, and views from the top, and then down, tired, to pay 5L for an Aries amulet at 10:42. Adnan says that the Ankara Museum would have a good Urartu book that I could buy. To Hoshab Fortress, built by the Crusaders in the 1620s, at 11:23AM. Up high castle steps 11:30, puffing back to bus after again taking all the pictures I can of the towering remains and deep-sunk cisterns at 11:55. Bus goes at 11:55! At Grand Deriz Turizm at noon for lunch of lentil soup, chicken skewered, and GOOD melon along with the mediocre watermelon to 2PM in a pleasant Lake Van-side row of tables at the ends of avenues of trees wearing white athletic socks with yellow tops. Cool breeze, and Sigrid announces that the water is warm enough for her. Pee, and get on boat that goes at 2:24. Up onto Akdamar Island at 2:57, and stand amazed at stucco decorations, MANY INTACT, on the outside of the church, and then damaged frescos inside, from the early 1500s. I confessed to my amazement. Hot as blazes inside, pictures not taking because of darkness, other tourists shouting, and we're out of church 3:39, and take lots of pictures of the tombstones until 3:58 to boat that goes at 4:15, right next to another ferry with a cute red-shirted driver with an even cuter shorted relief driver---I wish I could have taken close-ups of both of them. We run parallel back to the dock at 4:47, and I just feel totally exhausted. Off at 4:55 [leave 8AM tomorrow, luggage out 7:30, long ride with a few stops, getting to next hotel about 6PM]. Conversation settled for room 310 at 6:45 with stops at Migros for wine and nuts and two chocolate bars for me for 2.5L. My eyes close many times on the way back to the hotel at 6:10, shower to 6:31 (floor getting flooded), and I bring sweet chocolate, of which two people partake. Murray holds court, but George and John talk, as do Joan and Sigrid, and Teddy and Murray. I have two small glasses of red wine with ice that chills Adnan when he sees it, and lots of pistachios, about which I'm taught, twice, to use a shell as a lever for tougher-to-get-at ones. Leave for dinner at 7:25PM, getting a salad that I eat part of, a good yogurt and garlic soup, "Southern Fried Chicken" that's not bad with lemon---but I don't eat much; listen to John and Malcolm talk, and Sigrid and Teddy, but I feel out of it: maybe I'm just VERY tired [as I am as I type this]. We finish dinner with three honey balls of dough at 8:31, when Adnan wants to treat us to orchid-seed ice cream, very creamy, and the streets are ALIVE: women and men on the make, lots of chances for cruising, it seems, and some VERY attractive pairs of men arm in arm. Stop for the jokey presentation of cones, one surely directed to my crotch, and the vanilla with chocolate topping and pistachio is great as we walk back another way and get to hotel at 8:53. I shit and read New Yorker until 9:08, and type to 9:36, up-to-date, and get ready to pack so I can get to bed an hour after eating. Brush teeth and leave call for 7AM, just SO tired now that, an hour after having finished dinner, I hope I can fall asleep for SOLID HOURS! Bed at 9:45PM.

SUNDAY, 7/31/11: 12:48AM: Managed only three solid hours before I woke with DREAMS:7/31/11, typing until 12:59AM. 1:46AM: Unfortunately verify that my coin purse has just VANISHED! Move Imodium to shoulder bag, which also, perforce, includes my slippers today, and my bridge case, and my chocolate bars. What COULD have happened to my COIN purse?!! 4:56AM: Wake with another dream, and feel vaguely sick, so I'm not looking forward to what happens when I sit on the john after transcribing my dream. Type till 5:09, nose dripping, and I go to the john to shit again, slightly looser, slightly smellier, though not QUITE diarrhea, so I'll have to wait for 7AM to see if 1) I take Imodium, and/or 2) I put on an adult diaper for the day in the bus. Type this at 5:17AM, obviously worried about what feels like a slight fever, for which I turn on the air conditioner by moving the temperature from 23 to 22. Let's hope another hundred minutes of sleep will "cure" me. Check watch at 6:06AM. At least my finger feels slightly better. Phone rings at 6:49AM! Up 6:56AM. Fuss with NON-STICK diaper until 7:12AM! To breakfast 7:17AM. 7:38AM: Omelet, cherry juice with pills, and fruit did me for breakfast; hoping to give my intestinal tract a rest. Diaper not that bothersome---as yet. Sit next to Murray and Providencia and talk about caves, and Sigrid joins in to ask about Altamira and Lascaux. I leave quickly to get back to pack and arrive at the lobby early, just to RELAX into day. 7:55AM: Chat with Judy and George about seeing Ararat from Cappadocia on their last trip, which is VERY hard to believe. I sit halfway back, so I'm not in Adnan's face ALWAYS. But prime seats are rare---and Judy starts worrying about whether Adnan knows we're already on the bus. [Start typing from here at 3:29PM 8/2!] I brought my OWN bag down at 8:05! Bus goes at 8:12. Istanbul expecting MAJOR quake during the next 60 years, so many are moving to NEW-CODE apartments. Stop for Van cats in University at 9AM. Most of them have all-blue eyes, and the one with two-color eyes is difficult to focus on, finally getting only ONE good shot, unfortunately behind fence-wire. The eyes of most of them are dirt-clogged and they seem VERY unhappy. NOT a good facility. I'm last to the bus. Ararat is on the border of Turkey, Iran, and Armenia. LOTS of road construction. Solar panels can be used ONLY for hot water: the government supplies HEATING oil and doesn't want competition for their charges. To Murtdys Falls 10AM. Teach a Turkish chap to take a profile picture of his pal: he gives me "thumbs up." Water for the falls seems to be supplied from an upper source through pipes. Leave 10:32. Mt. Tenderick, at 14,000 feet, supplied "fresh" (from a million years ago) lava flows. 11:14AM lava fields. 11:25AM 2644-meter pass---over 8000 feet! #255 hills of IRAQ. Salep is bulb of root of orchid for Marash ice cream last night. Noon at Dolbyazid. Walk and photo to 12:25PM. 17th Century Palace, 99 years to complete. To Palace up a HIGH road to 12:45. Pizza and cherry juice lunch at 1:25, after getting a MUCH-needed lift halfway up the hill (where I was puffing unpleasantly), enjoying the views down (to the Palace) and up (to the older palace across the way, with people climbing ALL OVER the hills---reached by a road going beyond the Palace, which we of course don't take). Note sign for "din ing-hall." To bus, exhausted, at 2:08. Back to Dolbyazid 2:35. Actually SEE Ararat (and have trouble taking ANY discernible photo) at 3PM---I really wanted to see it, and am really glad to have seen it, even telling Dennis at dinner that evening that I told myself I was going to see it, and with my luck we DID. He didn't seem impressed. Adnan congratulated us: "You're only the second of my seven groups to see it!" To Tuzluca salt mines 4-4:21, shockingly driving in IN THE BUS! Out at 4:29, taking whatever photos I could. #337 ARMENIAN hills at 4:40. ENORMOUS cattle herds and nomad tents at 5:33. Into Kars 5:49. Seemingly drive through ALL the streets to finally reach Sim-Er Hotel at 6:15. Up to room 605 to strip and pee at 6:20. [Dinner 7:30 at R level.] 7:07: unpack and search and re-sort papers and wash face and I do NOT have my coin case! Try to shit, but can't, by 7:14. Dress and get ready for dinner to 7:21, no denying I DON'T FEEL WELL!! Down at 7:28, eat (talking to Dennis and Joan), have Adnan feel my forehead and say I might have a slight fever, and coax Malcolm to sell me a Cipro Rx for John's price of $35. Get into my room after buying six pills at Malcolm's, at about 8:45PM, and am taking off my shorts, when I SHIT a bit into them, and tiny dots onto my brown pants, and---thank goodness, when I check later---nothing onto the floor. I fill the toilet with Diarrhea #1 at 8:45. Take my first Cipro at 8:50, feeling chilled from outside: when I got to my room my forehead felt like AT LEAST 103 degrees. Put on diaper at 9:13 after requesting a 7:30AM wake-up call. Fall into bed, chilled, at 9:18PM. Sleep almost instantly.

MONDAY, 8/1/11: Wake at 1:09AM with DREAMS:8/1/11. Shit Diarrhea #2 at 1:15AM---I thought I was emptied before, but there's lots there now. Shit Diarrhea #3 at 2:40AM and take second Cipro at 2:45AM. Back to bed and doze, but up at 4:24AM to shit Diarrhea #4. Maybe nap, maybe lie there, maybe try Actualism, maybe hallucinate. Only note at 6:30AM: Diarrhea #5, starting a second card so that I can summarize for a doctor, later, if need be. Fix room to 6:40, feeling SLIGHTLY better, finding that my TV works (reporting something about some kind of agreement having been reached on the US economic crisis in Congress). Phone rings at 7:33AM. I drink water and take pills and eat bread with Teddy and Joan to 8:01, Teddy saying that everyone else finished earlier. I'm beginning to think there's some kind of CLIQUE that meets and they agree to spend time together, eliminating those who don't "fit" their requirements. Not that I mind. Of course not. Adnan is down, says, "Twelve hours between two Cipros," from his iPad, and orders me a big bowl of yogurt, which he insists I put into my fridge. He expresses agreement that I should stay in bed and not go with them to Ani this morning. I go down to the bus to get two bottles of water, telling Providencia I won't be joining them this morning on their trip. Also pass George and Judy on the porch and say I'm sick. Everyone is sympathetic. I go up to room, motioning that I not be disturbed, and the room attendant brings me a red "Do Not Disturb" sign from the room across the hall (Judy's, as it turns out). I find the fridge is warm, and call the guy in to turn it on---which he says he does, but he really doesn't. I fall into bed at 8:30 with the window wide open, fearing this hot day in a non-air-conditioned room. Take as few notes as possible, gasping for breath (are we at any altitude?) after each movement. At 10:15AM shit a BIT, but I call it Diarrhea #6 and eat all my yogurt, which is beginning to deliquesce at room temperature, and read New Yorker till 11:19AM, eating some of the bread that I took from the restaurant at breakfast, and then actually fall asleep. Up at 1:49PM; Adnan calls at 2:08 (which is when the bus actually got back to the hotel because he said it was too hot to continue in town after their home-hosted meal) and says to "Meet for dinner at 6PM." I read to 3:13, lie thinking dire thoughts about what may happen tomorrow on the bus, trying Actualism to get to sleep, which doesn't work, and shit Diarrhea #7 at 4:50PM, and then shower at 4:45 to get the smell off me, thinking to put deodorant on the diaper to cut down THAT smell. That goes to 5:19, when I lie down again, and get up at 5:40 to start dressing. We bus into town to a Cheese and Honey Shop 6:15-6:30, where Sigrid buys a small jar of honey and Teddy buys a honeycomb for $15, and both are very proud of their tiny labeled (Sigrid has to insist the owner put the correct label on her jar, taking an extra one "for my scrapbook") shopping bags. Then across the street to a tacky shop where we have a table across the back, being told to file past the pots at the entrance to choose our courses. I start with the yogurt soup, which seems safe enough---all of the meat and vegetable dishes look repugnant---I'm not really hungry at all. The crust on the pita bread is very tasty, and I eat the outside of a large piece. Spoon some rice from the common dish, being warned by Adnan NOT to dip any of MY utensils into ANY common dish---only sensible. Share some of the halvah he bought at the cheese shop, drink more water, and eat more bread, and even have a spoonful of Teddy's mediocre rice pudding. Dinner goes from 6:30-7:30, and I'm grateful that no one really notices, or lets me know that they notice, that I'm eating hardly anything. Then down the road to a tea shop, stopping on the street to talk to four or five aggressive boys who tell Adnan more of the details of the attack by the drunk with the stick on the drunk who was lying in the street---trembling epileptically and bleeding from the head--as we stopped in the bus yesterday on the way to the hotel. No telling how much they invent, but Adnan said at dinner last night that he'd called 911 and they said that the one attacked was surviving in a hospital. Then we walk to the Tea Shoppe overlooking the river (but not really that close to it, as was revealed when we crossed the bridge over the river later), and he insisted we have "Russian tea" from the samovar, which involved lengthy heating of water over a wood or coal fire in the bottom of it, which sent down showers of glowing sparks and sent up a spout of steam, or smoke, and which took FOREVER to come to a boil---and that then had to be poured into a teapot almost filled with tea to make a VERY strong brew, which was then spigoted into a glass to about a quarter full, the rest filled with hot water to dilute it. Malcolm and Joan ordered the 1L "regular" tea they didn't have to wait for. It took AT LEAST 45 minutes for the samovar to work, during which time the kid with the shoeshine box made a nuisance of himself shining Adnan's leather shoes for 1L and "brushing" my shoes, at Adnan's INSISTENCE, for 50K, which I passed to Ry, who had to pay for Jill's shoes' being brushed, too. The sunset slowly faded over the ridge-line of the fortress (which John told me Adnan said had been used for wars in the past, then occupied by the police, but abandoned by them a year ago, and it was now just a lookout point) as I waited in agony for the tea service to be completed. Dennis and Murray and Providencia waved at our group from the bus as they were taken to the hotel. Finally, about 8:30, we leave, walking in the dark along roads which suddenly seem VERY busy with cars and trucks and busses---after the cannon shot at about 8:15 that announced that the sun had officially set on this first day of Ramadan, and adults could begin eating their first meal of the day. Walk a LONG way back to the hotel at 8:55: Sigrid asks how I'm doing, and I admit, "Not that well." Wearily up to the room, just in time for Diarrhea #8 at 9PM, and take Cipro #4 at 9:10PM, and at 9:07 put in a wake-up call for 7:30, and get to bed at 9:35PM, after going to the window to see a few fireworks exploded from the top of the fortress wall. I'm too sick to really enjoy the treat, which is admittedly on the minimal side. I guess I fall asleep at some early point that night.

TUESDAY, 8/2/11: Pee at 12:01AM. Try Actualism, but can't sleep; debate taking Ambien, but I don't want to mess with Cipro; at some point even try counting backward from 100, which may actually work, because I don't recall getting much past the 80s. Note that at 2:43AM I just CAN'T sleep (even with the insurance of one of the large bath towels on the bed in case I shit, because I'm sleeping naked to allow the diaper to dry enough to wear today without smelling). Read and finish New Yorker to 3:08AM, gratified that I haven't had to shit YET! Then resolve my dilemma about the morning: I want to have breakfast as early as possible so that any diarrhea AFTER eating will take place BEFORE the bus leaves at 8:30AM. But the luggage has to be out at 8AM. So I start packing at 3:18AM! During that time the hideous "Call to Prayer" starts echoing unpleasantly outside my window: I'd tried recording it before I went to bed at 9:10PM, but it stopped just as I went to film it. But NOW I film it as it goes for at least ten minutes from 3:09-3:18, joined by a chorus of barking dogs that continues LONG after the "call" stops. MADNESS of a religion! Pack to 3:30 so I can breakfast at 7AM and see if I shit before 8:30! STILL can't sleep. Write "Travel Obsession" from 5:18-5:38 of my thoughts before that, when I'm quite sure I didn't sleep a bit: TRAVEL OBSESSION: TUESDAY, 8/2/11, 5:20AM: Can't sleep, and keep thinking of places I've not been to yet---and how they may be GROUPED, conveniently, so that one trip a year may add as many as five or six United Nations flags to my list. For example, 1) There must be AT LEAST six Caribbean countries that could be visited in two weeks: Dominica, St. Kitts-Nevis, Guadeloupe [only a department of France], Turks and Caicos [no flag], and two others [which turn out to be Grenada and Haiti], depending on who are members of the United Nations. 2) There are pieces of Europe that I've missed, again depending on who has UN flags: Liechtenstein [actually the ONLY one], Corsica, Sardinia, Cyprus [which I later include in Middle East], and two others? 3) Pacific Islands that I've missed, whether Vanuatu [turned into Tuvalu] or Solomons or Tonga or Niue [which turned into Nauru] or two others [adding Marshall Islands and even Papua New Guinea]. 4) Other islands, many of which may NOT be nations: Lombok, Sulawesi [part of Indonesia], though surely Papua New Guinea is a nation, as are two or three others I'd WANTED to get to on the KENPAC trip but that we missed because the ship didn't go there. 5) Then of course there are all the African countries, at least twenty of them [actually THIRTY-THREE!], that could be "ticked off" five or six at a time depending on which tour company I used---like the one I found that goes to six countries in 12 days, absolutely ideal! Of course there will be countries forever off the list: North Korea, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, though even some of THESE are appearing on ship-trips. (Silly to write this NOW, because what I need is a list of UN flags I've NOT been to, and then I can group that list into sub-lists as indicated by the five groups above.) And others that simply may not be worth the trouble---though if I could get Armenia, Georgia, and a few others in that area into one trip, that would be nice. But I'd try to avoid TOO much time in PIECES of countries that have WONDERFUL things, like Eastern Turkey with Lake Van, Ararat, and Nimrot, or whatever the name of the place those giant heads are in, also avoiding the lackluster Kars, Erzurum, and a few places THERE: I have to get PICKIER about the trips I choose, and put more of my OWN together, which go ONLY where I want to go---like the fabled "last" trip of Hué, Huelin, Ajanta, Ellora---oh, yes, another group: 6) Andamans, Comoros, Seychelles, Lakshadweep, and others that will vanish as water levels rise. Maybe, possibly, for the next few years I can keep the number of trips to TWO per year, rather than slavishly going down to ONE trip a year merely because my progress from seven to six to five to four to three to two has been so successful. Though it's tempting, when I'm sick on this trip, to think I'll NEVER travel again, or maybe I'd feel better if I were traveling independently and could just REST somewhere until I recovered, rather than worrying about eating breakfast early to see if I have diarrhea afterward before going on a bus today from Kars to Erzurum---and I WILL have to find out how to spell that name. I sure hope I'm not tired today by not sleeping most of tonight, since I just didn't FALL ASLEEP, though God knows I tried, and I simply didn't want to mess up my Cipro regimen with Ambien to sleep, which wouldn't have been for many hours anyway and might have left me with a woozy hangover I don't want. Anyway, I seem to remember that the next few days have afternoons more or less at leisure, so I can nap if I wish. Slight temptation to work on my notes, but I don't feel like THAT, either. Now to sudoku! Do sudoku to 6:55. To breakfast 7:05-7:31, going to the elevator and entering it before returning to my room to get the yogurt bowl from yesterday to identify what I want some of again THIS morning, and back to the elevator to find it still there, with some guy, or even two, ALWAYS prowling the hall, I guess for security, but not terribly safe-feeling-making. Sigrid points to my yogurt when the woman brings it to me, and then I follow her lead when she tops it with the wonderful cherry jam. I take an egg, peel it much more easily than John or Sigrid do, and then DROP about half the hard-boiled yoke onto the FLOOR when I phumpher with the egg and shell. Have some bread spread with what DOES turn out to be soft butter, and not cheese, as I thought it might have been. Juice with my pills. Have a partially solid Diarrhea #9 at 7:40AM, and play sudoku after putting my bag out at 7:50, again under the eyes of the guys in the hall. Get downstairs about 8:20, in the elevator with Malcolm, who agrees to give me more Cipro as part of the prescription that I already paid for. The bus goes at 8:28. I sit in the back, which is VERY cold, but I get accustomed to it. At 9AM we pass into an area of FORESTS, caused by Black Sea moisture, after endless grasslands from the base of Ararat. At 9:30 bus stops so we can collect colorful black and brown obsidian from a cliff-full of it. Stop to photo Cobandeal Bridge from 1297 at 10:55AM. Lunch 11:30-12:15 at "the only place that's open," according to Adnan. Again we choose what we want from the trays, and again I start by ordering the soup (lentil this time), and a BARREL of bread arrives at the table, along with a plate of rice. Judy says her meat is fat- and gristle-less, but I see Dennis sorting through inedible lumps of junk that he puts on the table next to his plate. I go back in for some baklava-like dessert that the owner pours honey and grated hazelnuts over, and it's very dense and filling, and no one wants to share, except George, who takes a small forkful. Then Adnan treats everyone to an Aslan (lion) ice cream, not that great, but good nonetheless. Adnan says the john is under the restaurant, and George says he just ignored the fellow who wanted to charge him, but I look at the forbidding facade and decide I really don't need to pee. We leave about 12:30 and drive into Erzurum, actually PAST the ski hotel to which we later return, to the Double-Minaret Madrassa from 1400 at 12:50-1:15. Then walk uphill to the Three Kumbets at 1:20, which I photo for the misprints on the signs, and we're told at 1:35 that this forest-type mosque with multiple columns was replaced by DOMED mosques so that everyone was able to see from all over. Adnan talks with the handsome, bearded mufti, who gives us data about the staggered columns along the straight-line carpet (so that everyone could SEE that the columns were staggered), and the narrower-spaced columns to magnify the sound of the leader of the prayers. We walk in the VERY windy town (where I pass someone who gives me a sexy look EXACTLY like a young Azak Eryol) to the old lignite shops at 2:08, where I photo some of the jewels before being led into the workshop, where a cutie cuts beads for rosaries that are used for worry beads. Across to Migros at 2:20 to buy an M-brand [M for Migros] chocolate bar for 80K which Adnan says will be greatly inferior to his choice of Ulker chocolate [which I NOW try at 5:09PM, and it's NOT at all that different, leading me to determine to try a blind tasting at tonight's "party" at Joan's at 6:15PM, which I end up not doing]. Up a steep road to a SIDE hotel (not the huge one overlooking the town) at 2:50. [6:15PM happy hour at Joan's in room 110; dinner buffet style 7:15, to get there before official sunset at 7:38PM, when everyone can start eating.] To room 405 at 3PM, where I quickly undress and have a partially solid Diarrhea #10 at 3:02PM. Open the balcony door to think I see a ski lift coming down, and to greet Teddy next door, whose door I actually tried until the ubiquitous "guy in the hall" suggested I look at my key and find it's for 405, not 406, which is Teddy's. Phone to find "the ski lift's not working," and when I say I think I saw it working, he says if so, it's just being tested---and this is AFTER I first dialed 22 for Customer Service and got someone who tried to transfer me to another line and then cut me off---then redialed 22 to get the "no." By 3:28PM I'm unpacked; stretch my diaper out to dry, and start typing at 3:29PM. Actually finish now at 5:18PM, amazed and delighted at my stamina and perseverance in GETTING it all done! Cars rumble by on the gravel road outside as a warm wind blows in (with a few flies) (and the sound of many crows), for the rooms aren't air-conditioned, though Adnan says the temperature tonight will go down to 60 degrees. Let's HOPE so! Oh, and talked to John between madrassa and kumbets, who said he relied on a TRAVEL DOCTOR to [start file 2 at 5:22PM 8/2/11] tell him what to take and how long to take it, and he had no idea what the ACTUAL Cipro prescription would be in MY case. But he said he'd show me his bottle from his backpack in the bus, but he and I both forget [until later, when it doesn't matter]. Also must ask Malcolm for at least four more Cipro at dinner tonight, since I'll take the last of his six at 8:15PM tonight. So I filled one Neo file in one week---which implies three files in three weeks, plus DREAMS in file 8 and miscellaneous in file 6, with file 4 kept for "trash" inadvertently entered while it's packed. Got to stop typing now at 5:26PM!! Interesting that this VERY luxurious hotel room has a MURPHY bed hidden in a wall for a THIRD twin bed in the room! Skim TV to 6:10PM: absolutely nothing in English; even National Geographic Channel is dubbed into Turkish. Nothing to do but dress and go down to room 110. I'm about the fourth person there, and look out the balcony of Joan's three-room suite to see she's not got much better a view than I have. Eventually all but Judy join in, and Sigrid says that Adnan has never had everyone introduce themselves, so she says (half in jest), "And who are you?" to me. So I say I started as a nuclear physicist, then went to IBM, which paid for my three LSD trips at Hollywood Hospital---at which point Joan goes into conniptions, saying she'd tripped with the guy who FOUNDED Hollywood Hospital (someone like Hubbard) and supplied their LSD, and that we've got to talk about it on the bus tomorrow. Sigrid is fascinated, asking for details, saying I have to repeat my story tomorrow when Adnan hands me the microphone. Even Murray has to confess his background is nothing like mine. I have one glass of wine, which doesn't taste very good, so I figure there's still something wrong with my digestive system, and Malcolm says he's willing to give me nine more Cipro, which will be two sets of doses (for the price of one), which is great of him: I just have to come to his room. We get shown the extraordinary buffet in the Gondol Cafe, but are told not to start eating until 7:38PM, when there's the start of what some refer to as the "Call to Eating." I have chicken, peeled tomatoes, fettuccini, and cherry juice, then go back for a dessert of the Ramadan leaf-and-honey special dessert, watermelon, honeydew, and a few cakes. Then Adnan says we should take dessert outside, which appeals to me because two kids are tearing around the dining room SCREAMING the whole time, despite the best efforts of a flute, guitar, and drum to drown them out. At least I get pictures of them [the orchestra], and some of the Gypsy-like serving women. We go outside; Adnan points to some constellations, and---oh, John and Sigrid have been together for 35 years!---everyone talks and I listen, waiting for Malcolm to finish, which he finally does, and gives me nine more Cipro just as Joan comes in the door asking him how to treat some hand wound so it won't become infected---or something like that. I get to my room and take my sixth Cipro at 8:45PM, brush my teeth, and keep all the lights off in the main room, hoping to keep flies and mosquitoes and other bugs away from my open window. But I guess I can pull the curtains across, too. Put in a wake-up call for 7AM, since bags are to be set out by 7:30 and the bus leaves at 8AM, getting a slightly earlier start, hoping for "some new discoveries" on the way to the next stop. I've hardly unpacked, so there's very little to catch up with, and I finish this at 9:08PM, getting very close to an hour since I finished my fairly small meal, which left me stuffed anyway. I just hope I have NO more excremental activity this evening, since I PLAN to discard my badly crumpled (and smelly!) first diaper tomorrow morning in the bathroom canister. Maybe, having slept little last night, I'll be able to sleep more tonight. Blow my nose, take my last pee, and get to bed at 9:15PM, leaving my Neo in the bathroom for dream typing, if needed. Oh, and we're at about 8000 feet! Up at 10:14PM and shit partially solidly until 10:24PM. Forgot to record dream.

WEDNESDAY, 8/3/11: 12:52AM: Wake with a second DREAMS:8/3/11, even though the first was at 10:42AM on the previous evening. Finish this at 12:56AM and try to get back to sleep after attempting to elaborate on both dreams. Type this at 12:59AM, having tried and failed to elaborate on either dream to any reasonable extent. Bed at 1AM. 2:47AM: Type a third dream to 2:52AM. GOT to look for Vicks for my dry nose. 3:54AM: Think I hear phone ring. 4:41AM: Bring Neo from bathroom to bedroom to record FOURTH dream, which I finish typing by 4:45AM. I can see daylight above the hilltops out my open door. My neck is sore for some reason. 5:55AM: Dogs barking furiously outside. Light out. I forget dream five. 6:44AM: Again think I hear phone ring, and I get up to start day. Take Cipro #7 at 6:50AM. Shut suitcase 7AM. Phone rings at 7:02AM. Breakfast 7:05-7:35AM, but sadly I can't find a corkscrew in my room to give to Dennis. Blow nose again, put stuff into shoulder bag, stuff diaper into trash can, and leave room with suitcase still outside my door, so I take it down. To lobby at 7:47AM. Bus goes at 7:58. Fethullah Gulen established Harmony Schools first in Arabic countries, then around the world, including the US, primarily in Texas, where they're controlled by the Cosmos Foundation and partially supported by public funds. They're for poor children and undoubtedly help test grades, but some administrators in government fear that it's proselytizing for Arabic acceptance and even Sharia law, and are questioning whether our government should support them. I haven't even heard about this, but Sigrid says she hadn't either until the New York Times published a big article about them two or three months ago. He's a Turk who's now living in Pennsylvania because he's afraid to return to Turkey, a situation Adnan says will probably change in the next two or three years. Something new. Pass huge cement company at 8:50AM. 9:15 we're way up to 8000 feet for a pass, then way DOWN again. I'd mentioned Scrabble, and Adnan can get it on his computer, so he sets it up for us to play and I get a bingo on my first turn: concord! He gets remarkable words like "wamble" and the lead passes back and forth; at one point I replace one letter, that counts as a whole turn, by mistake, and he laughs and says that's the way it goes. But finally I win by playing two good last words, and at the end he reveals that the game can TELL you the best word you can get from the letters you have and the board as it is, and he USED THAT a number of times! And I still WON! [Actually, this may have been another day when I got to sit in the FRONT seat for the whole day!] Lunch at top of another pass toward the Black Sea, where we sit on an outside porch looking down at a stream at the bottom of a wooded hill that's foggy in the drizzle and now-coolness outside. I should have brought my rain jacket. Select lentil soup and taste some of Joan's meatballs, which aren't that bad, rather like small hamburgers, but not as well cooked or as fat-free as I'd like. Have a can of Fanta to remind me of what my long-past travel had been full of. Have the moussaka, which isn't bad, but I tell Adnan that I'd really like to have some McDonald's food for a change. Share some rice pudding for dessert, and then pee and sit in the bus while five or six others start down the road for a "discovery walk" in the rain. The bus is supposed to pick them up in twenty minutes, but it takes off in about ten minutes, so I suppose they weren't seeing anything in the dense fog, people were getting wet and grumpy---Jill had already turned back for the bus (we were surprised that she wanted to join Adnan and the little group of walkers in the first place)---and Adnan had called to the driver to just come and pick them up. I'm glad I didn't go, because I didn't want to get wet without my umbrella or rain jacket. Lunch to 1PM. To Aya Sophia Museum in Trabzon at times on the MANY photos in camera, taking FAR too many because the shapes and carvings and frescos are quite interesting, but I seem to be taking pictures of everything. That lasts to 2:58, when we return to the bus. [Leave at 8:30AM tomorrow.] [Meet at 4:30PM for a walk this afternoon.] [7:45PM dinner tonight in the hotel restaurant.] To Hotel at 3:17, where I unpack and relax by looking at the Zorlu book: they seem to own a half-dozen Raffles hotels around the world! I turn the air conditioner down to 13° when it's warm in the room, and it doesn't seem to be getting much cooler, though I think I can tolerate it---when Adnan knocks at 4:30, bringing in a technician, who looks at the vent in the wall, and they scream at each other, and Adnan says the power's out in this wing, so I and Ry and Jill next door should move to different rooms---thank goodness he was rooming on OUR side and noticed the problem. I probably would have just stayed. He says later that I shouldn't be so nice, I should complain more. Start making the switch at 5:18 and into new room at 5:30, which is positively COLD. Adnan comes in at 5:45 as I finish unpacking, in my shorts, and shows me a hilarious video of a dog complaining about his master eating his food. Do sudoku to 7:30, down to dinner (which I don't care for, leaving lots on my plate) to 8:30, and we minibus for 1.5L in the humidity to the park to walk the length of it to 9:50, when we walk back to the hotel to 10PM, and I leave a wake-up call for 6:45AM, and get to sleep quickly and well just after 10PM.

THURSDAY, 8/4/11: Wake at 2:50AM and type DREAMS:8/4/11 to 3AM, recognizing this is the start of the tenth day of the trip, which is nearly HALFWAY through. Pee to 3:08 with no hint of needing to shit. Lie awake, thinking, BROOODING, 4:58-5:16AM, NOT the best trip, but good things coming. 6:31AM: type dream and start this to 6:55. No phone call yet, so stop typing and get down to breakfast 7:11-7:24, RUSHED, to leave at 7:27. Onto bus fourth at 7:27. Set watch two minutes back to agree with bus's clock. Adnan is a no-show at 7:33! He runs up at 7:37 [it later turns out that Siggy sent John in to call him]. Bus goes at 7:38. Try for picture of "elevated villages" to 8AM. Monks lived in Sumilas to 1923, until Ataturk EXCHANGED Christian monks and followers of Islam. In 1950s all the monastery's treasures were removed to Greece. In 1950s Orthodox Christians in Istanbul went from 100,000 to 5000 now. VERY hilly ride in to entry gate at 8:27. AGAIN violence during Cyprus War in 1974. Get umbrella from driver, large and transparent [the umbrella, not the driver]: wonderful. Into minibus at 8:33, leave at 8:37, and get off bus at 8:43. GATE opens at 9AM, so we all wait until then. 3100 feet. Take endless photos of almost all frescos, listening to Adnan reading from his book, which he says I can get a copy of. Into many of the areas before anyone else gets there. Sadly, I never realize we're at the TOP of the complex, which we couldn't see from the valley because of the fog. Then down, easier, to cafe where Adnan orders cheese, corn flour, and butter in a gruel called kuymak that we scoop up with bread as with a fondue. Leave restaurant at 10:06, filling up on cheese, and the bus goes down at 11:04. [Fish-restaurant dinner at 7PM; 5AM breakfast before 5:45AM bus to airport for flight to Ankara.] Ill Jill off bus to hotel at 11:55AM. Stop at 1:23PM after an incredible ride up an unknown-named valley with the town of "level village," Duzkoy, at the top. Lots of pictures, most of them unsuccessful. Adnan says his associate insisted there are good restaurants reachable by bus in the "pastures" at the top of the valley. Finally stop at a level at 4800 feet on a street with five or six shops, but none with real food until Adnan pokes into a bakery and finds loaves of bread which, topped with cheese, would make perfect personal pizzas when cut in half. He originally intends we eat on the outdoor and cold porch next door but Joan insists she sit on a chair at the four-person table, and I sit on the three-person sofa, and the others are content to stand, though a few other chairs are found, too. Then they cut up a deliquescent melon after finishing the pizzas by 1:57. Baba Hackali Mosque is VIVIDLY colored when I try the open door no one else will try, and I go through two rooms to open a door onto a red-and-blue-and-white heaven of newly painted walls and dome and luxe carpets. This is all 30 miles into the valley from Trabzon, and on a clear day from the top you can see the Black Sea. Start down at 2:22, having to stop to let the burnt-rubber-smelling tires cool from the incessant braking. Purple plant is chicory. 3:27: newly changed, supposedly recharged, green batteries show as EMPTY! Now blue ones lasted only half a day. Maybe no POWER at night? [But that didn't turn out to be true]. Leave Duzkoy at 38 kilometers from Trabzon. To hotel at 4:27. Back 5:50. Is this the day we saw Aya Sophia? [No, it was yesterday.]---check photo dates and times. Sudoku to 6:54. Dinner to 8:15: meatballs in fish restaurant, inedible salad to start, cheerful young Turks at next table that Adnan delights in talking to and giving treats from our table. Pack to 8:53 and bed at 8:56PM. Type at 11:20PM.