No updates since Tok Woot!
Well, lots has happened and also not so much.
I hang out a lot more on weekends. No big, exciting plans but enough to keep busy. And that makes me happy.
I have become a book fair hound. I think i average 3 new books a week. Such a monster. But seriously, if you also suffer cheap book fetishes, definitely go check out the Pearson/Penguin book sale at Pearson Publishing House (off Jalan Templer which is the left turn off the Federal Highway after the Naza showroom, assuming you are driving AWAY from midvalley... meh. Google it!)
I love the fact that eddie is back! He calls and I feel wanted =) and occasionally he is breakfast buddy!
I tried for, heard back from and then was ignored by Mix FM. *Big sigh* Radio deejay-dom needs more work.
I've been playing badminton semi-regularly. That's a MAJOR change for me! (And less aching now!)
Liverpool is in 'shambolic' form. *sigh* But Torres is still leng chai as ever. For a female football fan, that is of course a pretty big priority.
Oh, and biggest news of all... FAMILY HOLIDAY!
I am quite excited over the fact I don't have to slug it out in hostels and figure out where I am by myself. But coaches and zooming over sites is a bit of a sad thing. We are staying 3 extra days in Istanbul on our own so I have been reading up quite a bit for Turkey. I promise those pictures I will share, okay? (Have been lazy with Rembang but to be honest there isn't much to see there)
The itinery consists of Istanbul (Grand Bazaar! Haga Sofia! Blue Mosque! Topkapi Palace! Bosphorus River!), Troy (Eric Bana and Brad Pitt and a big wooden horse!), Cappadocia (potentially a hot air balloon ride and caves where the Catholics used to hide from the Romans i think), Ankara (the current capital of Turkey but i don't know much else) and of course, YUMMY FOOD!
Things i have learned since a week ago about Turkey:
- There is OIL WRESTLING using extra virgin olive oil (less acidity so stings less) and has been source of homoerotic inspiration
- Troy is in Turkey (=S) Honestly, had no idea.
- The whirling dervishes perform a few times a week in the waiting room of a train station. When not totally touristy, they are actually quite mystical, as performers go into a trance-like state to do their spinning
- Topkapi palace was main venue of a film called Topkapi that my parents watched about 40 years ago.
- Topkapi palace is also the old palace of the sultans before administration moved from Istanbul (not Constantinople) to Ankara
- Edirne is site of oil-wrestling festival and also closest to the Greek border
- Turkey is actually pretty darn big... it looks like the size of Spain on the map.
3 comments:
Hey Jeannie,
Hope your trip to Turkey is good. Troy is in Turkey because the area was Greek before the Turks conquered Constantinople (now Istanbul) to form the Ottoman Empire. Greece got back their independence on the 1821, but obviously they didn't get back all the old Greek cities.
I read a bit about it.
There was lots of ridiculous conquesting going on back in the day.
Hahaha... big up for peace and all now. But it would've been sort of fun waking up and finding out you're suddenly Greek instead of Turkish or vice versa. (altho i think it's bloodier than that)
And yay! Thanks for still checking in on this every now and then ;)
It's actually extremely bloody. Look up the Armenian Genocide. The Kurds aren't too happy with not having their own country either.
If you aren't aware, the old Ottoman empire used to extend as far west Algeria, as far south as Somalia, and as far north as Hungary and as far east as Iraq.
As you know there is still no peace in Iraq, or Palestine/Israel. The Europeans in some sense have made a mess of this one when they split it up at the end of WW1. The ethnic groups who used to live in peace side by side are suddenly killing each other for land grabs like every fall of an empire and its Balkanization... Remember Bosnia? The Jews claimed Israel as Palestine was never technically a country...
Some of the Turks still dream of a new pan-Turkic empire to this day....
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