Osman Kaya is a friend I made while I was walking through Isparta at the end of September. I met Osman on the side of the road as I was leaving the city, and then I saw him again later in the day at Lake Egirdir. I have seen him a few more times since, and he is a...
Years ago, maybe it was 1990, I was a university student in Chicago. One day some friends and I decided to ditch our classes and go downtown, west of Chicago’s Loop, to sit in on a screening of the Oprah Winfrey Show. This was before Oprah became a household...
I picked up my residence permit in Istanbul yesterday. Getting that residence permit lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. On the road I engage in a number of, shall we say, “activities of questionable safety,” but walking around with an expired visa this...
Some people have asked me about language, and what do I use when I’m traveling in Turkey. In Istanbul most of my communication is in English, simply because most of my friends in Istanbul are fluent or native speakers of English. On the road, however, I use...
I’m at the bus station in Konya, getting ready to head back to Istanbul for a few days to pick up my new residence permit. I stopped by the restaurant for a bite to eat (kuru fasulye, pilav, and sutlac, my “go to” meal these days). As I was putting...
