It’s been a pretty heavy two weeks, lots of travelling in the name of ‘fun’. We spent some time catching up with my parents in Ireland - mainly due to the fact the Da is too ill to travel these days. They wanted to see the boys, so we went to Dublin and spent some time out there. A good time was had by all, and I even managed to get an ironic picture with Luke looking through the supports of O’Connell Bridge towards the Custom House in Dublin. Luke’s great grandda was one of the guys who burned the place out in 1921.
Anyway, back from there, I recovered from the dreadful 12 hour door to door journey and then headed off to Ankara. Lack of sleep hit me hard on the first day, but I caught up on the Monday night. Thankfully, the Adhan didn’t wake me every morning, just most of them. Strange to hear after coming from Dublin, where the most common early morning sound was the kegs being emptied at the local pub.
I learned a lot about Turkey just by going there. The first bank notes I got had a picture of Ataturk on them, but I had to check who he was with some locals - it looked like he was being friendly on the banknote, maybe a bit avuncular - but to me it could have been Boris Karloff.
Dawn in Ankara, April 2006
