Monthly Archives: October 2019

dog designs bike lane

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I wake up in the darkness. It’s night outside, the wind howls, and I can hear the call to prayer. But it’s not just one. There seem to be at least two or three mosques in the vicinity, and their prayer calls are overlapping. All of them are calling for god, and they all end […]


a Turkey in Turkey

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During breakfast my hosts ask me if I would like to have some Turkish Coffee. I say yes as if this was something I am used to having every day. The coffee does not disappoint. Then one of my friends reads my future from the coffee grounds. I will get married and probably have a […]


flags

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I wake up in a hotel room that’s located above a gas station and a wedding salon. The window overlooks the sea. The sea is grey. The sky is also grey. It rains softly. When I go down to get the Caboose from the wedding salon, the kitten is gone. It was roaming the halls […]


land tittie

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Obviously, the church at Cape Jason has nothing to do with Jason himself. He lived (if he even existed) way before Jesus (if he even existed), and it’s unclear if he ever came here to this cape, this piece of earth that sticks out into the Black Sea as if the land had grown a […]


boats from scratch

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It smells like fish in the harbor. Well, it’s actually more of a little bay with a pier and a few boats than an actual harbor. But it smells like fish anyway. The seagulls love it. When a fishing boat comes in or someone tosses some leftovers into the water, then they come from all […]


a virgin

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In Persembe, there is a square with an Atatürk statue next to an old cannon. It looks as if the founder of the Republic is preparing to launch a cannonball at someone. Probably someone who is trying to mix politics with religion, I assume. When I walk over to the waterfront, I arrive at a […]


the day we won

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When I wake up and look outside, I feel disheartened. Rain. I deliberate for some time if I should go or not. I even make an instagram poll to help with the decision, but 55% vote REMAIN and 45% vote LEAVE, and it’s fucking Brexit all over again. Indefinite Chrixit extension? After a while I […]


the horde

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Ordu is nice. Its shopping streets are clean and busy (though I don’t see that many people carrying actual shopping bags), and there is the Atik Ibrahim Pasa mosque from the late 18th century, where old men sit around talking to each other (though the mosque itself looks rather new). Meanwhile, I’m thinking about a […]


very important pee (or poo)

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More greyness. More rain. I talk to a restaurant owner on a beach who explains to me that some guys are operating heavy construction equipment behind his place because the sea has been nibbling at its foundations. It certainly does look grumpy today, the sea. I slowly make my way along the coast. In the […]


the night has its own lights

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I leave Giresun via its shopping street, passing the stores where I bought my shoes and the winter gear a few days earlier. Hundreds of little Turkish flags line the way out of town, and sometimes I wonder if the people of Turkey are worried that they might forget their own nationality if they didn’t […]


Olives

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There is a church here in Giresun. It’s located right next to the ögretmenevi, and I look at it sometimes when I walk by. Only after a few days I realize that I never hear its bells ring, and it takes even longer to find out that it was converted into a children’s library in […]


what ruins ruins

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Before I even get to Giresun Castle, I see a sign that tells me it dates back to ancient times. Roman times. Greek times. Those times are gone. Giresun, just like Trabzon, might have had proud fortifications once. But today they lay in ruins. A few walls and an old well are all that’s left. […]


rock hard

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It’s been exactly one month since I entered Turkey. I have two more left until I’ll have to leave the country for a while, and I wonder how far I will have come by then. But first I need to get a pair of new trail runners. Back when I started my walk in 2007, […]


imagine amazons

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The only island in the Turkish part of the Black Sea is small and shitty. I am not aware of this as I buy my ticket. The ride there takes about a half hour. Legions of jellyfish wobble against the ship. They don’t care. I think of Jason and his Argonauts and how they met […]


where sober men go to drink

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The cliff and the beach, the road and the sea, they are all very quiet. A few dogs are walking around. A few ducks are following them. They seem very interested in the tent. Still, everything is wet. Once I get to the ögretmenevi in Giresun, I am going to have to take the tent, […]


yok

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There is a word I keep hearing a lot: yok. It means “no” in Turkish. Excuse me, is there a way around that tunnel? Yok. Do you have soup on the menu? Yok. Is there a place to sleep around here? Yok. Yok. Yok. Yok. I am still thinking of this word while I am […]


déjà vu

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The year is getting old, but the sun still manages to burn. I remember the middle of October in 2016. I was walking through Kazakhstan when it suddenly started to snow. Back then I ended up buying gloves and a wool hat – along with my beloved pink Blankie – in a bazaar. I wonder […]


Sea Hawk

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Every tunnel is always the worst. The very moment I see it from afar, my heart sinks. I fumble for my phone and stare at the map, trying to find a way around. There seems to be a small road over the mountain. I try to take it, but it’s a dead end. There are […]


but the terrorists

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A day in a roadside hotel. The room is okay, the yard is nice, breakfast is the bomb. I walk over to a shop down the road and end up buying not only water and a candy bar, but also a pendant from the Trabzonspor football team because I like its colors. Guess I’m a […]


similar questions

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Last night, when I was almost at the ögretmenevi where I was planning to stay for the night, two guys appeared and wanted to take a picture together. Then the cops showed up. Not just one or two, but four of them. As I was standing there, posing for the picture in my Chinese reflective […]