You wake up at LAX. Pacific. You wake up at O’hare. Pacific, mountain, central. Eastern? Lose an hour, gain an hour. Central. You walk around and take some pictures and then drive drive drive away. Lose an hour, gain an hour. If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?
Photos (from Chicago and Chelsea, MI)
To Richmond Park I went a few days after I went to Stonehenge. From Wackypedia:
Richmond Park is a 955 hectares (9.55 km2; 3.69 sq mi) urban park within London UK. Almost three times as large as New York City’s Central Park, it is Britain’s largest urban walled park, and the largest of the Royal Parks in London. The park is famous for its red and fallow deer, which number over six hundred.
It’s a shame I discovered it so late; I would definitely have gone there more often. Well, here’s a couple photos.
I went to Stonehenge and Salisbury around mid June. It was a pleasant day, full of strolls and greenery, a sort of lazy afternoon that stretches from morning till night.
A special tribute and shout out to my friend Nicole, who can lick her elbow and has famously done so at Stonehenge. She blogs here.
Now that I’m done editing all the photos from my summer trip, it’s time wrap up editing the ones I took before it. Shouldn’t be too many. I really need to get through them, lest they start gathering dust on my hard drive (like the photos from the first time I went to the Tower Bridge – in November).
Well here’s the first set – I went to have a spin on the famous London eye. Whoop whoop.
Bergama
Meet Assa, who finds a place for us, get dinner with him, bet four Lira on Fenerbahce beating Besiktas 3-1, lose those four Lira (they won 2-0, it was a great game), night. Pergamom, Red Basilica, Asclepium, shuttle to otogar, buy tickets to Çanakkale, shuttle back because the bus doesn’t leave for another three hours or something, internet café, shuttle to otogar, bus to Çanakkale.
Çanakkale
Sleep. Gallipoli tour, forget camera at restaurant, get it in the evening, long chat with the 55ish year old aussie couple (horses, traveling, war, his stories – arrested in Burma, Maharaja’s palace, smuggling stuff Germany to Pakistan..), night. Troy tour, bus to Istanbul.
And that’s that for the summer trip.
Guys wearing Aussie rugby and All Blacks shirts to get people into their hotels (there’s loads of Aussies and Kiwis), Genuine Fake Watches, Ephesus, Church of the Seven Sleepers, become buddies with Selçuk police commissioner Akun (”if you boys need any help, come to the police station and ask for Akun, and I will help you”), go for a swim, get a shave, go to Homeros Pension, go to a Turkish wedding with some French girls, night. Visit the Temple of Artemis, and grab a bus to Bergama.
Genuine Fake Watches! Also, some of them are “Full Automatic”. This means that buttons on the watch actually do something, and that you can actually set the time on the watch. Yes, there are Genuine Fake Watches on which you cannot set the time. But at least they were genuine; imagine buying a fake fake watch. What would that be? Like a fake Rolex Hyperion:
“The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch parts or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a timeless statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who doesn’t need to be reminded all the time that he is very successful. Much more successful than the people who laughed at him in high school. Because of his acne. People who are probably nowhere near as successful as he is now. Maybe he’ll go to his 20th reunion, and they’ll see his Rolex Hyperion. Hahahahahahahahaha.”
– Dave Barry, “In Search of Excellence”
Now a fake Rolex Hyperion, that’s just a lump of coal painted with a golden Sharpie. Who actually reads this, anyway?
Stayed at Sonat Pension in Göreme; Sonat the owner didn’t even mind that we woke him up probably around 6:30 in the morning. Took a tour round southern Cappadochia; the place is beautiful. Went to a Turkish night, met some very pleasant Americans from Louisana and thereabouts, went stargazing. Next day: Göreme Open Air Museum (so.many.koreans.), hiked to Red Valley, Çavuşin, hitch back a ride with some carpet salesmen, hike towards Uçisar and climb from the valley to the rim, but it’s too late for the sunset. A kid on motorbike gives me a ride back to town, watch some footy at Fat Boys. Go to Uçisar castle, play checkers, then hop on a bus to Selçuk.
Lots to see, Blue Mosque, fresh orange juice, Istanbul University, Grand Bazaar closed, the aqueduct, shoot some bottles with a bb gun, golden horn, that damn shoeshiner, night. Cistern, Topkapi palace, Grand Bazaar, ferry trip up the Bosporus, night. Haghia Sofia, museum of Turkish and Islamic art (lots of carpets), bus to Goreme.
Inside the Blue Mosque:
The Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art. It’s full of carpets. Seriously. Room after room, floor after floor:
Notice how dotted with ships the horizon is:
Skopje
Morning bus to Podgorica, which is dull, so spend much of the day reading. Night bus to Skopje. Mother Teresa statues, nice Turkish bazaar, buy a hat, fortress, Dutch people, talk about Amsterdam, Greek girls beat me and a French teacher in Bratislava at pool, take a morning train with an unsurprising two-and-a-half hour delay down to Thessaloniki.
Greece
Thessaloniki bores, Kavala is nice, but after the boring experience of Thessaloniki I left my camera in our hotel, damn. There are no connections to Istanbul from Kavala, so in the morning (my friend’s “Fancy another hour in bed?” response to the alarm clock is met with an unconvinced but determined “No” on my part) to grab as early a bus to Xanthi as possible. Xanthi has connections to Istanbul, we’re told. We get to Xanthi around noon…and it ain’t much. The place is absolutely dead, hot, and dull. When we realize that the single shabby building by the railroad tracks is the main train station, we’re not hopeful. Fortunately, there’s a train to Istanbul going at midnight, so we don’t have to stay the night. We spend the day mostly reading in a park, having decided against investing four Euro into a size 3 football (a decision we would regret many times during the rest of the journey). At midnight we hop on the train, into a rather slick compartment with two beds, and after staring out the window for half an hour, we go to sleep.
Bus to Dubrovnik, want a ferry to Greece, no ferries to Greece, some old lady offers us a place, we accept, Dubrovnik’s nice, talk with some American PhD Philosophy students, they take the piss out of their course in a healthy way, discuss fictionalism, grab a bus back to Montenegro in the morning.
