Hey Shithead, how about a kebab

Jesus fuck... where do I begin... I've been kept off my feet in this whirlwind of a city for the past few days, generally trying my best to 'be turkish'.

I met this really cool local guy who I've been hanging around with. He lives in France and is only visiting so he's taking the opportunity to do 'the tourist thing' as well and generally be my tourguide.

First of all, the lingo: My turkish is actually coming along quite well. I've got to the point where I can sit down at a cafe and pretty much order what I want and have all the rudimentary dealings with the waiter with him thinking that I can talk turkish... It's only if he queries anything or seeks to deepen the friendly banter, that I am unmasked as a fraud with a limited number of multipurpose word conjectures and generic grunts. Tonite I learned all the bad words so that I can pepper my language with these, making me by default 'more natural'.

On Monday we went to the Princess Islands for a night. They're these islands off Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara where the local tourists go. They don't allow motorised propulsion on the island so everything is horse and carty (very quaint but slightly malodourous). Spent the day lying on the beach trying to get some kind of base before I hit the south and the med. As I said though, the tourism there was mainly turkish with the occassional arab, so I kinda stuck out like a sore thumb. (Ye know those haribo cola bottles... think about a white one of those lying amongst loads of brown ones).

Other than that, have been consuming vast amounts of tea and beer (in alternating binges) and have been trying some of the local chow (which ain't all that bad). I've done 'some' touristy stuff, and I do feel bad when I hear about all the museums that other people have seen, but I really couldn't be that arsed doing anymore museums.... I might go to a Hamam (Turkish bath) tomorrow. So I'm gonna do a runner tomorrow and leggit down to Izmir, Turkey's second biggest city and a bit beachy... Will post a photo or two soon.

L8r.... C

PS: For those of you who were wondering, Turkish Delight is disgusting here as well.... yes, it still tastes like soap!