Sunday 20 July 2008

Caption Competition #3

Sitting having a drink in a cafe the other day, I noticed this strange cartoon character on the side of my Coke can. I couldn't find the character's name but it appears to be some kind of penguin. Perhaps you can come up with a name for him. I came up with a few as the bubbles poured out my nose...

Iyi yolculuklar

Today's post is a bit of a hotch potch of things, which kind of represents my mind at the moment anyway. I'm a little stressed and disorganised. It's nothing new to me and I've come to accept this side of my personality.

Tonight at 11:30pm, I join a group of tourists on a transfer bus to Bodrum's Milas airport. From there I head to the UK to sort out a few things (renewing my passport, applying for Turkish residence etc). A week later I board a plane to New York with my greatest mate Pete. After a day of shopping, we pick up a hire car and head West towards Chicago.

My other greatest mate Sam will be meeting us there to join us as we head further West to Denver where Sam will leave us and head back to London.

From Denver we'll continue our journey all the way through to Las Vegas. After a couple of days of throwing huge amounts of money at the roulette wheels and open buffets, we'll catch our flight back to Blighty.

Once back in the UK, I'll spend another week celebrating mum's birthday before returning to Turkey on the 25th August.

Well, this is the plan. Everything's booked. All that's left is to pack my bags and say my farewells.

I feel strangely nervous about the journey. I'm excited too, don't get me wrong. But I just feel that I've overlooked something crucial. Perhaps it's that 'did I leave the iron on' paranoia that age brings. I'm sure it'll be just fine once I board the plane.

The fact that I'm almost completely deaf isn't helping the situation. Why, you might ask? I was at a concert last night here in Kusadasi. One of Turkey's best loved pop stars was in town and my step brother had a VIP ticket going spare.

You may know this pop star from his attempt to 'shake it up sekerim' at the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest. I believe he came 3rd, which would be a nail in his coffin in the UK, but here he's something of a superstar.



A fantastic gig. He's a handsome beggar with a great stage presence.

So, anyway, I'm going to leave you now to pack my bags. I will be documenting my journey across the US so the title of this blog may seem irrelevant for a while. Hopefully you'll enjoy the break from all things Turkish or perhaps I'll just use the opportunity to draw comparisons from that culture. Nothing is certain yet.

Watch this space...