gosh - what a journey, after about 2 weeks seaside, we stepped into the east of turkey, and as I exspected, it really gave me some new point of views. 3 years in istanbul didn`t really show me “turkey”, live in diyarbakır is different even to “kurdish” quarters of the big city.
we had several days we just where discussing, social situation, civil war, the matter of speaking a language, which isn`t accepted, terrorism and ways out of it, ot the option of going to northern irak and start a new kurdistan.
For sure, to sepparate information and propaganda was not easy, but one thing can be sure: nobody, who is stepping east of mersin, can ignore the conflict, and all the idea of a monocultural turkey is illusion.
And I got some idea, why AKP is as strong as it is: While all the “old elite”, the army, CHP …, is considering at least 1/3 of turkey just as an area of “terrorists”, AKP gouvernment is building highways, and being muslim is more important than being turk. That might be an offer to many people, even if it isn`t a democratic in a kind of liberal sense.
beside all these impressions, I had to handle quite a lot of bureaucracy, getting a document to an office, where 3 different offices where involved and all that with internet cafes and public phones. it worked out, but was one of the most difficult adventures, and yes, gouvernment offices do answer to e-mail, sometimes.
now I am in istanbul and it is a little bit strange to be visitor, where I lived for so long time. the next adventure, I have to let a tooth pulled out. oh poor me …

8 1/2 days “on the road” - there is to much to tell. I wanted to wrtite a log, but my preparations where so chaotic, I forgot to pack a pen.
ok, first of all I want to say thanks. to all the people who gave me a lift, of course, for driving and the 100’s od coffees and the conversation, even or especially if it just was that, what i could do in russian - or body language of course.
thanks to B. for organizing my boat trip over the black sea.

I have to be detailed at this point: it was not easy to find a suitable boat to ukraina. at last I had a peace of paper with two numbers - one of B’s friend, which was considered to be my friend now, and one of somebody working in the RoRo-Truck-Ferry Company’s Headquarter. I was instructed to go to the harbour and ask for this guy. At the harbour there was nobody but some border police and customs at a gate. a little bit unsure I asked for this guy and evryone new him and my ne friend, but both werent there. one phonecall, and evrything was cleared. I was pleased to go on the ferry.
entereing the ferry, there was nobody. just the empty freight room, which should be filled with trucks during the night. I was climbing some narrow steps up, deck 1, deck 2, ond deck 3 I found the first persons. I told them, that I am a passenger and they found sombody to find me a room.
slowly more and more truckseached the ship and at the end, the next morning, about 50 men where on board. evrybody knowing each other, but a little bit separated in two groups. the turks in the big restaurant room and the “russian” which ment basicly evrybody not being turk, so called because they used russian as lingua franka - in the other. only men. The “Russian” TV was showing action movies about russian army elite troops in Kavkas. The Turk TV music shows of arabesc pop. playing Tavla (Backgammon) or this rommee style game, I don’t knoe the name of.
all in all I spent nearly two days on the ship. being kind of integrated as the tourist arkadas, more in the turk part of this special society, as my language abilities where making me communicating there more, and as the ammount of alcohol drunk there was less and so conversation a little bit more comfortable.

in about 14 hours İ learned and experienced this:

bengue was feeding me with çok lecker salad, kuru fasulye and the information how to hitchhike to europe from istanbul.

take the bus 89 C from taksim or aksaray to ikitelli garajı.

taking a bus in the rush hour

is a special experience in istanbul. and there is rush hour half of the day. so it was about 1,5 h not even having enough place to stand.

not evryone likes agit-prop

three young socialist activists had to experince this, when they tried to make a speech in the bus. there was some discussion, some passengers agreed to the driver, to kick them out, other didn`t. the speech was about thousand`s dieing in a war, İ didn;t get, which one.

this city isn`t neverending

if you are once in ikitelli you see a scene like a caricature of prepostmodern civilication critics. grey dusty and absolutly non-livable. but its the edge. more far out there is countryside. really

the trucker picking me up there

was going from abu dhabi to macedonia. he didn`t want to speak to much, but offered me his bed, İ good idea.

ten km line of waiting trucks at the border

distroyed my plans to cross before midnight. anyway as it is forbidden to cross by food İ had to find a car for this. as evrytime you find a car just in front of a border, İ found some smugglers. İt seems to be usefull to have a guest to appear harmless, even if İ always get searched, if İ go by myself.

spending my night in kapitan andreou

was quite strange. İ found a pub open until half past 4, 2 drunken elder couples, 2 very drunken maybe 14 year-old boys and a girl in the same age doing service. İn a way İ was not really welcome and one of the youngsters was looking for some stress. not threatening, as he was not even able to stand, but a little bit boring. btw. awfull music, very loud and an athmossphere you might know from gdr school dining rooms.

so İ took some food

next door and it was quite enjoyable. the village seems to be quite bi-national, at least many people speak turkish. afterwards İ took some walk through the village, very romantic, small farmers`s houses, broken treckers, … İ will shoe you some photos in some while.

as İ didn`t know

what to do, İ went back. being asked by the border police, what`s my job, İ didn`t know what to say. no working permission, but İ do not really think, he cares about that. so anyway İ stayed careful and said, İ`m a student, studying turkish.

some almancı was taking me back home

and the same discussion like mostly. where to live, germany or turkey. he was just about to move to ankara.

why all this? just for a new stamp, allowing me the next two month to stay in turkey. btw. its a kind of urban legend, that you need a date change between leaving and entering …

this was our lonely beach.

its time to blog about my new years holiday: sun, seaside, relaxing and hotel yasmin. and - to point out in this post, some young, who didn`t seem to have met any foreigners yet.
here some converstaion:

we: (/me and jelena): do you know, wether atatürk ever was elected?
kids discussing the issue the president is elected evry five years
we: how long was atatuerk President
kids: didn`t find an answe
we: who was president after atatürk
kids: said a name, i don`t remember
we: he was also kemalist?
kids: ?
we: he was like atatuerk?
kid 1: agreed
kid 2 : noone can be like atatuerk!
confusion

about the military government in the 80`ies

we: which government was putched by the military?
kids: after some discussion the government of president … i dont remember
we: was he islamist
kids: had no idea
we: why they putched?
kids:very sure there was fight between leftist and rightist and the military was in the middle and restored order
we: who where the leftist and the rightist?
kid 1: the leftist were the religious, the rightist the modernist
we: confused
kid 2: no the religious where the rightist and the modernist the leftist! sorry!
remark: marxist does not exist any more in the political map of those kids
kids: but anyway, the military was in the middle and saved the country

so. you see, even if you don`t know much about the history, they knew that atatürk is great and the military the only trustable power.