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we arrived at the otogar in Denizli in the early morning hours.
we had heard about the warnings of getting off the bus and being shuffled by strange men into a dolmus with the promise of getting you to Pamukkale, only to be brought to a hotel where you're expected to stay.
we did our best to avoid these men, but Hassan's cousin found us.
we immediately tried to resist and told him we knew where we were going, but even when we made our way to the dolmus, he stayed with us, talking to us...and we liked him and his crooked, tea & cigarette-stained teeth.
he promised he would not make us do anything we didn't want, but would we consider staying at his cousin's place? turns out he was talking about the exact pension we were heading to, so he gave Hassan a call and set us up.
it was kinda rainy...we were actually quite grateful.
when we got off the dolmus on a corner in the middle of nowhere, Hassan was there to pick us up.
Hassan and his wife run a wonderful and cheap pension within walking distance of the travertines.
and his wife makes wonderfully delicious home cooked food.
after showering, resting in their cushy lounge for a bit having çay and talking to some Russians, Hassan gave us a lift to the base of the travertines on the other side of the mountains, effectively avoiding the tour buses and masses of people that have much too delicate feet to climb up.
barefoot climb up the travertines
calcium travertines
Pamukkale means Cotton Castle...the calcium oxide-rich waters flowing down the mountain left deposits of white travertines over the years.
it is really quite a beautiful site, despite all the locals repeatedly saying "it's not what it used to be".
they say that the travertines, which were once bathing pools with a lot more water, have been drying up since the '70s when there was a huge tourist boom to the area and they say that the ultra-lux hotels that once graced the top of the mountain, on the site of old Hierapolis (Holy/Sacred City), depleted all the resources.
the hotels on top of the mountain have been destroyed since then, but the controversy now is that all the hotels in the town below have natural-water swimming pools that are pulling water from somewhere...
many of the ruins of Hierapolis are amazingly intact, especially the grand theatre which rivals Rome's colliseum in the sheer fact that all the seats are there, and open to sitting and lounging and exploring (and exercising...can you say steep?)
...in Rome's defense, this theatre has been partially restored because of numerous earthquakes, but the seating is all original.
25 YTL for one swim in the modern pool filled with ancient ruins
Hierapolis was built partly because of the existence of the travertines...the baths were actually the first part of the city to be built (still in use, but well above our daily budget to actually swim in) and Hierapolis came to exist as a luxury resort town for Romans.
the necropolis, running along both sides of a 2 km stretch of road is the largest ancient graveyard in the area...
and the main road into the city is a magnificent stretch of well-preserved gigantic columns built around 81-96 AD.
most intriguing tidbit: on the way up through the ruins towards the theatre there is a small cave (now just a hole barely big enough to peer through into deep cavernous depths) with a sign that reads "tehlikelidir-zehirli gaz" (dangerous - poisonous gas)...you can hear the gas bubbling inside and legend has it that animals used to be thrown in...i can't remember what for...but it's still deadly poisonous.
stuffed grape leaves for picnic lunch at Hierapoliswe wandered around for a good 5 hours in what was our first day of blistering Turkish sun (not to be our last)...if it weren't for the heat, we probably could have explored longer.
we descended back into town and treated ourselves to well-deserved (and extraordinarily tasty) popsicles mixed with pistachio ice cream.
i (sub-consciously?) chose the more phallic of the twowe wandered in and out of the streets of this small resort town and found Kayas wine bar where we relaxed with some local wine...
back at Hotel Dort Mevsim, Hassan's wife, who had told us when we were leaving earlier in the day not to eat out anywhere as she was making dinner, cooked up a wonderful fresh whole trout for me, and lamb for bob.
delicious pamukkale trout
Hassan had friends over that evening, and even before dark, they had already polished off a bottle of raki (we were quickly coming to realize how liberal Turkish Muslims are...)
between some weird time gap and idle chatter with others on the patio, we ended up being introduced to (free) raki with an Aussie and New Zealander (who were later to fight like crazy almost to the point of intervention by bob, Hassan and Hassan's cousin)...
lesson learned: raki is generally cut with water to lessen the hangover...and obviously to prevent beating up your girlfriend, as evidenced by the New Zealander drinking it clear (straight). thankfully bob got this lesson before hand from Ilhami, with whom we stayed when we got to Cappadocia and with whom we had an intense raki-soaked conversation about Islam...he offered to introduce bob to Muslim prayer when we got to Göreme...
if you're ever in Cappadocia, stay here.
if you're ever in Pamukkale, stay here.
Hassan's shirt:
(front) "no money, no honey"
(back) "no funny, no wife"
random shots from a day in Pamukkale:
travertine frog
juxtaposed in a travertine waterfall
stories from Turkey were temporarily on hiatus while i put in my last ditch effort to study for the CRNE.
and now it's done.
and no amount of studying could have helped me with those vague questions and ambiguous answers.
which is what i was expecting.
but still.
this isn't school anymore.
this is real life.
it's not comforting to come out of an 7.5 hr exam (yes, it's a full day with an hour break for lunch), which my RN license depends on, feeling like it was questionable, at best.
although it is somewhat comforting when your uber smart friends all feel the same.
the questions were a mix of common sense and nonsense. i thought so, anyway.
there were questions where all 4 answer options were right...but which one is the most right?
and then there were the ones where i crossed them all off and thought "well, it's gotta be one of them, right?"
yikes.
but it's done now. nothing i can do but wait for the results in 6 weeks time.
if i pass, i scream and yell and jump up and down for joy, and continue working at SMH.
if i fail, i cry a little inside (lose my new job), pack my bags, and move...somewhere i don't have to show my face.
and probably try again next time...just start somewhere else.
now back to regularly scheduled (fun!) programming....
~
Music to my ears: Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship
Kadiköy at twilight
after checking out of the Otel Sultan, we hopped the wrong ferry to Istanbul Asia...i suppose on a trip with no concrete plans it wasn't really the "wrong" ferry per se--we did still make it across the Bosphorous--but we entered Asia via Üsküdar, attempting to get to Hayderpasa train station...which actually has a ferry that runs right to it.
we ended up hiking 3km across town only to finally reach the station and be told that there are no overnight trains to Denizli or Pamukkale, only bus.
we were sure we had read somewhere about the Pamukkale Express overnight sleeper train...thanks to the nice man in the booth line up beside ours who helped us navigate between languages we learned that the Pamukkale trains were currently (2 years!) out of service.
looking at the map, our options were to either get back to the other side of Istanbul and travel by metro and tram outside of the city centre to the huge main otogar (bus station) or walk back a couple of kms to the smaller Harem otogar, and hope that there were buses running to Denizli/Pamukkale from this station.
we chose the latter and back tracked through the main road out of town which is a crazy school and military district...between a high school, a university, a hospital and military barracks which were heavily patrolled with fatigued guards armed with machine guns, there were uniforms everywhere (note: all institutions are named Atatürk)...
students at the university in Üsküdar/Kadiköy (Istanbul Asia)
we found the Harem otogar off of an industrial side street, tucked away beside a ferry dock, and got ready to negotiate a bus ticket.
a little note about the bus service in Turkey: unlike the Greyhound here in Canada, there is more than 1 (or 2) bus services to take you across the country so competition can be fierce. even at the smaller stations, men are outside screaming out different destinations...when you are walking around the station with a big backpack, you get mauled by men asking where you are going and trying to lure you in to their company...what we later learned from experience is that the prices are all generally somewhat similar, but it's the type of bus and the perks that you have to ask about...it is not unusual, and actually quite expected to ask to be shown the bus you will ride on (this is important on a 12 hr overnight bus--a couple we met later in Pamukkale told us that they chose the cheapest company for their trip down and rode 12 hrs in a dolmus-sized mini-bus!)
we chose the company called Pamukkale (which we thought was fitting since that was where we were trying to go)...thankfully the agent spoke some English. he let us drop our bags in the closet while we went to explore the bustling city and market-filled backstreets of Kadiköy.
immediately on the hunt for food (surprise!) we searched out a small grocery shop near the otogar for lunch and to stock up for dinner on the bus...the otogar is kind of in the middle of nowhere, in the suburbs of Üsküdar, but it had started to rain and so we were also in search of some reprieve.
after purchasing our lunch standards--dolmade (stuffed grape vine leaves), hazelnut butter, olives, bread, cheese--the rain got heavier and there was no sheltered area to eat...but then we passed this tiny hole in the wall, with men milling about outside drinking çay and smoking...a wonderful smell wafted out into the rain that made me stop to check it out...i must have lingered just a bit too long because suddenly a man was ushering us inside, motioning us to eat...despite our "no, no"s (since we had just bought lunch from the store and didn't want to spend more lunch money) he made the man in the shop serve us his specialty...the only thing, besides çay, that he served: pilav.
a delicious concoction of rice and chickpeas, topped with boiled chicken.
sounds so simple and yet so tasty in that comforting grandma sort of way. we accepted the dish, along with some fresh bread, and the hottest little hot peppers ever, and sitting on 2 of the 5 stools at a little counter top, devoured the bowl...still not sure what had happened as none of the men spoke english. so we tried to give the man some money and he waived it away. of course, this just made us want to buy another bowl. and so we did (obviously with some çay). the grand total was something like a whopping 2.50 YTL. ridiculous.
and so wonderful to have a warm tea in the rain. when we look back now, this tiny little place with its simple little bowls of goodness, made our top 10 eating experiences in turkey. hands down. although i must admit that i was biased because of those fantastic hot peppers.
when the rain stopped, we thanked the man profusely and set out towards Kadiköy.
passing the military barracks in Üsküdar on the walk there, we noticed a sign stating "müze Florence Nightingale". well, since this was my graduating from nursing trip, how fitting it would be to see the museum where our heroine, founder of modern nursing and advocate for public health came to Istanbul during the Crimean war...but getting in to an active military barracks for the Turkish Army proved about as difficult as getting into the Pentagon...more on this later.
i much preferred Istanbul on this side of the Bosphorous.
the streets were wonderfully packed full of fish and nut markets and locals milling about in cafes and bars.
we found an English bookstore with two wonderfully helpful women with whom we chatted for a while and finally bought a Turkish phrasebook.
in Turkey, dogs are everyone's and no one's. they are all tagged and most people pitch in to feed them.
gypsies take a break from flower selling in front of the cafe balon, kadiköy
pumpkin seeds, still steaming
after hanging on the waterfront for a long while, watching the dogs wander and roam and gypsies fight over flowers, we found a cozy little bar to have a beer, eat our freshly roasted pumpkin seeds (which became a staple in our diet) and practice newly acquired words...which actually came in handy shortly thereafter, trying to find the city bus back to the Harem otogar for our overnight bus to Denizli.
our first long bus trip in Turkey and i must say i was impressed.
the buses are huge, with extra comfy seats and more leg space than an airplane (which isn't saying much i guess)...they have an attendant who serves çay and Nescafe and water and tasty little snacks like cheese crackers and marble cake. a spare driver sleeps in a little bunk under the stairs. it's crazy.
most people in Turkey actually use the bus for long distance travel within the country. the trains generally tend to be cheaper, but they are much slower and follow rickety tracks to only certain destinations. the buses are definitely where it's at. they are still super duper cheap (roughly $40 cdn to travel 12-15 hrs).
and the drivers are real pros.
case in point: halfway through the trip i awoke to look out my window which was about 2" from the side of a house. the bus was stopped and there were men outside trying to direct traffic. slowly the whole bus started waking up, all of us craning our necks to see what was going on. in this tiny little village in the mountains, two buses travelling in opposite directions had tried to pass through a narrow mountain road and had gotten stuck. this had caused a small pile up of about 4 buses and 2 trucks trying to pass each other. it was misty out, and the drivers and attendants had all gotten out to assess the situation.
after some yelling and directing, we slowly crept along, the bus on a what felt like a 45 degree angle, passing the other buses within mere centimetres to spare in between, nervous laughter filling the soundtrack to strangers faces looking back at us from the windows of the other buses.
random wandering shots from Kadiköy:
Türkish kahve (pre)
Türkish kahve (post)...that is sludge at the bottom of the cup.
the coffee, brewed without filter, is served with water to wash the grounds out of your teeth afterwards
Christian and Muslim symbolism in Aya Sofya
there is a lot of history in Turkey. biblical stuff.
the bible happened here.
and in Sultanahmet, the historic old part of Istanbul on the European side of the Bosphorous river (named after Sultan Ahmet I, the builder of the mosque), there are enough sights and smells to have your head reeling--it's no wonder the Turks love their pistachios and dried apricots and figs--great snacks to keep the energy level up as your neck gets tired from staring up at at the grandeurs of Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque.
after loading up on the traditional Turkish breakfast that is standard fare with your pension stay (hard boiled eggs, olives, goat cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, jam, honey and bread) our first stop was Aya Sofya (former Byzantine church and Ottoman mosque)...
glad we got there early--the place gets bombarded with tour bus after tour bus and as we were leaving the place the line up to get in had doubled in size.
what we quickly discovered in Istanbul was, like other places in Europe we have been to, every-single-thing costs money. if there is some way for money to be made, it will cost money.
even to visit the loo ranged anywhere from 50 kurus to 1 YTL...regardless of whether you were peeing in the hole in the ground and had to bring in your own TP.
so many times we were deciding what we wanted to spend money on to get in to, because really, you can't see everything.
seeing Aya Sofya was money well spent.
arch inlaid with tiny gold mosaics
old marble wash station outside Aya Sofya
Aya Sofya (Turkish), Hagia Sofia, (Greek), Sancta Sofia (Latin) means Church of the Divine Wisdom. it was built in 537 AD as the greatest church in Christendom (and it was, until St Peter's Basilica in Rome was built 1000 years later)...of course, after Mehmet the conquerer's conquest of the city from the Byzantines, he proclaimed it a mosque (Atatürk later turned Aya Sofya into a national historic site)...it's really interesting to see all the old Christian and Muslim symbolism intermingling.
there are 30 million tiny gold mosaic tiles lining the church's interior, and the awe-inspiring flat-domed roof completely freaks me out seeing as it was built in the 6th century.
man in prayer, Blue Mosque / Sultan Ahmet Camii
we figured since we were in to seeing architectural wonders on this particular day, we'd head across the park to the Blue Mosque, which is really called the Sultan Ahmet Camii (Mosque of Sultan Ahmet I)...the blue moniker comes from its interior tiles.
what a beautiful building! it is also a working mosque, so non-worshippers are shut out for about a half hour 5 times a day...we had to return 3 times to finally get in as we seemed to conveniently time our stops there with every call to prayer.
but even that was wonderful to hear and see. the Imam's voice echoes through the marble in courtyard and silences everyone. it is an absolutely tranquil feeling, listening to the soothing voice singing the call to prayer while watching people washing themselves to go into mosque.
Blue Mosque / Sultan Ahmet Camii
women have a separate area to pray in the Blue Mosque; in smaller mosques, there is usually no special room for women--traditionally they stay at home to pray
wash station outside Blue Mosque
in between returning to the Blue Mosque, we wandered the streets of old Istanbul. we found a tiny carpet covered place with miniature chairs and tables to eat spinach and potato gözleme and drink çay for lunch.
spinach gözleme with hot chillies and apple çay @ Cennetwe found the shop of the family of the inventor of Turkish Delight (Ali Muhiddin Haci Bekir) and tried out different flavours like mint, rose, hazelnut, and of course, pistachio. the locals buy the lokum in bulk...and apparently in large quantities because the guy laughed at us when we said we just wanted to buy a couple of pieces. he put a few in a little bag and just gave it to us with the promise that we'd be back in a couple of weeks to buy some to take home (we kept that promise).
mint lokum
my favourite food stuffed with my other favourite food: walnut-stuffed figs from the spice bazaar
we got lost in the crowd at the Spice Bazaar (one of my favourite places in Turkey, probably my favourite place in Istanbul) and stocked up on nuts and dried apricots for a couple of days. i made it a point to remember to return when we were back in Istanbul to buy tea and spices (and obviously more nuts and apricots and figs, some of my favourite foods in the world).
after we had finally gotten in to the Blue Mosque, we were so enthralled with mosque architecture, we wandered around searching out other old mosques. with my trusty scarf to use as a head dress we walked into a few that don't necessarily get any tourists and found a couple of gems...most notably Küçük aya Sofya Camii and Sokollu Mehmet Pasa Camii.
a long day of walking around in Istanbul was overwhelming to say the least, and so we decided over a dinner of goat cheese pide and eggplant stew at Karadeniz Aile Pide ve Kebap Salonu that we would leave old Istanbul in the morning.
we made our plan over beers that night (which became a bit of a tradition on this trip--deciding what to do next while enjoying a couple of Efes Pilsen every night--which, coupled with all the olives, figs, nuts, dried fruit, cheese and bread, might explain the extra bit of paunch i brought home, regardless of the endless hours of walking, the 16 km hike up a mountain and the mountain biking we did).
our plan was to ferry across the Bosphorous in the morning and head over to the station on the Asia side of Istanbul, to figure out a way to get south on an overnight train.
the Blue Mosque at night, as seen from Sultanahmet Park
(hearing the call to prayer for my first time was beautiful and something i stopped to listen to all through our travels in small towns, even though the Imams with the nicest voices are definitely concentrated in the bigger cities)
~
after a few hours sleep at Schiphol airport (despite the 5 euro espresso), we arrived at Atatürk airport in a state of surreal realization that i was suddenly in Turkiye...and although the burka had been outlawed with Atatürk's reign, many women were wearing tessetür ...everything suddenly seemed so foreign...
we got our packs and tried to fumble our way through the metro and tram system to make our way in to the old city centre, Sultanahmet...
our hostel/hotel was this dingy little place called the Sultan Otel, where, after showering in the toilet (literally), we immediately left to soak in more atmospheric sounds and flavours (thankfully, the one thing it did have going for it was the smoky man-filled pub across the street, which had the cheapest beer in the city, and no tourists...equally thankful that "beer" in Turkish is "bira").
seemingly always on the quest for food, our first dinner was traditionally shared on cushions, crushed up against our newly met neighbours smoking a nargileh.
the food was everything i had dreamed and more, and i decided then that it was my mission to take a photo of every single thing we ingested during our 2 week adventure
(of course, that was after we had already devoured our first meal of eggplant kebap and tomatoes and dips and flatbreads and deliciousness...and the sticky (sickly) sweet Sultan's tea which burned my tongue from the seal created by the nutmeg and cinnamon in Sultanahmet Park)
bob: oh that's what we should have brought...a big bag of oreos
me: since when do we eat oreos?
bob: we could have spent the whole flight licking the icing out of the middles and saved the cookies for later.
a bunch of "hi"s and "ha"s at schiphol airport
on our bikes, on the way to the distillery...me (making fun of bob): ha ha, your reflective velcro pant saver matches the reflective strip on your pannier.bob: yeah, well my penis matches your vagina.
merhaba
we're off.
i would love to try and post a few shots during my travels, but i think i'm abandoning technology in favour of a good ol' pen and notebook. for old times sake.
(what?! pen & paper? blogging blasphemy!)
allaha ısmarladık!
today i experienced what it must be like to suddenly go blind
(although perhaps spurred on by a recent rental: blindness)
i was riding the streetcar (no, not my bike for once because i'm a lazy sow sometimes), half-reading, easily distracted by the window, the sun peeking through the clouds, the shady but interesting folk at queen & sherbourne...
i looked down to pretend read again, and the instant i looked up out the window i saw white, pure white, for longer than a second, longer than a flash...just white.
it took longer than the millisecond it usually takes for my brain to catch up with the optical relay.
it turned out to be a truck. a big white truck.
funny how fear sets in quicker than realization.
~
Music to my ears: Modest Mouse
on constipation..."you give it a push and it's pushed back at you"(i laughed out loud...he didn't find it as amusing as i did)
it's 20˚ and sunny.
springtime always brings out the winter hibernators. (is that even a word? doesn't matter, because i am one)
my soundtrack changes with the change of seasons.
this morning, the only thing that could get me going on my run, and which i'm currently blasting is El-P.
i guess springtime should bring on the happy, smiley pop, but i'm not quite ready for that.
not until summer's here and i'm enjoying afternoons on the island.
springtime to me is raw energy, crass but clever lyrics, and pure passion.
~
Music to my ears: El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead
lately, thoughts of my family seem to make me upset.
it seems our values are so different.
at one time i was so proud to be the black sheep, so wanting to be removed from the ties that bind the family, just to have that independence.
just to break out of the traditional italian family mold.
don't get me wrong, even in my teens i was never bad or angry enough to want to disregard my italian heritage. i saw the value in that all the time. i made sure to keep up with the language that my nonna taught me as a child, and i faithfully visit my nonna on sundays...plus i love the food part of the tradition.
but being the oldest out of all my cousins, i definitely broke the ice (and took a certain self-imposed honour to that) for being the one who moved away at 19 to go to college, then never returned to live back home, favouring the city over the suburbs, getting a tattoo (or 3), moving in with my partner without getting married (living in sin!), and making it well known that i do not follow the catholic faith.
and now i look at my awesome sister (newly preggers!) and her husband in the 'burbs, living near my parents, and how close they all are, and how my mum will be closer to my sis when she's had the baby, and i feel a twinge of green.
and here's me, in the city, with no car, wondering why my mother doesn't know anything about me.
and it's not that i suddenly want that life.
that was what i was desperately trying to escape (and succeeded).
after years (stupid ones, in retrospect) of trying to distance myself, i feel myself suddenly wanting to reconnect with family, and expecting that they'll suddenly understand me?
we're different.
i've always been close to my sister and my mom, but there's a certain closeness that comes from being there all the time. living the same life. my sister is probably closer to her friends than to me.
and my mum and dad are enjoying their child-free life now--they are entitled to that, after raising me for 20 years.
and i sit here and wonder why our values are so different.
i get upset over my mom not really paying attention, or my sister and her husband not coming to see me play my first show.
i get frustrated that they always complain that the city is just so far away, not convenient to get to at all, and yet they come down all the time to see hockey and baseball games.
and to get them to come down for my birthday dinner was a fight as they wanted me to go there (me, who has no car, on my birthday). and then they did, we had a wonderful dinner, and they all feel as if they've done their part. they're good for a year.
but really, what can i expect?
i was the one who moved away, i was the one who pushed away.
i was the one who chose to grow my own values.
i can't expect them to be the same.
~
Music to my ears: Slint
this post on this blog i've been enjoying as of late got me thinking about a half-finished post i wrote almost 3 years ago
i can add a little to the things i've done but never got around to finishing the compilation of things i still want to do and see.
i know i had said it would take a while to compile, but seriously, 3 years?
i am now inspired to finish that list.
that is my goal now that school is over....which i can add to my list of things i've done:
- finished 4 years of nursing school
- floated the elora gorge in an inner tube (which was scary because i got stuck in an eddy, my tube capsized and i went over the rapids...got a little scraped, bruised and shaken up)
- travelled the irish loop on the avalon peninsula of newfoundland by bicycle
- travelled to italy (and soon turkey!)
- improved my bass playing and started a band
1st list...things to do:
1. make the list
all sorts of images fly through my head with amazing speed and no clarity.
i can't keep up.
i see myself in front of my new employer, teary-eyed, saying "how's this for an introduction?"
i see me standing on the mountain side in turkey, lost in thought, sunshine on my face, a cool breeze (can't help the cliche shots)
i've spent the last 5 years of my life getting healthy, mentally & physically.
i'm just finishing a degree in a profession i can finally be content in.
i quit smoking.
i eat crazy healthy that i sometimes wonder if i'll sprout babies since i can't have any
it can't be that bad.
but the thoughts won't stop until the doc says what he's got to say.
happiness -- at last -- please don't deny me that.
the view from the top of Monte della Rocca, in Roccacasale (my dad's hometown), in the region of Abruzzo. the town is a comune in the province of L'Aquila.
the city of L'Aquila, which just suffered a devastating earthquake, is the capital of the province of its own name and also the capital of the region of Abruzzo.
all these little towns are nestled in the Apennine mountain range and no doubt felt the quake.
my dad's cousins are the only ones we really know still in the area...and thankfully they are okay.
i don't want to just make the best of things.
i don't believe in passive acceptance.
i want to do the best i can to make things better.
as much as i can--even if it's not much.
that's my will to power.
~
Music to my ears: The Weakerthans
recession keeps us in check.
we were starting to get out of control.
our values too loose, our ethics out of whack.
that's not allowed. there's no creativity allowed here.
what part don't you understand?
what part of freedom makes sense?
and while they scare us into submission, we allow them to grow stronger by mergers and breaking previous contracts of single ownership.
and the poor get poorer, and the cat gets fatter.
we may believe we're stickin it to the man, but bend over buddy, the man's stickin it to us.
and getting paid to do it.
~
Music to my ears: Secret Chiefs 3
it's almost over.
some days--weeks--have been an exercise in boredom and little sleep.
at one point i found myself looking for jesus in the back of my eyelids...admittedly (and thankfully) that hasn't been the highlight of this journey.
it's all coming to fruition soon as i have accepted the job of my choice.
i refuse to talk about the recession right now, but i am proud of my persistence in securing a job before i have officially graduated.
now i just have to pass that dang exam.
but not before trekking around turkey with my soulmate.
i can't wait for the days that my days off are actually days off.
until then, i continue to survive on way less sleep than i need.
~
Music to my ears: slow.news.day
there he is again.
that man with the practiced smile full of gleaming white teeth.
the starbright twinkle of money on his incisor.
the tan in the dead of winter. (not the tan in a can, but the tan that screams perpetual vacation--somewhere with a golf course--I think they have that setting on the tanning beds at the expensive place.)
the trench coat folded strategically over the left arm, the extra bold tie with the sharp dark suit.
such a contrast to the man with the corduroy coat who smells of old spice and beef brisket stew.
~
Music to my ears: Women in Tragedy
