Odds and Endings

I haven't blogged much in the past days. Boo-hiss! Here's what been keeping me busy:

1) Grand Theft Auto: Each time I'm at an Internet cafe in Turkey, there's GTA (San Andreas or Vice City) installed on the comps – and it's dammed hard to tear myself away from the uber-wicked world of drug lords and street gangs.  Really.  I'm in Turkey – some of the most gorgeous landscapes and scenes just outside and I'm reverting to dorky teenage years where video games (with guns and cool cars and bad mutherf*ckers are cool).

I need to get an X-Box again.

2) Tavla -- or in English/American: Backgammon.  YupNo and I have been playing non-stop at every cafe that we frequent throughout Turkey, ever since Wılhem, Barbara and a succession of curious Turkish men (they stoop over us as we play, nodding at good moves, asking "who is the champion?" proffering hints and advice like "I will help you since your girlfriend is winning") taught us the game.

Black & white soldiers attack and defend and scout in platoons and teams and solo and heroic maneuvers with each dice roll. Snake eyes. Twins.  Triple threat. Coming of the Beast. The more I play, the more obsessed I get...

YupNo has been kicking ass at this game (she counters all my moves and laughs in my face), and with each additional win, I become more of a sore loser ("you're cheating", "lucky roll", "that one didn't count").  I'm lucky that she's a gracious winner – or that she realizes my need to be infantile when faced with superior skills.  But I do lose a little street cred with all the coffeehouse men (grizzled and ancient that they are) when I have to throw up my hands and tell them, "I lost another one!"

Especially when she is the only girl interloping on these smoky dens where men with tea and smoke and football matches on TV and their dice games hold sway.

So our nights out have curiously (or not that curious if you know us) been devoid of booze, or, from my earlier days of 'travels' with the boys, wet t-shirt contests and bar scenes where sweaty guys grind with sweaty gals... It's been pleasant, actually.  And I got to thinking, where am I gonna find coffeehouses in the States where, for $3, two persons can have tea, coffee and hours of board game entertainment?

The Three-D world: No matter the excitement from board games or video games, nothing beats the full-on interaction with reality.  Highlights that I hope to write up:

a) Sparring with a Turk who guarded a crumbling church high in the hills of Rose Valley, Capaddocia.

b) Meeting the sprightliest, springiest craziest and most adventurous seventy-five year old lady ever, high among the ruins of Termessos.

c) Hitching rides with random strangers in the Ottoman town of Sanfranabolu, and finding myself next to a cross-dressing gypsy on a bus in the same town.

d) The Black Sea, where the surf crashed into the harbor walls and the small town of Asmara closes down at 8 pm.

e) And Istanbul -- O Istanbul, I love this city! The people the shops the ethnic food (finally! man cannot live on doner kepabs and bread alone) the lights the mosques the sea the life!

And so it ends.  We leave for Egypt tomorrow and hope to get some last minute items at the Bazaar.  Then it's to India and by Christmas, home.  YupNo is frantically trying to get us to Kurdistan but I have fading prospects for that.. in any case, buddies in NYC and Philly and Houston watch out!  I'll be calling to set up sushi and dim sum and fajita meals with y'all soon!