One more reason I know I was born at the right time: got to travel France and Italy before Mayle and Mayes. // Not a good feeling when you realize that faint odor of sweat is not cumin. // So hot you could bake pide on the dashboard. If you were a weather idiot. // Name fail: Titanic resort. And Spoil restaurant. // Why were chocolate Easter bunnies for sale at the coffee/wine bar at the Richmond Hotel? // Can they make baklava with yak butter? Or does it just taste that way? // Tourism slogan: Come to Turkish beaches. You’ll look skinny. //

I did manage to Tweet that the best thing about Turkey was the lack of fucking Americans. (In Alacati a restaurateur told us they rarely see foreigners at all; it’s mostly wealthy holidaymakers from Istanbul.) And I would say the mystery is why the country isn’t overrun, given how cheap and how fascinating it is, but I guess I know the reason why. Take it from me, though: It’s a trip being awakened by drumming at 4 in the morning during Ramadan. Otherwise the country, again, struck me as more secular than our own. It’s a drink-and-let-drink society.