Piano Shopping in Izmir

Our first road trip since Oludeniz in October was mainly to check out a piano shop in Izmir. Found the store ok and it looks like we will end up parting with about 3800 ytl sometime soon. It's overdue though....we have to get some of the kids' musical energy channeled into structured lessons or it will be an opportunity lost I fear. At the risk of being driven mad with the plinking and plunking, lessons mean there simply has to be a piano in the house. Nino has researched a couple of options for a teacher so it looks like the New Year begins with the Sound of Music.

This week end also marks the beginning of Kurban Bayram, or the 'Feast of the Sacrifice' holiday. It's more commonly recognized with the beginning of the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca which is associated with the same holiday. Sacrificing a sheep during this time is very common and this will begin in earnest tomorrow. The roads were awash in sheep being carried home on the backs on trucks or poking their heads out from the half open trunks of cars. Sheep could be seen tied to trees or fences in the yards of the homes who had already made their purchase. The holiday officially started this afternoon and will last four and a half days with most activities returning to normal on Friday. It will be a very quiet week at work and perhaps a chance to get caught up slightly. The roads are also notoriously extra dangerous during this Bayram...even more so than Ramazan Bayram...another good reason to stick close to home.

There hasn't been much worth writing about over the last few weeks as we have more or less been in a regular work and school routine. Other than some glorious weather at the beginning of November, the rest of the month was on and off rain. We did manage a walk around Haç Kadın (spelling?) one Sunday afternoon. It's a large outdoor area full of walking trails and beautiful large pine trees just outside of Uşak. Mostly reforested it appears and well looked after as the Turkish people tend to do when it comes to treed areas. Pound for pound I would venture to say that Turkey plants more trees than Canada does. This past week brought the sun out again and things have had a chance to dry out. Nino attended a parent/teachers day about two weeks ago. This was conducted on a Saturday if you can imagine and all the teachers were available and Nino got around to talk with all of them in a few hours. Not having been directly involved in such things in Canada before, I can't say for certain, however I doubt if Saturdays are a common day to hold these events on back home?


Nico has adjusted very well since his first week of delinquency and although not challenged much academically at this point he is coping very well by all accounts.

Galina is doing exceptionally well and the amount of praise she keeps receiving is making us very proud. She deserves every bit of it though.

The big family event for us was Nico's birthday on the 23rd of November. We don't tend to get very carried away with these things as a rule and we were most excited about the fact that he started riding his bicycle without training wheels the day before he turned five. Quite an accomplishment it was too. He had been talking about giving it a shot for a few weeks and when it dried up for a few hours on the Saturday before his birthday, I asked him if he wanted to give it a shot. Off he went with not even a hint of falling, up to the end of the street and back again. I was impressed but not as much as Galina who had prepared him, (and herself), for at least a few bad crashes. So that milestone has been reached now for them both.

Although the piano pre-purchase visit was first on our list with the Izmir trip we did finally manage to also visit a few sites in Izmir that we had been putting off until now. One of the 'Seven Churches of Revelations' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Patmos) existed in the old city of Smyrna which Izmir was known as long ago. It's growth has long since absorbed all of the old ruins which can now be found in different parts of what is now a sprawling metropolis of about three million people. It is much like Rome in that respect and in fact Smyrna could claim the largest Agora, (a kind of Roman market/business complex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agora) outside of Rome during it's heyday. We found ourselves first at the very old Smyrna ruins which existed much before the Roman era and the church as it turns out and logically so considering the time period, was not actually there but somewhere near the Agora which is the newer, if you like, area. It must be kept in mind that Smyrna, along with Ephesus, has probably one of the oldest records of continuous habitation known in Asia Minor....5000 years or more. As interesting as the Agora was though we never did find any reference to the general location of the church.
Another little piece of interesting information that Nino came across on Saturday night when we discovered that our first attempt to find the location of the Church had failed, was the existence of Saint Polycarp Catholic church downtown that we have driven by several times and never really noticed. It seems St. Polycarp was affiliated with the Revelations Church. We walked around the walled city block that the church grounds occupy inside but entrance is apparently only by prior appointment. Inside there would probably be information as to the location of the church referred to by John of Patmos but we had to leave it for another time. http://www.allaboutturkey.com/izm_site.htm

Note the bacon in the pan. A stop at the large Migros grocery store in Balçova for some foodstuffs on our way back to Urla brought with it the discovery that they now sold bacon. We ignored the 11.80 ytl price and snapped up two packages....each 80 grams. What you see in the pan is the contents of one package-in Canadian dollar equivalence, each strip is worth about $1.80.

We made a slight detour on our way home to have a road side picnic with leftover Kentucy Fried chicken and take in a stop at Alişehir where ancient Philadelphia was located and the site of another of the seven churches http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ala%C5%9Fehir . Not much remains now but the site is worth visiting nevertheless.

We continued the trip back home by travelling through Eşme and managed to be off the roads to avoid the driving craziness that increases when the sun goes down.

Ölüdeniz & Paragliding

I have been falling down on the job....as far as getting my weekly posts written goes anyway. I have somewhat of an excuse in that access to any blog sites was been banned for awhile, some sort of extension to the youtube ban that has been in effect in Turkey for some time now. I won't elaborated on it here as a quick web search will turn up more than enough info on the subject. Here's a link to a BBC story http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6427355.stm.

The month has slipped by pretty quickly and here it is Halloween already. The kids have increasingly faint memories of this pagan North American ritual. If fact it has not come up at all this year. Nicolai probably would claim to have never heard of it although he was dragged around the neighborhood in HVGB at least once if my memory serves correct....perhaps it was just Galina?

We did manage to make what will most likely be our last trip to the beach this year when we went to Ölüdeniz to take in the 9th international paragliding event. The water and weather were lovely and watching the para gliders is never easy to tire of. Not too many pictures to share since we took mostly video. Here's one though showing the beach and one glider. It doesn't do justice to the number of kites that were generally in the sky at any one time. Saw two mishaps; one when a pilot managed to land into a steel framed hut near the beach and had to be carted off by ambulance, another when a sail? kite? wing? looked like it started to come apart in the sky and the pilot had to pull his emergency chute and ended up ditching in the water. There were a disproportionately large number of people limping around with assorted casts and bandages. This might lead you to believe that the sport is mostly for the young and foolish however there are many 40+ year olds that are involved and the tandem jumps with a professional are taken by more than a few in their 60's.

Nino and I each did a tandem jump in 2006. Her's was a nice, leisurely 45 minute ride down from Babadağ, with a brief vomitous moment, straight down onto the unsuspecting sunbathers below, brought on by the nauseating ride up the mountain, sitting sideways in the back of a truck. Later in the day I had a scream packed 20 minute ride with a kamikaze style pilot who mistook my innocent question about acrobatics for a desire to do some, and promptly hurled us into tight descending turns which brought on screams from me that are still echoing around the hills I am sure. I would do it again though and watching this year brought on renewed interest to perhaps take the training required to go solo. Who knows and Nino would also not be shy about it I think.

Anyway this year we were strictly observers.

We also spent a bit more time in Fethiye and get a fairly close up look at one of the more famous Lycian tombs which are all around but mostly difficult to get close to since they are carved into faces of the hills surrounding the city. We also drove around the harbour and found where a few 'Bodrum' style boats were under construction. All in all a nice trip to the coast for that time of year.

Iyi Bayram Lar...and Gold Eagles

Well Ramadan and the Bayram (holiday) associated with its ending are over for another year. Since the start of this religious observance is based on the lunar calendar it retreats every year by ten days or so. This makes it increasingly harder for observers who choose to fast as the lengthening daylight hours require longer periods of obsrvance.

It made it particularly hard for us this year at the mine site when we seemed to be afflicted by 'The Curse of the Investment Analysts' who started a tour of the operation immediately following Bayram...what would be the Christian equivalent of January 2nd.

A lot of our equipment seemingly conspired against us to pick last week to self destruct and what should have been time spent celebrating with family turned into a nightmare for many of us.

One of those weeks where you wonder why in the hell you ever decided to get into the mining business.

As is becoming regular, our guys rose to the challenge and although there were a few wrinkles if you looked closely, the Tuesday of the big visit dawned sunny and warm and the whole show was ticking along like a Swiss watch while they came and kicked the tires.

Unless you are familiar with a heap leach operation, the following may not make much of an impact on you....but here goes...keep in mind that already for about three weeks, many employees have not been eating, drinking or smoking during daylight hours, coupled with little sleep as they celebrate with family and friends during the night. Tired and hungry is an understatement...

We go into the last week of Ramadan hoping that the liners in our gyratory crusher will hold up only to realize that there is every chance that they won't and if we do not shut the show down for 4-5 days during Bayram to change them out, the IA's will be here while the crusher is torn apart and won't get to see our shiny new 150 t CAT trucks hauling muck to feed it. The 'COTIA' begins.

So two days before we decide to jump into that job, and have told about ten guys that...'Hey, you've got to work through Bayram, (the equivalent of Christmas and New Year's), our 700 meter long overland conveyor decides to tear in half. An hour later, our conveyor tripper car decides to ram itself into the rail stops and bends itself to ratshit.

So the crew that is already tired comes out to fix things and get more tired before they start the reline job that is going to really make them tired. All while family and friends are enjoying the most important holiday of the year without them.

They did well though and made us all proud. Then the weekend came, three days before the big IA visit and we saw something like 28 mm of rain in 24 hours....a leach pad operator's nightmare. Heavy rain on a pad with a 12% slope can cause you grief but we survived relatively well....just more fix up stuff to take care of before the show.

Just as all hands were getting ready to grab some well earned rest before the start of the new week, word arrived that the new gyratory mainshaft liner was wonky. After about eight hours of trying to tighten it up by swinging a battering ram against it, we all went home and kept out fingers crossed....only to find out that three hours after starting crushing the upper mantle came loose again. The IAs were arriving in about six hours and it's 0130 hrs on the 7th and your's truly is wedged between the concaves and the mainshaft trying to figure out what in the name of Christ to do. About 6 shiny new 785 trucks were backed up and the IA's were having breakfast at the Dulguroglu Hotel getting ready to hit the bus to the minesite.

Nothing to do but keep pouring the muck into it and hope for the best and believe it or not, it kept together for not just one day, but three days.

The whole time the IA's were on site the entire operation was humming along famously...and has been ever since. I love this business...

In the midst of all this fun, I continue to be consumed by the unfolding events related to the lack of credit in the world's banking community. Even though I have been expecting it for years it is somewhat like watching a car wreck. You feel like you should turn away but you just have to watch.
Among the incredible stories unfolding is this one... http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=3bc8e278-9546-41b5-aa10-c49ce11e20cb where the US Mint announces that it will no longer produce Gold Eagles because of high demand!!! Can you imagine if GM declared they were not going to produce any more of a certain car model because too many people wanted to buy them?
The truth is TPTB want your money in a bank account where they can get their hands on it. Not much good to them if it is tied up in gold coins...or at home stuffed in your mattress. One arm of the US G'ment is propping up the banks while Paulson declared today that he expects as many as 1500 US banks to fail. Rough waters ahead.....

Teeth and Gold and Turkish Driver's License

No drama to report on the school front as everything appears to have calmed down. Bribing Nicolai with a few coins has definitely helped. Nino started giving Galina one YTL for emergencies last year and invariably she buys cucumbers or fruit of some kind. Nico immediately bought a ball and some other trinket. It's a small price to pay....

We started the week off with Galina making a trip to the dentist to have a couple of loose teeth yanked. Easily done when there is a visit expected by the Tooth Fairy overnight. Nico woke up with this on his mind an promptly snatched the 5 YTL prize from under Galina's pillow before she knew what had happened. On most days wild horses usually couldn't drag him out of bed before Galina.
For the last few weeks I have been glued to Bloomberg watching the latest in the ongoing banking crisis unfold and waiting for the price of gold to skyrocket after the dismal performance lately. For several weeks now the financial news released on the weekend would normally see a rush to gold on Monday mornings. President Bush's plan to request 700 BILLION dollars from congress to help bail out the wayward banks will be like throwing fuel on the fire in the long run. Based on all the commentary I follow I have been predicting a return to $US1000 per ounce levels by the end of the year, and perhaps even by the end of the month. What has been happening lately, although expected for some time, is nothing short of incredible. This is going to continue for about a year I figure and $US700,000,000,000 may not be enough. Where does everyone think the money is coming from?

After several months of submitting various papers and waiting for the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa to verify stuff, I am now the proud owner of a Turkish driver's license and after two trips to the police station and a trip to Esme for a blood test, I was able to take delivery.

The week was capped off by a nice get together with friends on Friday evening; Richard Miller with his geotechnical consultants, Peter and Allan, along with Robin and Gill Kamke and Cuneyd Cimen to polish off all the leftovers.

Remembering Bernie

In the midst of everything else, sad news about a compadre from the Miriamichi. Word arrived via email that Bernie Williams had passed away and I wanted to say a few words about my relationship with him.
It was probably 1986 or 87 when I made my first trip to the Miramichi as an adult while accompanying my good friend Florent, entered in what was to become the first of a few Black Jack curling bonspiels. This was small town Canada at it's best and while similar events were played out every winter in a hundred other mining towns across the country, it is doubtful that many could boast of as unique a character as Bernie.
We first met when Florent dragged me to the 'Low Tide' for refreshments, almost immediately after arriving in Newcastle.....little did I know how my future was to become entwined with this establishment.
Bernie, whom Florent knew quite well from Heath Steele days, was now the owner. He had postponed, as it turned out, his adventuresome days as an underground miner to run his new investment.
We weren't seated for more than a few minutes when Bernie immediately recognized Florent, joined us, introduced himself to me and bought us a beer. The conversation began and ended with mining and I don't know if I have, or will, ever, meet anyone so knowledgeable and experienced about the practical aspects of the business. And funny.....within a matter of minutes I was laughing so hard I almost fell out of my chair. This was a characteristic of Bernie's that I learned to look forward to at every meeting... and fortunately there were many, at different venues... over the next ten years or so.
He was a man out of place and although I didn't immediately recognize how much he ached to return to the mining business, it became evident several years later when I also found myself living on the Miramichi. Several more curling bonspiels had come and gone by that time....along with a few more visits to the Low Tide. It got to the point where I was going there to listen to Bernie's story's and he was looking forward to telling them.
I don't know if he ever realized the impact he had on me. He had relocated his family to the Miramichi after years at a mine in Brazil. Listening to his stories about the trials and tribulations instilled in me the confidence to look further afield for work when I had the opportunity several years later. By that time there had been more than a few casual get togethers. Thanks to Florent, I had been adopted into an ancient Miramichi mining alumni that provided invaluable instruction in the ways of curling, golf and mining. Bernie was a fixture at all of the sessions and invariably I found myself drawn to his side, in many respects like student to teacher.
It was not possible to be in his company for more than a few minutes and not laugh...and laugh hard. No matter what the topic, no matter the place, no matter the time. Among the alumni, laughter was a priority and Bernie was the king.
It was inevitable that he return to the mining business and so he did by taking on a challenging project in Tanzania. Our meetings became less frequent as we were both working out of the country. When we did meet, there was a new enthusiasm about him, he was in the game... he was a player.
The Miramichi mining alumni was proud and not a little bit jealous. Although I wasn't around as much as I wanted to be by that time, I noticed.
Some of my most cherished memories are of Sunday afternoons at the MGCC, eighteen holes in, three or four pitchers down and the lies starting. It becomes apparent to me that when the inevitable mining stories begin, and Bernie starts to speak, it's not just me listening, everyone is leaning forward to hear what he has to say....

So far...so good

Lovely.....
Spent a half an hour writing a post only to have it dissappear into the twilight zone when trying to insert a picture... Note to self---save drafts often.

Here we go again.

The week went well and we were only summoned to the school administrator's office once to deal with Nicolai's random exits from the classroom to the playground and the general disruption it was causing. During the course of one day, four different teachers were engaged in trying to coerce him back inside. Galina's assistance only resulted in them both crying. I guess some stern words were spoken and they wanted to let us know about it and beg forgiveness...I almost broke out laughing but managed to contain myself.
Anway all is well now and he has settled down somewhat. Either that or the teacher's mobile phone is broken and they can't get a hold of Nino. Galina's reports back are positive though and if there was any kind of problem and her little brother was upset, she'd let us know. We should all be so lucky as to have a Galina nearby looking out for us.

It should be mentioned that this is a private school conducted in Turkish. Galina and Nicolai are pretty much as fluent as they can be at that age, Nino too for that matter, with your's truly bringing up a distant fourth.

So let's try the pictures again....

Here they are on the front steps of the school at about 7:45 in the morning. It's September 8th.

Galina is excited...Nico is something else.

School is a big event in Turkey and taken very seriously. Note Galina's uniform. It's not worn just because it's a private school...it is mandatory in the public schools also.

...and when I say private school...it's not private in the exclusive sense, although it's definitely out of reach of most. The attraction seems to be the liberal attitudes and the embracing of new teaching techniques. On a scale of one to ten I think we'd give it an eight at this point. Can't say for sure how it would compare with an Avalon school since we have no experience.

Ok. Just found out that uploading the pictures is painfully long. Not sure if I can put up with that....




This is Galiko in her new classroom.... bursting with anticipation.

This is Nico... everything hunky dory at this point but apparently it all goes to hell in a hand basket later in the day.

....and this isn't even one of the bad moments since Nino took this picture and was obviously nearby.

Not to worry...there isn't a woman who has been in Nico's company for more than fifteen minutes who hasn't fallen in love with him....

He'll have them all eating out of his hand by the end of the month...

Time to wrap this up.

As you can see....

....after creating the site I did nothing with it for almost a year.
We have now been in Turkey for over two and a half years and recently committed ourselves to another three. One of my Ramazan resolutions is to try and record at least a week's worth of activities at a time in the future....we will see...
Tomorrow's big event is the start of school. Galina returns to Karun Okul for Grade II and she went to bed very excited. She has looked forward to this since shortly after school closed for the summer recess in late June. This year Nicolai joins her on the bus as he switches from the daycare he was attending (Atlikarincar...means merry-go-round I think) to the daycare at Karun. Now he will leave with Galina on the bus every morning and return the same way every afternoon. So much for the freedom filled days he enjoyed with Anee (Mom) if and when they even decided to go. I suspect there will be a steep adjustment curve....
As per tradition I will take a couple of hours from work and Nino and I will go to the school to formally see them begin. Nico will bear watching......