We're having a wonderful time here, mashaallah, and are surrounded by wonderful people and wonderful nature.

My computer is broken, but Misha's brother is here with his, and I borrow it every night.

I don't really remember how to write anymore.

Not knowing Turkish hurts - we've been coming here for ten years, and I'm still pretty much clueless. Last night I learned a polite way of asking someone to fart: "Osurunuz lütfen!"

Marta at first seemed intimidated by the two foreign languages that all of a sudden replaced those that she does understand, but she's getting used to it now, and her cousin is here, too, so she's no longer facing the friend-making problem. Last year, when she was two and a half, it was much easier: she didn't yet understand how much she didn't understand when only Turkish and English were spoken around her.

Reading about Ukraine is making me sick. First, Hanna Herman's son, who got himself killed in a car accident: it's terrible to have mixed feelings about stuff like that, but I can't help thinking that too many people back home don't understand that traffic laws are there for a reason. Then there is the Victor Lozynsky Affair. And the shooting at a Kyiv restaurant, in which Yushchenko's son is allegedly involved: the cops are saying he's not involved, of course, but out of the Soviet-time habit I automatically believe the opposite, sort of. And since Lozynsky is Yulia's man (one of the defectors from Yanukovych's camp), Yushchenko's people are now saying that the rumors of Andriy Yushchenko's shooting incident are Yulia's attempt to take revenge for Lozynsky. I can't wait to hear Lutsenko's don't-get-the-kids-involved-in-your-political-battles spiel.

Reading about Russia leaves me more or less indifferent. The attack on Yevkurov is something of an exception.

Reading about Iran - I haven't done much of that. I follow it on Twitter. And, as always in such situations, I hope no more blood is going to be shed there.

And yes, I am sad about Michael Jackson's death.

That's it for now.

Two of my favorite pictures from today's quick trip to Küçükkuyu:






Some more:

The Bosphorus:

A man singing folk songs in front of Kybele Hotel (what do they call the instrument he's playing, I wonder...):

Inside Maya's Corner, our friends' wonderful café boutique:




Kelly's cupcakes - very yummy!

Moscow:

Marta turned 3 1/2 years old ten days ago - I posted a couple pictures of her via Twitter, but I feel I need to post a few ones here, too:

Kyiv - old and new:



This is the neighborhood where one of my best high school friends used to live. When I was there with Marta this time, I saw a man with Down syndrome walking around. Back in 1990, there was a guy named Vovochka there, also with Down syndrome. He used to get teased a lot. Some of the teasing wasn't too cruel: young girls would come up and pretend to be flirting with him, and he would flirt back, sort of. I never had it in me to participate in any of this, but I remember the guy well. Now, I was wondering if this was Vovochka, but he never came too close to us, and it's been almost 20 years, so it must have been someone else.



The truth is, I'm exhausted. On nearly every level I can think of. I wish the summer could wait for me to regain strength and enjoy it to the fullest...