Turkey July 2026

 We had a couple of weeks on a tour of Turkey. Four days in Istanbul and then 10 days touring around the country in a bus. The first two days in Istanbul were before the official tour started. We had a hotel in the old (Constantinople) part of the city. Our room had a nice view:

We saw many mosques on the trip, including the famous blue mosque in that area. I may be mixing up some of them in the pictures (but no disrespect intended). 

 

The blue mosque is in the distance behind us. This was a nice dinner on a rooftop restaurant. There were pressure tactics to get you into a restaurant or shop that were tiresome after a while. The barkers all had the same script, which began with "where are you from?" and if they were selling you something the next question would be about your profession. Veronica has tested out on previous visits that prices varied depending on your answers. "Canadian" and "Professor" probably would have put me in a high bracket. 

At the blue mosque I learned a little bit about Islam. It all seems very sensible but I am pretty sure I will stay on as a hard core atheist. 

We had a number of boat trips on the Bosporus. The first was before the tour started and took us to the Asian side of the city. We saw the Summer Palace and another even bigger mosque, the one commissioned by Erdogan. Nice views from where it is situated at the top of a hill. 

Lots of other interesting things to see in Istanbul. Below is the roof of a fountain near the blue mosque, the inside of one of the Byzantine cisterns and some art work in it, a giant modern tower with a restaurant in it that I will go to if I ever go back to the city. We got around using bus and metro. The metro stations are very deep underground compared to other systems I have been on.

It was hot weather but not unbearable. Still, a beer at the end of the day went down well.

  

Some random things of interest that I noticed early in the trip. Turkish table knives are an interesting shape and often very dull (to prevent injuries if a fight breaks out?). They had red and purple olives, but neither were to my taste. In general, we ate well, but I was a little disappointed: many dishes were similar to Bulgarian ones but inferior in my opinion. You felt rich, but 200 lira was only equivalent to about $6 Canadian. I had expected food to be cheap, but things had Vancouver tourist prices.  

A real treat on the trip was having a chance to meet an old friend, Burhan Guler. We had met in Germany in 1986. I was an assistant at Kaiserslautern University at the time and he was an Engineering graduate student. My (first) wife and I became good friends with him. We had a memorable trip to Berlin (West Berlin at that time). I forgot to take a picture of us together, this is from his WhatsApp profile.

The official tour started. We were a group of Canadians, South Africans and Lebanese on the English speaking side and Argentinians on the Spanish. It took me a while (too long) to realize the ones from the Southern Hemisphere were on a Winter holiday. A fun group and we had an entertaining guide, Yusuf. 

Our original itinerary was to have the first stop in Akhara and visit the Ataturk Museum, but the city was closed off to tourists because of a UN summit. We went to the UNESCO heritage village, Safranbolu, instead. I think this was an improvement. There were 19th century buildings and another great view from our hotel room.

The next two days were in Cappadocia. This was a real highlight of the trip. The landscape is eroded lava formations. 

In the last picture above you can see man made alterations. They made homes and storage in the soft lava rock. There were also elaborate underground structures they used as refuges from invaders and the weather. These could have many layers underground with ventilation shafts and narrow passages (with huge round rocks they could roll in place to block the way) for defense. It made me think of the game, Minecraft. This was really worth seeing. 

We paid extra to take a balloon ride, which I had always wanted to do. Conditions were great and our pilot's ability to navigate with limited control was amazing. 

The next few days were archeological sites: Pamukkale, an ancient hospital with mineral springs, and the ancient cities of Ephesus and Troy. So many layers of civilization, it was a bit humbling. 

I had read the Iliad and Odyssey as a child, so seeing Troy brought back those stories and gave a sense of what things were like back then. 

The kind of tour we were on has stops for shopping opportunities. The typical format is there is a demonstration of the craft, some tea, and then time in the showroom. There are more or less subtle sales pressure tactics, that start with the usual "where are you from?". Turkish rugs are beautiful, but expensive enough you could buy a car instead. I really liked this one

I bought Veronica some jewelry and she bought me a nice plate (worth the same as a really cheap car).  The plate could just be a wall decoration but I think I will actually use it, at events with no children and only light drinking. 

I made some friends

Last night of the tour was at a hotel with a view of the Dardanelles.

Then it was back to Istanbul and then home for me (to work), on to Bulgaria for Veronica (enjoying her retirement). 

Exciting East Lansing 2026

I just came back from my (almost) annual trip to Michigan State University in East Lansing. I flew to Detroit and stayed overnight at the airport hotel, then took the bus the next day. It is much more convenient to fly into Lansing (the state capital) but I could not find connections that worked this time. 

I collaborate with Keith Promislow in the Math Department there. He is a long time friend and colleague. This year, we worked on new models for energy gradient flows of surfaces. These have applications in materials science and microbiology. We had an incremental success with previous models (curve motion in 2D) and started something more involved with axisymmetric surfaces in 3D. 

I took the opportunity to touch base with researchers in the Plant Laboratory. I am in a joint project with them that will start in December, looking at the behaviour of cuscuta, a parasitic plant. The project will (hopefully) identify the genes responsible for the ability of the parasite to detect its host. I am the data analysis guy in the project, that is funded by HFSP (Human Frontiers Science Program). Our job will be classifying the behaviour of growing cuscuta plants from time series photography. On a tour of the lab, I got to see the end stages of infection of cuscuta eating a tomato plant. They are growing this one for seeds.

I have a routine there when not working. I rent a bicycle at the campus bicycle shop, host G&T nights once a week, and go to the local Art Festival to look for new tie dye shirts. I also do some paper mache crafting in my long stay hotel room, with supplies from the local Hobby Lobby. 

I picked out some local sights for you that I thought were interesting. They have drive through banking (I don't think we have that in Canada) and banks with strange names. 

There is a parking garage on the bike route to the nearest big grocery store (Meijer) that they seem to have forgotten to add the walls to:

There are some back "yards" that make me envious:

Odds are I will go back again next year...