Health care

Countless people have told me over the last couple of weeks to visit a doctor when I’m in the Netherlands for a couple of days next week. You see, since my visit to Uludere in May, I have red bumps on my legs, arms and shoulders, and they just won’t go away. But no, thank you: I prefer Turkish health …

Transplant competition

Need a transplant of a face, womb, legs or arms? Come to Turkey, where university hospitals are trying their best to help you out. You might lose your limbs again or even your life following the procedure, but then at least you can be sure the doctors were able to get more experience while they were practicing on you.

Sorry for …

Quake or cleaning in Turkish football?

Now and then I publish guest blog posts on my site, written by Turkish journalists. The third guest blog post is written by Engin Baş. Engin worked as correspondent …

Galatasaray, Rijkaard, Bursaspor, Twente

Full page pictures in the papers this week of Frank Rijkaard, Dutch coach of Galatasaray, one of the three big Istanbul clubs. A purple shawl (the colour of the Galatasaray shirts this season) around his neck, his head bowed down: his team just lost an important game against Sivasspor, a match they really should have won. Right up to the …

Order a bottle

Now that three German boys have died of alcohol poisoning in Turkey, the news has made it into the western media. But here in Turkey it is an ongoing problem: alcohol is mixed with the deadly methanol, which leads to dozens of deaths every year. And no, it’s not a matter of bottles that could easily be recognised as containing …

Win a prize!

I have made an end-of-year present for magazines, organisations and people I work with. I’m not going to tell what it is now, but while I was making it something interesting happened, and I decided to turn it into a contest for visitors to my website. What happened is this. The thing I made has a front page, and, on the front …

Both city and people

The girl in the shop where I spend too much money looks at me in shock when I tell her I’m off to Adana for the weekend. ’A whole weekend?’ she asks. I tell her yes, and she looks at me in pity. Okay okay, I say, the first time I went there, almost five years ago, I …

Brilliant white net curtains

A picture in a newspaper of a partially ruined appartment block, a young man sitting in front of it on the ground, against a lamppost. The picture accompanies an article about the earthquake that hit the Marmara region (to be more precise: southeast of Istanbul) today exactly nine years ago. Archive picture? No, sadly enough it’s not an archive picture. …

Noise

What a game really! One moment it seemed Turkey would be out of the tournament, next thing they turn a 0-2 score in favour of Czech Republic into a 3-2 victory, and that in about fifteen minutes! Istanbul will be celebrating a wonderful match tonight. At the moment, everything that is able to make noise, makes noise, even the ferries join …

Which flags?

Due to fighting with the PKK in the southeast of the country, flag sales are booming in Turkey. Last week, I visited the biggest flag company in the country and they had a growth in sales of nearly a hundred percent this year – and still couldn’t meet the demand. You see the red flag with white moon and star …