Live from Olympos!

Another beginning. I've taken the long-awaited plunge and moved out of the big city; into the wild and wonderful woods of Olympos (technically a village called Yazir, but close enough). I've rented a cottage, for less money than I was paying for the apartment in Istanbul. That place is now subletted to a Swiss girl, along withall of my furniture. Alas, the cottage is fully furnished in what one of my first guests described as the "hunting lodge" style. There are a strange pair of leather, relief things (I have no idea what else to call them) bolted into one wall, high up, like Pharoanic hieroglyphs. One shows a strange pagan scene of naked bodies tumbling toward the earth, a hand rising up from the ground and an eerily Santa Claus-like figure sitting in the middle, cross-legged (by the way, the actual Santa Claus - or St. Nicholas - lived near here). Very strange. My friend also pointed out that, rather than pagan, it could be a scene from the fall from paradise, but in that case, the multiple figures don't make sense - only Adam and Eve would be falling. Sticking with the Christian imagery, it could also be a scene from purgatory, with the giant hand reaching up being the Devil pulling in his victims. Any way you look at it though, the damn thing is ghastly. The second is much simpler but equally distasteful - some seated guy playing the ney. I like the ney, mind you, but the material - the leather - and the relief work is absolute shite!

Outside of the leather monstrosities, my cottage is rather quaint. Well, there's also the hideous living room furniture...and the pukey, orange-yellow varnish on the wood panelling...oh, and some strange stone work covering a portion of a wall...Okay, overall, it looks like the place was decorated by a village Turk, which in fact it was. But I spend most of my time on the splendid deck anyway, overlooking the valley and very simply decorated with traditional Turkish pillows on benches around a central picnic table. I've put up a mosquito net which gives it a tropical, romantic feel and added candles and some flowers. This, is my space.

Now, if i could only find a way to deal with the scorpions...