Turkey is way the heck over on the other side of the planet.  Some people think of it as the Middle East, others don't.   It's both Western and Eastern, with it's greatest city, Istanbul, partly on the European continent, and the other 95 percent of the country in Asia.  This Asian heartland of Turkey is called Anatolia, and it rises from the Aegean Sea on the West slowly heavenward into the rugged mountains of the East, next to Armenia and Iran.

This terrain has been tread by civilized peoples for nearly 5 thousand years. After serving nearly 2 millennia as the heart of an empire, first Byzantine, then Ottoman, Turkey is now a republic, based on the model of Western democracies. While 98 percent of the people are Muslim, Turkey is a secular nation, and unlike other parts of the Middle East, its people are not Arabs. Turkey is a modern, secular, democratic country trying desperately to become part of the European Union.

The 20-plus centuries of Istanbul history were on my mind as we flew over Europe just after sunrise, and I couldn't wait to see it from the air - the minarets of the mosques, the bridges spanning the Bosporus and connecting East and West, the palaces of the Sultans. Unfortunately, it was totally obscured by clouds, from Ireland all the way to Ankara, our destination. Ankara, the capital of Turkey, is in the central western part of Anatolia, and it was a 3-drive west from there to Eskisehir (pronounced Es-kish-eh-here), our new home.

We were met at the airport, after an 18-hour journey, by a fellow English teacher named Nasmi. He came in a chauffer-driven university car, and we were whisked away immediately to Anadolu (Turkish for Anatolia) University, with a pit stop for cigarettes and tea. It is the custom of nearly every Turk to drink hot Lipton tea from beautiful little tulip-shaped glasses and chain smoke cigarettes incessantly from dawn to dusk. We like the tea part.

Then Nasmi took us to dinner at the faculty restaurant, which seemed very grandiose and upscale.  Apparently the food is inexpensive, and it was certainly delicious.  Unique, heretofore unknown flavors were assaulting my palate, and we finished off the dinner and the evening with a glass of raki (pronounced ra-kuh).  This stout spirit is distilled from Anise and is clear in color, but turns cloudy when diluted with water, which is highly recommended.  This helped take the edge off the journey and the shock of being somewhere totally unfamiliar, and we slept well - until jetlag had us wide-eyed at 3 in the morning watching Turkish MTV.

From the window of our apartment on the fourth floor, we have a great view of the city.  The mosque above is literally right under us, and the call to prayer issuing five times a day from its minaret is loud, lyrical, and lovely.  Since we were up in the middle of the night, I decided to stay up and watch the sunrise.