Capadoccia II

Urgup, Cappadocia, Turkey Sunday.......November 5th

It is an absolutely ice palace outside here....a heavy snow has fallen making the Gaudi-esque landscape look especially surreal...and now a full moon is about to come out with what looks like a perfect halloween bat of clouds in front of it.

I am at the Troglodyte's Hotel, Esbelli Evi, and I so like Suha the owner-manager who has been so solicitous and intelligent and funny.

We just got the word of the death sentence on S Hussein. The Turks seem to think that it is oddly a bit of banality at this point and perhaps they are right. They are apprehensive about Iraq, a place which they know is not a nation in any true sense of the word and a place they ran for centuries, will divide in threes which would only bring a sense of true alarm to the Turks with their huge Kurdish population in the SE. It does appear that these Kurds were the chief murderers of the Armenians during that ghastly period (of course with the blessing of the Sublime Porte or whatever). Turks seem to only hope that their Kurds will realize that Turkish citizenship and good behavior is going to be a hell of a lot more valuable than being new citizens of a dubious new state.

The gang here is supplemented by an absolutely delightful young English travel writing couple, Tim and Rebecca Robbins and I will write more of them later and will want to keep up with them.

Sorry for such a rambling, Sunday reflection-like email...but Cappadocia does bring out a certain need to make some sort of expression....if only because the place is so astoundingly eerie. We're about to group for dinner at some village kebab place. I am panting for my favorite Turkish dish, a yoghurt kebab with grilled eggplant.....(had Imam Bayaldi, or "the priest fainted", that great eggplant dish at lunch.) GOD I forget between each visit how well people dine here. Had my first truly superior Turkish red wine too....nurtured by the tycoon Koc family, the Rockefellers of the land....delicious.

I know you all are sick of this.....but I will end by saying that Cappadocia smiles on all of us with

a sort of pock marked, enigmatic grin.