The earth moves again

Another earthquake last night - 5.9. The TV this morning is full of pictures of cold people who spent the night in the parks. We said something like "Oh bleep, another one," and went to bed. Do they know something we don't know?

I'm surprised at how panicky the Turks get with earthquakes. I guess it's not just the Turks - I was talking to someone the other day who works at the large NATO base here. During Monday's earthquake there was a big tough British Special Air Services guy who was running around saying something like "The sky is falling!" and everyone wanted to run outside and go home. Their boss had to point out that the building they were in was built to withstand a nuclear attack, so get back to work.

It's really cool here now - very cool indeed in an apartment that's not heated. Our air conditioner also heats, but it uses so much power that we can't have anything else on when we're using it or it blows all the breakers. Now I'm wishing we'd brought more warm clothes.

The trees don't seem to be losing their leaves, although people tell me they do between December and February. Right now they seem to be enjoying the cool weather and turning greener. The dandelions are everywhere, and the bougainvillea is blooming like crazy. It's like a second spring.

The mandarin oranges are in season now and they're unbelievably good. They're called mandalina in Turkish, and they eat them when they're still green. We drove through some citrus groves yesterday - big oranges and grapefruits - and they look just about ready to pick. Then, they tell us, strawberry season begins about the end of December.

The drive yesterday was thanks to one of those crazy coincidences. Ron and I decided we needed to do some shopping and also needed to explore a bit, so we headed out to the nearest main street and caught the first bus. It carried us off into terra incognita, but a short walk from its terminus brought us to the continuation of our main street and we caught another bus that brought us to the southern suburb of Balçοva. We knew there was a big supermarket there so we headed off in search of it. We found one - not the one we were looking for, but a suitable one - and bought up all the stuff we needed that we can't get in our local shops. At the checkout we bumped into one of the women I'd met at church on Sunday, an Englishwoman married to a man whose family has lived here for 300 years although he has French citizenship (more about that in another blog, I think). They live in a lovely house between the water and the afore-mentioned orange groves. Lovely visit, great adventure.

If the buses are running I'm off this morning for my first haircut in Izmir. More adventures coming, I'm sure.