Home in Izmir

Well, we made it. We're back in our comfy apartment in Izmir - have been for three days, actually. It really does feel like home. We'd gotten things quite nicely set up before we left, and "the girls" - our former roommate Shadi, and her new roommate Elisabetta - made some improvements after we left. So the only things we miss here that we had back in Canmore are a microwave and English-language television - and our family, of course, but I wouldn't call them things!

I'm surprised, too, at how much Turkish we remember. We'll never be able to read the complete works of Orhan Pamuk, the great Nobel Prize-winning author, but we've still got the basics. It's nice to know our old memory cells work sometimes.

Izmir is looking much the same, or maybe a little better. Some of the half-finished cement hulks have been completed and look rather spiffy. The Konak overpass is done and seems effective. There are a couple of flashy new buildings downtown. Some of the steps outside our apartment building have been fixed, and there's a new coat of whitewash on the lower walls. Generally things look a little cleaner, a bit more prosperous. That fits with what we saw in Portugal and Spain, too - clean streets, and construction everywhere.

We dropped in to our local pide salonu Saturday night and were recognized immediately. Handshakes all round, and the woman who brought us our food called me ablacım - dear older sister. That felt good. Our neighbours and the local merchants have been welcoming, too. Veggie seller: "We haven't seen you for a long time. Where have you been?" Pharmacist, leaving his customers and coming out of his shop to shake our hands: "When did you get back?" Neighbour across the street, leaning over his balcony: "Welcome! It's good to see you again!" And big hugs from Emine hanım and her daughter Güller downstairs. It feels good to belong.

We went to church on Sunday and were pleased to see most of the old familiar friends and some new ones. There's a magnificent new organist, and a young American soprano who's studyıng opera at the local conservatory (the best in Europe, she says). The place seems full of life, and Father Ron looks contented.

We're rediscovering the things we missed: fresh real yogurt, salça (sun-dried tomato paste), drying laundry in the hot sun and having the whites look white again, taking an inexpensive cruise on the harbour ferries, the beautiful faces of the other subway passengers showing traces of the scattered origins of their ancestors, the young men greeting each other with kisses.

It's good to be home.