First Impressions The plane circled the skies waiting for its turn in the queue for the landing strip. I craned my eyes to get a glimpse of this ancient city over the winter rain clouds.  Istanbul was a mosaic of red rooftops, mosque domes, and minarets. Smoke escaped from the chimneys of the houses in the early morning, and the grey sky promised a cold and cheerless day. After exiting immigration we searched the exit…

As part of my Around the World in Books Reading Challenge, my pick for Albania was the Man Booker International Prize winning novel by Ismail Kadare.  The General of the Dead Army is a dark and depressing work of fiction. It chronicles the journey of an Italian general who goes to Albania with an important mission. He and a  priest travel across Albania exhuming bodies of dead Italian soldiers who died fighting in Albania during…

Winter is here. As temperatures plummet across the northern hemisphere and people scurry inside warm houses, it is the perfect time to settle into that recliner, grab a cup of hot cocoa and read a book. What else are you going to do?   (Yes, you can always binge watch Netflix, but is that what you really want to do with your life? What I read is  determined by how my day was, what I am…

He came out of nowhere. K and I were standing against the railings of the Galata Bridge in Istanbul, watching the sea gulls dance over the murky waters of Bosporus when a balding man materialized next to us. He was wearing a blue wind cheater and bobbing up and down excitedly. “You hungry? You come inside my restaurant,” he said and pointed to one of the restaurants on the bridge. “I will make fifteen percent…