The great thing about my host Burcu, a young architect, is that she had purple hair. No, no, no. What I meant to say was that the great thing about my host Burcu, a young architect, is that she cycles. In Ankara. What a hero. On my whole twenty kilometre walk around the city I saw ONE cyclist. One. In twenty kilometres of walking around the city. Can you imagine? And it takes guts to cycle in such a city, competing with the c*rs for road space when the c*rs have the attitude that bicycles don't belong and that the c*r is king. I, of course, got around this by cycling on the pavement but Burcu told me that was illegal. I told her plenty of police had driven past me and none had seemed to care.

"Yes they don't care. Sometimes they have told me when I was in the road that I should cycle on the pavement. I have to tell them the law!"

After I had got back from the visa trek I met with Burcu's boyfriend Cem. I suppose I am going to have to try and explain how to pronounce their names now. See, in Turkish the C is pronounced more like a J, except its not a J exactly. I actually can't even think how to write it in English phonetically. Its like the French word 'Je' as in 'Je ne comprends pas.' So, its like 'Bur-je-oo' and 'Je-em.'

Glad we got that out of the way. Burcu came home from work, we ate some dinner, and then we went out to a bar to meet up with some of Cem's friends that he went to school/university with that had arrived back in Ankara that evening. I talked for a while with one of them who spoke with great passion about his job as a consultant. He seemed to enjoy his work, although he told me that when his company had a big project on he sometimes worked from eight in the morning until two in the morning. He told me that because of this his hourly wage didn't work out to be very high, but in fifteen or twenty years if he works this hard he can be a partner in the business and be earning six figures. He actually said to me "yeah I don't get to live now, but I'm working so that when I'm forty I'll have a great life. Other people not working hard now, they might have more of a life now, but they will have a mediocre life when they're forty."

Struck by his words I decided to abandon my journey around the world and return to London to put on a suit and get a job at Canary Wharf. Sorry guys, this journal is over. It was great while it lasted, but I don't want a mediocre life when I'm forty. Cut! Guys, cut! This movie is over. Filming has to stop! We didn't have the budget for this project anyway.

THE END

Or is it? I wanted to run outside and get a taxi to the airport so that I could fly back to London at once, but I hadn't finished my beer and there was free popcorn on the table, so I stayed for a while. The consultant who, my subtle mocking thrown aside for the moment, was actually a fantastic guy, had gone back to talking with the others in Turkish. I weighed up whether I could actually be bothered to work for eighteen hours per day as I looked around the room. This Turkish bar wasn't really any different from bars anywhere in Europe. Young, trendy people drinking in groups, iPhones everywhere, not a headscarf in sight. Deciding that I couldn't be bothered to work for eighteen hours a day and unable to join in with the conversation my eye was caught by a stunning girl at the next table who looked exactly like Catherine Zeta Jones. In the movie (yeah, okay, the movie is back on, I don't own a suit anyway) she will be played by Catherine Zeta Jones. Except this particular scene probably won't make it into the movie on account of the fact that it would just be Ryan Gosling sitting at a table with a bunch of Turkish people, not knowing what was going on, and staring at Catherine Zeta Jones, too afraid to approach, until finally she got up and left (possibly because of the weird guy staring at her on the next table.)

With Catherine Zeta Jones still on my mind I awoke in the morning to find the idea of being a consultant in London had faded and I firmly resolved to continue with the trip as planned (pause for cheering and applause to subside.) I joined Burcu, Cem and Burcu's housemate Aisha on a walk to see the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It would be difficult to overstate the extraordinary status of this man in Turkish history and in the hearts of the nation. He is the quintessential national hero of, it seemed to me, every soul in the land. Few men can claim to be the founder of a nation, but Atatürk is one of them (well, he can't claim anything now, he's dead, but you know what I mean.) Okay brief history lesson. Atatürk was a military leader during the First World War, when the Ottoman Empire fell. Following this he became the leader of the Turkish people during the Turkish War for Independence, ultimately leading them to victory over the Allies, forming a new nation and being loved by everyone forever and always. Interestingly, the name Atatürk literally means 'Father of the Turks', and was granted to him in 1934 and forbidden to any other person. Yeah, he did alright did old Atatürk.

The Atatürk mausoleum was interesting, but the best bit was getting this picture with Burcu and Aisha, and the Turkish flag (thanks to Cem for holding the camera!)

Heart

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