Friday 24 July 2009

Off to Turkey - Back in 16 Days!

Well I'm off on holiday today to sunny Turkey - I can't wait to see the back of this awful weather.

Turkey of course is in Asia - not Europe - and will always be to me an Asian country despite the best efforts of the EU. Whatever happens it will of course always be geographically in Asia.

When I was in Turkey two years ago (in a little village called Yesiluzumlu twelve or so miles up in mountains inland from Fethiye - the same place that I'm going this time) the talk then in Turkey was of joining the EU, and to a man every Turk I talked to said that they thought this was a bad idea, and that they didn't consider themselves Europeans.

They thought that the Turkish politicians were keen on entering the EU in order to line their own pockets at the expense of the Turkish people. I think they were about right.

What the mood of the Turkish people regarding EU entry is now I don't know, but I'll find out.

And as for the Turkish people themselves - speak as you find - I thought they were very nice, very patriotic also with a statue of modern Turkey's founder Ataturk in every town and village.

Anyhow, I'll be back in sixteen days - happy blogging!!

2 comments:

Keith Ruffles said...

"Whatever happens it (Turkey) will of course always be geographically in Asia."

Interesting. So do you actively support the withdrawal of EU membership from those territories - such as French Guiana, RĂ©union, the Canary Islands etc - outside of Europe's geographical borders, to bring it in line with this strict geographic policy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_member_state_territories_and_their_relations_with_the_European_Union

James Higham said...

Lucky duck.