Welcome to Istanbul. Now SHUT Your Mouth (and your ears)!

Evidently, you can't run an illegal renovation during normal working hours here in Turkey. The banging begins promptly at 11.00 pm and ends sharply at 7.00 am. The banging is nice by itself, but only when coupled with some sort of paleolithic, drilling noise does the Fool's ire truly begin to rise.

After a fitful evening of restless, no-sleep, the Fool descends upon the front-desk here at The Mall. With a stern determination and one sock, the Fool demands to speak with the Manager of afore-mentioned establishment. In all honesty, the Manager may or may not be THE manager, but the Fool needed redress in english, and she fit the bill.

As the Turkish-version of Hillary Clinton approached (pant-suit and all), the Fool exhaled all the timidity and Western-ness from his body. He leaned forward and with all the seriousness he could muster (with one sock), declared, "The noise in the evening is unacceptable, my children were up all night!" [LIE #1].

"I'm terribly sorry, sir.[LIE #2]. IF the noise should happen again, please call the security. They will notify me and I will stop it."[LIE #3 & #4].

Had the Fool not been so sleep-deprived he may have noticed the capitalized 'IF' and realized, as well, that 'the security' speaketh no english. None-the-less. The Fool stumbled back to the wrong elevator, "That was easy enough." Thinking that, in him, the Manager clearly recognized a man of deliberate purposefulness. HAH!

Fast forward to later that afternoon. The Fool returning from his vigorous exercise regimen (and cigarette) is greeted by his honorable house servant. "Sir, housekeeping dropped these off for you."

 Velcome to Turkiye!