Toast Spezial

Day one hundred and fifteen, Turkey. Hand on heart: do any of us know what tomorrow looks like? Do you know where your life is in a week, in a month? Three years ago, who would have believed which ordinary things would turn out to be illegal for a while. Two years ago, who would have said the energy prices would do what they have done.

The outside of things is not improving.

But it goes the other way too. A year ago I would not have believed that I would be eating dinner with strangers in a country like this one, on the assumption that it would work out.

That is precisely what the last weeks have been.

I left Germany with a handful of euros, about enough for a month. Every month since then has been better than the one before, and I can't fully account for it.

This morning the electrics played up and I left Istanbul anyway. Ahead of me is a thousand kilometres along the Black Sea towards Georgia.

Now it is evening. I have met warm people again. We smoke, we eat something they call Toast Spezial, and we talk about diamond mines in Africa, Goa parties in India, and what to do with a spice I have never heard of.