When I lived in the United States, I used to get really annoyed when people spelled my name wrong. You would think that there aren’t many ways to misspell “Melissa Maples.” You’d be wrong. Countless pieces of mail arrived at my door addressed to “Mellisa Staples,” “Malisa Tables,” or even “Melinda Gables.” I used to phone the relevant companies and ask them to correct the spelling. Sometimes it helped; mostly it didn’t.

Since I’ve moved to Turkey I’ve had to loosen my expectations of what people will and will not be able to spell. I’m lucky in that “Melisa” (usually spelled with one s) is quite a common Turkish name; “Maples” on the other hand is not, go figure. A word spelled that way in Turkish would be pronounced like one who doesn’t have a road map— Map-less. When I say “May-pulls,” they don’t know what to do with it. Sometimes they spell it “Meypuls” or “Meypılz” (the i without a dot being a letter we don’t even have in English, but which has a very similar sound to the schwa in Maples), but mostly they just get completely confused and write down some seemingly random string of letters. The image I’ve posted here is a scan of a bus ticket I purchased three years ago, where even after I repeated my name three times, the girl at the ticket counter couldn’t understand how to type it in, and asked to see my passport so she could copy the name down directly. However, I guess by that point she was so flustered by our miscommunication that even with my passport in front of her for reference she still recorded my name as “Meybis Ampell.” I giggled and pointed out that she’d still gotten it wrong, to which she shrugged like, “what do you want from me, I can’t help it if foreigners have confusing names…”

I’ve since come to the realisation, that what with the differences in alphabet and pronunciation systems between Turkish and English (some of which are quite significant), it’s unrealistic to demand that people here use the English alphabet to spell my name in their language. They do use a different alphabet here, after all, even though it too is based on the Latin character set. So nowadays I’m just happy if they pronounce my name correctly, and as far as I’m concerned they can use whatever Turkish letters they want to represent the sounds of my name when they write it down. After all, if a Chinese woman moved to an English-speaking country, we wouldn’t be expected to use Chinese characters to write her name down— we’d just use our own writing system and do the best we could to approximate the correct sounds with our alphabet.

I saw a story on NTVMSNBC recently about an English woman named Wendy Phyllis who attained Turkish dual citizenship in 1999 and is now going to court because she says the Turkish government changed her name for her Turkish identity papers without her permission, and it’s causing problems when she travels to England because the UK authorities claim the name on her Turkish passport does not match her given name. The issue is that in the Turkish alphabet, the name Wendy Phyllis would be spelled “Vendi Filiz,” and that’s how they’ve recorded her name on her identity card and passport. As the article states, there isn’t even a W in the Turkish alphabet, and the letter combination Ph in Turkish has no relation to an F sound, so that needed to be changed as well.

My issue is with the UK government (and presumably Ms. Phyllis) claiming that the Turkish government has actually changed Ms. Phyllis’s name. They haven’t changed it, they’ve just converted the spelling to their own alphabet so that they can read the name correctly and with ease. As far as I’m aware, this is common practice in the UK and most other countries, when a foreign national immigrates and his given name was originally written in an alphabet or syllabary that the people in his adopted nation can not be expected to be familiar with. So what, are we not allowed to transliterate names anymore when people immigrate? If Wendy Phyllis cannot be written as Vendi Filiz in Turkey to allow Turks to be able to read it, then I guess when we welcome 梁國平 or تركي الحمد to an English-speaking country we’re not allowed to change the writing of their names, either, because it might cause them problems when they’re traveling to their respective home countries. If that’s the game we’re going to start playing, then fair is fair. Obviously when we talk about different writing systems and/or alphabets there’s a matter of degree, but who decides where that line is drawn? The UK government? Please, I don’t think so. If it’s reasonable to transliterate names for ease of reading, then I think it’s reasonable to transliterate across the board. Making names possible to read is not a privilege of English-speaking nations only.

I certainly won’t complain if and when my Turkish identity papers say “Melisa Meypılz” on them. That is, after all, the best approximation of my name using the Turkish alphabet. Likewise I wouldn’t blink when traveling to Korea and having my name transliterated into hangul, or katakana in Japan. Part of going to a foreign country is accepting these language differences. I, for one, embrace them.

This week I’m taking a break from the regular bazaar to bring you four new Turkanese photos I’ve collected over the past few weeks. If you read Japanese or can shed any light on the meaning of these items, I‘d be very grateful.

These first two items are of course in the same faux-sports-team series as the previously featured Hanshin Tigers and Nagoya Dragons. The guy who sells these seems to have no end of them— every time I look at his stock he’s got different cities and towns available. Of course, this particular shirt is a bit different in that Nippon is just another word for the country of Japan itself, not any particular city. But what are those kanji about? I know the first one on its own is “fish,” but I don’t know what it means in combination with the other one, and once again I have no idea what any of this has to do with any sport, unless it’s the national fish-wrestling team.

Honestly, who doesn’t feel brave after a Sapporo or two? And notice these are the same two kanji as on the Nippon Fighters shirt.

This van was parked on the street near the bazaar a couple of weeks ago. I’ll be surprised if whoever put those decals on knew what he was doing, but you never know… we’ve got a mixture of kana and kanji here, anyone got a translation? Why would this be on a car door in Turkey?

This one makes me laugh and I don’t even know what it means yet. Just the thought of writing stuff on a bath towel for no reason… I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. But I bet this has to be nonsense. What could you print on a bath towel that wouldn’t be at least somewhat ridiculous?

Anyway, thanks for tuning in— the bazaar archive is here, and if you’d like to purchase a shirt or two don’t forget to stop by the store and have a look around. また、あした！

Last week was the Week of The Comeback. This is how it went.

Sunday

When I lived in England I had a personal trainer who told me that the hardest part of going to the gym is getting off the sofa. Likewise, the hardest part of running in the morning is getting out of bed. I set my alarm for 4:45 as usual and made a point to stick to robotic reactions— as soon as I heard the alarm bell I got to my feet without giving myself time to think. However, I soon discovered that in the past three weeks the sunrise has inched back enough that I can’t go out as early as I once did. I ended up waiting until nearly 5:30 to leave the house, when I finally saw a thread of daylight. That means I can start sleeping until 5:15, which is great.

The run itself went a bit better than I expected. The first day back is always easy, because you have motivation and initial novelty on your side. Add that to the tremendous amount of support I had from friends and readers, and there was no way I could fail. I ran 30 minutes. It was just about the slowest run in history; I only covered about 3 kilometres. Casual walkers overtook me on the sidewalk. But I did it, I ran the full 30 minutes.

Monday

I expected today to be challenging for lots of reasons. One, I ran on the beach, and sand presents tremendous difficulties compared to pavement; two, I’d been awake all night and my bed was calling loudly to me; three, yesterday was the first run I’d done in about three weeks and I thought I’d be pretty tired and sore. But surprise: today was pretty much effortless. I love running on the beach. At that time of the morning it’s only me and the Med, which is how I like it.

Tuesday

I woke up pre-dawn this morning to already sauna-esque weather. Within two minutes of starting my run I wanted to quit. Thought about how I might explain my quitting to Brogan; decided to keep running instead (lesser of two evils). Things got slightly easier in the last ten minutes, but I’m ready for that break day tomorrow.

Wednesday

Sleeping in today was heaven, but I still felt some weird Catholic-flashback guilt, like I could have run but chose to be lazy instead. The weather was a lot cooler this morning, so in that sense I wish I’d had yesterday off instead. Today is the first of August, which means September is only a month away, and September will bring more reasonable weather.

I’ve gotta eat low-carb today. No need to carbo-load if I’m not running. I’m still going to do my resistance work, though— crunches and push-ups.

Thursday

Really, really, really annoyed with myself. Last night I let one little phrase, “it’s okay, you can skip a day,” settle in my head and grow. By morning, it had filled my entire brain, and I barely even flinched when the alarm rang, I just switched it off and went right back to sleep.

So I have to run now, in the sun, in the heat. That’s the deal. I had the choice to run this morning and I didn’t do it.

Putting my shoes on now. Out the door in less than five.

Friday

I had to run 45 minutes today to make up for the fact that I could only run 15 yesterday because the heat was unbearable. That sucked, to say the least, but I need to get used to doing longer runs. I’m glad tomorrow is my off day.

I’m noticing I have exactly the same problem with my off days as I do about taking walking breaks in the middle of my runs— once I lose momentum, that’s it. I’m done. If I start walking, I never quite get back into running again. If I just keep running the whole time, no problem. It’s actually easier for me if I don’t take breaks. The same thing is happening with my off days. I had no problem getting out there Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday; Wednesday I took my scheduled break day, and that’s where it all went wrong. Thursday was a disaster, I couldn’t get out of bed and then couldn’t finish my run once I finally did emerge from sleep. Friday was miserable and all I wanted to do was finish it and be done with running. Saturday was my other off day, and I haven’t gone out to run since. Tomorrow will be a week since my last run, though I have been doing my cross-training, which I think is mostly due to the fact that I never take a day off from that. The weather is getting better now, so I’m regrouping to start running again on Sunday.

I really think that despite all the professional wisdom saying that days off are essential, I’m going to have to reconfigure my training schedule to have a couple of easy days but no complete off days. Losing momentum like that ruins me. I was the sort of weirdo back in school that wanted to skip lunch break and just get my work finished and leave school an hour early instead. I really hate coming to a screeching halt in the middle of something. For me it makes no sense to stop working if my work isn’t finished yet, and if I am forced to stop then I get frustrated and throw all my toys out of the sandbox.

And anyway, back when I was running just as a regular fitness thing, I never took a day off, never, and I never had any injuries or problems because of it. Okay, sure, I was only running 20 minutes a day, but still. I never noticed any ill effects from not having an off day. Some days I did take it easier than others, though, so perhaps that’s what I’ll start doing again, because that system worked fine, and yet I tried to fix it for some reason.

I’m slightly concerned that other runners seem to enjoy running and I don‘t. I’ve been running for twenty years and I still hate every minute when I’m out there. So why do I run? Well, I do ask myself that a lot during traning sessions, but really I think the answer is that I run because it’s the enemy and I won’t let the enemy beat me. Will I progress out of that and learn to work with running instead of against it? I don’t know. Like I said, it’s been twenty years and it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe I’m just the sort of person who has to be a rage-against-the-marathon type, a Hank Rollins sort of aggressive athlete. We’ll see as things progress if I get better at the zen technique as my runs get longer and the marathon gets closer.

The first thing, though, is to rearrange my schedule so that I’m running at least a little bit every single day. That’ll be easier to manage as the weather gets cooler.

Back in May, Chris Brogan challenged his readers to write a mini-autobiography of themselves. I thought it was an interesting idea and I fully intended to do it, but like so many other cool ideas, it got put on the back burner.

Then I got tagged many, many times for that “Eight Random Things” meme, and it reminded me that we do actually care to know about each other, and lord knows with all my moving around and mixed background, people get confused about who I am and where I’m coming from. So without further ado, here’s a Cliff’s-Notes-style rundown of me, followed by a better-late-than-never rendition of the Eight Random Things meme.

I was born in the winter of 1973 in San Antonio, Texas, to German parents, each of whom was a bit on the unconventional side. I attended a French Catholic school from the time I was five years old; I agreed to leave after the sixth grade when the nuns and my family couldn’t come to an agreement on what were “acceptable” questions for a young Catholic girl to be asking (to say that I was curious is an extreme understatement). I attended non-religious schools after that and it was much smoother sailing.

When I was three years old I started messing around on an old foot-pump organ that belonged to my great-uncle. Until I was about six I had to get an adult to work the foot pumps for me, but once I was tall enough there was no stopping me. My uncle gave me the organ, and I was hardly ever off the thing. Eventually it was decided I should have proper lessons and an instrument on which I could progress. My parents bought a piano and I started having lessons at a local academy. I had a great teacher— in fact, she was so good at teaching me that within six months I was playing at a more advanced level than she was. I chewed up and spit out a couple of teachers that way; eventually a wonderful woman named Myrna von Nimitz (may she rest in peace) reined me in and sent my enthusiasm and natural ability down a much more focused and productive route. She discovered a skill in me that I was aware of but never knew had a name— perfect pitch. By the time I was ten I was playing with professional orchestras and theatre companies, but really my main strength was critical listening and composition. I developed those skills with Myrna, and stayed with her until I went off to university, spending several hours everyday on music.

My first attempt at college was an unmitigated disaster. I firmly believe that the age of eighteen is much too early for most people to be deciding what they want to do with their lives, and yet we act like they’ll burn in hell if they don’t go to college right this second. Most of them can’t even decide what to do this weekend, and I was firmly in that camp. I knew I wanted to do something that involved music, but I other than that I had no idea. I kind of thought I should see a bit more of the world before trying to decide where my place in it was. How can you know what you want to do if you haven’t even seen a fraction of what’s available?

Nonetheless, I was only eighteen and family and societal pressure got the best of me. Three sad semesters I stuck it out, not really trying, barely ever going to class, and not really getting anything out of it. Eventually I came out of that closet— university wasn’t for me, not yet, and regardless of my family lamenting that I’d never go back and I’d end up flipping burgers, I finally went with my gut instinct and dropped out. I still think it was the smartest thing I ever did.

Thus began several years of self-employment (I never did well with an employer, never could get the hang of someone else calling the shots for a third of my life), and then I started thinking about a move. I wanted to get out there and see stuff. I’d already hopped around briefly here and there, having lived for short periods both in California and Montréal, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to see more, learn more. So when I found myself in a relationship with an Englishman in 1997, it didn’t take much discussion to decide that it would be I who would move to England and not the other way around. When I landed in Manchester in March of 1998 to make England my permanent home, it was the first time I had ever set foot in the UK. I had absolutely no money, no prospects, and very few belongings.

Nonetheless, I made my way in this new world. I had to relearn my native language several times (anyone who’s lived in different parts of the UK knows what I mean), and I had to find a way to get on some kind of visa so I could stay in England. I had already been thinking about going back to school, and when we learned that a student visa was a fairly easy one to attain, that pretty much sealed the deal. I did a preparatory year of A-levels whilst applying to universities. Actually, I only applied to one— the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, Paul McCartney’s renowned “fame school.” Looking back, this was a very risky move; had LIPA not accepted me (and the competition was stiff to say the least), I had no backup plan and probably would have been forced to leave the country. But from the moment I first looked at the prospectus, I knew this was the school for me, and after the first university fiasco I saw no point in applying to other schools I wasn’t interested in. I mentioned that on my application, and again in my interview. The interviewer smiled and nodded, and my acceptance letter arrived the following week.

My time at LIPA was amazing. I’ve never felt so at home in my life. Much to everyone’s surprise, I didn’t pursue a degree in music. I felt like I’d tried that before and it hadn’t worked, and I wanted to explore a complementary route, something that combined my natural critical listening abilities with my love for both gadgets and mathematics. I majored in Sound Technology, which combined record production with technical sound engineering and critical aural analysis. I excelled at the aural analysis much more than the techie stuff, but regardless I worked hard at what didn’t come naturally and graduated with honours in the spring of 2002. Soon after I was able to secure a permanent resident visa for the UK, and I opened up a music school teaching piano, voice, performance coaching, and songwriting workshops from a studio I built in my home.

In the early part of 2004 my relationship with the Englishman came to an abrupt halt, and in May of that year I took a one-week vacation to Turkey with five of my closest friends. We arrived on a Sunday; by Tuesday I had decided I wasn’t going back to England. I had made a brief visit to Turkey the previous summer and had been enchanted and mesmerised by it; this second visit had proved to me that it wasn’t just a fluke. I was in love with the place. I went back to England, packed my things, got on a plane to Antalya, and didn’t look back. Once again I didn’t have a penny to my name, but I knew from past experience that I could make it work, and I did exactly that.

Three years later, and I’m still here. There’s a much steeper cultural learning curve here than there was in England, and as you guys know I try to document as much of that as I can here. About a year after I moved here I met Emirhan— we’ll be celebrating our two-year anniversary in September, and I’ve never been happier in my life. We’re planning our next move as I type this; watch this space.

Wow, I challenge you all to try to write about your entire life in just a few paragraphs. Reading it back I cringe at the huge holes I’ve had to leave in the interest of brevity, holes that might actually make the story confusing… but I thank you if you’ve stuck with it this far, and I thank Chris for prompting me to write it.

Now, the really fun part— eight random things:

• I like to give everything a fair chance to impress me; subsequently I find it impossible to have favourite things, like a favourite colour or musician or food. I feel like if I lock myself into a favourite something then I’m closing myself off from being open to a potentially better thing that might present itself. I think this objectivity is one of the reasons I did so well as a music critic. However, it makes it frustrating for people who ask me a question about a preference and expect a one-word answer.
• Probably my most serious hobby is language study and linguistics. I know a lot about a lot of different languages and language families and can read pretty well in several different alphabets and writing systems; actually speaking languages is not my strong point… in fact, I’m awful at it.
• I’m the most flexible person I know. I can do all those freaky things like lying on my stomach and bringing my feet over my back to touch my ears. I don’t seem to be losing it as I get older. You’d think this would make me awesome at yoga, but no. I do enjoy yoga, but I’m not particularly good at it.
• Soon after I dropped out of university I joined the armed forces in a moment of desperation about what I would do with my life. The army didn’t work out for me and I got a dishonorable discharge for reasons I can’t go into.
• I talk funny. People expect me to sound American but I just don’t. Six years in England and three in Turkey can really bend an accent. Most people guess that I’m from somewhere in the Southern hemisphere, but I’ve never even visited that half of the world. I’m currently working on getting my American accent back, mostly because Emirhan likes it.
• Many years ago I was a professional opera singer. It’s something I’d like to pursue again at some point.
• Up until about a year ago I couldn’t cook anything at all. I have no natural ability whatsoever in the kitchen. Before I moved to Turkey I had no clue about anything even as simple as boiling eggs. I didn’t even know what it meant to boil something or how one would begin go about it. In general I hate the idea of food preparation— for me it seems like a waste of time when there are perfectly good restaurants that can do that sort of tedious work while you’re doing something fun. Recently some nostalgia for meals I can’t get in Turkey has prompted me to learn to make a few simple non-Turkish dishes. I still screw them up frequently, often badly enough that they have to be thrown away and we just order pizza instead (which was a better idea to begin with).
• I grew up in one of the hottest hotspots in the United States for alien sightings and abductions, San Antonio’s Olmos Basin. I wanted so badly to see something extraterrestrial that I used to drive and walk through the woods of the basin at night, hoping that if there was something out there it would see me and contact me. I never saw any aliens, but one night wandering around in the woods I got the holy bejesus scared out of me by a black Labrador. I stopped going in the woods after that.
• I find politics mind-numbing and soul-destroying, and I can’t spend more than about thirty seconds listening to political talk before I want to slit my wrists.

Now, for the twist: I know I appear to have written nine random things, but don’t be fooled— only eight of them are really about me; one of them is a complete fabrication. Can you guess which one?

Thanks for indulging me on this, it was great fun and I’d love for you each to do it in your own blogs and link in the comments.

For the basketball fans there are many online stores, which sell basketballs and other items related with this sport. According to your budget you can select among several basketball shoes. You can get basketball jerseys, with logo of your favorite team printed on it. Different website and software houses are providing basketball games which you can play online.

This is the third year in a row, according to the daily logs I keep in my private journal, that the weather has taken a subtle turn at the beginning of August. I first noticed the pre-autumn feel in the air a few days ago, but it wasn’t until yesterday that I could really confirm it— a high of 32° and an overnight low last night of 22°. And then this morning, I woke up to a wonderful sight: rain clouds. I hadn’t seen a hint of cloud in many months, but this morning the sky was full of them. Sadly, they burned off, and all we got out of it was about 20 seconds of light drizzle. Still though, it’s something. Autumn’s coming soon.

I was never obsessed about the weather when I lived in a climate-controlled country. 25 years in the Texas heat and it never really occurred to me to worry about it too much. After all, who cares? That’s what air-conditioners are for. If things get hot, you just go inside. No biggie.

Here, inside is as hot as out. The temperatures in July top out at about 50° (122°F), and all we have for company is a fan. I’ve learned some techniques about keeping cool, though— eight to ten cold showers everyday, and my favourite trick, a wet hand towel draped over me while I sit in front of the fan. It sounds impossible, but you learn to deal. You don’t get much done during the day, but you deal.

And having to suffer so much makes the end of summer just that much sweeter. I’ve always loved autumn anyway— a new school year, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. But when you combine the excitement of those things (which foreigners mostly have to celebrate on our own) with the relief of the weather getting cooler, it’s truly amazing. And it’s starting already. For the past several months I wouldn’t dare venture out until after dark, but last night I was able to surface at sunset and snap a few shots of the sunset over the neighbourhood water heaters… fantastic. It’ll be my favourite time of year soon.

One of the first things I like to do when I visit a new country is head to the grocery store and see what delights or surprises me, what is different from other countries. When I first came to Turkey on a group vacation with five of my friends (the vacation from which I sorta kinda never returned), we giggled with shock at the shelves of yogurt buckets— literally buckets of yogurt, 3kg each, with a handle on top like a container of paint. I thought, how on earth could anyone, even a family, consume that much yogurt?

Fast-forward three years.

In our little home we now regularly buy the 3kg bucket-o-yogurt, and it lasts maybe a few days at most. Turks use yogurt for everything, and I’ve picked up the habit. I come from a culture where sour cream is a common condiment, and I quickly discovered that Turkish yogurt is not a bad substitute. Also, Turks are not big on fresh milk; they tend to drink that boxed UHT stuff that tastes like it’s a month old, and on the rare occasions when you can find fresh milk it generally expires the next day and already smells a bit sour when you buy it. So if you live in Turkey and you’re concered about calcium intake (I suppose this is more of an issue for women than men), yogurt quickly becomes your friend.

When I first moved here, I used to buy a 350 gram container of yogurt, and it would pretty much last me forever. I’d eventually throw half of it away because it would expire before I got a chance to figure out how I was going to make use of it. As I became more familiar with and started to adopt Turkish dietary habits, however, I graduated to buying the 650 gram container, and when Emirhan and I moved in together we upgraded to purchasing a kilogram at a time. It grew from there, and now we can go through a 3kg bucket in less than a week, no problem.

Turkish yogurt has a fantastic flavour, and my favourite part of it is the crust. Yogurt forms a crust on its surface as it settles, which most if not all Western yogurt manufacturers scrape off and throw away during the packaging process. This makes me sad, because since moving to Turkey I’ve discoved that the crust is the best part (those who live in England will understand what I mean because clotted cream has a similar crust). Give me a bowl of yogurt crust drizzled with honey… heaven. Why yes, I am the girl who likes edge brownies and the corner piece of lasagne, why do you ask?

I wonder if there are any American or European yogurt companies that leave the crust on the yogurt— anyone know of any?

August is here, which means September is only a month away, which means cooler weather should be coming soon. It was actually a little bit cloudy today, which helped somewhat, but temperatures were still up in the sauna range. Nonetheless, the bazaar was hopping as usual, and here are this week’s highlights.

[click on each image to see a larger version]

If this is the new perfect brand, imagine what the old faulty brand looked like.

Ha, Turkey is one of the few countries where this still means something. Smoking is the national sport here.

Dude, let’s board! They don’t really say that, do they?

I think keeping my emotions under control is the last thing I’ll be worried about if that shark cannot be stopped.

I found this one fascinatingly surreal.

Do you think they meant “fun of the dog,” or “dog is fun”? Either way, makes no sense whatsoever on sweat pants.

Ower there, wery far away.

This looks like a bowling league shirt… for a team you’d never want to play for.

Yeah, forget playing the game, let’s sit around the campfire and have a story-off.

Girls today we’re the be sexy? Well, it is Vegas.

If you want to see more of these, the bazaar archive is here, and if you’d like to purchase a shirt or two yourself don’t forget to stop by the store and have a look around. Have a great Thursday.

A few days ago I commented on Cem Sertoğlu’s report of Turkey having the most expensive broadband in the world.

Well.

Cem has posted a follow-up to his original post with some very interesting new information… turns out the latest reports tell a slightly different story, with Turkey still quite high up on the list of expensive broadband, but Kazakhstan taking the ultimate prize, as it were. You’re not going to believe this, but here it is:

Most users (and only four percent of the country even has access) hook up through state-owned Kazakhtelecom, a company not concerned with competitive pricing for its services. An unlimited dial-up plan costs about €82 ($111) in a country where the average monthly wage is €292 ($399). As for DSL, an unlimited 1.5Mbps connection costs €2,458 ($3,355) a month, and doesn’t even included the required ADSL modem. Want a 6Mbps cable connection? It’ll cost you, to the tune of €16,144 ($22,032) a month. As the OSCE report drily notes, this is more than a thousand times the price of such a connection in Western Europe.

Er, yeah. Imagine phoning up for broadband and being told it’ll set you back twenty-two thousand dollars a month. Yikes! Now I’m tempted to search around on my favourite social networks and see if I can find anyone in the four percent of connected Kazakhs and learn what they pay for their connection. It wouldn’t surprise me if at some point some black market underground solution becomes available, some kind of pirate satellite or something. Link