Trip to Ankara and Bursa

I’m leaving in an hour for an overnight bus trip to Ankara (once again in a suit and tie), where I’ll spend two days meeting with various officials at the Diyanet seeking permission to add another research site and access the agency’s archives. 

Tuesday night it’s an overnight bus trip from Ankara to Bursa for some interviews and hopefully my first observation of a sermon meeting there.  If I can catch the ferry back to Istanbul that evening I’ll be home in time for dinner.  If not, I’ll have to spend the night and take the morning ferry.  Thursday afternoon the Istanbul sermon committee meets, and I’ll be there for that.

Looks like it’ll be a tiring week.

I don’t mind doing the bus trips, but I’m not going to make it a habit, especially when planes are so cheap.  And unlike the trip to Izmir, this week’s trips are too short to get in a decent night’s sleep (5-6 hours).  The up side is that I’ll be arriving in these cities around 6 AM, so this could be just the thing to jump-start my habit of waking up early.