Back in Moscow Again

I'am back in Moscow again for the third time. Last time I returned to Turkey with a russaian airway company Aeroflot, the plane was rather old which lead to lots of jokes. Also one intresting thing was the plane being full of Japanase tourists.

This time I stay in Hotel Erian, which is an apart hotel. The 'room' I stay has a bedroom with french bed, huge wardrobe , a living room with a TV and 2 sofas, and kitchen with a table and 4 chairs, refrigirator,oven... shortly a full apartment flat.In fact the so-called hotel is an apartment with 20+ floors. On the left is the photo of apart-hotel Eridan.

And here is the inside picture of metro station Chertanoskaya. If you don't know how to read Cryllic letters it may be hard to get off at the right station.




Below is the tallest building in Europe that people live in,it is said to have nearly 1000 flats.






More comments (in Turkish) in Turkish-interrailers group.You should be a member to read.Message number 6131.

From Russia with Love

Between 9 and 23th of March I was in Moscow for the second time.This time I stayed in President Otel which has built during the Soviet Era for meetings and accomodation of Communist Party members. The hotel was huge but old fashioned. The location is near Polyanka metro station and is close to city center.

Before arrival I was concerned about bad weather conditions, but it was not as bas as I guessed. It did not snow so heavily during my visit. And when it snowed the roads are cleaned immediately , the problem is with the sidewalks where snow turned into a stone-like structure and very slippy.

Book Review: Uzaklar Cagirinca

Title: Uzaklar Cagirinca
Writer: Orhan Kural
Year: 2005
Pages: 196

The writer is an intinerant that has traveled to 187 countries of the world!. The short and small sized book is organized into two sections.First section is in a 'textbook' format (you may consider it as normal since the writer is a lecturer in I.T.U) that tells places to visit in Turkey, 7 wonders of the world, diseases and troubles that intinerants may face during world travel, top 50 things to do/places to see in world ...
And the second section of the book tells the travel memories of the writer during his several visits. The book is cheap (3.83YTL),I bought it from Ideefixe you may give it a try if you have time but know that it is not the best.

Book Review: Avucumda Patikalar

Title: Avucumda Patikalar
Writer: Z. Gulin Akoz
Year: 2005
Pages: 280

I bought this book from Ideefixe. I did not look inside it, just read the reviews online. Well..it is a terrible book.It is catagorized as a travel book but...I really don't know what is it. She tells a little bit about the places she saw but moslt personal things about her. Just stay out of it!

My FC4 box is counted

My Fedora Core 4 PC at home is counted at counter.li.org and I am the 394277th counted user on that site.

Turkish interrailers met on Saturday

Last saturday(04.03.2006) I was at Turkish interraillers meeting. The meeting was held at Guitar Cafe, Kadikoy. Nearly 40 interrailers of whom 10 have previous interrail experience met.There was a warm atmosphere, people shared lots of information and spent good time. It was a very beneficial meeting, I hope it will be repeated in future.

Checking file existence with a shell script

Sometimes you need to check whether a file exists, in a shell script.
Here is how:

For Unix (Korn Shell on Sun Solaris)

if [[ -a myfile.txt ]]; then
echo myfile.txt exists
else
echo myfile.txt does not exist
fi

exit 0

and for DOS

if exist myfile filefound
echo File Not Found
exit 1
:filefound
echo File Found
exit 0

that simple!

Book Review: Avrupa

Title: Avrupa "Utopya'dan Avrupa'ya"
Writer: Michael Gehler
Year: 2002
Pages: 149

In fact the book name is a little misleading,this is a thin book telling the brief history of European Union not Europe. European Union should be a better book title but then it would look boring, may be this is a marketing trick who knows.
Anyway, the books tells the hitory of how the United States of Europe has evolved and becase a reality. It gives an intoduction starting with 16-18th centuries and details it starting from 1945. Then it tells about how the European Economic Union turned into European Union and how several countries joined.
It book ends with a chronology of European Union between 1945 and 2002.
The book is so much into political science area so it may seem boring if you are not much interested.