a day I overdid & other explanations

. . . cats, a theme of Türkiye too, here less the public deities they are there, but fed, loved, never possessed. I have so far seen one dog, and there was a dead dog on the drive out to Ushaiqer, أشيقر. . . note the loop with the diaeresis, a very unusual sound to assay, like a glottal stop and a hard K, and note the absence of vowel between that penultimate letter and the ultimate one, which is pronounced like a rolling rrrr, the stress falling on the second syllable: you can see I've been, doing my explaining of my current circumstance, learning Arabic. . .

. . .it was around the back streets of Alinma Bank, name of metro station, that I came upon a street of roasters, all of a style I think of as Turkish, all similarly placed in the doorways of the establishments selling. . . that's where it gets interesting, because roasters here sell tea and spices and nuts as well as coffee beans, and the signature style of Saudi coffee is pretty much green, with cardamon, which I didn't sample until Ushaiqer, at the museum, which we'll get to, soon, for now, consider, if you're roasting the spices and the beans and the teas, why would you not mix them up? (I've had my cup of cardamon tea today. A rich brew.) The bookshop you see above is Jarrir, I went in on a recce, asked about The Unconsoled, a library book I hadn't finished it before leaving, and the woman on the counter readily pointed out to me the selection of Ishiguro they had in stock, which wasn't bad, not bad that is, except for the quality of the publications, all cheap paperbacks, what struck me was the poetry section, poets writing in English about overcoming their personal struggles, none of whom I'd heard of, plus of course Rumi, but not bilingual, and, in English many self-help and business management books, some psychology, but no philosophy, then a large section in English about Islam, science and Islam, psychology and Islam, understanding Islam; I also asked the attendant to recommend a book to learn Arabic, she pointed to the Tuttle Publication—

—I ended up buying, at SAR94, not cheap, then the books were all a similar price to NZ, the paperbacks from @SAR50 to @SAR80. I went downstairs. Jarrir, like many of this kind of established business, was kind of fusty, stuck somewhere in the 80s, not then long enough ago to be charming; except that is for the mobile counter where I went to inquire about a simcard: wood-framed glass case, holding the latest flip-phones, smart-watches, all again surprisingly expensive, and the guys serving, in a uniform, unlike the attendant upstairs, who was fully black-veiled, three of them gathered around the phone of a customer, jabbing their fingers at the screen, trying to solve whatever problem he'd come in with, so I waited. Waited, until a young man informed me that no, simcards available, he showed me on my phone, which is how everything goes, menus, directions, translations, instructions, putting the arrow on the mobily service centre, so I went. And it was a long way, near here:

. . . a photo taken when I was beating a retreat, away from mobily service centre, who immediately asked for my number. What number? Saudi ID. I don't have one. Iqama. This is a working permit. I don't have one. Visa number. I don't. . . making it clear that my presence did not suffice, I required official documentation of it . . . Into the heat. Past the Kingdom Tower, now Centre.

Back to Olaya Street where I would find a metro station, which I did, and went the wrong way, back to Alinma, changing to return on the Blue Line, homeward bound. . .

. . . you see, I'm in the front, the trains driverless; it so happens that on the return journey, that towards SAB Bank, the singles section, for single men, as distinct from the family section, for women, couples, and children, and first class, who knows who that's for, is at the front. . . The workers hop up on the moldings in the front window, harder to do if you're fully robed. . .

Descending from Dr. Sulaiman Habib, I was on the wrong side of the street facing four lanes of oncoming traffic, some of it skirting the main flow, cutting into laybys to get a nose ahead, in made-up lanes, not official even if unmarked ones, called, I discovered last night, emotional lanes, either having to ascend once more, cross the platform, de-escalate onto Olaya Street, which necessity I avoided by the expedient of a supermarket hunt: we needed some things for dinner.

Anas Ibn Malik Road:

At the foot of a cellphone tower I found Al Jazeera supermarket, more an overstocked dairy, loaded up, evening coming on, and began the long grind back, after four hours on foot in 36°, thinking humourless thoughts,

relieved by: