Phillip Holt's World

Today I visited an exhibition in Istanbul on Albert Einstein.

                                                                              Albert Einstein

It is being held until the 2nd March 2008, in the Doğuş Power Center in Maslak, Istanbul, this is quite a large exhibition of the work of Einstein, which left me a little confused about his work on relativity, which I thought I had cracked.

I know light travels at 300,000 kms, but the way it was displayed and described, got me thinking about my understanding again on the law of relativity, and asking the guide got him confused too.

I toured the exhibition twice as on the first round I understood little of his great thinking. Well it was written in Turkish and I read nor speak any Turkish, I did have an English recording of the tour, but really it did not give very much information.

At each point of interest was a guide, speaking in Turkish, and they attracted quite large groups to their talks, the children in the groups, seemed especially to be transfixed in what they were saying. That left me feeling quite inadequate at my inability to understand E=mc² and the law of relativity. 

As I toured the exhibition I came across a saying from Albert Einstein which says:-

                                Imagination is more important than knowledge.

It was stated that Einstein got the answer to a problem from far fewer “hints” or pieces of information that other scientists, he had the ability to quickly gather results with very little knowledge or information.
 
It was also said that he loved fun, so the picture below is to honour Albert Einstein and his contribution to mankind as a great thinker, scientist, peacemaker and fun loving man.

                                                             Fun Loving Albert Einstein

Great exhibition if you are in Istanbul.

Yesterday I was lost, as I was half in and half out of sleep, I did not know where I was. Click here to read.
This morning I know where I am. The Seminal Hotel in Istanbul.

                                                         Seminal Hotel, Istanbul, Turkey

I have stayed in the hotel many times over the years I have been visiting and training in Turkey, but it is a tourist hotel, with guests only staying for a few days, then they are off to visit another “important” site. The hotel seems to cater for mainly Arabic nationals, who always seem to have to shout at the top of their voices to have a conversation. They seem to have large families, taking many rooms, and they race from room to room, or shout from one room to another.

The hotel is comfortable, in need of a refurbishment, perhaps new carpets and a coat of paint, and like many hotels in Istanbul, sometimes have a bad smell. But the staff are friendly now they know me, and it is home for a few days.

My time to relax is in the breakfast room, where I can observe other guests starting their day. I feel at ease, as I watch, and try and workout the fellow guests nationality, are they Arab, Turkish, German, Russian?

As I sit drinking my strong Turkish tea English style, with a drop of milk, I watch the staff, as they busy themselves replenishing the food laid out in a buffet style, or cleaning the tables, wondering what they are thinking about the guests they are looking after.

One member of staff aways has a welcome, it is good to see his smiling face. I know where I am when I see Cafer, I am in the Seminal Hotel.

                                                          Cafer, staff member, Seminal Hotel

This morning I was awoken early at 6am by a distant alarm call, too early for me on my rest day, my relaxation, I needed sleep.

As I held back my desire to complain at such an early awakening, the need for sleep washed over me like a wave, my head swirled with tiredness.

I do not like to lie in bed, usually I like to be up and about, I am not a person who says “five minutes more“, despite the description of my getting up in the morning strategy in my NLP courses. Some people who when it is time to get up like the “five minutes more” time in bed, and should there be any interruption to this extra 5 mins time, they will very forcefully demand quiet.

I lay there for a while though, trying my best to slip back into the deep slumber, even putting my head under the duvet, but I had to get up, as nature called, and the person or persons who needed to be up and about so early, readied themselves noisily. No consideration for others.

Eventually it all went quiet, and my head and body demanded more sleep, so I slipped back into my comfortable bed, beneath a warm cuddly duvet.

It seems as I travel the world delivering my courses in such places as China, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Turkey, Italy etc, I never sleep in the same bed for more than ten days.

Each time I move to a new hotel or room, I have to get used to the bed and room.

                                                            My bed

Some beds are small singles, others are twins, yet others are gigantic beds, enough to hold a party. Some of the beds are so hard that it is like sleeping on a concrete floor, whereas some are so soft it is like floating in a warm tropical sea, others are of odd shapes, one was even like a banana giving me a very bad nights sleep.

I have to get accustomed to the layout of the rooms. Where are the light switches, so I can see in the dark. Which door is to the bathroom/toilet, I would not like to get it mixed up with a wardrobe in the middle of the night.

As I slipped under the duvet, pulling it up under my chin, that wave of sleep took over, my eyes closed, and as I drifted off, I started to dream, of some exotic harem (pronouned hareem), well I am in Turkey.

                                                                      Turkish Harem

In this half dream half awake state, I suddenly started to panic.

Where was I?

Was I in a harem?

Which country am I in?

In the semi darkened room, I could not recognise anything, nothing made sense, was I in the UK, where was I?

My brain searched for answers, but found none, and I panicked more. I was lost.

Where was the belly dancer?

In my slowly emerging waking state, I searched for where the door as I lay there, where was the wardrobe?

What room was I in? I recognised nothing.

Slowly, slowly, I started to become aware of my surroundings, and I found myself once again.

By now I was fully awake, and there was no way I would get back to sleep.

It is strange how the brain can only take in a small proportion of information it is presented with (7 + /-2), and with that amount of information, (surface structure), comes up with stories of it’s own, it hallucinates to make sense of it, (deletes, distorts and generalises). click to read articles

This was not a good experience, but I look forward to slipping under the duvet tonight, I might find my belly dancer again. 

                                                                             Belly Dancer in my dreams
Who knows?