A beer for eight euros at Ankara airport comes with the advantage of free Internet, so while I wait for my flight back home, I may as well jot down a few observations from my trip here.

In Istanbul’s Sultanahmet district, an American woman tells her little son: “Look honey, this is very special about Turkey – they put their flags everywhere! People are really proud of their country. Not like in London”.

A young man approaches me here at Ankara’s airport, looking for help with translations. He’s German of Iraqi-Kurdish descent. He just got back from Erbil, northern Iraq, where he’ll start his job as a football coach this summer. On top of that, he’ll be playing in the Kurdish premier league.

The ruling party, AKP, has re-declared 1 May Labour Day a national holiday. What happened to its traditionally anti-union stance? One cynical observer notes: As hundreds of thousands of workers are laid off, it doesn’t really matter if you give them a day off.

Two EU related anecdotes: At an Ankara university, I see hectic students revise ahead of an exam on nationbuilding in 19th century Europe. The night before, the Istanbul-Ankara Turkish Airlines flight is Almost entirely occupied by a group of French catholic pilgrims. Why? I don’t have the faintest idea. One of the pilgrims tells me that Turkey has no place in the EU, “parce que ils sont les musulmans.”