Column Chronicles: International cities I love for quirky reasons

International cities I love for quirky reasons

Frank Cotolo
February 18, 2016

I have been all over the world, in and out of countries and many of their cities and towns and I have grown to love many of them for various reasons. I want to share some of those personal reasons, making them public for the first time.

Lots of people will tell you that Venice, Italy is a romantic city due to its unique construction and streets of water. But I love Venice for my own reasons and it has nothing to do with romance or water. When I lived there I made a lot of money selling inflatable underwear, which started a trend where people floated from street to street to get anywhere.

I love Ashgabat, Turkmenistan because one of the best friends I ever met abroad lives there and is named after the city and country. His name is Ashgabat Turkmenistan. In all the cities where I have spent time, there has never been anyone I know that has the same name as where he or she lived.

I continue to write to him and get a big charge out of addressing the envelope Ashgabat Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

I stayed in Varosha, Cyprus for two weeks before I realized it is uninhabited. Then, I stayed another month because I had a wide choice of rooms.

Believe it or not, most of the women in Tittybong, Victoria, Australia, have flat chests. That's what I love about the city because it is so much fun going to Tittybong's Hooters restaurants.

Hell, in the Cayman Islands is so much fun when people get drunk. You hear them shouting, "Go to Hell" and others answering, "I am in Hell" and there is so much laughter that echoes through the streets of the nightlife.

Once, I lived for a short time in Batman, Turkey. The city of Batman is a strange place and not only because of its name. There is a lot of crime in Batman, most of it stealing. So, often in the newpapers the headlines, when translated into English, read: Police attempt to stop robbin' in Batman. Also, in Batman, soups are a popular meal. The locals call the meal "a souper" and the cook a "souper man." So, it is fun to stay there and say things in English that the Turks understand but don’t know why they are funny; things like, "If I get a job I want to be a souper man in Batman."

In Vulcan, Alberta, Canada, I built a home made entirely from an Erector Set and the house survived through so much bad weather that I wound up selling it for sixteen times what the original construction toy set cost me.

I wish I had taken more photos of all the great cities and towns that have given me so many memories but I didn't because I knew I would not want to share them with people. Now that I have written about these places, I know I was wrong and I apologize.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.