In 2009, after seven years in South Africa, Dutch TV news correspondent Bram Vermeulen (b. 1974) was looking for a new challenge. Turkey was the answer. He was surprised by the atmosphere of freedom in Istanbul. People are less judgmental than in Holland. For Bram, Turkey is fascinating, yet not easy to fathom. Not everything that you see and hear is the way it seems. The country is a laboratory where Islamic and Western values come together.