Fındık Baklava, Nothing Short of Heaven

Yesterday after leaving the school, I took advantage of the longer daylight to go around Mecidiyeköy and visited the bakery that supplies Funky Cafe with breakfast rolls. The whole business is family run, a collection of brothers, sisters, and cousins who seem to be split between Istanbul and New York City. We sat sipping tea from istikans watching the crowds move along the sidewalk outside.
The shop is much more than a simple bread bakery, they don't actually bake loaves of bread but have trays of small rolls with cheese, olives, and other delights in them. And in the display cases I saw all kinds of baklava and chocolates that had been shaped in moulds and decorated. I was given a piece of hazelnut baklava and wow. I really love the sweets here, they aren't just lumps of high fructose corn syrup and coco but gooey experiences wrapped in flaky pastry. But back to the shop.
This place was really amazing, it's next to the Türk Telekom building (which is how I found it in the first place, going to pay a bill) in a nice part of the district, wide streets and people with friendly faces going about the day. I bought a few things from a street vendor near the bakery and entered the shop. It was very beautiful in a classic and simple way, dark wood ceiling beams and canary walls with a tile pattern reminiscent of Ottoman designs. I chatted with one of the women who runs the shop, she had spent a year in high school as a foreign exchange student in America. We talked a lot about Istanbul and Turkey, she lives on the Anatolia side (it's not called the Asian side by Turks) in a district full of trees. I can see it across the Bosporus when I am at the top of the hill. It looks as though a whole forest has invaded the city, spilling over a rise and running down nearly to the water.
During my walk this morning a light, cool rain began to fall. It's a different kind of rain than what we had experianced up until
A few times today the power has gone out, but it's so momentary nothing besides the wireless router is disrupted in an annoying way. The students use it as an excuse to whoop and yell in the dark.

It's Really Just Easier to Walk

The Cafe's absent worker has returned, a cast on his arm, but smiling. We are all very relieved to see him back safe. From what people tell me, traffic accidents are a fairly common occurrence in Istanbul, though I witnessed a handful in January when the roads turned to ice. People drive much slower here than they do in America, making it less difficult to jay-walk even on the busier streets. Traffic still has problems, and it makes me wonder what things might turn into if everyone started driving faster! Turn signals are used, but since "right of way" doesn't seem to be on drivers' minds, turns are still taken with near randomness.
This applies in all situations with lines
I count myself lucky to be within walking distance of everything I make daily use of as well as public transportation. In fact, I count myself lucky not to have a car to worry about, gasoline is about the equivalent of 5 USD for a gallon's worth. Tiny, glittering cubes of unswept auto glass also decorate many sidewalks near where I live. Auto horns and flashing lights are much more frequently used, some drivers will even go up narrow one-way streets after flashing their lights to warn whoever might think of traveling along established routes. You see people take roundabouts backwards to try to save time and end up causing traffic to halt. Despite noticeable mistakes made by drivers, everything blends to create a blend of pandemonium that rushes through Istanbul in all directions.
But unless I'm going father than Beshiktash, I find it just easier to walk.

Oh! Today is the big solar eclipse! Though I won't be frying out my retinas trying to see it, it will be broadcast on the television for those of us who stay in basements all day.

It should look something like this:

But we all really know it's a dragon come to eat the sun. So yell really loud at the sky to scare it away. Because a dragon that can eat the sun is afraid of loud noises.

Wherever You Go the Sky is Blue^2

March has been really something in Istanbul. Back in California one day things would just switch and that was that, but Istanbul keeps us on our toes. We've fluttering between warm and cold, sun and rain and I started really seeing Turkish as a communication tool where before it felt like I was having to pass my thoughts through a complicated cypher. The warmer weather is bringing a whole different kind of lifestyle to Istanbul, the outside is no longer a place to move from one inside to another with as much haste as can be mustered. People linger and lounge outside, everyone's window is open. On walks I notice people leaning from their windows, enjoying the warm air and watching the pedestrians make their progress along the street. My manager at the coffee shop back in California once pointed something out to me, "If you wave at people, they will reflexively wave back." She might have added, unless they're shaking a rug out from a balcony, but that goes without saying really.


This the the back way I sometimes take to and from the school. I love the worn stones with green shoots slowly crumbling their edges. It's places like this that makes Istanbul feel still very wild and open. Like there are still so much that can happen.

March is Almost Over? When did this Happen?

Günaydın and happy Monday from Funky Cafe, now with 33% more love than the next leading basement cafe. You are hereby commanded to watch This Video, it is apparently an accurate portrayal of Turkish men who go clubbing by themselves.

Daylight Savings means dawn is coming early again!

The students here often attempt to make English slang, shortening words and expressions into incomprehensible gibberish. But sometimes it comes out to mean something, and that something is funny. Like students referring to chewing gum as 'chew.'

One of the cafe workers was in a car accident this weekend and we still don't know about his condition, so send those good vibes this way.

Saturday is for Light Content

Today I noticed something new, a plant with small purple flowers that I haven't seen since leaving the midwest six or seven years ago. It's strange that they should be in Istanbul too. The grassy hill near the apartment is covered with them.


Also while I was out walking I came across a pack of cats all playing around this tarp and scaffold. Aren't they adorable?


At home I have a new visiting cat. Here is a blurry picture, but there's not much of her to focus on anyway, she's solid black with those two white puffs.

Istanbul Goes to the Cats; Çok, Yok, and somewhere in between.

Today we were greeted by the warm winds of the Mediterranean, the jackets have come off and windows are opened wide.


There are two words in Turkish that are especially useful but do not translate well into English, however the terms exist in slang. Çok and Yok, pronounced like strangling someone and a harness for an ox, deal with quantity in all it's forms. The closest English comes to çok is the expression 'Hella,' widely used in Northern California. But chok is used even more liberally than this! While it's possible to be hella sorry, you can not say "hella thank you" and make sence to anyone but the most faded stoners. But you can in Turkish! And on top of it, it's grammatically correct.

What does this mean? It means maybe one day the MLA will include "hella" as a combination adverb, adjective, and noun along with dropping either I or me as the confusion will have grown too great. Would you like to go to the store with Bob and I? Why not?

Yok expresses the opposite of çok, instead of quantity it means lack of quantity, but it's use is more limited to physical existence rather than extent and duration. However if someone asks you if you've seen someone, you can reply with his or her name and yok. If someone asks if you have a light, you can say yok.

And now, cats.





Have a good day!

Let's Talk about God, Baby

One of the first questions people seem to ask me when I tell them about Istanbul is how the religious scene looks here. Do people hit the deck when the call to prayer happens? The flag is a crescent and star, Turkey a theocracy? Istanbul is the city were Islam meets Christianity, so it's about time I shared my observations.

Islam
In my neighborhood about one in four women I see walking on the street wear headscarves and I am yet to see a burka. Head over to to the district along the old city wall and the picture is almost reversed. The call to prayer can be heard from just about anywhere in the city proper five times a day, but I haven't seen anyone drop to the street in prayer. I assume people who pray do so in their homes or at the mosques. Apo leaves the cafe on Fridays in the middle of the day to go to the mosque for prayers.
But the city isn't divided, there isn't a social wall between devout and secular, people talk and laugh and walk together. Islam seems very foreign to many Americans, but as the major religion here it's not the first topic of conversation for people. In America I didn't know if my neighbors were Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Mormon, Jehovah's Witnesses or whatever. It's normal enough not to be an override conversation. I had an excellent example of this just the other day, on my walk home there is a flower lady and I sometimes stop and buy a small bouquet. She wore a headscarf, but as the weather warmed up she stopped. Has she rejected Allah and the Prophet? Probably not, it's just a bit warm. Many women here see wearing a headscarf as entirely optional.
There was a strange moment for me when a local described to me in hushed tones some amazing dish she was planning to prepare that involved pork. She spoke of it like a forbidden pleasure, as if ham dinner was bacchic revelry. Perhaps having a type of meat socially tabooed makes it more desirable and people think it tastes better. Maybe some people who move here miss pork but I'm glad I don't accidently get it in restaurants. I'm not Muslim, I just think pork is about as dirty as meat can get.

Christianity
Istanbul, or Constantinople rather, was the center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and there are still Byzantine churches here in full swing. While many of the churches were converted to mosques, the religion was not stomped out of history. I see a few students wearing crucifixes, but whether it's done out of piety or because they listen to black sabbath is something I have bothered to ask. I have seen a few large Catholic churches as well, and they seem to fill their pews. The church I went to is also visited by many non-Christians who light candles and ask Mary for good fortune in the lottery. While nothing I have seen can be described as religious tension or discrimination, there is a bit of assuming that happens. When the topic of religion came up with people they instantly assumed I was a protestant of some type, being from America.

Judaism
I haven't seen anything that I took to be a Synagogue, and I have not seen anyone looking to be orthodox. Maybe I just haven't gone to the right neighborhoods, Istanbul is incredibly varied and will take years to explore.


By and large, religion is not a driving social force Istanbul. Football, music, and flashy consumption all take precedence in people's minds. Social responsibilities are separate from spiritual obligations, etc. Turkey is secular.

Monday is the Happiest Day of the Week

School is back in full swing today, it's really interesting to watch someone's progression with acquiring a language. Like hearing someone say "You too" when you bid them a nice day after months of only receiving "Thank you" in reply. It's enough to make me giddy. This is also the week after midterm exams and everyone is able to let out their breath. By and large the students claim they did horribly. They may be overly modest, but that doesn't seem to be one of the prevailing traits of the young bourgeoisie here.

Turkish, like English, uses lots of exaggeration for humorous expressions. Some are the same, like saying that you are starving when very hungry but a few catch me off guard, such as when a friend of mine told me he was about to lose consciousness after we walked up a hill. He was actually referring to being very hungry, but I thought he had over exerted himself from the climb.

And now a never before seen photograph from Cevahir.


There is no escape. However it is comforting to know there are only as many Starbucks Coffees in Istanbul as there are in and around my home town in California. Then again, that number isn't exactly a low one.

Saturday Afternoon Non-Stop.

Hello from the offices of Mavi Kedi Production, a small design and programming company in Mecidiyeköy. What am I doing here you ask? The founder, Mehmet, is a friend of mine and we share a geeky fascination with computers. It is apparently very rare for small companies like this to even start, let alone show some success. The guys running this are still in college, it's impressive what they've been able to do.


Today I ran all over the place, it was very exciting. Between Cevahir mall and the apartment are all sorts of hills and winding streets, I even stood under the skeletal beginnings of the new Mecidiyeköy high rises. They stand on the side of a hill that runs straight down to the water, making them tower over the district even more. I think walking all the stairs in Istanbul is a new consuming hobby for me.

Saint Patrick's Day, Where's the Irish Cream Coffeemate?

Happy St. Pat's from Turkey, land of Nescafe. There is a distinct lack of Irish influence in the Republic of Turkey, in fact the only people in Istanbul wearing green on purpose might be Jess and Elsa. Yes, I forgot that today was St. Patrick's Day. But I'm not Irish, so keep your kisses to yourself!
Coincidentally today also happens to be a minor holiday at the school. Instead of the usual thousand or so students, only two hundred have to attend today. The result is having a lot of nothing to do. I spoke at length with a student who will be going April first to Washington D.C. As an international relations major the trip should be quite an experience for him. He was telling me that one day he hoped to be a journalist and travel to many countries, experiencing their different cultures. More power to him, everyone wish him luck.
Istanbul has grown cold again, not the bitter freeze and driving winds of the last two months, but enough to make spring still feel a ways down the road. Ceylin was telling me that this time of year is usually marked by perfect weather, pleasant and mild. This week has kept under 10 degrees centigrade (50 Fahrenheit) instead of the promised 20 degrees. (68) Combine that with rain and we're all happy to be working indoors, at least for the next few weeks before things turn really nice.

Today I made enemies with four out of five Turks when I pointed at the newly installed "no smoking" signs. If there is a national vice in Turkey smoking has got to be it. The students are handling it as you would expect a pack of 19 year old kids to; after begging and then taking pictures of themselves posed next the sign with a cigarette on their lips they grudgingly accepted.

Last night instead of my usual trudge down the hill I took a winding route through the neighborhoods, down narrow stairways and hoped along sidewalks that were in the process of sliding down the hill side. The sun was approaching the horizon and I managed to snap this photo of some rooftops. This is back away from the roads where people have to take twisting paths just to get to their front doors, more eclectic styles can be seen here, people with garden sculpture made from discards and the like.



And here's a kitten who watched me from a distance, it had the cutest way of turning it's head to the side. Yes, behold the cuteness.

It's Another Happy Monday Down at Funky Cafe

The Turkish pop music videos are blasting on screens mercifully out of my vision and the students are beginning to arrive at school. The students have little inclination to do any speaking, much less in English at this hour of the morning. On the way up to the Cafe this morning I ran into two very affectionate cats. The first followed me a whole block, even crossing a busy street to keep up with me. I lost him when a cloud of floating seeds like dandelions drifted across the sidewalk and he turned to chase those.

The second sat next to an apartment building's gate and made a funny gesture when I came over to pet it.

Give me some of that luck, lucky cat.

Cevahir be the Death of Me

Today was another big crowded one. I met up with Jess, Elsa, Sam, and Kat for brunch and we seemed to be engaged to have an easy, laid back day but someone suggested, and everyone agreed, to go to the mall. Cevahir mall is huge as I have said before, but this was the first time I really roamed around. With an hour until regrouping and only one thing on my shopping list I plenty of time to see the place. The view from the bottom, while terrifying and enormous is nothing compared to the shear horror and majesty of viewing the mall from the sixth floor. I hope these pictures give you an idea.


We regrouped and headed into Koch Tash, the Turkish equivalent of Home Depot (right down to the same color scheme) and rounded up some gardening supplies and a new set of shelves for the ladies. With the warmer weather they have become determined to turn their now mundane back patio and patches of dirt into a paradise, and they're off to a great start! After a while in Turkey slang has developed where Turkish words are used (and horribly mispronounced) simply because they are everywhere on signs and become easier to use than translating them into English. For instance, as we searched for parking in the car park, we chose a spot because "that one's near the sikis." The word is actually pronounced Chikish but the letter for ch is a c with a cedilla under it, so it seems natural for and English (or French) speaker to interpret it as an s sound. Today I heard Sam referring to the money "New Turkish Lira" as yetles (rhymes with turtles) the abbreviation for the money is YTL, standing for "Yeni Türk Lirasi." I call them Lira, but in a way it makes just as much sense to say Yetle. Here's Sam in line, about to part with some yetles.

The entire mall was very packed today and the car park, while interesting and full of bright LEDs that showed you where there is free space, was also horribly crowded and congested. Finally we freed ourselves from the mall and returned to the ladies' apartment for a fine dinner.

Exotic is What's Shoved in Someone Else's Face Everyday

And it was Fenerbache that got those bragging rights, two to one. But, as a guy from LA who pretends to be British once told me, "Never trust a player wearing white boots." I'm not entirely sure what all that implies, but I'm willing to bet you'll see more players wearing white cleats among Fenerbache.

Today is another normal Friday in Istanbul, I'm making the students listen to Bee Gees and the weather has improved. Despite predictions of rain it is supposed to be warm tomorrow, supporting my claims to Jess and Elsa that everything has been just peachy here while they were away. They will return tomorrow from their trip back to the States.

Last night, as every Thursday night, musicians came to the cafe and played for a few hours. During their performance they requested me to join and I played some folk songs for the students. I never thought these songs would ever be considered exotic, but as they say, "Exotic is outside the location of the locals." Now students are approaching me telling me how good I sounded, of course their vocabularies are limited and knowing how to compliment someone involves difficult word choices. What is the difference between sound and noise? Does the sentence, "I think I hear a noise," actually imply an offensive sound? So I was told that I made a great noise with my mouth, and I suppose I should be grateful for the compliment.

And now something I realized I never did, show you what the money looks like here! It comes in several fabulous colors and every bill has my man Mustafa on it. A side note, Turkish Lira coins have the same size and weight at Euros, though they are worth considerably less. (the .5 Lira piece resembles a 1 Euro coin and the 1 Lira resembles a 2 Euro coin. Exchange rate is about 1.6 Lira to the Euro.) As a result you can find Liras filling vending machines in Europe wherever Turks visit.

Tonight Someone Gets Bragging Rights

Istanbul has three football (soccer) teams, Galatasaray, Fenerbache, and Beshiktash. Beshiktash has never been very good and their fans, while violently in love with their team, aren't really anywhere but right around the stadium. Also like the Oakland Raiders Beshiktash dresses in black and white. But today isn't about Beshiktash so they will not be mentioned again.

As the title suggests tonight is a large match between the two most popular teams in Istanbul, Galatasaray and Fenerbache. All the students are decked out in the colors of their favorite team and many have asked me which team I support. (Galatasaray of course, Fenerbache is nothing but a bunch of mincing rich boys in blue and yellow, but this in no way effects my impartiality as an observer.) In celebration of this momentous event the winds decided to shift and pour freezing rain over the city. I suppose I spoke too soon when I claimed cold weather was a thing of the past. Hopefully the cold spell will pass before Jess and Elsa come back from the states and I will be able to pretend it was perfect the whole time.

When they can't go a-walking people get a-talking. (Oh no! Alex is launching into a lecture about language.)

Late last night rain began to fall, a steady shower that pattered against the pavement and ivy lulling the neighborhood to sleep and driving the street animals to cover. Today I headed out in a light drizzle of rain, the air was clear of the usual traffic smell and the southern breeze was heavy with the smell of the ocean. But after my morning walk I joined the milling throngs and immediately my thoughts began to shift from weather to human interaction and language.

Apo is in formal English lessons now and was showing me his homework, practicing when to use possessive pronouns or their nominative forms. This isn't done in Turkish and seems to confuse many students. If you want to say my friend you say "doste ben" or the contracted form "dostam" incidentally this is the same as Persian:

دوستِ من، دوستم

"Duste man" is contracted to "dustam"
(This is not surprising both languages are Indo-European, not actually Semitic like Arabic or Hebrew, and despite the large amounts of borrowed vocabulary, the structure is far from Arabic. In fact I was told the higher, royal Turkish spoken around the palace resembled Persian very much and was near incomprehensible to speakers of vernacular Turkish.)

Coming back to Turkish and English, we see there are much fewer pronouns in Turkish because they make up for them with suffixes. Being told there is a difference between "I" and "me" is counter intuitive. After all, I am a single entity who who just takes a position in relation to other things, why should there be two words? Because there are in English, and we have "my" and "mine" to confuse us too. "But why?" you ask, "Why the confusion? Is their way better? Is the English speaking world at an evolutionary disadvantage?"

Of course not, our evolutionary disadvantages come from McDonalds and televisions in schools, all languages (at least all the cool ones) have ways to tell if you are doing something to something else or for it, or anything else for which you would use a preposition in English. Like Latin and Ancient Greek many have case systems as well as having the verb reflect it's subject: declension and conjugation. (Some like Sumerian have the verb reflect a whole lot more, but we're ignoring those!) As languages are used and grow and whatnot they go through phases between being complicated in grammar forms and complicated in syntax. So a language will develop a complicated grammar to explain itself, then people will begin slurring everything until it all sounds the same, (take French verbs for instance, parle and parles are pronounced the same.) later people will add new prefixes to their words and reintroduce a more noticeable grammar.

Think about Ancient Greek, you can use your words in just about any order you want as long as you have your ducks in a row as far as declining your nouns and conjugating your verbs in the right voice and person. But remember how confusing Socrates seemed to Meno? It was all the guy could do to reply "ουκ εμοιγε." Besides making philosophers drink hemlock people like Meno liked language very simple and made to fit into an order that required the least amount of thought, putting together the most immediately related words. Mountains of syntactical memorization were replaced by memorized sets of helper verbs and and prepositions, separated from their original structure to form a new one based more on word order and clauses.

Languages are doing this all the time: becoming more complicated in one way, and less in another. Some languages, like Chinese, seem to have no grammar and some languages, like English, seem to have no grammar designed to make communication easier. So where does Turkish fit in this grand scheme? Well, It's a living language meaning the rules are always changing and much that is against the rules still counts as communication. Turkish seems to be on the way out from a system that declined and conjugated everything, verbs are declined more thoroughly than English but many tenses seem to use "helper verbs" like English. Remember, despite how your head feels, learning multiple languages is fun!

Twice the Fun, Half the Time, and Laundry is not Neglected

As chance would have it, yesterday did not end with returning from my after lunch walk, but that was only the beginning. Hasan called me up and I headed down to Beshiktash to meet him and two friends. The whole waterfront is beginning to wake up, more people are about in the warm night air and from many restaurants I could smell fresh fish being cooked. The plan was simple, because a housemate was studying for a law exam they were going to vacate the apartment and go find some dinner. But where to eat? We took a taxi to Taksim, the center of Istanbul nightlife.
The main affair in Taksim is a long twisting avenue closed to automobile traffic that is absolutely jammed with crowds day and night. Plenty of famous restaurants are there and we passed by several before deciding that if it was fish we wanted, maybe we should head down to the waterfront and see how things look. Getting there was an experience, I had only been on Istanbul's more recent metro line, but at the end of the Taksim avenue we entered a large building which turned out to be another metro station, the original Istanbul metro line runs 800 meters and was built shortly after the first London underground, making it the second oldest metro line in the world. The cars are electric now and the damp, stone tunnel is brightened by florescent lighting, but not much seems to have changed. The walls of the station we arrived at were filled with Iznik tiles, reminding me that this metro line, as primitive as it may seem in comparison to modern ones, was built during the time of the Ottoman Empire.
Between Taksim and the peninsula housing Old Constantinople (Sultenahmet) runs a bridge lined with restaurants. Along the road (which is above the restaurants) many people cast lines and fish all day, some have small grills set up and will sell you a fish sandwich right there, though most seem to be taking their catch home. The restaurants are right on the water and in the warm night air the view was incredible. All of Sultenahmet is laid out before you, with only the expanse of night time waters separating you from it. That's definitely the place to have a date on a summer night. And while the restaurants were by no means cheep, they weren't as pricey as you would expect for the view they offered.
After a good fish dinner we went back to Beshiktash, through the now quiet market, and down some residential streets to meet another friend and came back to Mecidiyeköy and played music into the night. My fondness for Turkish folk music is growing more every time I hear it and having a few skilled musicians over for company made this a great weekend before it was even half finished.
Sunday has turned into a blissful laundry day, letting me reflect on last night's excitement while the neighborhood children kick soccer balls against the bars over my bedroom window.

Saturday's Fantastic Photo Journey

To celebrate this new lovely weather I headed out for a long walk around part of a neighborhood I hadn't explored much yet. It is on the other side of Fulya Avenue from me and seems very self contained with all sorts of little shops. It also has the least straightforward roads and most stairways of any neighborhood I've seen. To start the day out I had a great Kabob down at Haci Baba's then walked around the neighborhood until I saw a staircase leading up into adventure and the unknown.



And looking down from the top


This staircase actually has a name, it's "Gül Sokak" meaning "flower street." Along the stairway there are a few shops and a small restaurant. After a steep climb I came to the center of the newly discovered neighborhood, a very beautiful mosque which is probably one of the ones I hear from home every call to prayer.



Stairs lead down behind the mosque to a small patio facing south that gives a wonderful view of the city.











After emerging from around the other side of the mosque I explored the neighborhood a bit more. Because of the warm weather the children were out in force, running around everywhere kicking soccer balls around or just playing tag. This neighborhood seemed a bit more conservative than mine, more of the women wore headscarves and not every convenience store featured alcohol for purchase. I've come to appreciate Islam much more from living here and seeing the values in place within a society.







After a few hours of roaming the afternoon sun went behind the clouds and I turned home, taking as winding and confused route as I could find.





Tomorrow I think I will go see what Beshiktash is like in March.

Teetering on the First Weekend of March

Friday, the great day for reflection upon the work week while tensely awaiting it's close. These last few weeks have seen great improvement in my Turkish, and now some of the students giggle with delight when I speak in a more familiar language. I have been told my accent is good, probably because I have learned phonetically though mimicking the cafe workers. Most communication is done in Turklish, a blend of Turkish and English. When Apo and I come to a halt in communication around a word we usually rattle off the word in as many languages as we know hoping for cognates. This method is yet to work, but we keep at it.
Computers are fairly new to the public in Turkey and they remain a great mystery to most. Think of it as an amplification of the situation in America, where many view computers as magic boxes they can barely control, except computers have been introduced more recently to the masses in Turkey.
The weather continues to be amazing and I have high hopes for exploration during the weekend.

March Does Not Disappoint

The weather here has certainly gotten our spirits up for March. Something must have changed overnight because I went to bed amid drizzling rain and walked up the hill this morning under azure skies with the sun already shining brightly. Check it out:

The taxi in the road was flashing his lights at me trying to get my attention. The wind is warm and birds were singing in the trees as I walked this morning.

An interesting cultural tidbit for you folks back home. Turks play klondike solitaire but add a little something, when they begin a game they make a wish, if they complete the game, the wish will come true. I suppose it teaches people not to get their hopes up for miracles.