Still Having Computer Problems

But this time it's just a matter of waiting. The computer is up and running beautifully, the Apple technicians here are great. Just we're waiting for confirmation that my computer is still protected by it's one year plan. (never mind the applecare plan we bought with it) Since this model is less than a year old, it's more than a bit frustrating to hear that I'll be a few more days without a computer. "Look, it can't be more than a year old! A year ago this model was still on the drawing board!" At least they're letting me visit it in the shop

While You Sleep

Beginning the hike, my favorite stairs.

Today was awesome, I hiked to a part of town I had been meaning to visit, the rich neighborhood. I've been driven through, or road busses, or walked along some of the main streets, but I hadn't yet hiked it's hills and explored its paths, or taken any photos. There was one juxtaposition shot I had been meaning to take for some time. It's not in the richer neighborhood, but at the base of one of the high rises around where I live, but north towards... Levent and Ortaköy, but still in Mecidiyeköy. (I'm really in Şişli I think, well, at the fringe between the two where mail delivery is unreliable) Here is the building from distance.

It was really a perfect summer day. And there was a nice cool breeze that made walking everywhere really great. But back to this building. This requires a bit of explanation, there are two photos, the first is my back to the high rise and I'm looking across the street. People live here, and there is a market.

And this is the face of it.

The fellows were just hanging out next to this monstrous building, what it's there for, what justifies its bigness and their smallness, maybe someone is asking these questions. You see a junk cart pulled up on the side walk in the picture of the houses, fresh finds on it.
Another bit of social consciousness before we get to the pretty pictures, bear with me. I wasn't the only people out an about this Sunday afternoon, most people work on Sunday, it's not a particularly special day, after all, Friday is the day especially reserved for prayer here. As I walked I noticed ahead a family, mother pushing a stroller and two children walking on their own with her, one with a burlap bag over her shoulder. They were generally ignored, police didn't glance at them twice, pedestrians just stepped around them. And they seemed to ignore everyone else for the most part too. They were working and all.

I quickened my pace to stay with them, curious what they were after, they crossed the street to the hotel and went right to the dumpsters. Something I've seen plenty of times before, our school dumpsters are like gold, rich with recyclable plastic water-bottles. Parent lifts child into dumpster, child begins tearing open bags and throwing out anything of value. But this was noticeably different in one way, behind this hotel they went to the dumpsters, but there were biohazard placards up on the walls. Security gave them a glance, but nothing else.

(I couldn't get close enough without being really conspicuous about taking pictures of people I'm supposed to be ignoring so I popped up there this morning to get a closer picture of the dumpsters. They probably don't contain what's kept behind the orange door, but children are doing the sorting here.)

And now the rich neighborhood, only the finest vistas for your viewing pleasure! I hiked the steep paths between the houses and found the walls to climb for the best views, all for you, dear viewer. I wouldn't mind to one day live here, it's a beautiful part of Istanbul.




And these are from my return trip.




The mosque is the one silhouetted by the morning sun in my title graphic. Ya know, in case it looks familiar. And now, something a bit special. This picture is super huge, larger than my normally annoyingly large images. Much larger, 'Where's Waldo' larger, in fact I had to host it on OurMedia.org. Take care when viewing this one, you're best bet it to download it and look at it in a separate viewing application. Here we go. It's a panorama shot of my neighborhood! I live off to the right at the bottom of the big hill. Majestic and marvelous, Fulya Avenue, seen from the roof of Champion Supermarket.

A Taste of What is to Come

Bandwidth runs thin when you like paying the minimal amount, so the photos I took today must wait for tomorrow to be posted, along with their blog entry about hiking around the city.  But, there is one deliciously huge panorama shot I uploaded today.  Fulya as seen from above Champion Supermarket  Be careful with this one, it's absurdly large (you can see all the little details!) so you are probably better off downloading it and viewing in a separate application.  Enjoy, dear viewer!

(ourmedia.org is getting a bit annoying with all the media I upload dissapearing the day after I post. I'll find a new way to host my panorama photos. On the upside all the old media that seemed to have dissapeared has resurfaced)

MayFest 2006

Yesterday was the large student music festival at Baçeşehir University, I knew a student whose band played, and all the students were there, how could I refuse? So I showed up in the late afternoon sporting the kilt, all the way to Beshiktash I enjoyed the ruckus, people pointing, staring, school had just been dismissed so I found myself in mobs of high school students all asking me where I was from and how old I was. I ran into Mehmet on the street, he played guitar and sang at the cafe on Thursday nights, we greeted and chatted about music before parting.
After breaking from the bustling market and crossing the main street (only 15 seconds is given to pedestrians to cross five or so lanes, so you gotta run!) I arrived at the university campus. Security let me through with out the usual questions, it must have been the kilt, and I walked out back to the green along the Bosphorus. Quick re-acquaintances were made with the students I knew, I was introduced to more, and I settled in to watch the bands. My favorite song played was probably 'Love Song' by the Cure, I love hearing which English songs make the set lists for live performances. And Love Song performed by a Turkish woman with a heavy accent is not something to be missed. Between two bands I was asked to take the stage, I was introduced and asked a few questions, then asked to sing a Scottish Song. (Kilt again) The song I picked was Irish actually, but the crowd enjoyed "Whisky, You're the Devil" all the same.
But towards the end of the band with which my student played the weather began to turn sour, I abandoned my sudoku puzzle and started the walk home, hoping it wouldn't start pouring before I got under some shelter. I ran into two more students at the intersection waiting for the fifteen second sprint and they convinced me to come have dinner with them. I had something delicious, and I knew what it was and it was still delicious, something they told me non-turks feared. I had a spicy intestine sandwich and oysters, it was so good. It was your usual bread smeared with spicy tomato sauce, basil, sheep meat, and chopped cow intestines. Delicious!
We parted after eating and I struck off for Mecidiyeköy. Shortly after I arrived home I began to hear the pouring rain along with the occasional thunder clap, so I guess I left just in time!

And the Good News is it's Free

After some computer troubles I was blaming on faulty RAM I discovered at the shop today this computer's motherboard desperately needs repair. Well, it's still fine enough to work, but it's not recognizing one of the slots for RAM or the audio-in port. Fortunately Steve Jobs loves me for choosing Apple since 1983 and the repair is free. This is also because the one year warranty is still in effect. So come Monday, dear powerbook o' mine goes under the screwdriver and solder iron.

But today we have photos from my walk to school this morning. I've been leaving a bit earlier to enjoy the cool morning air. After the winter months of never seeing the sun, I wouldn't have guessed I'd purposefully be avoiding it, but the summer heat isn't something I want to climb hills in, even at seven-thirty in the morning. So six-thirty it is!




Well, it's Friday tomorrow, school might be almost done, but some of us still get up before dawn! Good night!

The Heat's On

Wow, these last couple days we've seen a steady rise in temperature.  No doubt about it now, summer is here.  The bright sky and warm nights are offset by the terrible humidity.  Not American midwest levels, but it's still enough to necessitate two showers every day and keep sleep away until nearly midnight.
A new snack is being peddled on the streets of istanbul.  Those gas grills for roasting hazelnuts in the winter have been refitted to boil pots of water for corn on the cob!  I haven't seen anyone standing around eating it yet, but maybe it's a quick lunch for people on the go.  Besides the large number of flags for sale on May 19th it's just been the usual men sitting next to open suitcases filled with wallets and belts (all genuine Italian leather, honest) or popular novels, or now Galatasaray Champion 2006 flags.  Really, almost all shopping can be done on the street.  Now fruit and vegetable vendors have hand drawn carts, wooden bins displaying their produce and scales and weights ready to portion them out for you.  You can buy bus tickets, lighters, and individual cigarettes from a man sitting on the median.  Another hot item sold on the streets is a screwdriver that comes with changeable heads, only four lira, baby.
From the children, yes there are children vendors, the most common thing is packs of tissues, which are given more like how candy is given by salvation army Santas.  Give more than 50 kurush and you'll probably get some tissues.  You also might get an insult yelled at you if you don't give an amount befitting a westerner.  That boggles me.  Children also sell suras printed on a hearty card stock.  The first time I encountered this I thought he was just handing out fliers.  What a child might be handing out fliers for never crossed my mind, but the way eye contact was made fleetingly and a paper was pressed to my hand provoked my usual post rock concert reaction, pick it up and look at it.  Then I realized he was murmuring over and over, asking me please mister for some money.  Ack!  I had a fifty, but no change, I apologized and handed it back to him.  It's embarrassing, and probably didn't look very good, rejecting Islam and charity in one blow.  I walked for a week with a couple lira coins in my pocket hoping I'd see him again, but he's moved off these streets.

Why did the Bureaucrat Cross the Road? To get to the next window!

But seriously, folks.  Today I made my third monthly trip to the Telekom office to pay my Telephone and ADSL bill.  The grandeur of Türk Telekom's bureaucracy is an awesome spectacle, there are easily five floors open to public, many lines, and desk after empty desk, their occupants taking smoke breaks in the stair well.  This visit was different, after having my ADSL cut after a few months with no bill (which required a visit to telekom and the paying of late fees) I was determined to have the balance paid, even though I held no bill for the service.  And to get a receipt!  This actually turned out to be easier than I thought.  After paying the telephone bill for which I did have a receipt, the tea man was able to make sense of my gibbering, "Ben telefon ve ADSL var, ama ADSL fatura yok.  Bu numero telefon ADSL var."

And he lead me around to another room where a man sat in front of a screen saver, talking on the phone.  I thanked the tea man, he went on to complete his rounds and I waited for the telephone call to end.  The phone call never ended, at one point he placed his hand over the receiver and asked me what I needed.  I pointed at my phone bill and repeated my gibberish.  The screen saver disengaged, he typed in my phone number, on my bill he wrote the number that appeared on the screen, and pointed back at the line I had just cleared.

As I stood waiting to reach the man who would trade me a receipt for my money I got to wondering why exactly the second man was needed.  But I had best not raise this question, Turkey has a very austere, dignified bureaucracy with offices of wood paneling and frosted glass.  They sip their tea, offer you one, and push at their keyboards, keeping a relaxed pace.  This works well with other elements of Turkish society, the ones that cut as many lines and try to circumvent as many hurdles as possible.  I am sure there are those, on both sides, who make a game of these interactions inside the giant filing cabinets of Turkey.

A fun bit of Faux Pas in Turkey, and one I didn't notice until it was told to me a few nights ago.  Turks love to smoke, heck, probably four out of five people in Turkey over the age of 15 smoke.  Smoking is everywhere, in every restaurant and every club, but only men smoke while walking down the sidewalk.  It's not a public thing, women will sit on cafe patios and puff away, or they will lean against a rail and puff.  But they wouldn't be caught dead smoking while walking.  Why?  I'm told that women who smoke and walk look like prostitutes.  Now, I've never looked into it much, but the prostitutes I've seen tend to stand around on corners, not moving while they smoke.  So yep, one of those inexplicable Faux Pas to avoid in Turkey if you're a women who enjoys her tobacco.

Well, so long from the land where my laundry detergent smells vaguely like the gummy candy, swedish fish.

The Istanbul El Torrito

I had a dream a few nights ago.  I was cutting into a warm flower tortilla wrapped around beans and guacamole, it was so good, everything I wanted right then.   But right at the hight of my illusionary food experience I awoke, hungry and dismayed.  Turkey doesn't have mexican restaurants, there isn't even taco bell.  But the dream was gone quickly, and it doesn't re-enter this story for several paragraphs.
What happened last night was a long time in bringing about.  One of the teachers and I have been meaning to go out and chat and spend some time together.  We talk at school, sure, but that's always the passing and momentary kind of chatter.  We seem to talk well with each other, always having stuff to make each other laugh, so why not magnify it into an evening?  But we didn't leap at this, no, it must have been two months ago we decided to have a little adventure together, sometime.
On to this weekend, a three day weekend from school, the perfect time!  Now, I love walking and seeing new parts of Istanbul, and we did plenty of both yesterday evening.  Swapping stories about adventure in Istanbul, the prejudices we both had coming here, what we think of Turkish lifestyle, etc.  Our mission was a restaurant, but our selection was limited, no Turkish food, no fish.  Why no Turkish food?  You ask.  Because we've both eaten so much we're growing sick of it, that's why!
The exciting places weren't open yet, and as we walked I began to feel a bit desperate, would we find a non-Turkish, non-fish establishment walking along the Bosphorus?  The options were places like Blackk, one of the hippest places, where everything inside is black, even the washroom.  It's so hip that you bump into furniture, destroy your eyes trying to see where you were walking, and must navigate the bathroom by smell alone.  We didn't go to Blackk.
As we walked my heart sank lower, maybe we should just hit a kebab place, but my companion turned to me.  "Hey, do you like mexican food?  There's an El Torrito's here."  Music to my ears, the dream came rushing back bringing with it waves of saliva.  It was decided, El Torrito, the franchise mexican restaurant I remember going to a few times in Sacramento near the Arden Fair Mall.  There is one in Istanbul, in fact it is right next to T.G.I. Friday's.  Now, it was fun hearing the Turkish waiters try to pronounce Spanish words, (Tortilla and Fajita get mangled) but the food was the same as in my dream.  And it was delicious!
Good exercise, good food, good company, heck it was an excellent evening.

National Windmill Day: In Theaters Now

So I've finished composing, editing, and uploading this five minute beast.  The feline board of directors have passed it, Gokçe watched it all, it's ready for your discriminating audio/visual palate.  Uncle Kit, if you're reading this, I think I know why you chose video editing as a career, it's so fun!  Composing this little video has been fantastic, expect more coming.

It's page on the Internet Archive.

Oh, Those Summer Nights

On many of the trees in my neighborhood small white flowers are blooming, they hang in bunches like grapes and have a strong sweet fragrance.    When the sun sets and the breeze washes down the hill, their perfume is carried into my room on waves of cool air.  With the warm nights and dependable weather the night life has really gone full-tilt.  The entire dynamic of this city has shifted since the winter.

Today is also May 19th, a National Holiday in Turkey, where the city is draped in red flags.  On Cevahir Mall a four-story banner of the man himself, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, covered the face of the building where people entered.  Now, some people may speculate huge religious tension at this point, heck, this year the big National Holiday falls on Friday, the Muslim day of prayer.  And one of the republics foremost judges was assassinated by a man calling himself a warrior of Allah.  There is some shake up, but I didn't see anything out walking today that seemed out of place, no crowds avoiding other crowds or such.  There may be some shake up coming soon in the political arena.

The current government (prime minister, et all) has roots in being more Islamist than might be expected in a secular republic.  After all, when bird flu hit, his comment was that the issue would be brought up in Friday's prayers.  So we're seeing some calls for resignation coming from opposition parties.  We'll see how this one goes, it's probably just going to be politics heating up with the weather, but who knows?

Bugün Funky Cafe Çok Boş

I'm feeling especially Turkish today.  Maybe because I'm counting the minutes in an empty cafe with no one but Gokçe and Apo to keep me company.  We have fun and joke around in our hybrid language, but today I felt a bit more confident speaking Turkish to them.  One of these days I'm sure I'll get the hang of this language.  After al, they all say it's easy!  Apo's English has increased phenomenally in these last few weeks.  I guess the classes he's been attending have born fruit.

The hottest new music video in Turkey is called www.bombabomba.com it is played almost every hour on PowerTurk, our music video station.  If you go to bombabomba, you'll see it's an online dating service, I guess the song is about the luck the singer has had through this website.  Meeting people over the internet seems to be incredibly popular in Turkey, or at least in Istanbul.  Most emails I see sent by the workers sat the cafe are replies to personals, and many hours are logged oogling profile photos.  When I hear my name urgently repeated I know it's time for me to do some computer magic, send email, upload photos, or change their MSN picture to something sexier than a flower.

We have no more news about the shooting, but the investigation may reveal larger mechanisms at work, one friend told me.

Tomorrow the school will be closed, so we get to say "iyi tatillar" early.

Just in

We're gathered around the televisions, in Ankara there has been an attack on the highest court in the country, the Danıştay.  We're not sure if anyone has died, but the television is saying two judges were severely injured, BBC says one killed.

Update: The shooter was a lawyer born in the east of Turkey. He used a gun that was undetected by the x-ray machines so he was able to enter the court without raising suspicion. The shooting took place in a 5th floor meeting salon, one judge was killed, five wounded. The assassinated judge had made a controversial ruling to further restrict public employees (school teachers) from wearing hajibs. Turkey's EU bid certainly lost points because of this, it makes the country seem unstable with many security problems. There is still doubt whether this is motivated by and extremist perspective of Islam or by far right nationalism.

Thanks to my friend Ozan in Ankara for giving details and analysis.

Tea and ...Pickup Lines?

I don't know if I've directly stated this.  There is so much tea in Turkey, wherever you go tea is served and some of the people drink upwards of twenty cups a day.  Tea is made by mixing hot water with very strong tea that is left brewing.  This way people who want light tea just get less concentrate and more water, dark tea is made with more concentrate.  Sugar is added in abundant quantities, most people stir it into their tea, but some place a cube in their mouths and sip their tea letting it mix that way.  Wherever you go, if you have to wait a moment you will be offered tea, be it at the Telekom office, booking a flight, or just hanging out waiting for a package to be delivered.

A bit of entertainment for you.  I found this page in Apo's practice conversation booklet.  I couldn't stop laughing!  Especially the, "No, let's remain friends," line.  Wheee!  ESL doesn't get better than this!

Ceylin's Picks

A good friend of mine in Istanbul, Ceylin, has saved my butt so many times when it comes to knowing how things work in Turkey, or getting an idea across in Turkish. She also adores animals, cats in particular, and collects pictures of the cutest ones. Here I will be posting a collection of her favorite pictures. New link on the sidebar to make checking it easy!

16 May 2006

Championship Aftermath

Two nights ago the championship was decided. Galatasaray is on top of the league after beating Fenerbaçe at the stadium near my house. Sleep was impossible, football is the most important thing here and the hometown was engaged in an all night celebration/riot, fireworks and everything. The next day at school tensions were high, there are very loud supporters for both sides and one of the workers in the cafe started playing bedlam-inducing Galatasaray victory music. But today the jerseys are off and people have larger problems over which to worry, like final exams.

National Windmill Day, Recap

((I wrote this over the corse of my trip back to Istanbul, and posted today to use the University bandwidth for uploading.))




Thirty something hours after arriving on the train platform I am back in Schiphol airport with an hour to kill before boarding time. National windmill day certainly lived up to expectations. I was told by one miller that seven thousand windmills were turning at that time in the Netherlands, pretty impressive given its size. The town I stayed in, Schiedam, has the tallest old style windmills in the country (perhaps in the world.) Here is one I went in.


The wind was really blowing that day and the sun was bright, perfect windmill weather I assume. All these large windmills were built next to canals, which in itself doesn't say much, most of the Netherlands is built next to canals. It was beautiful though, seeing the water lap against the base of the windmills, all lilly pads and glistening ripples. This photo was taken through the planks of the windmill deck.


The miller in the first mill was a really excellent guide. He told us the different types of wood used in the gears, how long (sixty years) a set of gear teeth would last with daily use, and other fun little things about production capacity and operation. This is a picture of him stopping the windmill sails.


And this is when he took us around to the front of the windmill and showed us how the sails are removed or fettered for high winds. Looking up at the sails is dizzying, which is made even more so by standing on a deck of widely spaced beams.


And here is the super tourist, one day in the Netherlands and I'm wearing wooden shoes!


These are the stairs inside the mill, worn down by generations of millers with wooden feet.


This is (supposidly) not how people dress everyday in the Netherlands.


This windmill had a choir singing outside. The sign says "Spider House Street"




And here is the rail station on Sunday morning, saying goodbye to Scheidam.


Soon to come, National Windmill Day, the movie. I'm assembling and editing right now, preparing only the best multimedia for your vicarious living needs!

The Netherlands Trip: Part One

Starting things off, I'm off the planes quicker than I imagined, so I get to type this while I wait for my train. Schiphol Airport is like a small city, this place actually has buildings with their own roofs and everything about the hand railings, and lighting made to look like street lamps gives the impression that whoever designed this wanted to make an outdoor train station / shopping mall that would also hold out the rain.
Obviously some things here have already struck me as odd, like the giant hanging banner declaring a set of benches to be a "Meeting Point," Like saying, by the arrivals, or by the Burger King wasn't good enough. All you have to say now is, "I'll see you at the meeting point." And this is understood. Moving on, the number of smashedtogetherwords that are borrowed from English, like creditcard, which will probably be canonized by the MLA in a few years. And my train ticked which gives me a special discount because I'm a Weekendretour which we just assume is short for, I'm going to return on the weekend. So this is more like smashing English 'weekend' and French 'retourner' into one word. Things only seem to be getting stranger from here. But it's all strange in a fun, non-threatening way, I'm just chuckling to myself saying, "I'm here, this is what the Netherlands are like."
Now some horrible noise is pumping through the plaza, it sounds like a train stuck in neutral, maybe it's a friendly reminder that trains are about to depart. But no one seems to notice it, so I'll just pretend like I know what it means too. On second thought I think they start this sound around ten thirty (it's been going on for twenty minutes now) and keep it playing all night to make it absolutely impossible to fall asleep in the terminal. As droning as this noise it, it's about as relaxing as flushing bags of gravel. Maybe the speakers are just broken and they're supposed to be announcing train departures.
So, about the trip here... I love the Havash service in Istanbul. For about seven dollars (10 Lira) I took the metro to Taksim and hopped onto a very posh bus that drove me right to the international departures. This beats 40 lira in a hot, smelly cab any day. While waiting for the bus to take off in Taksim I saw a façade being done for a new pub, "TaXimus." I only assume they're playing on "Maximus" trying to inspire some whirling aura of Russell Crow and all things maXimum and eXtreme. But soon the bus was moving and I was bouncing along the familiar route I took in February, when I last flew from Istanbul, that time to Cyprus. Only this time I was doing it in the daylight and Istanbul is in full bloom. Around the mosques were green trees, making the domes and minarets appear to float above the lush foliage. As usual the bus passed through the old aqueduct, once used to carry water, now conveniently divides traffic lanes.
The terrible noise belching through the plaza just stopped. I feel somehow let down now that I can hear footsteps and people talking. It's now eleven, perhaps it's just some kind of half hour test of the PA, (gotta make sure they can really grate and annoy!)
More about the flight, Zürich is a beautiful city, it was just gorgeous to land there. Fields of some yellow flower, and stands of trees that weren't leveled to make way for more apartment buildings and strip malls. It's like the entire city was landscaped by a giant who liked those Lionelle model train villages. Swiss airlines is great fun too! They have good cheese and cucumber sandwiches and all announcements come in English, French, and German making half the flight seem to be announcements. Oh, and they give you chocolate!
My train leaves in fifteen minutes now. I just downed an largesoftdrink so I think I'm goodtogo for another few hours. We'll see how National Windmill Day goes tomorrow, and maybe I'll get fitted for some wooden clogs!

On the train. I love the sound of a quiet train, I'm sharing this car with one other person, it makes me a bit nervous, hoping I picked the right train to hop, but it seems to have all the markings and appearance of a Sneltrein and left from the right platform at the right hour to be the one I want. Now I'm rocking back and forth as the train plows into the night. When I landed at Schiphol every building seemed have it's own personal lake, there is even a body of water right before the tarmac that reflects the image of the landing planes.
From the air, this section of Amsterdam seems to consist of oil refineries and warehouses, built up from the water on little interconnected islands. Everything seems to be a string of islands more than it seems land interspersed with water. The water make the necessary borders. To plug one of my favorite electronic artists this train ride reminds me of Chessie's album, 'Overnight.' It's a cool double LP that I didn't really get from my train travel in America, but here with more track switches and in general more textures and noises added to the rocking motion of the train, while I can enjoy it in silence... it's quite a rhythmic experience.
I'm beginning to wonder if anyone is going to collect the tickets. I'm sitting in one of the first cars, but every thing about this experience has made it seem this train is running itself, right down to arriving and leaving right as the second hand reaches twelve. Yes, everything except prior experience and reason.
And now something is coming over the intercom in what I can only assume is Dutch. Having never been exposed to the language in such a closed environment I can only say it makes me think of German being pronounced like French. We're stopped again, Leiden Centraal, tonight's destination is slightly less than half an hour down the tracks. This is incredible exposure to The Netherlands. Arriving in the middle of the night and navigating through a world that seems populated only by a janitorial staff, late night food places, and a few quiet travelers wearily turning newspapers lets me sit back and look at the environment that will (presumably) be crowded in a few hours. The trains run on time, Burger King doesn't have extra large drinks, there was a duty free store selling tulip bulbs that was still open at 10:15 PM. How's this for first impressions?

So, it's now 9:22 AM the following day. (wait, 8:22 local time, I'm still running on Istanbul time) After being picked up and driven back to my friends' home we stayed up talking nearly until dawn. It's amazing how much three people can find to speak about with each other. Holland doesn't have very much space, houses are all built touching, circling their entire block. The cool upshot of this is everyone has a back yard that seems nice and secluded from traffic noise. Their house dates back from the nineteen-thirties which is a bit of a rarity as much of the region was bombed to rubble in the second world war. And just down the street from us there is an old windmill we will be going to tour in about an hour. I hopped an open wireless network that I found to post this update. Lots of pictures coming in the next!

Details, details

Tomorrow I fly to Amsterdam for a weekend vacation, trading one city built around a water way for another. My final stop will actually be Rotterdam, were I will be visiting friends. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and post my Misadventures in Rotterdam, as short as they may turn out to be.
It's funny, I tell myself that by traveling and seeing more of the world I break down stereotypes and such. As it turns out, this Saturday is 'National Windmill Day' in The Netherlands, so much for idealism! Regardless, this trip is going to be a bunch of fun, I'll tell you all about it when I return on Sunday.

And take a look at this half-time footage from the big Galatasaray/Beshiktash match. This sort of police phalanx is completely normal, along with people setting the stands on fire and police guarded barricades being put between fans of rival teams. To reiterate a statement I made months ago after watching my first match in Turkey: "Now you might think sports are big in the US, but matches in Turkey are more important than Politics, War, and Sex combined."

See you Sunday!

Update in Photos

Hi folks! Sorry I haven't posted in a few days, but to make it up to you, here is an exciting photo collection!

Cat View


Two Cats


Three Cats


Here's Gokçe playing the fabulously addictive game N.



This is one of the buildings on the hill, and it's streetlight. I really wonder how the mail is delivered here. The paths around here are are narrow and steep.



Conversations are very animated in Turkey, even while talking on the phone Apo will gesture furiously and even pound the table. A photo simply wouldn't do this justice, behold!

I'm Ready for the Week! Wait, it's Friday?

Hello, happy Friday! Yesterday I had one of these moments that don't attract a second glance here (even if they're a bit rare) but would make the papers back in California.


Buy some fresh produce, right off the cart. He was just leading his horse along and every few meters stopping to shout his prices for all to hear. I took some pictures trying hard not to look like a tourist.

But the cats knew, they could smell the wowed tourist vibe. This one, usually running up for petting, offered me tea and tried to sell me a carpet that was drying over a near-by rail. Failing that he tried to give me folk dancing lessons.



So, after a full night's sleep, I'm ready... for the weekend!

Me Alex. Me like Turkey.

I realized walking home the other day that I've been in Turkey for over five months now. It's become very normal for me, I haven't seen a Del Taco in nearly half a year and no nervous breakdowns have resulted. When I was in the club 'Numb' I had a brief encounter with another American, from Indiana, he had recently arrived in Istanbul and was still coping with the shock of how things worked. He was 23, recently finished higher education in restaurant management and seemed enthusiastic about the possibilities ahead of him in Turkey. I never caught his name, or gave him mine.
There is something funny about being in an expatriate community as large as Istanbul's. People become much more involved in their conversations with each other, as speaking English casually and freely with someone outside an immediate circle of friends is something of which many people here do not have the luxury.
Fortunately great mother internet has provided me with a rich bounty of communication in my first language and I haven't regressed into Conan the Barbarian speak.

And now, Cats!

Happy Birthday Gokçe!

It's May first and that means today Gokçe, the one woman at Funky Cafe, turns 19!  She does all the mundane, thankless work involved with ordering and keeping products in stock.  She also sits with me during the boring stretches and plays video games and practices using English.  Tomorrow is her mother's birthday and they celebrate with cake together.  I suppose this makes Gokçe the best birthday present her mother ever had.  Happy Birthday!

Monday's at Funky Cafe are always quiet.  The weekend schedules still weigh heavy and most people aren't quite ready for anything beyond class.  So this means more English practice and video games for us.