The End.

I’m back in Cincinnati.

So I am somewhere a few hundred miles west of Limerick and Cork, Ireland, cruising at 32,000 feet and listening to some Kenan Doglu over the roar of the wind outside. I decided I couldn’t wait until I landed to write about the end of my Turkish summer.

I don’t really remember what I wrote last night, because I was running on no sleep. I’ll fix it up when I get home, because I’m sure there’s some sense to be made of it. The long and short of it is last night was a busy night for all of us. I didn’t finish packing until around 4:00am, and ended up getting maybe 30 minutes of sleep on one of the couches. Dane was on the other one, and Michelle was on one of the spare beds, because the original plan was to stay up all night watching movies and eating snacks. Turns out exhaustion won the day for all of us. I set my alarm for 5:00, and we all were up by 5:30. I had to leave a lot more than just my pillow and towel behind. As I sit here writing this, I’m actually worried that I’ll never be as happy again as I was this summer. I know I usually don’t like acknowledging stuff like this, but I honestly can’t help it this time.

Dane caught a cab with Rachel from Süperdorm, and Michelle and I followed after I ran to the taxi stand and had them come pick us up. The driver opted to bungee the trunk shut rather than put Michelle’s suitcase in the back seat with her duffle. I said “I think there’s room on the back seat…” and he got offended and said “Believe me.” He also drove very fast. We were going about 145km/h, which I think is about 90mph on the highway. Fortunately it’s Saturday, and it was 6:00am, and there was literally no traffic. Six o’clock is the time of day where the garbage men change shifts. That’s a pretty good indication that the city’s dead. We drove past a bunch of ironic highway exit names, like “Bahçelievler,’ which means “Houses with yards/gardens,” but actually was a housing project. Anyway, I got a kick out of that. The sun was just coming up behind us. It was really nice.

When we got out, I paid the driver (it was really cheap, actually) and this guy came up and started stacking our bags onto a cart. Turns out he wasn’t an airport employee, and was going to charge us 10 YTL to cart the bags across the street, literally 25 feet. I was like no way, and we grabbed our shit and took it ourselves. His “cart” was actually a rented cart that we could have gotten ourselves for maybe 2 YTL. Thieves. Inside we met up with Dane and Rachel and waited in the security line. Then we waited another 15 minutes for our counter to open up so we could check in. While we were waiting Doruk showed up. He’d just dropped his cousin off and stuck around to say goodbye. It took longer than he expected, because the line for check in lasted about 30 minutes. Dane, Michelle, and I managed to check in together and get seats in a row, but Dane was across the aisle, which sucked because the plane was loud and it was hard to talk across it.

After checking in we headed to some duty-free shops to not buy stuff. I got a Coke because I was practically dead, and we sat at a cafe in the terminal and enjoyed the seats. I think that’s when we realized we weren’t in Istanbul anymore. Michelle wanted simit, and the Gloria Jean’s didn’t have it. They didn’t have Turkish coffee, either. What the hell? Did we step through the Stargate, starring Kurt Russell? We downed our shit because our flight was going to start boarding soon, and we still had to go through immigration.

Turns out the Turks are very good at stamping shit (I should have known) and we got through that in less time than Fatih Bey took to bring out our tea at lunch the other day. We waved goodbye to Doruk and set off toward our plane. There were some cute kids on the moving sidewalk walking against the flow, so I did too. After the cops finished beating me, Michelle carried me to the gate and we got on the plane. It was a really enjoyable flight. I slept a bit, watched some stand-up on my laptop with Michelle, and played some music. Our breakfast on the plan was, for lack of a better term, French. Michelle said it best when she said “Of all the food I’ve seen this summer, this is the most foreign.” We had cheeses, which were decent (meaning I liked them. I don’t know shit about cheese, other than it goes well with crackers, Gromit), a croissant, and some kind of jerkey meat thing for which the stewardess didn’t know the English name. We hit some rough patches, but we managed to get through it with no yapin’ in the pantalomlar.

Michelle had to remind me several times that the French people on the plane, while maybe not speaking English, could probably recognize a bad French accent and mocking tone when they heard one. Also that the woman next to us spoke English. And Turkish. It was odd, randomly she asked us where we were from, in a really American accent. I asked her where she was from, and she said she was Turkish. Later on, when she asked me the time, and I answered in Turkish, she repeated it with a heavier American accent than I have. It was spooky. Maybe she’s CIA. Yeah, I’ll tell myself that. I suggest you all do the same. The long and short of it was that none of us really felt like speaking English, and since we were now out of Turkey, Turkish became less of a language and more of a code. It was fun. I totally said “Are you masturbating?” to Dane in the concourse in France. Again, Michelle had to remind me that the people in front of us were Turks.

I know I wrote great deal about Charles De Gaulle Airport last June, but I feel like I should reiterate a few points. First of all, the place is a shit hole. It’s been under construction longer than I’ve been a confirmed Catholic. No progress was made, I don’t think. We arrived at the same terminal that I did last time. I had flashbacks, which led me to say some choice words about the place. I was probably a really whiny little bitch the whole time. Sorry Dane and Michelle. I think I might have crossed the line while we were waiting for a shuttle bus when I said “Where the fuck are the buses? Did a mob of angry students burn them?” I have to say, though, there was a cool moment on one of the buses where someone’s phone rang and the ringer was “Run Run Rudolph.” For those of you who suck ass, that’s the song from Home Alone’s airport scene. Yeah, you know, where they’re trying to catch a flight to Paris? Sorta like that. Secondly. (sorry, I know that was a long break between “first of all” and “secondly,” but try and stay with me) the security measures were annoying as shit. I know, I know, the news. I read it. But they wouldn’t even let Michelle bring her Chapstick on the flight (albeit 5 tubes of it), which seems a bit excessive. Even if the first confiscations were understandable, with the exception of my Orbits gum (an outrage!), they still sold parfumes and all that other “forbiddened’ shit at the shops beyond the securty checkpoint, so a lot of people were just buying more there thinking it would be okay since they got it at the airport and it was known to be safe. WRONG! I went through two more security checks before I got to my gate. Two. So that’s two bag searches and a questionnaire.

I would have easily missed my flight, but it ended up being delayed by an hour and a half. Hooray? It was before the second security check that the worst part of my summer had to happen. I had to part ways with Michelle and Dane. It happened really fast, too, which sucked. I was running late for the flight, and the security guy was bugging me to keep moving. We hugged, falan, and I had to stow that baggage away until I was safely on my flight. Seeing them walk away was really hard, like this whole summer was some mean trick that was being played on me by an eccentric billionaire, and I’m never going to have this much fun ever again. Michelle gave me her little blue plastic footies that we got at the first checkpoint as a parting gift. She threw them and almost hit a businessman in the face. It was fairly awesome. I’ll probably miss them just as much as I’ll miss the city, if not more. And the whole time, we were wishing Kent would randomly show up and say “Hey, yeah, so I was just at the duty-free shop…” But Kent yoktu. Happy fucking birthday, you fool. Be sure to visit Princeton Prep! (Sen biliyorsun…) I think my battery is about to die, so I will conclude this from the comfort/seclusion of my basement later on. I can’t believe it’s over. This is going to hurt…

Alright, back home safe and sound. Not that you could have been able to tell…nevermind. I’m here. The flight was really bumpy from Newfoundland onward. I watched “The Sentinel,” which sucked, and then the classic “Sneakers,” which continues to rock to this day. I also finished Michelle’s copy of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” which was really sad, but I had bigger fish to fry. I didn’t cry on the flight back, which amazed me. I think I was just trying to stay busy, or something. I felt like it, though, I got that really weird feeling in my stomach. I get the feeling that missing Istanbul is going to be one of those grinding things that doesn’t come all at once.

I was totally missing the chewing gum come landing time. I managed, eventually, to pop my ears by yawning and swallowing air. I only had 3 new voicemails when I turned my phone on. I guess that’s expected. Who would have called me that didn’t know I was gone? One of them was the same lady that calls my phone all the time. She left a message 3 days ago after being in a car accident. Nice. So, I hope she ended up alright. Whatever, she called me so many times during the dead of winter while I was walking back with my hands full from Chipotle that I honestly don’t care.

Customs was no problem. They didn’t search me at all. They asked me if my form was right in saying my total gift value was $150. Bingo. Hepsi bu. I was kind of disgusted by the amount of human I saw piled into each skin while I was in line. Totally miss the Turkish lasses. Also the accents sounded really heavy, probably because a lot of the English I heard in Turkey was British or Northeastern US, obvious exceptions aside (my own voice, Michelle, Dane, Osvaldo, Ali…actually a lot of people). Maybe I just forgot how people spoke here. I got through and met up with my mom, who surprisingly didn’t say “you need to shave.” She told me she thought she had seen my friend Ajay upstairs a minute earlier, and I wanted to say “Mom, please. I know there were plenty of Indians on my flight, but they aren’t all my friends,” but I remembered Ajay telling me he would get home Saturday. While we were upstairs at the baggage claim, I happened to glance to my right and saw him standing there. WHAT A COINCIDENCE LOL!

Dinner was LaRosa’s. That means nothing to 99.9% of you, but you should Google that shit and then come to Cincinnati to try it. I decided against my better judgment to see The Ballad of Ricky Bobby with the guys, and I actually had to be shaken awake by Pat a couple of times. It’s good to be back in my house, where I can pass out without fear of being hit by a car. Most of the time. Michelle called to let me know that she was forced to eat some Turkish Delight she’d bought to prove that it wasn’t poisonous. I realized today that if it hadn’t been for the terror threat, I would have absolutely missed my flight from Paris. Weird how things work out. I need sleep, so I’m going to go do that so I can get up at noon and eat Skyline Chili with the Nati Crew. Peace out. I miss it already.

Türkiye’den ayrilacagim…

So this will be my last post from Istanbul, and I should preface it by thanking all of you for taking an interest and actually taking the time to read this blog all summer. You all have actually kept me motivated to stay on top of keeping in touch, and I hope I’ve managed to keep you entertained or have made you want to come visit this city. It might sound corny, but this is a place that I’ve been able to call home without feeling like a tool. That’s saying something. Cincinnati, DC, and Istanbul. I haven’t gotten out much.

Last night we hit up the karaoke bar again, albeit with depleted numbers and that raincloud that is our flight out of here hanging over our heads. But despite all that, we managed to have a blast. We met up with Doruk again after being almost an hour late. We had hit up the DVD shop, where I bought Starship Troopers, The Fifth Element, The Lion King, and Chicken Run with Turkish dubbing. Come on, you apes, you wanna live forever? Kent, Tugçe, and I had some red wine (called Bull’s Blood) before we all took cabs to Taksim with Brad and Michelle. We went to Saray Muhallebicisi with Doruk for the last time, and Michelle and I split a slice of “pembe pastasi” (her words, not mine). It’s raspberry cake that has some pink frosting and a bit of heroin mixed in, it’s pretty fantastic.

We got to the karaoke bar after saying goodbye to Doruk, who is apparently going to see us at the airport tomorrow, and tried to get into the bar. We were stopped when Michelle realized she’d left her ID at the dorm, and the bouncer, possibly for the first time since we’ve gotten here, gave a shit. I told him she was my “abla,” or older sister/term of endearment for a girl older than you. I figured this would work since he had already seen that I’m twenty, so logically, she’d be older than me. Apparently not, as he said that the police could come and ask for IDs and if she didn’t have one the bar would get busted and she would go to a Turkish prison for the night. The manager of the club came out to talk to us, and told us the same thing in perfect English. She said that if we had an ID, any female ID, she could get in. We called Jill, who was partying elsewhere on Istiklal, and she hurried over and gave Michelle her swimming pool pass for Bogaziçi. It worked. Also, there is no cover charge on weeknights. We could have sung all night for free. I bought a beer because I almost felt guilty having so much fun for free.

We started shit off with Rock the Casbah, and we progressed to other stuff…including Bulls on Parade by Rage Against the Machine, which Brad and I totally rocked. I will start posting the photos ASAP. I accidentally chose the wrong Mexican song for Kent, and he and Brad ended up trying to sing “Bamboleo” by the Gypsy Kings, which was generally hilarious. There were some guys behind them singing along decently, so I asked him in Turkish if he knew Spanish, and he said in English “we are Italian!” So I said “Help them! Help!” They did, and it was really cool. Afterwards Brad spoke Portuguese with one of them.

An unforgettably hilarious event occurred shortly thereafter, when the bartender came out from behind the bar and handed Michelle a thick binder, like the other songbooks, but with one difference: it was full of Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese songs. When we realized what it was, we had to go set it down on the bar and lean on it to keep from falling over, we were laughing so hard. I dared her to sing one, but she “didn’t know the words.” As if that would stop a hero! I even offered to whine along rhythmically in fake tones and everything. No dice, maalesef.

Michelle and I wanted to get Kent something for his birthday, (which is Sunday, and is his 20th. My baby’s all growed up.) and Michelle suggested buying him one of the high-ball glasses from the bar. I asked the bartender if they were for sale, and he said no. I told him it was Kent’s birthday, and he went away for a second, and came back with not one, but two glasses, which he then set on the bar. Free. Michelle slipped him a 10 and I stored the glasses in my pocket and waited until after we left and were well out of sight of the bouncer to show him. Didn’t want to be accused of stealing.

By then our numbers had swollen up to six, and a cab driver offered to give us the day rate (at 2:30am). He then showed us the cab, and said he’d take all six of us for 25 YTL, which was a ripoff of biblical proportions. We got out of that dark alley quickly and soon found two younger cabbies who would give us the day rate. I rode with Brad and Michelle, and our driver was super cool and as soon as we started going, he said “Türk degilsin, galiba.” “You’re not a Turk, I believe.” We then proceeded to chat the entire way back, waving at the folks in the other cab as we half-raced to the campus. The driver asked me to call him to come pick us up to take us to the airport, and I told him it wasn’t necessary, and that I didn’t have a phone. He also wanted me to send his greetings to America, so, to the small part of America that reads this, there’s a young taksici in Istanbul who wants you to know he says “hi.” We paid exactly 10 YTL for the ride, which is actually cheaper than normally during the day, even. Is nice!

As for today, Friday, we all started the day very sleepy. The exam was in the same room we started the program in, and it was relatively easy. There was one tough passage about the Tanzimat, but it turned out alright, hopefully. It was hot as fuck in the room, though, even with two fans running. I felt so gross by the time I finished that I wanted to go change clothes, but then I remembered I didn’t have any clean shirts because I figured I’d do the laundry at home so that nobody messes them up and makes them smell like mildew. Again. After the test we sat around outside for about an hour and had baklava and chatted. At 11:30 they called us up to the classrooms where we spent another hour waiting to have our oral final exam/evaluation. I talked about going to the hamam with my testers. It was nice.

Afterwards we took the bus up the hill because Michelle’s knees hurt and then had lunch at Dürüm Evi one last time. Fatih Bey was sad that we had to leave, but we gave him our cell phone numbers and I know he’ll call us someday. Probably without considering the time difference. We took a group photo, and he wants a copy sent to him, which means it will likely end up on the wall of the restaurant, next to famous Turkish pop and movie stars. Pretty sweet. Of course, I’m blinking in the photo, so that sucks huge. We went home and got ourselves ready for the hamam/waited for Michelle to pack her shit up. Once she managed that we met up with Leanna and Tunaz and set out to the Çagaloglu Hamami, which was the same one we went to last time. It was nice, but way more crowded today. We had to wait 30 minutes for the pack of German tourists to leave so that we could go in. While waiting, we remembered something we’d taken for granted this summer: not having to be able to understand and listen to the stupid shit that most people talk about.

The hamam was wonderful. I am so relaxed, and I still have my farmer’s tan. I told my guy not to scrub my forearms because I’d worked all summer to get this tan. He laughed and said no problem. I got to translate for a Norwegian fellow and explain to him that our guy wanted a tip. It was fun. Anyway, we ended up meeting the girls in the lobby and then getting some orange juice (fresh) before Leanna and Tunaz left us. Michelle, Dane, and I headed to Taksim to meet Michelle’s TA from Austin, Öztürk, I think. He took us to a nice vegetarian restaurant in Taksim and the parted ways with us as I book-shopped (I got “The Pearl” by Steinbeck and “The Hobbit” by Jesus). I love the titles here, and seeing how they change due to the lack of definite articles.

Now I’m just packing up loose ends, talking to you folks, and trying to come to terms with the fact that I apparently give off a “gay poet weirdo” vibe. That is unfortunate, as I am neither a poet nor gay. But hey, at least there’s some feedback from my readership!

We caught the bus to campus tonight, but ended up being stuck in traffic for an hour because the Besiktas game let out and the streets were full of reeking shebab who would randomly burst into a song about their team. It was awesome. We met a guy on the bus named Ibrahim who spoke Chinese with Michelle. He’s studying in Taiwan. Very cool. We chatted for an hour, and gave him our emails. He’s already written to us. He was telling us about how he used to make his roommates eat cheese when they pissed him off, which is a big deal apparently because they’re really lactose intolerant there.

The bus stank something fierce by the time it was full, and the guys were just flapping that dank sweat smell everywhere. Gross gross. Now it’s just been awkward goodbyes that we sometimes follow with “see you around,” which will probably not be the case about 90% of the time. It’s weird. I will wax poetic tomorrow when I get home, but now I am tired because I have a 9am flight and a cab to catch at 5:00am. I love you all, and thanks again for making this best damn summer of my life. See you all very, very soon!

Heyecanli!

So as our last days in this city are winding down, we’re still managing to rock pretty hard. I just read the news about the UK terror thing, so that apparently means I won’t be buying any raki to bring home, and Judd won’t be getting the rose kolonya that I bought him like six weeks ago. Damn. Well, I think I’ll let you know what we’ve been up to since Sunday (fun!).

Monday night we hit up Taksim again with Doruk, Michelle’s Turkish friend. We ended up eating at Ara Cafe for…what is it now, the fifteen thousandth time? It’s always delicious, of course. Our purpose that night was to help Michelle work on her cookbook. I won’t go into the details, but I will say that I want to see the finished product. I saw a Mevlevi in my coffee, and snapped a photo, which I will eventually post, with Michelle’s permission. Her camera is amazing. It’s a cheap digital, but the photos look to same as a really trashy old Soviet camera that allows light to leak in. Some of the coolest pictures I’ve seen here have been taken by that camera. After dinner we headed to a record store to try and find the Wet Hot American Summer soundtrack, but it totally yoktu. We weren’t defeated, and instead indulged in some touristy craft shopping in a narrow shop full of Spaniards and nazar (evil eyes). I think the best part of the night (aside from waiting 40 minutes for a bus that I found out wasn’t going to come) was this:

Doruk: “There are so many Arabs here!”
Me: “[Laughing, knowing what was coming next.] What’s wrong with Arabs?”
Doruk: “I hate them! They are all dirty!”

That’s not the first time a Turkish friend of a friend has expressed a deep-seated hatred for Arabs. I think the Turks are jealous of the Arabs’ glorious past in the maths and sciences. But really, they have no reason to be jealous, because Atatürk discovered the moon. And invented baseball.

Tuesday was largely a relaxing evening of the “sit and chill” variety. I had two essays to write, and after a delicious dinner with Kent, Dane, and Michelle at Popular Restaurant, I managed to write maybe 400 words in about 3 hours. This is quite impressive, given the fact that today, on my final, I wrote 200+ in 20 minutes. I guess I’m better under pressure, or maybe when I don’t have a bunch of really awesome, fun people to dick around with. I do seem to recall taking a power nap, and having Michelle try and convince me to get out of bed. I tried the power nap strategy again last night while studying for my final, and it really didn’t work too well.

Wednesday was a blast, actually. After our classes ended, we were sitting outside waiting for Michelle, and then Michelle started doing cartwheels. Apparently she was an Olympic silver medalist in gymnastics in 1996. I wasn’t really following the Olympics that year, so I was pretty surprised. I joined her on the grass and did some aikido rolls, which are pretty uncomfortable when you roll over a patch of Turkish soil that’s recently been dug up to lay some pipe. Dane then decided to teach us Irish stepdancing, and so now I can make a fool of myself trying to leap. My friends are so talented! I think we’re all going to get married and have a hippie commune tent in the woods of Yildiz Park here in Istanbul. If you can get over here, you’re welcome to join us. It’ll be pretty crowded. We decided to try going to Michelle’s gradeschool again, and this time we were allowed in. It was pretty cool, the woman in charge spoke English, of course, and she had the security guard take us on a tour of the campus, which was much larger than it looked from the street. Michelle didn’t remember most of the stuff, because half the lot had been sold and a bunch of new buildings built since she went here back in the early 90s. I asked the guy how old the “indoor recess” building was (you have no idea how excited I was when I realized what the guard was explaining to me in Turkish, seriously. Indoor recess? It has rained twice this summer. Once was earlier this week, and it hailed!!) and he said it was 3 years old. It still had the new wooden floor smell, though. I guess the housekeeping staff takes good care of the place, or the Trunchbull forces the kids to. Either way, well done!

We left and tried to get down to Bebek because we wanted to go BACK to Asia to get some more yogurt. We ended up coming through Bogaziçi’s backdoor to campus after wanding the backstreets near the castle and being pursued by the worst watchdogs ever. They seriously walked a quarter of a mile with us up some steps and hills and things, probably mocking the fact that we don’t walk on all fours. Or they wanted to devour some kittens, which they could have done easily, because we saw some cute ones as soon as we got back to campus. After a rest on the benches overlooking the Bosphorus we headed down the stairs to the Bebek gate, and walked to the pier. The whole area smelled like waffles for a minute, and I have to admit, I got a little excited. We waited at the pier, in the shade, for about a half an hour, listening to this really stupid Turkish woman speak very loudly while asking the guy in charge when the boats were coming. She then proceeded to talk on the cell phone like any old person does in America: she screamed.

The boat reeked of diesel fumes because it runs on diesel. Stupid. The ride seemed a lot shorter the second time, and we got there in no time. The same guy was there feeding the pigeons (this is where I’ll separate the newbies from the longtime readers) and nobody pulled out their camera like last time. We sat down and each of us got some Kanlica yogurt. I went for the honeyed kind again (balli) and Michelle and Dane got the powdered sugar, which to me is ridiculous, because I can just eat the honey off the top of mine and add sugar afterward, which I did like a pro. I had a list of stuff to do before leaving, and I killed like half of it in Kanlica: I had apple tea, Apricot nectar, and got some gifts. They had some really cool cigarette lighters, but given today’s news, I’m glad I didn’t buy any. One of them was a horsedrawn chariot and you lit the flame by pressing the horse’s leg. Awesome. We thought the next boat came at 6:30, but I asked the pier worker, and it turns out his Turkish is simply unintelligible. I got “yediyi on geçe” out of a whole paragraph that he said, but fortunately that’s all I needed. Turns out the next boat to Europe came at 7:10. We sat around and Michelle started to depress us by pointing out all of the things we’d miss. She’s absolutely right, but I don’t want to think about it right now, because I’ll probably just end up crying about it some other time, so what’s the point in crying twice? Sorry if that last bit was a bit too emotional for you, but this seriously has been the best summer of my entire life, and will probably stay that way (but that’s not to say I won’t try to make the others awesome).

The boat that did come took us directly across the Bosphorus, and then the captain said “Last stop,” at which point we switched into “fuck it, it’s an adventure” mode again and hopped off the boat. I am a big fan of “fuck it, it’s an adventure,” and hope to think this way more frequently back home, and especially in Berlin (inşallah). Michelle hailed a cab right away and we ended up back on campus (from North of the castle) in maybe 10 minutes and it only cost us 4.60 YTL, which was cheaper than it would have been had we gotten off in Bebek. After the amazement wore off, we settled down to study. Dane and I eventually went and got dinner together at Ati cafe, the cheeseburger menü place. It was surprisingly unawkward, given that we usually don’t hang out together without Michelle. Afterwards, we stopped by Antep Sofrasi to get Michelle a lahmacun to-go, and I bought Dünyayi Kuturan Adam, or The Man Who Saved the World. It’s post-coup Turkey’s response to Star Wars, and actually steals clips from it and uses them in the movie, along with the music from Indiana Jones. It was filmed in Cappadochia. I look forward to showing it to all of you. I went to bed early and got up early to cram some more. The exam was pretty tough, especially the vocab. But who knows how I did.

Today we had some watermelon after our exam, and then my friend Brad sang his “Grammar” song for everyone (a big crowd). It was about our grammar classes, and Mine Hanim and Sumru Hanim, our teachers. At one point he mentioned “Mine Hanim on top of that table…” and I about shit my pants laughing. Brad’s a Mormon, too! They can have awesome senses of humor! He can also play Rage Against the Machine’s entire catalog on his acoustic. That gets an A+ from me. Afterwards a bunch of us went to this cafe that Kent discovered yesterday, and we regretted it because it was so awesome we wished we’d known about it all summer. It was air conditioned, cheap, had frosties, and big TVs. It was hidden on the third floor of a building we pass every day. Man, it was good. I had gözleme, which is essentially a Turkish quesadilla. Tasty as shit. We caught some cabs down to Arnavutköy and met at the ARIT offices for our exit interviews with Sylvia Hanim. Michelle, Dane, Tugçe, Peter, and I waited almost 3 hours to get interviewed, but it was okay because we just chatted the whole time about Arabic, Chinese, Turkish, falan. I realized during my interview that I’ve actually learned a ton of Turkish, and I can’t wait to use it again when I get back to school. We walked to Bebek from Aranvutköy and took a cab up the hill. Turns out our driver has been trying to learn English from the passengers he picks up, so when Tugçe found this out, we all chatted with him in English. It was amazing, he knew so much! He was able to actually have a conversation without ever having taken class. Awesome. So yeah, now we’re just prepping for a long night of karaoke in Taksim, and then we have another test tomorrow. We’re hopefully going to hit up Miniaturk, the children’s attraction that features Turkey in miniature. See you all soon.

The Virgin, Nameless Orgies, and Melon Balls: The Day of Rest

Sunday will go down in history as the best “academic” Sunday of my life. Michelle seconds that motion. Dane, Brad, Michelle, and I met in the lobby of Süperdorm at 8:40 and headed to the Pastane for some breakfast, and then caught a cab down the hill to Arnavutköy, which is where the ARIT (my scholarship people) office is located, in order to meet up with our group for the boat trip to the Princes’ Islands. We hopped out of the cab a bit early, because someone in the group who took the other cab (we met others from ARIT at breakfast) said they saw Greenwood, the fellow in charge of the program.

Turns out we were right across the street from our boat. We boarded, and after a fashion we were underway. The upper level had a huge tarp over it so we were in the shade, and there was free water, beer, juice, wine, snacks, tea, and coffee. It was shaping up to be a solid day. As we moved south along the Bosphorus, Professor Freely, an ancient man who knows everything there is to know about Istanbul, got on a microphone and started giving us a really interesting breakdown of what we were passing. The guy was rattling off dates and names like it was his job. Which makes sense. The kids from ARIT, meaning me, Dane, Michelle, and maybe a couple others were easily the youngest there (not counting the infant and the 7 year old), so Freely would preface some of the history with “some of you may remember World War II,” or something funny like that. At one point, he was looking straight toward the shore and said flatly, without changing his tone or rhythm as he gave his commentary, “None of you are listening to a thing I’m saying anyway, but I’ll keep talking…” I cracked up and let him know we were. The view from the boat was amazing, as usual. After we started heading into open water, and Prof. Freely started talking about more general history, Michelle, Dane, and I headed downstairs to the stern (ass of the boat) and sat in some of the chairs outside, watching the city shrink behind us. It happened so gradually we hardly noticed it, until at one point Dane said “Oh, I guess we have made some progress.” We were just chillaxing in the shade, getting our chat and joke on, telling funny stories, and so on. We passed a lot of smaller boats, bigger boats, sailboats, and seagulls, and it never got boring. A few times, one of us, mostly yours truly, would accidentally say “fuck” quite loudly just as the little kid wandered back toward us to get to the head (toilet, sailor. Shutup, pervert.). That almost made us laugh even more than a joke about Roma (you know, gypsies!) or Kurds. Almost.

Our first island stop was the tiny, almost barren island of Sivriada, where a bunch of tiny boats were anchored and people were swimming and listening to music, having a great time. I saw some bikinis, but there was more back hair than breast action going on there. It took us about an hour to get there. We got off and had a half an hour to explore, which we managed to do successfully. There were thorn bushes and cool views and rock faces exposed by mining. Not much in the way of wildlife, aside from small plants and a, uh…little…kratzilly…like a beetle. The sky was awesome, though. We were far enough away from the city that the smog wasn’t as obvious. It was weird on the ride there, you could see the kind of umbrella of grayish-brown hanging over the city like some kind of glass dome.

We hopped back on the boat and headed to Yassiada, which was larger, and was also more interesting for a few reasons: it was where Atatürk sent all the stray dogs of Istanbul to die, way back in the day. The island doesn’t have any natural water sources. It was also the site of the trial of former PM Adnan Menderes, who after the 1960 coup was tried and hanged in a gymnasium on the island, which we were able to go into. It was creepy. Also, there was a castle facade built on the Yassiada by some crazy Brit named Sir Henry Bulwar. Apparently, this castle was the site of many “nameless orgies,” as Prof. Freely informed us. The older folks continued making orgy jokes all day after that. It was awesome. We docked at a little wharf on a side of the island that was sheer and rocky. The stairs were narrow, and the drop on the side was steep and into the sea. It was a bit creepy and thorny, but we all made it alright. We headed past some old abandoned shitter, down a path to the hangman’s gym, which had a lot of pigeon feathers, graffiti, and ropes. Then we hit up the castle facade, and heard/saw a bunch of boats docked on the other side of the island rocking out to Russian techno. It sounded fun, but we didn’t have time to get over there to party. We had to be back to the ship in 45 minutes, so we headed back, and saw our ship out on the water, pulling away.

We panicked for a minute, but then I realized that they were just going in circles because the sea was too rough to anchor by the rocks. We climbed carefully down the steps to the dock, and waited for the boat to come back, which it did. Dane saw some reptiles, but we didn’t. That must mean he’s insane. We all got on the boat and waited for the others, who came sooner or later. I told the folks who had stayed onboard, Prof. Freely included, that I thought they were trying to shanghai us and pull around to the castle to “have some fun.” I get a kick out of dirty older people who laugh at sex jokes. Salty. We steamed (or dieseled, whatever) off to the next island, Burgazada, about 20 minutes away. It was bigger still, and one side of the steep hill had been recently ravaged by fire in 2003. It had some really fucking nice houses right on the waterfront, and I imagine it was one of the inhabitants of said houses that flicked a cigarette out of their elevator on the way to their boat that started the blaze. We anchored offshore and had lunch, which was tasty. It wasn’t fancy like the last boat trip. Mixed lunchmeat sandwiches, fruit, drinks, and delicious cookies and Doritos. The Doritos proved to be the most important part of the meal, as each bag had 2 free temporary tattoos in it. So Michelle suggested that I apply a fake Chinese character to the top of my chest, between my neck and the Phoenix. It looked (looks) sweet, and means nothing. Unless you ask me, in which case I will make something up. I told one of the older folks on the boat that it meant “good deeds are the only path to nirvana,” and someone else that it meant “free with purchase of large soft drink.” I slapped another on my left arm, and then four of us shared one featuring four hearts with angel wings. We’re kind of a violent gang now, and our first task was to set out looking for recruits.

The obvious choice was Professor Freely, and after nominating Priya to approach him, we went upstairs and waited until he wasn’t talking with someone. Michelle and Priya asked him if he’d care to join our tattoo gang, and he said “I’ve always wanted a tattoo! I almost got one done back when I was in the Navy during the war, but the fellow in front of me was having a rather large one done on his chest, and I ran out of time.” So I snapped some photos of Priya applying it to his 80 year old arm, and then got a picture of Michelle, him, and Priya showing them off for the camera. It’s probably one of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed. Our tats turned out to be pretty popular among the old folks, who apparently had tried applying some to their own bodies with limited success (one woman had part of one on her shoulder, and another part on her leg.). I was paraded around by a friendly older chap and answered questions about how to best apply them for anyone who asked. I also met a woman named Melinda, who was married to a Turk and lived in Istanbul, but was originally from Oklahoma. She asked me if I was the one with the “Sioux” heritage on the boat today. What? Apparently there was a redhead somewhere with some Native American blood in him. I informed her that I was a modest mix of Scotch and Brandy, and we chatted about Genghis Khan and Chinese sailors and things for a while. She suggested getting a paid internship with a German company based in Istanbul someday, because her son went to the German high school in Istanbul and was doing that. He speaks German all day at work, and Turkish at night. Sounds awesome. Then, apparently, I spoke with a guy named Chase who is a PhD student at Georgetown. I swear to God, I don’t remember talking to him, but Michelle and Dane insist that I did for about 20 minutes. I think they were huffing or something, and were completely out of it. Had to have been.

We ended up at the largest island we were going to visit, Heybeliada, around 3:00. This island is home to lots of people, and has some hotels and a part of the natural bay was used as a swimming area with sweet inflatable slides and stuff. It was busy busy. We got off the boat on one side of the island, and were to walk across the island and meet the boat at the other side (by the swimming area). The first thing I noticed upon getting off the boat was the smell. Horse shit. Horse shit-stink so heavy it slows you down while you walk.

It’s because cars are not allowed on the island, and the only means of transport aside from boats or the occasional municipal vehicle (garbage trucks and fire engines) are horse-drawn carriages, called faytolar. They are pulled by a team of two horses and seat about 4-6 people. They fucking fly, too. One woman in our group almost got run over by one. Did I mention that they, like the taxis, don’t stop for pedestrians? We walked along the main road a bit, and I saw a sweet golden bust of Atatürk in front of a white building, and immediately pulled out my camera to snap a photo. As soon as I pointed it, two military men dressed in whites shouted “No!” at me, and everyone in the group looked at me, horrified. Turns out right behind the bust was a sign that said “Absolutely No Photographs!” in English, German, Turkish, and Greek. So sue me. I was just really excited, I explained to Melinda, because it was a huge bust, and it was made of gold, which makes it even more impressive. Whatever, it’s their loss. I was going to show that bust to everyone and give Turkish nationalism all kinds of free advertising.

We headed past some really old wooden houses and ended up in the Greek church of Saint Nicholas, which was really, really gaudy and ornate but interesting. When we set off on the boat trip earlier that morning, I had told all the ARIT kids that I would pay one American Dollar to whomever saw an image of the Virgin Mary in the sweat patterns on the back of my t-shirt first. On the boat, someone saw Klimt’s “The Kiss,” but no Virgin. So I figured I would have someone check again in the church, because that would make sense, right? I mean, it would be completely logical to expect the image of the Virgin Mary to appear on my back in the church, of all places. So as someone was checking, one of the funny older guys came up to me and said “you’re not the only one who’s hot, you know. Quit your bitching,” and then slapped the back of my head with his hat. We all started laughing, and then we realized that Mary was a no show. Damn it. Michelle and I ended up talking shop with the guy for a bit, Catholicism, falan, yani. The church had paintings of the dragonslaying saints in it, which was cool, and its high altar was hidden behind a fancy wall and curtain, which was much more exclusive than any Catholic church I’ve been in. I guess the Roman Catholics like to show off the magic. In the lobby, Sylvia Hanim (yeah, she was with us!) told me and Michelle that the little figurings slipped into the frames of the paintings were offetory prayers, either for someone who died or was sick, or for a house that burned down, and so on. Pretty cool.

We walked up a road a bit and came to the summer house of a certain Ismet Inönü, one of the dinosaurs of Turkish Republican history, and one of the longest serving prime ministers probably anywhere in the world. The house was really nice inside, and well kept by the staff there. The room for his grandkids still had the old furniture in it, complete with the stickers or plasters that the kids had put on them, including some really old Snow White stickers. It was cool. There was a garden out back, and there was a canary in a cage. I asked the woman who tended the house what its name was, but it was pretty long and I forget it. Something -çik. She told us it could talk, but really she meant it could repeat melodies if you whistled enough at it. It was bright yellow and looked really cool hanging in the cage from the vines and tree branches that covered much of the backyard. The kitchen of the house still has the original refrigerator, which was a Frigidaire, which made my heart sing and reminded me of Pat’s camp. I’ll be there soon enough.

We walked a bit further and ended our tour at the Halki Hotel with free cookies and tea. Delicious, even though some of the cookies were actually salty. Interesting. The view was really nice, of course. We said our goodbyes to the island and walked down to the pier. The ride back was equally hilarious, even though the only thing left to drink onboard for a while was white wine. As we got to the Bosphorus, we hugged the Asian side and Professor Freely gave us his take on the architecture and everything. The oldest mosque on the Asian side was very tiny, and apparently there’s a legend that the sea birds don’t land on it. I watched it the whole time as we passed, and sure enough, no birds landed on it. Maybe because the roof is electrified or something. But there wasn’t any bird shit on it at all. Pretty neat. Allah-hu akbar!

Some of our party jumped ship in Asia at a hotel right on the water, including Sylvia Hanim. We continued to Bebek pier, but before we docked, I ran downstairs to take a pee in the bathroom, so I could say I “yap’d in the Bogaz.” It was quite satisfying. We caught cabs back up to the top of the hill and met up again for dinner. The destination was some manti restaurant. Manti is like the Turkish version of ravioli, but its texture is closer to gnocchi. Delicious. Just when the night couldn’t get any better, we went to Venus, the pastane across the street, and got a couple toplar (balls) of dondurma. Turns out what I thought was peach was, in fact, cantalope melon flavored ice cream. I about shit my pants when I tasted it with my strawberry ice cream. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. The night wound down to a close gradually, and Michelle showed me a ton of really cool Star Wars tattoos on the internet. Some of them are small enough that I could totally see myself getting one on the ass someday. Wouldn’t that be about the hottest thing imaginable? Sunday ended. Holy shit. I managed to escape relatively unburnt, but I have a fierce tan line where my watch sits on my wrist. I love it. Peace out. I am about to go to Taksim with Michelle to meet her friend and get some dessert, inşallah. I got my hair cut again today for 6 YTL, or $4. Take that, $17 in Georgetown! It’s sex. Take care.

Saturday…

So Saturday was nice and relaxing, albeit fucking hotter than the devil’s asscrack. We headed out around 11:30am, and ended up in Sultanahmet around 12:00, where Michelle, Kent, Brad, and I decided to get some McDonalds, since it’s the cheapest place to eat around there. I ended up having the same cashier as last time, but she didn’t give me my food for free this time. Maalesef. There was a guy going around wearing a bright neon green vest asking people stuff at each table. We weren’t sure what it was, but we agreed to look terrified if he asked us. When he did, we looked scared, and it turns out he was simply going around asking folks if they wanted some ice cream for dessert. Weird!

We walked from lunch to Topkapi, which none of the others had seen, so I tagged along because I like hanging out with them and because the Archeology Museums are right nextdoor. But before we got there, I asked if we could stop in front of the Blue Mosque and snap a picture of me holding a corny sign saying hi to my high school so that I could take part in their “St. X Abroad” thing that tracks alumni who travel. I’m a sap. Anyway, we got one serious picture and one of me wearing the crown I took with me from McDonalds. I trust that hundreds of devout Muslims were offended.

Topkapi was the same as the first time, only hotter, smellier (mostly because my shirts smell like mildew because the laundry lady sucks ass), and quicker because we skipped the harem. I would give it a better treatment, but I am really trying to get us up to Sunday’s festivities. After we hit up most of Topkapi, we walked down the hill in the palace grounds to the Archeology Museums, where we got in for free by asking for student discounts in Turkish. We saw some fucking adorable kittens play fighting right inside the gates, and I was worried we’d be there all day cooing over them. I took pictures so your hearts can melt at your own convenience. Inside the first museum, the Museum of the Ancient Orient, we saw a bunch of statues, pots, and sculptures dating back several thousand years. It was sweet, they even had the first treaty ever signed, and it was between Ramses Pharoah and the Hittites. We also got some pictures of the crown again. Man, we are total children. I won’t bore you with the details of the museum, but suffice it to say, they had some really old shit there. And it was air conditioned.

Up next was the Arkeoloji Müzesi, which had the really cool Roman and Greek sculptures by the truckload. I saw Hermaphrodites in person, and some statues that reminded me of Matt. Michelle and I got separated from Brad and Kent as we went to go see the Alexander Sarcaphogus, which was fucking awesome. The music they played in the dark room was an awesome combination of Vangelis and the soundtrack to some Tom Clancy video game. We also saw a sweet children’s section that had a mini castle and stairs that I couldn’t fit up. The grown-up area had a scale replica of the Trojan Horse, which was fairly small in person. The foot ladder and stuff made it seem like one or two people could fit, tops. I guess that’s all it takes, though.

When we got back to the room full of dead people in boxes we ran into Brad, who said he’d lost Kent. I ran off to find him, and stumbled across him eventually in some section that had a sweet section of the chain used to seal off the Golden Horn back in the day to sea traffic. Heavy shit. We headed out to get some water nearby at the cafe that was surrounded by old columns and statues. The Turks there didn’t seem to give a shit that they were surrounded by ancient art. I was careful not to piss my pants. I saw a poster in the gift shop that featured the Piri Reis map. I can get a good copy soon. I had a chat with Doc about the time machine, sirrah. Okay, I think that’s a signal for me to finish this post soon. We watched Back to the Future II last night, and I am starting to dream about it. Anyway, after the break, I went into the gift shop to see if that real map was on display somewhere in Istanbul, because I’d seen it before and was really into it, especially in relation to the Chinese. The guy told me he knew that Topkapi Museum has it, but that he didn’t know if it was on display. It wasn’t we found out. We admitted defeat, and headed to the tram. We got off at Eminönü because Michelle wanted to hit up Mehmet Efendi, the coffee house. Smelled great. Kent had to keep going home on the tram because he had to go to a soccer match that night.

As we walked past the Yeni Camii, I wondered out loud how many pigeons were sucked into and killed by the mini street sweeper trucks that prowled the plaza. They’re handy little buggies, these, and can turn on a dime. We got some stuff and then headed through the Egyptian Spice Market, where Michelle wanted to get some lokum (Turkish Delight) for our movie party that night. I saw something that caught my eye: comb honey. I asked if I could taste it, and oh my God, it was amazing. I asked how much, and it was 30 YTL per kilo, so I asked if he could give me 100g, which he said he couldn’t do. I negotiated with him for a bit and chatted, and got him to give me 11 YTL worth. He wrapped it up for me and his older coworker was asking about me, and then when he found out about my Turkish he got excited and asked me instead of the salesmen what I was doing here. He said that my Turkish was good enough to understand all I needed to to get my honey, so it was good enough. I left the shop last, and couldn’t see where Brad and Michelle went. One of the guys working the crowd outside saw me looking, and told me in Turkish where they went, and I soon saw them.

While we waited at the tramway for our train, I saw a little kid of probably 6 years across the tracks carrying what looked like a real submachine gun. I knew it was fake, but here in Turkey, there are no red tips, there’s only dead and alive, if you aim it at the cops. I managed to get a picture of him by having Michelle and Brad pose in front of him, sort of. It worked. We got on the bus after arriving in Kabataş and waiting in the shadow of the bus stop for 20 minutes before our bus arrived. Michelle said her knees hurt, so she gave me some money so Brad and I could bring her back some food when we got back. On the ride back, a Turkish girl was reading a really thick book, and when I saw it, I leaned over to Michelle and asked “do you think that’s ‘Atlas Shrugged?’” She was asleep sitting upright. It turned out to be the Foutainhead, also repulsive.

Brad and I waited at Dürüm Evi for our food and chatted up Fatih Bey. He asked me if I wanted something to drink because I was soaking wet from sweat. Then he said I was more handsome than he was. Hilarious. We took the food to the grocery, where I got some Cola Turka and bread. We had quite a tasty night in my apartment, watching the first 15 minutes of Marie Antoinette, which BLEW, and then Back to the Future Part II, which was amazing, of course. We also had to watch the opening of Wet Hot American Summer so we could listen to the songs that Michelle and I love. It was a blast. We had some lokum and all that jazz. I hit the hay late, and got ready for a big day Sunday, which I have to talk about tomorrow because I’m so tall. I realize now that I was sleeping when I wrote that last sentence, so I hope you appreciated it. Peace!

Alright, Johnny, I’m sorry. I’m going!

Sorry that I’ve taken so damn long to update! I think I will start with Wednesday, which was the evening of this week’s second concert: Yann Tiersen at Parkorman Arena. I caught a cab with Michelle, Katherine, and Jeremy to the venue, which is in the way northern part of Istanbul called Sariyer. It’s fairly close to the Black Sea, as the crow flies. We hopped out and headed into the park, which was easily the coolest venue ever. It reminded me a lot of the Merriweather Pavillion in Maryland, where we went to see the Shins and the White Stripes last fall, except way, way cooler. This was partly due to the fact that it has Istanbul’s largest outdoor swimming pool, which just so happens to be shaped in such a way as to smack of 1970s decor and kickassitude. Surrounding the pool there were restaurants, snack stands, bars, cigarette stands, and an ice skating rink. Not to mention cute kittens, trees, and the four of us. Also, the shitter looked like a white circus tent from Russia.

We wandered around a bit, found out how much beers were (8 YTL), and then how much an Icee-style drink was (10 YTL). Neither was going to be imbibed by this shebab. We also took some photos of the Marlboro stands that were all over the place. They look sooooo cool, they make me want to start smoking. They are really geometrical and minimalist, but they are lit throughout by red and white light, and they are all staffed by beautiful women. The packs are laid out all sexy on the shelves behind them like you’d imagine a grocery store in the Fifth Element. If only Bruce Willis would take on Big Tobacco in Turkey.

We decided to look for a place to stand, and then Katherine told us that she and Jeremy had opted for seating tickets, which were more expensive. Michelle and I were left to our own devices, and we managed quite nicely, finding standing room on the left. The way the seating was arranged, there were no bad views. The seats were directly in front of the stage, and were low, and nobody was standing in front of them, so you could see the stage from anywhere around the seats. There was a big video screen playing commercials (including a cool ninja robot car commercial) until the show started. No opening band, which I appreciated. And we were both a bit surprised to see no orchestra, either, but we figured he had something in store.

We were right, and he proceeded to rock the house with his 5 piece band, which featured the theramin heavily. He played a lot of new stuff, and reworkings of songs from Amelie. Rock interpretations that were similar to but 100x better than Mogwai. As if that weren’t enough, he whipped out a violin between songs and beat the shit out of it during some fucking amazing solos. He was playing arpeggios faster than most rock guitarists do. He went through two or three bows during the show. We rocked hardcore, and again found ourselves next to some loud Yann Tiersen fans, maybe Turkey’s biggest. One girl found a cute kitten and was holding it during the show. That would be a rare site at Bogart’s back in the Nati, so I seized the opportunity to pet it. Oh, and the guitarist for the band also used a power drill to play his guitar, as well as an old voice recorder. The drummer played a saw.

They came out for an encore, and then afterward, Michelle suggested that we try and get close to the stage and see if we can’t get something from it. When we got up there, the crew was turning off all the speakers and stuff, and the audience kept clapping. We laughed at the silly Turks, who obviously didn’t understand how encores worked. It was only when Yann came back out for a second encore that we felt stupid. We were maybe 10 feet away from him, and two feet away from the stage. He came out and rocked the accordion, the dulcimer, and his violin again, playing classic Amelie stuff to a suddenly on-its-feet crowd. We were beside ourselves. He actually made eye contact with me and Michelle, presumably to ogle her red hair and my breasts.

As if that weren’t enough, they came out for a THIRD encore. THIRD. Yes. Amazing. I shit my pants twice in a row. Michelle peed a little. Afterward the guy in front of us got a set list, and his girlfriend got a violin bow. We got nothing, but I did get a picture of the sweat on the floor, so…I guess that’s worthless. They started screening Amelie afterwards on the big screen, and to our chagrin, they had the Turkish dubbing on, which Katherine shouted down. We cheered when they switched it to French. It was a minor victory over the creepy nationism that surfaces every once in a while in fucked up places here. Some Turks would cheer whenever a line was said in Turkish before they switched to the French. Odd. We tried to get Yann to autograph the CDs the girls had bought, but he wasn’t coming out. Michelle asked a stagehand if he spoke English (in Turkish), and he said “Yes, I speak English.” She asked him, and he said no dice. He sounded a bit snooty, and we think it’s because she asked about English. The problem is, should she have asked him in English, or Turkish whether or not he spoke English? I mean, we are in Turkey, so Turkish is the default language, but if he worked for Yann, he might be French, and would prefer being asked that in English to the dirty language of the Muslim Turque. What would you have done?

We decided we were tired and wanted to get home at a reasonable hour (the movie would have ended at 1:00am). We headed up the path to the row of cabs and grabbed one just in time to still get the day rate. The cabby tried to screw us again after we got off the highway by starting to turn left instead of straight, but I caught him and told him that we were going to Uçaksavar, and he said “Bogaziçi Üniversitesi,” and I said “Yes, and it’s on this street. Go straight.” We got out alright, hooray! And that was Wednesday!

Thursday afternoon I went to a cool little pair of museums with a bunch of students as a field trip after classes. There was a museum of Ottoman clothing, art, and documents, which was called the Koç Museum. The adjoining building (neither of which we were allowed to photograph) was a nice little archaeology museum that featured all kinds of old shit. Some pots dating back to 3000BC, and I got to see some of those cool stuff. One exhibit featured old glass and then some gems with ivory carvings on them. Another featured some nasty hook-looking things, which the plaque next to them described in English as “Flesh Scrapers.” This sounded nasty, and then I read the Turkish description, and my heart leapt up in my chest. Turns out they were the tools used to scrape the olive oil off the gladiators before they went into battle. One of my professors confirmed this, and then I told her that in high school (world cultures!) we learned about how the scrapings would then be sold as a kind of parfume/aphrodisiac. It was really cool to see them in person. I also got to see the queen’s danged undies, as the feller used to say. They had an underwear exhibit. And a model circumcision room. The boys got a huge bed and a cool bedcurtain. But they then had their dicks snipped, so…yeah. The informational paragraphs often had a nice subtle nationalistic tinge to them, often slighting the Byzantines (read: Greeks). We got some tea and then headed back to the bus, where Michelle, Dane, and I sat in the back, where the seat by the door had a cool rollercoaster-style bar that went over the lap so you didn’t fall out while the bus drove with the door wide open because it didn’t have air conditioning. It was sweet.

On Friday after classes ended a bunch of us headed back to Dürüm Evi, where Mehmet Fatih Bey, the Kurd from Diyarbakir, greeted us warmly, since he loves it when we come there instead of going to the shop next to his. He knows all our names now and gives us free dolmas. Delicious ones, at that. He also really likes rubbing my shoulders, a whole lot, and is prone to answering any request I make with “of course.” If it weren’t for the fact that he has two daughters, I’d think he was coming on to me. After lunch, Dane, Michelle, and I decided to go find her old grade school, which she went to for a few years when she was very young (she is still very young, but I’m talking like 5 years old). We hopped in a cab and gave him the address, and he was a younger guy, so he asked like 4 different people for directions. Also, the fact that none of the streets have signs might be a factor. It turns out the place was down the hill on a tiny side street that was actually pretty well hidden, but well within walking distance from campus. We walked up to the gate and a guard came up and I told him my friend studied there when she was a kid and wanted to stop by for a visit, but he told us there was some kind of conference today and for security reasons they couldn’t let anyone in. So we’ll head back later.

We decided to seize the moment and walk to the castle near campus, Rümeli Hisari, since none of us had been there yet. The walk was so fucking hot we almost died, but we saw a cute sign that featured a drawing done by a child, and we randomly broke into a wonderful rendition of “California Dreamin’” on the way up a nice steep stretch of hilly road. This part of town was really cool, kind of off the beaten path. We ended up at the castle, but, well, outside of the castle. Kind of at the back door, literally. There was a hatchback parked there with the driver side door open, and we walked to the edge of the hill to see what we could see besides the amazing view of the Fatih Bridge. Michelle got a bit worried that someone was disposing of a body, and neither of us could blame her, so we kept walking around until we got to the front entrance.

Tickets were 5 YTL. This was because the student discount only works for Turkish students, which strikes me as a bit unfair and typical. We headed in and checked out the sights. There was a bit of construction going on inside for some reason, I think to accomodate some concert series that starts soon. There’s a large ampitheater inside the castle, and there was a Turk doing a really bootleg soundcheck the whole time we were there, clicking his tongue and counting from one to two and back again, over and over. We checked out the inside of the main tower, which had pigeons in it and was pretty sweet, then we climbed some stairs up onto the wall, where Michelle and I felt a touch of the dizzies, and headed back toward the ampitheater, where Michelle sat and waited for a bit while Dane and I explored up the hillside the castle was built on. I found a relatively intact staircase that led up to the wall, and the view was sweet. I can’t imagine having to run along the walls or up and down the steps carrying things, though. I was taking the steps one at a time going down, and the wall was upwards of 30 feet high in a lot of places. I wonder if there was a handrail back in the day, maybe made of wood? No? Oh, I guess that people back then weren’t huge pussies like I am. But at least I can write in English correctly, which is more than I can say for the people who translated the Turkish informational placards. Check out my photos, and you’ll see at least a couple typos in each one.

We got back to campus via cab and Kent was all settled into our apartment by then, since everyone had to switch to Süperdorm due to window repairs. This is awesome now, because Michelle, Dane, and Kent are all here (Kent’s living with us!), and now they don’t have to leave by 1:00am. Kent and I helped Michelle with the last of her shit, and they we kinda hung out, laying around on my couches listening to music, drinking tea and Cola Turka, and eating crackers. This continued until around
10:00pm, when we prepared to head out to Taksim and meet up with a bunch of people and go to a club that Kent’s cousin knew about. We fellows all rocked the button down shirt and dresspant scene, although I opted for the undershirt as well, since my back was sweating like it was its job (yeah, totally hot.). Ali came with us, and he and Tugçe managed to negotiate a flat fee for the two cabs that took us all to Taksim. When we got there we met up with some folks and then walked to the club, which it turns out, we could not get into despite having 3 girls with 4 guys.

Kent’s cousin showed up, and talked to the doormen, but you know, that shit just doesn’t work all the time. So we headed back to Nevizade and up five flights of stairs to a neat little bar and had some beverages (some people went NA and got pips, which I tasted, a perk of being Michelle’s manpurse for the evening. It was good.). We decided to head to a club that Katharine knew about called Cambaz. It looked cool and had a cover charge of 20 YTL, which included two drink tokens. That’s actually a decent deal, and works out to about a $6 cover when you factor out the drinks. We went in and headed all the way to the rooftop, where there were some phat Turkish techno beats pouring out of the speakers and a bunch of sweaty Turks dancing or chatting all over the place. We found ourselves a nice corner of the floor and got some drinks and started to dance.

After a few minutes, a stranger started urging us all to dance like him, and he entered our sacred circle. Then he beckoned to Michelle to dance, which she did reluctantly and at a great distance from this guy, whom we later decided was either after her or me, because he was trying to get me to dance with him too. I did dance, albeit by myself and on Osvaldo’s video camera. I think that should prove to be quite the incriminating video someday. I’ll see what I can do to make it available. After Michelle got away from him, I started dancing between him and her, and he asked me what I was doing there, so I told him I was dancing, and he left. So yeah, from then on, the guys in the group started dancing interference for the ladies, and we headed to the upper rooftop level, where the music was louder and the creepy guy wasn’t. We must have been there for about 3 hours, at least, just dancing, laughing, and having a great time. The music was really fun, and the view was cool as shit. We rocked out super hardcore style like wicked whoa to a Turkish language version of “I Will Survive.” The refrain literally translates to “I am living.” Anyway, it fucking rocked. I used two of the four drink tokens we had (between me and Michelle, since I was the moneylender for the eve) to get some water for us, and I sobered up super quick after all the dancing and sweating. I should really have some kind of A/C suit made. It was quite the awesome evening, and it lasted forever. We didn’t leave the club until 4:00am. We walked back up Istiklal as a group and got a couple cabs with Ali’s help for a flat rate of 15 YTL each and piled in and headed home.

Sleeping at 5:00am and waking up at 10:45am don’t go together well, so Kent, Michelle, and I were quite exhausted all day today as we headed to Topkapi and the Archaeology Museums. I’ll try and get that flow busted out for you tomorrow night, because I have to sleep now in order to wake up in time for the boat trip tomorrow at 8:45am. Seppa kai, my damies. Wa dah tah.

Okay, About That Last Post…

I have to say, that is some of the funniest shit I’ve ever read. I say “read” because I don’t remember writing a lot of it. I was utterly exhausted, and the circumstances remind me a great deal of a night back during high school when I was writing a theology paper, and somehow wrote “…and that God wears a denim jacket.” I think for history’s sake I will let that post stand unedited. I might have to speed things up a bit, so before I do my homework, I will get us caught up to the Depeche Mode concert:

Sunday I woke up at 12:10 when Michelle knocked on my door 50 minutes early. We headed to Istiklal and hit up the Saray Muhallebicisi again, but this time I felt sick and didn’t eat anything. Methinks twas the nine slices of pizza I inhaled the night before. I had myself a Sprite and some tea, and started to feel better. We then shopped around for a bit, and walked to the tünel, which is the third oldest subway in the world, and it runs from the top of the hill to the bottom, down by the Galata Bridge. We got out and made our way by tram to Sultanahmet, where we walked to the Archeology Museum in Topkapi Palace. Turns out they stop selling tickets at 4:00pm, and it was 4:10 when we got there. Bummer. We saw some cute kittens, though, and a bunch of sweet columns. Naturally, we hit up the Topkapi gift shop for a bit and pined for sweet rosaries, which they lacked. I wonder why.

Michelle suggested that we not consider the day a loss, and steered me toward the Basin Sistern, which you have seen if you’ve ever watched a little film called “From Russia With Love.” Essentially it was an underground chamber that was dark, cool, and used to be full of water. Now, about a foot or so covers the floor of the whole place, and they built some footbridges for tourists. I loved it in there! They had TONS of fish swimming in the water (as opposed to walking, goddamn it, Kevin). I also got to see a super old Medusa head that they took from some super old temple and placed it underneath a column. Can you say cool? Of course you can. The gift shop was sweet, as well. I found a nice comic book for kids about the founding of the Turkish Republic under Atatürk, and it’s violent. It’s also straight up propaganda. Dig it. You’ll see it.

We headed back and didn’t eat anything while we got ready. Michelle actually managed to prepare faster than I did, which is odd, considering she’s, well, not a man. After I scolded her for being a race and gender traitor, we headed out to grab a taxi and head to Kuruçeşme Arena, where the Depeche Mode concert was going to be. We stood in line out on the street waiting for the fuzz to let all of us in, and I heard someone speaking Turkish use the phrase “after-party.” I got a kick out of that. I found out the day after that my friend Peter, whom we’d run into on the bus earlier that day (with his family: wife, and two cute kids), saw the line for the concert as they were passing again on the bus, and told his family to look for me and Michelle.

“Just look for the orange hair!”
“There it is!”

We got in after I got frisked twice, presumably because I’m hot. We were greeted by like five different people whose job it was to look at our tickets (and, presumably, greet us), and then we had a handful of candies tossed at us by some peopel promoting the (superior) Turkish answer to the Starburst. I’d say they’re more like the fancy Tootsie Rolls you only get at Halloween, the vanilla, cherry, and lime stuff. Except these had cream flavor, and coffee. Shit, they were good and gone really soon after that. We wandered around the arena, which was literally on the waterfront, and was essentially a slightly tiered parking lot with a huge stage. The whole deal was set about 20 feet below the street level, which meant that people could sit on the bus stop up there and watch the show for free. Clever girl.

The show started with an unknown opening act (literally “front group,” in Turkish), and I asked someone who it was, and the answer stunned me: Björk.

Just kidding, sorry to make you all prematurely ejaculate (words like “wow!” or “holy shit.” Look it up in a dictionary, you perverts). Turns out the opener was actually a Turkish Depeche Mode cover group called “Stay Cool.” What? I know. Seriously? Yeah. Okay, fine, whatever, as long as Depeche Mode comes afterward. Which they did. We managed to find ourselves right next to the biggest Depeche Mode fan in Turkey, who would not stop jumping up and down and screaming. There was also a fat kid behind me doing the same, and his man tits kept slapping my shoulder, so I jutted my elbow out so he would land on it, and that solved the problem. It’s not that I minded the tits on my shoulder, it’s just that, well, they were attached to him.

The concert lasted a couple hours, and they played almost all the hits (People are People and Black Celebration aside), and excluded Exciter entirely. Getting to sing “Personal Jesus” with 12,000 other people was amazing. It almost made me forget that I was the only red head among them. I seriously checked, folks, and there were 0 others. Also the woman next to me was probably trying to give her mate a clandestine hand job, because she spent an awful lot of the show seated between his legs. Cigarettes are dangerous in crowds, and by extension, crowds are dangerous in Turkey. Fucking smoke everywhere, more than at an indoor venue in the states.

When the show ended, we hit up the t-shirt stands and found out that the one Michelle wanted was gone, depsite their having 2 display copies. Whatever! We saw some people shining laser pointers at the big movie screens during the show, and I had to laugh, because that person was probably wearing a South Park shirt and listening to Blink182 on his Walkman. We waited about a half an hour before checking out of the arena, and I bought us some water for 1 YTL a bottle (instead of the 2 YTL some were asking), and we started on the long and winding road to catching a cab. We walked about 20 minutes when I saw something across four lanes of traffic.

What I saw shocked me. A man was holding a woman by her neck and shouting at her by their car. I stopped, and Michelle noticed too and stopped, and I stood there watching, trying to figure out what was going on as people passed them by across the highway. I could tell that the two of them knew each other, but the guy was roughing her up and screaming at her, and pressing her against the hood of the car. I stopped a group of pretty big Turkish guys and asked them if they could call the police on their cell phones, because the guy had just slapped the woman and I told them that I didn’t want to have to make trouble with him. They looked across the road, and even after I told them that he had hit her, one of them said, in English, “They are lovers. It’s no problem.” I told him “But he just hit her! There is a problem. Please call the police,” and then his friend came back and put his arm around my shoulder and said “This is Turkey,” and walked away.

I asked another group the same thing, and got the same result. I even asked a group of teenaged girls, a group likely to be sympathetic to the cause of women’s safety, but they only stared at their cellphones after the pulled them out of their designer holsters. Meanwhile, on the other side, the woman was trying to walk away but the guy was grabbing ahold of her. At least 25 people had passed them by and done nothing. At one point, the guy pulled the purse out of her hand and started throwing her perfume or makeup glass stuff onto the street and breaking it. I was trying to prepare myself mentally for a fight, because things were starting to get even more out of hand.

It was at this point that I found out I wasn’t the only person watching what was going on. From my right, a man shouted “Ey!” and whistled at the guy loudly. I started moving closer to the street. When the Turk shoved the woman onto the hood of the car and put his hands on her neck, the guy next to me said something I will never forget, something that made it clear that the woman was going to be safe for the night.

“OY! WANKER!”

Turns out the man whom I thought was an exemplary Turkish man was actually a Brit, whose heavy accent and furious expression made it clear to me that he’d been in at least a few fights. He headed across the street, and started to follow him, but Michelle grabbed my arm and asked me not to, because it could only lead to more trouble. I stayed on our side of the expressway, and waited for the Turk to take a swing at the British guy, in which case I would have been over in a second. The Brit spoke clearly, slowly, and loudly in English, telling the guy to calm down, using body language to demonstrate. The Turk got right in his face, probably asking him what he thought he was doing. Our guy didn’t back down, he just stared him right in the face. When the Turk started heading back toward the woman, who was still on the hood, the Brit followed him, circling around him to make sure he didn’t try anything else. This went on for about 2 minutes until a Renault Police mini-van pulled up and some officers got out. The British guy came back over, and some of the Turks who had stopped to watch when they heard English being spoken went to the cops and told them what happened. We were satisfied once we saw two police officers between the guy and the woman, and continued on our way, asking the British guy what they talked about. He said that the man claimed that it was okay because they were married.

Turkish men lost all kinds of points Sunday night. So did crowds of people. We talked about this for a long time with friends on Monday, and I thought that nothing like that would have gone on for the 6 or 7 minutes that it did in America, but the truth of the matter is that people tend not to want to step out of line. I guess that’s particularly true among the Turks, especially given that the only two men who tried to do anything to help the woman were an American and a Brit. That was very telling, in terms of culture and cultural adjustment. Each time the woman tried to walk away, I thought of how many instances of spousal abuse per year would disqualify them from EU membership, which, after seeing what I did, I actually had second thoughts about for a minute. It also made me appreciate British men a lot more, though. I don’t want to sound patriarcho-fascist, but maybe one good measure of how advanced a democratic society is is how willing its stronger members are to use their strength to help. Now I’m just talking out my ass, which you might be able to see through my towel.

Let’s See…

After the kraken scare the seas calmed and I went below the deck again to try and nap/reflect on life in general. I dozed off for a bit and alternated between sleeping and going up on the top of the boat to chat with folks. When we pulled into Bebek pier, our boat started rocking fiercely, which was pretty fun for me trying to get my shoes on. We disembarked and then I realized I didn’t have my iPod, which I let a girl borrow. I jumped back onto the boat and checked to see if she took it with her or left it there, and she of course kept it with her, which was cool. A group of us planned on catching cabs up the hill to campus, so we walked toward Bebek at an exhausted, leisurely pace. On the way, I happened to notice a line of balloons floating on the water some distance from the sidewalk. I’d heard about such things before, and immediately started looking for the gun.

Turns out there wee two guns: a pellet pistol and a pellet rifle. Tim and I paid the guy the 5 YTL it took to shoot 12 rounds at the balloons, and proceeded to destroy probably 15 balloons between us. I still have a good eye from shooting the old .22 in the scouts, apparently, because i hit 7/10 and let Michelle shoot the other two. When we were finished, the guy tried to cheat us and get us to pay a lot more. I was pissed so I had Tugçe come over and argue with the guy, which she did successfully after about five minutes of fast Turkish that featured “gerçekten, abi.” (Really, man.) We cabbed that shit back ups the hills and decided to meet in 40 minutes to go to Akmerkez to eat food, presumably Chinese.

I had heard Chinese was expensive, but when Dane, Katherine, Brad, Michelle, and I got to the restaurant in the mall, it was about 25 YTL per person. Awful. We opted, in lieu of a China Buffet, to hit up the Pizza Hut that had the all you can eat buffet. Nine pieces later I was stuffed and took a bit out of the pickle that I put in Michelle’s old soup to keep the security force from peeking onto my plate and chargin me the extra 5 YTL it cost to eat a salad. When I realized that the soup was obeying laws of physics, and that the same volume of soup wouldn’t cover the gerkin, I said the following out loud in Turkish a tacky Borat accent:
“But I did not order the gypsy soup!”
Michelle leaned over the table and scolded me, reminding me that most people here don’t know what gay men and, and they certainly don’t sell them anywhere here. Not even the bazaar. Anyway, she said to me “Kevin! Everyone here speaks Turkish!” I am an idiot, but you all already knew that. We hit up some t-shirt stores because all my laundry isn’t finished yet. I ended up being served by an incredibly gorgeous woman at the Levis stuff to mix and match with. I like some of the outfits, but most of them I hate. I got the shirt and we were on our way home, when we saw a sweet motortricycle parked on the sidewalk. It had Arizona and Turkey plates. We checked out a music store on Etiler, and when we got home we watched “Wet Hot American Summer,” which never fails to make me laugh. It was really fun to just sit around and chat. But now I am utterly exhausted, so I think I will leave it at Sunday morning for now. Peace out!

Escape from the Depths and Certain Doom

It was only five minutes after Michelle jumped in that she sensed something was amiss. From my perch in the crows nest I could see naught but the occasional gull or many-masted merchant vessel, but I trust Michelle’s gift of foresight, and called for all hands on deck. In the fog ahead a gossamer figure, slightly more dense and dark than the cloud that surrounded it, crept toward us. It was then that we heard and, perhaps worse, felt the distant thud of an ageless oak ram against mahogany and pine pitch which caused me to fall from my perch and dangle precariously from the rigging.

As the shape drifted closer to our party, my first mate called out a warning but was unheeded, for the ears of our fellow sailors were clogged by the choppy seas. It was to Michelle that the crew directed its efforts, as she was most adjacent to the figure whose features were becoming increasingly apparent. As if commanded by some dark power, the winds ceased and we could get no closer to our distressed shipmate, whose anguished call for aid fell so terribly on our hearts. I struggled mightily against the ropes which held me captive, but won only small victories against their coarse hemp weave.

Not a moment later, and all at once, the fog lifted, and what lay before our eyes paralyzed even the saltiest among us. Not even the gulls called when they laid eyes on the creature whose bulk was laid bare before us, whose very presence awoke in us unspoken fears inherited from those who braved the seas a hundred generations ago: the kraken.

Its tenticles, each the width of all our cannons combined, were raised over its bulbous head, and menaced our hearts and masts with their shadows. The scream that originated in the throat of my first mate was cut short as he was swept into the drink by the ancient terror, and within seconds my crew was decimated, and only a handful of ill-equipped seamen remained to keep the beast at bay long enough to rescue our hearty, Michelle. I could hear her calling from the port bow, and called for the crew to draw oars and turn our ship starboard, giving us the chance to fire a volley at the beast before it could reach her.

As I screamed “fire!” from the rigging, the smoke and fury of our cannons rattled the timbers to the mast, and the pulley I found myself dangling from slipped, causing me to fall suddenly. I was caught by my ankle once more in the rigging, and from my new vantage point I could see Michelle swimming toward the rope ladder we had thrown over to her. She had a look about her that told me she had seen how to defeat this abomination, and when she called for her blade, I redoubled my efforts to free myself, and, finally able to reach my bootstrap daggar, I managed to cut myself free and land hard on my shoulder. The pain was dulled by the sharpness and urgency of Michelle’s command, and I searched her cabin for any sign of the elusive blade. At the bottom of a well-worn trunk I found it, and not a moment too soon. The beast was nearly on her.

I ran to the port bow and dropped the cutlass in its scabbard to her, and she, despite the terror staring her in the face, caught and unsheathed her weapon and dove under the water with it between her teeth. I ordered a second volley of cannon fire just as the kraken reared up again as if to deliver a crushing blow to our mainmast and hopes of escaping alive, and when the shot hit, the beast gave such a scream as to cause a great wave to emanate from its source, the massive tearing beak that was still gnashing at the water, searching for its quarry. We listed hard to starboard, but the beast did not pursue.

Instead, it too listed heavily and rolled a bit onto its back. It was only then that I noticed the water surrounding it turning a dark red color. A storm of heat and steam escaped from underneath the beast, as its bulk surrendered to death’s pull from behind, drawing it ever closer to the ocean floor. The heat from the beast stung my eyes, but when I rubbed them clear I saw a sight more welcome to my eyes than any piece of land: there, on the hulking corpse, the seething mass of tentacles and death, hung Michelle, clinging to the pommel of her blade, plunged hilt deep into the flesh of the beast just behind its monstrous beak. We dropped anchor and threw a line to her, which she fastened securely about her waste as we pulled her back aboard.

We broke out the ale and offered her the first drink, which she dismissed with the wave of a hand as she cleaned the kraken’s dark blood off her cutlass and concentrated on regaining control over the fury which had overtaken her and led her directly to the weakest spot in the monster’s hide. We could not help but notice, as we thanked her to the best of our ability, that her inkwork shone extra bright under the red sun’s gaze. Some would later claim that it was from these designs that she drew her power, but those who were there that day know the truth: twas her strength of will and skill with a blade that saved us all, and we shall none of us forget it.