Last Day in İstanbul (for the time being)

İstanbul is full of people that I know, actually more than I have visited, but there is one whom I hadn't seen for quite a little while and decided to vist: Furkan. He was almost always the star player on whichever soccer team he played on during our pickup games back in Worcester. However, a while after graduating he returned to Turkey to work and I had not seen him since. In my last day in İstanbul, I decided to try to find him. We met up and walked a short distance to a really huge mall. I took a picture shown above. We had kebap at a restaurant on the top level. I had iskender kebap which was really amazing. After that, Pınar met up with us and we went to Gloria Jeans in the mall to get some coffee. Things were pretty chill. Pınar took a picture of me and Furkan which is below.

By then, I had already purchased for the amazingly low price of about 40 USD my plane ticket to the south of Turkey. The plane would be leaving the next morning very early. I would see Misa later that day. It was a lot of excitement to ward off in order to savor and enjoy the moments I had in İstanbul. That night it snowed and snowed. I was worried that maybe the snow would continue into the morning and delay me on the way to the airport or delay the plane on the way to Antalya. As it turns out I got to the airport fine but the plane was delayed a bit. It was a long trip but eventually I found Misa and what a renunion it was. But that story will come soon.

Serendipity

I don't have any pictures to go with this one but I will tell you about it. Well, two things actually; two coincidences:

1. Back in the summer I worked at KEMA in a with two guys, Aaron and Isaac. One day the topic of Turkey had come up and Aaron mentioned that he had a Turkish roommate. I was curious what her name was and where in Turkey she was from. He more or less supplied that information and I had all but forgotten about her a few days later. This was in early July. Fast-forward to my flight to Turkey the other day. I was with a friend, Leon, about to board the plane in Boston when he saw his friend, Selin. I was introduced and we began talking. My seat was very near Selin's on the plane and so we asked someone to switch with me, which the man happily agreed, for, for him it was a switch from a middle seat to an aisle seat. By the way, did you notice the use of "for, for"? I thought it was brilliant. Anyway Selin and I were talking a lot when I pulled out a notebook on which to write that happened to be an old KEMA notepad. She saw the logo and asked about it. I told her I had worked there the summer and then she gasped. After a few moments of being stunned and me really getting curious, she said "you know my roomate".

2. Pınar and I went out for dinner together in the part of İstanbul called Taksim, which is everybody's favorite place. We had a big dinner and then went looking for a place to sit and get a drink. The problem was that in Taksim there are like 1,000 places to do this. So we wandered and wandered. Too crowded, too many old people, too expensive, too loud, too sketchy looking, too close to the sketchy looking place... We thought of every excuse not to enter one place or another. After wandering for a long while Pınar stopped in front of a place we had passed previously. A man was already ushering us to sit down at a small outside table. Most of the places we went were so crowded that one had to sit outside. Anyway I figured that after a beer I might not mind the cold so much. We sat down and each got a beer. I got a large, which turned out to be huge, and Pınar got a small, which turned out to be large.

Sitting hunched over the table, we had barely spoken two or three sentences and taken two or three sips when suddenly I heard my name. "JEREMY!" Not to brag, but I am used to this thing back in the Worcester/Boston area, because I know enough people randomly that I sometimes run into them in strange places. But in İstanbul I stop wondering if I will run into someone unexpectedly because there are 10 people in İstanbul that I know and 11 million people I don't know. The odds of seeing one of them on the street is literally one-in-a-million. 

When I looked up, I did not see a Turk. Instead I saw Isaac from KEMA. He stood there smiling. I jumped to my feet to shake his hand and asked the predictable question "What the hell are you doing here?!?" He was vacationing for a few days in İstanbul with his brother and parents. They had arrived in İstanbul just a day or two before. He told me that he was in large part inspired to visit Turkey because of me and another friend of his. Sure I mentioned Turkey when we were chatting at work and spoke highly of it, but I didn't think he would visit anytime soon. As amazed as I was to see him, I could only wonder what his amazement was like. To meet someone who is more or less obsessed with a far away place and then to have a chance encounter with that person in that far away place... He must think I live here or run the city or something.

Well, I am sorry, but in my dazed state, I did not think to take a picture. I will try to pull the camera out a bit more in the next few days. Tonight, I might see Isaac again. Tomorrow, I will see Misa again. This trip is about to get out of the introduction and enter chapter one. 

A birthday in İstanbul

Today was the birthday of Pınar's dad, Sabahattin (both shown above). We had a bunch of cake and wine. Both were very delicious. After the dessert, we looked at old family photos from both of our families. It was a lot of fun, of course.

 

İstanbul again

The unforgettable Sea of Marmara

Weekend Highlights

It's always nice to get out of Worcester and especially to go home. This being the finals weekend, I did not have a lot of time to stay but I wanted to drop in at least before traveling this winter break. Highlights of the weekend:

Dinner on Saturday night. Dad and I went to Stonington to the dock to buy some lobsters. Since the economy is in bad shape, a weird situation involving the failure of Icelandic banks and the Canadian lobster industry has caused lobsters in Maine to be really cheap. So we had lobsters for dinner. You can kind of tell when I am giving you the short version of the story. Anyway, I had set the camera up to take a picture of us having dinner. Nina wasn't around because she went to see some of her friends dance in a production of the Nutcracker Ballet. The lobster was great. Of course. Salad was great. Never realized how much I have come to like beets since I was a little kid. Rolls were great. Ok I have to stop because I feel weird talking this much about food. Oh and I'll mention that I also feel weird when other people talk a lot about food. Especially on those tv shows. Food is a means, not an end. If I had eaten that dinner by myself, it would not have been as good. Kebab tastes better in Turkey, rye bread tastes better in Denmark, and beer tastes better with friends. The rest is survival.

Walking the dogs with dad. I'm not going to lie, it was cold, but one comes to miss the ol' Tom Tapley Road after a while. It's the whole back to nature thing. It is just nice to be outside and walking and talking with dad. Well we didn't talk about too much because I was busy throwing a stick for Maude, the puppy. Shown below is a picture of Dad with Boris.

Getting a Christmas Tree. I feel bad that I will not be in the country for the second Christmas in a row. Not that bad but still kind of a little tiny bit bad. However I feel like I was able to be a part of it by helping to get the tree. We went to the same place we always go and we found a tree pretty much right away. It was definitely a tree that only looks good from one side, but that of course is good enough. It did make for a few jokes and laughs though. Oh and Nina will probably kill me for putting this picture of her here, but she was asking for it by wearing her SLIPPERS out into the woods on our tree search. While I'm at it, I'll mention she was also wearing shades even though it was rather dim out. So my point is that my step-sister has style no matter what her surroundings happen to be.
This ends the start of a crazy family-visiting adventure where I will be seeing everyone in my immediate family over the next few weeks except for one uncle, one cousin, and my half-brother. You know what this means... the blogness is going to get incredible. In other words, I'll be posting pictures and stories here about my adventures frequently in the coming weeks. Anyway, ciao for now.

Ice Storm

I admit that I almost never check the weather. Life is more exciting that way, like the other night when there had been as ice storm that knocked trees across the road and knocked out the power for a lot of people. So I woke up and walked outside and was like "hunh". Whaddya know! There's ice everywhere. Yay. And it was all anybody could talk about that day. I guess the part I liked the most was that as the ice melted it seemed like it was raining but only if you were near a tree.

At least the weather cleared up for my drive to Maine later that day.

Moon Over Kampüs

A night out on the town

Last weekend, I went out for dinner with my friends, Merve, Kahraman, and Merve's friend from Sabancı, Zeynep. While we waited for a seat at the restaurant, I set up the camera to take a picture. After the dinner, we went out to explore the city. The night carried on rather late, but it was most enjoyable. I was really happy that Merve and Kahraman had invited me out because if they hadn't I would have been stuck at home with nothing to do and feeling bored.