A Rivalry Showdown in Kadıköy

Fenerbahçe 0, Galatasaray 0. Probably the result that the police were hoping for.

A guy in front of me jumps out of his seat and shouts at the Fenerbahçe offense (via the television) for failing to convert a golden opportunity into a goal.

Sometimes in football, favorable odds, home field advantage, momentum and high hopes lead to anticipation and even expectation of a victory. In this case, the majority of İstanbul expected Fenerbahçe to totally embarrass Galatasaray and their new coach with a strong win. Instead, there was a scoreless game which featured many chances from both sides. To summarize, Galatasaray played much better in the first half, Fenerbahçe better for most of the second half, the reffing was at time questionable and there were a lot of yellow cards. Fenerbahçe's goalie, Volkan Demirel (which means "Volcano Iron-Hand"), was phenomenal. Pino from Galatasaray really helped carry the team.

I watched the first half from inside a very smokey bar. If you're thinking hey wait a second, I thought smoking inside public places was illegal in Turkey, you're right. Like in the Matrix, some rules can be bent, others can be broken. I could hardly breathe, and I felt like a victim of a kind of societal stupidity. You're hurting the economy! I screamed in my head. It's true, the thing that annoys me the most about smoking is how much it hurts the economy and the overall quality of life in a country. Anyway, I left at halftime and watched the rest from outside a different bar.

One other cool thing worth mentioning is that I was listening to the game on the radio via my cellphone. By doing this, I could know that the cable TV signal in the smokey bar was about 1 second behind and the satellite signal in the other bar was 2-3 seconds behind. It was kind of nice knowing what was going to happen before the huge crowd knew. That's actually how I snapped the photo above. I knew they'd be disappointed! Also, listening to the game like that was good practice for my Turkish.

That's all for now!

Football and beer

Just as my life has found its routine, I am thinking about how to change it. In the meantime, I'm taking more careful notice of the things that change. I find that a day can feel special as long as it has in it a few special moments. Two is enough i think, but I haven't been counting.

Highlight of the week might have been the football match I played in. It was 10 versus 10, a 90 minute game. Each week, I play with the same guys against the same guys. We always lose, but in the recent weeks we've put up more of a contest. This week, we won 5-2. Shown below is my best friend from football, Batuhan, and the place we normally play.

Below, pictures from the hookah at which cafe we all celebrated our victory. I smoked a little of the orange-mint tobacco. It wasn't bad, but I can never smoke very much before my head starts aching. Therefore I tend to do much better with mild flavors such as orange, lemon or rose.

 

The other night, I went out with Pınar for a beer on my favorite street. I'll talk more about that street some other time. It's a special place. It was awesome to hang out with Pınar anyway. We usually meet up in Taksim or in Bostancı, so I treasured the opportunity to hang out with her closer to home.

I like that the guy on the far right of the picture is about to sneeze.

Polonezköy, Nurşin, Ümit and Künefe

Pictures were taken with my phone, hence the quality.

Met up with Nurşin and her brother, Ümit, and friends over the weekend. Went to Polonezköy but forgot my camera, but we didn't look around too much since it was raining. In the evening, we drank lots of beer and played Tabu. The girls won which mean next weekend, the guys are making them breakfast. After that, we went out for kğnefe, my favorite dessert. I enjoyed watching it being made.

I promise a better post really soon! The weather has turned here, and things are a bit different.

A WPI visitor and a surpise in Taksim

It seems that WPI faculty and staff like to pass through İstanbul. Since I moved here almost 6 months ago I've been visited by a small handful of WPI folk, mainly those involved in the international programs in one way or another.

This time it was Tom Thomsen, international student director, co-director of the Denmark project site at which I completed a project, and simply one of the nicest people you can meet at WPI. He was just passing through for a day, representing WPI at a college fair. One of his former students, Erçin, came by to help him at the booth, a major advantage over most of the other colleges there since she could speak Turkish with the recruits. I showed up about half-way through the event, right at a moment when a student had come by interested in learning about the aerospace program. I enjoyed chatting with students about my alma mater, and also learning from Tom (he insists that I no longer call him Mr. Tomsen, though the temptation is annoyingly powerful) about things that have changed there.

About an hour later, my friend Pınar came by and the four of us went for a beer. Tom raised his glass and uttered an old familiar Danish word, "skol!" I recounted some of my experiences in Denmark years ago, and we all proceeded converse on many topics. I was still getting over the shock of sitting across from Tom in İstanbul (I get this feeling every time someone visits me here), when it was time for him to go. I'll definitely miss Tom and his Danish accent, but perhaps he'll be back next year and I'll still be here. Either way, I'm sure I'll see him again before not too long.

Pınar and I then left for nearby Taksim. We got some food and then went to a place I like for some beer. There we were joined by an old familiar face and, in my book, a rather peculiar character, Jeremy. I met him at Vassar almost a year ago while visiting for a day, and he struck me as odd because he is an American named Jeremy and he speaks Turkish. It was a strange experience then, and when I saw him last night, it was less strange. His first remark once we had sat down was exactly what I was thinking. "It seems so much more natural to see you here, than back at Vassar."

Jeremy came to İstanbul to do a semester or two at Boğaziçi University. I had so many questions for him about his experiences since getting here just a couple weeks ago. I could relate to many of the things he described. Like me, his approach to this city is not as a tourist but as someone who wants to integrate and establish a deeper connection. His knowledge of İstanbul is quite vast, and he has a keen eye for its subtle riches.

I can say that Saturday was an interesting day. I can also say that I very much enjoyed seeing familiar face and even meeting some new ones. I wish the best to Tom and I hope to see Tom, Erçin, Jeremy and Pınar as time allows.