Messin’ with Texas

When I first came to Istanbul, I brought only clothes. My first trip home for my brother’s graduation last May, I left Turkey with empty bags, and returned with mostly board games. You see, one of the many things that Izzy and I have in common is a passion for board gaming. We talked about it and decided we would put our collections together and form a weekly gaming group. It has been three months since we put this idea into practice. So far it’s been quite successful.

We have been able to meet nearly every week with between four and eight people. We typically meet at 8pm and eat together while playing games and catching up with what one another have been up to. Selim and Izel, whom I have met through gaming, are as devoted as Izzy, Erman and I. Selim travels nearly as far as I do (90 minutes) to get to where we play and is so in love with the games that he borrows them to play with his own group on the Asian side of the city on weekends, and takes notes during the week (well he did until we all made fun of him too much for taking notes during the game).

According to Selim (and the other agree), the kind of thought provoking games that I have brought with me from various countries (France, the US, the UK, Germany and Italy) are very appealing to Turks. Most Turks don’t do much with their free time. Many young people spend their weekends socializing in cafes or at malls shopping. He says many of the people he knows simply do not know what to do with their free time other than going out somewhere together. Games, he says, allow people to do something that is different, and familiar at the same time. People can still be with friends and socialize, but at the same time they get to put their minds to work and engage in friendly and fun competition. It is my impression that Turks like to compete. All those people that have had a little courage and come to a meeting or two have had a lot of fun, and instantly became warmly welcomed members of the group.

We started off by creating a Google group to organize ourselves. When Facebook began spreading like wildfire through Turkey, Izzy set up a Facebook group as well. You can check out either below as well as the group game list:

• Istanbul Games and Diplomacy
• Istanbul Board Gaming Enthusiasts (on Facebook)
• Game List

Of course, my goal with the group is to build a base of Diplomacy players. For those of you that do not know, it’s one specific game that I play a lot. It’s sort of my hobby (if you want more information than that, do your own research). I love the Thursday meetings, and wouldn’t change them for anything, but I would like to get a monthly Diplomacy game started. We have played twice now, and are playing online together, but haven’t had much organization about it. Hopefully that will change when it’s colder and people have less to do.

Playing ‘Power Grid’ at a cafe called ‘The Wrap.’ It has great food, strange, but soft music, and is usually empty. Except for making us leave at 11:30pm instead of midnight, it is a perfect place for gaming. From the left is Omer, Selim, Tahsin, Izel, someone I don’t know and Kocas (AKA Patrick)

One of the things that the group was inspired to do (mainly Izel, Selim, Erman and Izzy) was to bring games to Turkey. They said you can’t buy games like the ones I have anywhere and that it could be very popular to sell these kinds of games in student dense areas. Well this past weekend Izzy made the following find in a store:

In case you don’t know, that is Settlers of Catan, a rather well known very popular German game. If I had to pick a game to introduce first to Turkey, it would be that one. Furthermore, the game to the left is Ingenious, a new and fun German game. So it appears someone beat us to it. For me this is great. Less work for me! I am going to try contacting the company that did the translation and see if we can’t influence them on their future choice of games, and hopefully our group will continue to grow as steadily as it has been.

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For those of you that didn’t read the first part of this entry here is the link to it. The first part of this entry got more feedback than any other entry by far (not necessarily in the form of comments on the page) and I have several people ask me when PartII will be posted.

Girls, girls, girls…: Part I

So yes, it’s finally here. I think many of you will be disappointed. The impression I got from family and friends was that you all wanted to read about specific interactions with Turkish girls and the juicy details. In other words my love life. Well sorry to disappoint you. This entry specifically addresses the comment Dancing Queen left on the first girls entry. His comment was as follows:

My question of course is “how are the boys?”

Do they treat their ladies well? I hear tell that Turkey is “progressive” — and remembering your culturally (in)sensitive entry, I wonder what you think about the gender conflict where you are?

So I suppose this entry should really be called, “Guys, guys, guys…” but then I wouldn’t be able to make a trilogy out of it.

Let’s start with some facts (before I give you my subjective opinions and observations): The Swiss-based World Economic Forum releases an annual list that ranks countries by gender equality. They judge countries on four categories: educational attainment, economic participation and opportunity, political empowerment, health and survival. The US ranks 31st, relatively low (this is attributed to low political participation by women). Turkey ranked 121st, which is terrible. It ranked higher than only seven other countries: Yemen, Chad, Pakistan, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Benin and Morocco (think about who’s not in this list).

Clearly the swiss think that there is a huge divide between the genders here in Turkey. I have seen it, I have talked about it with friends and acquaintances. After reading the report, I talked about a bit more. Bit by bit I collected various observations about how inter sex relations work here in Turkey.

Near to where I live is a part of the city known for it’s “Russian girls.” I put the phrase Russian girls in quotes because the abundance of Russian prostitutes here in Istanbul has mad the phrase “Russian girls” synonymous with prostitutes. I cannot tell you how many times people have said to me:

• “You want Russian girls.”
• “Conrad, you go Russian girls?”
• “Conrad, you want go Russian girls?”

They love it. They love to talk about girls and sex. Some of it is very PG other bits are not appropriate for the content of my blog. The majority of the time, these questions are coming from people already with a significant other.

Several people have bragged to me about how they have been cheating on their significant other. Some of these people are hailed as ‘lucky’ or ’smart.’ They are praised and envied by their friends, which only reinforces the continuation of the behavior. They are held in high regards, amongst the men that is. Worse is the man who has a child at home.

From what I can tell, cheating appears to be rampant. Defenses to this criticism include, “but Turkish girls don’t put out.” I find this weak at best as I am reminded of people who have told me they only want to marry a virgin, or my doctor who told me it is important to marry a girl much younger than me (it’s about the sex, you don’t need to be friends he said).

A friend told me that most Turks are just talk. They said that because of the culture many Turks are celibate until they marry, and then have only one woman. For them it is exciting and entertaining to talk about the possibilities if they were to say, go to the Ukraine for a fair for one week. A significant number of men do not deceive their significant other in this way. I have seen more evidence to suggest that they do deceive their wives, but as usual, my experience comes out of the small bubble that I live in here in Turkey.

If we look at world wide divorce rates from 2002, we can see that Turkey ranks quite low at only 6% of new marriages compared to 45.8% in the US (if divorcing was a contest, it appears Scandinavia would win that too). But I don’t have a lot of experience with Turkish couples. I have been told that typically, wives will not ask questions of their husbands if they bring home the money. One friend told me that if a wife starts asking questions, the husband has only to give her money for new clothes and she will let it rest. Does this mean that divorce is taboo and that people are living marriages they don’t want to be in? I think so.

One evening some friends and I sat down to play a game. We played and I asked some of the girls there if they would like to join in. They had been watching us play and had asked a question or two. One of the guys interrupted and told me not to bother trying to get girls to play games. He said that this was not their thing and it was a waste of time trying to get them to play. What? This seemed ridiculous to me. Anybody can have fun playing a board game, a card game. Like Izzy’s mother and my mother, they are both very good bridge players. Many of my female friends from back home really enjoy playing some of the games I have. I of course said that’s silly, and that there is a game for everyone. So the girls joined in and they had a good time. A small victory for me!

I can say with reasonable certainty that Turks don’t have much respect for women (I make this as a general statement and not as an absolute truth of Turkish culture. There are many exceptions). I could go on and on here citing examples of Turkish men having no confidence in women’s ability for various tasks, or of great surprise when seeing a woman succeed, but I don’t want to sound like a broken record. You get the idea.

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I have recently received some criticisms related to my sweeping generalizations about Turks and their culture.  I know, that’s intentional. As my reader, keep in mind that I get most of my information from observations, stories, and from my interactions with the two distinct groups of people I interact with. The first group being my friends: young university educated Turks from middle to upper class Turkish families. The second group are the people I work with. They are a mix of older Turks, most without a university education. My interactions with them are limited to Alper’s willingness to translate, and their willingness to share with both Alper and I simultaneously. So I am not claiming any authority. On any of the subjects discussed here. I do my best to cite my sources, and to include links to websites containing information I include here. My goal however is not to be objective. The purpose of this blog - An American Life in Istanbul - is to provide a view of Turkish culture skewed by a lens colored with my own personal culture. So please enjoy, please criticize, please comment and please keep on reading!

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Current Mood: Angry

I remember it all very clearly. I went climbing Wednesday night, had dinner and then went out in Taksim for Leyla’s birthday. Drove home, no problem. Was very tired though.

Thursday night, Thanksgiving, Murat took the car I had had the previous night. He called me and asked if I had left any bags in the car. I distinctly remember looking at my backpack full of climbing stuff in the morning. It was sitting in the back of the car. I remember thinking there wasn’t much point to taking it out of the car in the morning. So yes, my favorite backpack ($120), my climbing shoes ($70) and my harness (it was a steal for $60) as well as my cold medicine, a can of deodorant and a can of body spray - funny how I remember exactly the contents of my backpack that I had packed two days before.

If you haven’t guessed where this is going, yes, the car was broken into for a third time! (In case you don’t remember here are the entries for the previous two times: Broken Window 1, Broken Window 2). It’s not so much the monetary value of what was lost as the sentimental value of what was lost. That backpack, which I bought over three years ago in Switzerland, has barely left my side since then. It has been hiking glaciers, skiing 2 mile high mountains, hiking hardened lava flows in Hawaii, diving trips, rock climbing (obviously), class, planes, trains, cars… it’s been everywhere. I loved that backpack. It even had a sticker that said “Polynesian Adventures” on it from Hawaii. It was good and dirty too. I can say with confidence that after my laptop, my backpack was my favorite possession. On top of all that, I am still sick.

So, I hope everyone else had a happy thanksgiving. There were some good things about the day, but in general it was a very sub par thanksgiving. It would have been nice to at least have some turkey and stuffing.

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Current Mood: Esctatic

I would like to take this opportunity to go over two things.

1. Bragging: I started using Google Analytics to track my blogs visitors and my company website visitors (I made the website, so it’s my duty to maintain it). I figure it is never a bad idea to take a few simple steps towards tracking web traffic. It’s been just over one month since I started keeping track and so far my blog has more visitors. Way to go readers! In the past month:

Hah! Pretty good isn’t it? If you are curious you can check out the company website. Quickly interpreting the numbers leads me to the following conclusions:

• Fewer new visits means I have more returning readers. While the company website is able to get lots of new people to the website, my readers keep coming back. This is probably because my content is changing (and it’s more interesting)
• Fewer page views per visit is a bit of a silly statistic especially if you consider that the majority of my visits are from returning readers. They are only interested in the new entries all of which show up on the main page.

Furthermore, another one of our distributors has been reading my blog! I guess I have to be extra careful now.

2. Comments: Please post your thoughts on my blog. It sometimes creates interesting debate and I like to read what people think. However keep in mind, except for swearing I am not going to try not to screen any comments. A few weeks ago someone posted a comment that they assumed I wouldn’t post. They were a surprised and embarrassed to have those words go up. So be mindful of what you post. This is after all a public forum.

3. New Theme: Anyone else feel it’s time for a new theme? I am getting tired of the MacBlog theme since it doesn’t really fit my blog. If anyone has any suggestions please post them in your comments.

Thanks,

Conrad

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Alper – who is now working in foreign sales and marketing with me – and I, often talk about the many things we don’t like about Turkey, Turkish culture, and Turkish people. I vent a lot of my frustration to him, and I return the favor by listening to his venting. We spend our lunch and during tea breaks complaining to each other. We are a bit better than say a five year old whining for a toy, but not too much some of the time. Last week, while I was complaining about the thick-headedness and narrow-mindedness of Turkish bosses, Alper told me a story that illustrated the essence of my complaining quite brilliantly.

One of Alper’s previous jobs was in the manufacturer of some small product. Let’s call it a thwap. Many workers worked individually to produce several thousand thwaps per day. When thwap production began, the workers worked eight hours a day and the volume they produced was enough.

As the months went buy, the number of thwaps produced each day declined with no change in the work force or the process. The decline was apparently for no reason. The boss of this company decided that if his workers could no longer produce enough thwaps in eight hours, they would just work ten hours a day. So he increased the length of the workday and sure enough, the number of thwaps produced per day increased back to where it had been. The boss was satisfied.

As the months went by, thwap production fell again for no apparent reason. The boss was no longer satisfied. He demanded answers.

One of the older workers at the plant came to the boss and proposed to him an idea. He pointed out to the boss that most of the workers were women from two income families. All these women had husbands and children at home. They did not want to work longer hours and they were not happy with the previous increase in the working hours. He suggested that the boss should say how many thwaps he wanted to be produced each day. Tell all the workers that if they hit the daily quota they could go home. This older worker thought that with this strategy, the women would be motivated to work hard, and work fast, and that they could produce the number of thwaps they had been producing in only six hours.

This is a good solution, isn’t it?

The boss did not like this idea. His response was they are my workers and I am the boss. They will work as long as tell them for as hard as I tell them. There will be no incentives like that. Instead he would increase the length of the workday until he was getting the right number of thwaps, and he would fire all of the workers if he had to. He would rule his company with an iron fist.

Unfortunately the story ends here because Alper quit that job. Alper found his boss to be a very stupid man and Alper did not like working for him. According to Alper, this is the mentality of the bosses in Turkey. They have grown up, and have made their money by working very hard, by being fighters. They view their workers as a commodity and have a very Machiavellian approach to management – “it is better to be feared than loved.” According to Alper, this is changing, but not fast enough.

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Leyla showed up by surprise last week and we all went out and had a great time this past weekend. I’ll just give you some pictures because as usual the weekend was pretty intense, and I am still tired from it.

Sisters: Leyla and Berna

From the Right: Erman, Kocas (AKA Patrick), Leyla, Kutsal (one of the other SigNus here in Turkey), Izzy, me and the other Leyla (she invited us out with her friends, but we kind of took over).

Kocas, Izzy and Lara (a Canadian exchange student at Koc University, the same place that Kutsal, Izzy, Kocas (aka Patrick) and Berna go to).

Best looking guys of the night: Kocas (aka Patrick) and I

We went to a really fancy roof top bar near the end of the night. Under the stairs they had a bunch of beach balls. Leyla (the first Leyla) and I hid under there and deflated a bunch of them.

I just like this picture.

Kocas (AKA Patrick) and Izzy. So as the evening went on, things got weirder.

Leyla, Kocas (AKA Patrick) and Lara. I like the look on Lara’s face. Notice the beach balls.

That’s all. I thought given my recent posts, this would be an appropriate change of style. Except for UK Trip 2: Part I: Lions entry, I haven’t had an entry recently simply about what I did.

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Two or three weeks ago, a French reporter working for a Turkish newspaper here contacted me. She said she was an occasional reader of my blog and that she was working on an article about what it’s like to be an American living in Istanbul. She asked if I would grant her an interview and I obliged. Below is a link to the article. Enjoy!

Today’s Zaman Article

 If you want, you can read the whole article here on my website too:

<<<

Turkish anti-Americanism through eyes of Americans living in Turkey by Anne Andlauer

On Oct. 8, most of the 7,500 Americans living in Turkey opened their email inboxes to find an unusually alarming note from their embassy in Ankara.

“This Warden Message is being sent to alert U.S. citizens in Turkey to anticipated legislative activity in the U.S. House of Representatives and its possible consequences in Turkey,” the first lines of the message read.

The US House Foreign Affairs Committee was about to consider a resolution labeling the killings of Anatolian Armenians during World War I “genocide.” The American Embassy urged its citizens to be alert for possible demonstrations and manifestations of anti-Americanism after the vote, advising them to “avoid large gatherings” as well as “places known to be frequented by Americans.”

Obviously, US-Turkey relations in recent days have not been at their highest point. Adding to the tensions are Turkey’s preparations for a possible cross-border offensive into northern Iraq, in an effort to stop lethal incursions from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

But while politicians are discussing the future of delicate bilateral ties, concerns about an increase in Turks’ anti-American feelings have spread among the 7,500 Americans living in Turkey. Some of them might wonder if their usually friendly grocer has suddenly turned anti-American, or whether they should hide their citizenship from that inquisitive taxi driver.

Among them is Jeffrey Dixon, an assistant professor of sociology at Istanbul’s Koç University whose research focuses on Turkey and the European Union. Citing results from a recent Pew Global Attitudes Survey that Turks’ views of Americans have “hit rock bottom,” Dixon admitted he was “a little concerned and in fact more concerned than before, given that data indicate a rise in anti-Americanism in Turkey.”

Dixon lamented that US-Turkey relations were at their lowest point since he has been studying Turkey and said he feels alarmed when the embassy sends out alerts asking him to avoid certain places.

Surveys and official alerts aside, Dixon insisted that Turkish people general treated him very well. “I think that part of this is because I know Turkish,” he says. “Another part of this is because the Turkish people are able to separate American policies from American people.”

However Dixon confessed he had recently lied about his American citizenship and introduced himself as a German to a Turkish taxi driver. “I’ve done that before and said I was French or Canadian. If I can remember correctly, I did this because the taxi cab driver previously said something bad about the United States.”

Conrad Woodring, who has been working in Istanbul since March 2007, also remembers himself pretending to be Canadian on his first trip to Turkey four-and-a-half years ago. The United States had just invaded Iraq and US popularity worldwide was plummeting. At the end of the day, however, Woodring says he felt “like a coward” for presenting himself as a Canadian passport holder.

“I believe that the country where we are born should not determine the quality of our character. I know that people will frown upon me because I am American; this is unavoidable and I simply do my best to not associate with those people. I am not ashamed to be American. … One can either decide to live in fear, or not to. I am not afraid to be American,” he says.

Woodring has never lied about his citizenship since then. Despite a few instances in which he felt a little nervous lately, Woodring says he is confident that it only takes simple precautions to keep himself out of harm’s way.

“Turkish people’s intense nationalism has been manifesting itself in protests against their own government and against the PKK, not so much against Americans,” Woodring says. “Problems between the PKK and the Turkish army have overshadowed the US vote acknowledging the Armenian killings as genocide, so the level of anti-Americanism hasn’t increased lately.”

Woodring observed that most of his Turkish friends enjoyed discussing politics and often engaged in intellectual debates over the United States. “When the US was about to vote on acknowledging the killing of Armenians as a genocide, I noticed everyone’s opinion dropped one peg. Many of the Turks I know were very angered by this and there were a lot of discussions about how Turkey would stick it to the US by restricting the US bases in Turkey… They seemed to see this as a slap in the face from the US and were excited to see their country slap back.”

In Woodring’s opinion, Turkish people are unanimously against the US government and usually grant confidence to Americans who do not support the current American administration. Woodring, who says he does not trust his government either, insists he feels safe in Turkey and finds it very exciting to “witness first-hand democracy in action.”

Woodring recalls his feelings the day he was stuck in his car on a bridge during a recent protest that took place in the area where he lives: “People were marching down the street shouting in a language I didn’t know. The roads were blocked and had I needed to run, there was nowhere to go since I was on a bridge. This was the first and only time I have been afraid in Turkey. The protesters had an intensity in their eyes [such] that I immediately envisioned things taking a turn for the worst.”

Woodring says all his friends have advised him to avoid protests, tourist areas and to maintain a low profile. But while the political situation in Turkey has been volatile lately, Woodring describes himself as “lucky” to witness Turks out in mass, “standing together for what they believe in and making a difference.”

“The government has truly been listening to and doing the will of the people. True, it has been reluctant in doing so, but the Turkish people have a strong voice. It is very exciting for me to see this all happening,” Woodring says.

Karen Miller, a 20-year-old from Long Island, New York, also finds that living in Turkey nowadays inspires her to take advantage of seeing the public view of America in the eyes of Turkish people. “I don’t think US-Turkish relations are at a good point in time right now,” says Miller, an exchange student at Istanbul’s Koç University this quarter. “As I have never lived outside the US, I have only heard of political issues with other countries from American news and media. … But here it is even a different understanding, because at any moment I could just ask someone about their opinion on the matter.”

Although she says she was afraid of the way people would treat her after hearing about the Armenian resolution in House Foreign Affairs Committee, Miller realized that the motion had not made any change in Turkish people’s attitudes toward her. “As time passes, I am still meeting many other people and have no fear in introducing myself as an American from New York.”

“I’ve come to learn that Turks are very kind, welcoming and hospitable people, but I feel that is even amplified when they learn I am an American. I don’t believe that it is because I am American but just because I am a foreigner and it is always interesting to meet people from new and different places,” she notes.

Miller has therefore never lied about her citizenship in Turkey, although some of her friends in the US had been joking that she should fake a Canadian accent and say she is Canadian when asked about her origin.

In fact, Miller says she disagrees with Americans and others who state that Turkish people are in danger of becoming anti-American. Miller says she has confidence in Turks’ ability to separate American culture and American politics.

“When an official says a comment like that, I almost feel as though by making that statement he or she is making the Turks slightly more anti-American just by putting the idea out in the open. I also do not like the American embassy warnings about avoiding demonstration areas, but do understand why they give such warnings. Living in Turkey, I want to experience as much Turkish culture as I can and if that means seeing current events such as a demonstration, then I will go to a demonstration,” Miller says.

But while those three Americans agreed on the ability of Turkish people to engage in an insightful conversation about American politics and relations with Turkey, their answers differed when asked about the number-one questions from Turks to Americans.

Woodring finds Turks’ most frequent questions deal with their own country and people. “Turkish people have a lot of pride about their country and their culture and they like to hear what foreigners think of their country,” Woodring says. “When it comes to the topic of America, Turkish people like to ask me about what I think about the situation in Iraq, the PKK. It usually starts with them asking me what my opinions are about the US occupation of Iraq, which shifts over to did I know that the PKK, a terrorist organization in the East of Turkey, is hiding out in northern Iraq and receiving weapons from the US.”

A sociology professor, Dixon says he is asked about American culture in general, the extent to which people feel isolated in the United States, how the US family structure is similar to and different from that in Turkey and why the American people supported Bush in the previous presidential election.

As for Miller, she says the number one question is “Do you like Bush?” sometimes followed up with “Did you like Clinton?” Turkish people, Miller says, “always make it known that they do not like Bush but did favor Clinton. … I am surprised how people don’t usually ask me questions about the US occupation of Iraq. Instead they just ask me how I like the president, not his efforts in Iraq.”

Americans planning to settle in Turkey or to visit the country should therefore calm their fears of Turks’ anti-American feelings, which Americans living here describe as directed to the American government and its policies rather than to American citizens. On the contrary, they might be tempted to witness “democracy in action” in Turkey, no matter what politicians might be telling each other on bilateral talks over sensitive issues.

>>>

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As I have already said, I had a short trip to the UK and to Spain last week. The trip was exhausting, but very successful and fulfilling. Except for missing a flight, everything went brilliantly well. In the madness of my travels, I picked up on a few things that stood out in sharp contrast to life in Turkey.

Lines/Queuing: British people are really good at forming lines, or as they say ‘queuing’ or ‘queuing up.’ When I first went to Switzerland, I quickly noticed that people had no mob etiquette. I know, mob etiquette sounds like an oxymoron - especially to Europeans - but there is actually something to it. Let’s an easy example from my life and the life of my parents: Ski-lift lines.

How a line should look.

How lines in Europe (minus the UK) look.

You will notice a few things here. First of all, the people in the poorly organized line are far more. This is actually an illusion. The ordered line and the unorganized line both spill out of the picture which therefore make it impossible to judge how many people there are. I will tell you that regardless of how people line up, the person processing the line cannot go any faster.

The second thing, and this is a bit misleading in the picture, is that the unorganized line seems to be completely chaotic except that they are facing to the left, with parallel lines of sight. This is misleading. Typically, people orient themselves radially, with everyone facing towards the processing point of the line. People typically try to form a semi-circle surrounding the processing point of the line. While the processing point is very narrow, the diameter of the circle is quite large. In fact the shape that the line forms is not quite a semicircle. It is actually a shape similar to the three-point arc. The arch method of lining up is a very Darwinian approach as I discovered. By becoming the outermost edge of the arch, I realized that my size and strength allowed me to get to the front of the life-line very quickly. Is that fair? Of course not. I got so annoyed though that I decided I would throw away civility and beat them at their own game.

While in London, I noticed that the English are the kings of queuing. At one point during my travels, I was trying to get to the Underground, from the inside of a train station. The train station was very crowded and there were more people trying to get down to the underground than the sole staircase could handle. There was therefore a backup. The crowd formed a nice, neat line that curled around the outer edge of the train station. Several people commented that they had never had to queue up for a staircase, but they did it anyways. This was of course quite a change from the free for all mentality of Turkey and the rest of Europe.

Riding the Escalator: Perhaps an excellent compliment to the English’s queue etiquette was how they rode the escalator. I always understood that you are meant to stand on the right while riding an escalator. If you are walking, you can go on the left. This is the general rule for all things: driving, cycling, escalators, stairs. Slower movers stick to the right, faster movers stick to the right. If you aren’t moving, you start moving as soon as you get off the escalator so that the flow of people continues successfully.

Well I have never seen such devotion to this rule as I have in London. People kind of stuck to it, and would move to the side in the US, and in general, you can pass the non-movers in most countries if it’s not too crowded. In London, literally everyone immediately moves to the right. It was unbelievable. A very crowded subway station, you are waiting to get on the escalator. You turn the corner and see that the people on the escalator have occupied every other step and are all standing on the left. Even my friend who live in London have readily adopted this bit culture - they scolded me for standing on the wrong side.

I give a second tip of my hat to the English because they are all driving on the wrong side of the road, but the stand on the right side of the escalator. I was very impressed.

Team Thinking: My last little anecdote does not worship the English as the previous two did. Instead, it is a tip of the hat to my own country men.

I typically avoid Americans, but cannot help but notice them when I am traveling. Clothes, accent, the way they walk, many things give them away. Regardless of what it is, I can pick them out. This time it was in Heathrow airport in London that I picked out a group with American accents. I was at the border control filling out my landing card when I heard them the first time. As they picked up their landing cards, the group of about 15 quickly organized themselves. One girl in the group asked the others to all get a pen and a landing card and to inform of when they were ready. She then proceeded to read the address, flight number and other common information on the card to each of the other people in the group.

This is what I miss about the US I thought. The sense of teamwork, and the forward thinking approach to things. This girl had quickly realized that everyone would be writing the same information and created a plan to expedite the process as much as possible. The plan worked without fault. Based on my experience so far in Turkey, this would NEVER happen. A loosely associated group of students traveling together would not have the foresight to work together on something as simple as this. The group would have already have already been divided into sub-groups of students who were friends before the trip had started and mixing between the groups would be limited. Despite the benefits of acting together, each group would remain separate from the others, and would act independently.

On a whole, they would not take longer to get through customs. After all, the customs officer can only process people at a certain rate. That’s not the point though. It’s about the mentality. I see this mentality in other Americans, but not so much in other cultures. I find this extremely ironic, and I am sometimes nearly convinced I must be interpreting things in the wrong way. The US is considered a very individualist society. The socialist democracies (whom I praise) do a great job of taking care of their people. The less developed third world countries form very close bounds with the people around them, and use this network to support each other and to survive. In general, it has been my experience that Americans are heavily focused on ourselves and our wealth. I have found that people from other cultures usually make better friends than Americans. However, Americans do seem to think and behave very successfully as a group.

I know that Americans you see abroad are a different breed than the majority. I also know that while abroad many Americans are a bit on the defensive. With US popularity at it’s lowest point ever (is that accurate?), we Americans need to stick together and look out for each other right? Regardless of the factors involved, seeing this behavior at the airport made me smile. I was annoyed by how loud they were, but it was somehow comforting to see them coordinate so well together. If only I could create this kind of mindset at work.

Americans in the airport, the address

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I just returned from a five day trip that was quite a headache. I think that most of you will not go through a description of the week, so I will give you a bulleted list. I am sure you can still appreciate the madness:

• WEDNESDAY: 5:30am - got out of bed and headed to the airport for my morning flight to London.
• 10:30am - landed in London, headed into the city to meet Arianna for lunch.
• Sometime after lunch I headed to Stansted airport (a different one than the one I arrived in). Apparently left too late because I missed my flight
• Spent most of the evening in transit and on the phone looking for another flight. Got back to Andra’s flat (where I was staying) at about 11pm.
• THURSDAY: 4:45am - Got up to catch my 6:20am. Had to take a taxi to the airport because of how early it was = 62 pounds
• 11:00am - landed in Seville and headed to my meeting.
• 8:00pm - Headed to the airport for my 10pm flight. Got slapped with a stupid 3euro penalty for not checking in online. Apparently it was in the fine print, but nearly everyone else on the flight didn’t know this.
• FRIDAY: 1:30am - Went to sleep
• 8:30am - Got up and hopped on a train to Birmingham for my next meeting
• 5:00pm - Meeting done, on the train back to London to spend time with my friends in London (Andra, Eric, Spags and Arianna).
• Had a great weekend!

After I got through those first three days it wasn’t so bad, but I was so incredibly tired and frustrated. It was great seeing old friends though.

Instead of actually writing an entry about my trip, I am just going to say a few short things and share some pictures with you. First of all the business of the trip went very well. The social aspect was also very good. My favorite place in all of London (although I haven’t been too many places) was Trafalgar square. The reason for this was the four giant metal lions surrounding the pylon on top of which a statue of Admiral Nelson stands. Why did I like these lions? I think it was because when I was small, we would often go to my father’s boss’ house. Near his front door, just inside the house, were two big metal lions. The lions in Trafalgar square are a lot bigger than the ones from my childhood, but then again I used to be a lot smaller. There was something very enchanting and familiar about climbing on these lions that made me feel very at ease and relaxed. I would have been satisfied to sit there all day in between the paws of the great lions, either playing a game, reading or just chatting. Anyway, here are the pictures.

Cool lighting I thought. That’s good old Nelson up there (obviously the admiral is the guy in the background, and not the one on the horse).

That’s the lion! (That’s Andra on the left. She’s a friend from high school who is doing her masters degree at the London School of Economics).

That’s Arianna, a friend from university. In the middle is a lion!

There is the three of us sitting in front of a lion!

That’s a lion! with some building behind it. I think it was some kind of museum.

That’s me checking out an ice climbing wall in central London. Unfortunately, all the pros had reserved it because of the approaching season. (Notice the absence of lions from the picture).

This was almost as cool as the lions. This was a charge station for an electric car right on the side of the road. This is evidence that London is a greener city than Istanbul (I am sure no one was doubting that fact, but I thought this was pretty cool). To operate the charge station you needed some kind of RFID tag to activate it.

And there you have it, that was London. Sorry I didn’t take more non-lion pictures.

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