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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Current Mood: AngryI 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 [...]

Current Mood: EsctaticI 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]