An American Life in Istanbul

I am still gone, so here’s another picture from Istanbul. As I said earlier I spend a lot of time on Istiklal Street in Taksim. The street is lined start to finish with buildings built up against each other. Ever so often, there are small streets crossing Istiklal. Equally often there are ‘pasaj’ or passages. These are covered pathways between buildings that are typically filled with cafes, shops or in the case of the famous cicek pasaj (flower passage) Meyhanes (restaurants where one goes to drink Raki and eat Turkish appetizers). Here is a picture of a rather unimpressive pasaj. It is completely covered protecting it from the rain.

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Well since I am out of Istanbul without a computer, I am just posting a short series of pictures of a rather well hidden church right on the busiest shopping street in Istanbul, probably in all of Turkey. Istiklal Caddesi is a pedestrian street leading up to Taksim square, lined with shops, bars, restaurants, and about everything else you can imagine. It’s one of my favorite places. I spend most Friday and Saturday nights in or around Taksim, and it wasn’t until very recently I noticed this well hidden church.

This is the entrance to the church. Past the gate, there is a small set of stairs leading down to the church’s front door. The entrance is completely flush with the other buildings flanking the street making it very hard to spot.

These are the stairs leading past the entrance and down to the front door.

Although not much, this is the inside of the church. They had roman catholic and two other religions’ services on the schedule while I was here.

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You all remember this picture from my earlier post Back in Turkey:

Well at a friend’s birthday I brought the beers and we had a tasting. Most of the tasters were a mix of impressed, intrigued and shocked at the wide range of tastes. Most Turkish beer is made in the same way as the traditional German lagers, as are most of the imports that are available here. Drinking IPA’s, ales, stouts or fruity wheat beers is just not possible here. Therefore most of the tasters had never had beer like this. Anyway here are the pictures.

From the left it’s Erman myself and Izzy sitting behind the five beers.

Besides the beer tasting, it was after all Ali Emre’s birthday, so we grilled some chicken and beef. From the left is Ant, Adnan, Erman and Izzy all trying to get the grill going. It took quite a long time but they were eventually successful.

Thick, dark chocolaty Yeti Imperial Stout from Colorado. This and one of the IPAs were the favorite two beers. I personally don’t like it. but it seemed about half the guys liked it, half of them hated it. There was no real middle ground on this one

Ant and Izzy displaying their two favorite beers. An IPA and a normal ale. The bitter hoppy taste in these two beers happens to be what I like in beer as well.

Izzy’s beer rating system. He hated the stout.

Doruk with his favorite beer. A lot of friends have said he looks a lot like Jack Black.

Playing Ninetendo Wii.

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Here is a series of pictures - all from Turkey - that a friend sent to me. The ones posted here are the ones that I could easily see happening in Turkey

Debatebly better than a whole in the floor, which is quite common in Turkey.

I haven’t seen something like this personally but it wouldn’t surprise me if I did.

Looks a little dangerous, doesn’t it?

Another one that I haven’t seen but wouldn’t be surprised if I saw it.

This is my favorite one. I actually have seen this at one of the monuments. On the right it says the entrance fee is two million Turkish Lyra. On the left it says “entrance one million.” Sneaky Turks!

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Just some pictures from the weekend. That’s Doruk, Erman and myself. Because there are so many students in Istanbul, there is quite a good night life to be found. Istanbul is a city that never sleeps. These pictures were taken at ‘cafe pi’ in Taksim. They have a huge variety of drinks on the menu, and play American Rock and Pop music.

From the left Doruk, Erman and myself

Doruk and Erman

Friends!

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A few weeks ago, Alper sent me this video. This is from the main highway into Istanbul, the highway that I take to get into the city. The best part is probably the last driver who drives not only against traffic but in the fast lane?! The question is why do so many people need to go against the flow of traffic? Are they stupid or are the roads poorly designed. My guess is a combination of both, but more the later.

I have several more traffic, driving and car related entries if you are interested:

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Two weeks ago a friend from high school, Jessica, came to visit me. She, like me, is an expatriate. She currently lives in Cadiz, Spain where she works as an English teacher. She came to visit Istanbul for one week. Below is an excerpt from her blog entry or you can click here to read the whole thing on her blog. Thanks for visiting Jessica it was a pleasure to have you.

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Then we met up with Conrad and went back to the same one Conrad always goes to and his friend Izzie and his other Turkish friends showed up and we played more backgammon and they smoked hookah and we drank lots of tea and orchid milk drink. The Turks never get bored of hookah and backgammon and tea. It’s so absurd. If I had to pick one drink that I always drank, and one thing I always smoked, and one game that I always played, it probably wouldn’t be those. It would probably be white mochas, and maybe it would be backgammon, but it could also be Scrabble or Geschenkt or Taboo, and we won’t discuss anything to be smoked.

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Now here are some pictures. Since Jessica wrote everything in her blog, and it’s too far in the past, I will only give some pictures to look over.

Waiting for our traditional Turkish breakfast with Leyla and her friends. This was a nice cafe in Yesilkoy right on the Bosporus. Because it was outside and there was food, lots of birds were flying around and Kyle got crapped on twice.

Jessica and I standing at ‘Rumeli Hisari‘ the fortress built by Mehmet the Conqueror before he conquered Istanbul. The whole place was built in only four months!

One of the many ships passing through the Bosporus. This one I found interesting because it’s carrying railroad cars!

Swimming anyone? There are many ladders like this (and nicer ones) for swimming in the Bosporus.

This is me eating Iskender Kebab, an extremely delicious Turkish specialty. I failed to make my brother and Jessica try this while they were here. Sorry guys.

Jessica, Leyla and Theresa out at our favorite bar, Akdeniz (which means Mediterranean Sea in Turkish). They play great 80s and 90s music.

Doruk and I at Akdeniz. Jessica thinks that my friend Doruk looks like Jack Black. Not sure that I agree.

After Theresa broke a glass, Doruk was really distressed.

Some of the best sites to see in Istanbul from the left, Hagia Sophia, the ancient Cisterne that stored water for the city and the Blue Mosque.

Jessica was really excited to see Starbucks so she took a picture of their menu.

This is the view from the Galatta Tower which used to be part of the defenses of Istanbul. It’s on the European side just north of the Golden Horn. Jessica had to visit this on her own while I was at work.

Since it was Saint Patrick’s Day while Jessica was here we went to an Irish pub where this guy got a drink thrown in his face. Lesson learned: don’t piss off crazy Turkish girls. That’s his hat I am wearing.

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Current Mood: Happy

Well a lot has happened since I last wrote a real post way back on… December 12th! It was a real pain in the butt trying to get my domains transfered and set up my new host for my website, but it’s all finally done thanks to the help of Ant and Ali Emre.

So what has happened. I guess most of you know about the primaries in the US, which has been the news item winning most of my attention. I guess that’s not interesting for my American readers (everyone else go to cnn.com, they have good coverage).

Izzy and I went to Morocco for one week. It was an organized all expense paid tour. This was the first time I have done something like that and probably the last. I prefer to travel on my own schedule and to just wander around. Although it was a fun trip, I don’t think I will do it again. I covered four cities in seven days. On the way over I hadn’t quite gotten over a nasal infection. I couldn’t equalize the pressure when we went up and I nearly fainted from the pain. I spent the last two days of the trip praying to the porcelain gods. Anyway here are the pictures. Sorry I don’t have any of when they threw a monkey on Izzy’s head out of no where on the street. That was probably the highlight of the trip.

Morocco Pictures

My brother came to visit me right after Christmas up through New Years. We went around Istanbul, partied with my friends, did some shopping… it was a nice visit. I think he had fun except for a little problem with food or water, everything went well. Another friend of mine, James (aka Spags) was here as well. Graham, Spags and myself went to Kapadokya, ‘the land of well bred horses.’ Kapadokya is one of the most interesting places in Turkey according to my friends. It is full of bizarre land formations and underground cities that have been used by countless cultures for thousands of years. Because of it’s relative isolation on the high plateau of central Turkey, it was never a important strategic point to control so it was more or less ignored by conquering armies. I will let you look at the pictures for yourself. (oh I had a sweet new year’s eve party at my apartment. Those pictures are also there)

Pictures from Graham’s visit

Other than that I haven’t done too much. I went to Slovakia for an exhibition for work, but I haven’t posted any pictures. I finally got new climbing shoes. About one week afterwards Izzy hurt his shoulder so we can’t climb until it heals.

My gaming group has really taken off. We created “Istanbul Boardgame Enthusiasts” group on facebook and Izzy and I have been very aggressively trying to recruit new gamers. It has definitely paid off. The only problem we have had is about finding a place to play. Over the summer Wonderland started turning off the AC to get us to leave earlier. Then we moved to the Wrap which said they are now closing at 10:30 instead of 11:30. They had spent the weeks prior trying to kick us at at 11:00. Now we are playing at a bagel cafe called Tribeca. It’s definitely not the best place for us since we are so loud. When we are not there it is a very quiet upscale cafe. When we get there it gets a little wild, especially with the recent surge in people. I have a feeling we are going to be hassled there until we leave also. Here are a few pictures from our recent meetings:

Me explaining ‘Ticket to Ride’ to a captive audience.

In the back left of this picture is Ali Emre and myself. We are actually trying to get my webspace setup to transfer my blog in this picture.

This composite is courtesy of Rana. This was the final showdown in bang between Izzy the sheriff, and Turan the renegade. Izzy won.

On the political front, Serbs attacked the Turkish Embassy in Belgrade when Turkey backed Kosovo. Turkey invaded Northern Iraq to hopefully catch PKK terrorists. If you aren’t sure what the PKK is, I wrote about them in two previous blog entries: Turmoil in Turkey: Part I, Turmoil in Turkey: Part II. Turkey lifted the ban on women’s head scarves in all schools and other government institutions (this is a much bigger deal here than you think, but that’s for a later entry). Of course, that is only the last weeks worth of news in Turkey! To go with all three of those big events, there has been lots of protesting, especially in the east of Turkey where there has been daily rioting, vandalism and clashes with police. On the bright side of things after last weeks blizzard which dumped nearly 10 inches of snow in some places, the weather is warming up! Here’s a picture from trying to drive in the first, and the smaller of the two snow storms.

Alright, that’s all I have for now. Take care of everyone and keep reading. Thanks mom and Chris for bugging me about getting back to blogging.

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It’s snowing right now in Istanbul!

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This past weekend we had a double party that we had been planning for over a week in advance! We celebrated Adnan’s birthday (his girl friend Amber organized it) and Selim being sent off to the military (I made sure this celebration happened). This entry is more or less a few pictures. The whole evening was great. My flight from the Ukraine was delayed so much that I went straight to the restaurant from the airport, which was a pain in the ass, but it was worth it.

A note about the Turkish military: military service is mandatory. This seems to be the one thing in Turkey that money cannot get you out of. Everyone goes. The service is one year. If you have a college education you can only serve six months as a soldier or one year as an officer. In general the military is described as boring, depressing and incredibly inefficient (I explained the oxymoron ‘military intelligence’ to my friends here and they all thought this was very funny and very true). The worst part about the military is getting sent to the east where the PKK (the Kurdish terrorist organization) is very active and has been fighting against the Turkish military for 30 years. Many people are afraid of being sent to this part of Turkey.

This was the group at the party. From the left starting with those people that are sitting down: I don’t know, I don’t know, Sedef (Ant’s girl friend), Ant, Izel, Tahsin, Erman, Me, Selim, Mieria (sp?)(Selim’s girl friend), don’t know, don’t know, Dilek (Ali Emre’s girl friend) and Ali Emre. Standing up from the left is Mehtin, Amber (Adnan’s girl friend), Adnan and Izzy. The place was perfect for a nice dinner party.

The men of the hour, Selim and Adnan at the center. Mehtin is on the right and Adnan’s girl friend Amber is on the left.

The top of this cake says something along the lines of “our great soldier Selim.” The bottom says “Happy birthday Adnan.” This cake was bought by Izel, Mehtin and Izzy, who have one thing in common; they are all Jewish. They were very proud of the fact that they were able to buy only one cake with both messages on it. It was pointed out to them that they should have stood one plate up in the middle with writing on both sides to save even more money. They love to joke about the Jewish stereotype.

After the dinner party we ditched the girls or they ditched us? Only Ant’s girl friend Sedef came with us. Tradition told us that we had to drive around honking our horns (didn’t actually do this), get Selim very drunk, sing “Em buyuk asker bizim asker” (Our great soldier is the best soldier?), and carry him on our shoulders. It was so much fun! (from the left, bottom row: Izel, Selim, Me, Izzy, top row: Ant, Erman, Tahsin).

From the left: Izel, Selim, Me, Erman and Izzy (Erman and Izzy are my usual running crew. They live really close to each other so I seem them all the time. Izel and Selim I met through gaming.

From the left, Izzy, Izel, Selim, Erman and Tahsin.

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