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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Over the weekend I stayed at a friend’s house (I will avoid using names because the issue may be sensitive) that I do not normally stay at. Realizing I had not asked my friend what his parents do, I asked. They are both professors at two of Turkey’s most prestigious universities. I was excited.
The town I grew up in was near a very large and reasonably well known university (Stony Brook University in New York). There were many foreign professors and foreign students from all over the world there. Because of this, many of my friends growing up were the children of professors. From my experiences growing up and my experiences at university, I found that the academic community always held a good, well informed opinion of current events, and was a good way to measure what changes were coming.
So at breakfast, I casually slipped in questions to his father, constituting what I consider my first interview. The issue was the pending court case to remove the current government for being anti secular. I briefly commented on this issue in: Economic Hiccups. I was curious to find out what the academic community though of the whole situation.
Two petitions were passed around amongst Turkey’s 40,000 person academia. 3,000 professors signed a petition in support of the current government and claimed that there was nothing wrong with what the government has been doing. 8,000 signed the petition against the government (this 8000 included assistants where as the 3000 did not). My friend’s father signed the petition against the government, his wife did not.
The interesting bit of this story is what happened to my friends father who we will call Ahmet for now. Ahmet is a tenured professor here in Istanbul. On top of his normal job he is a senior part-time researcher at separate government institute where he has been working for approximately 20 years. He was recently promoted to chairmen of the executive committee there. He is also a member of Turkey’s equivalent to the National Academy of Science in the US.
After his name appeared on a similar petition against the government, the person who had appointed him to chairman - a person serving in an office appointed by a council which is made up of the prime ministers appointees - called him and asked why he signed the petition. She followed up with the question “do you think I appointed you for your academic achievements?”
At the end of each year, each person at this government institute must submit a report for what they have done. This time, when Ahmet went to turn in his report, his 20th or so, they told him it wasn’t necessary. Nor would he need to submit a report for his position as chairman. He of course, was not rehired.
I’d like to thank Ahmet for sharing this story and commend him for having the courage to stand up for what he believes in.
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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.
>>>
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.
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)
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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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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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:
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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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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I hear it everyday; “Conrad, you are so lucky.” Friends, people I meet, coworkers; They all share this opinion. I have been called “[my company’s] spoiled child,” “the luckiest employee in Turkey,” and many other things. On more than just my life in Turkey, people say that I am so lucky, that they can’t believe how lucky I am, or that they are jealous how lucky I am. I like to tell stories, and I have quite a lot of stories to tell. This is normally what they are responding to. As usual there are two sides to everything. I of course do my best portray my life as positive - positive thinking leads to an overall positive and happy life. Although I tend to agree that I have been blessed, I find it interesting that these are the comments I receive the most.
First, let’s see what makes me lucky.
- I have a job that supports my life style, provides a car for me, provides a good place to live for me and provides a lot of my food.
- I get to travel a lot for my job. I more or less get to make my own travel schedule too. I have been trying to plan trips such that I can pass the weekend in the area. This is a great way of doing business!
- My job is very relaxed. Because of the lack of professionalism of everyone else in the company, I have a lot of freedom. I can come to work late, leave early, take a day off.
- I have had the opportunity to study in Switzerland and live in the Marshal Islands with lots of other traveling in between.
- I am able to pursue a life of few attachments and lots of freedom. I own hardly anything, and my costs are low. I don’t have a demanding family, or a girl friend holding me back (I don’t consider this a benefit, although some do). Should my job here not work out, it will be no problem for me to find a job elsewhere, or to coast on my savings.
In summation I have good opportunities and I am living the way I want to live. Something as simple as living the way you want to live, seems to be beyond the reach of many people here. Young people are living with their families through university and beyond that sometimes because it is expensive to move out on your own. Also, parents say to their children that they cannot move out until they marry. In this situation, people here in Turkey are never given a chance to live a free life. They are either living a life of compromise with their parents or a life of compromise with their spouse.
I suppose I was lucky to meet Murat as well. When I look back on my education at CMU I realize what a waste of money it was. Except for the people you meet and the connections you make, there is little advantage to CMU over other schools. People will get out of an education what they put into it. Study hard and you will learn a lot. Meeting Murat may or may not end up making my time at CMU all worth it.
Lastly, I am also always doing interesting things with my free time. Something most of my friends cannot claim.
Now let’s look at the other side of the coin. First of all, most of what I have done, most of what has taken me around the world is one simple fact: I am not lazy. I sought out the study abroad program in Switzerland and did everything I could to ensure I got there. When I learned about the Marshal Islands, I went to the professor running the program and literally said, “I will do anything to get into this program” (professor Mertz, want to back me up on that one?), and I did. Making the decision to come to Turkey was a scary one that I think most people wouldn’t have taken. I was moving to a strange place, with a strange language to live and work in a very isolated part of Istanbul (not really Istanbul in fact). I didn’t know more than two people, and I knew it would be a long time before I would see my family and friends again. This was not an easy decision.
Once I arrived here it took determination to stay here, and to move my life ahead in a positive way. For the first few weeks, my stomach was uneasy as I was adapting to a completely new diet. I spent a lot of time stuck in traffic, or worse stuck in Mimarsinan where I live, without a way to get into the city. Except for Izzy and Tahsin, I didn’t really have any friends. I was always lost. There were the other various bits of culture shock I mentioned here in my blog. There was frustration at work, which has only gotten worse as I have had more to do.
The not so lucky parts of my life has little to do with what’s here in Istanbul. It’s about what’s not here in Istanbul. Most of these people who make these comments on my life go home everyday and see their families or can call their families easily and have dinner with them. They see their siblings, have dogs and cats, get advice from their aunt, go to family birthdays together and all sorts of other things. They have their culture here, they have their language here. Turkey is their home, and all that they know is here. I on the other hand, am an outsider. I do not speak the language and therefore am often unable to communicate. I am not comfortable with some parts of the culture here. I do not have many of my friends here. Should I run into rocky times, I do not have the support network of people that they have. I am alone.
To me, I am living ‘my’ dream, but it’s not lucky, and it’s not easy. All the big decisions I have made about my life -Switzerland, Marshal Islands, Turkey - I made understanding for the most part the consequences and implications of my decision. I knew the ups and I had at least somewhat of a grasp downs. I made the decisions I wanted to make, but I had a realistic view of how it would go. These decisions were not easy, and they did not fall out of the sky. I found them, or in some cases, the opportunities brushed briskly against me, giving me little more than the blink of an eye to catch them. My critics could have done as I have done. To those of you reading this, I am very serious. If you really want to get somewhere or do something you can. Don’t be intimidated or afraid or worried about the details and implications of your decision. You only live once, so if you want to do something, just quit whining and go out and do it. Go out and live your life! Maybe you have to be a little selfish in your decisions (I know I have), but if you aren’t, how will you see yourself at the end of the road?
Maybe I am a little lucky, maybe I am a little bit of a lot of things, but luck didn’t get me here; I did. My question to you is where will you take yourself?
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A friend of mine contacted me a few weeks ago to ask for my help. Her mother, Kathie, is the assistant dean of Duke’s business school (I think that is her position), and she is interested expanding Duke’s executive MBA program to Istanbul. Kathie asked her daughter if she knew anyone in Turkey and my name came up, and Kathie contacted me a couple of months ago.
Since Kathie was looking for both business leaders to partner with, and prospective students, I put her in touch with Murat. Murat went to Robert College, and American high school her in Turkey. This high school is hands down the best high school in Turkey. It is very expensive and very hard to get into. Each year they take between 100 and 150 students, and pretty much everyone in Istanbul wants to go there (at least from what I have seen). Murat’s high school friends are among Turkey’s brightest, and are generally from very wealthy, very powerful families. My thought was that if Murat wanted to help, which he did, he would be able to put Kathie in touch with some very well connected people.
The dinner was wonderful. Including Kathie and her husband we were eight. We had dinner in an old palace on the Asian side of the city, with beautiful views of the Bosporus. The architecture of the restaurant was more or less unchanged from the original style of the palace, and they had a great wine menu. Need less to say, I ate and drank a lot.
The eight of us chatted about Turkish culture and what obstacles Kathie and Duke would face in trying to create something here in Istanbul. The other young people Murat had invited were all very well spoken, and very intelligent. They went on and on about all of the various problems they could foresee Duke having, as well as possible strategies for overcoming it. The exchange between Murat’s guests (whom were all my age), Kathie and my guest (Erman) was very intellectual and very professional. I was very impressed and almost a bit intimidated by them. My contribution to the conversation was of course my impressions and interpretations of Turkish culture from an American view point.
I think the dinner wasn’t quite what Murat had intended. In typical Murat fashion, he waited a bit too long to start planning this evening. It still went well, but there was one point shortly before the dinner where Murat was quite nervous that things would not come together and that everything would fall apart. This captured two very big cultural aspects of being Turks: being hospitable and not planning ahead. When Turks have guests, they seem to bend over backwards to ensure their guests enjoy themselves. Murat’s worry this past week was his instinctive ‘Turkish hospitality’ taking over and pushing him to do some planning. I of course found his distress wildly entertaining as I am always the one preaching planning ahead, and proactive approaches.
This brings me to the point of this entry. Living in the Marshal Islands, Switzerland and now Turkey, I have looked at cultures in terms of where they fall on the proactive-reactive continuum. Coming from New York, I learned a proactive approach to problem solving. Planning ahead and taking preventative measures is the way I like to do things. I have a really hard time functioning in a system that does not adopt this same mentality. The Marshals and Turkey definitely do not share this mentality.
I am constantly frustrated by what I see as Turkish people’s inability to plan. When I make a business trip, I print out every train schedule, all the hotel information, meeting times, and any other information that could potentially be important. I always take an extra tooth brush, paper and pen with me wherever I go (even in Turkey). I always plan for the worst, and try to always have a backup plan. I can be flexible if I need to, but I like to know what’s coming so I don’t have to be. Most of the Turks I have met do not do this. They leave work to the last minute, the do one thing at a time and plan for the next only when necessary. I have always seen this as a reactive approach which is bound to be more costly and therefore inferior in my mind. I simply cannot understand why someone would approach a problem in this way.
During this dinner Murat captured this aspect of Turkish culture in a very poetic way. He said that while American’s plan ahead and work hard towards something, “Turks save the day.” They wait until the last minute and then throw all their energy at the problem. If they are capable, they solve the problem. Murat used as an example his time spent in the US at Carnegie Mellon Unversity. He said many of his class mates would study for days before a test, and Murat would only study for a few hours right before the exam, and would do just as well as the rest of his classmates. Having been his classmate for some time, I can attest to the validity of this statement. Murat always left work until the last minute, and he usually did well.
The trouble, according to Murat, came when it was time for him to do group work. The save-the-day approach does not work well when you have a group with several other people in it. Not being able to plan ahead, divide up work, stick to meeting times, and in general function productively with in a group is a huge detriment when you have a long term project. I can also attest to the fact that Murat was indeed not very good at group work. At this point, please note that I am not making any claims about my own abilities. I am simply using Murat as blanket example for the majority of Turkey, compared against what I saw in my peers at Carnegie Mellon.
Putting it that way, and hearing Murat describe what I have seen as a flaw in Turkish culture, casts things in a different light. It is simply a different approach to things. But which way is better? Of course a mix. A healthy mix, or taking things in moderation is the best approach most things. You want to be able to plan ahead and go over everything in great detail so you are always prepared, but if you cannot ’save the day,’ you will find yourself struggling with unexpected bumps in the road that perhaps a Turkish person would have no problem handling. Vice versa, if you cannot plan ahead, you will always be under pressure, and always stressed trying to ’save the day.’
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On Wednesday night, Izzy and I went to a Halloween party in Bebek (I haven’t mentioned this before, but Bebek is the worst place in the world traffic wise. I hate Bebek and usually avoid it at all costs). Despite the party being in Bebek it was a lot of fun. Izzy and I arrived on time (10pm) to find not many other people had arrived, and that we were the only ones in Halloween costumes. Since the host of the party - the one whom had invited us - had not yet arrived, we didn’t know anyone there. This compounded the awkwardness. Gradually the party picked up and we ended up staying there until 2am. We had fun, and met some cool people. Here’s a picture of our costumes. There is another Halloween party tonight. I imagine we will wear the same thing. Izzy bought his costume when he was working in Scotland over the summer, and my costume is a shirt from Bangladesh (click here to read the post), and a hat from Tunis (click here to read the post), both of which were gifts from the people I was meeting with while I was there.
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