An American Life in Istanbul

Since I don’t have insurance here yet, I can’t really drive, without risking damaging one of the company cars, and having to pay for it myself. So, I have been generously provided with a driver, to drive me around. Just this past weekend, my driver dropped me off at my friend Izzy’s place and picked me up the next day when I called him. He was a little late, but that was ok, I forgave him. After all traffic is terrible here. It takes forever to get anywhere. So yeah, it’s been nice going around in style. Here is a picture of my driver.

For those of you know, my driver as I call him, is actually Murat, my boss. That’s him sitting at his desk. Four of us share a huge room, each with our own desk. There is Murat, myself, Baris (sounds like boreesh), and some other guy. Baris is a friend of Murat’s from high school who is living with us temporarily. He has also just graduated and is working here only for a short time to help on out on one project. I don’t know much about the other guy since he doesn’t speak English and I haven’t been here very long. Here’s a picture of me sitting at my desk.

I know I don’t have any cool stuff around yet. It’s pretty empty (except for the top, I throuroughly messed that up already). I do get a seat by the window which is nice, but the view is well… interesting. Look in the picture below, behind the flags. That’s a chicken coup that the neighbors have.

Our building is nice and all (see below), but the neighbors are a little, out of place for the area. Kind of funny though. I suggested we buy one of the ducks for the office, but I was turned down.

Today we spent the day getting things ready for the fair in Germany, which is exactly three weeks from today. Mostly we worked on gettting the catalogs ready. The highlight of the day was our discussion over what to call our different compressors. Right now they are just called “Power” + [their horse power] + [type]. Murat decided we needed letters, or a cool name other than power before the other information. He cited competitors that had names like Galaxy, and petunia. So I suggested, the CW series (my initials) jokingly. Well Murat liked it since the letter “W” doesn’t exist in the Turkish language. So it looks like I might have my own series of compressors named after me. Heh, I guess you all now know what you are getting for Christmas.

Ciao,
Conrad

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