Current Mood:
Esctatic
For pictures from the weekend go to:
Once again I had quite a weekend. Friday night, Izzy, Tahsin and I went to Berna’s birthday party. We played some beer pong, socialized with Berna’s large group of what seemed like all foreign friends, and ate, nothing unusual. Afterwards, our group went back to Tahsin’s to hangout while most of the rest of the people went out to Taksim. There was one strange guy that sort of followed us back to Tahsin’s, and then disappeared when we got there.
Saturday, a bit under the weather from the late night of partying, we made our way down to Izzy’s boat for an afternoon cruising the Bosporus. This was amazing! Tahsin, Izzy, Leyla, Berna and myself had all planned to take the boat it. Ali Emre (sp?), a friend of Izzy and Tahsin’s happened to be going by while we were getting ready, and decided to join us randomly. Another CMU friend, Nail, also joined us at Tahsin’s place.
This boat trip was amazing. Cruising down the Bosporus provides some incredible views! It is such a different view of the city. There are many small mansions leaning tediously over the Bosporus. They can always be seen, but you cannot truly appreciate their architecture and style unless passing by on a boat. A bit outside of the city (closer to the black sea), the hills grow less and less populated until, believe it or not, I actually saw what appeared to be forests!
Saturday night Leyla and I had dinner at Istanbul 360: a rooftop restaurant with spectacular views of Istanbul, and out over the Bosporus and Halic (the golden horn). The food was good, but not great, the cocktails were amazing, the view and the atmosphere were fantastic.
After I went to meet Basar – one of my fraternity brothers who is still at CMU – whom has just returned to Istanbul for a few weeks. Basar, his future brother-in-law and I had a few drinks together until about 3am at which point I headed back to Izzy’s. I got an invitation to Basar’s sister’s wedding June 8th, which may be tough to make. I was very glad to see Basar again – a little disappointed that he didn’t do as well as he’s capable of – and am a bit sad he’s he for only a few weeks. Sometime shortly after his sister’s wedding he’s heading off to do some internship in Southeast Asia (I might have to double check that).
Sunday was slow. Izzy, Leyla and I went climbing (Tahsin hurt his back) and then hung out at Tahsin’s. I took the opportunity to take a two-mile jog down by the Bosporus while in the city. It was a good place to run, but there were too many people to dodge.
Today, Monday: I am on a plane to Tunis, Tunisia, to meet with who may become a distributor for us in North Africa. This is my first business trip (Izmir and Hanover don’t really count because it wasn’t just me) and I am a little nervous. Expectations are not terribly high for this trip, but I am afraid of the inevitable language problems. Mr Kamel Hachicha, does not speak English. I therefore will have use French for the next three days. It’s been two years since I have really had a good opportunity to speak French and have been losing words left and right (I forgot the word for Tuesday the other day), and I never had the vocabulary to talk about screw compressors.
This is however also very exciting. It will be challenging, and fun to speak French. It adds to the whole adventure of it all. My third time in Africa, in a new country, in an unfamiliar culture, I can use only French, I am going to a city I have never heard of (Sfax) to meet people I have never met before… you get that butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling, the same exciting anxiety experienced on a first date. Murat said not to worry about anything, and I am not. That was yesterday. There was the sinking what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do feeling yesterday. Now, as we prepare to land in Tunis, it’s too late to think about that. It’s game time and there’s nothing to lose.
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