İstanbul'a Hoş Geldiniz!

It is 4:20am in İstanbul, and I'm not tired. After 37 hours of constant motion, though, I am ready to try and sleep. We bussed it from our hotel in DC to Dulles, which almost feels like going out of town in itself, and hopped on our seven hour Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. Those who know me well know that I studied German for eight years but have never been to Germany, so imagine my excitement to be stuck in a plane FULL of Germans for a trip across the Atlantic to GERMANY. The reality of the situation was that we were in "economy class," which is apparently German for "No in-flight entertainment." Well, apart from the complimentary beer and wine and schnapps. They skipped my row on the schnapps, probably because we availed ourselves of every opportunity to refill our glasses. Apart from the turbulence, the most exciting part of the flight was the "relaxation channel" on the in-flight radio, which featured a German man explaining the causes of jet lag and methods of correcting it set to the music of what must have been Brian Eno's much less talented younger brother.

It is worth noting, right now, that the call to prayer has commenced. It's 4:30am. Unlike New York, this city never sleeps because they let old men on minarets scream into megaphones all hours of the night.

Upon arrival in Frankfurt we took one of their "trains" from our terminal to the next, and even asked for information in German. Talk about exciting. Seriously, pretty cool to be able to use both your foreign languages in a single day, in their respective countries. It was reassuring to find out my German is still good enough to interact with flight attendants, ornery passengers, and an elderly Kurdish man! He sat next to me on the Frankfurt-İstanbul leg of the trip, and was telling the flight attendant "Mach du zwei Kaffee!" [Approx: "You make two coffees!"] Polite German would be something to the tune of "Dürfen wir bitte zwei Kaffee haben?" ["May we please have two coffees?"] The guy was a German citizen whose passport was so old it was in black and white, but his German was worse than mine was sophomore year of high school. I know I'm usually the first to jump to the defense of migrant populations, but this guy clearly had the financial means to learn it and the time, too.

Clearing the Turkish visa line is a snap if you have a passport and $20. They barely look at you twice. No application, no questionnaire, not even a bribe. I guess we can't all be post-Soviet. We were met by a woman from our program and took a chartered shuttle bus through the city to our dorm. The ride was incredible. This place has changed a lot in three years. New construction continues despite the economy. It looks as though all the dolmuşlar have been upgraded or painted, and there is a really cool new metrobus system in the middle of the highway that reserves two fenced off lanes exclusively for the triple-length Mercedes Benz buses to zoom along the highway. Something tells me a trip on one is in my future. But lots feels new about the city, like it got an upgrade, or like its economic growth finally caught up with it. A 3 hour nap is all the sleep I have had since 7:00am Friday, but it was well worth it, because we set out for food at my favorite dürüm place near campus, and then for Taksim Square with a friend of a friend, both of whom apparently know Ben and Dave. Big plus. Taksim was Taksim: absurd, mind-blowing, and clad in tight jeans and aggressive V-neck shirts. I got a lot of stares this time, if not for my hair than for my beard. It may actually get to the point where it comes off. We'll see.

I saw not one, but three fights tonight. I have to say, they were really crappy. They weren't just shouting matches, either. The guys were really pissed at each other and seemed to want to hurt each other, but they failed miserably. Two guys were trying to kick one another, and it was pretty hilarious. I had a hard time taking them serious as they struggled to get their legs up anywhere close to their waists in their tight jeans. They were spouting off about skull fucking each other and all sorts of great stuff you would never expect from a 5'6", 120 pound man with a faux-hawk and a hot pink shirt. Anyway, nothing came of them. Hopefully my luck continues and I don't end up witnessing a real fight, or worse, getting trapped somewhere by one. But again, hot pink shirts and 120 pounds.

We started our night at an outdoor (of course) bar off İstiklal Caddesi, sipping on some Efes beer, which tasted better than I recalled. There was a guy standing at a podium across from us selling tequila shots for 4 YTL (New Turkish Lira), or about $2.60. I got a picture with him, but declined the tequila, thanks to an experience I had with my Mexican roommate last time I was here, in which we consumed an entire bottle between the two of us, and he proceeded to slap my chest and say "Pendejo." After Kadir left us, we got some ice cream and then went dancing at a rooftop club, where I chatted with a guy about his upcoming work exchange trip to New York. He was sincerely concerned about H1N1, and I told him to stay away from the Bronx and wash his hands. I didn't want to tell him that he was probably more at risk living here, because hey, it'd be tactless. I am feeling good about this group of people already, given that it is our first night and we were out until 4:00am. There are a bunch of awesome concerts coming up that I will try and get to, including Orbital, Boban Markovic Orkester, Depeche Mode (AGAIN!), and the İstanbul Jazz Festival. Tomorrow I want to try and find some hangers and get a big bottle of water, some notebooks, pens, and all that jazz. I will try and fire up the Flickr account, too. Stay tuned!