Ice Cream, French Fries, Robots in Disguise! A Very Turkish Christmas!

I woke up at 3:00pm on Sunday. It was a combination of not getting much sleep on Friday and being on my feet all day Saturday. Regardless, we all did it. I met up with Hannah and Jessica and decided to spend the remnants of the day doing things I wanted to do. We all walked through Etiler, the rich neighborhood, to the McDonalds there, and enjoyed it immensely. Hannah is a blonde, so she got one of each type of dipping sauce for free from the cashier. Bonus. They have Curry Sauce here for the chicken nuggets! The place was pretty empty, so we didn't stay long. We then continued down the street to Akmerkez, the rich people shopping mall, and 10 seconds after entering, something wonderful happened!

I ran into Jill from TLCP 2006! She was with a friend, and was walking out, and was like "Kevin." We chatted for a while and I got her number to so we can hang out later this summer. OMG SMALL WORLD. Hannah, Jessica, and I spent about 40 minutes wandering the shops of the mall, laughing at the prices, before we got to the movie theater and bought our tickets to see Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. I forgot how hilariously annoying the attendants are at the stores there. I was in the Levis store looking for a shirt that didn't cost 60 TL, and as soon as I came in, this attendant, granted a very hot one, came and stood not even 4 feet away from me. Then if I took one step to the right, she would. Then I tried moving a little faster to see if I could open up some distance between us. No dice. I just turned and walked out. Usually that is enough to stop them. My Turkish American friend here told me that she was pursued by such an attendant, this time, of course, a man, a considerable distance across the mall. He kept asking her to get coffee. Fucking creepy.

Oh, I was talking about Transformers 2. I liked the first movie, violent and brainless as it was. I like giant robots. Anyway, we got into the theater and were the only folks in there except for this 13 year old Turkish kid, who kind of got up and moved two rows further away from us after he heard us speaking English. The ads before the movie were great. One of them was for a 3G phone, and it featured a guy videochatting with his mother and showing her his coffee grounds in his cup so she could read them. It's a common folk practice here to "read coffee grounds" (falına bakmak). Interesting to see it in a high technology ad. Another one featured a man folding up everything in his house and putting it in his pocket, including his wife. Kind of shocking, but very nice! Wife in pocket! 

Usually with Transformers, I was expecting the most upsetting part of the movie to be the 5 minute break the Turks put into every movie so people can go smoke. But no. Michael Bay is a racist idiot. Have you seen the movie? There are two Autobot characters that are voiced obviously to be black men. They are called "the Brothers," they constantly fight with each other, they speak only in butchered rap slang, one of them has buck teeth and a gold tooth, both have big ears, and at one point they are forced to admit to Shia LaBoeuafauff that "we don't really do much readin'." I cannot make this up. It was shocking. So shocking, in fact, that it basically ruined what would have otherwise been just an incredibly sexist and violent movie. I will admit, though, that I really enjoyed all the robot fighting and shooting of guns. That was what I came to see. But seriously, fuck Michael Bay. Funny moment: I ordered the "summer combo" at the snack bar, which was advertised as a drink and popcorn. So I asked for a cola to drink, and she froze up, and had to go ask the manager if they give cola with the summer combo. WTF? IT IS A MOVIE THEATER. THE CUP IN THE PICTURE SAYS PEPSI ON IT. It was a whole to-do. They were whispering to each other, and speaking very rapidly. It was really, really unnecessary.

On the walk back, to lift our spirits we got some ice cream from Venus. Three scoops on a cone for $2. One kiwi, one lemon, one sour cherry. All in all, I would say that Sunday was fantastic. A late 4th of July, complete with burgers, giant violent robots, racism, sexism, and ice cream. All we needed were some pork ribs, but let's not kid ourselves. I've got a better chance of finding Michael Jackson alive and in concert here than I do of finding some pork ribs.

Monday was largely uneventful, save for a funny moment at the pharmacy with Ryan. He wanted to get some hydrogen peroxide to clean out his ears (what a good patient!). So we went in, armed with the chemical symbol for it: H2O2.

Me: Do you have hydrogen peroxide?

Pharmacy employee: I'm sorry?

Me: Hydrogen peroxide, for cleaning out the ears?

Employee: You want Q-tips?

Me: No, peroxide. H2O2.

Other employee: H2O2.

Me: Yes, hydrogen peroxide.

First employee: But that isn't for cleaning out ears.

Me: Yes it is. 

Other employee: H2O2. Hydrogen peroxide. (Whispers to first employee.)

First employee: Oxygen! You want oxygen!

Me: Sure. Let's look at Oxygen. (She shows me a bottle of "Oxygen," which is a hydrogen peroxide solution.) Yep. This is hydrogen peroxide. 

First employee: (Looks at bottle) Ah. There it is.

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Hydrogen Peroxide is Oxygen.