Patata!

Hey!

So yesterday upon waking up from my long nap, I felt well enough to try to go on the "gezi" everyone was taking to Sarıyer, a place up near the Black Sea. I thought the bus left at 3:30, so I hustled over to campus and found an empty bus stop. This was at 3:35. Thinking that since there had been talk of a boat, the bus might just take them to the Bebek Pier, I walked down the Murder/Martyr Hill and then the mile or so to the pier, again finding it empty. I sat there for twenty minutes or so, waiting for the next boat, but it didn't come. So I kept walking south along the water until I figured out what I wanted to do. Go to Kanyon.

I hopped on a bus headed for Kabataş, which is where the tramway starts. I got off and entered the subway tunnel, which has a funicular that takes you from the bottom of the hill up to Taksim Square. Once I got there, I got on the subway and took that all the way to the end, or 4. Levent, thinking that was the right stop. Turns out just normal Levent (the stop before it) was the right one. So I walked the mile and a half or so back and found the mall, Kanyon. The area it is in is interesting in that it is totally a recently developed area but still largely looks like shit. So much new stuff here is spoiled by the fact that just by being in this city, things get covered in dust, smog, trash, etc. It is a very lived-in city. Like a college dorm, in some ways. The streets are all totally stained, and the walls are all covered in tacky posters. 

Anyway, Kanyon is a sweet mall to look at and walk through, and for a number of reasons. Like Akmerkez, it attracts only the city's wealthiest clients, so naturally there are countless beautiful women wandering around spending a fortune on Banana Republic scarves and what not. Oh, also, it has an Apple Retailer. Not an Apple Store, mind you. I have been through that nightmare before (see old blog for details). I went back in to check the prices on the latest MacBook models. Between 3,500-4,000 TL, depending on the options, or almost $2600. I didn't even pay that much for my Powerbook FIVE years ago. All the AirPort prices were in Euros. Consumer electronics in Turkey are staggeringly expensive. I wandered around the Remzi Kitabevi (bookstore) for a long time, and finally settled on a pocket sized Redhouse Turkish-English-Turkish dictionary for 7 TL, or about $4.75. It's great. Afterwards, I walked the whole way back to my dorm, and actually managed to get back at the same time as everyone else. It was about five miles, I think. It was a deceptively long walk. 

Last night while doing work, we watched "Casablanca" in the girls' apartment. Wow. I had never seen it before, and I immediately fell in love with it. It's so cool to think that the movie was made WHILE WWII STILL BEING FOUGHT. Nobody knew then how it would end. Humphrey Bogart makes me want to smoke cigarettes and wear white jackets. I was a bit pissed off at Ingrid Bergman's character for a while, but eventually warmed up to her. Brilliant movie. Made me proud of American cinema for a minute. But then I remembered Transformers. 

Today was a full day. Felt well enough to stay for all my classes. Today in the language lab we got to watch yet another Turkish sitcom. This one, admittedly, wasn't as terrible as the last, but it still featured an overbearing Turkish husband and his goofy wife. In this episode, Ihsan (the guy) was forced by his wife to pick a hobby. So he wants to learn how to fly! HA! She doesn't like the idea. But then he makes a joke about how it is safer to fly in Istanbul than it is to walk, because cars can't hit planes. HAHA! IT IS FUNNY BECAUSE IT IS SADLY TRUE. Out lecture today was about Ottoman self-imagination. Basically, about how the late Ottoman Empire related to its pre-"Westernizing" reforms. The lecturer described the word "Westernization" as a masculine, penetrative act. It was actually a pretty interesting talk, and would have been almost fun if it hadn't been for the fucking insane heat today. Our TA told us today that some Turkish weathermen were saying today, like idiots, that the heat index would be 60 degrees Celsius, or 140 fucking degrees Fahrenheit. Oh, really? Really? This is why nobody takes Turkish media seriously. Someone else's TA heard 80 degrees Celsius. That is 176 degrees. Seriously. Weatherman. Read a book. In reality, it was about 90 degrees Fahrenheit today with a humidity approaching 100%. It actually rained for 10 minutes today, and so naturally, the roads and sidewalks were slick with disgusting smog film. 

Homework time included a screening of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the making of pirogues stuffed with mashed potatoes and cream cheese. I fried the onions. Gourmet! After homework, Allison and Sydney and I went out to Taksim for a couple hours. I didn't have anything to drink (well, I had Turkish coffee) because I am on antibiotics, but it was still a great time. On the walk back to the main road we stopped at a snack shop called "Patata," which sells only French fries covered in various sauces. The signage is fucking adorable. Each fry has a face and each sauce is represented by a different hairstyle on the fries. We got "barbekü." Amazing. Served in a paper cone like falafel. So good. If someone wants to open a franchise in Adams Morgan with me, we could make a million dollars. A MILLION DOLLARS. Fucking potatoes and sauces and labor = our only costs. Besides rent and utilities. On the way back, we saw two compact cars driving on a main road with probably six guys in each car sitting on the doors and standing out of the moonroofs chanting something. I couldn't make it out entire, but it sounded like "Fuck Beşiktaş." Bad news, given that was the neighborhood they were in. Some other cars started getting closer to it, and they were trying to open the doors. It was almost creepy, but then our cabbie decided to zoom past them on the wrong side of the road. Kind of glad he did. Didn't want to witness a murder, or worse, another stupid ass shoving match between two guys with awful haircuts and tight jeans. 

Now, I am going to study for a vocabulary quiz and prep myself mentally for our trip to Kadiköy tomorrow. IT IS IN ASIA! I WILL BE RETURNING TO ASIA TOMORROW. Also, hopefully getting a cell phone tomorrow as well.

PS: We totally saw some prostitutes tonight. OMG THEY EXIST HERE IN THE WORLD'S BUSIEST TRANSIT POINT FOR HUMAN TRAFFICKING. Sad.