You Certainly Look Turkish...

It's Thursday (or was...I AM IN THE FUTURE), which means it is academic talk day. After lunch at the cheap cafeteria we headed to listen to a talk by a sociology professor (I think) about rural-to-urban migration in Turkey. It was fascinating. The guy studied in America, at OSU, and joked with me about riverboat gambling when I told him I was from Cincinnati. According to this guy, and other sources, as much as one third of Turkey's population, at its founding in 1923, consisted of recent migrants. In the past 40 years, the population of Turkey has doubled. And the last fun fact I will leave you with is that in the gecekondu communities, sort of shanty-like areas that aren't necessarily slums, the reason people built so many mosques was so that the police wouldn't burn down their houses to kick them off the land out of fears of damaging the mosques. This explains why I hear like 30 different calls to prayer at a time. This entire neighborhood used to be full of gecekondular, which literally means "built in the night," as in "this house was built in one night." The roads we have here are basically just paved cart and old taxi and bus paths, which explains their completely useless arrangement. 

I came home afterwards and the roommate who has Skype drama with his girlfriend warned me that the cheap cafeteria basically sent him to the bathroom for the entire day and night yesterday. So I have been warned. But it is hard to pass up a $1.50 four course meal when so much of your net worth goes toward being fly.

Michael's laptop, 4 months old and running Vista Home Edition, decided to get the Black Screen of Death, so we spent a while trying to fix it. It fixed itself eventually. So to celebrate, we went to the Urfam Ocakbaşı restaurant near campus. Leaving the dorm, we noticed a swarm of graduating seniors in caps and gowns clogging the gate. I have to say, this graduating class is probably the hottest in the world, and also among the wealthiest. I should have brought my business cards with me. When we got to the restaurant, the dudes there gave us a bunch of free food (in Turkish, ikram etmek means to make an offering, as in a gift), including some lentil köfte, spiced bread, and dipping salad for our pide. We left well fed and all for a meager $5 per person. On the walk back, I got some more of the raspberry cheesecake flavored Oreo-style cookies I fell in love with last night. Thirty-five US cents per sleeve. Amazing. I should have gotten a disposable razor, too, but I am an idiot.

We ran into one of Michael's classmates as we passed by the graduation ceremony, and so I sat on the wall separating the soccer field/track from the main road near campus. Two barbed wire fences also stood between us and the graduates. A crowd had gathered outside, alongside us. One guy handed each of us a pamphlet from the Turkish government's study abroad program, encouraging us to study overseas. I handed mine back to him and told him we already were. He laughed. EVERYBODY LAUGHED. 

A moment later, two very attractive Turkish women approached me and asked me how to get into the event. There were definitely 20 much more highly qualified people standing near me. Why the hell do Turks insist on asking the most American looking guy around how to get places? I had fucking cheesecake flavored cookies in my hand and was speaking English! I told them where to go, but still. Last night, this car rolled up next to me asking where the Boğaziçi Pastry Shop was. It was literally 20 feet behind him, clearly marked. It's like they go out of their way to talk to me. Or maybe the people who ask me are just genuinely stupid, and a) don't know how to get into clearly marked areas, and b) don't realize asking a foreigner for directions in your city probably isn't the best idea. Regardless, it's hilariously frustrating. One of these days I might just call them out on it. 

Our dorm was decked out for graduation with a Turkish flag the size of a tractor trailer. Classy. It spruces up the building quite nicely.

It's looking like a no-go for the Fourth of July party at the consulate, since I apparently HAVE to go on the trip to Edirne on Saturday. I emailed the Marine who invited us and told him I'd still love to come to their Friday pizza and beer night sometime. We'll see. I think they like meeting new Americans. It's probably a really lonely existence being on consular security detail. 

I am exhausted, and have nothing else to report at this point, apart from the fact that I saw a cat halfway up the side of a palm tree today, hanging there. Also it is hot. And I uploaded more pictures to Flickr.

Goodnight!