March 2012
89 posts
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The trouble with sunny days
Also, I’ve got Jenny on the mind. Countdown: 14 days.
Granted, I did get work done at the Starbucks in Bebek (henceforth known as Starbeks). I’ve got my material. Now I’ve just got to analyze it all.
It’s been a good week. Didn’t skip any classes, went out with friends, practiced my whistling, learned a new salsa move, danced on a table, heard the...
Watchnew music = new mix = no studying
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This is the way that March ends
Goals for April:
Kiss my girlfriend a lot.
Learn to whistle.
Achieve salsa-dancing confidence.
Get tan.
Climb more trees.
Drink Turkish coffee.
Visit Belgrade Forest.
Revisit Princes’ Islands and ride a bike.
Finish reading “News From Tartary.”
Explore Karaköy.
Lessons from March:
Invest in rechargeable batteries.
Bargaining for bus prices is good.
The cheapest hotel will be the...
“The lake when we saw it was frozen. The glittering ice stretched unbroken and...”
– “News From Tartary” by Peter Fleming
My favorite paragraph so far, pages 122-123
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WatchAphrodisias, Pamukkale, and Efes in slideshow form.
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Drinking Efes in Efes and other achievements from...
The following was written sporadically over the course of a weekend adventure:
It starts with waking up early in İstanbul to take a bus to Taksim to catch the Havataş to Sabiha Gökçen Airport to catch a flight to Izmir to take the train to Halkapinar and transfer trains to Basmane and follow the breeze through hot, crowded streets to the seaside in Konak.
Less than a month ago, at the same time at...
Bugün hava çok güzel
Today the weather is very beautiful. Today there was no chance I’d be attending my afternoon class. My “Testing” class. My least favorite class. My last class of the week before a weekend vacation. Bugün okul yok.
Sitting on the south campus lawn with multinational friends in the warmth of the güneş was way preferable to spending three hours in a sınıf listening to...
WatchSunshine, birds, boats, and the Bosphorus
“Hadi gidelim = Let’s go
Esrimek = To go into ecstasy / Get drunk
...”
– New Turkish phrases of the day.
On Turkish Time
The flow of time is different here. It has never quite slowed down since my 24-hour flight from California, which was, perhaps, the last neutral moment I had before İstanbul seduced me and absorbed me, converting me from a slow-paced Sacramento resident to an every-day-is-Saturday-night exchange student. It’s true what they say about us. The study-abroaders. Not all of us, admittedly; there are...
WatchIstanbul Mix, part II
“The Dolmabahçe Palace is basically a really fancy chandelier showroom.”
– Oh, and Atatürk died there.
Long Walk Home
I feel like Danny Glover in a Lethal Weapon movie, too old for this shit, walking home from Club Versai around three in the morning, my impulsive yet necessary decision to abandon the party leaving me to walk home along the ink-black Bosphorus for an hour. I make sure to let some folks know I’m not there in case they do a head-count, but I didn’t say goodbye and I didn’t really...
“Go away winter. You’ve over-stayed your welcome and we hate you.”
– From, the people of Istanbul.
The Ides of March
Let me just be frank: I was having thoughts today that I might end up dropping my “Testing” class, and these thoughts, similar to the fantasies of quitting your job that are simultaneously soothing and startling, came from the realization that I am the only one who hasn’t started working on their presentation yet and, not to mention, have nothing to offer in the way of personal...
WatchHorse Encounter
Sunday Night Advice Time
1. Don’t Drink Too Much In Taksim
For some maybe this will be obvious wisdom, but for those who haven’t yet experienced the madness of Taksim after midnight, nurture this nugget of knowledge like it’s a fragile baby rabbit who will one day grow up to tell fortunes on the street corner of Sultanahmet. I’m not trying to say that Taksim after midnight isn’t fun, but if...
