And so the chapter closes...

Responses

Andrew,

İ want to say that.thank you for your helping and teaching about everything.really i learnt lots of thing from you.
And your last speak was very nice.i was a kind of tearwater.

Lastly I will never forget you; like everybody in here..You can call me anytime ,about everything.
you have my mobile phone? If you can will come to here again ,we will wait you..again come here.
My English like that.. ; i cant say everything . :)) again thank you everything.

Şengğl

Andrew, thank you very very much for your thoughts about me. I don’t deserve your words. Don’t forget; If you come to Turkey again , Your home is ready Whatever, Whenever etc... Your destination is obvious. J I am very glad to meet and see you. Try to evaluate and think the world, life etc... in different dimension like moral, material etc...

Thank you again.

Murat ÇATAL

Final Words

Ne zaman Amerika'dan Türkiye'ye geldim, hic türkçe bilmedim. "Merhaba" bilmedim. Ama, çok şaşırtıcı insanlarla tanıştım, ben türkçe öğrenmek istedim. Ofiste şaşırtıcı insanlar vardi. Burada, bu sirkette, siz beni esinlediniz. Türkçe öğrenmek'için esinlediniz.

Ben biliyorum iletişimde problemler vardı. Ama, sizinle ben çok şey öğrendim. Bir şey, insanın iletişim kurması için bir çok engel var. Ama, bunların en güçlüşü dil. Ben biraz türkçe biliyorum, sen biraz ingilizce biliyorsun, ama biz çok iyi arkadaşız.

Ben hic unutmacağim bu deneyimi. Ben hic unutmacağım "Yurtta sulh cihanda sulh."

Size çok teşekkür ederim. Yakında görüşürüz ınşalah.

Goodbye emails

Murat,

Wow. That is the one word I can only think of right now. This has been such an amazing experience, many thanks to you. I have been completely enriched by being your friend, learning about Turkey, Islam, and your amazing ideas. I will never be able to repay the friendship you gave to me.

Something I will never forget is the many conversations and discussions we had about our world. Why do countries do what they do? Who has power? How can we make the world a better place? Through these experiences with you I have decided to look deeper into myself and hopefully discover my beliefs and my spirituality.

My best wishes go out to you as you prepare for military service. Remember you will always have a home in the United States, and a friend waiting for you to relive the joys of his exchange in Turkey.

“Ne mutlu türküm diyene.”

Serkan,

It was with great sadness that we said goodbye to each other last Friday. After 10 weeks together, working next to each other, I consider you my closest friend at Basak. We shared so many jokes, laughs, and conversations that I will never forget; I will go on reliving and missing them forever. You are incredibly intelligent and have so much potential with Turksoft. I hope, and I expect, to see Turksoft a huge global company in the next few years.

Remember that despite our language barrier, human connections are what really bring us all together. Continue inspiring people with your talent like you inspired me. Best of luck to you with your dreams and ambitions, and don’t forget - you will always have a friend and a home in the United States.

“Ne mutlu türküm diyene.”

An embarrasement and disgrace to mankind.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5197186.stm

Golf

Murat: "Andy, golf is new sport for Turkey, but we are very good."

This brought back one of my finest memories of Summer 2003. Canyons golf course, 18 holes (we made it about 6), one bottle of rum, and a case of tall boys. Boozy, I'm sure you will remember well the fine game of golf that took place.

I have an incredible urge to play golf right now. I'm think I'm going nuts.

Sounds of San Francisco

We arrived in Dalyan, home of Caliante beach club 3 hours early. We hadn't eaten since our durums and beer so we headed in a direction we thought would lead us to food. About a half kilometer away we found a small sandwich place where there special was Kumuru and Çizburger. We soon found out that meant not cheese, but egg. I had the Kumuru which was salami, cheese, tomatoes, and an egg. Insanely delicious.

We sat outside the sandwich shop and bought some beers. One of the employees said we couldn't drink them there but said something 2 or 3 times afterwards. He then looked at us like we were slow and walked away. When we received our food, he brought it around the corner and then made a motion for us to come over there. We realized he had been telling us we could drink beer as long as we were out of sight, so we grabbed our goodie bag and sat in the "Botanik Bahce", botanical garden (which was nothing more than a few tables). Here we enjoyed our food and two rounds of beers, (5) and (6). One of the employees sat with us for a while asking all sorts of questions, and I was hardpressed to keep up with the conversation in Turkish; regardless, we managed to talk about where we were from, what we study, what we think of Turkey, our favorite music, and how to get home after the concert. We left there around 1000, grabbing two more rounds of beers on our way out.

We walked the .5 kilometer back to the entrance of the club drinking our beer (7) and talking about how crazy the trip had been so far. We sat on the fence of a nice house outside the club and worked on our second round (8). Aman had arrived earlier and was waiting outside the club wtih his cousins. Around 1115, we strolled up to the club entrance, of course looking ready to party. At the entrance were 4 bouncers, BSTs as Kelsey would say (Big Scary Turks), and they stopped us before we could get in:

Bouncer: Where are your girls?

Me: Girls? What are you talking about?

Saurabh: I'm drunk.

Bouncer: You need girls, Kizlar! Kizlar!

Me: Wtf, we don't have any, we came from Istanbul just for this concert, you have to let us in.

Bouncer: Sorry, you must have an equal number. You need girls.

Me: (Looking around) Dudes, where are we going to find girls? (I was drunkingly thinking we should go back to town and ask a few)

Saurabh: Man I came from India for this concert! Hindistan!! Hindistan!!!

Bouncer: Hindistan mi? Okay, okay, come through.

Saurabh worked his charm again screaming Hindistan as forcefully as he could. We paid our cover fee and made our way into the club. Caliante is a beach club, very high class. It was one of the better outside clubs I've seen in my day, so the cover was well worth it. The opening DJ was pretty good too, so we were feeling the night from beginning (whereever the beginning may have been). Global Deejays wasn't going on for another 2 hours, so we got some beers from the bar (9) and (10), and chilled out on the benches until we were kicked off for richer customers. That pissed us off, so we deemed it imperative to get more beer. Beers were too expensive at the bar so we decided to go back to town, get beers, and come back in time for Global Deejays. Our ideas kick ass.

We took our ticket stubs with us, made agreements with the bouncers, and headed out to make the .5 kilometer stretch to get more beer. We were pretty tipsy at this point, finding it a good idea to race up a hill at full speed. Me being a sore loser, I stole the show with my lightning dash. In the direction of the place we ate at, we found a shop just closing up that was willing to lend some poor souls some beers. Thirsty and content, we turned back, ready for another galant entrance into the club. We started on our beers (11) and stumbled back to the club, us all taking 2 stops to pee on the way. Since we still had another round when we arrived at the club, we sat outside in our same place working on number (12). By this time we were pretty drunk. There was a huge sign outside the club, and we spent about 15 minutes reading "Caliante" in as many ways as possible. At one point, one of us turned upside down to read it backwards.

As we were reentering the club, we felt pretty damn cool. I was picturing in my mind the slow motion scene in a movie where the 3 hotshots stroll into the club with techno blasting, us all stopping to take a look at all the hotties checking us out. In reality, we stumbled past the bouncers without evening showing our ticket stubs, wiped some beer off our shirts, spun around a few times, then made a dashing entrance onto the dance floor. We really made it just in time for Global Deejays to start, and from that reentrance, we danced for hours, agreeing to leave only after hearing "Sounds of San Francisco." That song finally rolled around at about 330, after which we climbed outside to grab a taxi back to Cesme.

17 lira later, we were back in Cesme in front of our hotel. Now, the smart thing would have been to go to sleep. It was 345 in the morning, we had an afternoon bus leaving from Izmir, nearly 2 hours away, and we had work at 8 AM Monday morning. Fortunately, we're 21 - 22 years old, so we look past all those obstacles. We find a club around the corner from our hotel with no cover fee. This place was whacko. It looked like a building out of Disney World, or something like Universal Studios. It had balconies, railings, fake windows and doors, all sorts of crazy shit. We got beers there (13) and took the only 3 pictures of the entire weekend. After about 30 minutes, we realized we were starving. We stumbled out of the club and found the first open restaurant we could. The waiter handed us menus, and we looked down at them like they were chinese. We legitimately had no idea what they said, haha, so the waiter just told us what we would get. And to top the night off, we ordered our final round of beers (14). Truth be told, none of us have any idea how we ate, or even who paid for the meal. Regardless, we found ourselves refreshed and awake in our tiny hotel beds at 11 AM the next morning, just in time to pack, take the bus to Izmir, get our bus to Istanbul, and arrive back home at the dorms at 3:00 AM.

This post is dedicated to David and Saurabh, two crazy bastards who entrusted their livelihoods to yours truly for 2 days of sheer madness.

All the best.

Hitchikin'

We were on our second bus next to the driver for 20 minutes before we got off the highway and stopped at the back of a massive line of cars and buses. Two of the bus attendants came up and were talking farely loudly with the bus driver, and it was clear they weren't too happy. The bus driver got on his cell phone, and vehemently using his hands in what I could tell was an expression of "damn these clueless foreigners". I finally realized at that point that our real bus was somewhere in this line of cars, and they had been told to take us to it. I could see through the reflection of the front window that the passengers were anything but pleased with the current situation. Then, to my right, I could see the bus attendant running on the edge of the line of cars, talking to a few drivers. He proceeded to rush back yelling "Geliniz, Geliniz!", and we were hoarded out of the bus and taken to a small SUV where the attendant shuffled us into the backseat and said something to the driver all the while running back to his bus. It was probably about 5 minutes that went by, us 3 in the backseat scrunched together, looking around us like vulnerable children.

The car we were in was no taxi or company car. We had simply been "hitchhiked" by the bus attendant, as this driver had no idea who we were. Luckily enough for us, the first thing the guy said was, "So do you all speak English?" In this situation of utter confusion, that familiar sound was all it took to put our speeding hearts, at least temporarily, at rest. Despite the akwardness of the situation, our driver talked with us quite a bit and said we would have no problem finding our bus. Sure enough, after a good 45 minutes - 1 hour, at the end of the line boarding the ferry, was a small Turkish man in a white shirt and red tie, asking every driver in a white SUV for 3 lost foreign travelers.

3 buses, hitchike, and a ferry later, we arrived in the beautiful city of Izmir at 9:30 AM. We met Aman (and surprisingly two UK @ers working in Ankara), and boarded the bus to Çeşme, a small, less discovered resort town 85 kms west of Izmir. We almost got off at the wrong place, but luckily (definitely the word of this weekend), we had a few English speakers that helped us get to the city center of Çeşme. Exhausted and ready for the beach and some beer, we got a room at the first hotel we found. Not as cheap as we would have liked, but the place was between the beach and the concert venue we'd be attending later that evening. We threw our shit in the hotel, put on suits and sandals, and trekked towards the beach. But of course, as many other days go, we had to get some Turkish food before beach time. Turkish food is definitely something I'm going to miss like crazy, as Durums, Doner, Iskender, Pide, have become marginally holy and sacred to my diet. During lunch, we started a long series of sorts, that being our first beer of the day (1). After a durum and (1) we hopped on a dolmus and headed towards Pirlanta Plaj. The other passengers were a little confused with where we wanted to go, but an older man (extreme beach bum) told us he'd help us get to Pirlanta. The Turkish people even had a hard time understanding this guy's Turkish, so it was quite hilarious when he tried to speak with me at a mile a minute. On top of his speech, he looked like the "Great Scott" guy from Back to the Future after multiple sunburns and a bottle of scotch. Despite our shortcomings in communication, Great Scott took us to the beach and headed off in his own direction.

Pirlanta Plaj: windsurfing, volleyball, football, beach chairs, white sand, sand castles, waves, beautiful water, amazing view, cheap beer. I hadn't been to a nice beach in years. And with all this beach had to offer, what did the 3 of us do? We got in the water for a minutes, sat down on the sand with some beers (2), and woke up 2 hours later. Yes, we passed out on the sand, exhausted from the battle against time that was the previous night. I had sand ingrained in my skin, even water from the ocean couldn't get it out. And despite my fear of a horrendous torture from the sun, my sunburn wasn't too bad, especially considering I basked in the sun unconsciously for 2 - 3 hours. Exhausted, burnt, and embarassed by our passed outness, we headed back to the hotel around 5 PM, picking up beers on the way. Before we got into our hotel, Saurabh went to buy cigarettes, and was assured by the shopkeeper that he could help us if we needed some "misses".

The next 1.5 - 2 hours was spent on the party porch. Yes, we had a party porch, and it had an amazing view of a massive tree whose branches nearly stretched into our room. Here we consumed some beers, numbers (3) and (4). I talked to David and Saurabh about the military and recent perked interest, and it was good to hear their opinions and also to hear myself talk about it outloud. After our beers and chat, we decided to head out early to the fishing village where Caliante beach club was. We grabbed a dolmus, paid our 2 lira each, and prepared for a crazy night.

"Hayır! Saat dokuz buçukta Taksim'den geldik!"

"Epic. Top five nights of my life." This was the lone text message I sent on Sunday to the other trainees in Istanbul after David, Saurabh and I traveled double digit hours to the Aegean Sea. The madness began Friday night...

David and I joined other folks for dinner on Istiklal Friday evening. Staying aware of the time, we decided not to eat as to make the service bus that would take us from Taksim to the bus station in time for our 10:30 bus to Izmir.

Everything was going well. We had made the service bus in time and were sitting patiently at the bus stop amidst strange looks and little kids selling 101 dalmation pillows for "Bir milyon! Bir milyon!" As David and I were making fun of the pillows, Saurabh came around the corner equipped with a blue pillow and a content smile. From 9:45 onwards, I would ask the bus company employee "Otobüsümüz mü?" I would quickly receive a "Hayir", or the funny click sound that means no in Turkey. This went on until around 11:15 when I decided it was time to get some answers. I went inside and asked the employee when our bus was coming. He looked at the ticket, then at me, ticket, me, "It already left." I should have been shocked or mad at this point, but because I had asked the guy repeatedly if each bus was our's, I knew we weren't completely at fault. The next 5 - 10 minutes was spent witnessing a few employees and regular men hand each other the tickets all the while arguing. I was picking up random words and numbers when one of the guys came to me and said in Turkish, "How many are you? Where were you?" I pointed to my comrades sitting on the bench. It seemed he was throwing the blame at us so I, very nobly and proudly, proceeded to argue, in Turkish, on our behalf that we were not at fault. I was pretty damn shocked; they believed us.

Quite soon thereafter, we were shuffled onto a bus with multiple employees pointing and saying, "this is your bus, this is your bus." We felt a sigh of relief as we sat down and had a laugh at our unfortunate situation. Content that we were headed to Izmir, I jokingly laughed with David about where this bus was actually going. This lead Saurabh to nervously ask the bus attendant, "Dude, where is this bus going?" With a smile, he said, Akcay, Baliksehir. "Shit!" We handed him our tickets and his face immediately changed to something like he had just received a shitty report card. "You're on the wrong bus."

30 minutes later we were thrown off at a farely large bus station on the Anatolian side of Istanbul. It was now almost 1230, and we looked across the Marmara Sea at Topkapi Palace, only a 20 minute walk from our own dorm. We were assured there'd be another bus going to Izmir in about 30 minutes, so with that we walked over to a small eatery to get something to drink. I grabbed an Ayran and laid it on the counter. The cafeteria guy, the "dude", immediately started up a conversation about where I was from, what I was doing here, etc. He was very warm to the presence of Americans, but was even warmer to Saurabh when he told him he was from "Hindistan." After hearing this, and the fact that Saurabh grew up in Saudi Arabia, he asked him in Turkish if he was Muslim. Now either Saurabh was very clever or just didn't understand, he calmly said "Yes". In a matter of 2 minutes, we were gathered around a table drinking free tea and eating free porça. Blessed we were.

By this time, only about 20 minutes had gone by since boarding the wrong bus and being thrown off still in Istanbul. It had been almost 2.5 hours in all and we were still in the city we were trying to leave. The "dude" asked to see our bus tickets, and at the sight of them, made a similar "shitty report card" face and started repeatedly yelling, "Come! Come! We gotta go!" We rushed out the cafeteria with our teas and followed the "dude" as he talked to multiple bus drivers and bus company employees. We went to our company's desk and were surrounded by curious employees wondering what the hell was the fuss. Multpile report card faces later, one of the employees slammed the ticket down, pointed to the 10:30 written on it, and said "Sorry." I spit off a few words attempting to make a hasty argument, when the "dude" suddenly interrupted me and fought on our behalfs. Fortunately, it worked, and again we were shuffled onto a bus. With another sigh of relief, we boarded our new bus and searched for a seat. Well, there were no seats, so the bus attendant sat us 3 on the front stairs of the bus right next to the quite intimidating bus driver. At this point is where our period of, we'll call it, "speechlessness" began. Not knowing what the hell was going on, or where we were going, we sat quietly on this crowded bus, wondering just how we would get to Izmir.

Weekend Preparation via E-mail

"Well this weekend is going to be a fucking wild ride.

I've been doing some research and this is what I've found out. Cesme is 85 kilometers (1.5 hour drive) from Izmir, and shuttles from the bus station in Izmir go every 15 - 20 minutes for 7 lira. We'll take one of those when arriving early Saturday morning. Cesme for the most part seems to be pretty unknown, but it's an up and coming place. There are various beaches outside Cesme's main center, and our concert venue is just north of the center in a fishing village. The best beaches are just southwest of the center. I'm thinking the best idea would be to do something like this...

Arrive in city center around 10 - 11 AM. Find a cheap ass place to stay (more for bag storage purposes than anything else). Head to the beach just southwest of Cesme (Pirlanta Plaj). Chill out, sit on the beach, until evening, then head back to "hotel", eat lots of bread and water, then head just north of town to Dalyan, the place where the concert is. Party like crazy until early morning, then head to back to said "hotel". Maybe sleep a bit, then go to beach again until maybe 4 or 5, then take a bus back to Izmir. Take a bus from Izmir to Istanbul around 1030 at night. This of course would make us miss the football game on Sunday night but that's okay with me.

Or we could do plan B...

Arrive in Izmir, hitchhike to Cesme. Find the nearest beach with sand. Find the nearest liquor store. Begin drinking. Drink, drink, drink, beach, chicks, drink, drunk, taxi to concert venue in beach clothes, party, party, drink, party, black out, see if we make it to Istanbul.

The mission is our's.

Andrew"

Missing home like crazy

Don't know why, but it hit me hard an hour or so ago. I miss home like crazy. And this time, home feels 100 percent like Texas.

I also figured out number (6): I want to know my state better. Right now I want to experience Texans, country music, BBQs, lakes, boats, Coors Light, hot sundowns, free refills, freedom, haha.

Also check this out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_embassy

That's right: the embassy of Texas. Shit that's bad ass.

God bless(ed) Texas.

Props to Chris Bowman

"Leaving
In an hour or two I'm heading to Syria. A Syrian American friend of mine is going to his family's place in Homs, and I figured it would be better to have someone who speaks Arabic with me than not. From there I'll hopefully get to Damascus, then Cairo. Off I go.
posted by Bowman at 1:53 PM 0 comments

Update
The Israelis bombed the Damascus road, so that way out is gone. I've also heard that the Syrians aren't giving out visas at the border, which is obviously a problem. Lebanese residents (which I am) usually have no problem. I'm not sure if I want to try the northern route to Aleppo and end up getting turned back at the border. I'll probably make a decision this afternoon."

Way to handle this situation Chris, stay safe, and get your ass to DC or Poland so we can chat, and of course party.

Andrew

Follow up from World Cafe

I mentioned in the first Anatolia Congress post that I was dissapointed with myself in not having "real" conversations with friends and roommates with whom, in only 2.5 months, I've grown up. Fortunately that changed on Tuesday night.

Monday and Tuesday were off days because of the Anatolia study tour. These were well needed and well deserved (of course), so I used most of those two days to regain consciousness after a few busy weeks and a completely crazy weekend. A big group of trainees went to Junior under the Galata Bridge around 9:00 PM for some beer and nargile. We ordered apple nargile (I got shit for ordering a water), and relaxed admist an incredible view of Northwest Istanbul. Some people left early, leaving Igor (NYC), Saurabh (India) and I up to no good. Fortunately for us and our wallets, we were too tired to order beers or do much else than just sit on those incredibly comfortable Istanbul bean bags.

For those who know me well, you know I ask a lot of questions, my favorite being the one about the most important experiences and moments in your life that have made you who you are. On Tuesday night, I didn't even have to ask that; we started up on how unprepared we were for our traineeship experiences, and began talking about why we were right there...there on those couches, talking to each other, in Istanbul, in July of 2006.

Without revealing too much of Saurabh's life, I feel obligated to my own reflections to talk about this incredible, inspiring, goofy-as-hell, friend of mine. When I first my Saurabh the first week of my traineeship, I thought (and I've told him this) he was a total wierdo. Haha, I mean he showed up with like 4 cartons of cigarettes, and the first thing he wanted to do upon arrival was to play some sweaty ping pong. It was the only the next day, I believe, that I saw him outside our dorm playing the harmonica, and playing it damn well! Regardless of those first impressions, this guy is my best friend here in Istanbul and we'll be friends for a long time to come.

Saurabh told me a few weeks ago that he holds a Guiness World Record for the longest single playing of a harmonica. I thought that was hilarious. I really first thought it was a joke, then when I began to believe him, I thought the record itself was hilarious. I didn't think too much of it until we talked on Tuesday night.

Saurabh lives in India, but grew up in Saudia Arabia. He and his family were deeply affected by the first Gulf War (of which my family had direct participation, and I'm proud of it, so it hit closer to home). It turns out that his harmonica playing got him into college, and he was so successful that he has almost finished his MBA through sponsorship. I was blown away. He believes so much in dreams and possibilities because he has seen his dreams come true, and that in itself is unbelievably inspiring. I don't know exactly what my main goals in life are, or what exactly my personal vision is, but I've always believed, and Saurabh has taken this a step further, that nothing is impossible, and that as long as we continue dreaming, cherish those dreams, and believe in them, those dreams will one day become reality. Where there's a will, there's a way.

More Anatolia Congress

I really lucked out with my conference roommates. I swear these guys were the funniest people ever. The funniest was from Bulgaria. His English wasn't too good, but this guy had an unimaginable wit and sense of humor that rivaled that of Anchorman. With his broken English, he could poke fun, or spit out a joke that sent our entire room into an uproar of belly laughter; and for you that know me, having multiple people replocating my belly laughter can be quite a scare.

Friday was Turkish night, complete with Black Sea dancers and another siting of the Turkish marching band, Mehter. This band, a replica of Ottoman style military bands, gave quite a show. I was interested to find out that the Greek delegates walked out of the show last year in silent protest. Talk about a long f'n grudge!

My utter laziness began Saturday morning upon strolling out to the pool at 11:30 AM to take care of an emergency. As I explained to the chair of the congress, that emergency was called, White Skin. All lathered up with Martin family sunscreen, I sat at the pool, swam, and witnessed sketchy Russian chicks for hours. All in all, it was a good day. Just a little sunburned, but I didn't care; I had finally gotten ride of my tan lines from Brazil. Yes, I went to Brazil a year and a half ago.

Saturday night kicked ass. It was many people's first global village, so all I did was sit back and watch. I remember my first global village in Brazil, and it nearly ended in disaster after tasting booze from over 10 countries. All I had Saturday was some Bulgarian and Serbian delight. We had a regular party after the Global Village, and of course, I lost in boat races on the first round. I never really know how this happens, but I always manage to get in with some slow drinkers and end up losing to some group like Spain or Turkey. Psssssh.

Around 3:30, the party closed down, and someone had the great idea of going swimming. Swimming + booze + foreigners = skinny dipping. Yes it was cold, and it was the Marmara Sea, but it was hella fun. Finally fell asleep close to 5 o'clock.

On Sunday, I grabbed more sun, and my final lunch buffet. We all made it back to Istanbul just in time to see Zidane unleash a Mortal Kombat style Finish Him move on the Italians. Soccer's beginning to look more like hockey every World Cup.

Anatolia Congress

Thursday set in like normal Thursdays do for Istanbul trainees: evening nargile night. These weekly traditions have been growing in population ever since we officially established our weekly presence at Mirra nargile. This last Thursday played host to some of the early Anatolia congress delegates, more specifically, 10 or so delegates from Holland.

Up until Thursday, I had not bothered to learn Backgammon. This game is insanely popular in Turkey, and despite having put it off for quite some time, I was pretty sure I'd learn it before I went home. Well, I learned Thursday, and much to my surprise, I learned from a Dutch guy. So, ladies and gentlemen, all those backgammon players beware, although I suck at the game, I loved it. Practice makes perfect.

I stayed in Thursday night (another surprise), and woke up late with all the other trainees to make opening ceremonies at a theater near Taksim. 13 American trainees met all the delegates at opening cermonies, and it was cool to see some faces I recognize from past conferences, pictures, and name drops. The biggest delegations were Greece and Holland, boasting 33 and more or less 15, respectfully.

We arrived at the actual conference site (on the beach, although a shitty one, but hell I haven't really been to a quality beach in 4 years, so a beach is a beach) a little late on Friday afternoon. Basia, current MC VP PD of AIESEC in Turkey opened the conference well, quickly splitting us off into World Cafe small groups. I had been asked to facilitate one of these groups, and without too much preparation, was a little nervous moving into the session. In efforts to help me, I pulled in Saurabh and Igor, two other Istanbul trainees. What happened over the course of that session was probably the most important thing I took away from the conference...

Our first conversation started with perspectives of Western lifestyles, and our opinions of where the world is going with such lifestyles. We moved into talking about poverty, and each of our own experiences hearing about, seeing, or experiencing it firsthand. Quite suddenly, government budgets came up, and not surprisingly, the US's military budget. As I was going to veer the conversation in a different direction, Igor made a pretty bold statement in defending our government's budget, igniting a semi-intense debate among the 9 of us from Holland, India, Czech Republic, Greece, the UK, and Serbia. Saurabh came back at Igor with some very convincing arguments, and they began to exchange debate. It was at that point that I became sad. I became sad because I've spent 2 months with these two trainees (among others), and we haven't yet had these types of conversations. It was evident to me how many differences of opinion and perspective we had; unfortunately, we hadn't spent enough time together talking about real issues, real life experiences, and the real things that "plague" our minds.

Set for a long weekend

Anatolia Congress, hosted by @ Istanbul, begins tomorrow. Because I've been hearing about this congress for 2 years, this is quite an epic experience on the horizon. It's only a few days long, but the delegates, location, and sessions combined will constitute an incredible experience.

I was telling another exchange participant earlier in an email that I only have 3 weeks left in Istanbul. That is bat shit insane. I remember being matched to this traineeship back in March, thinking to myself how long it would be until I'm in Turkey. I've been here for 7 months, and as I realized last night, just begun to feel settled in. I've also been thinking about recommendations I want to make to potential exchange participants. As it stands right now, I absolutely love this city, and would return for a longer time span in a heartbeat. However, I would not recommend short term traineeships in large cities. There's simply too much to see, experience, and feel, and with only 2 - 4 months, the city and your experience are not given justice.

On another note, for reasons I've yet to understand, I've created a list of things I want to do/learn after leaving Istanbul:

1.) The French language

2.) Soccer

3.) Drink tea

4.) Continue with Turkish

5.) Fix and fortify friendships and relationships

There will be more to this list, I hope.

Oh my darlin

Last night was epoch. We gathered at the @ office for some potato salad, Amerian music, and beer pong. It was hilarious to watch reactions of some people upon seeing us set up the beer pong table, and equally hilarious to watch newcomers try the century-old competitive sport.

After a few games, Igor and Saurabh entertained us with the only song they could play together...oh my darling. I've never seen anyone put so much life into the harmonica as Saurabh does; he actually clames to hold a guiness world record for harmonica playing. Kesley and Cari sang a lovely duet of our beloved national anthem.

After some festivities, we headed to our dive bar, 45, to watch Germany/Italy with the worst TV reception in Turkey. We had to fill the bar for them to turn the game one, so in AIESEC fashion, we brought in Americans, British, Dutch, Germans, Indians, Taiwanese, and Turks. The baristas were quite surprised.

The game was stunning. I was rooting for Germany, but was more shocked from excitement than dissapointment upon Italy scoring two impressive goals in the final minutes.

The rest of the night was bar hopping. And of course we hit up Joker, and this time we were actually kicked out at closing which was hilarious.

Email from coworker

From: Murat Çatal
Sent: 04 Temmuz 2006
Salı 09:36T
o: Andrew Martin
Subject: Celebration

Andrewww, how are you man?

İf I don’t make a mistake, today is independence day of USA. So, I want to celebrate your important day. I hope We will be together in the future like today.

Peace In Home, Peace in the World
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Best,
Murat ÇATAL

Independence Day

"Shit, I'm at work on Independence Day." - Me

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation..." - TJ

World Cup Madness

My Dad's quote after telling him I was preparing to watch the World Cup - "I care just as much about the World Cup as the Super Bowl."

3 days before the World Cup began, I felt the same way. 2 days before, I decided that needed to change. I started looking up the USA team, and moved on to the other powerhouse teams. After almost one month, I've become insanely intrenched in stats, standings, etc. I don't know how, but I will find a way to follow the European leagues when back in the States.

Umesh is an @ member of 7 months from @ Nottingham. He'll be doing a CEED in @ Ankara for the next 6 weeks, but he stayed in Istanbul this weekend. After we both did some name dropping and got to know each other, we agreed to prepare for a mighty game between England and Portugal. I woke up Saturday morning, researched some venues, and decided the best place would be none other than, the James Joyce Irish Pub.

One of the only Irish pubs in Istanbul, the place is quite overpriced and the food didn't look too good. It's redeeming quality was the fact that it had bacon. Pork bacon. Bacon sandwich was bacon on bread. Delicious. Beers were 7.50 lira, bah. Regardless, the amount of English fervor in this pub was enough to scare people nearby into thinking Istanbul's apocalyptic earthquake had finally arrived. Words that would turn heads in the US were being shouted like it was a family picnic. Every time England nearly scored I would grab onto other trainees and fear for our lives as the larest English man would jump up and cover the entire big screen TV.

Nevertheless, the hootin' and hollerin' provided for my best football experience yet. Portugal did prevail, so it was quite a melancholic mood as we departed, but I do think Portugal and France will be the best match of the Cup.

Anatolia Congress this weekend. Three days, two nights in a 5 star hotel. 20+ countries. Bring it on.

28 days later

28 days later. Home in Austin, gearing up for the month of August.