Christmas in the far off orient (sort of)

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, etc, etc.

Have just finished a mighty feast prepared by my personal chef, Jeremy. He can do wonders with what is essentially a camp stove and a microwave. İf not for him, İ am sure that İ would have just finished a Christmas dürüm. We have been having an exciting time with Ariel and Jeremy here. They really brighten up the holidays. The street hawkers seem more pleasant, the raki less horrible tasting, the greasy meat somehow a little less greasy. İt is either thier stellar company, or the fact that İ have been drunk for the last week. Either one will do.

Anyway, hope you all are having a great holiday, getting presents and making merry and such. Will soon be home, cursing in Turkish, wearing a fes, eating delight and drinking strong tea.

Oh yeah, İ almost forgot. We went back to buyukada and actually found trotsky's mansion!! İt was a Christmas miracle!

Cheers and such

Will

Running down the clock

Well, the clock has started to tick. Only a week and a half until we are home. So much left to do. İ have gotten to the point where going to Victoria seems like a strange place with weird customs. İt will take a while to get use to enlglish agaain, İ may be waving me hands around a lot a first, trying to get my point across.

Have spent the last week visiting many museums. Military, carpet, and İslamic art. Lots of guns, lots of carpet, lots of art. The İslamic art museum was sweet because it was an old palace. Also, they had a full sized yurt. İ loves the yurts! Saw King Kong today. İt could have used some more ape sliding on its butt scenes, but otherwise quite good. İ wish that it had been dubbed into turkish though, İ was hoping to see Kong roar like this 'ĞĞĞĞĞÜÜÜÜÜŞŞŞŞŞŞÖÖÖÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇ!!!!!!!'. Oh well.

Ariel and Jeremy are coming in a few days, so Robyn and İ are going to act like we know all about İstanbul and are all cultured and such. My big plan is to teach them that the turkish word for hello is the word that means diarreaha, but İ may have just given myself away by writing it here. İf Ariel or Jeremy are reading this, İ am just joking. İ promise not to carry through with this plan. Although it would be funny. Actually, half the people laugh at you here if you try and speak to them in turkish, even if you are saying the correct words. They also tend to charge you the 'foreingers' price. Some of the signs really list a price for turks and a price for tourists. Seems like a kick in the face to me. Also, to top off the pain of having to pay extra for being a visitor, half of the guidbooks say the students can get into most places for free. Not true. Even though Robyn's uvic id only expired a year ago, many places will not accept it. Go figure!

See most of y'all in a week or so. Merry Christmas and all that to everyone.

Will

Trotsky, trotsky, trotsky

Trıed to fınd Trotsky's house this week and failed. When he went into exile from the soviet union, Leon Trotsky fled to a small island in the bosphorus called butukada. A few days ago we tried to find his house, the address of which was listed in our guidebook. Sounds easy, right? İ was so psyched; İ had prepared a celebration that involved doing a russian-inspired dance and humming the theme song to tetris. Unfortunately, our guidebook neglected to tell us that the address numbering scheme on the island made little sense when it came to trotsky's house. We followed what we thought was the correct street for an hour or two, only to find that his purported address, 55, did not exist where it should have. After Russian-dancing and tetris-theming around the island for a bit, we gave up and went home. İ felt like stabbing Trotsky with an icepick, but them İ found out that someone had beat me too it. Other than the lack of trotsky, buyukada is an interesting little island. İt is kind of like a turkish saltspring. İt has way more cats and stray dogs and horses, and way less hippies. İstanbulians use it as a nice little getaway in the summer. Very idylic.

Aside from our little island hopping excursion, we have been to two of the three main palaces in İstanbul this week. İ guess technically there are four palaces, although İ hear one is now a shopping mall so it doesn't count as much. Topkapi palace is big, marble and cold. Kind of impersonal, with the weight of centuries of sultanic power behind it. İ was surprised to find out that the sultan only had about four wives and maybe eight favorite concubines out of a harem of 500 or more. İ used to think that the sultans were super manly dudes, but come on, having twelve women at a time is only kind of manly. Now having 500...... Another thing about this palace is it's excellent collection instruments of death. The armoury clearly shows that the turks have always had a certain flair that the europeans lack. Old Turkish pistols are inlaid with giant jewels and precious metals, as are their swords. When you were killed by these guns, you were killed by good taste. On the other hand, the europeans may have been trying to get by on a sheer terror factor; the armoury also contained a medival european broadsword that was, no shit, over seven feet tall. İ have a picture. İ cannot even imagine the man that could wield this thing. Not very stylish, but very, very effective.

The second palace, dolmabache, is much younger and much more ostentatious. İt is all hardwood floors and gilded walls and ceilings. The doorknobs are made of porcelein. They have a crystal chandelier that weights over 4 tons. Biggest in the world. Everything in it is ridiculously expensive looking. İ was afraid to breathe, thinking that İ might upset a giant vase or other precious work of art. Now that is what İ call rulling!! İf your people are going to be poor, then you should show off that you are extra, super rich, by having four palaces in one city, stuffed with every ridiculous thing that you can think of. They even had entire dinner services made of gold and jewels. That was in addition to services in silver, opal, and jade. 'This silver and opal plate makes my food taste less than rich, do we have anything fancier? A solid gold one you say? İ guess that will do.' When İ think palace, İ think dolmabache. Less old than topkapi, more over the top. Also, it is haunted by the ghost of atturk, seeing as how he died in one of the rooms.

Spoooooky

Will

Will conquers Asıa!

Add another continent to the list of those under the domination of the Will doctrine. Today we visited the Asian side of İstanbul. İt looked a lot like a suburb. Actually, it was less dirty than European İstanbul, and some of the traffic actually stopped to let us cross the street. So, based on my great experience of Europe and Asia, İ feel confident in saying that Asia is clean and friendly while Europe is dirty and bent on vechicular slaughter. Kidding aside, the asian part of the city seems a little boring, in that most of the impressive 'tourist fiendly' sights are on the European side of the Bosphorus. İ'm sure that with a proper knowledge and appreciation of the city İ would be able to ferret out many rewarding adventures on the other side of the water, but that won't be happening any time soon. Let me just say that the walk along the sea is beautiful, if one ignores the homeless people sleeping on the benches, the feral cats (these are cute, but İ fear their rabid teeth), and the plethora of rusty tankers waiting their turn to come into the harbour. Despite the somewhat mundane appearance of the areas we saw today, İ must return to sample the sheep milk ice cream which we were unable to locate today. İ have it on good authority that it is quite excellent.

İ have spent the last few days in the grip of a persistent cold (İ think that it is bird flu). Yesterday İ did not leave the house, and hardly had the strength even to spy on the man in the booth collecting dogs. Part of my illness may be atributable to our adventures on Sunday, when we spent the majority of the day climbing hills, trying to locate a Picasso exhibition that is being advertised everywhere in the city. You think that this would make it easy to find, right? Wrong. We gave up after three hours, assuming that the Turks did not want tourists to see their precious exhibit. Stubborn as we are, we will try again next week.

As we began our ill-fated picasso quest, we saw much activity around the local futbol(that's football to the non turks, soccer to the uncultured) stadium. Fighting off the entrities of a writhing mass of scalpers, (they are much much more persistant here) we managed to secure tickets to a premier leauge game. Here it is called the Turkish super liga. Anyways, it was fairly packed and very very loud. Football fans over here have an astounding array of chants, İ felt like a total outsider. When everyone else stood up chanting, İ jumped up and yelled all the Turkish words that İ knew, as loud as İ could. Since these consisted of general pleasantries (please, thank you and the like) and several off colour words (such as 'fogging') İ'm not surprised that İ got a number of less than pleased looks. However, İ think that the players recognized my clumsy attempts at cheering them on, as they netted three in the first half. Despite a second half charge from the opposition, the Beşiktaş black eagles carried the day 3 to 1. İ take full responsiblity for the victory.

We have now been here for a month, with only three short weeks until we return home. İ hope to learn several more innapropriate words, which İ will use lıberally if İ can't find the fogging Picasso exhibit next week.

Will

Another day, another durum

I apologize in advance for any mistakes and general disjointedness in this post. They let me have the "english" keyboard at the internet cafe and I can't remember where all of the keys are now that I have become accustomed to the turkish placement.

We continue to explore some of the culture aspects of the city. Yesterday we went to the archeology museum. It is pretty strange to think that this area has been part of ancient greece, rome, the byzantine and ottoman empires. This museum puts the royal bc to shame. The weird thing is that there were no people and many security guards. Everytime that we entered a new room, a guard would get up from his chair by the radiator, put down his book and mosey on over. Sometimes, a guard would come by and turn on the lights if we entered a particularly unused area. The strangest artifact was a two ton marble coffin covered in carvings. This in itself is not strange. The weird part to me was one particular carving, depicting a heated battle. Again, not strange in and of itself. Ok, here is the interesting part. A man in one corner of the sarcophogus is stabbing another in the neck. Brutal and all but..... Did I mention that the man doing the stabbing is completely naked accept for a helmet and the man being stabbed is totally clothed? Who goes into battle with no clothes? Better question, who goes in to battle without any clothes, but on the way out the door figures "hey, I should wear a hat or I might get a cold?".

Anyhow, just thought that I would leave you all with that image. Next week we are planning on visiting the asian side of the city, and hopefully moving further south for at least a few days. Trying to get a sense of the country as a whole, rather than just relying on the grandness of Istanbul to represent a whole nation.

Will