Türk Kahvesi & Those side streets that I love

Dear all, today I come to you, head down, asking forgiveness for I have done a terrible thing - yes, I had my first Turkish Coffee in Turkey today..... at Starbucks. I know, I know. How could I do such a thing - well, I'll explain. I was walking down the street, and need a place to sit down a rest a bit. Starbucks was both conveniently right across the street and comfy looking, so I popped in with the intentions of experiencing how, if at all, they had adjusted their menu for Turkey. The menu was, I came to find out, actually entirely in English save for a couple of words and the allusive item called "Türk Kahvesi" which those of us who speak no Turkish, but do have to ability to sound things out, would logically deduce to be Turkish coffee.  It came out a few minutes later in a espresso cup, piping hot and wonderfully needed as I was having my 3:00pm bought of sleepiness brought on, no doubt, by the combination of jet lag and lugging my luggage up and down about 50 flights of stairs all through metro stops, busses, and buildings today. Needless to say, I was in a must have caffeine mode. It was GLORIOUS. lightly sweetened with a single sugar cube, it was bold and strong, but not at all bitter, not unlike Indonesian kopi. I could attempt all day to describe it, but I could never do so accurately. Thus, I will leave you with just saying that it WILL be something I order again, but based on the caffeine jolt I had post drinking, it will be a special occasions beverage.

As I mentioned, I went out to do a bit of exploring today - poking my head down some of the side streets just off of the main road near the AIESEC office (which, by the way, is located up 4 flights of winding, narrow stairs, up which I carried my luggage - what fun). There were some interesting sights to behold, although it all seemed very familiar. Istanbul reminds me a lot of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Some of the little places I discovered today were exactly like the little offshoots of Jalan Petaling in Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown - only with less abrasive odors and notably fewer Malaysians. Even the little vendors remind me of the ones I shopped at during my 18 hour layover last summer. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let all of you see for yourself and decide what you think.

**More to come soon**

Turkish Keyboards or Ahh the joys of typing

Turkish keyboards are weird - enough said. Just to give you a taste of what I am dealing with, I will retype everything here using the keystrokes I would use on an English keyboard.

Tukrısh keyboards are weırd - enough saıdç Just to gıve you a taste of what I am dealıng wıthö I wıll retype everythıng here usıng the keystrokes I would use on an Englısh keyboardç

See what I mean? ö is where my comma should be, and the actual comma is hanging way out in never never land. I have a Ş where my semicolon should be, and capital I is in the same place. However, that if I use it for lowercase i, then I get ı (sans the necessary dot), the lowercase i is chilling next to my crazy Ş thing. What is cool is that when I capitalize it, it becomes an İ. It is surprising how easy it is to overlook the little dot over the i. Oh, and to make matters even stranger, my period has taken up residence one spot to the left of where it should be. In its correct place, the wonderful turkish keyboard has saved me the nessecity of usıng Ctrl+C to make a ç. What blışş.

But Ah Ah Those Summer Nights...... in Istanbul

I have rectified my ignorance of Turkish food. I loaded myself down with my camera, a wad of Turkish Lira, and my sweater (it gets pleasantly cool here at night), and I took to the streets to locate myself some dinner. I passed some posh looking cafés and instead chose to go to the delightfully cheap corner take-away stand, which, at 10:30pm Turkish time had all of their little tables PACKED – good sign. Do not ask me what I ate. I can’t pronounce it much less remember what it’s called, but it was AMAZING. It was some kind of sandwich with chicken and what looked like slaw but tasted like a smiley face in my stomach. I wish the picture had come out more clearly, but I devoured it before I had a chance to take a second shot.

I did, however, manage to snap a few good ones of the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque on the way back to my hostel.

Turkish Delights

As I have now been exercising my rights as a Turkish visa holding American, namely being in Turkey, for several hours now, I want to share with you all some of my initial reactions.

Reactions:
1. WOW

2. This place ties with New York for the coolest view during descent into the airport.

3. This place has some of that grungy people without deodorant smell and strangely, a recurring scent of glycerin and soap that pops up everywhere…

4. I do not know how the food is yet as I haven’t eaten any of it yet; however, I’ll get on that. I think we all know what to expect in my next post.

On non-linear narrative construction and how I should catch you all up to speed

Dear friends, family, and whoever may also be reading this stream of my thoughts, I have realized that I have started a blog about my summer without elaborating on what I called before my “lively bought of visa issues.” To make a long story short and non-whiney, I will attempt to recount the sparknotes version of my visa issues:

Once upon a time in a magical land that does not even come close to having a local Turkish consulate know as South Carolina, a young man, myself, received an email stating that I needed to apply not for a work visa, but for an “AIESEC Internship Visa.” I urge you all to google this, as half of the results are either in Chinese or about Chinese students, or at least they were when I googled it about a week or so ago. Anyway, after much searching, I had no clue what that meant as some types of Turkish visas require their applicants to be present in person at the consulate at the time of application, meaning I couldn’t just Fedex my passport and some paperwork up to DC to get everything.

After several calls to the Turkish embassy in DC and consulates in New York, Chicago, Houston, and Atlanta, I had absolutely no information other than I needed to contact the DC office that I couldn’t get through to. So, I did what any other desperate/ slightly impulsive person would have done. I drove to DC. After going about 15 blocks in the wrong direction, I backtracked and finally made it to the Turkish consulate. Note that as you walk down Michigan Avenue from the Metro stop in Dupont Circle, you pass first the office of the Turkish Defense Attaché and some official Turkish residence building before finally reaching the Turkish embassy, each of which makes you feel falsely excited to have arrived until you realize that the Giant Turkish flag flying on the building doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the actual embassy. At long last, I get inside the embassy, and saunter up to the widow where the glorious woman behind the bullet-proof glass informed me that she knew exactly what an internship visa was (despite it not being listed on any visa application forms) and would prepare it for me to pick up the next day. At long last, I finally got the visa that I needed that will live happily ever after in my passport…..until it expires in 2017.

In the Beginning, There Were Tickets

At long last, I am beginning my highly anticipated blog recounting my summer adventures. After a lively bought of visa issues, a quick trip up to DC to beg for a visa, and a substantial credit card charge on webjet.com, I finally have in my possession the highly illusive and coveted Turkish Internship Visa – the likes of which even the internet has hardly heard of, and I am en route to Istanbul (not Constantinople).

At this point, I have no real stories of great interest to share with you all, so instead, I will offer up a few of my musings thus far:

Firstly, Airports are strange, bizarre, and confusing centers of human convergence. I am far from an expert in human movements patterns, but I was thoroughly amazed at the large number of Canadians boarding my flight from Charlotte, NC to Munich, Germany. True, Canadians have to fly places too, but I would think they would not be congregating en masse for a flight from Charlotte to Germany. Additionally, I was surprised yet again to find a sizable hoard of Quebecois chattering away, ready to board my flight from Munich to Istanbul – is Canada on vacation this month or something? I would say that I must have missed some memo, but the fact is, that even if there were any memo issued, I would never have received it, as I am not Canadian.

These very Quebecois have, in fact, become the highlight of my trip thus far. It took me a solid half hour to figure out that they were even speaking in French, and I can only say that nothing makes your degree in French seem less valuable than listening to a gaggle of teenagers, recently escaped from Montreal high schools, chatter away in native French that takes me a whole half hour to determine whether or not it is, in fact, a language that I will, in a few months, have a degree in. I have, however, comforted myself my new mantra: “’C’est OK, ce n’est pas vraiment français, c’est québecois……. C’est OK, ce n’est pas vraiment français, c’est québecois” (‘It’s ok, it’s not French, it’s Quebecois’ – Translation provided for those of you who do not share my borderline compulsive obsession with languages).

My final musing addresses only the most crucial of topics: food - airline food to be more specific. Writing this, I am about an hour or so in to my final flight from Munich to Istanbul, and I was just served my in flight lunch. When it was placed before me, I did a double take. Yes, my “lunch” was labeled “Thai Red Curry.” Let me just say that I have been to Thailand, and I have had Thai Red Curry in Thailand. I was pretty much afraid of what was sitting before me in a little pre-packaged container of dubious origin (and by dubious origin, I mean that it has not even come close to seeing any part of the Asian continent, much less Thailand). I actually took a picture of it just to commemorate the moment that I got Thai food on a flight from Germany to Turkey. 15 minutes later, I can say that my worst fears were confirmed – American based airlines are quite possibly the biggest rip-off in the universe. They hardly offer in flight food, and for those of you who have never flown a foreign airline, let me tell you, IGNORANCE IS BLISS because my Thai red curry was actually good. Yes, friends, I am still trying to wrap my head around it, but it was indeed quite good – a fact that was only slightly overshadowed by the accompanying Toblerone.

As I have bombarded you with a relentless stream of random banter, I will concluded the first of my (hopefully numerous if I can keep myself working on this diligently) posts by sending you all my fondest regards and letting you know that I can hardly wait to get my shiny new Turkish entry stamp in my passport. I am now going to go invest some quality time into my relationship with Lonely Plant and brush up on my Turkish street smarts before I land and attempt to navigate my way around Istanbul (Not Constantinople).