Straight edge for...?

I haven't had a drink since Frankfurt.

Shock and awe, shock and awe, as of tomorrow (is that right? I'm still confused by the time change) it will be one week since I did any sort of sipsappin'. But I pretty much sapped my way around the world at that point. It started in the Chicago airport. I got off the bus from Madison, was heck of early, and pretty much "flew" (if you will) through security. As soon as I arrived at my gate, I located the closest bar and sat my booty down. Approximate time: 10? 11? something AM. The obvious drink of choice was a bloody mary. I had the headache of the century and probably looked like balls after my drop-off at the bus a few hours before.

[Side note: I don't want to chat too much re: the drop-off because...naaaah, but let me just say this: something has got to give. That is to say, I don't think I can keep saying goodbye's this regularly for my health/heart's sake. There was going away to Santa Cruz, balls, going away to study abroad, balls, going away to Wisconsin, balls, and now this. Of course goodbyes blow, and things maybe get easier or I at least adapt (is that the same?), but goddamn goddamn. Steve S. once said something to me about "the transitory nature of interesting people" and while in many ways I agree, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live in one place for longer than a year at a time. Somewhere in my dome there is this little bro representing wanderlust and this little homebody bro duelling it out.]

So sitting in the bar in Chicago I ordered a bloody mary and a sandwich. The sandwich ended up all sorts of disgusting, whereas the bloody mary was dabomb dot com slash my mouth. I started feeling better pretty much instantly (no duh). The cute old lady bartender comes up to me and says, "I made yours a double." (She probs sensed my str8strugglin) GIDDY SAP! I obvi ordered a second and placed some essential calls/texts. About halfway through the second I started really FEELING IT (I could have smooched the bartenders face).

The flight from Chicago to Frankfurt was hilariously nah. I didn't choose my seat so I got on the plane only to discover that I was in the almost-middle of the middle (2 window seats, 5 middle seats, 2 window seats - I was in the middle seats) and next to me was A SMELLY MAN THE SIZE OF A HOUSE. Luckily I was behind one of the dividers so I actually had leg room - bonus round. Back to mr. fatty: he didn't speak English so I didn't get to chat with him about how much I hated how he was going to destroy the next eight plus hours of my life, but oooh I was really telling him with my eyes. Long story short, at times he took up 1/3 or more of my seat with his huge arm. I passed out for maybe an hour max (but kept waking up throughout that hour) to my face all up on his arm which was seriously in my space. Thank god for Curb Your Enthusiasm, which I was able to peep, and the strong gin and tonic I ordered which really kept my "feelin it" level exceptionally trill.

I finished my international bar crawl at your new favorite "Goethe Bar" at the Frankfurt Airport. Thank you Germany. You are cool. I saw the name and knew that was where I was going to be eating/drinking. Before I discovered the epic Goethe Bar, however, I had to deal with the problem at hand of where my gd flight to Istanbul left from. Apparently I don't know German. I had to take the tram/train/whatever (where some woman complimented me on my moccasins in German), exit customs, then go to a special international connections desk to get issued my boarding pass (I got to bypass the long line though! Thanks again Germany!), then security and then!: As I was going back through passport control, I put both my Turkish and American passports out in front of passport-bro. I did this because in Chicago, the woman at the airport had registered me on my Turkish passport (since with the American you need a visa) and the woman in Frankfurt had done the same. So passport bro reached for my Turkish first, ignoring my American, then shouted at me in German what I can only speculate was: WHERE IS YOUR VISA? (since Turks need a visa to be in Germany, whereas Americans do not) to which I shoved my American passport forward for the special man. Then he got all butt-hurt and lectured me on how I should always show my American passport first...even though I had given him the choice. Power trippin'!

So the Goethe Bar: where magic happens. At approximately 6:45AM local time I had THE MOST DELICIOUS HOT DOG (pictures will be posted one day) and drank a perfect Hefeweizen. The waiter said to me, "Enjoy your dinner? Breakfast? Lunch?" and I replied, "I'm not sure either." That's what's up. My buzz had obviously worn off, but thanks to getting two hours of sleep the night before my flight and (maybe) one on the plane, it did do something for me.

I wandered over to my gate and all of a sudden 1000 pounds of tired hit me. Like, I was at that level where I couldn't physically keep my eyes open any more. Terrified of missing my flight, I set an alarm for the boarding time and experienced some insane sleep (off and on, crazy dreams, etc.). One of many reasons why it is a bonus to travel with other(s): When you are so tired that you're passing out, like actually blacking out passing out, you don't have to try to configure a way to sleep and guard your shit, etc. Power in numbers!

The flight from Frankfurt to Istanbul was a blur. I was given a form to fill out re: swine flu, which I did, and I had a window seat this time so I had something to lean on. I didn't even wake up when they served drinks, etc. and was pretty much completely and totally passed out (which I rarely am able to do). When I stumbled off the plane in Istanbul, the first thing I experienced was an American woman from my flight repeating over and over loudly to a Turkish airport employee (waiting with a wheelchair): THE WHEEL CHAIR IS FOR MY HUSBAND. THE WHEEL CHAIR IS FOR MY HUSBAND. x1000. Seriously? Then at the passport control (at which I entered as a Turkish national) the passport bro asked me approximately 100 times what my last name was. I don't know why he was freaking out in my face (another power trippin' passport control bro?), but he finally let me through.


[Side note: Our airplane came into Istanbul over sea, but last time I came into Istanbul it was over land and was seriously epic. Click for larger view. Peep the mosques!]

Then I had to configure balancing my luggage and the whiskey/chocolate I purchased at the duty free shop (for my family) while trying to use the restroom/find a telephone/board a bus. Another reason why it's good to travel with someone else.

I got picked up at Taksim and taken to my family's apartment in Kozyatağı/Kadıköy (it's on the Asian side). Instantly I was presented with the problem of "terlik" (house slippers). When I told my family my shoe size they gasped (Sasquatch much?) but luckily I packed flip flops in case I do some vacay here (y'all know how much I hate flip floppin') which means that I HAVE BEEN FLIP FLOPPING (in the privacy of my own home). Still. Shoes, they are a changin'.

I showered and took a nap, and was told that they like to go to the beach in Chile. I thought to myself how totally random that was, only to discover they weren't saying "Chile" they were saying "Şile"!!! Şile is on the Black Sea, and is awesome. I only know that now because the next day (the day after my arrival) we went swimming there. In Chile/Şile I was told more than once by my family that I was "white". In fact at one point a picture was taken in which they said "night and day, black and white". Heyyyy don't blame me, blame Wisconsin. I also shot a gun for the first time...okay okay it was a BB gun. Still a gun though, am I right here people? Hilarious pictures of that are sure to surface soon.

What else, what else? I've waited days to write, and now there's a whole mess of random things. Here's some:

-During moving time I got rid of so, so, so many gems. Hopefully I've learned from my mistake of acquiring so much shit (just think: I got rid of a milly things when I moved out of Santa Cruz, and now I got rid of a billy more!). Yet the thing(s) I'm thinking about most are all the pens I left on Sangeeta's table in my rush to leave. Isn't that funny?

-Volkan and I were waiting in the car one day and he made some joke (I don't remember what it was) and I told him that he made a good joke and that he's always making jokes (which is pretty much the extent of my compliment-giving skills in Turkish, at present) and then he replied that he does always make jokes, and also he's always happy. That's real.

-Employment. I went to my first job interview last Saturday (2 days after my arrival) and I was offered the job on the spot. Fun fact: "kindergarten" in Turkey can mean kids as young as 2. Which means if I'd taken the job I would have been changing diapers. OH. HELL. NO. What was the point of my TEFL certificate then? Also, they didn't help with housing and I would have to work every day from 8:30 to at least 3:30, but probably/usually later, so with the salary offered it would be equivalent to about 8US/hr. Uh? OH! And my favorite part was during the interview the woman asked me what my plans were to return to the United States. I told her I wasn't sure. She informed me that last year not one but TWO of her employees had left to go back to the US/England/wherever at winter break because they "couldn't adapt to Istanbul". A gigantic flaming red flag went up in my mind: couldn't adapt to Istanbul, or didn't like this place of employment? Why would you tell a potential employee that fact at an interview? So this was Saturday, and she told me the job started Monday. Obviously they were/are pretty desperate for teachers with Turkish citizenship, so even after I emailed my refusal they RE-emailed me asking if I had made up my mind. Big ups on this one to my parents and Sangeeta for giving me a long distance slap to the face/huge reality check so that I didn't take the job. I had another interview today that went swimmingly, and will find out on Monday the outcome (due to visa/passport/bureaucratic b.s.)

-Food. In my mind, I mostly associate Turkish food (specifically dinners) with some sort of special occasion, since I don't eat it all too often. But now I am living the dream. The dinners have been blowing my mind every day, and if I say that I've had enough they insist, absolutely insist, that I eat more. So I emailed my dad explaining this first world problem and he replied:

our vacation was kinda eating and drinkinging binge sort of--- and Me and Nurse gained about 5 pounds-each- within a month....So if you stay there in 10 months , result will probably be about 50 pounds . !!!! :-)))

Oh good! With a smiley face at the end, too! ;____; (that's me fake-crying)

-Turkish. Apparently I'm not going to gain anything close to fluency by just sitting around, hoping to soak something up. I realized pretty instantly the extent of my language skills (although I know way more this time than I did last time I left Turkey - even though I was here for four plus months before, I was surrounded by English speakers and barely studied Turkish at all. Thus, I learned more from 2 semesters studying in the US than from a semester abroad in Turkey! Isn't that a shame?). As a wise man once said, "You can do it put your back into it" (replace back with brainzzz). I can pretty much sense the wall that I've hit, and I struggle with forming any sort of complex sentence. But I believe in myself. Additionally, the son of the house I'm in told me the other day that he's been studying English for EIGHT YEARS and his English is probably at the same level as my Turkish. Which pretty much proved to me me in a big way (as if I hadn't already learned this) how time doesn't matter so much as effort. Dan Canım, over on the European side of Istanbul, is experiencing something similar (re: hitting the "wall"):

yeah thats the toughest part but just be ready to seem really really stupid for a long time.

Heck of real talk.

-Music. A few days ago, I went to the mall and the first song I heard was nothing else but Kid Cudi - Day and Night. Sure, sure. Then the last store I went to was blasting a remix of a remix of "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers in Your Hair)". Earlier today, on the Turkish radio station, M.I.A. - Paper Planes was being seri bumped.

-Turkish words/phrases that I've learned/relearned: my new favorite is "HIRTI PIRTI" (junk rubbish), "TEBRiK EDERiM" (congratulations), "YURARLI" (useful), "SENDE KALSIN?" (are you staying?), "YABANCI" (foreign). There's others but I'll save 'em for now.

-Mosquitos. I jinxed it, I really jinxed it. The first few nights here (prior to last night) I was like: hey this is cool, no mosquito bites ever! Not ever! Then last night they really went to town on the Courtney-buffet, so I guess I will need to reconfigure my blinds/window situation. On a side note: I always keep my blinds open because I like to give out free sleep shows, hello!

There's more probably, always more, and this will hopefully be the longest blogbro entry of all time. But we'll see, huh? Next time hopefully I'll have some fresh flix to throw up here. Maybe some jams.

Kisses and misses!