Victory day

Today there is a national holiday in Turkey: Victory day is when they celebrate the decisive victory at Dumlupınar of the Turkish Republican armies over the invading Greek army during Turkey's War of Independence in 1922.

Since yesterday I started noticing that in many shops and houses they put out the the national flag. This made me remember the recently big patriotic movement in Portugal with the Euro 2004 (the Greek invaders had the victory there :P) where everybody was displaying the national flag on house windows and cars. This display in turkey isn't as big as that one in Portugal, but I'm sure they use their flag more frequently here then us in Portugal.

I know how to count!!!

1. Bir
2. İki
3. Üç
4. Dört
5. Beş
6. Altı
7. Yedi
8. Sekiz
9. Dokuz
10. On

Learning turkish

Learning Turkish

I finished a few days ago the turkish online course at Distance Turkish Learning Center. It gave me some help expressing myself here and understanding some words they tell me.
The course isn't for tourists though... I still don't know how to ask the dolmuş driver to stop the bus using decent turkish, and I still don't know how to count, so I never understand prices :P That's something I have to learn soon!
I'm always making funny faces to show that I don't understand, I use the expression Turkçe bilmyorum (I don't speak turkish) a lot. Many people here actually know some english if they're writing but they understand and speak very little. I was surprised when I once asked for the bus to Kadıköy to a 60 year old man, he didn't speak but he wrote in my notebook with perfect english The number is 80. Usually I start with Do you speak English? If they answer yes I start my question, they understand what I ask but usually have many problems answering. It seems they have to really concentrate hard to build the sentence in english. It's also common that after 10 minutes talking in english they seem tired from the effort! People tell me that english and turkish are very different languages in grammar and it's difficult making the translation.
So I guess that when (and if) I actually start having conversations in turkish I'll be the one tired... I have been looking up the courses available in Istanbul. It all comes down to 3:

• Tömer
• Taksim Dilmer
• Turkish Time

The first 2 are on the european side of Istanbul which means more than 1h of transports to get there and another hour to return, they offer courses of 4h every week day with about 10 students per class. The third one is on the anatolyan side, with 3 students, 3h 3 times per week.
I still haven't decided but I prefer the idea of having more lesson time and also more people to meet, so it seems I'll be crossing the Bosphurus to go to school everyday!

Istanbul nightlife

Last saturday night U. invited me to meet him in Taksim for some drinks. So I had my first night out in Istanbul. Taksim was filled with people, it seemed every place was packed with people, but U. knows his way around here and he was in a nice quiet place with a group of friends. It was a bar on the 4th or 5th floor of some building with a great view over the Bosphurus!
In these packed areas you can find all sort of places in the various floors of the buildings. They were initially habitational residences, but now they're bars, restaurants, cyber cafes, hairdresses, anything!
After a while we went to place where we could actually drink alcohol (not all places sell alcohol since they need to pay for an expensive license for that). The new place had a nice esplanade that wasn't too full. We were 6 people, so they asked for 2 nargile's. Nargile is a water pipe, they chose apple flavour (you actually choose the flavour you want to smoke) and started smoking from the tube :P. So, following the rule When in Turkey be turkish I tried it. I tried getting enough smoke coming out of my mouth so it would show in the picture, and with this I was quickly coughing the apple smoke :P Once more I confirm that my lungs like fresh air! This place also served food, I tried the Portuguese fried chicken, which was in the menu! And it was actually cooked in a common portuguese way called panado.
The night ended with a walk around this crowded neighbourhood where we ate mexilhoes:pt. Salesmen carry this stuff in buckets around the streets! You pick the mexilhao:pt, open it, put some lemon on top and eat it. It's gooooood!

Skype rules!

Yesterday I took my laptop to a cybercafe and tested Voice Over Op with great success! I was talking in conference with 2 friends from Portugal. Sound quality is very good and it's just like talking on the phone! Cool!
So, if you're interested in talking with me in a cheap way, grab SKYPE!

All good fellows!

Renting a place in Istanbul seems to be more difficult than what i thought, people tell me that it's hard to find good prices due to the big demand (more and more people arrive to this city) and it envolves a lot of bureaucracy signing the renting contract, getting electricity, water, gas...
Now I'm thinking things can be easier if I rent a room, but I don't see much market in that area too..
Today I decided to walk around my hotel in search, I tryed to find shop sellers in the area that spoke english and I asked them if they knew of anyone renting anything in the area. I found this (big and strong) grocery man that spoke some english and he told me I could find a pension much cheaper than the hotel I'm currently staying. Then he talked with his friend Ali (big and fat) and turns out that Ali offered to take me to a pension with cheaper prices, so we took the dolmuş all the way to this pension, Ali talked with the clerk and they agreed on a 12 eur/night which is better than the 30 eur/night I was paying.
So, once again I'm surprised with the turkish fellowshipness! Thanks Ali! :)

Walking in Bağdat

When I was studying this street on the map it seemed like I a good morning walk from my hotel to P.'s work place. But after 1h walking and reaching the middle of the way I found out better. I think I walked about 5Km on this street and I had other 4Km to walk. I was asking for directions in the way using my recent learned and bad turkish "Bostanğı burası? Nerede?".
I asked once more to a guy in a parked car, he spoke excelent english and explained the distance I still had in front of me. He ended up giving me a ride to my destination, since he was going that way, a really nice guy! :) He was in London for 3 years and that's where he got his good english.
Bağdat street is more than 30Km (my guess) and has 1 or 2 lanes on each side. It's chaotic like every other main road in this city. Cars stopping and people crossing everywhere! When you walk on it you're honked every 30 seconds by taxis or dolmuş's (minibuses) that want you to get in them!

I'm here!

I Took the plane to London where I met this Lithuanian woman that spoke portuguese and lived in Portugal for 3 years.
On the London airport I had the privileged chance of buying a pack of Lemsip the miraculous flu healer!
Then I took the 5h plane to Istanbul, we started with more than 40 mins delay but arrived in time due to good winds blowing on our tail! They were playing the Independence day on the plane, but they had to cut off the end of the movie! So, I ended up not knowing if humans killed every bad allien ship. It was a fun movie but not very believable.
U. came to get me from the Atatürk Airport and take me to my hotel. The distance is about 40Km! Airport is on the european side of Istanbul and the hotel is down on the anatolian side. We even got to see some palaces and big mosques along the the Bosphurus and Marmaran sea!

Almost gone

It is now departure day minus 1.
Everything seems to be ready, I'm not packing too much stuff since I'll probably be moving from place to place in the begining.
I started learning turkish online and I allready know 120 words! And I know how to make some dialogs like What is this?, Who is this?. It seems like grammar is not that hard and the difficult stuff is memorizing all the vocabulary that is so different from anything I know.
After 2 weeks of farewell lunches and dinners I gained 2Kg! And I wasn't able to see everyone!! Anyway, it's just 4 months, I'll be right back!

I'm in!

Here starts my first ever blog!
I don't have any kind of experience with blogs, not even as a reader, but I figure this is the best way to keep people posted on what's happening with me.