Saturday, November 6th, 2004

Well, in order to revive my spirits after lying in bed for the past few days, I decided to go out on the town with my friend Isan. Isan is a funny Kurdish medical student who always tries to hook me up with Turkish women. He has some darling (sevgilim) in Hungary, so I think he wants to live vicariously through me. Anyway, we headed out to Kizilay with some liras in our pockets and fun in mind. We ended up at some placed called “The Rock Bar”. This was a classic dive: small space, low ceiling, hazy with cigarette smoke and expensive beer. Well, expensive for the Turks. 4,000,000 TL, which comes to about $2.60 for a pint of lager. Not bad. I ended up buying the majority of the booze, just because I felt bad for Isan; he wasn’t drinking as much as I was, even though he was longingly eyeing the beers.

Anyway, we had a really good time. The band sucked and the Turks loved them. Well, sometimes they’d played some ska-like tunes that had decent potential, but most of it was harder rock ballads and self-indulgent guitar solo wankery. So I was not a fan. They played some ok electronic dance stuff during the set breaks. It was funny; the crowd danced more for the house music than the actual band. Anyway, we stayed out until about 1:00 and then snuck back into the dormitory through a kitchen door that one of the cooks opened for us! Total cost for the evening: about $15. Not bad compared to nights I’ve spent at Lotus shows ($40 or so). But the music wasn’t anywhere even comparable!

I just finished The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk today. What a novel! I think I explained a bit about it before. The interesting theme that I didn’t know about before reading was the two main characters (an Italian and a Turk) are basically the same person. They start their relationship (slave and master) just noticing physical similarities, but by the end of the book they have learned so much about each other and experienced so many things together that it’s hard to tell who is who. I can’t say more without giving away important things, but I really recommend this book to anyone who wants a short read which is a great example of modern Turkish literature. I loved it! Now I want to read his latest book, Snow. I think it’ll be just as good, at least from what I’ve heard. I’m now starting Globalization and its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz, which should be some very insightful stuff.

I’ve been practicing my tavla skills a lot over the past few weeks, and I’ve been giving the Turks a real run for their money. Unfortunately, I always loose. But these games are close, I tell you!

Also, last night we surprised Süleyman for his birthday. It was actually on Monday but he was way to busy to celebrate it. So, I distracted him by taking him to the café while his roommates and friends prepared the room. He’s a bit of a romantic, so I made up some random story about a woman at work expressing her love for me, which he completely believed! So funny. Then I walked him back to his room, where the lights were off and a cake with candles was lit and everyone yelled and all that stuff. He was very surprised and I think quite touched by it all! So yay, a good success.