En İyi Yıldız Everrrr

A few weeks ago I mentioned the stars that are scattered all around Istanbul. I also promised to take a picture of my favorite star. Here it is!

I like the look of the star faraway. I always see it as I pass by Beşiktaş on the bus; in fact, today was the first day that I've ever seen it up close. 

 

It has lots of individual fish, which make up a nazar! The color blue, the fish, and the evil eye seem to do a great job of representing Istanbul.

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(Also, the title "En iyi yıldız everrrr" means "the best star everrrr" but there's no direct translation for "the best ___ ever" in Turkish. This is a problem because I say a lot of things are the best everrrr and need a way to express that in Turkish. My solution is to say/write the first part in Turkish and then tack on the everrrr for emphasis. It's funny, I promise.)

Thanks But No Thanks

So there's the bus stop that during the day is busy busy busy. At night when the buses are running more infrequently, it becomes a place where taxis wait. Last night while waiting for the bus, we were able to observe the quality of taxis that run at night.

The first cab that we walked by had the hood up and the trunk open. As we walked by the driver lifted his head from the engine and asked if we needed a ride. We politely declined. The longer we sat there the more cabs we saw that had basically come to die at this bus stop. Five minutes after we arrived, a cab pulled up; its bumper was falling off. A group of men surrounded it and a couple of them began helping the driver remove the dangling bumper - by kicking it off and then putting it in the trunk. Then they went to work on the engine. Eventually, the taxi was up and running again.

As he prepared to jet off into the night to score unsuspecting riders, he turned to us.

"You need a taxi?"

Visual Balderdash Gibi

Every Thursday, Abby goes to the Kuka Kafe in Beşiktaş for game night. Usually I don't go but tonight I was in the neighborhood and decided to show up. Abby loves games. Loves. Them. She even brought games from America to Turkey. This is a picture of one of her games that we played tonight, Dixit.

Basically there are a bunch of cards with these beautiful abstract images on them. Whosever turn it is says a phrase to describe an image in their hand. Then every player plays a card from their hand that they think best fits the description. The goal is to have people pick your card from the set of played cards. But you don't get any points if a) everyone picks your card or b) no one picks your card. So your description has to be both vague and specific.

We play this game at home a lot in both English and Turkish. It's fun, and it lets me practice my Turkish! What more could a girl in Istanbul want?

The Elusive 59H

This is the area of Istanbul in which I live: Beşiktaş. My neighborhood is Bebek but the district is Beşiktaş, which also contains the neighborhood called Beşiktaş. Stay with me. 

Anyway, this is a picture of a bus map. All those tiny triangles are bus stops. What the map doesn't show is that the middle of this pink area sits on top of a HUGE hill. Massive. And I live at the bottom, by the water. And I get to walk up it everyday. Now, I see on this map that there is a bus (59H) that would take me directly from Bebek to Akmerkez but according to the bus website, there's is no such bus. So I hike an hour everyday day to Akmerkez and then about forty minutes back. Yep, this hill is so massive that going downhill shaves off 15-20 minutes of total walking time.

When I'm lucky enough to experience transportation that does go directly from Point A to Point B, it still goes wrong. This morning I was on the tram, and it was a little crowded. I could barely make it inside. What I didn't realize was that I was a bit too close to the door and my hair had greatly expanded (shout out to humidity!). When the doors to the tram slid together, my hair got caught. Yep. That was me! It didn't really hurt but it was uncomfortable when my head wanted to move but couldn't actually go anywhere. 

My friend Berker and this old man laughed at me. And you know, the ridiculousness was hilarious. It wasn't a big deal, the doors would open at the next stop, right? Wrong. The doors opened on the other side of the tram at the next stop. The old man started laughing again. And enough people got out at that stop to make it obvious that I was stuck in the door. One acceleration and deceleration later, I was released, and my ride continued uneventfully. 

The lesson is this: Friends, never take your freedom for granted because you never know when the tram doors of life will come and take it away. 

Seventy Is The New Bossy

See this old lady in the AmApp hoodie? Yeah, she's awesome. I can't wait until I'm old and I can do crazy things and people will blame it on how old I am.

Today, whilst on the bus home, we stopped and picked up a couple riders. (I promise this isn't a math problem or a joke.) And this old lady got on. This young guy across the row from us hopped up and immediately offered her his seat. That's a typical thing here - everyone is constantly giving up their seat for everyone else. Cool. So anyway, he hops up and she's like, 'No, no, sit.' and he's like, 'No, no, you sit,' then he moves to the middle section of the bus. He's the guy with the guitar.

She doesn't sit either and head to the back of the bus, too. Then she makes this couple get up from their seats in what I call "second section - front row." It's prime bus real estate, really. So this couple gets up and moves, and she settles into her new digs - taking up two seats, if you'll notice. Then she looks at the guy with the guitar and says something along the lines of, 'What are you doing back here? I didn't make YOU move.'*

I can't wait to be able to stake claim to the best bus seats and force everyone to indulge me when I'm old. And, you know, generally do other bossy, selfish things and have people say with a bit of grin, "Oh that Kati, she's so old and crazy."


*This Turkish was translated by my roommate, Abby.