Weekend in Istanbul
Basic introduction. I’m an American expat working and living in London. I’ve actually lived in Europe for three years now and am going to start telling people that I left when Bush was re-elected because of a promise I made on the Conan O’Brien Show a la Alec Baldwin (the actor, not the douchebag who runs this site). Anyway, that’s a lie (about leaving because of Bush’s re-election, not about Alec being a douche) and I’ve actually seen some interesting things in my years abroad. This particular incident is not necessarily that interesting, but what the hell this is a blog. I was in Istanbul with my fiancee last weekend and recounted this anecdote about the Turkish Capital to a half-Turkish half-American friend of ours who gave us some tips on what to do there. The conversation is as follows:
12:42 PMĀ Alhan: looks like i dont have access to that photoĀ Ā maybe i need to be “friends” with kristine12:43 PMĀ maybe you could email the photos?12:44 PMĀ me: just befriend kristineĀ Ā but i’ll email said photosĀ Ā okayĀ Ā here’s the first storyĀ Ā our first full day we go to the blue mosque and it’s really beautiful of course12:46 PMĀ we start to go through the first entrance and this little middle-aged turkish dude in a like old, grey 90s style suit comes up to us and starts trying to chat us upĀ Ā and he’s like, “you’re supposed to go this way my friend, I’ll show you exactly where to go”Ā Ā hold12:48 PMĀ back onĀ Ā anyway, he’s like “I’ll show you where to go and afterwards I’ll show you my carpet store”12:49 PMĀ and we’re like, “no, no, thank you, thank you, that’s very nice but we just want to do it ourselves.”Ā Ā and he says, “no, no, you don’t understand, i show you where to go, you do it yourselves, and then we talk on other side!”12:50 PMĀ and he just starts following us as we head through the main entranceway up to the actual mosqueĀ Ā and both my fiancee and i are too big pussies to tell him to go awayĀ Ā so i stupidly start answering his questions, because i don’t want to be rude, and talking to himĀ Ā and he’s like “so where are you from?”12:51 PMĀ and i tell him “kristine’s swedish, but my mother’s french and my father’s american and i’m from the states”Ā Ā and he’s like, “oh, i’ve been to the states before it’s very nice, I love seattle and my daughter goes to school in america”12:52 PMĀ and to be polite i’m like, “where does she go to school?”Ā Ā and he’s like emory universityĀ Ā and that’s where I went to school, so i was kind of surprised, because there are only really like 6,000 undergraduate students there, so the odds are incredibly small, so i tell him i went to emory and try to make that a mutual point of conversation12:53 PMĀ and he does not seem impressed, and starts going off on a typical schpeel about how, “people are people, and we’re all the same, and it doesn’t matter where your from, etc.etc.”12:54 PMĀ and in my head i’m thinking, well we actually have something in common and you’re trying to sell me a carpet by giving me the same idiotic speech you give everybody? how bad of a salesman are you? but I ask him what his daughter is studying, to try to get back on topic12:57 PMĀ and he’s like, “middle eastern studies” and i’m like, “it’s a very nice school and a good department” and he’s like “yeah, yeah,” and goes right back to the speech! and starts advising us on how we have to take our shoes off when we get into the mosque, because we would not have figured that out from the signs in english, the security guards and the fact that everybody else around us was doing the same, and he continues to give us these very pertinent pieces of advice, like “go in through there” and “i’ll meet you on the other side” and i know kristine’s looking at me like, “oh fuck, what have you done.”12:59 PMĀ so we go in, and it’s incredibly beautiful and we’re both very impressed, but i know kristine’s nervous about that guy, cuz we’ve had a bad history of being followed around in foreign (generally muslim) countries by people we don’t know who want to “befriend” us and show us around, etc. and i’m looking at her, like, “what kind of a retard do you think i am if you think i’m going to follow this guy around for god knows how long when we have other things to do.” Anyway, we leave the mosque and the guy is of course there waiting for us1:00 PMĀ and while we put our shoes on i’m trying to steer his rants back to the idea that we actually do have things in common by talking about emory, but he just sort of shrugs me off and says that it’s incredibly expensive (which of course it is)Ā Ā and we’re ready to goĀ Ā and he’s like “come with me, this way, we’re going to see my carpet store now”1:01 PMĀ and i’m all sort of quiet and not very agressive, but telling him, no actually, we have a friend of a friend we have to meet at the grand bazaar who owns a carpet store already and we are meant to go thereĀ Ā and he’s like, “no, no, no you don’t understand” like we were confused about something and he was going to make everything clear1:02 PMĀ “you don’t need to buy the carpets, you just need to come to the store and look at them! Now come with me.”Ā Ā and we’re like sorry dude, thanks anyway and we kind of slink off1:03 PMĀ and he looks at us all indignant and pathetic and what not, and i can’t help but feel sorry for the poor bastard, because i know that yearly tuition at emory with room and board is $35,000 plus and that was five years ago, so it’s probably like $40,000 by now, but for fuck’s sake did he really think we were going to go with him?Ā Ā fin1:04 PMĀ Alhan: yeah they do thatĀ Ā its trueĀ Ā you couldnt feel too sorry for himĀ Ā they play on thatĀ Ā so is that the tragic one?1:07 PMĀ me: yahĀ Ā that’s the “tragic” oneĀ Ā i thought it was kind of funny thoughĀ Alhan: did he say his name at any point?Ā me: but the second one is actually funny, funnyĀ Ā oh shitĀ Ā let me call kristine1:09 PMĀ he didn’t introduce himself properly kristine saidĀ Ā and if he did i missed itĀ Alhan: what did he look likeĀ me: oh, the other thing is he kept calling us “brothers and sisters”1:10 PMĀ kristine: “short, bald,big eyes, he looked sort of like a small version of those big monsters in lord of the rings number three, the big ogre things with one eye”1:11 PMĀ i’m terrible at describing peopleĀ Ā Ā BLUE MOSQUE ENTRYWAYĀ 
Ā INSIDE THE BLUE MOSQUEĀ Ā
ME (BEARDO) AND CARPET DEALER (BATTLE TROLL OF MORDOR)
1:12 PMĀ Alhan: hahaĀ Ā thats good enoughĀ Ā poor guyĀ Ā so next story…Ā me: hold1:13 PMĀ okayĀ Ā next story, and i’m sure i’m going to have to talk to kristine to fill in the gaps1:14 PMĀ and his is more of a shuttle driver story than a carpet store story but it’s related to a carpet guyĀ Ā so our last day we book this shuttle service to go to the airport, because it’s the far airport way outside the city that easyjet passengers take and it’s kind of a long way, so this is the cheapest way to do it1:15 PMĀ so we get in and kristine already starts to complain, because on the way into the city we had an entire shuttle to ourselves because we arrived late at night, and now on the way back to the airport all three rows had people in them1:16 PMĀ and i’m like, it’s not that bad, we have a row to ourselves, please calm down, etc.Ā Ā doesn’t stop her, but whateverĀ Ā we start driving, and there’s a driver and then his friend in the passenger seat who seems to be there for no reason at all other than to speak with the driver in turkish and keep him company1:17 PMĀ anyways, we head off and are takingĀ a very long convoluted path and i realize we’re not actually leaving just yetĀ Ā we have to pick up more people along the wayĀ Ā and i’m just praying they don’t fill this stupid van,for kristine’s sake, and the sake of my ears1:18 PMĀ anyway, they do start to fill the vanĀ Ā drive five minutesĀ Ā stopĀ Ā pick someone upĀ Ā drive ten minutesĀ Ā stopĀ Ā pick two people upĀ Ā drive ten more minutesĀ Ā etc., etc.Ā Ā till’ the van is basically full1:19 PMĀ then we go and stop right outside a side street next to this carpet store1:20 PMĀ and during this entire trip the driver has occassionally been shouting back at people making chatty comments in very borat-style english ‘how you are back there ‘ma'” (he knew one of the passengers previously and called her ma and chatted with her the most – this old english lady who was on holiday with her husband) “is okay, we almost done” etc. etc.Ā Ā so we stop outside this carpet storeĀ Ā and his friend leaves the carĀ Ā and we wait and waitĀ Ā like ten minutes1:21 PMĀ and the driver leans back to commentĀ Ā “this is my uncle’s carpet store”Ā Ā “he is crook”Ā Ā “he only likes to use people for their money”Ā Ā “don’t go here”Ā Ā like complete non-sequitorĀ Ā and kristine and i are just cracking up in the back seat1:22 PMĀ like uncontrollablyĀ Ā but finally, we get going, but without his friendĀ Ā and we’re like “what was the point of that stop, to tell us how crooked his uncle is?”Ā Ā but we keep going1:23 PMĀ and the van is basically full at this pointĀ Ā the front row is stuffed with baggageĀ Ā the second-fourth rows have pretty much every seat filled save for maybe a coupleĀ Ā so we figure finally, we’re on our wayĀ Ā wrongĀ Ā wrong1:24 PMĀ we stop again after 10 more minutes of driving through istanbul traffic (we’re really lucky we left the city four hours in advance of our flight) at a train station to pick up more people, and fill every last seat1:25 PMĀ but the people aren’t thereĀ Ā so we wait for 15 more minutesĀ Ā and while we wait, ma’s husband needs to use the toilet, so he goes into the train station1:26 PMĀ and then the people arrive, take ma’s husband’s seat, fill the van entirely and were waiting for mr. ma at the endĀ Ā and he shows up, as does the driver’s friendĀ Ā before this the driver had said to ma ‘is okay, we leave your husband now’1:27 PMĀ soooo boratĀ Ā then when the husband comes back and has to sit somewhere else ,he says ‘okay, your husband has to go away, it’s okay?’Ā Ā or something to that effect, and ma’s like, yeah i think i’ll survive1:28 PMĀ so we finally head off for the airport, an hour-plus after we had left the hostel and maybe a mile or so away from our hotel1:29 PMĀ and i forgot to mention the most important part, the driver and the friend always burst into random turkish chatter after every bizarre-half english comment the guy makesĀ Ā like borat does with his kazakh friend in the borat movie (i can’t emphasize this borat analogy enough)1:30 PMĀ so during one of these parking stops, he interrupts his heated turkish conversation with his friendĀ Ā leans back to everyone in the carĀ Ā and says in english1:32 PMĀ (pointing to his friend) “he has bad smell!”Ā Ā and turns back to his friend and starts jabbering away in turkish again and laughing1:33 PMĀ and everyone in the car is obviously laughing, and kristine and i are practically rolling on the floor, because we realize we have come as close as we ever will to meeting boratĀ Ā fin
INSIDE BORAT’S VAN FROM HEL
Ā Ā
