Kapadokya

This blog post shall be dedicated to my dear friend Axel.

I'm actively considering to rename this blog into "The Drunk Adventures of MC Montekar McFresh" (that's one of my nicknames, in case you didn't know), because let's face it, that's what I write about. If you don't approve of excessive alcohol consumption, please stop reading now.

This weekend, I went to Kapadokya with about 100 exchange students. The trip was organised by ESN and we left Thursday evening with two buses, spending the night on the road. I was promised a bus party, so I bought some beer before getting on the bus. Since most people are however not as party as I am (hereby party shall be established as a character trait, feel free to use this term to describe people), the party fell short of my expectations. In fact, I ended up drinking my beer and listening to some Technical Death Metal (Fleshgod Apocalypse) while learning French with a book I borrowed from a fellow passenger. That's a great way to kill time, trust me.

This map might help you if you're as bad at geography as I am.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up, it was already morning and we were in Kapadokya. The landscape in this part of the country is characterised by some strange rock formations, called fairy chimneys.

Fairy chimneys, built to attract tourists.

We were told that these fairy chimneys are the result of erosion of different layers of stone, but I think it seems a lot more likely that the locals put small rocks on big ones to have some kind of tourist attraction. Considering that there are fairy chimneys all over the place, they must have been quite busy. 
  
The second big attraction of the area are houses and churches (lots of churches, I assume that the church-human ration must have been 1:1 back in the days!) cut into the stone.

This house rocks, haha.

Besides sight seeing, we went to a Hamam (Turkish Bath, including face mask, sauna, jacuzzi and massage), which was a great experience. If you ever have the opportunity of visiting one, you should do it!
For the last night, we went to a place where a Turkish Night was held. This meant music, a belly dancer, regular dancers and UNLIMITED ALCOHOL! I have to admit that I exploited that last fact by drinking large amounts of rakı and wine. This allowed me to activate my secret dancing powers, which are alcohol-based. Basically, I'm like a werewolf, with alcohol instead of full moon and dancing instead of fur and teeth. It was fun.

"Do you dance often?"
"Only when I'm drunk."
"Then you must get drunk a lot."
"Hm."

After that, we got on the bus, where I finally got that bus party. Someone had managed to get a hold of a bottle of rakı, and since we didn't have any glasses... Well, I guess you can imagine the rest. I had that stuff all over my face (don't quote this out of context!). 
The next part will probably remain a mystery forever. I do remember getting off the bus, but the next thing I remember after that is waking up in my hotel bed in the morning. I've heard the same from several other people, so I'm assuming that aliens erased parts of our memory. Thing like that happen all the time in Turkey. On that same day, went back to Istanbul, arriving at about 1am. I walked home and finally managed to catch up on some sleep.

Turkish Money and a Pub Crawl

 I spent a lot of money over the last two weeks, mainly because I keep mistaking the Turkish currency for Monopoly money (happens especially when I'm intoxicated). To my defence, it is an easy mistake to make, since 10 Turkish Lira are approximately €3.50, so the numbers on the banknotes are almost three times as high as the ones I'm used to. Alcohol is quite expensive over here, but high prices won't prevent me from enjoying this liquid happiness. Other things, such as public transportation, are relatively cheap on the other hand: A bus ride only costs ₺2.15 (I mentioned the exchange rate two sentences earlier; you do the math), and that's without the student discount I'll get soon. The payment system is simple, you can buy and charge the Istanbulkart on many kiosks in the city. The only problem is that many people here don't speak English, which led to the following dialogue:

Me: Hi, I'd like to buy an Istanbulkart.

Kiosk Salesmen: Istanbul? (He made this question sound like "Istanbul? What the fuck man, this is Manhattan!")

Me: IstanbulKART!

I believe there is some stereotype which states that Germans tend to yell at people when they're not being understood, but in this case it actually helped. And at least I didn't yell at him in German.
After I got the card, I could finally explore the city by bus. The buses are often very crowded, but the bus drivers are really cool: At some point, the bus I was sitting in encountered another bus which was going in the opposite direction, and we were stuck in traffic, so the two drivers used the opportunity to greet each other with a handshake through the open windows.

Saturday, I participated in a pub crawl at Taksim. It's amazing how crowded the place is at night! Luckily, I managed not to lose the group of Erasmus people I was there with. The first place we went to (I don't remember the name) was great, I was especially happy about the fact that they played the following song (which I also only discovered recently, thanks to one of my neighbours from across the street (in the Netherlands):

 

(Please listen to this song while reading the following paragraph)

The drinking already started on the bus ride, a British guy and me both got beer because we didn't want to wait. It continued at the place mentioned above (imagine, if you're drinking a beer now and are listening to the song as I suggested, you're almost in the exact same situation as I was. It's that easy!), where we stayed for quite a while. I'm not trying to complain here because I enjoyed the atmosphere, but I think if you have enough time to drink more than one beer at a place, I wouldn't call it a pub crawl (the film "The World's End" is an accurate description of how it should be done). After some time, we went to the next place, an overcrowded open air bar. Some more drinks and conversations at that place, and I decided to leave. At that point, I was pretty drunk. Luckily, I'm excellent at getting home in that state (lots of practice), so I took a Taxi from Taksim to the University. And I didn't even get ripped off! The last part of my way home consisted of walking over the entire south campus (down the hill, right, left, down the stairs, right and through a small gate, which is locked at night, but was opened for me by the guard). I think there is some old saying: "If you can get to the place where you live when you're really drunk, you may call it home".

When I got home, I realised that there was a sightseeing tour planned for the next day and I did not want to miss that, so I set my alarm clock to 9am. I didn't get too much sleep that night, but the tour was great (and I had to something that I could tell my parents about for a change).

Cats, Communists and Poisoned Water

I haven't experienced that much yet, so I'll just share some random thoughts this time. As soon as more things happen, my posts will probably become more coherent.

Something you notice immediately while walking through the streets of Istanbul are the cats. They are everywhere! They don't really do anything though, most of them just lie in the sun (and I'm too shy to talk to them).

Furthermore, I noticed some posters of Karl Marx on campus, which has lead me to believe that some students are communists (there were some Turkish words on the posters, but I was unable to decipher them). I have never met any communists in Germany or the Netherlands (although I know a guy who looks a bit like Karl Marx, but that's a different story), so I'm curious now.

The water pressure in the shower is great. However, I'll have to drop my recently adopted habit of brushing my teeth under the shower, because tap water in Turkey is poisoned. Turkish people know this of course, but millions of foreigners get killed every year because they brush their teeth under the shower. My theory is that this might be a defense mechanism, just like German bureaucracy or English cuisine.

The Arrival

"Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

(I've never actually been to Kansas. I've been to Nebraska five years ago. Lost my passport at the airport. Good old days.)

I have managed to transport excessive amounts of luggage from Enschede to Istanbul. Seriously, the stuff I took with me weighs amount half as much as I do, so that's an increase of 50 % (took me a while to calculate that). Now I do however enjoy the company of my wonderful guitar while I'm here. The guys at the airport put a "fragile" sticker on the case. I felt like they actually cared. Until I found that same case lying somewhere on a pile together with other luggage at the airport in Istanbul. Don't worry, the guitar is fine. 

My flight was quite pleasant, they even served beer on the plane. I've never been so high while drinking. They didn't have vegetarian food though, but still, I'd choose Turkish Airlines again, just for the beer.

Someone once told me that I shouldn't use people's names in blog posts. Fine!

A person I knew picked me up at the airport. That was really helpful, since Turkey obviously is a confusing country and Istanbul is a confusing city (especially for people who get lost as easily as I do). Luckily for me, that person has a car and was kind enough to drive me and my luggage and my beloved guitar to the place where I'm going to stay for the semester. Again, thanks a lot for that!

I live together with a really nice Turkish guy, and the university is within walking distance, which is convenient, since I'm used to that from my home university. Next step will be testing the bed though, because I'm really tired. Good night, cruel cool world :)