First Night in Town

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Well, it seems that my trip has actually started. I dont think I believe it yet but it had better become real sometime soon. My flights yesterday were long and grueling. I think I slept only a few hours. I ended up meeting a very nice Indian graduate student who will be presenting a research paper on offshoring at the World Economic Congress. She was really bright and we talked about many things during my three hour layover in London and then on the airplane. She ended up helping find my way to my hostel with very little trouble to myself. I would really enjoy seeing her present along with the some of the keynote speakers, but registration is a little pricey. We shall see. At the hostel I ended up meeting three Israelis and a German woman and chatted with them for several hours. The German woman, Lisa, has spent the past six months teaching German here and has picked up Turkish fairly well. She was really fun to talk with and had lots of good information about renting a place here in Istanbul. I then ended up going to the Eurocup soccer match with a half Punjabi Australian woman. It was her last night and she wanted to make it something special. We ate dinner and walked up to Taksim Square. I dont even think I can describe the atmosphere there. There were two large projector screens set up and people were seated and standing in fromt of them. The square was so full I dont know how we even managed to get through the crush of the people without losing eachother or all of our things.Most of the crowd was surrepticiously drinking beers, pretending they couldnt see others doing so they didnt have to admit they were drinking too. Anytime that Turkey even got the ball toward the goal the entire crowd erupted in a monsterous applause. The halftime show was all of the Turks shouting the words to songs at the top of their lungs. People everywhere dancing and lauging and smoking and somtimes setting off fireworks. Now there were about five dozen police there, but they were all more concerned with watching the match and dealing with the rowdy and unruly crowd of football fanatics. When Turkey scored their beautiful second goal the entire square burst open like a volcano. All of a sudden everyone was on their feet running around, clasping hands with strangers, dancing, making music, and shouting at the tops of their lungs. Just a few minutes later, teh Germans scored and you could feel all of the energy rush out of the square. People were nervous and a little downhearted, yet there was still hope in the air (especially after the last couple of matches). When the final buzzer sounded, calling out Turkey's defeat, everyone was depresed. We Sian and I had made friends with four guys behind us and one of them seemed to take it so personally. He was running back a forth, shouting at the top of his lungs, like he was trying to make the score change simply by wishing it. I have never seen someone so defeated by their sports team's loss. Sian and I wandered around teh deserted square for a while, marvelling at how fast everyone had cleared out and trying to predict where they would all be drinking away their miseries. We met up with one of her friends and made a night of it. İ met a few Kurdish people who owned the bar we were at and they promptly began trying to teach me Kurdish. I dont think I can avoid learning this language. I am off to try and find the language school and perhaps try and talk my way in to the World Economic Congress (although I doubt I will have much luck).

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