BasBasBas.com

Author: Bas

  • Turkish Prison (Video!)

    Since I’m hoping to move out of my dorm this Monday or Tuesday, I decided to make a video last night to be able to show you where I’ve been living during the first two weeks of my stay in Istanbul. In the video I just show my floor and the floor below. The building has 7 floors, 5 study areas, an internet café, cafeteria (a crappy one), laundry shop, crappy recreation basement, big iron fences around it, security, and a few hundred men living in it.

    I’m sure you’ll understand I want to move out of here as soon as possible 😉

  • The Vegetarian Sandwich

    Being a vegetarian in Istanbul is quite the challenge, but it can be done. This however, is not the topic of today’s post. I want to talk about bar/café culture here.

    In Holland, or most North-Western European countries, if I go to a place to eat a sandwich where I’ve never been before, the next time I come back they won’t even remember I was there before. Small towns or villages are (generally) an exception to this rule, but in this 15 million population metropolis called Istanbul, you are remembered and valued.

    The first time I went around the corner here to get a sandwich, I tried to get a vegetarian one. I got a sandwich with some cheese. I liked their attitude though (it was very hospitable and accommodating) and told my friend about it and took him there. When I came back I could see in their eyes that they were happy I not only came back a second time, but also brought another new customer to the place. My vegetarian sandwich now contained cheese and tomato.

    Today I went there again and I heard the one guy say in Turkish to the other something along the lines of “look, he’s back again”. It’s nice to be noticed and it’s great to see how much Turkish business owners value returning customers. This time I got the same sandwich but with cucumber and salad. Next time maybe some fries? Another example.

    In Istanbul there are many places to have some tea with friends, smoke some nargile (hookah/seisha), and play some games (mostly backgammon). Last week I already spoke about going to a nargile traditional waterpipe place in Taksim with some friends. We decided to go there again and I think we’ll be having weekly meet-ups at this place once we’re all spread out over town at different universities. Well, so far we already have weekly meet-ups 😉

    Anyway, we sat down, drank some tea, ordered a banana flavour nargile which had milk instead of water in it and started playing backgammon. After one game, we put back the board and brought out Balance, probably known as Jenga to most Westerners. We played a few games, but the concentration and energy that goes into this game is magnetic and we soon had the attention of the staff. We invited them to come play and had a lot of fun with them. Great!

    It’s important here to form a bond with people. Not just for the free tea, nargile, or having many friends, but for the simple fact that the customer / staff relationship is rather different from in Holland. In one way you are treated with more respect and more formality, in the other way more personal. Maybe because of the more personal touch there is more respect between staff and customer. People don’t just see each other as their roles (there are exceptions of course) or as numbers, but as actual people and treat you as such.

    Except for in Turkey’s mobile phone network provider Türkcell’s shops where they treat you like someone who doesn’t mind having to “come back tomorrow” for seven days per week to avoid getting cut off from the network. Big thumbs down to Türkcell and how their staff treats foreigners. (Just wanted to vent)

    Like to read more about Turkey, Istanbul and my experiences in the region? Subscribe by RSS or click here for email updates.

  • Letter from Zimbabwe

    Quite a while ago I got in touch with a fellow blogger named Nick, who I met via the wonderful StumbleUpon community. He’s a young guy who got in touch with the United States justice system at a rather early (but common) age. He blogs about how this all happened and about life in prison. Felonious Ramblings is definitely one of my favourite blogs and recently I saw a very interesting story pop up in my inbox.

    Nick, like me, is quite concerned about various political or humanitarian situations around the world. One of these is Zimbabwe, of which I don’t need to remind you how bad the situation is. A friend of him who was born and raised in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) forwarded him a letter. The guy is Anglo, meaning British Colonial, but lives in Europe now. His family however is still living in Zimbabwe and is having to deal with president Mugabe’s madness and insane grip on his power. Whoever is not pro-Mugabe, or white, faces serious danger in Zimbabwe.

    Following is an email from the guy’s sister in law. Who wrote this in a bit of a hurry it seems, but still it’s very easily readable and tells a very good story about the situation in this country. It seems like it’s turning into anarchy and it reminds me a lot of the situation displayed in the movie Hotel Rwanda. We cannot let something like this happen again, so I’d like to urge you to read and share. Stumble it, email it, share it on Facebook, Digg it, Buzz it… Whatever’s your preference.

    Dear all,

    It has been quite a weekend. We were made very aware of impending problems on our Mount Carmel farm before it even started. Various letters came in as well as verbal warnings from concerned people all over the district. People were told that Mt. Carmel cattle and potatoes would be dished out to them.

    The election campaign is being fought on “one hundred percent empowerment” ie. taking everything that belongs to people who are not black and giving it to Party faithfulls. The Party has got nothing else to offer the people…

    People were told if they did not come they would be beaten. President Mugabe arrived in our little town of Chegutu that afternoon and people were only informed that morning.

    (more…)

  • Istanbul pics online!

    My first batch of Istanbul pictures is now online. Go check it out at Picasa.

  • Look Up More Monday

    Look Up More Monday Banner

    A few years ago I was walking through my hometown Utrecht in The Netherlands quite bored, but I had to kill some time. For some reason while I was walking I looked up and suddenly found myself marvelling at a beauty I had never noticed before. I believe a lot of things in our surrounding go completely unnoticed, because we don’t look up much. That’s why I’d like to encourage you all to LOOK UP MORE!

    Every Monday I will post a photo or two of shots I took while looking up. This is the first installment with some shots from Istanbul, Turkey.

    The last one is a shot by my girlfriend Tsvety (visit her DeviantArt page) and was taken in Ephesus, Anatolia, Turkey. It contains the Library of Celsus, completed in 135 AD.

    If you would like to participate, just post a pic every monday taken from an upward angle and post your link below! For this week don’t worry if your post is a day late. Just post your link and visit the others.

  • Ramadan starts tomorrow

    Ramadan, Islam’s month of fasting, is set to start tomorrow. Since Turkey’s population is said to be 98 to 99% Islamic, I expect the Ramadan to be rather noticeable. Hence my decision to start an article about it and introducing the topic, since I’m sure it will be a returning topic over the next month or so.

    Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar and starts on September 1 this year. Ramadan’s believed to be the month in which Angel Gabriel revealed the Qur’an to Muhammad. For 30 days, all Muslims are expected to refrain from consuming food and drinks during the day (this includes water and also chewing gum), besides this sexual activity during fasting hours is also forbidden. One is expecting to keep their thoughts and actions pure for the sake of learning patience and humility. It’s a time when even very moderate Muslims who do not go to mosques join in on the fasting and prayer.

    At the end of Ramadan, the breaking of the feast is celebrated by the Islamic holiday of Eid ul-Fitr, but from what I gather from the papers, the whole month of Ramadan is celebrated. In the old area of Sultanahmet in Istanbul, people get together in the evening to celebrate their ‘iftar’, which is the evening dinner consumed to break the fast. According to Turkish Daily News, you’ll be able to find classic puppet shadow plays throughout the neighbourhood which are filled with humour. This puppet play called Hacivat and Karagözwas popularized during Ottoman period in which the two characters portray the illiterate and the educated class, leading to humorous situations. (more…)

  • Party time in Taksim

    Yesterday night we met up with a ‘bunch’ of Erasmus students (30) in the Taksim district of Istanbul for a night out on the town. My roommate and I headed from our dorms to the park, where we went into a cable lift over the park towards Taksim. Once there, I was amazed with how modern everything was. What a lively district! I’d been wondering where all the cool, young people hang out in Istanbul and this is one of the places.

    Taksim’s main square is a popular place for big public events such as New Year’s Eve celebration and parades. It used to be an important center for demonstrations also, but after a few incidents in the sixties and seventies the Turkish government decided to introduce a ban on these demonstrations on the square.

    After meeting up with a few fellow students from Poland and Spain, we decided to head out and grab a bite. We headed down İstiklal Caddesi (Avenue) which is Istanbul’s main shopping streets and is visited by over 3 million people per day during the weekends. In the sidestreets there are many bars and restaurants, but the area also has a lot of other sights to see which you can read about on Wikipedia.

    After having some food, we walked down one of the streets and came past a Nargila place. This traditional waterpipe has been a very important element in the social life of Turkish people over the course of history and they are smoked to socialize. One Nargila, five teas and a water only cost us 11 lira total, which is around 6 or 7 euros. Great stuff!

    Then we headed to a bar about which I won’t speak, because the best thing you can do is just head over to the area yourself one day and explore all that it has to offer. It’s incredibly vibrant, even more so than what I’ve seen in cities like Paris or London!

    Like to read more about Turkey, Istanbul and my travels in the region? Subscribe by RSS or click here for email updates.

  • PhotoHunt: Beautiful

    Last year when I was working at the Bulgarian National Radio, they sent me on a worktrip to a town called Troyan. This town lies in central Bulgaria and is not frequently visited by tourists. I was told by the town’s tourist board to go spread the word, I also met the mayor, that’s how few foreign guests they get ;-). Besides work, there was also some time for sightseeing and we visited the church displayed in the picture.

    In general, I find most Bulgarian churches more interesting from the outside than from the inside, although my first encounters with the Eastern Orthodox interior of churches were far from boring. Check out the full album of my pics in Troyan.

    Have you been to Eastern Orthodox churches before? How did you like it? Ever attended a service and care to share how it differs from Protestant or Catholic services? Share now and leave a comment. 🙂

    If you have a wrinkled picture of your own to share and you’re a PhotoHunter, be sure to leave your name and a direct link to the post below! *

    Technorati: PhotoHunt

    Previous PhotoHunts.

    * No direct link or no PhotoHunt = delete.

  • Turkish Language

    Merhaba! Benim adım Bas. Nasılsınız?

    After just two days in Istanbul, I realized why so few Turkish people speak English. If it’s anywhere near as hard for them to learn English, as it is for me to learn Turkish, I can imagine most don’t even want to bother with it if they don’t need it.

    When I came here and didn’t speak one word of Turkish 3 days ago, I longed for Bulgaria where I actually am able to make myself understandable, but told myself to stop being a p***y and stop whining. After all, I didn’t speak any Bulgarian when I arrived there either.

    I arrived at my language course 2.5 days late but I figured I could catch up because I’m a fast learner and I as willing to do the work. When I opened my books at home that day, I was looking at a 100% Turkish book. Not only were the exercises in Turkish, so was the explanation. Looked like catching up will be a bit harder to do, so yesterday when they announced a test for today I decided to aim for something I hardly ever aim for. The middle. Not the top 5%, but just be somewhere in the middle. After all, I had missed 3 days, so I had an excuse for myself.

    The Turkish language is very tough for a Western European. We start sentences with the subject and then the verb, but the Turkish do it differently. The verb has to wait until the end of the sentence, which is very unnatural for us. Imagine going to a bar and ordering a drink. “I want a coke.” In Turkish the structure would be more like “I coke want”, but this of course is still a very simple sentence. It gets incredibly complex, the verbs get many suffixes, quite a few grammar rules are unlike anything I’ve had to deal with, even in Bulgarian.

    However, I really can’t stand being perceived as a tourist (I’d rather be seen as a foreigner who’s living here) and if you speak English and no Turkish at all, you will get ripped off. Constantly. My frustration with this, my impatience, and high demand of myself to understand the language cause me to pick up the language faster than I anticipated and I even don’t mind doing some studying, 😉

    I’m sure within one month my Turkish will be quite okay and I won’t have to fall back on my English, or, since many people don’t understand English, gestures and body language. 🙂

    Gülü gülü!

  • Quick Update on Istanbul

    Excuse the Turkish symbols in this post. I have a lot to tell but lıttle tıme and I wıll revısıt thıs post later.

    It has been 30 hours sınce I woke up thıs mornıng. Last nıght I hopped on a bus to Turkey. Some observatıons:

    • As you’re nearing the border, Bulgaria gets more and more Turkish. You actually see Turkish characters like “ç” and “ı” pop up. Also the ınterıor of shops changes drastıcally. I’ve notıced thıs before when I went to Sandanskı, whıch ıs close to Greece.
    • The Turkish customs was not as strict as I’ve heard it was.
    • Turkish bureaucracy IS as chaotic as I’ve heard it was.
    • So are Turkish streets.
    • English… the unknown language.
    • Istanbul’s like a fairytale.
    • Living in a dorm sucks. Especially if you have to share your room with 4 people, your showers and toilets with 80 people and the only door that you can lock in your room is a closet door. Looks like I’ll be carrying my laptop around until I find an apartment.
    • Istanbul drıvers are very cheeky, but very polite at the same time.

    Anyway, I have to catch up on some Turkish lessons (missed 3 days). Will post something proper once I find a nice wi-fi connection. Lots of great stuff coming up though. When I went to Sofia I expected a place that was 10x more different than Holland. It wasn’t that different. But this place, oh boy 🙂

Related Posts Widget for Blogs by LinkWithin