Just uploaded another album to my Picasa with pictures of my stay in Sofia, Bulgaria this week. Click on a pic below to go check out the album!
Or click here to see all of my albums, including older albums of Sofia, Istanbul, Brussels, Holland, Macedonia, and Bulgaria.
Last night I was relaxing a bit, since that’s the main reason why I came to Sofia, and I was looking for some documentaries on Istanbul. Hoping to learn about some interesting things I didn’t know yet in my current hometown, I came across a famous 2005 documentary called Crossing The Bridge – The Sound of Istanbul. It shows a lot of the music and culture that Istanbul has to offer, but also captures the daily life quite well. From rock to gypsie to Turkish traditional to rap to the whirling dervishes… It’s all in there! Without further ado… the documentary. (some commentary below)
Press CC to turn subtitles on. The subtitling is decent and sometimes inaccurate (both for the German as well as the Turkish parts). However it doesn’t prevent one from enjoying and understanding the documentary. So don’t let it hold you back. If you prefer to watch the video on Google Video’s site, click here.
My commentary
Ok, so most of the sights seem really special, right? That’s what I see every day. The sunsets, the Bosphorus… If I want to go to the European side, I go on one of the ferries displayed in the documentary.
At some point the video shows a group of rappers walking the street (one of them stops to say hi to a girl that’s on the phone)… I walk that street every day. It’s the street that goes from the main Kadıköy busstation to my neighbourhood, Moda. The next shot shows them walking down a street and it has the Bosphorus in the background… I walk down that street every day too. 🙂
I thought this documentary shows the daily life and the cultural life in Istanbul quite well. Some I have experienced, some I will experience, and some I will probably not experience. Having seen this documentary, I’m more inspired than ever to make the best out of my time… living in Istanbul!
Since I spend a lot of time on public transport (either traveling or in the crazy traffic of Istanbul), I get to do quite a bit of reading. At the moment I’m reading two books. “A New Earth
Something I find very worrying is the growing phenomenom of antitheism. While using StumbleUpon, I noticed an immense number of sites that are very hateful towards religion. Understandably so, because they feel their way of life is being threatened by religion, but personally, I don’t feel that bashing, mocking, fighting or anything else that comes out of negativity can do any good. In “A New Earth
“In certain cases, you may need to protect yourself or someone else from being harmed by another, but beware of making it your mission to “eradicate evil,” as you are likely to turn into the very thing you are fighting against. Fighthing unconsciousness will draw you into unconsciousness yourself. Unconsciousness, dysfunctional egoic behavior, can never be defeated by attacking it. Even if you defeat your opponent, the unconsciousness will simply have moved into you, or the opponent reappears in a new disguise. Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.“
Very wise words. I really admire Eckhart Tolle’s works and can keep reading it over and over. If you really want to grasp the full meaning of his words above, go check out the book.
On my way to Bulgaria, I figured that Eckhart Tolle’s stuff might be a bit heavy for a 10+ hour journey and I’d need some novel to read. I found some novels in my apartment (left by previous inhabitants) and found an interesting one about life in Nepal around the time of the Nepalese independence movement in the 80s. I picked it up and took it with me… On the third page or so, I came across this marble of beauty:
“Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.”
Taken from Kiran Desai’s “The Inheritance of Loss
Have you read any of these books? Thoughts and comments very welcome! I find books are one of the best topics for meaningful and engaging conversations! 🙂
As said in the previous posts, I live very close to the sea. The first evening that I was in my apartment, I got a bit bored and went to walk around a bit. I found a gorgeous sun setting in the sea. Check out the video below… It’s really soothing, relaxing, meditative. 🙂
Sorry for the crooked horizon… see it as artistic expression.
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As I’ve stated before, in my free time I love mixing music and DJ’ing, especially if I can get a little creative and experimental with it. I made a mix the other day in the dormitory I blogged about and I’m very happy about the result.
Eclecticism at its best in this set containing dub, minimal, breakcore, dubstep, grime, world fusion, breakbeat and psychedelic. Not much to add. Just exploring the waves of electronica. Enjoy!
Tracklist
Omar Faruk Tekbilek & Steve Shehan – Ya Bouy (Shulman Remix)
Headphonics – Corrupt & Immoral
Nagual Sound Experiment vs Ital Roots – Forward
Younger Brother – Sleepwalker Part 2
Shulman – Fromage
Ed Davenport – Apples
Dave Seaman – Gobbledygook (Jori Hulkkonen Remix)
Combichrist – Red Signal
The Bug – Murder We ft. Ricky Ranking
Mood Deluxe – The Living Receiver
Beat Bandits – O.I.T.S.
Venetian Snares – Öngyilkos Vasárnap
Ott – Evil Do’ers
Venetian Snares – Senki Dala
Click to download as MP3 (VBR), 78 minutes
Enjoy! And support the artists when you get the chance!
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)
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My first batch of Istanbul pictures is now online. Go check it out at Picasa.
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.
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! *
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I took this shot during the Global Day of Action for Tibet on the Dam square in Amsterdam. Besides this being one of the few pictures that corresponded with the theme, I also feel quite strong about the Tibetan issue. If you haven’t already, check out the BBC documentary “Undercover in Tibet” (for free via the link).
To see the whole album of pictures I took during the Global Day of Action, click here.
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! All PhotoHunt posts get Stumbled!
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