Europeans Think OUR Accent is Funny!

2 Agostos 2010

Early wake up today and for the next four weeks. Today was the first day of language classes at a school (ukul) named Dilmer.

We signed up for the 9am classes so that we’d be forced out of bed to do stuff after class. Really smart strategy, painful implementation.

Our teacher Meltam Bölek is really nice and funny. Turkish is a hard language to start up; you pronounce every single letter sound and many of the vowel sounds don’t exist in English. Will is definitely the best language person and already has many of the pronunciations down, plus he can remember vocab. Pat is good also. Lee is Dyslexic which translates in all languages to füç%@’d at languages.

Our class has 15 people from around the world. A couple Germans (so serious and helpful), a Spanish guy who already knows five languages, a Serbian, a woman from Cypress (do not call her a Greek! Just because she speaks Greek does not mean she IS Greek), Japanese businessman (Matso, really funny guy… not sure if he’s trying to be), and one other American from Charrollete, NC.

We worked on the alphabet today and learn some basic language. We were able to improve in one day, but the language is extremely difficult and is proving difficult to pronounce and speak correctly; missing one letter throws an entire word off.

We left and got lunch in Taksim and got on the T (Bostonian for subway) to go to ITU’s main campus to the north. The subway system is not extensive, but its well maintained and is not too crowded. In both directions we practiced Turkish as people sitting around us laughed. Imagine hearing “please, please, please, good morning, good morning, good morning, cold water, cold water…..” I’m sure we sounded ridiculous.

ITU’s campus is quite nice, and the individual buildings could be on an American campus. We met with the feorgin exchange people who help us out, and told us to come back in a week to register with a director. They gave us a lot of information like ITU has an American Football (aka Real Football) team that they supposedly spent a ton of money on. They also have a fairly good basketball team and rugby team.

The northern ITU campus is all engineering and the school of 25,000 has no liberal arts “departments.” The campus was across a highway from a bunch of new tall buildings so we decided to investigate. This area proved quite revealing; old factories, warehouses, and apartments were being torn down to build new skyscrapers of 20-30 stories for both commercial and residential. Each building was like a gated fortress as the area around is still not great. The buildings themselves were quite nice, and one in particular that used a full glass façade system was quite intriguing, but the planning was non-existant. Each building was like a monument to themselves; a developing country’s downtown Houston. One complex of massive identical apartment buildings was in a walled-off neighborhood, and every office tower had a guard to block people from entering the front circle.

The recent development is both exciting and sad. What I’ve loved about Taksim, Old Town, and most of the rest of the city is the strong urban context that allowed for beautiful building, but it was as much about the collection of buildings as any single structure. The new construction is destroying the context of close-living and community that is present in Old Istanbul and yet you could feel the excitement and energy of the new. This area was miles from the center and in the end felt like an uncoordinated office park.

We got back on the metro and headed home for nap time (huge part of our day). Getting off the train it was like we just visited a whole other world, with different building rules and goals. I can’t fault anyone for the towers and their intransient smell of modernization, but I can say that anyone that believes in the special dynamic that a true urban environment creates would prefer to be in the older Taksim area.

After naptime we ate quickly (we bought a huge watermelon and two loaves of bread for 4tl or $3… not bad) and went to meet Caner. Caner is my aunt Birtan’s 29yr old nephew from Istanbul. He met us in the Levent (financial district) that has the tallest buildings in the city and the newest malls.

We went down the hill to the Bosperous and had a couple drinks. The bars are really nice (and more expensive than those in Taksim). The Bosporus was gorgeous and the restaurants and bar have incredible views. Seeing the Asian side of the city lit up at night behind the glimmering water and passing boats is an amazing view and worth sitting by with a beer. We then went to a café that served us çay (tea) and nagile (hookah). Caner taught us how to play the all-important backgammon.

Throughout Istanbul there are these small cafes that are full of middle aged and older men drinking tea and playing backgammon. Every one almost looks identical; a non descript room with folding tables and banquet room chairs, filled with men who play backgammon all day. One of our goals by the year’s end is to actually have the “gall” to enter one of these establishments and drink tea while holding a conversation. I imagine that day in mind as something like the VFW hall scene in Gran Torino (if you haven’t seen it, see it, great movie, Clint Eastwood is who I want to be in 60 years).

Went home, did our homework, made some food, and are going to bed. Gotta get up at 8am tomorrow. (Did we miss summer or something?)