4 more days

4 days remain until our departure, from this apartment that is. I can say with as much certainty as I have that there is absolutely nothing I will miss about the school or the people working for it, which is really said actually since we’ve spent 7 months of my life in this place. I may have said it once before but I will say it again. To any one interested in working, teaching English in Turkey, and if you happen to come to Isatnbul, make sure to avoid Berlitz. I’ve talked to people who had worked for a number of Berlitz schools, located all over the world and this is the worst managed school they have ever been to. I’ve never worked at a Berlitz school before, although I have heard good things about Berlitz Japan, but after having spent the past 7 months here I’ll think twice about working for the school anywhere else.

We are leaving the country on the 19th flying out to London, but in the meantime our stay in Turkey will be made pleasant with a stay at a friends place in Izmit. I assume his Turkish family will make us feel right at home.

A place to rest.

Jaekyoung took this shot in Bulgaria on our visa run, but that’s another story to be told in a different post.

Climbing at Balikaylar

Tuesday was a national holiday here and many companies took the day off, with the exception of Berlitz of course, to the dismay of some of the staff. Since my classes got cancelled I took the opportunity to get out of the city with a friend and head for the beautiful gorge of Balikaylar. Only an hour or so outside Istanbul, surrounded by beautiful walls just waiting to be scaled. It always amazes me how fast the skill and stamina required for this sport fades during prolonged periods of inactivity.

The day was absolutely gorgeous and it was good to be once again out on the wall. My body was sore for the next week or so but the pain was well worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A shot of the valley. A great place to chill out for the day or even the weekend if you got the right camping equipment.

Insanity Pure

Insanity pure, that’s what I should call my book. The book, which central idea is insanity and should not be read without a prior understanding of the monster that is the Berlitz establishment of Istanbul. At this moment, I can say with more certainty than what the past five years of life have taught me, that I may not be spending as much time with humans as I should. I think that individuals should know and understand its own species, especially as intelligent one as we humans would like to label ourselves.

Since our decisive move out of our own apartment and into Berlitz housing, I have only one thing confirmed more than anything else, “People are insane”. I am not sure if this is all of the society, all of the world, but this label certainly applies to this bunch of people working for the Berlitz school in Istanbul. Within the past 2 weeks I have been blatantly lied to, I have had to listen to more people complaining about their so called “friends”, more times than I care to mention, and who knows what people are saying about me behind my back.

Fun days at the grind

Wednesday 6 of May. Woke up earlier than desired but not really regretting it. Plenty of time left in the day to do the things that need to be done, or at least some of them. Events at the school are unfolding. JaeKyoung and I have moved out of our apartment and moved into Berlitz housing. I didn’t tell any of the management about the move only to avoid the hustle and bustle of what could follow. That and the fact that they don’t allow couples in their housing set ups. I’ve talked to the guys occupying the residency and they were pretty ok with us moving in, which in my eyes was good enough. When “The Boss” found out, I was immediately informed that I had 4 days to move out. I made an appeal to my supervisor for an extension at least till the end of the month. Currently I am still waiting for a response from them. Either way we have to move. A month gives us enough time to put our affairs in order.
If you have any questions regarding living in Istanbul or the city in general, just leave it in the comment section. I will try and do my best to answer your question.

Sopanca

It happens every single weekend, regardless of whether the weekend falls on a Sunday or Saturday or on any other given day that happens to be my off day and thus my weekend. Currently Mondays are my weekends and of course the curse of bad weather has fallen upon those days.

In any case, this Monday we decided to go for a trip. We hoped the local train and headed for Sopanca, a small town outside of Istanbul. Well actually it turned out to be quite a way out of Istanbul. It’s 5 stations past the city of Izmit and it takes a nice round 2 hours, or more, to get there. We realised this only upon the purchase of train tickets which indicated the arrival time at Sopanca. The train didn’t leave until 1pm which meant that we wouldn’t get to our destination until 3 o’clock, which would have been fine if the weather had been warmer as our supply of clothing was rather scarce as was the light that day.

Either way, Sopanca turned out to be a very small, quiet town on the banks of a lake of significant size. We spent the next 4 hours just walking about the local area rather than walking around the lake. There is a path running along the shore which most likely leads to the next station and makes for a great hike as it is surrounded by hills and of course the lake itself on one side but its unfortunate location to a rather busy highway makes it for a bit of a noisy experience. Maybe not noisy, let’s just say that it’s not completely devoid of noise. We chose not to wander all the way to the next station however, and returned back to the town of Sopanca to spend an odd hour walking about taking photos of the locals. It’s a good day trip with nothing special to see at the end of it but if you’d like to get away from the hustle and bustle of a busy city, this may be a good alternative.

If you have any questions regarding living in Istanbul or the city in general, just leave it in the comment section. I will try and do my best to answer your question.

Buyukada (the Big Island)

This past Monday we went to visit the Princes Islands. We chose the biggest island as it was recommended to me by some of my students. The day didn't look too promising, with dark clouds hanging above the horizon but I thought that sitting in the house would be a killer so we simply went. The islands are rather devoid of cars. There are 4 or 5 cars on the whole island. One cop car, one maintenance car and a couple other ones for removing garbage etc. Once on the island you can rent a bicycle from one of the several bike rental shops and go on an island cruise. We picked a random shop and got 2 bikes for 10Tl each for the day. 5 minutes into our ride JaeKyoungs gears jammed into the back tire causing her to nearly fly head first over the steering wheel. I tried rather unsuccessfully to straighten them back out but stopped since there wasn't much give and I didn't want to cause any more damage. That's when they simply fell off. I took the chain off and left them dangling while we cruised down hill back to the bike shop for a replacement. The whole thing took as an entire ten minutes. The guy looked a bit surprised but gave us a replacement without delays. We spent the next two hours riding the path around the island. It started to rain on the way and since the bikes didn't have fenders the tires kicked up enough water to soak us pretty much head to toe. We arrived back at the bike shop two hours later hungry, cold and wet. Had lunch at one of the local restaurants and decided to call it a day. We returned to the bike shop and found a different man sitting there. He told me straight up that I had to pay 20TL for the replacement of the gears. Naturally I refused. I didn't see the reason for me having to pay for something we didn't cause. We had the bike for a whole 5 minutes before the damn thing broke, which I told him but to which he of course responded with a "I don't know" letting me know that he didn't speak any English. We could have just gone away had he not been holding my Canadian license for ransom.

I knew this wasn't going to be easy and we had a small attempt at a bargain. I said no way to his offer and offered 10TL instead, even though I shouldn't have had to pay anything...really CMOOOON!!!!!!!!!!!

Either way, he didn't like that. He agreed to 15, but there was no way I was gonna be taken for a sucka. He stood up off his desk releasing my license from the huge grasp his ass had on in and started pointing at the bikes inside the shop. I grabbed my license and immediately felt someone yanking me by my clothes against the door. The fucking guy grabbed me by my clothes and was getting aggressive waving his hand up in the air and screaming something in Turkish. He's pushing, so I started pushing. The man was my dads age or older and I really had to restrain myself from doing something stupid. A few men came over but of course none of them spoke English and so the affair was quickly settled in his favor. Than the cops showed up, their station is just across the street, asked him some questions and since none of them spoke any English either we went down to the station where a female cop did the translating. The police chief seemed to be a bit pissed at the old guy, I heard him saying "tourist" several times, I assume he was lecturing him about mistreating tourists in a place that is really thriving on tourism.

In any case, after several minutes of explanations and the arrival of the municipal police, it was their business after all, the translator told us that we had to pay a fee of 10TL.......ya.......the stupid bastard could have had that 30 minutes ago without all that bull and without ruining our day. FUCKING SCAM ARTISTS!!!!!!!! We didn't take a shot of the place but will do so next time we get down to the island. Just to warn anyone else interested in renting bikes. There are several other decent looking places, with seemingly better bikes.

If you have any questions regarding living in Istanbul or the city in general, just leave it in the comment section. I will try and do my best to answer your question.

Acceptance

So this blog was to be a helpful guide to the city of Istanbul, kind of like all the other city guides out there. But let's face it, and the people that know me well could testify to this, even thought there aren't all that many maybe five, I am just not that organized!!!!!! I simply can't be consistent in anything I do. I keep my appointments and hate tardiness, hence like to be on time myself, but organization is not one of my strengths. Trying to be organized makes me feel like that dog in the yard that hates to wear that caller. (and yes I am a dog, I'm a yella, I'm a grass roller, I'm a vagabond) and that's the way I like it and that's the way people like me, the ones that care.

So in any case, initially I thought this would be a thorough guide to the city, an idea which unfortunately has fallen under the spell of my disorder and organized mess. I am going to dedicate this space to any random adventure or thought I have to share with the rest of this crazy world, any thought and idea at all related to this city and this country.

ISTANBUL..... Many people call it the most beautiful city in the world. Well that's really the only thing I've ever heard about this city. No one ever says anything bad about Istanbul. There is the occasional mention of terrorists, which is a propaganda spot anyway and not worthy paying attention to. I've never heard anybody say anything bad about this city. Not until I've read Orhan Pomuks Memories of Istanbul. A man born and raised in this city. A man as Turkish and as Istanbulu as they come, who described the Melancholy of this city. Some Turks like to call him a none-patriot. Who deserves the label of patriot more than a man born and raised in any particular city.

I have been living here for the past 6 months and one thing I have noticed in my short time in this city is that people are angry. The anger is like one of those smog clouds hanging above the city. I've seen people who look like they have given up on life. I think I have started to look like that myself.

If you have any questions regarding living in Istanbul or the city in general, just leave it in the comment section. I will try and do my best to answer your question.