"Some people find religion, I found AIESEC."

Please exit left

2008-06-18T12:03:00.000-07:00

Bush urges Congress to drop the ban on domestic drilling.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080618152205.an899ks7&show_article=1

Seriously, it's about time. It's actually past time, but better than nothing. Federal government - please exit left, we'd like to move along in our economic well-being, thanks.

A brief Ron Paul quote binge

2008-06-03T17:38:00.000-07:00

“Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons.”

“Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms.”

"How can I run for office and say I want to be a weak president? We need a strong president, strong enough to resist the temptation of taking power the President shouldn’t have."

Half way through Ron Paul's The Revolution

2008-06-01T14:17:00.001-07:00

"Kenyan economist James Shikwati, when asked about development aid programs to Africa, has been telling the West, "For God's sake, please just stop."

Let Freedom Ring

2008-05-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/05/21/ethiopia.hunger.ap/index.html

Free trade. Unbridled capitalism. Seriously, what's it going to take to realize economic freedom is essential to everyone's health, happiness, and prosperity. Let freedom ring, and we'll go a long way in avoiding these disastrous situations while at it.

What an incredible individual

2008-05-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

Yon Goicoechea - http://www.cato.org/special/friedman/goicoechea/index.html

Interesting dilemma

2008-02-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

Front page news on CNN.com - http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/07/berkeley.protests/index.html.

My initial reaction to the city of Berkeley, California, encouraging the protest of Marine recruiters in their city is one of sympathy and "How dare you?". Sympathy for the work of the Marines (including recruiters) whose jobs are literally to defend the United States of America. Without the dedication of the Marines, we'd be a much less prosperous and happy country. My "How dare you?" reaction goes directly to the city of Berkeley and the protesters themselves. Simply put: you are protesting and fighting against the very people that fight for your ability to protest.

Regardless - this is an interesting dilemma because I do believe the city of Berkeley had the right to make this call. I believe it is up to the city to make these kinds of choices. "Autonomous" city governments are some of the best systems of government as they can most effectively address the wants and needs of their citizenry. So what does one do?

Firstly, I believe the Federal Government did the right thing in threatening to remove $2 million in federal funding to the city. I think the government should in fact remove all federal funding if Berkeley continues to act this way. I also think the government of California should take away funding from and/or tax any city government that makes calls like Berkeley's. I believe this would set up the right incentives for Berkeley to act in its and the entire country's interest.

Secondly, the citizens who believe in the Marines and understand the fact that their work enables us to live the lives we do, need to make our voices heard to cities like Berkeley. Email, phone calls, letters, facebook, etc. to help them understand the mistake their making.

Change is scary - but this kind of change? Disturbing.

2008-02-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

Change is scary. All types of change. Middle school to high school, high school to college, college to the working world, marriage, kids, career changes, going abroad, organizational change, etc. But what doesn't destroy you, makes you wiser, and makes you a better person. That is why almost all types of change are scary, but they are for the best.

Organizational change experts talk of "change killers" - individuals that can't fathom the concept or thought of changing the current mold, the current way of operating. I can't stand change killers - in fact, I seek to avoid them at all costs. But there is one type of change that I'm literally disturbed by - it's a type of change that we've all heard a lot about recently, and that is the "change" espoused by presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Both Obama and Clinton use simple and tactful phrases referring to change that effectively appeal to millions. I recently viewed a video on youtube - WeCan08 - from one of Barack Obama's speeches. Wonderfully done, and inspiring; however, is it not scary to anyone else that hundreds of people chant "We Want Change!" to a aspiring government leader? Is it not uncomfortable to anyone else that hundreds, thousands, millions of people are looking to presidential campaigns to create change for them? I mean, what are people really expecting from a new president? Do they expect them to make things better once and for all? Is it George Bush's fault that we can't provide for ourselves? That we can't manage our own finances maturely and effectively? That we can't do what it takes to educate ourselves to be competitive, global citizen? I firmly believe that it's up to the individual to create a life of excitement, happiness, and fortune for himself or herself, and that is why it is scary to me to think that millions of people are seemingly looking to a presidential candidate to provide that life for them.

I trust John McCain will win the presidency. If not, it's not the end of the world. In fact, the world may not very different if Obama or Clinton is elected. However, if the individuals who beg for change from Obama do not begin to embrace the kind of change that is scary but ultimately rewarding and for the best, and continue to look to someone or something else for a better life, then we're going to have some seriously unhappy people over the next four years.

When are they going to get it?

2007-12-11T09:47:00.000-08:00

Even without 3.5 years of Latin American studies, I would have realized that my country needs international investment, a free-market orientation, and unconditional allegiance to the United States. For the sake of your countries, my country, and the rest of the world, get past your egos guys and gals.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/12/09/argentina.bank.ap/index.html

Serbia!

2007-03-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

EXPROS in Serbia kicked ass. Best international conference as of yet. Can't figure out if it was the people, the venue, the OC, or some crazy combination. Ready to kick some ass!

Oman is in

2007-02-27T13:53:00.000-08:00

Once again, AIESEC US has moved beyond the unthinkable. The grant came through.

Brace yourself Oman.

Travel Schedule

2007-02-21T18:36:00.000-08:00

Got to NYC on February 11.

Chicago Feb 16 - 18.

Boston Feb 20 - 21.

Oklahoma City Feb 23 - 25.

Augusta Mar 2 - 4.

Belgrade March 15 - 26.

Anything for this organization.

Trend Setters

2007-02-21T18:34:00.000-08:00

Just finished "Success Built to Last" and "The Leader of the Future 2". Still caught up in this...

"From the time I got home from WSC until I left for NYC, I’ve been reading, reading more than I ever have before. I’ve found that only after graduating comes all the time to read what you actually want. J The reading has really run the gamut: from conservative author Dinesh D’Souza to Barack Obama, from the Tipping Point to The End of Poverty, from BusinessWeek to Business 2.0. Truth is that within everything I read, what stood out most were the trends and trend setters that touch our lives in more ways than we can imagine.

From Dwayne Wade and the evolution of sports marketing, to Jeffrey Sachs and the fight to end extreme poverty, to leading edge companies like PyroGenesis making profitable business out of “green” technology, to Barack Obama inspiring millions behind his vision for America – whether we’re aware or not, the world is full of trend setters.

I couldn’t refrain from thinking about AIESEC through all of this. I began to wonder what kind of trends had been set in the past, of who had come into the organization, done something unbelievable, and inspired AIESECers all over the nation. I wondered if I had been in the company of those people – of the people that got us here. I wondered if my AIESEC generation would be a trend setter. I wondered what trend setters had attended SSC 2006, WSC 2007, or an orientation in the last few weeks. Finally, I wonder what trends AIESEC US will see in 2007, and who will set those.

What do you want AIESEC in the future to remember you for? To remember us for? As mid-February rolls around, the national conference high has past, and school takes its toll, I challenge this organization to see just what we’re made of – just to see what trends we can unleash."

NYC

2007-02-21T18:22:00.000-08:00

Living in NYC now. It's official. It took a few days of work and the routine kicking in for me to realize I wasn't just visiting, but that I had truly finished with GWU, spent some time transitioning at home, and moved to a new city.

I took two suitcases from home to my new apartment. I also pictured Uhauls and business like that. Besides a few small packages coming in over the next few weeks, I'm actually living quite well with just two suitcases. I have this place for a lease of 5 months, then either a renewal or something different. We'll see if I can find new roommates. Hopefully new people joining the team full time. :)

I truly have the best job in the world. I was walking from my hotel room towards the plenary at the Rowdies regional conference, thinking about the 200+ people in the hotel there to learn from, contribute to, and expand the mission of AIESEC US. What other entry level job can you have working with young people, thinking entrepreneurially, developing an enormous network, all while thinking about the potential market share of your company - 12.8 million. Not 12.8 million dollars. Way more than that. 12.8 million students. Add on the 3+ million that graduate every year and it exceeds 20 million. Although AIESEC US has been around for 50 years, for all intents and purposes we are a start up - we're in a new world, a new era, a new structure, but with the same mission. I think it's about time we give the world what it's been patiently waiting for.

Back

2006-12-12T18:31:00.000-08:00

Back on nomadlife now. I'm back at a time when I'm preparing to write my final paper, complete my final project, and just make it by on my final exams. I have 8 days left until I'm done with my undergraduate experience, ready to go after new opportunities, new challenges, and new experiences.

Blogging about my traineeship in Turkey was an incredible way to follow what I was learning, what I was experiencing, etc. As the world opens up to me in just over a week, I'm excited about documenting those experiences like I did in Turkey.

It's good to be back.

Remembering

2006-08-18T09:23:00.000-07:00

I just returned to my blog after a long absence. Having returned from Turkey, I spent the next week at our national conference, 5 days in Austin, then the past week in NYC at the MC office. Off to IC in Poland in just a few hours.

I haven't had the time or venue to reflect on my 10 weeks in Turkey. Because of that, I've been putting it off until I'm back from IC and back to a regular schedule.

Not sure if I can make it to that point. Every email I read from istanbultrainees hits me harder and harder, and friends and experiences have begun to appear in my dreams. It seems like my reflection on it doesn't want to wait.

And so the chapter closes...

2006-07-20T07:10:00.000-07:00

Responses

2006-07-20T07:03:00.000-07:00

Andrew,

İ want to say that.thank you for your helping and teaching about everything.really i learnt lots of thing from you.
And your last speak was very nice.i was a kind of tearwater.

Lastly I will never forget you; like everybody in here..You can call me anytime ,about everything.
you have my mobile phone? If you can will come to here again ,we will wait you..again come here.
My English like that.. ; i cant say everything . :)) again thank you everything.

Şengğl

Andrew, thank you very very much for your thoughts about me. I don’t deserve your words. Don’t forget; If you come to Turkey again , Your home is ready Whatever, Whenever etc... Your destination is obvious. J I am very glad to meet and see you. Try to evaluate and think the world, life etc... in different dimension like moral, material etc...

Thank you again.

Murat ÇATAL

Final Words

2006-07-20T06:53:00.000-07:00

Ne zaman Amerika'dan Türkiye'ye geldim, hic türkçe bilmedim. "Merhaba" bilmedim. Ama, çok şaşırtıcı insanlarla tanıştım, ben türkçe öğrenmek istedim. Ofiste şaşırtıcı insanlar vardi. Burada, bu sirkette, siz beni esinlediniz. Türkçe öğrenmek'için esinlediniz.

Ben biliyorum iletişimde problemler vardı. Ama, sizinle ben çok şey öğrendim. Bir şey, insanın iletişim kurması için bir çok engel var. Ama, bunların en güçlüşü dil. Ben biraz türkçe biliyorum, sen biraz ingilizce biliyorsun, ama biz çok iyi arkadaşız.

Ben hic unutmacağim bu deneyimi. Ben hic unutmacağım "Yurtta sulh cihanda sulh."

Size çok teşekkür ederim. Yakında görüşürüz ınşalah.

Goodbye emails

2006-07-20T05:09:00.000-07:00

Murat,

Wow. That is the one word I can only think of right now. This has been such an amazing experience, many thanks to you. I have been completely enriched by being your friend, learning about Turkey, Islam, and your amazing ideas. I will never be able to repay the friendship you gave to me.

Something I will never forget is the many conversations and discussions we had about our world. Why do countries do what they do? Who has power? How can we make the world a better place? Through these experiences with you I have decided to look deeper into myself and hopefully discover my beliefs and my spirituality.

My best wishes go out to you as you prepare for military service. Remember you will always have a home in the United States, and a friend waiting for you to relive the joys of his exchange in Turkey.

“Ne mutlu türküm diyene.”

Serkan,

It was with great sadness that we said goodbye to each other last Friday. After 10 weeks together, working next to each other, I consider you my closest friend at Basak. We shared so many jokes, laughs, and conversations that I will never forget; I will go on reliving and missing them forever. You are incredibly intelligent and have so much potential with Turksoft. I hope, and I expect, to see Turksoft a huge global company in the next few years.

Remember that despite our language barrier, human connections are what really bring us all together. Continue inspiring people with your talent like you inspired me. Best of luck to you with your dreams and ambitions, and don’t forget - you will always have a friend and a home in the United States.

“Ne mutlu türküm diyene.”

2006-07-20T02:04:00.000-07:00

An embarrasement and disgrace to mankind.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5197186.stm

Golf

2006-07-18T03:33:00.000-07:00

Murat: "Andy, golf is new sport for Turkey, but we are very good."

This brought back one of my finest memories of Summer 2003. Canyons golf course, 18 holes (we made it about 6), one bottle of rum, and a case of tall boys. Boozy, I'm sure you will remember well the fine game of golf that took place.

I have an incredible urge to play golf right now. I'm think I'm going nuts.

Sounds of San Francisco

2006-07-17T05:16:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Dalyan, home of Caliante beach club 3 hours early. We hadn't eaten since our durums and beer so we headed in a direction we thought would lead us to food. About a half kilometer away we found a small sandwich place where there special was Kumuru and Çizburger. We soon found out that meant not cheese, but egg. I had the Kumuru which was salami, cheese, tomatoes, and an egg. Insanely delicious.

We sat outside the sandwich shop and bought some beers. One of the employees said we couldn't drink them there but said something 2 or 3 times afterwards. He then looked at us like we were slow and walked away. When we received our food, he brought it around the corner and then made a motion for us to come over there. We realized he had been telling us we could drink beer as long as we were out of sight, so we grabbed our goodie bag and sat in the "Botanik Bahce", botanical garden (which was nothing more than a few tables). Here we enjoyed our food and two rounds of beers, (5) and (6). One of the employees sat with us for a while asking all sorts of questions, and I was hardpressed to keep up with the conversation in Turkish; regardless, we managed to talk about where we were from, what we study, what we think of Turkey, our favorite music, and how to get home after the concert. We left there around 1000, grabbing two more rounds of beers on our way out.

We walked the .5 kilometer back to the entrance of the club drinking our beer (7) and talking about how crazy the trip had been so far. We sat on the fence of a nice house outside the club and worked on our second round (8). Aman had arrived earlier and was waiting outside the club wtih his cousins. Around 1115, we strolled up to the club entrance, of course looking ready to party. At the entrance were 4 bouncers, BSTs as Kelsey would say (Big Scary Turks), and they stopped us before we could get in:

Bouncer: Where are your girls?

Me: Girls? What are you talking about?

Saurabh: I'm drunk.

Bouncer: You need girls, Kizlar! Kizlar!

Me: Wtf, we don't have any, we came from Istanbul just for this concert, you have to let us in.

Bouncer: Sorry, you must have an equal number. You need girls.

Me: (Looking around) Dudes, where are we going to find girls? (I was drunkingly thinking we should go back to town and ask a few)

Saurabh: Man I came from India for this concert! Hindistan!! Hindistan!!!

Bouncer: Hindistan mi? Okay, okay, come through.

Saurabh worked his charm again screaming Hindistan as forcefully as he could. We paid our cover fee and made our way into the club. Caliante is a beach club, very high class. It was one of the better outside clubs I've seen in my day, so the cover was well worth it. The opening DJ was pretty good too, so we were feeling the night from beginning (whereever the beginning may have been). Global Deejays wasn't going on for another 2 hours, so we got some beers from the bar (9) and (10), and chilled out on the benches until we were kicked off for richer customers. That pissed us off, so we deemed it imperative to get more beer. Beers were too expensive at the bar so we decided to go back to town, get beers, and come back in time for Global Deejays. Our ideas kick ass.

We took our ticket stubs with us, made agreements with the bouncers, and headed out to make the .5 kilometer stretch to get more beer. We were pretty tipsy at this point, finding it a good idea to race up a hill at full speed. Me being a sore loser, I stole the show with my lightning dash. In the direction of the place we ate at, we found a shop just closing up that was willing to lend some poor souls some beers. Thirsty and content, we turned back, ready for another galant entrance into the club. We started on our beers (11) and stumbled back to the club, us all taking 2 stops to pee on the way. Since we still had another round when we arrived at the club, we sat outside in our same place working on number (12). By this time we were pretty drunk. There was a huge sign outside the club, and we spent about 15 minutes reading "Caliante" in as many ways as possible. At one point, one of us turned upside down to read it backwards.

As we were reentering the club, we felt pretty damn cool. I was picturing in my mind the slow motion scene in a movie where the 3 hotshots stroll into the club with techno blasting, us all stopping to take a look at all the hotties checking us out. In reality, we stumbled past the bouncers without evening showing our ticket stubs, wiped some beer off our shirts, spun around a few times, then made a dashing entrance onto the dance floor. We really made it just in time for Global Deejays to start, and from that reentrance, we danced for hours, agreeing to leave only after hearing "Sounds of San Francisco." That song finally rolled around at about 330, after which we climbed outside to grab a taxi back to Cesme.

17 lira later, we were back in Cesme in front of our hotel. Now, the smart thing would have been to go to sleep. It was 345 in the morning, we had an afternoon bus leaving from Izmir, nearly 2 hours away, and we had work at 8 AM Monday morning. Fortunately, we're 21 - 22 years old, so we look past all those obstacles. We find a club around the corner from our hotel with no cover fee. This place was whacko. It looked like a building out of Disney World, or something like Universal Studios. It had balconies, railings, fake windows and doors, all sorts of crazy shit. We got beers there (13) and took the only 3 pictures of the entire weekend. After about 30 minutes, we realized we were starving. We stumbled out of the club and found the first open restaurant we could. The waiter handed us menus, and we looked down at them like they were chinese. We legitimately had no idea what they said, haha, so the waiter just told us what we would get. And to top the night off, we ordered our final round of beers (14). Truth be told, none of us have any idea how we ate, or even who paid for the meal. Regardless, we found ourselves refreshed and awake in our tiny hotel beds at 11 AM the next morning, just in time to pack, take the bus to Izmir, get our bus to Istanbul, and arrive back home at the dorms at 3:00 AM.

This post is dedicated to David and Saurabh, two crazy bastards who entrusted their livelihoods to yours truly for 2 days of sheer madness.

All the best.

Hitchikin'

2006-07-17T04:05:00.000-07:00

We were on our second bus next to the driver for 20 minutes before we got off the highway and stopped at the back of a massive line of cars and buses. Two of the bus attendants came up and were talking farely loudly with the bus driver, and it was clear they weren't too happy. The bus driver got on his cell phone, and vehemently using his hands in what I could tell was an expression of "damn these clueless foreigners". I finally realized at that point that our real bus was somewhere in this line of cars, and they had been told to take us to it. I could see through the reflection of the front window that the passengers were anything but pleased with the current situation. Then, to my right, I could see the bus attendant running on the edge of the line of cars, talking to a few drivers. He proceeded to rush back yelling "Geliniz, Geliniz!", and we were hoarded out of the bus and taken to a small SUV where the attendant shuffled us into the backseat and said something to the driver all the while running back to his bus. It was probably about 5 minutes that went by, us 3 in the backseat scrunched together, looking around us like vulnerable children.

The car we were in was no taxi or company car. We had simply been "hitchhiked" by the bus attendant, as this driver had no idea who we were. Luckily enough for us, the first thing the guy said was, "So do you all speak English?" In this situation of utter confusion, that familiar sound was all it took to put our speeding hearts, at least temporarily, at rest. Despite the akwardness of the situation, our driver talked with us quite a bit and said we would have no problem finding our bus. Sure enough, after a good 45 minutes - 1 hour, at the end of the line boarding the ferry, was a small Turkish man in a white shirt and red tie, asking every driver in a white SUV for 3 lost foreign travelers.

3 buses, hitchike, and a ferry later, we arrived in the beautiful city of Izmir at 9:30 AM. We met Aman (and surprisingly two UK @ers working in Ankara), and boarded the bus to Çeşme, a small, less discovered resort town 85 kms west of Izmir. We almost got off at the wrong place, but luckily (definitely the word of this weekend), we had a few English speakers that helped us get to the city center of Çeşme. Exhausted and ready for the beach and some beer, we got a room at the first hotel we found. Not as cheap as we would have liked, but the place was between the beach and the concert venue we'd be attending later that evening. We threw our shit in the hotel, put on suits and sandals, and trekked towards the beach. But of course, as many other days go, we had to get some Turkish food before beach time. Turkish food is definitely something I'm going to miss like crazy, as Durums, Doner, Iskender, Pide, have become marginally holy and sacred to my diet. During lunch, we started a long series of sorts, that being our first beer of the day (1). After a durum and (1) we hopped on a dolmus and headed towards Pirlanta Plaj. The other passengers were a little confused with where we wanted to go, but an older man (extreme beach bum) told us he'd help us get to Pirlanta. The Turkish people even had a hard time understanding this guy's Turkish, so it was quite hilarious when he tried to speak with me at a mile a minute. On top of his speech, he looked like the "Great Scott" guy from Back to the Future after multiple sunburns and a bottle of scotch. Despite our shortcomings in communication, Great Scott took us to the beach and headed off in his own direction.

Pirlanta Plaj: windsurfing, volleyball, football, beach chairs, white sand, sand castles, waves, beautiful water, amazing view, cheap beer. I hadn't been to a nice beach in years. And with all this beach had to offer, what did the 3 of us do? We got in the water for a minutes, sat down on the sand with some beers (2), and woke up 2 hours later. Yes, we passed out on the sand, exhausted from the battle against time that was the previous night. I had sand ingrained in my skin, even water from the ocean couldn't get it out. And despite my fear of a horrendous torture from the sun, my sunburn wasn't too bad, especially considering I basked in the sun unconsciously for 2 - 3 hours. Exhausted, burnt, and embarassed by our passed outness, we headed back to the hotel around 5 PM, picking up beers on the way. Before we got into our hotel, Saurabh went to buy cigarettes, and was assured by the shopkeeper that he could help us if we needed some "misses".

The next 1.5 - 2 hours was spent on the party porch. Yes, we had a party porch, and it had an amazing view of a massive tree whose branches nearly stretched into our room. Here we consumed some beers, numbers (3) and (4). I talked to David and Saurabh about the military and recent perked interest, and it was good to hear their opinions and also to hear myself talk about it outloud. After our beers and chat, we decided to head out early to the fishing village where Caliante beach club was. We grabbed a dolmus, paid our 2 lira each, and prepared for a crazy night.

"Hayır! Saat dokuz buçukta Taksim'den geldik!"

2006-07-17T00:46:00.000-07:00

"Epic. Top five nights of my life." This was the lone text message I sent on Sunday to the other trainees in Istanbul after David, Saurabh and I traveled double digit hours to the Aegean Sea. The madness began Friday night...

David and I joined other folks for dinner on Istiklal Friday evening. Staying aware of the time, we decided not to eat as to make the service bus that would take us from Taksim to the bus station in time for our 10:30 bus to Izmir.

Everything was going well. We had made the service bus in time and were sitting patiently at the bus stop amidst strange looks and little kids selling 101 dalmation pillows for "Bir milyon! Bir milyon!" As David and I were making fun of the pillows, Saurabh came around the corner equipped with a blue pillow and a content smile. From 9:45 onwards, I would ask the bus company employee "Otobüsümüz mü?" I would quickly receive a "Hayir", or the funny click sound that means no in Turkey. This went on until around 11:15 when I decided it was time to get some answers. I went inside and asked the employee when our bus was coming. He looked at the ticket, then at me, ticket, me, "It already left." I should have been shocked or mad at this point, but because I had asked the guy repeatedly if each bus was our's, I knew we weren't completely at fault. The next 5 - 10 minutes was spent witnessing a few employees and regular men hand each other the tickets all the while arguing. I was picking up random words and numbers when one of the guys came to me and said in Turkish, "How many are you? Where were you?" I pointed to my comrades sitting on the bench. It seemed he was throwing the blame at us so I, very nobly and proudly, proceeded to argue, in Turkish, on our behalf that we were not at fault. I was pretty damn shocked; they believed us.

Quite soon thereafter, we were shuffled onto a bus with multiple employees pointing and saying, "this is your bus, this is your bus." We felt a sigh of relief as we sat down and had a laugh at our unfortunate situation. Content that we were headed to Izmir, I jokingly laughed with David about where this bus was actually going. This lead Saurabh to nervously ask the bus attendant, "Dude, where is this bus going?" With a smile, he said, Akcay, Baliksehir. "Shit!" We handed him our tickets and his face immediately changed to something like he had just received a shitty report card. "You're on the wrong bus."

30 minutes later we were thrown off at a farely large bus station on the Anatolian side of Istanbul. It was now almost 1230, and we looked across the Marmara Sea at Topkapi Palace, only a 20 minute walk from our own dorm. We were assured there'd be another bus going to Izmir in about 30 minutes, so with that we walked over to a small eatery to get something to drink. I grabbed an Ayran and laid it on the counter. The cafeteria guy, the "dude", immediately started up a conversation about where I was from, what I was doing here, etc. He was very warm to the presence of Americans, but was even warmer to Saurabh when he told him he was from "Hindistan." After hearing this, and the fact that Saurabh grew up in Saudi Arabia, he asked him in Turkish if he was Muslim. Now either Saurabh was very clever or just didn't understand, he calmly said "Yes". In a matter of 2 minutes, we were gathered around a table drinking free tea and eating free porça. Blessed we were.

By this time, only about 20 minutes had gone by since boarding the wrong bus and being thrown off still in Istanbul. It had been almost 2.5 hours in all and we were still in the city we were trying to leave. The "dude" asked to see our bus tickets, and at the sight of them, made a similar "shitty report card" face and started repeatedly yelling, "Come! Come! We gotta go!" We rushed out the cafeteria with our teas and followed the "dude" as he talked to multiple bus drivers and bus company employees. We went to our company's desk and were surrounded by curious employees wondering what the hell was the fuss. Multpile report card faces later, one of the employees slammed the ticket down, pointed to the 10:30 written on it, and said "Sorry." I spit off a few words attempting to make a hasty argument, when the "dude" suddenly interrupted me and fought on our behalfs. Fortunately, it worked, and again we were shuffled onto a bus. With another sigh of relief, we boarded our new bus and searched for a seat. Well, there were no seats, so the bus attendant sat us 3 on the front stairs of the bus right next to the quite intimidating bus driver. At this point is where our period of, we'll call it, "speechlessness" began. Not knowing what the hell was going on, or where we were going, we sat quietly on this crowded bus, wondering just how we would get to Izmir.

Weekend Preparation via E-mail

2006-07-17T00:39:00.000-07:00

"Well this weekend is going to be a fucking wild ride.

I've been doing some research and this is what I've found out. Cesme is 85 kilometers (1.5 hour drive) from Izmir, and shuttles from the bus station in Izmir go every 15 - 20 minutes for 7 lira. We'll take one of those when arriving early Saturday morning. Cesme for the most part seems to be pretty unknown, but it's an up and coming place. There are various beaches outside Cesme's main center, and our concert venue is just north of the center in a fishing village. The best beaches are just southwest of the center. I'm thinking the best idea would be to do something like this...

Arrive in city center around 10 - 11 AM. Find a cheap ass place to stay (more for bag storage purposes than anything else). Head to the beach just southwest of Cesme (Pirlanta Plaj). Chill out, sit on the beach, until evening, then head back to "hotel", eat lots of bread and water, then head just north of town to Dalyan, the place where the concert is. Party like crazy until early morning, then head to back to said "hotel". Maybe sleep a bit, then go to beach again until maybe 4 or 5, then take a bus back to Izmir. Take a bus from Izmir to Istanbul around 1030 at night. This of course would make us miss the football game on Sunday night but that's okay with me.

Or we could do plan B...

Arrive in Izmir, hitchhike to Cesme. Find the nearest beach with sand. Find the nearest liquor store. Begin drinking. Drink, drink, drink, beach, chicks, drink, drunk, taxi to concert venue in beach clothes, party, party, drink, party, black out, see if we make it to Istanbul.

The mission is our's.

Andrew"