In Istanbul, we have so many sports teams - for example for soccer (or football as we call it here) we have Beşiktaş, Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray. Istanbul was even named the European Sports Capital for 2012.

I had been saying for months that I wanted to go to a basketball game and tonight was finally the night! Beşiktaş vs Spain in some kind of special match (no one knew what though so it mustn't have been very important!)

Let me preface this by saying that basketball here is nothing like the NBA. I would probably compare it more to basketball at a good 5A high school. The stadium only holds 3500 people. No concessions. Lax on rules (or maybe they don't even have things like a 3 second rule?) Despite all this, it was still fun. The crowd, even without alcohol, goes crazy almost the whole game with cheers and chants, reminiscent of Texas Fight in my days of UT football. And the game was actually incredibly close - Beşiktaş gave up a double digit lead to trail in the last 20 seconds, and eventually lost the game. The best part? Its not crowded, so you don't have to buy tickets in advance. Just show up and pick your own seats. Easy as pie.

Beşiktaş players and bench

Game action

After weeks of winter weather, we finally had a gorgeous weekend here which we used to our full advantage.

Saturday, after a hearty American breakfast of pancakes and the last of our contraband bacon, we decided to head down to Bebek. It's a neighborhood right on the water, an easy, albeit steep, walk down from Etiler. We also wanted to give the pup a chance for some good exercise and to see the water. We sat and enjoyed the views (Belle loved all the ducks), then wandered a bit. We found a nice, little fenced in "dog park" where you can let your dogs off their leashes. It isn't big, but it's nice so that you don't have to worry about them bothering non-dog lovers. After tiring Belle out with a new acquaintance and promises of future doggie play dates, we headed back. Man was it a rough walk back up. Istanbul is much more hilly than Texas and it will take me awhile to be in shape enough to do that climb back up without rest stops!


Good thing we worked up our appetites because Saturday night we got to do our first traditional Turkish Meyhane dinner. It's a family style meal that can last for hours - you just sit back and enjoy the food and conversation. You start off with lots of appetizers - cheese, eggplant (served hummus style), cabbage rolls, bread, and tons of other things I couldn't identify. And of course, a glass of Raki. Later you get salad, then meat (we had liver & onions and beef & potatoes), then finished up with fresh fruit for dessert. A meyhane is not complete without traditional Turkish music. The band goes from table to table playing and taking requests. All in all, we were there three hours and enjoyed ourselves, thanks to our Turkish hosts!

 Valentine's Day celebrations circa 2007 - and not on Valentine's day because I was a) sick on the actual Valentine's Day and b) protesting Valentine's Day. I think I should get flowers and chocolate everyday. At least in my perfect world I would!

 Snowballs!

Let me go ahead and give a little caveat that by no means am I an expert bargainer; I would rather just skip over the haggling and get right to a fair price.

However, this weekend with Paul out of town, a friend and I decided to head over to the Grand Bazaar for a little bit of rug shopping - the whammy of all bargaining experiences. Rug shopping is a big deal here - tons of shops in the bazaar and other shopping areas offering up old rugs, new rugs, silk rugs, cotton rugs, kilims, tapestries, you name it.


Here's an amateur's advice after one day of rug shopping - good luck!

1. When they offer you a chai, take them up on it; it may take awhile so might as well enjoy it. Elma chai is my favorite.

2. Have an idea in mind of what type of materials or colors you like, otherwise they very well may show you every rug in the shop (which may not a bad thing if you have lots of time)

3. Don't expect to be able to haggle them down in one or two tries. It will go back and forth and back and forth. They will take it down off the wall, show it to you up close, tell you what it's really worth or how much it would cost in the US. When they ask you a fair price, go below what you would pay, but you don't want to offend them either. And you will have to stick to your guns.

4. Be patient. In 15 minutes, we talked a guy down nearly 2,000. You have to be willing to a) take it with you right then (this can sometimes help with lowering the price) or b) walk away to the next carpet guy down the hall.

I wasn't planning on buying a rug, but we had a great carpet guy who friends had bought carpets from and he gave us a good group deal.

Can't wait to get the rug into the apartment!