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Friday, May 16, 2008

Travelogue: J+1 Benuaku di atas kaki.. benuamu di depan mata!!


I was supposed to meet Can at 8.30 am in front of the metro station at Taksim, the center of Istanbul it is just like Paris is the center of France.. everything is centralized towards Paris.. the train, the road, the administration.. etc.. It's kind of the same here. All the buses, metros and trams started from Taksim. macam KL central in KL or Chatelet in Paris.. but without the orang hitam..

So that morning, I woke up at 7.45 am, and prepared myself for the day.. normally it would take me less than 30 minutes to get ready but that day it took me longer than usual.. I had the problems of choosing my attire that day (macam pompuan ). I brought my three set of formula 1 driver t-shirts with me (Sauber petronas, Renault and Sauber BMW) and of course I wouldn't wear that tompok-tompok t shirt on my first day of stage.. and it left me with two collared t-shirt... one of them is the poker t-shirt that I wore the day before.. Kang apa kata Can kang aku pakai baju sama 2 hari berturut!! (Qu'est-ce Can va penser si je mettre le meme t-shirt 2 jours de suite) So it left me with my last t-shirt, my rugby 2007 world cup t-shirt.. and here is the problem with that t-shirt.. Normally,this t-shirt dipakai ketat untuk menunjukkan segala muscle2 di badan.. and baju tu agak ketat le jugak... so I have to kuatkan diri.. pakai baju ketat itu.. on my first day of work..!! I was arguing with myself during 10 minutes weather I should or I shouldn't wear the t-shirt.. I even considered wearing a hard -rock t shirt to my first day of work.. but finally.. I go with the rugby t-shirt!!

That morning after meeting Can, he suggested me to buy a sort of transport pass which is called akbil... well, they don't have monthly pass here in Istanbul so you buy this thing and you can reload it as much as you want.. well, as long as Can helped me to buy this thing I won't have a problem with it.. kalo beli sendri konfem kene tipu.. It costs 7 lira but in the end, I could reclaim my 7 lira by returning this Akbil back.. By using this, it will cost me 5 cents lesser than buying a normal ticket.. (oklah tuu..) On the way to buy this Akbil, something caught my eye!! CILAKAK punye CDG.. the exchange rate in CDG was 1.66 TLR per 1 euro.. whereas here, it was 1.95.. ok.. you might think that I was stupid enough to change my money in the airport, but you can't change your money into Turkish Lira anywhere else in France.. the only place that you can change euro into TLR is in the airport, itupun dekat boarding area.. Takkanlah nak datang Turki dengan tangan kosong kan?? mestilah ada duit emergency..Luckily I've only changed 50 euros.. To all those people out there who wanted to visit here.. never ever change all your money in Paris.. Change the appropriate amount first for your first few days survival.. Then, go to Taksim and change your money there..

Later, we took the bus no 42T to go to Tarabya, where the secondary school for this international school is located. It was a very very long journey and I passed 4-5 quartier (bandar) before arriving to my destination.. It was quite interesting for a first timer as I passed several interesting monuments in Istanbul (like having a mini tour). Firstly, just few minutes after taking the bus, we passed the Beşiktaş stadium.. To all the die hard football fan out there, Beşiktaş should be one of the turkish team that you are familiar with (other than Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray). Then, we descended a hill ( yup, this stadium is situated di pinggiran lereng bukit.. gambar nı pun cam senget) and for all the rest of the journey, we had a journey with the view of the ocean. Then we passed one of the castle in istanbul, Dolmahbaçe Castle (I haven't visited this place yet, so I have nothing to explain), Can's university, Galatasaray university, Ortakoy and finally, Bosphore.

Bosphore, is the strait which separated Europe and Asia. The last time when I was here with Gowe, we had a chance spending some time at Ortakoy to take a nice picture of Bosphore from there.. Well, I guess no need to return there.. Buat sedey je jalan sorang2! Dulu ade adık Emre!!

Finally after precisely 55 minutes of ride, we reached the high school, and it is totally situated next to Bosphore.. How can I describe this place.. wellm it's like "Benuaku di atas kaki.. benua tiket di depan mata" I can really see Asia from the bus stop just ın front of my workplace.. (nampaklah Amın adnan tengah bermundur2an di Asia)

Later, I was introduced to most of the staff there. My other supervisor, Gonen (the network engineer of the school) wasn't there that day. Apparently, Can and Gonen work in a part time shedule. Sometimes Can will be in charge of the IT system there and when he needed to go to the university, Gonen would take over his job..


Mosque in Ortakoy, where I passed on the way to Lycee.

Can explained me later to the network system of the high school. By half and hour of explanation, I familiarized myself with all the DHCP, DNS, fileserver, Active directory stuffs... He told me that i would applied everything that he had just explained to me, and be in charge of the IT system in the primary school. Duh?!

My first real job there is to help Can to install a computer in their art class.. Ala.. stakat pasang2 komputer je.. than our day was over.. (yup.. that's the only work that we do for the day... itu je!!) Oh before forgetting, we also deleted some of the unused icons in the desktop of the computers in the lab.. and we have to uninstalled all the unnecessary application in the Lab PC (YM, MSN Messenger, games) I've suddenly become those people the computer lab that you hated because he convıcted you for playing computer games ın tha IT lab or because you have drinks with you in the lab!! Then around 12.30 p.m, we attacked the canteen. I then learned that they will covered my lunch cost as well. This is nice, tidur free, flight free, makan free, masa pon free!! For that lunch, we had a kofte with spagetthi + ketchup sauce + yagourt+ salad (Well, it's school canteen, what could you expect) The canteen here is just like the dining hall back in high school. Everything is prepared and you don't have any choice then eating what was prepared. But of course the food was luxurious, far far much better than the food in MCKK.

After all the hard work, from 11 a.m to 1.30 p.m our day was over.. (tak tipu) We took a bus back to Taksim and on the journey back, we finally had a healthy conversation.. we shared what we learned in university.. he actually studied the image processing and told me the project on which he is working. I told him about how my school system work, what is exactly my competence and what do I expect from the internship..
In blue my journey from where I live to the lycee.

The journey back took a longer time than the morning journey, it was 2 p.m and the traffic was very bad. It's like driving in Pudu@ champs elysees at peak hours. I thought that everyone is so lazy and they'd already finished working but I was surprised later to learn that the Turk work 6 days a week from 8 to 6 p.m. Shame on you les francais!! Actually, The bumper to bumper traffic was due to the rehearsal parade which took place on the road. I saw a poster of Gwen Steffani concert in Istanbul on the 20th May but that mustn't be the reason.. Can told me that the 19th May would be the national day of turk and it was called the day of memorial to Atatürk.. Well that explained why Gwen Steffani is coming to Turkey on the 20th..

As we arrived in Taksim after 1 hour 25 minutes of bus ride, we took a separated route as Can lived far from where I live, near the airport (which was about 30 minutes ride by taxi) He handed me a tape cassette and my next task is to transfer the contains of the cassette into a CD.. I might call my day off and do it the next day I guess...

Almost 90 minutes of ride on a Turkish bus really make my head feel weird.. People always giving alasan gedik.. "Taknaklah naik komuter.. pening kepale lahh" Now, if that kind of people had the chance to take the Turkish bus, baru dia tahu langit tu tinggi ke rendah.. I straight away went to bed as I arrived home and only woke up later to fulfill the stomach (and also by the called of the muazzın)

This is the most confusing part of the day.. The choice is there in front of you and you don't know what to have.. Finally, I entered a grill retaurant, showing a ayam bakar, having it with nasi and it costs me 13 TRL (7 euro) Binawe punye orang Turki!!

As I reached home, I set my target to learn some of turkish essential words so that at least I know what I'm asking for and how much it costs me.. After having a 30 minutes revision on CISCO network.. I called it a day.. This time, i swtched off my room light.. well, papepon.. i'm not alone kan.. jesus menemani aku.. buatpe nak takut!!

5 comments:

penglipurlapar said...

i'm not alone kan.. jesus menemani aku

astaghfirullah.

Muzaffar said...

entah ajib.; astaghfirullah.. walaupun jesus di sekeliling rumah.. azan subuh pagi tadi tetap mengejutkan aku dari lamunan tidur

tiketetiket® said...

"Mosque in Ortakoy, where I passed on the way to Lycee"

lalu je ke jepp?

x singgah?hehe

tiketetiket® said...

salah ko ni jepp.

benua goda sbnanye

penglipurlapar said...

bizi bekerjaya nampak