CLICK HERE FOR THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES »

Monday, July 21, 2008

I want to live in a world where I belong

Currently in CDG Airport, waiting for my TGV back to Lille.. The best thing about waiting something is, when you have to wait something, you hve nothing to do.. and when you have nothing to do, then the best thing to do is to berangan..

My only angan-angan is that, i will wake up later on the bed in istanbul just to realize that I had another 2-month before going back to France.. Well guess you would appreciate things when there were gone right!

The only good thing about being in France, is that I have access to youtube (Youtube is banned in Turkey because some Greek Idiot put a video claimed that Ataturk was gay.. stupid greek people)
So since I have access to youtube now, at least I can entertain myself with those songs which once ago, lighted my daily life in Istanbul..

Just want to share those songs with u guyz







And of course, lepak2 sambil mengenang kembali kenangan tengok euro.. berulang2 kali tgk video ni.. must have been the best goal of the tournament... nampak le hakan balta baca do lepas gol tu..

Friday, July 18, 2008

I turk it my way!

Few hours from now I'll be leaving my home for the last two months.. 3 years before, during my first visit to this dreamland, as the onur air flight departed from sabihah gocken airport back to Istanbul.. I told myself that I would come back to turkey one day.. and I setted myself a target on 2008 (as during that time, normally the Metro project connecting Asian-Europe was supposed to be finished)

And as I departed from Paris few months ago, I hesitated a little bit.. I had a memorable time during my last visit here and I was afraid that my two-month stay would ruined that.. yet.. here I am again, in the same situation as I was three years ago.. I am about to leave Turkiye.. but I can't say goodbye..

If I had a choice either to spend my whole summer here or to go back to Malaysia, I am sorry that I had to reject the latter.. but I had no choice then.. As I am staying right now in somebody's appartment rent free.. Staying longer might be a burden to him..

What made this two month experience so special to me? It's not about visiting all those monuments in Sultanahmet area.. (trust me.. I've finished visited all those tourist attractions during my first week here) For me, it was about how warm and welcoming all the people here.. If I had to give some sort of points on the criterias that made my trip here a wonderful experience for me, I would think 60% was because the people here, 30 % because of experience watching Euro 2008 and 10% because of the monuments and the environments..

I stayed here for about two months, and in that two months I only felt that I've been cheated once.. well not that i was cheated.. at least the person told me in advance that he would katok me..

I was about entering a bar for the Turkey-Germany Euro 2008 match and the usher in the bar politely said to me that I had to pay and entrance fee of 25 Lira just for the match (well , normally it would cost 5 Lira for me to order a Coke in the bar) -Coke ye kawan2 bukan Ephes-

Sometimes I felt bad for the turkish people.. don't they know how to katok pelancong ? A pakcik in front of my apartment, charged me 1 Lira for a Cornetto ice cream when the real price was more than two liras.. Unlike most of the countries (tanya kawan-kawan kat Mesir) they had two menus , one in english (with a different price of course) and another in Arabic.. And guess what.. taxi drivers here are still using meters...

I told Hisham when he came here that this was one of the factor why I liked turkiye and his people very much.. and I told him to note berape kali dia bakal ditipu during his trip.. after about 6 hours of checking in kat Hotel in Athens.. the housekeeper charged him 1 euro for using internet eventhough it was written earlier that the internet should be free ( It was better to charge people mahal, but at least you said earlier that you would charge them rather than kata taknak charge orang.. lepas tu charge)

And the next day, when we were eating in a seafood restaurant (still in Athens) the waiter there hidang macam2.. air kosong and roti (standard restoran le kan) and when the bill arrived, they thought that we couldn't understand those mathematics word.. still they charged us for that..

It took me about months to get cheated by a Stambouliste (takdele kene tipu.. tapi kene charge mahal le.. tp standard le.. sume orang malam tu bayar 25 lira ) and as I stepped out from turkiye.. bang... operasi menipu tourist bermula semula..

And believe me.. if I want to compare my experience in Turkiye with my experience in Cairo.. it's like comparing a slice of pickle and a chicken chop, mane lagi sedap..

I would definitely miss how my friend threated me here during my stay.. Sometimes I stayed with the guard of my apartment .. lepak2 killing our time.. some of them couldn't speak french or english well.. but it was not a halangan for us to communicate..

In one incident I was in the guard house with this one guard who can't speak french or english.. and I was talking to him in french and he was talking to me in turkish.. after realizing that we couldn't understand each other.. we just had our silence moment for a while.. and I started to watch the tv.. later I realised during that silence moment.. he was exploring the turkish-french dictionary to find all the words that he said to me earlier.. just to ensure that I managed to understand what he tried to explain me..

Do you remember the scene from love actually where colin flirth learned the portuguese language in order to propose ther portuguese maid and later when he proposed her.. that girl had in fact learned english in case colin flirth proposed him? Well , that's kind of happening to me.. the pakcik that charged me 1 lira for ice cream will greet me everyday with a simple english phrase that I bet he memorised hardly in order for us to have a casual conversation.. it's kind of a hint for me to learn turkish but believe me.. it's a different language from latin root.. and for ticket in japan, it would be easy for him as it came from a different root with japanese language (big a house have I)

But what can I say.. believe it or not.. I will soon be leaving Turkiye.. and I had such a memorable experience behind me.. Few years back there it was hard enough for me to leave turkiye after a 5-day visit here and today it would be 15 times harder for me to leave turkiye after my 70-day stay here..

Just as the commentator in ATV said right after the loss of turkiye to alemanya..

Tesekkuler Turkiye