After two days, I started to lose hope that the weather might recover and the meterological expectations seem to comfirm my hopelessness :

There are, of course, precautions which make the weather perhaps not better but therefore keep you more pleased as well as protect your health :

- Drink water… A lot of water.. Really bottles of water…2 - 2,5 liters per day.
- Drink ayran…keeps your mineral balance
- Don’t drink alcohol when you are hungry…. knocks you out, seriously.
- Drink water !
- Eat fruits and vegetables rather than fat loaded kebap meals…
- Try to avoid the sun between 11.oo and 15.oo hours….
- Seriously ; Drink water !
- Don’t keep standing in front of the air conditioner…All you get from that is a stiff neck and aching bones !

Recently, I have noticed that driving and standing in a traffic jam is also very cruel and if you are also a smoker this makes everything worse.. Keep a bottle of water at all times but be also careful not to fill the stomach with it as this might cause nauesia.

Here’s a part of the press release from Perini Navi, the Italian company which designed the vessel:

The Maltese Falcon’s design and construction has been a collaboration between Perini Navi, Ken Freivokh, and Dijkstra & Partners. Her three carbon fibre masts, manufactured and assembled at the Yildiz Gemi yard in Tuzla under the supervision of the English company Insensys are free-standing and rotating, an absolute world-first for an application of this size and complexity. Based on the DynaRig square rig concept - developed with Gerry Dijkstra & Partners of Holland, each mast carries five separate square sails supplied by Doyle Sails.

The Maltese Falcon’s stunning interior was designed by Ken Freivokh and supplied by German based Sinnex. Her accommodations can be configured from four to six stateroom suites. The Maltese Falcon is expected to sail in the Mediterranean early this summer.

Ahoi !

via Hakan Aydın

All coming to Istanbul for Electronica Festival Istanbul.

Finally some good electronic music in the houze ;)

August, 18th and 19th !

Information : Electronica Festival Istanbul

Ticket prices are :

50 YTL (two-day ticket, normal)
80 YTL (two-day ticket, stage front)

This might look like a minor detail but it is not !

Intersexuality is reality.

For those who are not really confronted with the topic, Wiki describes intersexuality as :

“
An intersexual or intersex person (or animal of any unisexual species) is one who is born with genitalia and/or secondary sexual characteristics of indeterminate sex, or which combine features of both sexes. (The terms hermaphrodite and pseudohermaphrodite, which have been used in the past, are now considered pejorative and inaccurate and are no longer used to refer to an intersexual person.) Sometimes the phrase “ambiguous genitalia” is used. ”

Istanbul University has organized an international one day symposium to discuss the topic. The event is being sponsored by TUBITAK and will take place at the Military Museum & Cultural Center, in Harbiye.

Although this may seem to be very scientific ( as the symposium is full of speakers who are real experts in their areas), I think this is a very good step into providing more information about the alternative ways of living and sexuality and gender.

As we all know, Turkey is one of the very gender driven countries in which people have to conform with their born genders no matter what. Intersexual people are very often being ignored, verbally offended and also live a life face to face to violence.

For more information about the symposium please visit : INTERSEX ISTANBUL

As the ambulance has a priority in traffic , a respecting and apparently experienced driver who wanted take a turn left stopped at the lights waiting for the ambulance to drive through.

It all happened just because he did this.

First the car right behind him started blowing its horn, then the one behind that car. Then all of a sudden all cars who were behind this car in the very front started making this violent noise with their horns. Standing there I thought to myself that they were somehow trying to make so much noise so they could cover the siren of the ambulance, thus making the man in the very front ignore it.

The man, however, waited for the ambulance. As the ambulance was not that far anymore (it was a matter of seconds actually), I see a man getting out of the car behind our guy, shutting his door hard, walking towards our guy and through the open window he tries to punch the driver who is patiently waiting for the ambulance to drive through.

A couple of people, including me, almost jump into the situation, trying to explain the angry man that what our guy did was right because the ambulance has a priority in traffic and we get the answer :

” And that m…f….g idiot had to choose this street to get to the hospital?!”

Startled as we were, we don’t know what to say, the angry man goes back to his car, completely ignoring the fact that the ambulance was gone away almost 5 minutes ago and he has been blocking the traffic with his anger since then.

Another instance is something I saw in the news yesterday. A thief steals a car, drives away, police gets notified and chases him, he gets involved in an accident on the E5 motorway, and tries to run away on foot and the police catches him in a few moments.

Looks like a very regular story, doesn’t it ?

The funny but actually bizarre thing about the story is that after he gets out of the car after crashing into the sidings on the motorway, the police chases him but police doesn’t care about the car on the motorway. Nobody does. This happens at night and unfortunately another driver crashes into this car as there are no markings, warnings, lights around the car and the vehicle will not even be taken away. I am pretty sure that the driver will also get a ticket because of “dangerous driving on the motorway” (procedure, standard, stupid as hell but real! )

The police himself will of course not get a ticket because of unapplied security precautions after an accident on the motorway. They got the thief, they should be celebrated !

One last thing about this story… Police arrests the thief and lays him on the ground to put handcuffs on. All of a sudden a guy appears from absolutely nowhere and walks directly to the thief and kicks him hard in the face while he lies on the ground with bound hands.

Now I won’t be defending the thief but how cruel and frustrated on earth a person should be to see a complete stranger being arrested and to go kick him in the face and then with an expression of relief and a smile keep going his way ?

Istanbul…..

you were so beautiful…..

Fenerbahçe won against Galatasaray; 4 : 0…

I was raised in Florya. Back then it used to be a great place, I don’t really know what it looks like today.

But the beach is very cool, it’s not very big but not very small either and the sand is great and it is silent.

After being ignored and almost forgotten for a very long time, the city management has decided to get a grip of this beautiful beach and it isnow being turned into a modern entertainment point including everything you can think of.

Got kids ? Bring them along with you and they’ll probably have the best day of their lives. The water doesn’t get deep very suddenly so especially children will also be safe. The new beach shall also (according to the tellings) have adequate number of lifesavers so there won’t be a reason to have worries.

It is fun to see something from my childhood is rising up again….

so if you are going to stay in İstanbul for the summer and complain about there is nowhere to swim, you have no more excuses …

The exhibition is the culmination of a six-month effort by the museum’s experts and will feature never-before-displayed pieces.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday the museum’s director, historian İlber Ortaylı, said some of the items to be put on show were from the Topkapı Palace Museum’s warehouse and spanned a period from the 16th to 20th centuries.

He said among the pieces are hairdressing sets and personal care items as well as objects used by sultans from Beyazıt II to Ahmet III, including a gold ewer, a golden razor and the bath faucets of Sultan Abdülhamid II.

Ortaylı said the sultans’ Turkish bath plan from the palace’s archive dated back to 1511 and was one of the most significant pieces on display. It is also a response to those who claim that the Ottomans built without a coherent plan.

“This exhibition, which we hope will be an occasion for museum lovers to see artworks which have never been displayed before, is devoted to former director Filiz Çağman, who devoted herself to the Topkapı Palace Museum,” Ortaylı said.

The exhibition will feature 130 pieces, 80 percent of which were taken from the palace’s warehouse. The pieces were restored just for the exhibition, which features washcloths, marble basins, ewers and miniatures depicting the shaving process as well as illustrated text providing historical information about the Turkish bath tradition. The exhibition catalogue, sponsored by Akbank, will be distributed to all libraries.

The exhibition will be open until July 31 at the Topkapı Palace Imperial Treasury.

from : Turkish Daily News

This map though could give everyone a little help ;)

ISTANBUL FLASH MAP