The Texas Times Volume 22

Greetings All,

To kick off this year's festivities, I give you the worst thing on the entire Internet. What I don't know is whether the person who arranged this marvel will be sent straight to Hell or will be given some pre-game time in Heaven so that Handel can give him a proper dressing down. What I do know is that if you have any sense of musical propriety, this will be the worst 3:37 of your entire Season. You're welcome.

And with that, here's the rundown for 2015.

Hollis is in 7th grade and will be 13 in June. Ridiculous, I know. He bailed from the Children's Chorus of San Antonio this year but is more than making up for the time commitment with UIL scholastic type junk. He's also doing percussion in band, which I could pretty much entirely live without. He had expressed some interest in starting Latin (with eight years of Spanish Immersion under his belt, I thought that would be a Very Good Idea) but ultimately sticks and mallets won the day. He seems to be pretty good and isn't too obnoxious with it around the house, but I can only imagine how this is going to be when puberty really kicks in. Health issues are still A-OK and he was baptized a couple weeks ago as well, so those are two major scores in our book.

Hadley is a senior at Alamo Heights High School. All of her college applications are in and Baylor is the early favorite (I suspect it will be April before a final decision is made). This year has been considerably less involved for her than usual, thanks to a two screws / Frankenstein's monster ankle break at the beginning of the summer. The injury nixed her final year of club soccer (which I actually was rather happy about) but the fact that she's still only about 70% has cast more than a bit of a pall on the pending school season ... and nobody is happy about that. On the upside, she has learned a variety of useful grown-up things this year, including the distinction between corn syrup and corn oil. To clarify, only one of those is suitable for dessert recipes.

Hunter has survived three semesters in college, although rumor has it that fall 2015 may leave a few tooth marks. He's still a bit rudderless in terms of potential majors, with the top two contenders currently being Music Composition and I Have No Idea (Trinity's most popular field of study, by far). He doesn't always appreciate my skepticism regarding the general tractability of the former option, as he doesn't share my view that the lack of prior training in music theory or instrumentation is likely to be a considerable obstacle to succeeding as a composer. Although he claims that I am "crushing his dreams," I maintain that gerund choice is critical and that I am merely vetting them. But we'll see how it all plays out. He is having a good time at Trinity, learning to handle his business, and developing strong ideas about things he is NOT interested in, and obviously that is an important part of the process. I am also pleased to report that his wizardry skills are progressing quite nicely, as evidenced by a recent performance atop central New Mexico's Lookout Mountain (elevation 11,580).

Reagan graduated from Trinity in May with degrees in Religion and Creative Writing. Despite the runaway freight train demand for graduates in these areas, Reagan decided to shun the quick path to riches and, instead, enrolled in a coding bootcamp that ostensibly will transform him into an entry-level software engineer. He is doing pretty well and seems to be enjoying the idea of life as a programmer. If I'm remembering correctly, the bootcamp will end at some point in January and hopefully he will be gainfully employed shortly thereafter (note to those of you in the industry: I most assuredly am not too proud to beg). He has handled the transition to semi-adulthood well, with a jolly good attitude and no substantive complaining about having to wake up 5-6 hours earlier than he would prefer. He even has a more-or-less real haircut.

Us - Paige and I spent a week and a half in Prague and Vienna this summer to celebrate our 25th anniversary and her then-new appointment as Dean of the School of Business. For details on our trip, feel free to check out my two summary blog entries from July. You may (or may not) also want to peruse the entries from May and June, as they cover the week I spent in Istanbul. Where work is concerned, we just started our fourth year at Trinity and the university still seems rather hesitant (to put it charitably) about its commitment to Business. About one day out of every three months I can almost begin to force myself to consider thinking about what it would take for me to be willing to ponder the idea of perhaps being cautiously optimistic. The Accounting department is strong and there is ridiculous potential for most of the other areas within the School. We just hope that at some point we are allowed to take the steps that are necessary to begin fulfilling that potential.

Random Stuff

Progress - During 2015, I made significant progress in my push toward crotchety old man-hood (beyond stiff joints and hair loss, which I could do without). At least 80% of my listening hours currently involve '40s Junction (Channel 73 on Sirius XM) or Britain's 1940s Radio Network. The latter is particularly recommended, as it features wartime speeches, RAF and other interviews, and old radio shows, along with consistently outstanding music. I also recently discovered that the New York Times website has an archive section with full scans of old newspapers. I now begin every morning with news from the appropriate day in 1945. You may not believe it, but I have yet to discover a single reference to micro-aggression. Woody Allen's "Midnight In Paris" notwithstanding, if I had a time machine ...

Museums - I had to go to DC and Chicago twice this year. On my second trip to each place, I took a couple of spare afternoon hours and went to museums that I had never visited. The Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC may be the best museum experience I've ever had. Vivid. Powerful. Highly, highly recommended. In Chicago, the Art Institute is absolutely fabulous. It's not overwhelming, as a few of its European counterparts can be, and there is a terrific mix of exhibits. They even have the good judgment to put the contemporary art on the top floor, safely distant from the actual art. I swear if I were a billionaire I would sponsor a cutting edge contemporary exhibit at a major gallery on the condition that it be called "The Emperor's New Clothes."

Readings - I have one major recommendation in terms of "new" reading, and that is the City Journal (most appropriate for those with a conservative bent). In the past year or so, this publication has produced a number of outstanding pieces, three of which involve a letter of advice to the writer's college-aged son, a defense of the Western canon in the face of 21st century academic insanity, and this very balanced piece related to America's political exhaustion. Apart from that, I've spent most of the year rediscovering Milton, Wordsworth, and the Psalms. I've also recently begun working through the writings of Max Weber and Adam Smith along with a terrific new book by Jacob Soll, because I'm developing a new interdisciplinary course for next fall titled "Capitalism, Accounting, and Accountability." It's a lot sexier than it sounds (I know, it would have to be), and my colleagues in the Humanities here are pretty stoked about it. It will require a mind-numbing amount of work, but at least for now I'm looking forward to it.

In closing (and to compensate you for the opening video), I offer the following terrific, six-minute mini-documentary featuring Kate Rusby -- my favorite artist of all time and space -- talking about northern England's folk / Christmas / singing carols in pubs tradition. She even sings a tune at the end. Again, you're welcome.

I will now leave you to your merrymaking.

We wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year, and whatever else you're celebrating as 2015 transitions to 2016. Come see us if you get the chance.

God Bless,
Mike, Paige, and The Gang

Vienna

I think one could spend close to a month in Vienna and not see everything that really needs to be seen, particularly if one were to include side-trips to the surrounding countryside. We did one day of that (more later) and it was my favorite part of the entire trip. Don’t get me wrong … Prague is absolutely fabulous. But aspects of Prague seem a bit like medieval Europe combined with Disneyland. Away from Old Town it doesn’t feel that way AT ALL so maybe that’s a bit unfair, but for now I’m gonna stick with it.

Vienna is considerably more refined and feels like it could completely do without tourists. The history and architecture combined with a seemingly endless circuit of hidden courtyards with interesting buildings and terrific restaurants and cafes make it incredibly appealing. It sort of feels like how London might be if it were to try to reinvent itself as a smaller / quainter town with a bit more character and better food. Maybe that makes sense. Maybe it doesn’t. But that’s how Vienna comes across to me.

Anyway, as usual we did all of the mandatory stuff – St. Stephen’s Cathedral, a good bit of the Hofburg Palace and its environs, Mozart’s apartment, Schonbrunn Palace, at least 3-4 other churches – and a fair number of extras as well. But as usual, I'll focus here on the out-of-the-way and/or unexpected:

Train from Prague to Vienna – Our train trip to Vienna featured my favorite air / rail / subway / tram / bus passenger of all time. I don’t know the guy’s name but I do know that he was from Australia and that he was traveling with his wife and one high school-aged daughter. I also know that he spent at least an hour of the 4 ½ hour trip rearranging / crinkling the plastic grocery bags that he was using to store stuff in the family backpack, obsessively combining partially full Sprite and water bottles (see picture below), and walking to another coach to buy bags of potato chips (which he took great pleasure in crinkling as well). He also spent at least 90 minutes standing next to the two-seater in front of him where his wife and daughter sat. Some of the time he was sort of talking to them. The rest of the time he was just standing there, invading Paige’s space across the aisle and being hilariously annoying simply by virtue of his presence. Then, a full 30 minutes before we pulled into the Vienna station, he triumphantly pulled down all of his family’s bags, took them to the exit door between the coaches, and stood there, absolutely swollen with pride, secure in the knowledge that he would, in fact, be the first person to exit our coach. In many ways he reminded me of a much-less-lovable version of Clark W. Griswold, Chevy Chase’s character in the Vacation movies. I wanted to thank him for helping us make a memory, but I didn’t think he would get it.

Vienna Zoo – If you know Paige, you will not be surprised at all to learn that about half of our time at Schonbrunn Palace was spent visiting the Vienna Zoo. Yes, Schonbrunn Palace – the summer residence of Austrian royalty – is the site of what is supposedly the oldest continuously running zoo in the world. Francis I, founder of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, put it together in the mid-1700s. Actually his wife, Maria Theresa, wore the pants in the family so it probably was her doing, but whatever. The zoo has hippos and capybaras and pandas and hippos and koalas and hippos. Plus hippos. And that basically is all you need to know (again, if you know Paige). The palace and grounds are spectacular. Overall, the feel reminds me of a combination of Versailles and Sanssouci (the palace of Frederick the Great) just outside of Berlin. Inside pictures are prohibited, but if you’d like to take a semi-virtual tour, go here.

State Hall – One of the buildings secreted away within the in-town Hofburg Palace area is the Austrian National Library. Within the Austrian National Library, the State Hall contains over 200,000 old texts along with a series of 20-or-so stations that explain much of the history of Vienna up through about World War I. And yes, Archduke Franz Ferdinand – the guy whose assassination ostensibly brought about the beginning of World War I – was a nephew of Franz Joseph I, who was the longest-ruling emperor of Vienna and also is the guy you hear most about while you're doing historical-type things in Vienna. Anyway, old books plus history plus intricate carvings and ceiling frescoes always make for a good time. This place certainly is a hidden gem. You can see a virtual tour here.

Silver Collection – If table settings and cutlery and candlesticks and napkins and centerpieces are your thing, then this part of the Hofburg Palace is not to be missed. While I thought it was mind-numbingly dull, I did find it completely brilliant that there were tons of people who actually did the full 50-minute audioguide tour of room upon room upon room upon room of this stuff. After finishing the Silver Collection tour you can take the equally minutiae-driven Sisi Museum audioguide tour. Mercifully, my battery died about 10 minutes into that one, which gave us an excuse to just walk through and browse at our leisure. Ultimately, Paige and I decided that the real reason Goebbels and Hitler committed suicide was because they had intercepted a transmission telling of Allied commanders’ plans to force them to tour these two areas (with no shortcuts) after Berlin had been conquered. Actually, the Sisi Museum is pretty interesting if you just take it at your own pace. Note: Empress Sisi basically is the late 19th century Lady Di of Vienna, except she was a recluse and people didn't become obsessed with her until after she was assassinated. No inside pictures are allowed, but you may find further details about these two museums here. The photo below has nothing whatsoever to do with the Hofburg Palace. Rather, it's a view of St. Stephen's Cathedral from the terrace of our digs at Hotel Lamee (which I heartily recommend).

Melk – Of all the places we visited, Melk was my favorite. Melk is about an hour west of Vienna by train. It is famous for the Melk Abbey (the picture below is not mine), which is a Benedictine monastery that has been in operation on the same hilltop location since the 11th century. Because it is a working monastery, it has been subjected to various updates and renovations over the years, including major work in the 19th century after a huge fire wreaked havoc on the monastery and the town proper. The monastery itself is completely ridiculous. It is gigantic, houses a lot of super-important Benedictine monk stuff, and has a fabulous library and a sick cathedral. If I knew anything about art and architecture and the Catholic church I could be super impressive in my description of it, but instead I’ll just have to punt and say that it absolutely is a 10 on the gaudy scale. The stained glass isn’t in the class of St. Vitus / St. Chappelle / Notre Dame / Westminster Abbey / etc., but for full-on insane carvings, frescoes, marble, and gold, it takes the cake. Honestly, though, the best thing about Melk is the fact that it is a beautiful little cobblestone lane-ridden town that overlooks the Danube River. The entire Wachau Valley is lovely and I certainly could see spending a LOT of time there.

So that's all I've got. We got home last night to find the house clean and the kids in good spirits. They made several day-trips in our absence (including a walk-down-memory-lane College Station adventure) and handled their responsibilities beautifully. It is nice to know that we can, in fact, head off and pretend to be real adults periodically without having to worry about things too much.

Prague

Paige and I headed to Europe on Tuesday to celebrate (belatedly) our 25th anniversary. Paige's mom and stepdad were at the house until today (Saturday), and now the kids are on their own until we return on Thursday. The most recent update indicates that nobody has starved and the house hasn't burned down yet, so at this point it could be a lot worse (knock on wood).

So our flights from San Antonio to DC to Munich to Prague were easy and totally uneventful. My only complaint is that food concessions at the DC airport apparently shut down at 9 p.m. which is completely ridiculous, but whatever. We got in to Prague at about 5 p.m. local time after 16 hours in transit from San Antonio, walked around for a while and got our bearings, hung out, and went to sleep at more-or-less normal time ... so jet lag hasn't really been much of an issue.

We saw most of the stuff you're supposed to see here (Charles Bridge, St. Vitus Cathedral, Strahov Monastery, Old Town, the Museum of Medieval Art, the Jewish Quarter, etc.). We also saw a jillion other cool churches and things, and as always there were some pretty awesome and sometimes random surprises. These follow:

Our Apartment - Our apartment is on the west side of Old Town Square facing (and maybe 250 yards away from) Tyn Church. The not-really-zoomed view from our window is below. So yeah ... if you are coming to Prague and want a fabulous central location, I can set you up.

The Museum of Communism - For the full story you can visit the museum here. The abbreviated story is that the museum occupies a single floor that might be as big as the downstairs area of our house in San Antonio. It's filled with post-WWII Soviet era Czech communist paraphernalia and also has a well-done section relating to Czechoslovakia's initial major anti-communist uprising in the late 1960s (Prague Spring) and then again around the time in the late '80s when the Berlin Wall was torn down (Velvet Revolution). Within a few years, the nation split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia and the rest, as they say, is history. Anyway, we both thought this place was brilliant, both in content and in its complete tourist trap feel.

Strahov Monastery Library - OK maybe this one isn't random, but as my favorite thing so far I had to include it here. The Strahov Monastery was founded in the 12th century. There are quite a few things on the grounds, but the highlight is the library, some of which was built in the 17th century and some of which was built in the 18th century. There are two large rooms filled with a lot of old books. I don't know what more one would want. Again, more detail can be found here.

Guide at Old-New Synagogue - The Jewish cemetery contains 85,000+ bodies buried as many as 12 deep in a plot of ground that can't be bigger than an acre. Why? Because Jews in Prague weren't allowed to bury their dead anywhere other than in this one spot from the mid 1400s until the late 1700s. Only about 12,000 tombstones are visible at this point and many of them are strewn about seemingly randomly slash stacked like cordwood (if you aren't from Texas, you can look that up somewhere). It is unbelievable. But the highlight of our trip to the Jewish quarter was Mr. Janacek, the volunteer guide at the Old-New Synagogue. Mr. Janacek first asked us if we would like to know anything about the synagogue ... then pulled up a chair and talked to (at) us for 10 minutes ... then asked us if we would follow him please into another area where he talked to (at) us some more ... then asked if we were in a hurry, because he probably would talk to us for about half an hour (direct quote). I mean really, how could we refuse? The dude was soft-spoken, eager to tell us absolutely everything about the place (and the history of Jews in Prague), and seemed like he needed a friend. Seriously, he added huge value to the experience.

Na Ovocnem Trhu - On a wide, semi-empty street that runs southwest from Celetna street to the Estates Theatre (where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni), you will see Na Ovocnem Trhu. I can't comment on the food in general that is served at this place, but I can tell you that you can get an outstanding order of fruit dumplings, two gigantic Czech honey special lagers, and a glass of Moravian white wine for 200 CZ ... which is about $8. We've had insanely good food and drink everywhere we've gone - traditional Czech, Indian, French-Czech, and Thai - but the bang-for-the-buck at this place is without peer. Paige also learned a valuable lesson at Na Ovocnem Trhu, which is that Campari on its own tastes remarkably like Raid.

Trdelnik - Trdelnik is a flaky dessert-type thing that is roasted and rolled in nuts and sugar. It's kinda like a pretzelish cinnamon roll that isn't anywhere near as sweet as a cinnamon roll nor anywhere near as salty as a pretzel. Not sure if that helps or not. Whatever the case, Trdelnik drives home the point that I have ALWAYS tried to make, which is that any food that has five consonants within its first six letters has to be amazing. I have eaten two every night we've been here, no matter how much I ate for the rest of the day. They are solid.

Vysehrad - Vysehrad is a former fortress that is believed to have been built during the 10th century. Other than the outer walls and the Church of SS Peter and Paul, which has been rebuilt and restored at various points in time, most of it is gone and the entire area has been turned into a gigantic city park. The national cemetery is here as well. It includes the graves of various famous personages (including Antonin Dvorak) and important modern families as well. Anyway, the entire place is very, very, very, very cool. The first picture below is of the church and the second is a view looking north toward St. Vitus Cathedral, which you can see a few miles upstream in the right half of the picture. For more details on Vysehrad, click here.

And with that I will close. We hop the train tomorrow to Vienna, where we'll spend four nights (as we did here in Prague). At this point I definitely can say that Prague is highly recommended as a vacation destination. I think I would rather be here in Autumn when the leaves are turning and most of the tourists are gone, but I certainly will not complain.

Cheers,
Mike

Istanbul Days 5 and 6

Across my final two days here, I've mainly spent my time doing what everybody else who comes to Istanbul does. Here's the rundown.

Guided Tours – For many of the attractions in today's entry, I was part of a 7-person guided tour. I had never done a guided tour in my life before coming here because I usually (always) prefer finding stuff on my own and wandering around at my own pace. That being said, I absolutely recommend booking a small tour for most of the sights you want to see in the Old City. Having one for the Basilica Cistern would be useless and I didn't think it was important at Hagia Sophia either. But the other places? Yes. The guides themselves may or may not add value. Our guide was a recent college grad who got her degree in travel management (which includes a crazy amount of study related to Turkish history, among other things) and passed the government’s national certifying exam. She’s basically a travel guide CPA, which means she guides 50 weeks a year all across Turkey (usually but not always in or near Istanbul). She told me that a lot of the people on the tours are annoying and it gets really old at times, which I thought was pretty amusing / predictable. Anyway, the guide knew a lot of stuff and could answer any question that was thrown at her (of course she could’ve been making it all up), but the main upside to having a guide is that you don’t have to wait in line at the sights and you avoid the never-ending stream of locals calling you “friend,” asking you where you’re from in America, and wondering if you know their uncle who lives in [insert name of city here].

Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent - This mosque, not the more famous Blue Mosque, is the biggest of the 3,000+ mosques in the city. It was built on the order of the most magnificent of the sultans (if conquering other nations is important, which seems reasonable enough to me). I can't help thinking that it sounds an awful lot like what the Veggie Tales guys would name a sultan, but maybe that's because I'm tired and sort of ready to be home. You may also be interested in knowing that the Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent looks remarkably like 99% of the other mosques in Istanbul. (Note: If you took all of the mosques, put them next to each other, and added regulation shrubbery and homeowner's association fees, there would be definite similarities with late 20th century U.S. subdivisions.) Suleyman's Mosque holds about 5,000 men and approximately 80 women. I've included a picture of one of the two holding pens that women are required to occupy.

Chora Church – Chora Church provides the best representation of Byzantine era mosaics in all of Turkey. When the Ottomans conquered the city, they plastered or whitewashed over all of the mosaics (no, I am not kidding), but most things were restored in the 1940s by a group of American conservationists. Kudos to the Turks for letting that happen, as this is a small but very cool place. It probably would've been sort of boring as a small church with all white interior walls. And as you look at the pictures below, keep in mind that most of them are mosaics. If you expand the pics, it's more obvious.

Small Blue Mosque - This mosque, which also looks remarkably like a mosque, is the other main "blue" mosque in Istanbul. This mosque was ordered to be built by Suleyman the Magnificent in honor of his son-in-law. It would be very hard to find on your own and it actually was sort of cool (i.e., empty and quiet unlike the rest of the city), so I was happy that the guide chose to take us here. She said it's way easier to get a feel for the blue mosaics here than in the Blue Mosque itself because there is nobody around at this one. Score. So yes, there are mosaics here. And they are blue. The last picture features the name of Mohammed. And you thought English was complicated.

Spice Bazaar - The term "Spice Bazaar" is Ottoman for "place where trillions of tourists can be found buying the same five things from 100 or so different merchants in an enclosed space." If you want to buy spices, turkish delight, nuts, scarves, cheap necklaces, or evil eye trinkets, and if you want to have the opportunity to purchase the exact same spices, turkish delight, nuts, scarves, cheap necklaces, or evil eye trinkets from a different vendor no more than 10 feet away from the vendor who currently is hassling you to buy his spices, turkish delight, nuts, scarves, cheap necklaces, or evil eye trinkets, you need look no further. I should also mention that in the underground walkway leading to the area that contains the Spice Bazaar, you can buy underwear for 2 Turkish lira (about 80 cents) a pair from a gentleman who has set up shop in the middle of the stairs. Book your flight today! The pics below include the Bazaar and the walkway. Unfortunately I didn't manage to catch the underwear salesman, but you can see our guide's purple polka-dot umbrella leading us through the maze.

Basilica Cistern - The Basilica Cistern was built by the Romans in the 6th century. It's about as big as two football fields and holds around 30 million gallons of water. I believe that it was fed by aqueducts, at least one of which is still standing (the remains are, anyway). There may be more, but I only saw one. It also includes a couple of Medusa heads that were picked up second-hand from earlier Roman structures. If you've seen the original Clash of the Titans movie, the cistern-type feel with Medusa element will be familiar to you. It's not exactly the same concept, obviously, but there are definite similarities.

Hagia Sophia - Hagia Sophia -- the Great Church of Constantinople -- is to Istanbul as Notre Dame is to Paris as Westminster Abbey is to London as Kyle Field is to College Station. It (Hagia Sophia, not Kyle Field) was built by the Roman Emperor Justinian in the 6th century and is uniformly viewed as the crowning achievement of Byzantine architecture. After the Ottomans conquered the city it was converted into a mosque and a lot of the offending Christian stuff was covered in plaster, just like in Chora Church. Hagia Sophia has been operating as a museum since the 1930s. Like most of the other major sights in Istanbul, it currently is under restoration in the hopes that the city will be chosen to host the 2020 Olympics. Talk about chaos ... the Olympics in Istanbul? Anyway, I wasn't able to get a good picture of the outside of it. Frankly, it is too big. Reportedly you could fit Notre Dame inside of Hagia Sophia, although I'm not real sure I believe that. Anyway, it certainly is a must-see.

Closing Bullets

• Our tour guide said that although Turkey is 98% Muslim, it is a very secular country. Here are my own data: during my stay (1) I was very near several mosques when calls to prayer were occurring; (2) I never saw more than 25 people come off the street and go inside; (3) Istanbul is home to about 15 million people. I will let you do the math there with respect to the importance of religion to the average Turk. I mean yes, there are more women wearing black robes with eye slits in Istanbul than in Dallas, but still ...
• Syrian refugees are drifting in to parts of Istanbul. However, those who are doing so are having to come a mighty long way. For example, it's about as far from Aleppo to Istanbul as it is from Istanbul to Vienna. Istanbul certainly isn't for everyone, but if you believe it is for you, then there's no compelling reason for you NOT to come here ... at least for now. There is no way I would come back to the Old City again (too chaotic), but I certainly would return to the area where I spent the first three days.
• If you want to visit Istanbul, you can do so relatively cheaply. There are direct flights from a number of major U.S. airports on Turkish Airlines, and I have never had a better flying experience. Not even close. Airfare is less than it is to the major cities in western Europe and it costs far less to stay and eat well in Istanbul than it does in other large European cities.
• Food is terrific and healthy. And if you like licorice, Raki definitely is your beverage.
• This comment is not directly related to Turkey, but if I were Sultan (maybe Mike the Intolerant??) we would have a serious selfie stick smashing ceremony.

My flight leaves Istanbul at 1:20 p.m. (5:20 a.m., Texas time) and I get back to San Antonio at 10:25 p.m. Texas time. It's 13 hours in the air to Houston, followed by a three-hour layover prior to a 50 minute flight to San Antonio. Ugh. Hopefully my travel day will be less eventful than it was for Laura and Alyssa. And if you don't read Laura''s travel blog, go there NOW. You may start here. You're welcome (end of plug).

Thanks for reading. 

Cheers,

Mike

Istanbul Day 4

Due to late nights and wi-fi problems, I am now rather far behind. Today's entry will be relatively brief because Saturday was mainly a bridge day. So ... on Saturday I checked out of my posh digs at the Grand Tarabyan, went for one final 2 1/2 hour walk along the Bosphorous, and took a cab to the Old City. The hotel here is pretty nice, it's centrally located, the street upon which it is located is reasonably quiet, and the rooftop restaurant is quite good.

The only thing of note that I did on Saturday was to visit the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. While at the museum, I learned several important things.

1) Given the title of this exhibit, "Head of Alexander the Great," apparently Mr. Great was actually made of stone.

2) This is the bell from the famous Galata Tower, which still stands to this day. Paul Revere's great*35th grandfather was the bell-ringer for the Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI during the 1453 invasion in which the Ottomans conquered the city. The senior Mr. Revere, being years ahead of his time, only spoke English. As such, when he was ringing the bell and screaming "The Ottomans are coming!!" people just assumed he was announcing dinner. Constantinople fell, but the story that was passed down from generation to generation played a large part in America's victory in the Revolutionary War.

3) Here is the only recorded instance of a woman with a joey. The side pouch is particularly weird, but whatever.

4) These are the world's first bobble-heads, originally sold at the Hippodrome. It wasn't until after the Ottomans conquered Constantinople that people realized the heads would bobble better if they were actually attached to a base with a flexible joint.

5) This is a piece of the Babylonian wall, from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II. Paige and I saw many more such pieces (indeed, entire sections of the wall) in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. The unique thing about this piece is that it represents the first time in history that a building contractor ever said, "What do you mean, 'the paint doesn't match'?"

6) This is my favorite. The picture literally is taken in a lot behind the museum. In Texas, people leave broken washing machines, useless tires, and empty propane tanks lying around on their lots. In Istanbul, they leave relics from the 7th century B.C.

Probably will just have one final entry relating the last two days of events. Might be later today. Might be tomorrow. The good news is that once that one is done, you won't have to read anything else for a while.

Cheers,

Mike

Istanbul Day 3

Friday, unfortunately, was my last day in the outskirts of Istanbul, away from the city center. As you may recall from the last bit of yesterday's entry, I did my 11:30 research presentation on 2 1/2 hours of sleep. It went well, so that was good. I then had lunch at the university with three faculty members, did a bit of work, and resumed the day.

Koc University -  Koc is a private university that was founded in 1993 by the Koc family. Koc Holdings is the only Turkish company in the Fortune Global 500. The family is not poor, nor is the university. The campus is located on a hilltop in a forested area in the far northeast corner of the European side of Turkey, bordered by the Black Sea and the north end of the Bosphorous. The third bridge across the Bosphorous is being built a few miles from campus, although I certainly can't understand why. There is pretty much nothing on the Asian side that far north so it looks to be some sort of stupid political thing or something. The following four pictures feature a representative shot of campus (including the tower), a view north to the Black Sea from the tower, faculty housing (no, I am not kidding), and the in-process Most Useless Bridge on the Planet (picture taken from the outskirts of a fishing village a few miles south of campus). I still think that I prefer Bosphorous University, but I certainly would not mind working either place.

The Remains of the Day

The remainder of Friday was pretty low-key but not one bit less enjoyable than Thursday's action-fest. After a tour of campus, we left Koc at around 5 p.m. and drove through a couple of fishing villages on the way back toward Istanbul (or Bebek / Arnavutkoy, more accurately). I completely choked and didn't take any pictures as we were driving through these places, but they were very interesting -- totally stereotypic forested hillside / super-narrow winding, steep roads through "town" / old women in scarves / kids kicking rocks, chasing each other, messing around with stray dogs. Y'know, people live their lives wherever they are. Ultimately we got back to civilization and parked at Bosphorous University in the usual place-you-would-get-towed-in-5-minutes-if-you-were-at-an-American-university-but-it-is-fine-to-leave-the-car-there-for-10-hours-because-you're-in-Turkey. Dinner was at another rooftop place, this time on the Bosphorous rather than atop OMG street. As usual, both the food and the view (picture below) were amazing.

At Starbucks a few hours later, the girl behind the counter asked to use my name for our coffee order, and she spelled it M-A-Y-K. I told Lale that the girl had intentionally christened me with my very own Turkish name. Lale said that was stupid, that nobody is named Mayk. I told her not to rain on my parade, which gave me yet another opportunity to explain English metaphors. While we were sitting there, an early 20s college student-looking Turkish guy sitting nearby overheard us and asked what we were talking about. I showed him the cup and his response was "it could've been worse." Solid. He then told me that he needed me to help him come up with a name for his new tech startup company. No joke. We talked for a few minutes about what they're doing (apparently it is a bit like Periscope) and I asked him if they had any ideas for the name. He said they were thinking about "Loris," which is a small primate that I'd never heard of . He showed pictures (see them here). I told him that I thought it looked a little like a lemur and he said, "yeah ... a little like a lemur, but cuter." So I told him he should use that as the tagline -- "Loris Technologies - Like a Lemur. But Cuter." He seemed to like that idea, but then again Turkish people are nice ...

After leaving Starbucks (and neglecting to get a promise about royalties on my tagline) we walked back to Bosphorous University to pick up the car. Finals are still going on so the campus, like any college campus, was still hopping at 1 a.m. To further extend my reputation as a native, I drove the 7-8 miles back to the hotel. There wasn't very much traffic and I didn't even get to cut anybody off or use my horn, but I think I should at least get points for participation.

Tomorrow (which is actually yesterday because wi-fi was out at my new hotel last night) I'll be in the Old City and will continue updates from there. I'm anticipating that my last couple of days here will be pretty lame compared to what I've experienced so far, despite the fact that if you were to ask most tourists, I haven't "seen anything" yet. I guess it's all a matter of perspective ...

Cheers,
Mike