A Turk, a Dane, a Pakistani and an American are driving to İstanbul.

Last week I became utterly poleaxed by ennui over my lunch hour and, seeking the sweet succor that only a series of Wikipedia entries can provide, I fired up Mozilla - and stopped. It was at that moment that I was suddenly consumed with a desire - nay, a clarion need - to Google my own precious name to keep tabs on who was spreading smack about me.

Whether I was bidden to do so by the gravelly, dead voice of one of my more dominant personalities or the decaying-corpse-reeking breath of the Hooved One, one just can never tell.

In mere moments, meantime, I was presented with several dozen links, each of which purported to contain my name in some fashion. Some I'd fully anticipated; this blog's URL, for one, and links to several articles I wrote for the University of Maine's student rag. One of the links had a funny URL, though, and purported to contain pictures.

[awesome?]

I gingerly scrolled down to the URL of the site that claimed to sport photographic evidence of me and hovered the mouse pointer over the link. The part of me that still has residual ability to feel was filled with icy dread, but, as the part of me that couldn't give a fancy fig animates my limbs, I felt my fingers tap twice on the mouse clicker-thing.

The last thing I expected to see - well, other than documentation of my supposed linkage to that Chiang Mai Harelip deal gone wrong from last August - were pictures of a twenty-year-old me taken by one of my friends when I was studying abroad in Turkey. There I am, staring back from across three continents and more than six years at a balder, fatter and arguably more educated man who is on the cusp of thirty. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry - or, as I eventually did, break open a pack of apple strudel Pop-Tarts and settle back in amazement at the show.

Of course, I have my own pictures of Turkey. Thirty-six rolls of film worth of them, in fact. But seeing these - well, somehow it's different. Anyway, with apologies to Bilaal Ahmed (the photographer in most of these shots), I have taken some and put them on here so that my readership can mock my haircut and inquire as to the whereabouts of both the gray hoodie (deceased) and the red fleecy thing (also deceased).

Left to right: A twenty-year-old Domonic, Jacob HØgild and Syed Bilaal Ahmad.

I wasn't entirely sure what I should have expected when I arrived at Bilkent University. The University of Maine didn't know, either - after my application had been approved and Bilkent had sent their acceptance letter, I was informed that I was to be the first UMaine student to go there. This was news which, as you might imagine, I greeted with the enthusiasm level one reserves for scraping a rapidly-cooking animal carcass out of the grill of your car as, you know, Turkey just so happens to be in the Middle-feckin'-East. I also didn't anticipate that I would be one of only three new exchange students at the school.

Just three of us. Nine thousand Turks, and three of us. [There was an Australian exchange student who'd been there since the spring, but he didn't count, as he could speak Turkish.]

My "orientation" consisted of the young Pakistani chap who'd picked me up at the airport standing me in the middle of campus and pointing his fingers at several distant buildings.

Young Pakistani Chap: [while trying to light up his fourth smoke on our ten minute walk] So: you can eat there, there and there. You can also eat there, but it is rrrreal shet. You buy your books there. The bank is there, and the post office is there. And the library is over there. [takes impossibly deep drag] Alright then. I am getting laid in about twenty minutes and she rrrrreally hates if I am late. [begins to walk away]

Me: [misting up and becoming frantic]

YPC: Look: if you get lost, just say "Yurt Yetmiş Sekiz" and someone will tell you how to get there.

Me: What's "Yurt Yetmiş Sekiz?"

YPC: Oh my fecking GOD. It's your DORM. I have to motor so that I can bum a rubber from my friend.

Wherever you are right now, YPC, I hope your pee burns when it comes out.

This is Jacob and me in my ghastly little dorm room which I shared with a young Turk from Gaziantep. He (the roommate) was a nice enough chap save for a few minor details:

1) He let his friends chain-smoke in my room.
2) He talked on his cell-phone until 2 AM every night.
3) He BATHED in the most foul cologne that has ever graced the male form.
4) I had to hide my food because he'd eat it without asking.
5) The window you see behind me? Every morning at 7:30 AM, he'd open the curtain, open the window, and blow snot-rockets and hork lungers onto the awaiting plateau scrub below.


It was so great to live with him! Oh, and did I mention his grandmother called every other day at the precise astral moment that he'd gone to class, leaving me to try to muddle through explaining to her in broken Turkish that her grandson was a troll? Or that he called showering "douching" and would announce loudly that he was going to perform as such every single time he did it?

Fortunately, though, I didn't have to spend that much time with the Roomie of Doom because I got "adopted" by the four gents living next door. This is Jacob and my best Turkish friend, Dinçer, at the Atakule (Atatürk's Tower) in Ankara. Dinçer is from Ödemiş, near İzmir, but was born and raised (until he was ten) in Australia. He took my education in how Turkey functions to immediate task by teaching me soccer cheers which, while grammatically educational, often contained profanity so startling that merely thinking them caused the stench of sulfur to elp forth from your skin.

For example:

I am going to plant a pine tree in your mother's (feminine parts) and (make love to her) in the shade.

So genteel. As an aside, you had better either be double the size of the dude you are saying that to or else be saying it from another continent, preferably separated by at least one ocean.

The three yabancılar (foreigners) up inside the Atakule, Ankara.

Jacob's best Turkish buddy, Güneş (behind me), took us home to İstanbul so that we could behold the Big Meat on a Stick herself. We stayed at a hotel on the Asian side of the city that was - and I have to be frank - the most horrid little place I've ever laid my delicate head. Of course, that's what you get when one pays $8.50 a night. Anyway, this is us in Bolu, on the road to İstanbul, at some little truck-stop. It wasn't much to look at, but the food was great - and, as one might imagine, incredibly inexpensive.

Me, grinning at some asshole joke I'd just cracked, on the ferry from İstanbul to the Prince's Islands. The Prince's Islands (or the Adalar) belong to the İstanbul metropolitan area by jurisdiction, but the two are worlds apart, as on many of the islands there are no cars allowed. This starkly contrasts to İstanbul, where I was nearly smacked out of my skin four times by drivers - one of whom had come partially up over a sidewalk in order to make a hairpin turn.

While on Büyükada (literally, the Big Island), we met up with Güneş' old chummy, a part-time resident of the island who is distinguished in my memory for being one of the few blonde Turks I met while there. He's second from the left in this picture of us climbing down from the top of Büyükada, wherein is seated one of three of Turkey's remaining Greek Orthodox monasteries.

Jacob, Bilaal (taking picture) and I, lost in İstanbul, trying to understand some old man's animated sign language directions with little success. He really did try, though, but our impenetrable foreign retardation rendered his efforts futile.

Back on Büyükada, we were accosted by this Dutch kid and his American girlfriend (seated in the first two seats on the left) as we were walking around; their relief at finding Anglophones caused a nearly palpable reek.

Jacob pointing something on the European side of İstanbul out to me; I'm fairly certain that this photograph was staged.

Drinking something warm somewhere in İstanbul.

Güneş horsing around with Bilaal while I look on in amusement; the Bosphorus and the Black Sea stretch behind us.




An international homoerotic moment? I was clearly either intrigued or uncomfortable - it's probably safe to say both.

At the Sultanahmet Camii (the Blue Mosque), İstanbul. I am looking really, really white.

Güneş' family treated us with the hospitality that Turks are legendary for; in this particular case, a breakfast that would only see the hostess stopping bringing out more food with the sweet release of death. Just when we thought that we were going to very literally, a la the "gluttony" victim in the movie "Se7en", die from overindulgence, Güneş' mom brings out oranges the size of hubcaps and begins to peel them for us. Clearly, the hard-boiled eggs, bread, simit (bread rings crusted with sesame seeds), börek (pastry filled with herbs and feta), honey, feta, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, lamb ham, tea and chocolate weren't enough.


Our favorite restaurant in Ankara, Haci Arif Bey's. They made ayran (yogurt frappe) that makes me want to slap your mama.




Good Lord, I got a lot of use out of that fleece. Me and Dinçer on the Alle, Bilkent University.




Us (me in the background, trying not to trip on something) at Hattuşaş, the Hittite capital city. I'd thought of renting a mini-bus (and a driver) for the day to go there, and I got all of my friends up at the crack of dawn to go. We had a blast. It was, incidentally, the last trip I went on with both Bilaal and Jacob together. As our time in Turkey wore on, we each found our social niches. Mine was with the Aegean boys next door - Dinçer especially - and Jacob had Güneş. Bilaal ended up finding quite a few Pakistani buddies with whom he'd socialize. By the end of the semester we saw less and less of each other until we found each other leaving notes and voicemails, always missing each other as we went off into our own little realities.

[cue the instrumental theme from "St. Elmo's Fire"]

Seeing these pictures made me miss how I felt every day when I was in Turkey. More than that, though, I miss my friends terribly and wonder how and what they are doing.

[pausing to huff from can of paint-thinner]

Ahh. Wait: what was I talking about?

Until next time, I remain,

Domonic (weepynostalgiaisofttobecuredbyinhalinghouseholdsolvents) Potorti