Messin' with Texas

Wow. So this has been the worst start of any year for me ever. Literally everything has been going wrong. Quickly, here is a list. I think that some greater power that exists only in Texas is out to get me. No but seriously, I must have done something really bad to have such bad [...]

Last weekend, I randomly felt inspired to do something creative. I was looking through my boxes of saved things and I came up with the idea you see below. It’s a grid of post cards, 7×7. Every other one shows the writing that one of my friends wrote to me, and the others show the [...]

I got my stuff and set up my apartment! Check out the pictures. All the things don’t quite go together well, but I like it. The dining room table and it’s covering looks the best I think.

So I have been getting a lot of questions about where exactly I live. Beaumont, Texas is in south east Texas right on the border with Louisiana. You can see the map below:
Also for those of you that are curious here is a little weather data. It rains a fair amount here (I am in [...]

Here are some pictures of the new place. It’s a gated community, called The Preserve, with a swimming pool, jacuzzi, 24 hour gym, tanning salon (it’s really just a tanning bed). It has a club house where they have different kinds of coffee and and tea, a theater room, a sitting area, and computers and [...]

A few weeks ago, Alper sent me this video. This is from the main highway into Istanbul, the highway that I take to get into the city. The best part is probably the last driver who drives not only against traffic but in the fast lane?! The question is why do so many people need [...]

I actually wasn’t sure that the Istanbul based soccer club Fenerbache had beaten London’s Chelsea last night during their champions league match last night here in Istanbul. Fenerbache is the most expensive team in Turkish history this year with a total cost for it’s players of 100 million euros. That’s quite an impressive number. Besiktas [...]

Two weeks ago a friend from high school, Jessica, came to visit me. She, like me, is an expatriate. She currently lives in Cadiz, Spain where she works as an English teacher. She came to visit Istanbul for one week. Below is an excerpt from her blog entry or you can click here to read [...]

The Turkish economy is actually quite good. The size of the unreported or black market economy makes Turkey reasonable stable. Despite the very volatile political situation that has been developing over the past year, the Turkish Lyra spent most of the fall being one of four currencies rising against the year. However, there are hiccups [...]

Check it out:
Turkish Government Bans YouTube!
No more YouTube!
In Turkey there is a law called article 301 which has made it illegal to insult ‘Turkishness’ since coming into effect in June of 2005. The article states:
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Article 301 states the following.[6]

A person who publicly denigrates Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be [...]