Friday, July 20, 2012

Mutlu Bayramlar

Hello People,


Its an exciting time in the Strange household.  Bess arrived safely here on Tuesday and it is great to have my sister here.  So far I haven't given her anytime to catch her breath.  We have stayed on the go since the morning of her first full day here.  I could tell you about it, but why not let her speak for herself.  As I keep telling her, I live here. Our sightseeing  is all about her so why don't I let you get her perspective.


In addition to the arrival of sister Bess, we are also expecting the eminent arrival of our newest family member, Little Orbit.  Hazel has taken to referring to him as "Baby Hulk" because at the moment his 38 week old head is measuring at 41 weeks. The rest of him is on a similar scale. Two weeks ago our doctor told us that she was going to stop telling us how big he is. It was enough to say that he is a big boy.  Maybe she was right.  We had another appointment yesterday and he's measuring 8 and 1/2 pounds.  Everything is looking good though, so expect some news  from us sometime next week!


Today marks the start of the holiday of Ramadan, or as it is called here, "Ramazan."  This city gets excited for Ramazan.  All of the mosques are decked out in lights and decorations and the restaurants and grocers are all stocked for the evening feasting.  Even though fasting lasts from sun up to sun down, I read an article this morning that said the restaurants here in the city can expect a 30% increase in revenue, around 4 billion liras (+/- 2 billion USD) during this month! Even though we are not muslim, the excitement at the beginning of Ramazan is a little infectious.  Maybe its similar to the feeling in the air around Christmas time in the States?


Recently I visited my friend Rabadash, who works at our corner bakery.  Many of the relationships I've made here are based more on smiles and goodwill than verbal communication, mostly because of my own severe deficiencies in the local language.  Rabadash, a dedicated fan of the comedy of Conan O, speaks english and enjoys using it to converse with me as well as helping me with my use of his language.  It had been a while since I visited him so when I got there we talked for a few minutes about life in general before the conversation turned to much more serious matters: Sports.  "Miami," he said, "Champions this year."  I'm not an NBA fan.  The last time I watched the NBA championship, or any other game for that matter, was the Bulls vs the Jazz in 1997 on a tiny, rabbit eared, black &  white television set at my grandparents house.  Still, I keep up  a little bit for moments like this.  "Yeah," I said, "LeBron finally did it."  He asked me if I saw it and when I told him no he filled me in on some of the more exciting details of the championship.  Talk then turned to other sports and eventually he asked me, "What is your favorite Telmarine team?"  You may ask, "In what sport?"  But if you lived here or just visited here you would quickly figure out that though most of Telmar may be in Asia, it is much like the rest of Europe in its choice of national sport. The people here may follow other sports, but for them Soccer is sultan!  Now this question, if I'm honest, was a little bit dreaded.  I've been trying to decide between two of the teams for a while now and hadn't come to any solid decision yet, so when he asked me I knew it was time for a decision.  "I don't know," I told him, "I've been kind of torn between Slytherin (the asian team) and Gryffindor(the European team), but I guess I'm leaning toward Gryffindor."  These are not the real team names, by the way, but the colors are the same.  Immediately he told me, "No, my friend. I go for Slytherin. On this side (Asia) you must go for Slytherin."  "Very well," I said, "I'm Slytherin." and we shook hands on it.  He then asked me what was my favorite NBA team.  I don't have one, but I figured, why not go for the hometown?  "Atlanta Hawks," said I.
"Very well," he said,"I'm for Atlanta Hawks." And we shook hands.

1 comment:

  1. Very well put - a little positive influence on both of you for the common good. Telmar is good for my son.

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