Beyoglu and Basketball

I went to Beyoglu on the European side of Istanbul (I've been in the Old City and there is also an Asian side) last night. I was trying to see some of the Istanbul nightlife. I went to the main road, Istiklal Caddesi. It's this wide street that's really only for pedestrians and is filled with posh shops on either side. All the hip people go there. I hated it. I was pretty cold and it was just a never-ending rush of people who didn't always veer right when approaching me. The only plus, besides finding a book on a Jewish guy who visited Istanbul in 1830, was all the beautiful women.

One woman sidled up to me in a book store. Maybe she was interested, maybe she was just looking at the books next to me. I should've said hi, but I had a relapse of my Mackey Sasser disease with women. Sasser was a catcher who couldn't throw the ball back to the pitcher, though he could make any other throw. But if you can't throw the ball back to the pitcher, you can't play in the game.

I got back to the room at 9:30 and planned to go out and try this late night thing one more time. They have alcohol-free cafes around the hotel, which is more my style. But I fell asleep instead. I had woken up at 6am after 4 hours of sleep. Last night ws the first time I had a full night's sleep, from 9:30pm to 4am. I;m going to try to go out tonight, if I don't fall asleep.

Today, I went to a Turkish League Basketball game featuring Edirne and Efes. Two beautiful women sat next to me and I decided to ask them a question about the American players. After the one woman answered, they both got up and left.

Efes won big led by Esteban Batista, the Uruguayan national team's star. I was also impressed with Tarence Kinsey, who has talent, but is a bad passer. He threw an awful alley-oop attempt, chucked a pass as hard as he could at a teammate's knees, and threw a confused no-look dish sort of to Batista and then screamed at Esteban when he didn't catch the errant pass.

I also took a picture with Sasha Vujacic, who is injured. Honestly, he's one of my least favorite NBA players of all time, although I have to say he was nice to me. On the train ride back from the game, a guy starts talking to me in Turkish. I said, "Sorry?" He apologized and said, "I thought you were Turkish. You look very Turkish." He told me he had lived in Roanoake, Virginia. I was also approached by people trying to get locals to sign up for something and when I said I didn;t speak Turkish, they looked embarrassed. I noticed they let the obvious foreigners be. I also went into a mosque to pray and no one batted an eye. Apparently, Ashkenazi Jews and Turks look alike.

I came back to a sister hotel of mine; this one has the computer. I showed my new NBA-loving friend Suat my picture with Vujacic and he told me that Jeremy Lin lit up the Lakers last night. I'm planning on going to Ankara tomorrow.