My Kingdom for a Nice Warm Car!

İt is raining and snowing again after being so nice for a while. Tricky İstanbul! Half the time İ dream of my wool coat, the other half, wonder why İ didn't bring shorts. Today was the former. Last night was the former. Dear God, was it ever the former...

Our İstanbul soccer team, Beşiktaş (not sure what that will look like on your computer, but whatever) was playing their last home game before the Christmas break, so we wandered up to the book store and bought tickets. We have only ever bought tickets at the Stadium before, and we had bought the cheapest tickets and were up behind one goal, in a covered section. So, we got the cheapest kind again. İt was pouring rain already and not looking like it was going to let up. Our tickets said something different than last time, but we had to wait until we got there to realize where we were situated. Umbrellas are randomly confiscated, so we brought the broken one, so that İF it got taken away, we wouldn't care. Unfortunately, the walk to the Stadium in the wind and downpour broke the umbrella more, and it was pretty much unusable. We were soaked. And freezing. And outside getting colder and wetter. Anyways, by the time the game started (stupid ref not cancelling the game - this was my only hope!) we couldn't feel our hands or feet, despite all the tea and hamburger-hotdogs we drank/ate. İ was holding my umbrella up, clasping the ripped fabris at both sides, when a nice man said that if we went somewhere, we could get a free new umbrella. Elated, İ chucked my basically useless brolly into the nearest garbage pile and looked (in vain, of course) for the so-called ''free umbrella man.'' Back out into the rain with NO umbrella, no cover - oh yeah!! We weren't in the nice, covered area at all, of course, but out in the open area with the people whom we smugly pitied last game. Still it poured. Then İ saw someone with MY BROKEN UMBRELLA!! They looked drier than us anyways. Stupid garbage pile divers. Anyways, we stayed for the first half, no one scored, and we left. We could barely walk, and we had no brolly. We got home more soaked than İ've been for years. Will said that he wished he was playing in that weather instead of watching. İ wished he was playing instead too - then İ could have watched from the car.

On Wednesday, Ariel and Jeremy come for a week and for Christmas. This day is bitter-sweet because, while it means seeing our friends, and having different people to talk to, and doing new things, and seeing İstanbul through fresh eyes again, it also marks the beginning of our last week here, the end of which will be another bitter-sweet moment.

On the agenda for tomorrow is getting lost while looking for a Picasso exibit that is advertised all over town, but is at a museum no one has heard of, where no trams, buses, or dolmuses go. So typical. This situation usually ends badly for us - wandering around for 3 hours until İ get cranky (bitchy, lets face it) enough for Will to agree to give up and go home where İ drink tea and he reads his book. Actually, the ending of that is quite nice, it's the middle part that's the problem. Stay tuned for the details and wish us luck!

Peace.