Football!

Paul requested me to write a blog (which he almost never does after the time I bugged him for weeks straight to write a guest post). The requested topic was our most recent weekend in Istanbul. This request was not because of anything too exciting. Really, to burst everyone's expat bubble, we (at least we as in me, Paul and our friends) do not spend every weekend at some ancient, awesome site in the city. Maybe dinner on the Bosphorous, of which you should be incredibly jealous because it is amazing as I recently described, but other than that, we live a similar life to what we lived in the States. Dinner with friends, watching a movie, cleaning house and even bowling, just in a much cooler, older, bigger city. So back to my opening statement, Paul asked me to write a post about our weekend because we a) went bowling (no biggie) and b) Paul got a turkey in Turkey (definition of a turkey is 3 strikes in a row). He had his all-time high score of 202. What what!  I won't even tell you about my meager score. Unfortunately for him, he took the camera with him on his trip today, which means the world will have to wait to see proof of this feat.

Now, on to the real highlight of the week/weekend in Istanbul.  Football. And for you Americans, football = soccer.

Istanbul has 3 sports teams in the city. Beşiktaş, Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray. This week were the some of the final matches between these teams and one more Turkish team in football. There was a big match up on Sunday. It was a bit of a nail biter because Fenerbahçe had to win to be able to play Galatasaray in the final, as Galatasaray is ahead by 1 game. Don't judge me for incorrectness on 'football' terms here - this may be a language I need to learn more of, but that's another day, another blog.

Oh. My. Goodness. People here love their football. I have heard it said that the best time to get around the city are during these matches because everyone is at home watching the game. They have banned opposing fans from the games due to things being thrown, general meanness towards fans and some agreement I have heard mentioned between the teams that seems odd to me. As much as we wanted to attend a game, tickets are hard to come by. Who has the hookup for next Saturdays game?