A wild day at 19 Mayis Stadyum

Today I went to my second football match ever with the last one 30 or so years ago watching Pele play for the New York Cosmos in Toronto. With my new buddies Chris and his son Matthew, and Carlo, Oğuz, and Emin. First stop was the Beer Bus Bar in Kizilay to have some drinks and get ready for the game and make our way to the stadium to see home team Gençlerbirliği face Manisaspor.

After exiting the taxi we were greeted by the loud thunder of a political rally right beside the stadium, the road clogged with people. Entering the stadium was a whole new experience for me – being frisked up and down, bag checked, amidst the excitement of the crowd moving to the entrance gates. Inside we found our seats to the never ending cheers and chants.

We were sitting in the “commoners” section – across the stadium sat the VIPs. No cheers from them. They sat in their seats and sipped their tea and that’s about it. Then off in an isolated and secluded corner of the stadium were the wildly chanting Manisaspor fans. I don’t think I ever saw them sitting down, constantly chanting and jumping up trying to motivate their team.

The sun shone bright into our eyes. So bright that some used newspapers as sun hats. For the whole game the chants of the home team were quite incredible. My favourite being “Kirmizi! Siyah! Hayatim, Ankara!” (Red, Black, My life, Ankara!!) The black and red referring to the Gençlerbirliği colours and those black and red chaps put quite a number on Manisaspor dominating the game with endless scoring chances and putting two goals in to win convincingly 2-0.

My new buddies told me it was the best they played all season. For me, the whole experience was quite something. The constant chants, and cheers, many times led by a ringleader to our left; everyone always seemed to look to him for guidance and just wait for him to ignite a new cheer. Although and older gentleman below me sure tried to match this ringleader, with many a biting comment on the action. Too bad I couldn’t grasp his commentary in my limited knowledge of Turkish.

One thing is for sure; although the stadium seemed practically empty – maybe 3000 fans in a 19, 000 capacity stadium – the energy of the fans were kinetic. Almost felt like a choir rehearsal - so many different songs to sing, while taking our lead from the ringmaster.

One of the chants was to support and motivate one of the stars of the team Hurşut Meriç. His first name is pronounced “Hoorshoot”. When I first heard this loud chant I wondered why everyone was saying. “Hoorshoot, Hoorshoot, Hoorshoot” – it really sounded like a chant you might say if a referee made a bad call:)

Apparently his name was Hurşit before he was advised to change it to Hurşut. Good call there. Anyways, my worries were laid to rest when it was explained all this chanting was in support of this star player, who actually came out to the pitch after the game was over to whip the fans in frenzy.

My new buddy Chris is a football regular and has a detailed blog on football in Ankara. You can check that out at

http://ankarafootball.com/

Kopalak is back in town

Well after a long hiatus Kopalak is back in Ankara. For more details on what "Kopalak" means and where the name came from, you can go to the beginning of this blog, started way back in May 2009 in my third trip to Turkey. Just click below:

http://kopalak.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-hell-is-kopalak-anyway.html

From there you can click "Blog Archive" on the right hand side and select a month for more background to my blog.

So here I am in Ankara and a married man with my beautiful wife Ayşegül. We were married October 16 in Bergama (Pergamum), one of the oldest cities in the world. In Bergama you will find one of the oldest churches in the world and the steepest ampitheatre in the globe, as part of the Akropol ruins looming triumphantly on the far edge of the city. My whole family and a friend from Toronto was there, along with Ayşegül's family, and her many relatives and close friends. We all took over Bergama and boosted Bergama tourism with all the activity there! The few wedding photos here are from inside the Kizil Avlu (Red Basiica), taken on a wild afternoon from teasing sun showers, intense thundershowers, and glowing sunlight.

Quite the adventure for Ayşegül in her high heels and wedding dress, and for our friends there taking our photos, enduring the volatile weather conditions protecting their cameras while simultaneoulsy climbing over rocks in the rain to capture the magic in Ayşegül and mine eyes.

After our magical wedding day and night, we had numerous adventures and family time throughout Bergama, including a trip to the Akropol and the Red Basilica, rug shopping down Izmir Caddesi, brunch in the deep forest, parading around a beautiful mountain village of Sirince, the historic, ruins of Ephesus, and culminating with a weekend in Istanbul and a trip to the magical island of Buyukada (Big Island), a captivating island of horse carriages, no cars, bright gardens, colourful trainquil homes, and and endless view of the Marmara sea and the great city of Istanbul in the distance.

happy together

more from the open-air museum and fairy chimnies1

Photo 1 - here I go walking into a chapel!!

Photo 2 - now inside a chapel. Look closely and you can see a cross engraved on a wall behind me

Photo 3 - still in the open air museum taking breaks between chapel visits

Photo 4 - here we are walking to the open-air museum and we came across all these people who took people on horses around Kapadokya

Photo 5 - Just incredible these rock formations arent they!!!

magical day in Kapadokya

Photo 1 - This is a Erik tree. These small sour plums that are all the rage in Turkey right now. Here we are on a hike through a valley and we came across many of these Erik trees and of course we went crazy!

Photo 2 - very happy about the Erik trees :)

Photo 3 - Here Aysegul stands proud in front of maybe the most famous of the fairy chiminies. These fairy chiminies appeared on the back of the 50 Lira note before they changed it recently. About the fairy chiminies I should mention a bit on how this incredible unique landscape was created. There was a volcanic eruption that created this wonder of the world - The Turkish Grand Canyon as it were - and combined with the wind and other weather conditions created these incredible fairy chiminies. Everywhere we went in Kapadokya felt like being inside a fairy tale. All magical and peaceful. With the fairy chiminies (called that way because they resemble something out of a fairy tale) and the soft rocks resembling mountains of ice cream and whip cream and fudge everywhere, and the cave dwellings everywhere the eye can see, we felt like we were the Flinstones living in Smurf-ville. Or as Aysegul continually put it, we were living inside a Lord of the Rings story and we should see Hobbits running around everywhere.

Photo 4 - This i believe is the famous `Camel humps fairy chimney` as the magical rocks resemble this. There are other famous chimneys such as `couple dancing`, `ducks` and many others i am sure. On our tour we were free to name any chimney we wished:)

Photo 5 - all happy in front of the camel fairy chimney

and now photos from our all-day Kapadokya tour with all those other Canadians

These photos are from the all-day tour we did on the Saturday we were in Kapadokya. And Aysegul was the only non-Canadian in the tour! Our tour bus consisted of Levent the Turkish tour guide, two Canadians from Calgary, two more from Quebec, and Mr. Kopalak from Toronto. Aysegul was the Yabanci (foreigner) in the group :)

Photo 1 - this is in this huge pottery place we went to and I tried to make pottery. This place had such beautiful pottery

Photo 2 - after the long day tour relaxing with tour friends in the cafe

Photo 3 - there is the whole group except mr. Kopalak. Here we are on an a beautiful hike into a valley full of more caves like the one you see, and actually a lot of vegetation and some Erik trees - sour plums that are so popular here! We picked lots of Erik :)

Photo 4 - here is Aysegul and all her new Canadian friends in a cave restuarant in a town called Avanos. Yes thats right - a cave restaurant. We were living life as Flinstones characters the whole time. Here we had a local delicacy - pottery doner - a sort of stew that is cooked inside a pottery pot and then they bring it to the table and break the neck of the pot and pour the hot steaming meat onto your plate. Yumm

Photo 5 - here we are after touring the underground city. This was a hiding place for Christians long long long time ago to escape invaders. They lived here for long periods of time and in the caves you can see the kitchen and living areas and where they stored the food. In fact many caves were used to store and refrigerate food for long periods of time. Perfectly cool and protected.

Kopalak in the heart of Cappadocia