go fenerbahce -- rah, rah!!

15.08.07

met G and S in the morning at the new mosque. i got there early so i poked around the spice bazaar. great sights & smells. i ended up buying some dried fruit & almonds. i am crazy about dried strawberries, so i bought some of those. and also dried kiwi (weird!) and apricots (the grandaddy of dried fruit). anyway. delicious. the process of buying the fruit was entertaining. there were tonnes of people in this little spice stall. and they tried to sell me "the sultan's aphrodisiac" - when i looked faux-miffed and said that i am the aphrodisiac. they laughed and said i should get it for my friends. i wasn't feeling gag-gifty. so none of you are getting the sultan's aphrodisiac. just put on some axe like everyone else.

the three of us also scoped out the grand bazaar, which is a maze-like (indoor -- yay!) marketplace with lanes that sell specific items. for example, we accidentally strolled down leather-dead cow lane. the thought of leather jackets in 35 degree weather was nausea-inducing. we wandered around and i found a neat jewellery shop, with a lot of felted jewellery and some wickedawesome hats (of course we tried them on). the general feeling in our group was that pushy sales techniques make us want to never return to a stall, where as north-american style ignoring the customer is what we do respond to. yes, i want to have to chase down the salesperson. having someone leap upon you the minute to look in the direction of their wares is a little irritating. i need to contemplate in silence. there was a market outside the grand bazaar as well. G bought a jersey for the football match we were going to later that day. it was a wise move as it endeared him to many, many turks (and by extension, S and I too.)

we all split up for nap-time, second showers, etc. we were to meet up again at our new mosque meeting spot around 6 pm. i went back to my hotel, took another shower, walked around in search of some internet. realize now that i had walked past a bunch of internet places that i didn't spot. i got to the meeting spot insanely early. so i walked around some more. i found a street with (new) bookshops. wandered in and out of the bookshops and the stationary stores in the area. meandered my way back to the meeting spot.

the three of us took the ferry over to the stadium. the stadium and fenerbahce's base is in kadikoy, in the (surprise, surprise) fenerbahce district of istanbul. the stadium is an interesting story in and of itself. it's called sukru saracoglu stadium & inaugurated in 1908!! according to my friends at wikipedia, the stadium is the first one in turkey designed according to official football regulations and standards (it was renovated between 1999 and 2006). it's been selected to host the 2009 UEFA (Union of European Football Associationg) Cup final. the total capacity of the stadium is 50,509. kinda cool.

so, we follow the wave of blue & yellow striped jersey to the ferry and from the ferry to the stadium, stopping to grab some dinner. the match was between fenerbahce and a belgian team, anderlecht (i took to calling them anderblecht). the match was important (and now i remember) because it was for advancement to the champions league. and fenerbahce needed to win. the air was thick with excitement and anticipation. the stadium filled up (not to capacity, but decent) with waves of blue & yellow striped fans. i filled my belly with turka cola, a coke rip-off that was actually quite refreshing (that's a huge statement from someone who refused to drink generic coke and would rather go without.)

the game was super exciting. we were all really into it. we asked the group behind us (mixed group, adults & kids) to teach us some of the cheers. the crowd was doing chants in support of fenerbahce. and S and i were keen to know what the cheers were.
the guys sitting behind us wrote them down in my notebook.

here they are with loose translations:

oooooh sampiyon fener [fener are the champions]
en buyuk fener, baska buyik yok [fener is the biggest team; nothing else matters]
burasi kadikoy buradan, gilels yok [this place is kadikoy, there is no way out from here]

pretty cool.

what's also pretty cool are the two hottt turkish guys (definitely dual citizens of hotttistan) who were wildly cheering. and seriously were the dreamiest boys i have seen in a long while. S, on her way back from the washroom, had to pass by them. they stopped and chatted a bit. it pays to have a hot japanese lady in your group! then we kept looking at them, and them at us. i took some crappy photos of them. seriously, super duper couldn't get them out of my head. even now, i'm smiling a goofy smile at the thought of them. okay. crazy.

post-match, we followed the crowd out of the stadium (talk about bottleneck at the gates). G's awesome jersey got us props again. we boot it back to the ferry, but we're going separate ways. S and i are heading back to sultanahmet and G is back to beyoglu. S and i take the ferry back to the area around the new mosque and walk back together.

a perfect day.

gotta note how awesome G was in planning out an agenda. i could just go along with it because he planned everything i wanted to do. total travel mind meld. love it.

more information courtesy of wikipedia:

fenerbahçe Spor Kulübü (Fenerbahçe Sport Club), commonly known as Fenerbahçe (IPA: [feneːɾbatʃe]), is a professional sports club located in Istanbul, Turkey. The team is based in the district of Istanbul named Fenerbahçe. The name of the district and the sports club derives from the lighthouse located in the district ('Fener' in Turkish means lighthouse, 'bahçe' means garden). The most popular branch of the club by far is the football team. The club also competes in basketball, volleyball, rowing, boxing, sailing, athletics, swimming and table tennis. Fenerbahçe's football branch currently plays in the Turkcell Süper Lig. They are nicknamed the Yellow canaries and play their home games at the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadyumu in Kadıköy. Fenerbahçe is celebrating its centennial year, as of 2007.