Flugtag!

So Saturday is nothing worth writing home about, literally. It was a day of rest and as Emily put it, it was a day for "recharging our batteries." Still a little jet-lagged plus some late nights and long days put us in need of a day of just hanging around our flat.

Sunday we met William at 10:00 to ride the ferry from Karakoy to Kadikoy on the Asian side in order to go to the Red Bull Flugtag. This magical event happens in several cities around the world, and we got to go to the one in Istanbul! How cool. Basically, Flugtag consists of about twenty teams (at least for this event) who attempt to construct the zaniest, weirdest flying contraptions they can think of and proceed to fly them off a ramp and into the water. They are judged on distance, creativity and showmanship, but mainly on the latter two because none of the ones that we saw "flew" (more like half-glided) more than about 15 feet. Most of them just fell off of the ramp into the Bosphorous, many falling apart as soon as they went off the ramp! One in the shape of chai (tea) in a Turkish tea glass even fell apart on the runway! Somehow though (Turkish nationalism, perhaps?), it received very high marks...

The day was VERY hot and was made even hotter by the thousands of people trying to get a good view of these crazy contraptions (we happened to snag a good spot!), so after a bit we decided to head back to the ferry to return to Europe. Some Turks also thought it was hot, and made hats out of newspapers! The weirdest part was that after one guy did it, like 4 others followed suit! Here are a few of those crazy Turks.
Although we had taken a bus to the event, no one felt like waiting forever for a crowded bus that would probably sit in traffic forever, so we decided to walk. It was quite hike, but the company (as always) was wonderful, and we saw some interesting things, like this Luis Vuitton Vespa scooter! Crazy Turks. I desperately needed some nourishment by the time we made our way back to Kadikoy, so Edward and I stooped for some lahmacun, which is sort of like very thin-crust pizza with tomato sauce, lamb, and spices. DE-licious! Then it was onto the ferry and back to Europe. That night, searching for food that would actually fill us up (doner doesn't go that far, and neither does 1 lira worth of rice pilav and chickpeas!) we found a little kebap restaurant off of Istiklal. It was awesome, and after a filling and delish meal of eskender, shaved lamb in a tomato sauce with buttery, flaky bread underneath, we vowed to return to that restaurant for more fellowship and food.

Then it was back to the flat for completing our reading on harems for our trip to Topkapi Palace tomorrow. We got a little sidetracked though and began a looong discussion about Dubai and its crazy tourism. For those of you not well-versed in the subject, please look up on it! Dubai is building "Dubailand," a theme park 30 times the size of Disney World! I love all the people on the trip - we always get into such good discussions, and I am learning so much from them!

Sorry I don't have many pictures, but my standard zoom was not good enough to capture the flying contraptions! Please check out Edward or Clayton's blog for better pics! (They are linked on the side)