Republic Day

Alhamdulillah, I've been a bit sick the past couple of days, and I think it will get worse before it gets better. It is just a cold so far, but it will probably spread to sore throat and maybe fever. I can usually tell the onset is near a couple of days ahead of time. Alas, Osman is also sick. In sha Allah, I hope we get better soon.

Thankfully, at least I had a day and a half off for Republic Day. This is the day that marks the founding of the Turkish Republic by Ataturk in 1922 (I think). Not a good day, from my point of view, given what happened in 1923 and 1924, but at least the Turks drove out the occupiers from various parts of the country.

I really like how my holidays have worked out since coming here - I am essentially trading two days of Thanksgiving for eight and half days between the Eids and this holiday, alhamdulillah. Plus, I will be part of the Christmas to New Years shutdown (unpaid) once I return home in December, in sha Allah.

I'm not sure what all happened to mark this day in terms of parades or anything else, since I didn't really leave the area today, but I'm sure they do something.

Turks are ordinarily very patriotic people. They probably have more flags on display per capita than any other country I know of, including the US. Ordinarily, flags are everywhere. This is what happens on days like today (borrowed online picture of our office building from an earlier holiday):

I think our office building this year has the biggest flags compared to other tall buildings that I could see. They must have custom ordered the flag drapes as soon as they built the building. I could see some fireworks after Maghrib from our floor to the south. I think they must have been launched from the water - either the Bosphorous or the Golden Horn or both. They lasted quite a while, and the color red was quite conspicuous. I could not really detect the grand finale however, and they seemed to end quite abruptly. Still, it was one of the few exciting things I did this brief holiday.

I thought about seeing a movie or the dervishes or Topkapi or something, but in the end, was too sick to bother. I was close to seeing a movie, but the timings aren't as frequent as they are back home, so I would have had to wait quite a while for anything I could watch. The selection is decent, maybe six or seven different shows, but only half or so in English. Of those, Max Payne was the only one remotely appealing to me (now that Hellboy II and Journey to the Center of the Earth aren't playing anymore - I should have seen them when I had the chance!) - there is one called Mustafa, but somehow I can't seem to bring myself to see a movie about the guy, in part due to what he did in 1923 and 1924. I checked both local theaters (in the two nearby malls), but the selection was pretty much the same. The movies seem to change every couple of weeks - they don't last long. When I went to check the Astoria theater this evening, there were finally a lot of people bustling about there - I hadn't seen that before. Khayr in sha Allah, I'm sure something else will come up soon.

Alhamdulillah, I was able to send out the Stanford application in time for the first round. Also, I have scheduled my Northwestern at a Starbucks in a nearby part of Istanbul for Saturday morning at 10am in sha Allah. I Skyped with Mom as well. Also, being sick, I finally decided to turn on the heat a bit. Now all I need is a good blanket!

I did a wordcount of the blog the other day, and we are past 25k at around the halfway mark. I hope I am not boring you readers to death! Who knows, in sha Allah, if at 50k by the end, that would actually be a pretty decent sized book. Of course, I have been known to fill journals in teh past. Read on...