With an amount of a half million people where 110.000 travelers will go everyday from home to their work, the tram connection is the quickest and easiest way to travel around. It directs you to most of the main places in no-time.

The connections are only a start for in-city travel. At the moment of this writing tests are also held before the final realization of a high speed connection between prominent Turkish places. The TCDD Eurotem project started in 2003 and parts of it will be in use very soon.

In daily use this means you can travel in one hour and fifteen minutes from Ankara to Eskisehir  (245 km) and take another hour to Istanbul which would cost you like 8 hours in total with the current slow train connection.

This also can have effect on the current time management. Higher speed connections could boost the economy, businesspeople and tourists can be at more places on the same day. How this would pay off in reality is something time will tell. Traveling in Turkey has never been this easy before.

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If you go outside and take a walk from my house to the city center you will hear birds in the background as a nearing kalabak water car plays it’s own tune in the distance.

While entering the small park their will be probably two people on the bench having a conversation in Turkish. Further on to the road where cars are driving and the Eskitram is passing by. In the meanwhile fighter planes flying over towards the military airport.

After buying a ticket for 1 lira 40 you can enter the tram. A pre-spoken voice in the tram is naming every station it’s passing like the Hava Muzesi (airforce museum), the Anadolu University and Baglar (speak as balar) as city center point near Espark, you will notice the fantasy arpeggio’s after the announcement. Getting out you hear the crowded city center and maybe some traditional music if it’s a special day.

Another tune can probably be heard and can be recognized as  Fur Elise from Beethoven, it’s coming from the car selling gas. Walking straight past Espark and Kanatli you will pass the train crossing and a cargo train flashing over it.

Walking on to the next tramstop you see Glow on the left hand, locally famous of it’s good band performances. After a long walk you get on the outside bazaar of Eskisehir with salesman shouting to buy their fruit, vegetables or clothes.

During the evening you can go to Serdivan, this is a place you can smoke waterpipe like mint and marshmallow flavored. Tea or coffee is served on a low table with cushions. In the meanwhile you can listen or dance to traditional Ottoman folkmusic.

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During the day of today I haven’t seen a single spider in Eskisehir. Even in the morning there are none hanging in the trees or bushes and not even in the smallest cracks. So why aren’t they there, are they hiding? Will we see them during spring and summer?

What you will see are pigeons, small birds, streetcats and dogs.Well eventually the dogs are a little like belonging to the campus. They get their leftovers from the cantinefood and aren’t looking  like underfeed. The cats here are really live like rats searching for food in trashcans and other waste. Where the dogs aren’t aggressive at all I think the cats are, so you shouldn’t touch them.

Now while typing and think of the spiders again I certainly realize that I haven’t seen any flies either. For sure, you won’t get malaria overhere.

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Are they that special, well for Turkish standards they are but in Europe and America you might find them quite common. To mention a few shops in it, you have Jack & Jones, Douglas, Media Markt and various branded stores like Benetton, Nike and Adidas.

Entering Espark you can take the staircase or Schindlers lift to the top floor. Here is the place where the snackplaces are settled like Burgerking, McDonalds, KFC and Pizzahut..

In the afternoon and evening you have to look for a spot to sit down, there will probably not a seat left or it’s already taken. For Turkish people it’s new and they come in mass numbers.

During the opening ceremony of Espark many European students thought they had a funeral there because there were like flowers hanging on the building. With that owners of most of the city shops we’re bringing gifts to the warehouse.

You could ask yourself why they do that, it’s much of a contrast between old and new. I can imagine shopkeepers do this to other small shops to wish them luck. But Espark is a big money swallowing machine (building costs around 110 million dollar) that wouldn’t bring the keepers of the shops very much luck in return. I don't know how it was before espark but many other places where you can eat are not filled with custormers during dinnertime.

So you have seen warehouses like Espark already? Then you can always bring a visit at one of the small cafeterias around for a much cheaper and much healthier meal. Speaking about snacks there is nothing better then taking a Tantuni during lunch, before or after the party.

Tantuni is a bread filled with vegetables and like most meals you can choose between a chicken (my personal favorite) and a meat variation. To make it spicier add some dry pepper or the real Spanish pepper which comes on every table. Aviet Olsen (enjoy your meal).

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The trip to Eskisehir took about 5 hours covering the exotic views from Istanbul to the high hills or small mountains before finally arriving in Eskisehir.

During the ride Erdeniz joined us getting in by Izmit. He is one of the buddies in the Erasmusprogram taking care of introducing new students to the city and university. He did a great job with it, it was just one of the great examples of Turkish hospitality yet to come.

That evening we had dinner together at Filiana’s house and went ou to a bar called ‘Glow’ which is one of the best in Eskisehir and popular for it's live coverband performances.

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It’s to see because they all look different, one of them is in teardrop shape and two are standing on Medusa’s heads, which is turned horizontal at one and upside down at another. The reason why they did it this way and where the heads are from is still a puzzle to be solved. In the Byzantine period the water level was probably reaching the ceiling letting it only be possible for certain people to go over it by boat.

In the Ottoman era the place had a more barbaric destination as it was abused for torturing soldiers and storing their corpses. Nowadays it’s one of the biggest (probably biggest) wishing-wells in the world with coins everywhere you look and fish swimming over it.

The reflection of it all in the water creates a mysterious extra dimension to it best seen from the bridge looking through the middle. JR tried to make a good photograph of it but you have to rent the whole system for your own doing that and you need a tripod for sure. The busloads of people entering in groups spoiled it about every time when they crossed the bridge we were standing on. And for this time of the year it isn’t even the season for tourism.

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 A story goes that it was constructed for use as lighthouse warning ships on the Middlesea. In reality the sea wasn’t even reaching the city. The architect drawing it just had no experience with constructing on soft ground. Build in 1529 It was mended to be a copy of a German Saint Vitus church trying to overclass the well constructed Martinitower of Groningen.

The Oldehove was beginning to to sag quickly, which was compensated by inserting kinks making it bend a little. The church never was finished. a pointy roof wouldn’t even fit because it would collapse. Today they have to be careful lauding the bells on special events because it could damage the building by it’s vibrations.

 Comparing the Oldehove experiment to the gigantic historical buildings of Istanbul, no it's not even worth it… 

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In the morning of our second day we went out to see the Blue Mosque. I’ll write on that later because on our way a man was coming towards us and asked if we where from Holland. First guess and bingo. It wouldn’t stay by this only time someone knew it right. The reason because of it is that we are much taller in average lenghth comparing to other people in the world.

The man owned a clothing store near our hostel selling leather jackets. He also tried to sell us one, but I refused the offer because I just had a new one and also Jelmer and JR we’re not interested in buying. He joked “I’ll shoot u’re right foot if you buy, and you’re left if you don’t” and started laughing hard, tapping us on the shoulder.

Typical old Turkish humor we supposed and offcourse he didn’t mind that. Like every salesperson in Istanbul they try to attend you on what they sell, become ‘friends’ and hope you will recommend their products to other tourists as well. 

What Holland and Turkey have in common is that we have both a history in trade and tulips. Ok, in fact Tulips are not typical Dutch as Holland imported them from Turkey.

We drank a cup of appletea with him and spoke further about his shop which has gone over from father to son on many generations. At around 11 we left the shop to play tourist again. 

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At 10.30 we arrived at Istanbul on Sebiha Gokhum airport at the Asian side of Istanbul. This airport is mainly used for small passenger flights and military proposes. When we checked in for our passport control we could take our bag, say goodbye to our friends Fico and Pinar who could finally see their family again and hop in the bus almost immediately after at 10.45.

We we’re glad we’ve also booked the bus because it is the quickest way to get from the airport to the city center. When we arrived it was around midnight. We unpacked our bags at the Istanbul hostel. Which is according to the lonely planet guides one of the best hostels in the neighborhood.

Then we went to the city center to get some food. It was hard because no restaurants we’re open on that Sunday eve. After a walk we’ve found a cafetaria, where we ordered a form of kebab which should be called do-it-yourself kebab. It was tasty and a friendly waiter called reyzim served us and we talked with him about Turkey, Istanbul, Eskisehir and the do and dont’s for us in the country. After we’ve finished we headed back to the hostel and called it a day. 

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To readers who are into Jazz the “Dave Brubeck Quartet” should ring a bell. Ok, it’s probably not the most purest form of Jazz and very mainstream but that is a matter of taste and not worth a discussion.

The band existed with pianist Dave Brubeck, bassplayer Eugene Wright percussionist Joe Morello (technically one of the best drummers ever) and the second frontman Paul Desmond on sax.

During a journey through Europe; Brubeck was very amazed and inspired by Turkish street musicians in Istanbul who could freely play and improvise in 9/8. He took note of this and traveled back to the United States.

After that Blue Rondo a la Turkwas born. It was the B-side of the Jazz classic Take Five and a prominent piece on Time Out. With this the Quartet had a debut as full Jazz album with odd signatures. Brubeck himself even managed to get on the cover of Time magazine for this “break-through”.

Three years ago I spoke with a Turkish fellow musician who lives in the Netherlands. Letting him hear Blue Rondo and he almost instant react with “This intro is part of a Turkish folksong, it’s like two drops of water!” Unfortunately he didn’t know the name of the song nor did he had it somewhere in audio.

It solved just a part of my question. The song was not just some ‘inspiration’ on this odd meter like Brubeck told on the Ken Burns Jazz documentary. the intro could be a duplicate of the original.
The track kept me busy. I’ve searched for years but couldn’t find what piece of music exactly did inspire Brubeck since the source remains unrevealed and is not credited anywhere.

During my stay in Turkey I hope to get the name and a recording of the original. Wich Provides a link between the old and new world as a small part of musical history. Going from folk to jazz, Blue Rondo a la Turk even went to rock; Emerson Lake and Palmer performed there version of it called “Rondo” later in 4/4.

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Walking through the detection port the main door was leading us to a large hall where it was very crowded. Much is comparable to the way the Netherlands was 30 years ago. No modern design, everything grey and beige. People take there time for getting there papers. They’re all sitting in the hall waiting and watching some program on TRT in the meanwhile. 

Luckily our waiting time was not that long, but it wasn’t quick service like we’re used at dutch service points. Personally I didn't have anything against it at least when it's not every day. I have to make the Turkish people a compliment for not knowing any stress and just being patient.

When we had our number and entered the second floor where we could find the visa document desk there was a “small” problem. Our papers where ok, but there was a missing document which was not mentioned anywhere.

We had our visum-request document, the pass photo’s an acceptance letter from the Anadolu University, perfect! But we ‘didn’t’ have received one from our own NHL.

Now it was the right time for stress. 

So we dialed the number of the NHL, discussed, waited, discussed, said thank you.. and just in time we had the acceptance by fax. Closing time was nearing,we where done on half past eleven. Finally we could pay for the document and wait till we could get it the next week. 

I bought myself some cola turka from the automatics as souvenir.. 

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There are lots you have to fill in and some important documents you can’t miss before even setting one foot on foreign ground.

A passport is required, different financial things have to be straight and for me I had to break up my just renewed part-time contract at UPC Netherlands. My work itself was great, but I couldn’t miss this unique chance.

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Could it be the change of atmosphere, the taste of culture and re-exploring the country. The friendly people we’re hoping to meet like our fellow exchange students which are now our friends? (dostum)

Is it the “worlds capital” Istanbul where JR can tell in much enthusiasm about and from which he shot some superb photographs. Or is it just the chance to become more internationalized?.

Well it’s all that… and maybe there is much and much more.

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