OK, so I finally got around to doing this, writing my summary of my trip to Turkey. I kept on putting it off, and in case you didn’t already know, I am a professional procrastinator.

First of all, I suppose I’ll start off by saying that I had a blast; it’s a fantastic country, very nice people and some good bridge. Unlike everyone else, I had flown up to New York a few days before I was scheduled to leave from JFK, so I had already avoided one problem that several people had: Domestic flight delays. My grandmother parked her car, walked me inside, but when I attempted to check in, I was informed that I had to be 15 Years old to fly unaccompanied internationally. So, of course I told the gate agent I was 16… and my grandmother was kind enough to correct me. Now I had to find someone else who was flying out of JFK to come down, and “accompany” me to the gate and act as my chaperone. Jim Sternberg had just arrived from Chicago, and after desperately attempting to describe what area of JFK we were located in, we finally bumped into each-other with plenty of time to spare. I said goodbye to my grandmother and I was off. We were the first people to arrive at the gate, and slowly others joined the group. As we boarded the plane, we were missing 6 or 7 people, and with about 1 minute to go, Alex Hudson and John Marriott showed up. The others all had to find flights through other random locations. On the flight, I met up with my partner Cam Shunta, who after finishing system discussions with me, made it his job to keep me awake all evening by socializing with the Turkish Girls in the row behind us. We played a little bridge by writing our bids on a pad and passing it throughout the airplane, and I slept for an hour or so… while the girls behind us slept.

This seems like a good place for a little rant, even though, fortunately not many of them applied on the flights to Turkey, I feel I should mention that I believe all children under the age of 6 should fly as checked baggage. In addition to that, I believe parents should pay a fee based of the decibel of their child’s screams. This is not to say that I don’t like kids; they’re fine… as long as they aren’t within 100 miles of me. On my latest flight (to Augusta for the regional) I had the privilege of sitting in a middle seat. On my left was a mother holding a screaming baby, on my right was an 800 pound guy, who I swear needed a forklift to make it down the aisle. I felt like singing the Bob Dylan song “Stuck in the middle with you.” OK, now I got that out of the way, back to my flight to Turkey.

So, upon arriving in the Istanbul Airport, we had to go through customs. After initially waiting for 30 minutes in the customs line, we were informed we were in the wrong line. We needed to get Visas first. So, after waiting the Visa line for 20 minutes we finally got our Visas for $20USD each. Somehow this still felt like New York, waiting in line and all. After we received our Visas we got back into the customs line and waited for another 30 minutes. Everyone made it through, and everyone’s baggage also miraculously was in Turkey, and since we were flying Delta, I suspect this was a once in a lifetime occurrence. Finally, 12 hours after we left JFK, we were finally on our way to the playing site, Yeditipe University. The drive was great; we crossed the Bosphorus and got a spectacular view of Turkey. The only slightly frightening part of the drive was the driving part. I would have been more relaxed walking a tightrope over a pit of hungry alligators. We only got into 2 fender benders on the way to the University and our lane only could fit two cars in it… We were in a bus! Merging consisted of pushing your way inches in front of the car in another lane, and forcing your way in. It still felt like New York.

I realize this is already pretty long… and I’m only on my first day! Well, airports are interesting places, and no matter where I travel, I always have a lot to say about the initial trip. The bridge itself passes quickly, and there isn’t much to say about that part. Then comes more travel, so I’ll attempt to keep everything somewhat short: No more pages than the average bible.

Well, the dorm rooms left something to be desired: Namely, a TV, clean sheets, a shower big enough to fit a Beagle in, any type of heating/cooling system, and a pillow. Since we had no method of cooling off the rooms, we tried opening the windows. It was the same temperature, only more humid, and our dorm became an insect breeding ground. I believe I saw more moths than bridge hands I have ever played. Other than this, our room was lovely. It had all the amenities that you would expect: A roof, a floor, rocks to sleep on, etc... So, with our bags in the room, we set out to explore the university. It had a nice pool, basketball courts, tennis courts, cafeteria, and of course lots of non-English speaking employees. That night we found something for dinner (don’t ask), and tried to remain awake until 8PM or so, since it was a seven hour time change, and we had two days or so to adjust, and be able to wake up at 10AM.

It was amazing how well I adjusted to the time change; I was over the difference in one night. The next day, I’m not sure who, but someone wanted to play basketball. Let me start by saying that I never knew an inflatable rubber object could possibly be so hard to find. I mean it. We set out in search of a basketball in the morning and returned considerably later that evening, after visiting four or five stores, we were directed to the “Wal-Mart” of Turkey; a giant building with everything from unidentifiable food items to basketballs to CDs to clothes. Other than our great search for a basketball, the 2^nd day was relatively uneventful, and I will talk about food later on.

Our third day, eight of us decided to go to the Grand Bazaar. This is much harder than you may think, since describing where you want to go to a taxi driver who cannot speak English is a little tough. The other tough part is making it there alive, and since a taxi is smaller than a bus, it happened to fit in spaces I doubt most people could go. There are traffic lights, but they are for decoration. Amazingly enough, there really are not any “accidents”: People bump into each other, but that’s considered part of driving in Turkey. I however consider walking across a street in Turkey like playing Frogger. After being dropped off in the wrong spot twice, we finally arrived at our destination. The entrance to the bazaar isn’t exactly easy to find. The one we used may have been a “back entrance” but it was quite the adventure getting down there. Once we arrived, we spent several hours looking around, everybody bought stuff, and all was well… Except my partner decided that he wanted to stay longer. By now, it was nearly 6PM, getting dark, and we decided that it would definitely not be a good idea. Once again, we arrived back for dinner (I promise I’ll go into that soon) and went to sleep.

Finally, after we had just begun to get adjusted to everything, play started on the third day. My partner and I were out the first round, and began playing the 2^nd round. It was my first time ever playing with screens, but everything went well and we won our first match. After this everything becomes a blur, honestly I couldn’t even tell you what day it was, as is the case at nearly all tournaments. In any event, since my memory is failing bridge-wise, I suppose now would be a good time to bring up the topic of food. I’ll try to approach this in a non-sarcastic way, but knowing what I am about to say… I honestly don’t think I’ll be able to contain myself.

So, the food. All in all the food was excellent, but certain stuff was missing from some meals, such as edible items. Basically, the dining options we had, was a place upstairs, which was actually quite good, and they had some “normal” food. There was also a nice restaurant just outside of the university gates. Then there was the cafeteria. This was the only place to eat breakfast, and occasionally lunch. Breakfast consisted of: Goat Cheese, Tomatoes, Cucumber, Celery, a Hardboiled Egg and a roll laced with some black item. I think it was olives, or perhaps insects, I’ll never know. Lunch varied day by day, some stuff was good, and others I just ate the watermelon. There was also a “Turkish Burger King” at the place we bought the basketball, and naturally we ate there. In addition to Burger King, there were several familiar pizza places that we ordered from on a few nights. We didn’t have as much trouble with the food as I expected, and I was able to return with all my mother’s tuna still intact.

Bridge-wise all was not well however. We were struggling to reach the qualifying position of #8, and the last day, we had a small chance to make it into the qualifying spot, otherwise we would be “qualified” for the BAM. We were supposed to be out the 11^th round, but when we found out we were on vugraph then, I asked the team captain Howie Weinstein if we could swap our 11^th and last round sitouts since we hadn’t been on Vugraph yet. We played against the Dutch Girls on Vugraph, and did relatively well, I don’t remember any exact hands, but I could probably look them up, and I may write up a little something on some hands later on. We won the match by 8 or 9 I believe, and were on a path to possibly qualifying. Round 12 we sat out, but got blitzed, so we were headed for the BAM. Sadly there was nothing we could do the final match, of course, USA Blue was doing great in the Swiss, and that night was planning for the KO phase, meanwhile we were Board-A-Match bound, not a good feeling.

We started the BAM with a horrible first session: 6.5 of 15. After that very discouraging start, we had a fantastic comeback, with several 11.5 and 12 sessions, and finished 3^rd, for the bronze medal. The winners were Italy, then Poland was second. Meanwhile, USA Blue got bronze in the Swiss-KO after a tough loss in the Semi-Final. To celebrate, Howie and Jim took us to a really nice restaurant in Downtown Istanbul (we were on the Asian side), where we had a multi-course dinner that was amazingly good. Granted I couldn’t identify half the stuff I ate but it’s probably better that way, besides, it tasted good… and I didn’t have to pay for it, which was the important thing.

Our coach had informed us that drinking was strictly prohibited by him during the teams event, however now that the teams were over, many members of the team went out and got extremely drunk (me not included), in any case, the teams were over, we had won a medal, and now onto the pairs!

Of course, after doing well in any event, pairs is a drag. Our first Matchpoint session went very well, but my partner decided that he didn’t want to play matchpoints. Instead he suggested that we intentionally dump, so we could play the IMP pairs. It took a full-team intervention to prevent him from doing this, and so we qualified in the mid-thirties. The easy part was over; all the bad pairs were eliminated. From what I saw in the next sessions, I felt like we should have been eliminated. It seemed my partner’s goal was to mess up whenever we were on Vugraph, and he was good at it! Ironically several of his most major mistakes were published in the bulletins. Unfortunately, there was no way we could put together enough good sessions, and we wound up at about 28^th, with a 50.01% average for the final, respectable, but quite awful from what I saw. None of the US pairs medaled in the pairs, and we finished above a few other pairs from the US.

The playing site was two and three stories underground, and every day when we finished, it reminded me of bats leaving their caves at night in search of food. This scenario was pretty much the same, except none of us could fly. One evening, all the vugraph operators put on a little match, and invited a few players to join, so me, our Coach Howie Weinstein, 3 of the operators, Matt Meckstroth, and Sigrid and Jamilla Spangenberg (Dutch twin Juniors) all played a 12 board team match for fun. We drew a bunch of spectators, and it was a lot of fun.

All of this was a blast, but the tournament was drawing to a close. The closing ceremony and reception was the same day as the last day of pairs, and was an awesome ending to a great week. At the closing ceremony we were given our medals, and I think the US had one of the best showings in a while. The reception was held on the roof of the playing site. I can only imagine what the organizers were thinking when they planned this. “Let’s get a bunch of kids drunk, and put them five stories up on a roof, that’ll do it!” All went well, and nobody went splat, so the party was a success. I spent a good amount of my top on the roof talking with friends etc, but after I completely lost my voice, I had to come back inside, and so I talked with the Swiss juniors for a while, until I had an esophagus again, then came back up. I went to bed around 1AM, but I assume the party continued well into the 4AM range, while I had nightmares about bridge hands.

All that was left to do on our trip was actually seeing the country we were in! After all, it would be a tragedy to fly 11 hours, get all those frequent flyer miles, play bridge, and not actually see Turkey. With one day remaining in Turkey, and so much to see, we decided the most efficient way was certainly going to be with a guided tour. Almost everyone went, and we went to the Blue Mosque, several churches and took a short “cruise” on the Bosphorous. Some of the stuff we saw was great, but after having gone to a lot of old churches, only one stood out… Even though I cannot remember its name. This church’s ceiling and walls were all mosaics, and were made in the 13^th century. Most everything was still intact, and the detail was amazing… I’ll see if I can dig up some pictures someplace also. We returned to the dorm, packed up everything, and played some poker and slept… for the most part.

The next day we woke up, amazingly everyone was actually “awake” by 8AM, and left for the airport… Another couple hours on the road, and I’m sure any life insurance deductibles anyone had to pay would have skyrocketed. I consider it a success; we didn’t get into any fender benders and only ran two or three lights… Amazing indeed. Upon arriving at the airport, I found a few things interesting. First of all, before you even check in, and actually, as you walk in the door, there is security. You put all your bags, including suitcases through the X-Ray machine and all the other standard security procedures, and then enter the actual airport. It’s a nice system, but makes for very long lines at times, it wasn’t bad when we arrived, and we made it through in about 10 minutes. Next came the hard part: Checking in. Some people didn’t want to sit next to their partners, some people wanted to sit with others, some wanted to sleep, and I had to make it clear that I was not unaccompanied if I ever wanted to get home. Next was customs, which took forever. It seemed like the line was stuck for about an hour, and finally it started moving. They handed us a form to fill out, with different statements like: “By checking this box I hereby certify that I am not bringing 75 peacocks out of the country, and that if I do, I will clean up after them” or “Checking this box indicates that I am a terrorist” etc… I checked the appropriate boxes, signed the form, got out my passport and made it through customs. I was one of the first people through and instead of waiting for 30 minutes; I decided to wander over to the gate, which it just so happened was in Australia. The airport is huge, and I found this out the hard way. Of course once I arrived at the gate, I received a call to come meet them at the Food Court… of Spain. This was on the exact opposite end of the airport. I arrived as just about everyone else was finishing, and met them back at the gate with about an hour to spare. I grabbed a newspaper in Arabic as we were boarding, and we were off. Back to New York, and it seemed that not much had changed, but I had a medal in my carryon luggage. Mission accomplished.

Results can be found here: http://www.worldbridge.org/tourn/Istanbul.09/Results.htm.

For those interested in the hands, the hands played in the teams match I was in on Vugraph can be found here: http://psbridge.gotdns.com/file/b2/2009/simple/10775.pdf.