Besiktas dinner in Sariyer with Zeki

Spent the morning on the RC campus, and wrote it up in my RC diary. Right now, we are sitting in a lovely tree shaded tea house in Besiktas, where we have been roaming for about two hours. It’s more the old city, not very touristy, with lots of shops, closed streets, and a wonderful fishmarket surrounded by fish restaurants, much like we found in Fethiye. The streets, like elsewhere, are cobblestoned and windy, so that I lost my bearings, and ending walking away from the sea, rather than towards it. That never used to happen when I lived it. Fehmi called, and we are going out tonight around 8:00 to a restaurant in Sariyer.
We left for the restaurant about 7:45 and it took us quite awhile to wind our way along the Bosphorus all the way to Sariyer, with constant chatter of our driver, Ates Bey. As usual, he seems full of energy, talks non stop and it fun to be with. We ended up eating at a restaurant set above the water in Sariyer, and though it was quie large, there seemed to be only two other parties during the evening. It was a wonderful Turkish meal, and everything seemed to have been planed, starting with mezze for the first hour or so, then a final fish, followed by dessert and coffee. Battal, Fehmi, Ates, Ahmet and Bulent Karpat, an older player and tv announcer, a friend of Battal, were there with Zeki coming a bit later, as well as Izzet from Galata saray and Hasan Arat, a younger player from Besiktas who is now a very wealthy investor and exporter of textiles to the US. He was fun to talk to, as he remembere me playing, as we was a teenager at the time. He has a son going to Fordham, who plays water polo, and he was able to show pictures on his phone. He said he had been talking with his buddy, the ownder of the Four Seasons hotel, and he told him he was going out with Besiktas Tom, and he remembered me and wants to take us out to dinner. He also called so one, to tell them I was in town, and they wanted to know if I still had my mini van. A small world. It was really good to see Zeki…according to the players, he never comes to any of the gatherings and they had not seen him in years, so it was really an honor to have him show up. He looks good, played till he was in his later 40’s and seemed to enjoy the gathering. I am beginning to feel sorry for Ates and Mine, as they have to pick us up, and suffer through these things, even though they don’t drink, and Ates dislikes fish. He gets tired, as he says, of the palaver of the guys after a couple of rakis. I had a good talk with Ahmet; he really seems to be very social conscious, wants to make Turkey, especially its youth better. He wants me to send him pictures of my family so he can show others how important family is too us. He also put pictures from our last dinner on his web site and I received the award for the most healthy looking of the crew, a dubious honor no doubt. After numerous hugs and pictures, and lots of food, we were the first ones to leave, getting home around 11:30. It was a great night, with extraordinary food, grilled sardines to begin with salad, melon, and cheese, then calamari, then boreks of two or three different kinds, eggplant salad, seaweed salad of a sort, then lufer for each, my favorite fish (I am getting better at eating the whole fish with out making a mess, as there is an art of fileting it, picking out the center bones). At times, it’ hard because we don’t talk Turkish, so there are interludes where we just sit and listen to them tell stories; then one will look up and fill us in on what has been happening. Evie took lots of pictures, but I forgot too, so there may be only a few of her with the team. As usual, when we left, everyone was trying to make plans for the next time we get together and no one can agree; there was talk of going to the Princess Islands for the day, to Buyukada, but who knows where we will end up. Ahmet and Nikki want to have us over as does Fehmi and Florette, as does Mustafa Dilber and Leyla. Suddenly, we are very popular, so we ought to warn Linda and Ron. Fehmi also remembers holding Jill, patting her on the back, telling her he would marry her one day.