First week = done

Wow, a lot has happened since last I blogged. I don’t want to fall behind, for fear of never catching up. So, here goes.

I finished my first workweek in one piece. I actually did some work too. Not just some silly make some coffee, research all the different shades of magenta, intern kind of work either.

There’s a huge music festival coming up in mid-July in Istanbul including big names like Nine Inch Nails, Prodigy, and the like. It’s an annual festival and I guess this year will be number eight. Coca Cola is the main sponsor, amongst others, and are also a big client for Par McCann in Istanbul. Needless to say, I will probably be working on a lot of Coca Cola stuff. Cool for me, because they are such a fun brand.

My first assignment was to make the poster for this festival. Cool, huh? I’d love to share what I ended up making, but I’m still unsure of all the legalness that goes on in advertising; what one can and can’t show. I’m pretty sure everything has to be quite confidential until it is actually accepted and shown to the world by the company. Even then, I think it can be tricky saying what part of an ad you did or didn’t do. Eventually, I’ll know all that fancy stuff, but for now… I’m content with being an “intern”. It’s okay to be a little naïve when you’re an intern I guess. Anyhow, just know that I was pretty proud of what I made and I got a lot of positive comments on the finished product. If nothing else, several people said it was “really different” and that’s good for me. It was a struggle and I’m definitely getting a dose of the real world advertising rules of sorts. Don’t touch the logo. Do not mess with the logo. Make the logo big, as big as you can. If you can’t make it big enough, you have to change your idea and/or composition to accommodate a bigger logo.

I’m really realizing how conceptual I am in my work. Unless I have a clear concept, a reason for designing or not designing a certain way, I don’t know what to do. Once I have my concept done, I’m off and running… er, designing.

My week went as most people’s workweeks go I guess. I didn’t do much more than a little shopping, picking up eggs, etc. on the way home after work during the week. I’m trying to keep an early schedule. That’s the one plus of changing time zones, you can re-create your sleep schedule without too much trouble.

I finished my poster at the end of the day on Thursday and now I have a new project I’m working on already. You know how Coke bottles have special event wrappers on them?


Like this! These were for the most recent James Bond movie

Well, the music festival is at Istanbul Park, which is a big Formula One Race track. So, they want a Formula One inspired wrapper. That’s what I’m working on now. It’s weird because you have to design on a rectangle and imagine it getting shrink-wrapped… tricky stuff.

Finally, Friday was in full effect and the basement bar opened promptly at 5:30PM. That’s right, there’s a bar in the basement at work. Not like a public bar, a bar that opens only on Friday at 5:30PM just for us. As I was closing up a pen tool path in Photoshop, my supervisor comes round to drag us hard-working folks down to the basement for beers. Not too shabby. There was no returning to the computer then. It was quiet at first, just four of us, but eventually a healthy percentage of Pars McCann were enjoying their much-deserved Friday beverages.


On our way down to the basement

Three beers later I was invited to go out with Oktar and friends for steak; serious steak.

And we were off. We went to a place called Günaydın (It means “good morning”), a serious meat bistro. It was more like a butcher shop with grills in the back. You could even buy a whole side of ribs and have them age it for you in their fridge labeled with your name.


Volca's aging ribs

I know I’ve said this at other times, but really, this was THE best steak I have ever had in my life. It was Anthony Bourdain worthy. We didn’t just each have own steaks either, they brought out courses of steak on a wooden plank, set in the middle of your table to be brutally sliced and shared. I say "brutally" because there was no delicate with these guys and their steak. Hacking into it was the only option and eating with as much enthusiasm as one can muster for steak (reminded me of my dad and his fondness for beef). Each course from a different part of the cow, with its own distinct flavor, and the only sauce… well, there was no sauce, just a pinch of sea salt. You wouldn’t want some sauce, it would wreck it. They cook the steak rare. Very rare. It was purple. Somehow, they managed to get the steak piping hot with perfect grill marks on the outside and a nice bit of char, but hardly cooked the meat. Served with a little bit of vegetables, perfectly sautéed leeks and squash, a little bread, a glass of wine and great company.


meat...

I don’t know what the dessert was called, but yeah, that was amazing too. Pistachios, a touch of cheese, a pinch of sugar, wrapped in a light pastry, served fresh out of the oven with a bit of vanilla ice cream. Volca, one of the parts of our great company, said they need to make a word for that moment of natural silence that occurs when food is delivered and tastes really damned good. Everyone is just suddenly quiet and munching away. This happened when they brought the dessert out and, I agree, they need a word for that.

I went with them to a friend’s house afterwards for more beers and good conversation. I even got a spoken history on Turkey and the Ottoman Empire. We were there chatting late into the night. I have to say that I really appreciate the level of English everyone was speaking; they even made an effort to speak English amongst themselves when I was around. I never felt left out, which can be pretty special when you are with new people in a foreign country.

I had my first taxi ride in Istanbul along with Volca to get home, which was a good thing, because getting a taxi on my own makes me a bit nervous. No problems there and I was a happy girl as I fell asleep that Friday night.

The next day, I had plans to meet up with some co-workers/new friends in Taksim. I met Tolga at the metro station near my house and we rode to Taksim. When we arose from the underground station, we were met by CROWDS of people. I mean, one would think there was a big festival happening or something. But no, I was told that this was normal for Istiklal Street on a Saturday afternoon.


A normal Saturday on Istiklal Street

We met Nina and her boyfriend and made our way through the crowds to a traditional Turkish restaurant. We had some Ayran (salty yogurt drink) and stuffed Turkish pancakes called gozleme. Everything was quite tasty. Martha eventually came to join us and we headed down to a little place where you can apparently get the best Turkish coffee in Turkey… so, that would make it the best Turkish coffee in the world. Down a little corridor amongst a small crowd of people on little plastic stools sipping thick syrupy coffee from tiny cups, was the Café Mandabatmaz. We found our own little table and plastic stools and ordered our coffees. There are three ways to order Turkish coffee: sugar, middle sugar, or no sugar. I had mine “sugar” and it came to me exactly perfect; no bitterness, no burnt taste, none of the bad things that can happen to coffee, just all of the good things. When we finished our coffees, we attempted to “read” our grounds, though none of us knew how. We at least made a fine mess of our dishes, overturning the cups and waiting for the last of the coffee to drain out from the cup onto the plate, so we could see the grounds. I was told that there is a boy out there that I think about all the time, he is always on my mind… I wonder who that could be.


Make way for the coffee


The best Turkish coffee in the world


The man who makes it happen... in a room the size of a large closet

After coffee we wandered around a little bit, looking in shops, checking out clothes. I even bought a silly t-shirt for five Lira. It’s a horrible yet wonderful Kelley green with “I AM THE STREET DREAM” printed on the front with sparkly letters. It still makes me giggle when I think about it.

I spent this morning translating my washing machine. It was just me sitting on my kitchen floor with Turkish/English dictionary and a couple of bottles of what I hoped was laundry detergent. After about an hour of fussing with the dictionary and the Internet, I think I figured it out and I now have clean clothes. No dryer here, but a great big expanse of a clothes hanger. Apparently, everyone dries their clothes the old fashioned way.

I spent the rest of the day just relaxing and organizing in my little house. I even made chicken soup!