... and then I found $20!

Tonight, dinner was amazing. It was the dinner Mara, Alessandro, Erk, and I planned. The participants in the dinner were the previously mentioned folks plus Luana and Gregoire, a Frenchman. For dinner, I made my chili, which I thought was just alright but everyone else seemed to like it (Luana said it needed salt - she's right), Alessandro made spaghetti with a tasty tomato sauce, we had some sort of salad with lettuce, tomato, yellow and red bell pepper, olives, feta cheese, and some sauce made for olive oil, dijon mustard, and red wine vinaigrette made by Gregoire. The salad had a lot of flavor. It was a good flavor, too. Erk made some cake with chocolate in the middle, which was very good. I'm going to get the recipe (though I think he used my rocks glass to measure the sugar and flour). As a topping, he mixed sliced bananas, walnuts and a copious amount of honey. We also had three bottles of wine. The best was this Sicillian wine. It was very strong but it went well with the meal.

After dinner, we talked a lot. The most notable conversation was between me, Michael, Christina, and Gregoire. It was about genetics. Gregoire is a PhD student in genetics and he's studying genetic defects in dogs and how it spreads in the population. I was wondering what affects the inbreeding of dogs has on this, and surprisingly (to me) he said that inbreeding cuts down on genetic defects but lowers immunities to other diseases. Then we started talking about evolution and creationism, and how this Turkish guy sent a whole bunch of free books touting creationism to all the European universities. Erkal is Turkish and Muslim and we asked his opinion. He said that he didn't think humans evolved from monkeys or that humans follow any sort of evolution at all, but maybe plants are products of evolution. He also said that in his part of Turkey, the people are much more opened minded (Çorlu is on the European part of Turkey, but Western Turkey is this way, as well). But there is the problem of their PM being very conservative, wanting the women to all wear veils and whatnot, so Turkey is beginning to face a pretty difficult issue on the separation of church and state.

And that was dinner. Earlier in the day, I went to see the Wiener Philharmoniker play Beethoven's third and fourth - as previously mentioned. I woke up at 8 and got to the Musikverein at 9. I was a little surprised to see the doors had already been opened. I went upstairs and I was at the back of the line. Just as I walked up, the buzzer rang and everyone started walking in the hall. Now, it was only 9:30 and the concert was supposed to start at 11. The buzzer normally rings a half hour before the concert. Let's just say I was a little confused.

The concert was awesome. Completely worth the €6 and the standing. The house was packed, too, but the Philharmoniker was playing to a home town crowd. I even dressed up a bit for it. I also really like the first movement of Beethoven's third. The theme is beautiful.

After the concert, I came back home exhausted. I barely stayed awake on the Ubahn. I went almost directly to sleep and slept until I had to start cooking at 5:30. At 4:30, Erkal says, "Hey Zack, it's 5:30. Shouldn't you be going to cook?" Well, that was what he meant. His English isn't quite up to that level. Sometimes understanding him is a little tricky, but his English is improving by leaps and bounds. Anyway, I looked at my watched and mumbled something about sleeping another hour. An hour later, I looked at my watch and saw it was 5:30. Cool. I got up and Erkal goes, you know, it's 6:30. We argued for a second and I went to the kitchen. Sanya was sitting there and I asked him, "What time is it?" "It's 6:30." Apparently, the "spring forward" happens here about a month after it happens in Ohio. This is good, though, because it means that I have to wake up at 2, instead of 1, this Tuesday to register for classes.

... and then I found $20! Literally. It was in the pocket of my blazer. I have no idea how it got there, but when I get home, it's going to Skyline or Skippers.

p.s. Erkal is sleeping wearing a brightly colored, knitted, skull cap. I have never seen that before. He's very entertaining. A few nights ago he was really tired and he was trying to ask me, "Can I get something from you?" Instead he said, "I want something." (Something sounds more like sometink, just for reference, and he says it pretty slowly since his English is in the improvement stage). I ask him, "What? What do you want?" He looks around a bit, thinking, and he says, "You." After he sees my expression, he starts going, no no no no no no, and he clarifies himself. Pretty entertaining guy.