Update on the Rakı. According to Iori, Bulgarians claim it as traditional Bulgarian. Also, according to Mara, Romanians claim it as traditional Romanian. It's definitely traditional 'some country on the Black sea.' Beyond that, I have no idea.
Friday I stayed up late talking with Ozan. The more I talk to him, the more I like him. He's a really cool guy, curious about history and, well, he's just curious. A good trait to have, in general. And here's where I steal a story from Dr. Richard Feinman, though I won't tell it as a story, I'll only write the moral: Think about someone who spends their life learning language after language after language. They can tell you the name for "bird" in French (oiseau), German (Vogel), Italien (uccello), Spanish (pájaro), and Russian (птица). (If any of those are wrong, blame babelfish - I can't speak any of those languages.) So this person knows all these differents names for "bird" but if they can't tell you anything about birds, e.g. their bones are hollow so they don't have to carry so much weight during flight or that it's likely that birds evolved from dinosaurs, they don't really know anything about the world around them. They don't know how the world works. It's a good skill to have, speaking all those languages, but when it comes down to the wire, you still don't really understand anything. Curiosity is what spurs this understanding in the world. You just keep asking why. And that was my Friday.
Saturday was great and I must break it into three parts. The first part: Ozan hadn't seen Vienna yet. Actually, he hadn't left Kolping since he got here. That's just unacceptable. So Ozan, Erkal, and I went down Mariahilferstraße because Erkal wanted to go shopping, but he didn't buy anything which is beyond me. I didn't feel like walking around Mariahilferstraße any more than necessary, and I didn't think it was that necessary, so I suggested we go to Stephansplatz so Ozan could see that big church. They call it Stephansdome. We walked down Kärtnerstraße, which I was pretty excited about because I finally realized where it was (though I had walked down it a number of times before). Kärtnerstraße is a pretty important street - one of the main streets in the city - and it was mentioned in the Third Man, a delightful novel by Graham Greene. We watched a street spray paint artist at work. Ozan really wanted to see how they painted. It was pretty incredible. It only took him about twenty minutes to finish the painting. He'd use bottom of a spray paint can or a larger pan to make paintings inside of a painting. It's a bit hard to explain. The bottom line on the paintings are that 1) they're very cool and 2) very affordable. I think I'm going to buy one before I leave. After that, Ozan wanted to get a hot drink so I suggested Café Central. It was nice because I didn't get lost when I was trying to find it this time. And I have a much better idea about how the Erste Bezirk is structured. When we looked at the menu, both of them saw the prices and were... put off. But we ordered, and, as I've written before, the atmosphere is wonderful, especially with the pianist. The drinks came out very quickly but Erkal ordered food. They took forever getting the food out to him and we - but mostly Erk - was getting a little annoyed. Once his food finally arrived, he tasted it and declared (in Turkish - I got the translation later) that he would wait twice as long, it was so good. Since we were waiting so long, I had finished my coffee. I asked for the menu to look at prices. They have Remy Martin VSOP priced at 2 cl for €5 - very expensive. I thought about it for a second and thought, ah whatever, you'll only in Wien for a bit, so I ordered a glass. Plus, I wanted to try Remy Martin without having to buy a whole bottle. It was so good. So, so good. It was also the first time I've ever had Cognac in a snifter, which is the way it's supposed to be served. I really do love that Café. I'll miss it when I leave. Ozan said we should try to come back three or four time a month. I don't think I'll have a problem with that.
Second Part: We got back to Kolping and it was 9ish. There was some sort of hubbub in the kitchen, so I went to check it out. There were the normal crowd - Milan, Slobodan, Nikola, etc. - and there was this girl there. When I walked in, I think it was Milan who yelled, ah here's the American we were telling you about. Turns out, the girl - Crystal - is from Canada. Awesome, a native English speaker! It was pretty nice because for once, instead of listening to a lot of people speaking in some other language and then having to translate for me, we could talk in English. It's the same thing when Tom's there, but Canadians and folks from the US have a bit more in common with each other, especially with respect to accent and idioms. Apparently, they were all going to some club and asked me to go. Since there's no way I'd refuse that, I found myself heading to Thaliastraße at a quarter to midnight. The club was really crowded but they played pop rock, which is what I prefer to hear in a club. That "house" music lacks something. I think it's called "any talent whatsoever." That's how I got Brimful of Asha stuck in my head. Thank you, Mr. Doughty, for exposing me to that song.
Third Part: I have no idea when we left the club. The more I go to clubs, the more I realize that there's no way I'll be able to remember what time I leave them. It's not because I drink too much that I can't remember, it's that I don't look at my watch. Plus, there're more important things happening and honestly, I don't care when I leave. So at some point in the late night/early morning, I walk into my room to find Erkal and Ozan still hanging out. Apparently when I entered, Ozan wanted some food and Erkal said it was too late to cook. Of course, I had to put in my couple of cents and said it's never to late to cook. And off to the kitchen! Erkal cooked a variation on what I normally eat, which is pasta with a ground beef and tomato sauce topping. Quite tasty. Ozan and I started talking about relationships and, from what I understand, we have very similar views on that topic which would take more too much time to write about right now. The other important thing is that Ozan keeps telling me that I must visit him in Izmir this summer. It's an offer I can't - and wouldn't want - to refuse.
The title is from Brimful of Asha, since it's been stuck in my head for a while now.
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In a recent interview, the physicist Murray Gell-Mann relayed these observations about his colleague Dick Feynman:
``At one point he was doing some pretty good work .... In that work, he referred to quarks, anitquarks, and gluons, of which they were made, but he didn't call them quarks, antiquarks, and gluons. He called them `partons,' which is a half-Latin, half-Greek, stupid word. Partons. He said he didn't care what they were, so he made up a name for them. But that's what they were: quarks, anitquarks, and gluons, and he could have said that. And then people realized that they were quarks, and so then you had the `quark-proton' model. We finally constructed a theory [which describes the interactions between quarks and gluons, which bind quarks together]. ... And Feynman didn't believe it. He had some other cuckoo scheme based on his partons. Finally after a couple of years he gave up because he was very bright and realized after a while that we were correct. But he resisted it, and I didn't understand why he had to be that way. Partons...
``[Feynman] was so turned in on himself. Everything was a test of his brilliance. So if in discussing things we came to some interesting conclusion, his interpretation of it was, `Gee, boy, I'm smart.' And it's just annoying, so after a few years I just wouldn't work with him."
I agree with the basic moral of they story you posted, but this interview shows that maybe at points Feynman took this moral a bit too far.
By the way, in Bulgarian bird is птица (pronounced ``ptitza"), the same as in Russian.
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