For crying out loud! - Part 4

Well, the finals of the Eurosong competition are over. I stayed up last night all the way to the end, contributing my fair share of votes, of course, so I decided to write one final word on the subject today.

Once again I must say: Belgrade, absolutely brilliant organization! The scenery, the hosts, the way things were going,... Immaculate!! Well done!!

And now back to the singers. I haven't changed my opinion since my last post. In fact, I have a few more remarks to make. The guy who came on stage in a glofcart? The toy-pink-guitar guy?! Too much is too much!! And Russia winning? If you ask me, it wasn't for the song, but for the "co-actors" Plushenko and the violin player. Europeans, you forgot the point of Eurosong -you're supposed to vote for the songs, not the theatrical show...

Well, unfortunately my favourites, Mor ve Ötesi, ended up 7th. My votes didn't help much... Let's hope for a 1st place next year!!! :-)

For crying out loud! - Part 3

Soon after I started writing my blog, I wrote 2 articles about the Eurosong competition (that was the year the Finnish group Lordi won). Well, 2 years have passed since then and, after thinking long and hard whether to "indulge" myself in writing on this subject once more or not, I decided that I simply have to get it out of my system - again!

I watched both "pre-finals" and I would like to begin with something positive. I must say that the organization in Belgrade was absolutey amazing! The scenery was beautiful - I especially liked the glass stage - and everything went smoothly. Well done, Belgrade!

What scared me half to death were the singers! Already in my 2006 article I talked about the horrors of having to watch terrible correographies and listen to bad songs and screaming singers. Well, 2 years have passed since then and, let me tell you, the whole thig has become even worse. Pirates and chickens on stage?! Come on!! Is this a singing competition or a bad theatre?! There was only a handful of real professionals - the rest was the kind of material you find in the lowest nightclubs (those without any audience in them!). If it was up to me, only 6 countries would qualify for the finals: Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Slovenia and - since I'm a huge rock fan - my favourite of all, Turkey! Now, those are professionals!! Immaculate performance, professional singers with good voices, and nobody was making a clown of themselves on the stage! Only 4 of them got into the finals, though (Slovenia and Hungary are out), so let's wait until tomorrow, when the big night comes! Let's not forget what the point of this competition is (EuroSONG!) and vote with that in our minds!

Not only people love Heineken...

Taken on 1st May 2008.

Also posted on my Flickr site.

Doğru Sorun'un Altını Çizin (= "Understand the problem")

Olmak ya da olmamak,
Bilmek ya da bilmemek,
Sevmek ya da sevmemek,
Anlamak ya da anlamamak,
Gülmek ya da gülmemek,
Ölmek ya da ölmemek,
Alışmak ya da alışmamak.

This is a short poem, which came up as a text I had to work with in my Turkish workbook. I like it, so I decided to post it here on my blog. It's in the style of "to be or not to be". For those of you, who don't know any Turkish - here's a short dictionary:
ya da = or,
olmak = to be, olmamak = not to be (this is the same with the other verbs: the first form is the affirmative one and the second one is the negative one, so I'll just write the first forms here),
bilmek = to know,
sevmek = to love,
anlamak = to understand,
gülmek = to laugh,
ölmek = to die,
alışmak = to get used to something.

:-)))

During my Youtube-ing, I found this little guy! Check it out - and watch to the end (the best part comes last)!! :-)

Easter Bread / Osterbrot

My mum and I decided to make bread this morning. We "built" the loaf out of 8 little buns. This way, it's easier to break a piece off (no cutting needed) and it looks more decorative and festive than usual loaves. From the top, the loaf looks like a flower :-) Help yourself! It's still warm and crispy!

Easter Eggs / Ostereier / Paskalya yumurtası

It's Eastertime! Every year, I make Easter eggs and every year I try to make them with a different technique. These are this year's products. I coloured them by cooking them together with red-onion leaves and some grated carrots. That's how they got their "suntan". Colouring the eggs this way is an ancient technique in Slovenia. You can get different colours by cooking different vegetables together with the eggs: red beetroot colours the eggs pink, red onions brown, carrots orange.

However, before cooking the eggs, I put on as many rubber bands on each egg as I could - and into the boiling water they went! That's how the stripes were created. It would be even better if I had wider rubber bands, but I quite like them the way they are.

And, to add the final touch, I polished each egg with a cloth dipped in salad oil - this gave the Easter eggs their shine. Instead of salad oil you can also use a thin piece of bacon and rub the eggs in it (for all those bacon-lovers out there - don't worry, the bacon is not wasted: you can eat it afterwards, because the colouring of the eggs is natural and "sterile" after boiling the eggs for a quarter of an hour). How do you like the design? :-)

Merhaba! (Learning Turkish)

At the moment, I'm busy studying for my exams (I'm a post-graduate student now :-) ) and in the middle of all my work, I decided I needed a new hobby. You know, something to help me "unwind" from all the exam-work. Since I like learning languages very much, I decided that that's what I'm going to do for relaxation. So, because I have many Turkish friends on Flickr and because I find the language very interesting, I decided to learn Turkish. And so far it's going great! :-)