This was me when I found out that I was going to be able to watch my first college sporting event of the year: Virginia-NC State (actually, this was me taking a picture of the Balkan Beard, Vol. 2 to send to a friend. I should probably just call it the Byzantium Beard, seeing as, like Istanbul itself, my facial hair is composed of two incontiguous plots of land: The Lebron James neck beard representing the European side; Dirty Sanchez representing Anatolia).
The place I'm staying in Istanbul came stocked with a roomate, Serdar, who has a sick cable package, including Fox Sports World. And with Traveler's Luck, the ACC Sunday Night Hoops game just happened to be coming to me live from Charlottesville.
It was a Sunday smörgåsbord of sports. Not one, but two derbies -- first basketball, then soccer -- between Istanbul's biggest clubs: Galatasaray (the one I was forced to support, lest I risk death by impaling, at the hands of Serdar and Yetken) and Fenerbaçe. Mixed into that was a little three-on-three pickup game at the local playground, which my team lost ... badly. But at least I ingratiated myself with the local Turks by absentmindedly hocking a huge loogie on the court -- a BIG no-no in this country.
"Sorry for spitting," I said meekly when we left.
"I hope so," the leader of the pack replied in Turkish.
But when Yetken and I got home from the bar, where we paid 15 lira to get in, only to watch Galatasaray lose, 2-1, my spirits went through the roof. ACC Sunday Night Hoops was showing the Virginia game, just like I had hoped for all day.
I love this man.
And I love Serdar for being the Turkish Boo Boo Drew, and hooking it up with the technology.
Big win in our first ACC game of the year. Could this be TOURNAMENT TIME? Let's just hope.
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