“What? No, we’re not on fire. Okay…bye!”

A bunch of exchange students and I went to a football match last night. The Turkish National team versus Bosnia-Herzegovina. One intrepid exchange student, whom I’ll call Michigan, sent out a Facebook message inviting any and all to the match, and volunteering to pick up tickets the next day in Beşiktaş. He took us at our word that we would pay him back, and I think it says something about the group that everyone did, and promptly.

Anyway, on Saturday, after language classes, the whole gaggle – twelve out of the sixteen of us, although it always seems like there’s more when we’re in groups – made our way from language classes to Taksim, where we hung around, accidentally wandered in front of trolleys (disturbingly easy to do), and proved that trying to get twelve exchange students to all go the same way at the same time is a bit like herding cats. Eventually we all split up into sub-groups and went off to explore, with the firm promise to meet back at a designated spot at 7:00. Miraculously, everyone did. For being a dozen people from four countries and a stunning array of backgrounds and experiences, we’re a surprisingly cohesive bunch.

I for one meandered around a bookstore, got comfortably lost in some sort of mini textile bazaar with Ohio and Alberta, and loitered briefly in a two-story Burger King. It was a productive afternoon.

We all found each other at the meeting point, broke again for dinner after Australia pointed out that food at the stadium would be prohibitively expensive, and reformed again fifteen minutes later before tripping gaily down the hill to the Beşiktaş stadium. En route, we stumbled – literally, sometimes – scores of vendors hawking everything from fairly reserved red and white scarves to over the top mohawked wigs. Illinois bought a wig, to nobody’s surprise, while I invested in a scarf. It gets cold here in winter, and will be useful then. No, really.

Also, it matches my slipper-socks, so I’ll be all coordinated and everything.

Moving on…

We got to the stadium maybe an hour before the game started, maybe more. We had our tickets scanned; submitted to extensive searchings and pattings-down; emptied our pockets of open containers, lighters, and anything pointier than a toothpick; and eventually made it into the stadium. A few students – California and Michigan, I think – were given free Turkiye T-shirts, and I was handed a dozen or so medium-sized Turkish flags. We mostly used them poke each other in the eyes and ribs during the match, and occasionally managed to wave them at the appropriate moments.




I don’t think that we ever actually found our seats – that is, the ones listed on the tickets – but we did find twelve seats together about halfway to nosebleed and in one of the corner-curves of the stadium. We bought sunflower seeds – Turks eat sunflower seeds during football matches the way Americans eat peanuts during baseball games – and soft drinks. Canada produced simit from somewhere in her bag, so that was good, too.


The Bosnian cheering section made up perhaps at tenth, maybe less, of the seats – almost a humorously small fraction. They were very well coordinated, and even struck first in the pyrotechnic department, producing a flare two-thirds of the way through the first half. It didn’t do much more than smoke a lot and burn astonishingly bright, but things got more exciting when a group of Turkish fans retaliated, which meant that there was lots of smoke and energetic flames coming from both ends of the stadium. It was enough to alarm one of the exchange coordinators, watching the game on TV, prompting her to call Australia’s cell. I heard Australia’s end of the conversation: “Hey! What? No, no, it’s not a bomb, it’s a flare…no, Bosnia started it…no, we’re not on fire…yeah, I promise…okay…bye!”





Australia stuck her phone back in her pocket. “They were worried,” she explained.

Canada nodded. “We noticed.”

In the midst of all this, Illinois surfaced with a brilliantly painted face and a new best friend, wielding a paint brush. “This is…actually, I don’t know what his name is,” Illinois said. “But he’ll paint our faces for us!”

The Fabulous Mexican, Canada, and Michigan all went for it.





Our Turkish seatmates found our patriotism somewhat surprising. They taught us a few cheers, and corrected us when we used the wrong ones at the wrong time. Australia also whipped out a few Australian chants, and the Brazilians were doing their own cheers, as well. Canada broke into the Canadian national anthem when the mood struck her. We were quite the multinational conglomerate, even as we waved our Turkish flags.



Turkiye scored first; Bosnia tied it up shortly thereafter, while Turkiye was still in the throes of celebration. The majority of the second half was subdued on Turkiye’s end, before Turkiye got spectacularly lucky on a penalty shot and snuck one past the Bosnia keeper. Neither team played especially well; Turkiye in particular had some spectacularly boneheaded plays that had me shouting at the field in frustration. But you don’t go to a football match to watch football. You could do that at home from the comfort of your couch if you wanted. You go to a football match for the energy, for the crowd, for looking down and discovering that Canada’s been absentmindedly dropping sunflower shells in your bag for the last twenty minutes. For total strangers teaching you cheers and accidentally whacking you with their flags during especially exciting plays. For spending the entire match on your feet, for watching an entire stadium of red-clad spectators (barring the twenty or so sullen people in Bosnia’s section) jumping up and down in rhythm, and then joining in, and then writing home and being able to use such sentences as “…and then the whole stadium was full of bouncing Turks!”




Maine and I left about fifteen minutes before the match ended, in order to find a taxi before the rush. The driver only had to stop and ask for directions once, and he had some difficulty finding the correct street. Also, we didn’t speak directional Turkish, and he had the same problem but with English, so we wound up directing him by improvised semaphore. But he was very nice about it, and we were still vibrant and happy from the match, so everything worked out.

The cab fare was reasonable, given that Maine and I were splitting it. I walked in the door, said hello to my host family, and went to bed, but not before carefully folding my new scarf and placing it on the dresser.