Class Reunion

The 1976 Middle East Technical University (METU) Mechanical Engineering graduating class had a class reunion.

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Turkish version to be issued later. Time is precious in Istanbul.

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The protagonist in The Glass Bead Game, Joseph Knecht, is 34 when he enrolls in the game.  The Game Masters consider him “so young yet displaying such great talent”.

I was in my early twenties when I read the book and I was surprised that a 34-year old was considered a young man.  For me at the time, that was middle age.

This piece of trivia came to my mind last weekend when I was at the reunion of our 1976 Middle East Technical University (METU) Mechanical Engineering graduating class.  There was another one in 2006.  I could not attend that one.

Almost fifty years since graduation, we are now twice as old as Hesse’s Knecht.  Nobody would refer to us as young.  On the other hand, consider this.  About twenty years ago, one of these dear friends had told me that no matter how much the body machine turned old, the soul inside the machine still felt young.  I had not thought about this matter, but when I listened to him I realised that I felt the same way.  I am not sure if this is a blessing or a curse, still feeling young in a failing fragile body.

Dylan Thomas told his father not to go gentle into that good night. 

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
(Dylan Thomas)

In Eastern thinking, including Turkish culture, people are more accepting of their fate. This is called tevekkül (submission and resignation). For example, the famous 20th century Turkish folk poet Aşık Veysel saw Dylan Thomas’ “good night” as a destination that we walk towards our whole life:

Uzun ince bir yoldayım
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
…
Yetişmek için menzile
Gidiyorum gündüz gece
(Aşık Veysel)

I am on a long and narrow road
I keep walking day and night
…
To reach the destination
I keep walking day and night

These are probably the two basic choices that face you when you get old: (a) you stick to the long and straight road and keep walking to reach the destination; or (b) you do not go gently, whatever that may mean. The first option is easy and does not need any more definition.  The second option is abstract, unclear, and maybe a bit scary.  I do not want to stretch this any further but I suggest you occasionally think about this at whatever stage in your life you are and decide which camp you are on, the gentle walkers or the blasphemous ragers.

Lobster - αστακός

Through the second millennium B.C., the Eastern Mediterranean was a thriving microcosm with strong trade links between trading nations making this era probably the first example of globalism (even though applying to only one neighborhood on the globe).  This era ended at the end of the second millennium.  In a matter of decades, the kingdoms of the old fell like dominoes and there were no more Trojans, Hittites, Minoans, Myceneans, or Babylonians (Cline, 1177BC, The year the Civilisation Collapsed).  New emerging powers from Greece in the West and Persia in the East tried to fill in the vacuum.

The coast where we held our class reunion was colonised by Megarians from Greece in the 8^th century BC.   They named it Astacus or αστακός, which means  large sea bug in ancient Greek, i.e. lobster.  The place must have been flush with lobsters at that time. We did not see any.

Başiskele

The present name of the city is Basiskele.  Our class reunion was held at the Wellborn Luxury Hotel in Başiskele.  It is a beautiful place and feels like a coastal village although it is close to greater Istanbul and Izmit across the bay.

Travel

We do not have a car in Turkey.  A rental car was considered but I am not too keen on driving in Istanbul traffic.  Fortunately, chauffeur-driven hire cars are affordable.  There are quite a few options. After some calling around, we picked this one that had a WhatsApp account called ‘İstanbul Hava Limanı Transfer’ on a phone number +90 542 710 98 12. They charged us 6000 TRY (A$300) to take Meliz and me from our home in Besiktas to the Wellborn Luxury Hotel, Izmit.  The vehicle was a 2021 Mercedes Maybach.  Here I am inside the vehicle:

The Hotel

I booked the room and paid in advance while I was in Brisbane.  The cost of a three-night stay for Meliz and I including breakfast (which we found was quite sumptuous) was 11000 TRY (A$550).  The hotel room had the usual amenities.

After unpacking, we took a walk along the shore.  It was a beautiful place.

And here is me posing in front of the nameplate:

I will put in this image too because I like my picture here. 

The car trip from Istanbul and the walk along the shore made us hungry and we had breakfast at Klida Café, which had a beautiful view of the shore and also served good food:

Back at the hotel, I saw this little Australian expat in the flower beds around the terrace garden. It was a nice surprise:

The Night

The class reunion was well-attended and we had the whole top floor restaurant of the hotel to ourselves. In principle, I only post photos of myself in this blog for a number of reasons including the privacy of the others. So you have to imagine what it looked like. Imagine four or five long tables filled with 70+ people in their silly modes. This is our reunion meeting.

The class reunion coincided with my birthday.  I made my wish and blew off the candle on my cake:

There was live music and we did lots of dancing.  Again, I am paranoid about others’ privacy and do not post pictures and videos.  Here is me dancing with others erased or cropped out of a larger and more crowded picture:

The Next Day

The next day (Sunday) we were guests of Seçkin and Adalet. Two buses picked us up from our hotel, Wellborn Luxury Hotel, at 10 am. When travelling through one does not notice it but the area is actually quite rough country, with mountains and forests. Buses took us first to Maşukiye. One of the highlights was the Kartepe Cam Teras, which you see below as an image provided from the supplier of steel construction:

And here is the same terrace, with people on it:

After Maşukiye, we visited Sapanca Lake, walked along the lakeshore, drank tea, and then hopped on the buses again and drove to Seçkin’s factory. Seçkin organised a catering company that jury-rigged half of one building to a temporary restaurant. Here is me in the empty half:

And here I am in the other half waiting for kebab service:

We drank lots of good wine, ate lots of good food, had lots of good conservation with friends many of them I had not seen since 1976. Then the buses came to take us back to the hotel.

The next day Meliz and I went back to Beşiktaş in the same car that brought us to Başiskele.

This was the reunion meeting of my 1976 graduation from the university.