Cycling

I had always promised myself that if one day I move to Europe, I will start cycling. The reason for waiting for Europe was that Europe is generally flat(ter), Istanbul is also known as the city with 7 hills and trust me, there are more than 7 hills in that city. I know cyclists love that but as a beginner, I wasn't ready for it (which I learned here to be true).

So before I moved here I asked for some tips from my cyclist friends on what to look for in a bike (a second hand one), disregarded everything they said and bought the cheapest bike I could find. But before that, let's talk about bikes a little.

As a kid I cycled a lot (in Cyprus that is, since I'm a Cypriot). In my grandmothers neighborhood everyone had a bike and we would cycle all day just for fun. I realised this later on that we rarely cycled for transport. It would take me 10-15 minutes to cycle from my grandmothers house to ours but it's weird that I have never cycled that distance. It's because cycling is not considered as a vehicle for transport in Turkey or Turkish Cyprus. Istanbul with a population of 20 million and a total area of 5,343 square kilometers, has 2km of bicycle roads which are populated by pedestrians, cyclist are harassed (physically being pushed or talked down on while they are cycling) and as I've said before, the city has shitloads of hills which only seems to bother me since every cyclist I tell this to loves it.

So as a kid, I never considered cycling as a way of transport and even though I use for transport now, it still seems a bit odd of a concept, but I'm getting there!

So, where were we? I wasn't sure if I was going to use the bike enough since I'm quite a lazy person in general. I found a second hand bike shop, was willing to pay around 60 70 pounds for a bike which I know is quite high, but a friend of mine bought two cheap bikes which became unusable in a week and she couldn't sell them back, so I was willing to pay a little bit more and just play safe. So the cheapest usable bike I could find was for 40 pounds, together with lights, a lock and a new seat it cost me 70 pounds. Yes I still don't have a helmet but hopefully I will get one soon.

The hardest thing to get used to at first was my way around Old Stein to The Level then up Lewes road to campus. Here's an image:

The straight arrow that you see is not so straight when you're trying to cycle or drive. Just zoom in on this and check the arrows. So yes, this part was my biggest problem which I managed to figure out after a week so I cycle happily now is what I want to say but alas, then came the bigger problems.

Problem no 1 is my physical unfitness for cycling. The first thing one notices is ones quads. I always thought I had OK quads since they felt like bricks when I contracted them, turns out it was all just a dream. The pain that struck while I'm cycling was at first interesting. The thing that was more interesting was that I could always push them a little bit more, they held in there, I haven't had sore quads since I've started cycling even though they get tired. I can feel them getting stronger, the ride to practice which is mostly uphill is getting easier and easier and the ride to school doesn't make me sweat anymore (hmm, is it because it's -1 degrees outside?). My unfitness is becoming less and less of a problem and more and more of a benefit since even when playing ultimate, my quads are generally the first part of my body to give up after a hard day, interesting why I never questioned their weakness before. I might have some denial problems..

I realised that I still have lots to say, so I'm dividing this into two parts too (tootwotoototot). I want to keep the posts on this blog short so maybe that's a better idea right? I'm off to a friends birthday party with me bike now, see you guys later.

Tune back for things like problem no 2, how does it compare in transport time of the famous Brighton Buses, additional costs and is it really worth all the trouble? Does this count as a cliffhanger?

Buses buses buses p2

More on buses! Here it comes.

Well, I have used a lot of buses since I've been here. So on the previous post I generally talked about the look of the buses around Brighton, in this post I will talk about how they run.

First and foremost the most annoying part: You can only get on or off a bus at a stop. Now, for you Europeans this might sound normal. But in İstanbul most drivers, depending on how frequent the bus is and if you are not in traffic, would stop anywhere near bus stops to let you on which is an amazing thing. Drivers here don't let me on while they're waiting for a green light literally 5 metres away from the bus stop. I know it's about insurance and stuff but they give you such a weird look that I almost got into fights with two different drivers. Now I don't even go for the buses waiting the red light.. Sad..

OK, now a positive point, they don't let people on the bus if it gets too crowded. Amazing!! It's exactly the opposite in İstanbul, I might have a lot of illegitimate children because of those crowded bus rides (I hope you get the joke but I seriously doubt it). Here they stop it at a level that makes sense. Kudos for that drivers.

One more thing that I don't like and can be improved is the payment of the bus fare. Stupidly everyone pays the driver, which takes so much unnecessary time.. What's even more annoying is that they have the utilities for payment with cards but they're only active for students (doesn't include higher education students) and seniors. I'm hoping it will spread to everyone so that the trips will take half the time. I'm no exaggerating, it sometimes takes 3-4 minutes for a bus to move from a stop.  Such a big waste of time.
Seriously, the bus takes 25-30 minutes from where I live to uni if there's no traffic and a lot of people getting on, this does not include the waiting time for the bus. It takes me 25 minutes with my bike to go the same distance and it's a very, very shitty bike. So you can guess.

OK, one more thing and then I go, back in the day, I always said that if you say thank you to your doctor, you should also say thank you to the bus driver. Well whadaya know, most people do that in Brighton. I think it's a really good thing that just puts a person (both the driver and you) in a good mood. Kudos to everyone.

Well, I think that's all I have for buses. I'll let you know if I notice anything new.
See you all soon!

London Trip

I've been lazy about writing things but as of today, I've decided to be up to date so I had to cut the bus talk in to 2 parts since I wrote that part 2 weeks ago and didn't finish. Will finish soon.

I have been to London before multiple times, heck I was there a few months back visiting my sister. But I never visited London AFTER I had stayed in Brighton for more than a month, go figure. But yes, now I have. And have no fear citizens, I will talk about it.

I think I should tell this last but fuck it, here it goes, London sucks, Brighton rocks!

After tasting Brighton for more than a month, the second we got off the London train, I felt overwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, Istanbul is a more crowded and hectic city than London (not by a landslide but it is) and I am used to crowded cities. But after getting used to Brighton (you got used to it in a month after spending 8 years in Istanbul? Liar!!) London just seemed too crowded, too chaotic, too loud, too dark, too expensive and boring. My ticket, which I was late to buy and had to pay a bit more for it, cost me 6.75 where a day travel ticket in London is 7.30 (if you don't have Oyster, and this is not all zones). Fuckin' thieves..

I will admit, London is a beautiful city, it's just that after Brighton it seems like an old city. It's hard to describe the feeling with my close to shit English. In Brighton it's party time 7 days a week, fancy dress events every day (you might know this as costume parties, which I did not know at first and wondered why so many people wanted to dress formally), people getting drunk every night and everyone having fun and enjoying it, everyone a tid bit happier, everyone more relaxed, a bit like Amsterdam but better :). While as the scene in London always put me off a little bit.

I just realised that I won't be able to describe any of my feelings, what a great writer I am, I'm sure you learned tons! Well, that's what you get. I'm sure we will come back to this topic as I make more trips to London and as I write more about  Brighton (so that you'll see why it's such a great city).
For now, thanks to my buddy and host the T-man for hosting us this weekend. All my man love goes to him.

Yes, I was extremely sleepy.

Buses buses buses p1

I did not like buses in İstanbul. I used them a lot, but never liked them. What is there to like about them? Super crowded, most of them very old, seriously noisy, bad drivers most of the time, and of course last but not least, the traffic.

So, immediately as I arrived in Brighton, buses caught my eye. At first I didn't understand the writings and numbers on the sides of the buses since I knew nothing about Brighton and it's surroundings. I live in the centre of King's Road. Which puts me at the centre of the town centre. So there are buses that pass through Churchill Square (the main square of the town centre) to all around Brighton&Hove. So soon enough, I realized that most buses showed their routes and approximately how many minutes there were between each bus on one side of the bus. Beautiful! Smartest thing I've seen in a long while. I would've loved to show photos for those of you who haven't seen it but I don't have a camera, and google search failed me.. Well, whadaya know, found one:

 

Well of course while one side had these, the other sides sometimes have these strange things, and believe me, they have lots of variations of it:

There are loads of photos and texts telling you how pleasant it is to ride buses in Brighton&Hove, and that you can enjoy doing various things on the bus, like on the one at the top image, the lady claims she can do her make up on the bus, which we tried, and no, it's not true (one claimed that the cleaners of the buses are very happy, don't know why).
Few more things and comparisons soon to come.

Brighton Chronicles

I just moved to Brighton 2 days ago, Sunday 25th of September 2011. These are the things that I notice, I experience, I see, I hear.. Basically the things that are happening to me while I'm in Brighton.
Keep in mind that if you are from here, or from around Europe somewhere, many of these things might seem normal to you. But I came from a very different culture so some of these things are just outstanding for me and I want to share my feelings about them.. Do comment please!
Hope you enjoy!