December 25, 200
So today was the day to get all my and Brittany’s paperwork done for the game tomorrow. Yes, our club waited until the day before to get everything done, not just for Britt and me, but a few other players also. The clubs present to us, and really themselves; really because, who wants to invest money into something/one and not be able to use it.
As usual, we were told to be ready in the morning. So we woke up somewhat early to be ready, because they could show up at any moment without warning. Tyler woke up and left in a hurry. I didn’t have anything to do, so I just hung out reading/writing or whatever I do when I’m bored. He came back without me noticing. Then while we are in the living room, he asked if we were ready for our presents. I was floored, I had no idea. He gave us each a present with a homemade card. Inside the packages was chocolate! In his family, they give/receive chocolate every year. And on top of that, they have mimosas! Earlier, he ran out of the house to buy chocolate and champagne. The champagne turned out to be corked, so was the next bottle for which he traded the first one, and so he finally decided on a bottle of wine. We would enjoy it later with dinner. For the moment, we just enjoyed all the chocolate!
We received a call saying meet at the X-House at 1:15pm. Gokturk and Gokçe were going to take us to the federation, police station, and wherever else we needed to go. We moseyed on over to the X-House to be swept away to the federation.
Ok so back story: In order to play in a different country, or for a different national organization/federation, the country you want to play in (in this case Turkey) has to request permission (transfer card) from your home country, or most recent country in which you played (for me, USA). The TBHF had to request my transfer card from USA Hockey. Keep in mind that today is Christmas, and most people like to take their vacation time during the holidays. But that didn’t cross our GM’s mind when getting my paperwork together. He waited over a week to take me to the federation to sign my transfer card, which took a total of five minutes. We did this on Monday, the 21st. So after I signed and we faxed my transfer card on Monday, I e-mailed USA Hockey to politely ask if they could please quickly sign and return my transfer card, because I have a game on the 26th. In response, Kim (lady at USA Hockey) wrote that if TBHF can scan and e-mail it to her she can get it processed, because she will not be back in the office until the 29th. (Oh yeah, because in the US they celebrate Christmas but no one here thought of that, except us and even by then it was too late.) I told Gokturk as soon as I found out and he relayed the message to the federation. My transfer card was e-mailed, received by USA Hockey. USA Hockey e-mailed back a confirmation that they received the transfer card and issued a temporary OK to play through e-mail and all codes/numbers needed, and also said on the 29th they will fax the original. So yesterday, we got the OK for my transfer card! Now all we need to do today is go to the police station and submit my player card, right? Well this is where the story picks back up…
At the X-House, Gokturk is sitting gathering all the girls’ paperwork to get their player cards. Then out of nowhere, he said I’ll be right back. He returned with a type writer, haha. He ran out to his car where he keeps a type writer handy in case of times like there. He then typed up the needed information for my player card right in front of my eyes, while making humorous remarks about typewriters not being obsolete. He then told us that I will not be able to play tomorrow because the federation is refusing to accept the e-mail as confirmation of the transfer. So Brittany and I went off on him. Something to the effect of, “It’s not the federation’s fault, it’s yours Gokturk. Kate/I was here for a week and a half before you took her/me to the federation. This all could have been avoided if you would have taken her/me to the federation the Monday after Kate/I arrived.” Of course like a typical Turk, Gokturk blamed it on someone else or a third party to avoid taking responsibility and save face. He then got really upset and said, well I guess nothing will get done now. We asked why, and he responded because “you make fight.” Haha, because we told him how this whole situation could have been avoided, he was ready to give up on the day. Nothing could get done now because “we make fight.” Then I just asked, “Ok Gokturk, what can we do now to get everything done so we can play?” He said go to federation, police station, and the sports authority.
So we (Gokturk, Gokçe, Brittany, and I) jumped in his car and off to the federation. There Gokturk went inside to ask the federation again if they would accept the e-mail as a go ahead to play and process the rest of my paperwork. After he talked to them, then called me in, they still refused. So that was a waste of time. It’s official, I will not be playing the first game L
Now, we just had to get Brittany and the rest of the girls’ player cards submitted so they could play. But now we had a slight detour. We had to get a doctor’s signature saying we are cleared to play, a physical. We were unaware of this until we arrived at the hospital. All three of us girls went into the doctor’s office to get our physical. Never have I had anyone else in the room during a physical. Brittany went first. The doctor placed a stethoscope on her left ribs, close to her armpit, to listen to her heart. She then asked is terrible English if Brittany has had surgery. Haha, what? Surgery on her heart? She responded no. The doctor signed off on her medical sheet. I was next. She placed the stethoscope on my ribs, then asked if I had a problem. Of course this would happen to me. The one thing they check is your heart and naturally I have something wrong with my heart, a heart murmur. Not just that, my murmur is in the lower left ventricle, exactly the one and only place the doctor checked my heart. Awesome, I failed the simplest physical ever. I then told her I’ve been to a heart doctor, I’ve had and EKG and echocardiogram, and my heart is fine. I can get my doctor at home to send the results tomorrow. She still said no, you need to go to a doctor here in Turkey. Even better, now I have to go to a doctor here because they don’t trust my multiple test results from home. And as if the federation not accepting my transfer card wasn’t enough, I wouldn’t have been able to play even if they approved it because of my heart.
Next, off to the sports authority place to submit all the player cards. Gokçe handed over all the player cards for approval. Things were going smoothly, until they came to Brittany’s. Then there was a whole kafuffle. Brittany handed over her passport and residence permit. Gokçe asked what was wrong, and they explained but no one really understood. Then Gokturk came in to talk to them. He got into it with one the guys. Then Gokturk called someone, handed over the phone to the guy, and then he proceeded to yell into the phone. There was a lot of commotion and we had no idea what was going on, haha. Gokçe didn’t understand either and she speaks Turkish.
After about fifteen minutes of utter confusion, this guy came and ushered us upstairs. We led us through an office, then through a sound proof door to a large, spacious office. We walked into a room of about ten or eleven men all dressed in suits. It was one of the nicest offices I have ever seen; there were couches and coffee tables, a beautiful view of the city. It was just a nice set up. On the couches were about ten or eleven men, and then one man at an enormous, beautifully crafted office desk. Gokturk, adorning his usual sweat suit and baseball hat, approached the man at the desk with what was going on. He turned out to be the president of the sports authority for Ankara. In other words, he oversees all sports in the capital city of almost five million people. And like downstairs the president was on a phone yelling into it. Then he was on two phones, landline phones, with the wires crossed screaming into both. Apparently, the two different people on the phone were asking and talking about exactly the same thing. It was like we were watching a movie, except we were in it. We walked in on a meeting of the Ankara sports authority, then the president, and everyone else, dropped what they were doing to listen to four people dressed less than presentable.
Aside from that, I felt like we walked into the essence of our interpretation of how Turkey does business. A group of men, all in suits were sitting around drinking çay talking. This is how we have observed our board “doing work.” There were no women present, and once we interrupted for at least twenty minutes, no one had pressing matters in their own office. They were all perfectly content sitting while a group of nobodies disrupted their meeting and then listening to a one sided conversation. Here business is conducted for hours and hours over games of cards, dominoes, or backgammon. I really wish I could have taken a picture of the room to show how efficient business is here. Again I say that with a grain of salt, because this has only been my experience here. For all I know, everyone else in Ankara and Turkey could be the most efficient and time aware business people in the world.
So after we left the office, we learned that now Brittany also couldn’t play. So not only was I missing the first game, Brittany was too. Awesome, so happy I rushed across the world to not play hockey. And Brittany has been here since the first week of November…why did Gokturk wait until the day before the game to find out that neither of us could play. Don’t you think this could have been taken care of earlier in case there were any bumps in the road? Nope, never. That is a thought that would never cross his mind.
Keep in mind today is Friday, which means we have practice at 5:10. And if you were like me today, I repeatedly forgot it was Christmas, Brittany had to keep reminding me. Haha. Back to practice. Because everything didn’t go as smoothly as planned, and Gokturk waited until 2pm to start the process that ultimately failed, we missed practice. Gokturk dropped us off and said meet at the rink in twenty minutes. So we sat down for a minute, then grabbed our computers and headed to the rink.
When we got there, Gokturk was nowhere to be found. Usual Gokturk move, tell us you’ll do something then forget about it, or change the plans without notifying us. So we just went to Shoppe to get on the internet to talk to our families. Of course it was around 6pm Turkey time, so it was 7am Alaska Time. No one would be awake, so I just surfed the net like usual. Then Gokturk called Tyler and said, “We have meeting now.” Just as they were settling in to talk to their families, he ripped them away. So Tyler and I went over to X-House for the meeting. When Gokturk dropped Britt and me off after we failed to do everything, he said we will have a meeting but Tyler doesn’t have to come, because you are the same person. So we all thought it would work in reverse, if Tyler showed up, then Britt didn’t have to come. But when we walked in the door, they asked where Britt was, and said they had cleared all the smoke from the room so she would be more comfortable. The board would not have the meeting without Brittany, so Tyler had to go back to Shoppe to get her.
When we all were there, we could start the meeting. The meeting was with all the board members who would be taking over on January 1st. Why they change their board in the middle of the season is beyond me. So they asked us what we wanted. We had a list of things, such as: a new clean home, to be paid on time, and other “very” demanding things. Really we just wanted to live like normal people, and not have to fight for everything. Why should we have to remind Gokturk five times that we need food money on Mondays? But in reality, if we don’t then we don’t get food money. Why have we been living in a moldy house for two weeks when we brought it to your attention two weeks ago? Why haven’t we been paid for our sticks that were promised to us? Why don’t I have a phone yet? To my knowledge, the board didn’t know many of our problems. Gokturk is a black hole and doesn’t relay any information given to him from either side. The vice president was the one talking most of the time. He seemed to have business sense; after all, he does own X-House. He wanted to make sure we would uphold our end of the deal, and they weren’t going to dive in head first without some reassurance from us. They understood everything we said and promised that they would work with us to make our season as successful as possible. We all felt much better after the meeting. It sounded like 2010 would start off right and the rest of the season wouldn’t be such a struggle.
So finally after at least an hour and a half of talking, we went home. We still hadn’t eaten dinner. Off to the store for food. We had asked coach to join us for a Christmas dinner, but he didn’t seem too enthused to hang out with the players. Britt made the soup while I prepared a salad. And just as we were sitting down to eat, coach showed up. His meeting had just finished, and it was now about 10pm. We had the most enjoyable dinner, with the wine that Tyler had returned the two rotten bottles of champagne for. I stuffed my face. I don’t remember last time I was that full. Tyler and I killed all the food.
After we had some beers, then around 1am coach said ok it’s time to go out! We walked over to Last Stop, a bar that is open until 3am. We had two towers of beer. All of us were pretty woozy, having a good time. At three they kicked us out, and we wandered home. As I said, all’s well that ends well. The day might not have gone as I would want on Christmas, but at the end of the day, we had a wonderful meal and a few beers to go with it.
Could I have had a more of a roller coaster Christmas anywhere else in the world?
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