CURRENT MISSION

Our mission is to be a better person in every way and to educate ourselves. Meanwhile to help others and the nature as much as we can.

ABOUT ME

Alp has been living in Istanbul since 1992 and Serap since from her childhood. During Alp's military service, he worked as a liaison and protocol officer. Therefore, he found the opportunity to meet many high ranked officers from all countries and helped them to learn about and see the important places of Istanbul. He enjoyed sharing his experiences and listening to theirs a lot. Alp and Serap are together since 2001 and married in 2008.

If you can inform us as early as possible, we may be able to add some good memories and good friends to our lives. And hope you may also do so. We are looking forward to meet you and show you the hospitality and cheerfulness of Turkish people :)

PHILOSOPHY

Work hard to be a better person. Start this voyage, first by knowing yourself. Continue by knowing the nature and other people. Analyze what you have learned and benefit from it. Try to correct your errors. Find the people that really needs help and do your best to help them. To have more, you must learn to give.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

In addition to hosting guests, Alp also contributed in the translation of the site into Turkish. He wrote an article on CS and it is published in a mobile technology magazine. He wrote another article (this time a huge one with 3 interviews integrated in it) and it is published in a "style for men" magazine.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

We have accommodated around 74 guests from different countries, and Serap surfed in some of the European and Middle-Eastern cities 7 times. Here is an interesting fact about our visitors: Nearly 50 percent of them were vegetarians. This is only a small fact… Our all visitors were open minded, humanist and citizens of the world. Those makes CS experiences friendly and make CS friendships lasting and intense. We have learned lots of things from them. As we accommodate more, we want to host them even more.

Interests

We are interested in nature, philosophy, esoteric belief systems and science fiction.

We like listening to Metal, Rock, New Age music. Alp is a huge Jazz fan but Serap believes it is not synchronized enough :)

We like reading Orhan Pamuk, George Martin, SF Said, Roald Dahl, Amin Maalouf, Christian Jacq and philosophy books.

Alp also enjoy comics: Sandman, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Hellblazer, Rİsing Stars, Books of Magic,all Moore's and Gaiman's works.

Alp plays board, strategy and role playing games.
Watch short films, european movies, Miyazaki films.

Serap likes action and comedy films.

Serap likes pets a lot. Especially birds.

• pets
• birds
• books
• coffee
• drinking
• technology
• comics
• movies
• reading
• magic
• music
• jazz
• new age music
• business
• science

Teach, Learn, Share

OK! Let's see what we can tell about! Yes, what about Turkish Coffee. We do not know if you have heard it or not but we have a special way to make coffee here in Turkey.

Centuries ago, when people devoted more time to their earthly pleasures and less time to the business and Television, coffee making developed some rituals that exist in ‘light’ versions in our days. In old times, coffee was prepared by heating it very slowly (for 15 to 20 minutes), the copper coffee pot being frequently taken away from the fire to prevent overheating.

A real addict can easily tell the difference between a properly made Turkish coffee and one prepared the way cheap restaurants are preparing.

Today, for practical purposes modern electric or gas stove tops became the heating equipment of choice. To make proper Turkish coffee you need Turkish coffee beans, a Turkish coffee pot "cezve", and Turkish coffee cups “fincan”, and optionally, if you want to grind the beans, a Turkish coffee grinder “kahve degirmeni”. Note that Turkish coffee requires extra fine ground coffee which some electrical grinders cannot produce.

I am not gonno tell here how to prepare Turkish coffe, if you visit me I wiil take you to a place where you can drink a proper Turkish Coffee. Anyway if you visit Turkey but can not reach me, just know there are 4 ways for you to prefer your Turkish cofee:

Sade - plain, no sugar (fairly bitter)

Az sekerli - with a little sugar (takes off the bitter edge; less than a teaspoon per cup)

Orta sekerli - with medium sugar (sweetish; about a teaspoon of sugar for each cup)

Çok sekerli - with lots of sugar (quite sweet; two teaspoons of sugar or more)

Please note that Turkish coffe cups are slightly smaller then the espresso cups, but Turkish teaspoons are nearly 1/4 of standart tea spoons.

OH! An important notice! The grinded coffee beans will rest at the bottom of the cup. Do not drink (or eat) it!

And if you see people turning their coffee cups upside down after finishing their coffee don't be surprised. Some people enjoys fortune telling by looking at the remains of the coffee and give meanings to the shapes that they see.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Cambodia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Netherlands, Romania, Russian Federation, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City State, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

Denmark, Turkey

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