I think I overdid it on Turkish tea yesterday because I found myself wide awake at 2am.
I managed to drag myself out of bed in time for a long shower and a non-rushed breakfast. We were then on our way to Turcas Petro. We were greeted by the CFO and a table full of pastries. A few minutes later, the CEO arrived. Batu Aksay is the CEO and it is shocking how young he is, he's in his late 30's if we are doing the math right. Batu presented to us about Turkey's energy market and Turcas Petro's role. He has an electrical and computer engineering degree, but was really impressive from a business strategy standpoint. Turkey is in a very advantageous "geopolitical" position due to their proximity to the Middle Eastern oil producing countries and to the rest of continental Europe. It was really interesting. Turcas is currently a minority member of a joint venture with Shell. The JV was mutually advantageous to both parties, Shell gas can be sold at a premium in Turkey since brand names are valued highly and Turcas had great gas station locations. Turcas is actually Batu's family business, but he replaced a non-family CEO two years ago, so they seem open to non-family management.
A few fun facts:
-In Turkey there are 138 cars per 1000 people. The number is higher in Istanbul, which is obvious after being here for two days. In the US we have 818 per 1000 people.
-95% of oil consumed in Turkey is imported, so they are also focusing on decreasing their dependence on foreign oil. (I keep hearing Sarah Palin saying that in my head, and thinking "does she realize how much oil we use??") Turcas seems to have realistic goals on this, in my opinion.
-70% of all cars sold in Turkey today are diesel.
After Turcas, we had lunch at Kebabi. Meals arranged by the tour company seem to just be a never ending parade of awesome food. We got a chance to roam the Kanyon mall. It was really interesting architecturally, but frustrating for efficient shopping patterns. Ultimately, it was a fancy mall and had fancy mall stores.
We headed to Akbank, which is Turkey's largest bank. This presentation was significantly less interesting to me and the speaker spoke in one of those soft voices that lulls you to sleep. I was cracking up in my head between attempts to stay awake at the photographer that was taking a steady stream of photographs for over a half hour. We were sitting in place and the speaker was standing in place. Wasn't exactly worth the disk space in my opinion. Jenny enjoyed the Akbank speaker much more than I did, but here are a few facts:
-Turkey is currently the 18th largest economy in the world. (I assume they only count countries but wouldn't Wal-mart be in the top 10?)
-50% of all Turks are 29 years old or younger
-one third of Akbank customers don't use ATMs....ever (they can use mobile apps)
-Akbank does not treat all its customers equally and if you are a lowly normal person who walks in, you could expect to wait 30 minutes.
-credit card interest rates here are between 20 and 25%
-Turkey has stricter bankruptcy laws than us and don't allow for chapter 11
After Akbank we got to change for dinner in Kumkapi district. This is the seafood area of the old town and was really interesting. We walked down one street that almost seemed like a giant St. Anthony's feast but subtract the Saint and add fish. It was lined with open air restaurants, some were equipped with Turkish traditional musicians. They were like middle eastern Mariachis. We had another amazing food parade of traditional Turkish dishes. It was harder to eat at dinner because we were just so full and tired. I tried everything but the fava beans, including the sardines. I don't like stuffed grape leaves, I just tried them for the first time tonight for the sake of adventure but they have never appealed to me. After dinner we saw the "ice cream show" where this guy dressed like Abu from Aladdin swings around this giant marshmallow thing that is actually ice cream made from goat's milk. It was really good.
It is now almost 11:30 and I am falling asleep in the lobby trying to be witty for all of you. Hopefully our hotel in Athens has wireless in our rooms and I can blog in my pajamas. Although now that Jenny and I have been to a Turkish bath together, maybe I can blog in my underwear. Will try to post pictures here tomorrow.
Note on my Facebook picture: I keep joking about wanting to take a picture with a statue of Atatürk. I also keep referring to him as "Turkish Jesus" even though he isn't a religious figure, he is EVERYWHERE. Hopefully I can pull off a selfie with Atatürk in sculpture form.
Night night!
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