Nothing is stronger then
the one word…

Tuesdaynight is the night we've been waiting for. In the afternoon we take the ferry to Uskudar. The passengers on the boat colour it completely yellow and blue, the club-colours of Fenerbahce. Peter and I are the only ones in red and white, including Peter's Feyenoord-shirt. The atmosphere in the city and on the boat is great: people sing and shout, everywhere are stands with the yellow and blue trinkets, scarfs and balloons. In Uskudar we follow the stream of supporters, we expect them not to get lost. Through the richly decorated streets we walk, between hundreds of adversaries, in a friendly-hostile atmosphere. People gaze, yell and laugh at us and never bother us. Every Fenerbahce-supporter is throroughly convinced that his club will be the winner later on. The lion's den, the Sukru Saracoglu Stadyumu, can be very rough at times, as sportcommentator Eddy Poelman so threatningly states. Winning here is almost impossible and not really advised. Some footballplayers seem to prefer not to play in this stadium at all.

We arrive at the stadium at the same moment the bus with Feyenoord-supporters arrives. The first confrontation between the fans occurs; terrifying qualifications are yelled to each other, drums sound with threatning rub-a-dub and middel-fingers go up. We report at section B-9 and ask whether it's possible to sit in the visitors-partition. Luckily the ushers agree and we call at the people from Rotterdam. It turns out that they all know each other, some of them look at us with astonishment. In the partition there are also about thirty Turkish policemen, who sit next to the partition-walls that keep the Turkish supporters seperated from us. I am very curious and decide to chat with the highest in rank. He tells me that it's their duty to remove supporters that do not behave themselves. I think this policeman is a very good judge of people: he's convinced I'm 32 years old!

More and more Dutch supporters arrive, but at sixty it stops. Next Friday Feyenoord plays another game, this time in Monaco. Most fans have decided to go there instead of Istanbul. We chat with some of the die-hards, who follow their club for every game whereever on earth.
"How did you get here?" one of them asks. "Train, plane?"
"No, by bicycle," we answer as casual as possible.
"Excuse me?"
"By bicycle."
"I mean, eh, how you went from the Netherlands to Istanbul, you know."
"Yes, we know. We came by bicycle."
Always nice conversations like this.

Then the game starts. The first fifteen minutes Feyenoord is, like expected, completely overrun by the yellow and blues. Then the game starts to even out and both teams create some chances. The Fenerbahce-fans sing and shout their lungs out of their bodies, the same yell over and over again. Our Feyenoordsongs can't be heard.
In the second half everything changes. Feyenoord scores a goal and hell breaks loose. We jump and yell and cry, look overjoyed at each other and suddenly feel wetness. Literally. The people in the yellow and blue partitions throw hundreds of small plastic bags filled with water at our partition. Tens of thousands of people all around us howl, fists are made and curses shouted. The atmosphere suddenly turns grim. When big Turkish coins start flying through the air the situation gets a bit dangerous. A beautiful electronic lighter lands next to Peter. That's very nice: it's working and Peter had to hand over his lighter at the entrance, so now he can smoke again. The coins are dangerous though; Peter feels it when one hits his hand. I ask the police officer I talked to before whether we are safe; I noticed that some of his collegues are Fenerbahce-fans as well!
The game goes on. The Fenerbahce-fans are awfully quiet, for the first time we can hear the Feyenoord-songs and ourselves. Delightful.
For the Turks it's very important to play Champions League this season. The angular stadium is recently rebuild at the expense of an enormous amount of money. The monies that playing the lucrative Champions League can generate are necessary to pay of debts and do new investments.

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They're not in luck this year though. Shortly before the game is over Feyenoord scores again. We are like madmen, jump on the chairs and at the same time try to protect our heads and bodies from the rain that consists of coins, bags of water and lighters. A few minutus later it's over. The homepartitions are getting empty very quickly; we have to wait until all the Turks are gone. Half an hour later the stadium is dark and empty. Outside there are hundreds of Fenerbahce-fans waiting to cool of the agression over their loss. All the Dutch fans have to go back by bus, for security-reasons. When we're finally in the bus, the glass of the door is broken by Fenerbahce-fans even before we start going. This is of no influence on the victorious atmosphere in the bus. We've taken over the yell the Turks shouted the major part of the game, the whole bus swayes from left to right on our way to Europe again. Everytime somebody in the bus sees yellow and blue outside of it, the yell starts again. With an escorte of motorcycles and police-cars the bus has a clear passage through the busy traffic. Half an hour later we're standing on the streets of our own quarter, with heated heads and hoarse voices.

The last days we visit the most beautiful mosques, stroll through the mystical city and maintain our bicycles for the next stretch of the journey. I visit the Topkapi-museum.This is quite a disappointment because a lot of the departments are closed for reparation. Luckily I paid only 50% of the exuberant entrance-fees thanks to my studentcard, so the blow isn't too hard.

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On the terrace of Hotel Paris, at the seventh floor with a good view over the Sea of Marmora, we come into contact with four South African boys. One of them actually met Nelson Mandela and he thinks we can meet him as well if we try.

So far our route is planned up until Jordan. From there it's to the left to Asia or straight on to Africa. Now we reach an easy decision; we're going to find Mister Mandela to thank him for everything he has done.