Dear Friends,

We hope your summer is going well and your preparations for the new semester are complete. Given that we are a few weeks away from the conference, we wanted to give you some additional information and updates.

1) Conference Location.  The conference will be held in the main campus of Kadir Has University, Istanbul. The mailing address is as follows:

Kadir Has Caddesi
Cibali / İSTANBUL
34083

 The main campus is comprised of four adjacent buildings.  When you arrive, there will be two entrance doors, one in the new building (D-Block) the other in the old building (B-Block), both facing the Haliç.  You can use either to enter the campus.  Your names will be listed in both doors.  Once inside the building, you can follow the signs to the conference room.  The conference room is named Cibali Salon.  It is located in B-Block.

2) Transportation from Hotels: If you are staying in hotels other than the conference hotels (Daphni's Hotel and Kariye Hotel  and need directions regarding cabs, public transportation etc. Please let us know one week before the conference (give us the hotel address) and we will send you some additional information (for your transportation inquiries please enter "Transportation" to the subject line of your e-mail).

3) Preconference Dinner? If you have plans to arrive in Istanbul before the conference date (September 12), we can arrange a dinner on September 11, please let us know. 

4) AV Request:  The conference room Cibali Salon is equipped with a Projector that we can connect to a MAC or a PC.  You can hook up your own computer or bring your presentation in a flash drive.  If you need any other AV services, please let us know and we will do our best to accommodate it.   However, if you are planning to use video tapes, let us remind you that Turkey (like rest of Europe) is not NTSC.  (In your e-mail for your AV requests please use write AV to the subject line)

5) Boat Tour:  Some of you have indicated that you would be interested in a Boat Tour of Bosphorous.  We thought that if there are enough people interested, we can schedule such a night tour for September 13, Saturday. We asked around to get some information about price levels and services included.  A typical boat tour including appetizers, barbeque meal + unlimited non-alcoholic and unlimited alcoholic (domestic) beverages (beer, wine, vodka, Rakı -- people know it as Turkish Uzo) will cost about 65 to 80 YTL's per person (meaning 35-45 Euros) including taxes.  The tour typically lasts about three hours, includes very bad music (e.g. Disco Partizani will be played!!).  Joking aside, the tour is one of the most relaxing experiences you can have in Istanbul and the scenery is very good.  If you are interested, please let us know as soon as possible (with an email with a subject line Boat Tour) so that we can book a boat (we need the headcount to book the boat).

6) Voluntary Registration: Many thanks to our sponsors Tubitak and the Kadir Has University, we were very close to breaking even our budget. But we fell just a tad bit short.  Given this small deficit, we will ask for a voluntary registration fee of suggested 20 Euros.  Given that this notice is coming with so little time before the conference, paying for the registration fee and the amount you pay are voluntary.  If you want to opt out from this registration fee please send an e-mail with a subject line "Opt-out of registration fee". (this will help us estimate our remaining deficit).

7) Looking forward to seeing you:  We are all very excited about the opportunity to welcome you to Istanbul and Kadir Has University.