sorry, road closed due to snow

Eğirdir, Turkey


Monday night Ingo (my roommate) and I set out for a week long adventure in Turkey. Our plan was to take the night train to Konya, and from there to go to Kapadokya. We got to the train about five minutes before it left, and for the first couple of hours had the compartment to ourselves. Then, a couple of Turkish guys got on. For about the first hour it was really quiet, and then they got out their food and we got out our food, and the eating and talking began. The two guys go to a two year school in Isparta. Cihan, the older one with a ponytail, is learning the leather trade. The younger, Beyhan, is studying textiles. They were both really nice guys. Beyhan knew a bit of English, which only came out after he had drunk Vodka, and Cihan didn't speak any. So it was a good chance for me to practice my Turkish. The sleeping part of the journey, however, was not as good as the company. The seats folded down, but the heating was right under the bottom beds. So the bottom beds were really hot, but if we opened the window, then the people on the top froze. In the middle of the night Cihan was nice enough to trade beds with me so I could get out of my boiling bed.

The next morning we arrived in Konya two hours late at around 10. Our first order of buisiness was to find cigarettes and coffee for Ingo, and then the internet. Our internet directions were bad - Turks have this need to tell you how to get somewhere, even if they really don't know where it is, but at least the hunt lead us close to the center. Unlike in most cities, Konya's train station is not in the center of town. With no word from anyone on Hospitality Club or Couchsurfing, we decided to go straight to Göröme. So we boarded the tram to the bus station. And then, on the way, the tram hit a guy. So naturally, everyone had to go look at what was going on. Then the televison guys, polis, and ambulance arrived. After waiting about 20 minutes, the tram was allowed to leave. The bus station is really way out of town. By the time we got there it was snowing really hard. We found a counter advertising busses to Göröme, and they told us they were closed. Not understanding, we went to the next counter, where they explained that the roads were closed to snow. So we can't go today, I asked (in Turkish). No. When can we go? Tomorrow there is a big chance. Allah Bilir (God knows).


Needing a new plan we headed to the station cafeteria for tea and coffee. Looked at the book. Had some soup. Pondered taking a bus to Van. Then I went back to ask when they thought the busses would go. Or where else we could go. You can go to beyşehir lake or eğirdir lake they told me. You speak turkish very well. Your boyfriend (meaning Ingo) is lucky to have you. We don't know when the roads to Kapadokya will be open. Turns out, Ingo had been to eğirdir before and really loved it. Then, while talking to mom on the phone, she reminded me that we had been to eğirdir before. And so we decided to go.

Considering how snowy the road to Eğirdir was, and the fact that it was still open, I find it hard to imagine how snowy the other road must have been. At one point we stoped because there were cars in the oncoming lane, as well as a truck that had pulled over into our lane. And naturally, all the Turkish men on the bus needed to stand up, see what was going on, and give advice.

As we drove through the hills, the sky was the same color as the snow, making it sometimes impossible to tell where the land ended and the sky began. And it also began to snow. We arrived 4 hours later at Eğirdir, in the dark.


It was only this morning when I woke up that I got to see what was on the other side of the lake. It's absolutely beautiful. The lake is surrounded by mountains, that, at this time of year, have snow on them. From the town on the shore, it is a 2km walk to the island. Yes, they have made a walkway to the island, I guess making it not really an island anymore, but we were not walking on water. And on the way we found the most amazing icicles ever. Eğirdir is really windy, and on the windy side of this sort of land bridge, the waves were very strong. And probably since the beginning of winter the ice has been accumulating on the ground, trees, rocks, and table and chair. The chair really looked like it had teeth.


The island is really cute. As Ingo put it, if this was Germany, the island would have been totally cleaned up for the tourists. But it hasn't been, and so there are still old houses and dirt paths, and well, it has not been sterilized.

There isn't really much on the island though besides cafes, pensiyons, a playground, and lots of very nice views.

We found a place we wanted to stay, and after some tea, headed back to the shore.

At the bus station we discovered that there is a direct night bus to Göreme, and being poor, decided to skip paying for a hotel and to take the night bus. Sorry to the lady in the pensiyon!


While eating lunch, we got to witness the beginning of the doner making process. The donercu sliced the meat into very thin slices, and then put them all into a mixture of yogurt, milk, onion and other stuff and mixed it all around. He then put the meat back in a pan, and told me it would sit overnight like that. Then, the next day they would stack it up, and put it on the spit and cook it.

We decided it was much too cold to walk back to the island, and so instead walked along the lake, finding more giant iceicles. After wasting more time in a pastane and at the internet cafe, we boarded our night bus to Göreme.

Şile

Last Sunday, Ingo, Cat and I took a field trip to Şile. Şile used to be a small fishing village, but as it is only 70 km from Kadıköy, it is now a summer vacation spot for people from Istanbul. Because it was January, it was pretty dead (a good thing) and a bit cold, but it was sunny and really really beautiful. The photograph on wikipedia does not do it justice!

This is what it looks like:


The bus to Şile was a cross between a city bus and a nice long distance bus, and after some confusion finding it, the ride took about an hour and a half. After arriving in Şile we had lunch in this little place in the center. They had amazing bread right out of the oven. After lunch Ingo wanted Turkish coffee, and, by this point we were already the amusement of the day. But the coffee made us the amusement of the week. The guy said he would check if they had Turkish coffee, went digging in this cabinet and found some (who knows how long it had been there) and then he had to go ask another guy how to make it. The whole process happened a bit fast for real Turkish coffee, but Ingo said it wasn't too bad. We didn't really think much of the town, so we went in search of the sea.


We first found the harbor

and a bunch of boats that had been pulled up on land for the winter

We then walked around the harbor and I decided to see how cold the water was. Within two seconds I couldn't feel my feet. After putting on my shoes while balancing and trying not to fall in the water, we had our first "off roading" experience climbing up a hill to get a view of this.

Once again, I have concluded that the hardest thing is not going up, but the getting back down.

After we got down Ingo and I both came to the conclusion that ice cream was necessary and Cat was very easily convinced. The problem was finding ice cream. The Turks thing that it is bad to eat ice cream in the winter - it will make you sick or something - and so all the small stores with little freezers that sell ice cream in the summer unplug them, making ice cream very hard to find.

Failing to find ice cream at all the cafes near the harbor we walked up and around for the next view.


At this point we saw a cave, and decided we needed to go explore. So we went off the path again, went buy a bunch of guys smoking and drinking and doing whatever else in a crack in the rock, and had everyone staring at us. Eventually we decided we couldn't get down to the cave and so walked back up to the road and climbed over the fence. Walking back up on the road we found some stairs and climbed down them and did get to the cave. Victory for us!

The second victory came later, when after trying at least 3 grocery stores we found a small selection of ice cream, and then sat on a bench on the street eating our ice cream and having every person that passed stop and stare at us. One guy went so far as to stand across the street smoking, and not very subtly glancing over at us. I maintain that ice cream in the winter is a great thing.

As the sun was setting we got on a bus back to Istanbul. We took a different route though, one that went through lots of villages on a road that might have been well paved twenty years ago. For a large section of the trip we were driving on the left side of the road because it was more well paved. Nothing like a bit of pretending to be in the UK.

Kadıköy Kazı

In the Kadıköy fish market there lives a goose (Kaz). He (or maybe she) is a bit dirty at the moment, but every time I see him waddling through the market it makes my day. So I thought the Kadıköy kazı deserved its own blog entry.


You can see some of the fish market in the background


I love the Kadıköy goose!
Kadıköy kazını seviyorum!

Who are you?

We now interupt the normal happy narrative for a bit of a pondering about the meaning of life

About a week ago I was sitting in the main teachers room drinking tea and eating my dessert from lunch, when the third grade class teacher decided that she wanted to talk with me. I have exchanged very few words with most of the non-english teachers, because I have to keep up the perception that I know no Turkish at all. And most of the other teachers don't know English, or more likely, are too shy to use it. So anyways, she asked me where I was from, how old I was, the usual. And then she asked me a question that I was completely unprepaired to answer - who are you? I still remember it because I think it is the first time in 23 years that I have ever been directly asked that question.

I remember sitting in the orientation the critical language program had put together before we departed for Istanbul and two months of intensive language study in summer 2005. In one of the presentation the guy made this observation - in the american language the most frequently used verb (in questions at least) is to do. Do being most oftenly used in the question - what do you do? In every other language, he pointed out, the most frequently used verb is not to do, but to be. In other cultures, who you are is more important than what you do. Perhaps he was wrong, or I am remembering incorectly, but I think the gist of it is interesting

And so I sat there and could not think of a thing to say. I went to this university, studied this, now I live here, etc. But those are all things I do, or did. I was saved from having to answer as she went off to do something else and then the bell wrang. And I have yet to think of an answer. Who am I? I'd like to think I am not alone in not knowing.

On a related note, it has been brought to my attention that I may not know what I am doing with my life, be uncommited, and not be living in the real world. The first is true - I do not know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I know that I do not want to be a lab scientist, nor do I want to spend my life doing only data entry, nor do I want to be in the army, nor do I want to work for a huge corporation selling anything, nor...

I am not, however, uncommited. For the vast majority of my life, the opposite has been true. I have been completely overcommitted. When I say I will do something, I do it. And so I got good grades, did math club and science club and theater and wrote a thesis and had a job and etc. Now I do not have a contract, only a verbal committment that I will stay til June, and even though I have found private lessons pay better, I have not broken that committment. Instead, I am thinking of staying at the same school for next year.

On the subject of the real world. I am living over the ocean from my family, and am not being supported by them. I am living on money that I have earned while here. I am living in a different culture, in a different language that I am trying to learn, I managed to find a job, a flat, get a bank account, and find friends in a place on the other side of the ocean. I live in a flat with no central heating and no hot water in the kitchen. We have to boil water to wash the dishes. So I'm not sure how it gets any more real world than that. Perhaps because I love my job and the place I am living, perhaps because I am happy, then it is not the real world?

So who am I - I am daughter of Sarah and Tom, sister of Ian, adopted daughter of William, step-daughter of Shannon, step-sister of Christi and Cari, friend to many, lover of life, happy where I am.

winter festivities

I guess I left off with Istanbul Wintercamp. Wintercamp was a couchsurfing event. If you haven't heard of couchsurfing, it is an amazing organization to meet other people, sleep on their couches, and learn more about other cultures, while also making it cheaper to travel. A great majority of my friends in Istanbul are couchsurfers or friends of couchsurfers.

Anyways, for wintercamp, 650 people from Istanbul, Turkey, Europe, and places even farther away gathered together to tour istanbul, go on a boat ride, learn various kinds of dancing (greek, latin and belly dancing among them), see a fire dance show, dance to two live concerts, share stories, laugh, eat new foods, have a great time, and bring in the new year together.

I didn't attend all the events, but did learn some greek dancing, a latin dance called the borchata(?), watched the fire dance show, went to one of the concerts, went on a boat tour, and met some amazing people! I plan to go visit two of them in Serbia for the second week of my winter break at the beginning of February.

For New Years Eve, I decided not to go to wintercamp because my roommates had decided to have a party at our house. Fransizka, Orçun's girlfriend was around most of December and into January, and she had two German friends visiting - Dani and Eli, making a total of four Germans in our house. Then, down the street, Amy was gone, but Dilek, Dilek's sister and Ivonna were around, as well as Fransizka's friend Maija and Ivonna's boyfriend Patrick (thus adding 3 more germans to the mix). I invited my friend Kelsey, and then Tuğberk. Other Turks also came whose names I have forgotten. We made a lot of food - cooked vegetables, raw vegetables, yoğurt dip, tomato butter, pudding cake thing, and then Dilek et. al. brought more food and then a turkish family brought more food, and soon we had two full tables. There was also punch (beware the strong punch), hot wine, normal wine, and beer. Perhaps we got a little too excited about the food and drink.

As we have no central heat, we mostly all sat in Orçun's room, as it is the largest. We played games, ate, drank, talked, usual party stuff. Fransizka's birthday is the first, so at midnight there were two cakes for her and presents and everything. We were getting a bit sleepy, and then Fatma and her friend showed up with a bottle of tequilla at maybe 2. Dangerous stuff, tequilla. And then things got a bit crazy, with some funny photos to prove it. Kelsey fell asleep in my bed around 2, and then I went to sleep at around 6. Tuğberk slept on my floor. That night there were 8 of us in my flat.

The next morning the house was an absolute mess. It's the time when you really want a dishwashing machine. But instead, we all got to do lots of dishes. Fortunately there were 6 of us cleaning, and by about 3 it was starting to be okay. Lisa, a fellow american couchsurfer in Istanbul called me up in the evening to see if I wanted to go find something resembling black-eyed peas and greens. So I drug myself to europe to meet her. We did not find the exact new years food, but we did eat some beans, and some greens in the form of lettuce to wrap çiğ kofte (not cooked very spicy meat) in. And then we went and got some mussels. In the fish bazaar we saw some black cabbage that looked like proper greens, so I tried to explain to him about eating greens on new years for money. He looked at me a bit strangely.

Happy New Year to one and all!!

the return journey

Thursday morning, after breakfast and packing up their lives in Syria, mom and William took me to the Dolmuş lot before going to get a bus to Beruit. From Beruit they flew to Casablanca, and then Bamako, Mali where it is 90 degrees. I, on the other hand, waited for almost 2 hours for enough people to fill the dolmuş so we could leave for Antakya. The ride back to the border was uneventful. When I went to get stamped out of Syria the guys there recognized me and waved. As we were going through customs back into Turkey we got stuck behind a bus carrying a huge amount of stuff. Everyone in line ended up backing up and then went on the sidewalk around the bus. There was a moment when I was worried about getting back into Turkey, but the guy was only confused because he thought I had a one month visa instead of a three month visa. In the dolmuş was an older woman with only some of her face showing, a Turkish man who knew arabic and had lived in the Netherlands for 20 years, and then the driver, who spoke Turkish and Arabic, but I am not sure where he was from. As someone told mom, around here everyone speaks Turkish and Arabic. I think the woman in back with me paid for two seats so she wouldn't have to sit next to a guy.

From the dolmuş lot, I went into a bus office, and got a ticket on the 3 o'clock bus to Adana. I was really worried because they said the ride would take 3 hours and I thought the train I had a ticket for was at 7. There was a service to the bus and fortunately I got a bit of bread to eat before I got on the bus and fell asleep. They showed a movie which I guess was one of a series with these 5 guys, this time in Iraq. But as I kept falling asleep I can't give a better description.

In Adana, I got the service to somewhere downtown, and then a helpful guy took me to a dolmuş to take me to the train station. By this point I had realized that my train was actually at 9 and not 7. Whew. Got to the train station and met the guy who worked there. I had talked to him on the phone the day before when I tried to make a reservation (in Turkish). But I couldn't pay over the phone and the ticket had to be bought that day, so he paid for it and now I was going to get the ticket and pay him back. He was wearing sunglasses and I think could not see well, if at all, and was with a guy missing one eye. After going with them to the ATM and paying, they both got on a motorcycle and drove off. Over the phone the guy did not let me spell out my name for him, and this is how it looked on the ticket - Kentrin Siltsin. Wow.

I went to the nearby kebab place and had some Adana kebab - the thing to do when you are in Adana right. And then waited an hour and a half for my train. I was taking the Toros Express, which turned out not to be very express as it stopped everywhere. On the bright side I had my own compartment in the sleeping car, and the compartment had a sink and heater. On the down side, I thought there was a restaurant car because the train that mom and william took had one. But, for the second time on a long train ride, there was no restaurant car. I folded down my seats and went right to sleep. At 10 in the morning the train stopped for 10 minutes, and everyone rushed the bufe in a chaotic attempt to get something to eat. I ended up with a couple of simit, some cheese, and water. It was enough to get me through the day. We were supposed to get in at 6 but got in at 7. I still maintain though, that if I can have a sleeping car I would rather have a 22 hour train ride than a 15 hour bus ride any day. And going on a train you often are away from the roads and the ride is really beautiful.

After arriving in Haydarpaşa station, I lugged all my stuff up the hill to building, only managing to get the suitcase up half the stairs. Fortunately, Ingo came to my rescue. Door to door, it was a 35 hour trip. And then, being crazy, I stayed home for a couple of hours and went out for the first night of Istanbul Winter Camp.

Christmas in Syria

The santa that comes to Syria does leave presents, but he does not fill Christmas stockings. We had a little paper tree with little fiber optic lights in it that kept changing color. The tree was made in the UAE. Contrary to popular belief, there are a lot of Christians in Syria, belonging to many different churches - Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Maranite, and more that I have forgotten. So finding a Christmas tree wasn't hard. The only thing is that real trees are forbidden because there are so few trees around.



Christmas felt a bit empty without Ian and christmas music and traditional christmas breakfast and everything. But it was still christmas and there were still good presents. For dinner William made camel stew because there were no geese, turkeys or hams to be found. And as he put it, what else would the wise man do with their extra camel after delivering all the presents it was carrying to baby Jesus? It was delicious. The taste of camel is somewhere between lamb and beef, in case you were wondering.

The problem with not writing about things right away is that I am now a bit hazy on what I did each day, but no matter. Other highlights - lots of walking in the souks and eating fuul. In Egypt fuul resembles refried beans and can be eaten in a sandwich. In syria it is more like a soup that is eaten with bread. It has fava beans, some of which are whole and some of which are mashed, tahini, spices and olive oil, and will keep you full for hours. And the whole bowl and bread is only 50 cents. The guy in the souk also sells the best humus in the world.



I bought presents and then mom and william were sending me back with things, and so I decided that it would be good to get a small daypack that I could also use later on for weekend trips. I thought it would be easy to find, but similar to Istanbul, you have to find the right souk. So after getting advice from Mattey, or however you might spell his name, William and I set off. We walked through clothing and through leather bags, and through the back streets all along the length of the souk unsucessfully. After that we went to Samer a bit discouraged, and he suggested that we go to the toy souk. Going through the toy souk ment that we also had to go through the housewares souk. And sure enough, in the toy souk we found backpacks. I was very tempted to get a teenage mutant ninja turtles bag, but didn't. The guy spoke some Turkish, so we ended up doing the transaction in Turkish. I also got some olive oil soap - Aleppo is famous for it, as well as scarves and a table cloth, as they are also famous for their textiles. The scarves in Muhammed Salah's shop were amazing, and all stacked very neatly until I tried to start looking at them and managed to dump them all over the ground. They told me mom did the same thing when she was looking at scarves.



We had two other amazing dinners, both of them with Samer. The first was home food, with mezze and then one stew with Ayva, or quince, and meat and the other with sumac and meat. Facinating. We also went to another really really nice resturant that is in a restored courtyard house with a fountain in the courtyard. They had covered the couryard for winter. We had muhamara, a spicy paste thing, kibbi, eggplant something, and then I had kofte (meatballs) in cherry sauce - mmmm. In typical turkish fasion we had a waiter take a photo of us all at the table.



I went with William one day to visit Muhammed video (not his real last name). He just happens to sell pirated DVDs. I guess William bought a lot of DVDs there, but then they learned that you cannot ship DVDs or CDs out of Syria because the government is afraid that you are smuggling out military secrets, and because they don't want to check every CD or DVD, the just put a ban on them. The ones that remained I carried out in my suitcase.

All of us went to visit Hala and her mother the last day to take her the printer, coffee pot and christmas tree. Mom had never met her mother before and so we were invited up for tea, and then Hala's mother gave us some cold meat thing she had made and then sat there and insisted we eat, bordering on force feeding. She even did it to mom. Mom tried her arabic and Hala helped as needed. William and I sat there and watched.

We also visited the brother of the Ahmet, the man that owns and lives in the house where mom and William were also living. They are living in a run down house, as they renovate the large courtyard house next door. The husband was out, so mom and I were taken up to the family's room. William was taken into the house that was being renovated. We met the wife's parents and her children who were gathered around a heater. Mom gave them the things she had for the family. Then we too went into the rennovated house to look around. The wife was married when she was 15, and did not know how to read or write, so her husband, 15 years older, taught her. She too gave us some dessert and then insisted that we eat it.

It was really interesting to get a glimse of the position of women in Syria. I would be past my prime in terms of getting married at the age of 23. Many women marry around the age of 15. In the area where mom and William lived, the most conservative part of the most conservative city in Syria, there are few women out on the streets or doing shopping, and when they go out it is sometimes in groups but most often with their husbands. They wear all black, most of them covering even their eyes. Men work in the stores, men do the shopping. In other muslim neighborhoods women wear western clothes and cover just their heads with bright scarves. In christian neighbhorhoods women have their heads uncovered. In other areas there are more women on the streets, but still less than in Turkey. Mom said that living in Syria helped her understand how women can be a part of their own oppression. She felt uncomfortable going out on the streets full of men, and so William did most of the shopping and such. As an extremely independent woman, even she gave up some of that independence without being explicitly asked to.

But not wanting to end on that note, I think that everyone I met in Syria was really nice. They are very welcoming and hospitable and curious about other places. The food is amazing, the old restored houses are beautiful. The government, for all the faults it may have, is subsidizing a huge number of iraqi refugees with its subsidized transportation, food, educating etc that no other country will take. And after being shut off from the world for so many years they are fairly self sufficient in industry. Especially in America Syria does not get enough credit for what it is doing to stabalize the region and most of all for the wonderful people that live there.

Syria!

Leaving the house the next morning after breakfast I felt like I had walked onto a movie set. The old city of Aleppo is a world heratige site, and it definetly deserves the title. The neighborhood they live in is all courtyard style houses which open inward, so walking down the streets is a bit like a maze. All the walls are made of the same whiteish stone, and periodically there are doors, but there are no real windows on the first floor and the only breaks in the walls are for other streets. One has no idea of what lies behind the door. Leaving the neighborhood, we came out into an open space that is dominated by a hill, on top of which sits the citadel. We tried to go inside, but the enterance was mobbed by turks, all wanting tickets at the same time, and unwilling to form any sort of orderly line. So we decided to wait.

We first visited a shop called Sebastians, owned by Muhammed and his brother, andwhere Samer works. This is the store where mom and William bought my Syrian textile. It's a beautiful shop, with jewlery, textiles, lamps and more. On the wall hangs a poster of Oscar Wilde quotes. Samer is one of the people William has spent the most time with in Syria, and he is a really nice guy. Of course we had to drink some tea. It's different from Turkish tea though - made with only one pot instead of two, and as I discovered later, often already sweetened before they offer to put even more sugar in it for you.

That day we also visited Muhammed Salah, who has another store selling much the same things that Sebastians does. The store is in another amazingly redone Arab house, this one with a spectacularly huge bathroom with the biggest showerhead I have ever seen. We walked in the souks (market) - William tells me that Syria has the longest souks in the arab world. The souks were completely full of Turks though. I have to say, that first day I heard way more Turkish than I did Arabic. We walked by the fruit and vegetable market area and though the dead things souk, where you can find the entire inards of a sheep still conected. It is a great anatomy lesson.

That night we had the most amazing dinner. We went to a place called Sisi, in the christian quarter, a very nice resturant. First we had mezze - real baba ganouj, another eggplant salad, Kibbi, hummus, and olive salad. Then, mom and I shared some kebab Halep - the special kofte that they make in Halep (aleppo). And William had wine and it came out to less than 8 dollars a person. If only eating out in Istanbul could be that cheap. Unfortunatly, I got the cold that I had been trying to keep away to weeks. Everyone at my school has been sick, and not sleeping on the bus did me in.

Sunday we took the bus an hour to the town of Idlib. Some friends of the family that used to live in Salsbury, NC (but who are from Syria) live in Idlib. Nabeg and Rema have a large number of olive trees. William and mom had already been to see Nabeg's new olive press in action, and so now we went to see the olive harvest. They had had to delay for a while because of rain. The fields were still pretty muddy. We watched a number of mostly teenage boys and girls stripping the olives off the trees onto blankets. I decided I needed to try a raw olive - I wouldn't suggest it to anyone. After watching the harvest and collecting an enourmous amount of mud on our shoes, we visited their summer house and the horses and puppies and then went to their flat in town. They have four children, whose names I have now forgotten. We had a huge and amazing lunch, although Nabeg kept saying that Rima hadn't really cooked. And then, trying not to burst, we took the bus back to Halep.

The next day we got inside the Citadel. It's amazing! There is a walkway up to the top, and then the gate makes a few turns to make it even harder to storm. Inside the walls it is like a small city. I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings or Kingdom of Heaven. The citadel is made of the same white stone as the old city and the new city. Inside there are two mosques, a hamam, and numerous other buidings. Half of it has been excavated and half is still being excavated. There is also a large amiptheater where they have concerts in the summer. Wow

After the citadel, Mom and I went to meet Hala, her Arabic teacher. Hala is a small woman with a large presence. She is christian and lives in the christian quarter, and wears only black in memory of her father who died last year. She was there to go shopping with us. For christmas mom had decided that she was buying me clothes as they are so much cheaper in Syria than in Turkey. Our shopping took place in the christian quarter, where the clothes are all western style, and there are women working in the stores. It was a very sucessful shopping trip I would have to say. We also got half a kilo of william's favorite cookies (mmm) and some Sahlep - a hot thick milky drink that reminds me vaguely of oatmeal. After shopping we got our hair cut. Apparently last time, the women working had blown mom's hair straight. I saw the picture and I have to say it looks better curly. So this time they didn't blow it dry. It's interesting - one guy does all the hair cuts, and then there are a number of women who decend upon you afterward to blow dry your hair and do other things. Another good haircut with a language barier. Funny how two out of my three haircuts with a language barrier have been really good.

the road to Syria

My blog has been blocked in Syria. The ride here was very long. i left my house at 6:15 on friday and walked down to the bus station office stopping to get some simit. My servis left at quarter to eight. While waiting for the service i was watching tv in the office. After a program about a soldier who had died the first day of bayram there was news on the bulls that had escaped. The current holiday is called Kurban bayram in Turkish. It's the sacrafice holiday, where people usually kill sheep, and apparently sometimes bulls. I had actually witnessed it earlier in the day in fatih, a more traditional neighborhood. Anyways, not wanting to die, some of the bulls had escaped. There was footage of them running into cars, running at people and in one case running into a resturant. Atone point i couldnt help it and i burst out laughing.

From the asian bus station I got on the Jet bus that was to carry me to Antakya, also known as Hatay. I was sitting next to a 32 year old physics teacher. over the course of the journey i learned that she is engaged to another physicist, a friend from school and a good guy, but not the guy she likes. She showed me a photo of the guy she likes. She has also invited me over for food when i return to istanbul.

It was a very long 15 hour bus ride. I slept some, but not enough. Twice during the night we stopped at places built for buses to stop and I had some soup. At these places they sell food, but also toys and other souveneers. They are major operations. The big bus companies all have their own, but since Jet is not a major company, we stopped at a stop for all the small companies. And of course, there is (or nescafe or coke) on the bus. After the tea, an attendant comes by and pours lemon cologne on everyone's hands. The smell of lemon cologne will always remind me of Turkish buses.

We arrived in Antakya at about 11 in the morning. The last bit of the ride was over some very impressive mountains. One woman sat there and prayed as we drove very close to the edge. She reminded me of mom. I took the service into the center and then walked with my stuff to the main bridge in town. On one side of the bridge is a large statue and the other side is the old town, lined with Kunefe shops. I found mom and we went to eat the best iskender kebab (meat, yogurt, bread and a tomato sauce) ever and then had some kunefe. Kunefe is a desert that has cheese in it and is soaked in syrup. It sounds very weird I know, but is actually very good. Antakya is famous for its Kunefe.

And then it was time to continue on to the Syrian border. There was just one problem. There were no vehicles going! It turns out there is a holiday exchange between Syria and Turkey. So for Seker bayram at the end of ramadan, all the Syrians come to Turkey and for the current bayram lots of Turks go to Syria. So earlier in the day they had taken every vehicle that could be spared including school buss es. We got on a bus and waited, but they kept delaying the departure, so 5 of us went off in search of a dolmuş (shared taxi) to Reyhanli, the town right at the border. After about an hour we found a dolmuş. Then, at the border we had to get on a bus that was going across, as the first guard laughed at me when I said we could walk. Apparently it's 5 km.

Getting stamped out of Turkey was no real problem, except once again the guy stamped my passport wrong the first time, making a total of two cancelled stamps on one page. The syrian side was a bit more challenging. We went into the back office and after some discussion, the guy in charge said he would send a fax to Damascus to see if they would issue me a visa. To cut a long story short, we stayed there for 6 hours in that cold office. Not that I can really complain. They were very nice and gave us tea and tried to talk with mom. And I know that it takes much more than that for a Syrian to get a visa for the US. And finally, at 10, after I was investigated by the special branch, we got permission to buy the visa stamps. Mom swears that she heard the guy in Damascus tell the guy in the office "But we sent that an hour and a half ago". Fortunately there was a guy hanging around and he gave us a ride to the place mom and William have been living in Aleppo.

Unfortunately, the goodbye party for mom and william started at 7:30 and we missed almost all of it. Everyone was very nice and waited until we got there to leave, but about 5 minutes later they all left. And I ate some amazing french food that was leftover from the party and then crashed in my very cute room up some very steep stairs in a beautifully restored Arab courtyard house. Door to door it was a 29 hour trip.

a year since the very blue gown

I have now been a university graduate for exactly one year. A year ago I was sitting in the dean dome in a very bright blue robe listening to a guy tell me about how hard the Beatles had to work for their success.

I suppose there are some things I miss about school. But I have to say that as I heard about people studying for exams, I was completely relieved not to be taking any. And it has only been recently that I have started reading anything that could be remotely considered serious. Perhaps I might want to go back to school in a few years, but I am very happy that I am on the teaching end of it now.

As a member of the working world now I have two observations about the differences between turkish workplaces and american ones. Unfortunately, the Turks took the American attitude toward work (or maybe the americans took the turkish attitude?) and not the European one. Turks only have two weeks of holiday a year, and often they work six days a week. Crazyness. Many work places in Istanbul offer a service to work. This means that a largish van comes to pick you up from somewhere near your house and takes you and other people to work. This has two advantages - traffic is horrible and commutes are long, so you can sleep or read on the way to and from work. In addition, it is more environmentally friendly and helps to reduce that horrible traffic.

Jobs in Turkey usually include lunch. I eat the lunch at school for free (and it is so so much better than school lunches in the US! They actually use real fruits and vegetables, as opposed to heating up things in industrial sized cans). My friend that works for a mobile phone company has a cafeteria in their building where everyone eats lunch. My roommate that works in a bookstore, too small to have its own kitchen, gives its employees cards with 200 lira a month that can be used at a large number of food places in Istanbul.

And of course all work places have tea, and copious glasses are drunk through the day.

Cheese!

Mondays are the one day a week that my roommate Orçun has off work. So I usually hang out with him in the afternoon. Often we end up paying bills and then going to this great cafe near to our flat. Today I was completely absorbed in my book (The Reader, I would highly recommend it) when he took these photos.





Cheese...Although I love Turkish food as everyone I have ever talked to about it knows, I have found myself in the last two weeks making two cross continent treks to find imported cheese. The first was when I went to the annual american women of Istanbul's christmas baazar. I actually went for the promise of ethnic food in general, but I had to teach so I got there three hours in. By then most of the food had gone. The food court upstairs was closing. The candy canes were gone. But I did find a half a kilo of cheddar cheese made in Sweden. The cheese along with bread from my slightly used toaster fed me for most of the week.

Last Friday, I went with Kathy (her son goes to my school and she found me my job), Leah (house sitter who let me sleep in the place she was house sitting), and two other older expat women to the Italian consulate to look for cheese and pork products. I ended up getting some Romano and some Asiago cheese, which are once again fantastic. The only thing I am missing now is the carolina moon cheese the chapel hill creamery makes, and cheese cheese. The tuesday market here is far far bigger than the carrboro farmers market could ever aspire to be, but for all that the carrboro farmers market has a wider variety of cheese.

That being said, I have now managed to find sage, rosemary, canned mexican beans. The people in the grocery stores near my house must think I'm pretty strange. And when I asked for the leaves and stalks of the celery but not the root (what they eat here) they must have thought I was even stranger. Not to mention a bit inept because I can never open the plastic bags they give me.

The time I failed with spices was for nutmeg. A while ago Ingo was making some califlower soup and wanted nutmeg and flour. The flour was easy. My dictionary told me that the word from nutmeg was kuçuk hindistancevizi, or little coconut, or little indian walnut. So at my local grocery store I was looking at the spices and asked for a kuçuk hindistancevizi, and he handed me a small packet of grated coconut. When I told him no, that wasn't what I wanted, he got offended and told me that was the smallest package of coconut they had.

My food discussion comes to an end. Almost. The one adorable second grade class held a bake sale today and the other will tomorrow. It reminded me of being in elementary school in north carolina again.

a room with a view

The wallpaper removal process - 3 days. Why people put up wallpaper, especially wallpaper that looks like this I shall never know. Thanks to collette for the help and the horrible carpenter for the one good thing he did - suggested I use soap as well as water.




My room now. 3 walls are one yellow and one wall another yellow, but they don't look as drastically different as in these photos. Definitely not as yellow as the first.






My ceiling! Yay ceiling art!


The view from my windows - Topkapi palace, Hayasofia and the Blue Mosque

Around sunset


In the morning

Our hall and dining room - not as yellow as it looks. The flowers are from teachers day :)


My kitchen - complete with original wood burning stove now covered by a gas burner and next to a modern washing machine.

thanksgiving and bulgaristan

I had a turkeyless Thanksgiving in Turkey. After teaching my one morning class I went over to Collette and Hande's house to cook. We went to the grocery store in a car, the first time I can remember doing that since I left the US. My contributions were a pumpkin pie, stuffing, as well as chopping lots of califlower and potatoes. The pie was sort of a challenge. I did have the lovely measuring cups I got at IKEA, so the crust went okay. They have pumpkin here, and Collette had gotten one for thanksgiving, so they had a huge amount of cooked and frozen pumpkin in their freezer. The thing was I had no idea how much a can of pumkin would be of this frozen stuff, and I had no evaporated milk. So I substituted heavy cream stuff and just added things until it looked like the right consistancy. Collette's oven is just big enough to fit one pie. For the stuffing I used celery root, because they don't sell the stalks here, and used sage leaves intended for tea.

Thanksgiving dinner was great! We had zuccini al gratin, this vegetable loaf thing, tavuklu pilav, borek and poğaças made by Hande's aunt, mashed potatoes, steamed califlower, stuffing, bread and mini quiche things. For dessert we had pumpkin pie (which I think was the best I have ever had), cranberry cake, and vanilla ice cream (no fresh cream for whipping here). The attendees were Collette, Hande, Chad, me, Amy, and Amy's collegue. After eating too much food and watching the football game we sat around singing random song's from Chad's computer. Yay thanksgiving!!

Atatürk designated November 24 as öğretmenler günü, or teachers day. Because the 24th is a Saturday this year, my school celebrated on Friday. They told me I shoudl come for the ceremony in the morning, and then the feast at noon. I didn't have any classes, but convinced myself to get up early to go. The ceremony consisted of the 8th to 2nd graders saying sentences in English and Turkish about what teachers mean to them. The best was the 2nd graders - they were so so cute!

I had some idea that students gave presents to teachers, but had no idea that I would be getting anything. I ended up with two boquets and a rose from students and a set of Turkish coffee mugs that the founder gave to all the teachers. The day before one of my students gave me an amazing drawing with "I love you teacher Katty" at the bottom. I felt so loved. It was sort of an acceptance - you are a teacher and you belong here and we like you. The feast was great - lots and lots of food.

Friday afternoon, I was once again reminded how small the world is. It was beautiful and sunny, so I was going to to read by the sea. And as I was passing my neighborhood Akpinar, who should I see but Michal. She has been doing research in Italy, and Sami came to visit and so they decided to visit Istanbul. I had no idea that they would be here. And for them to be wandering a couple blocks from my house (completely outside the normal tourist zone) precisely as I was walking past was, well, I would say amazing, but I feel that's not enough.

So I showed them my house, walked with them along the pedestrian street, and then took them to the market. They loved the food market especially. We ate mandolinas, and then got very messy sharing a pomigranite. After the market I went with them over to sultanahmet to investigave this neighborhood they wanted to see. We ended up in a fish resturaunt/market area, and after being asked to eat at every resturant, and having a guy from georgia tell us the names of all the fish in his case in spanish, english, italian, japanese, and some other languages, we sat in the circle near all the resturants, drinking beer out of bottles. We had some guys come up and tell us we were going to get sick from sitting on cold stone. We found a lahmacun place that looked to be closing as we walked past, but they opened it up for us. They had no bathroom, and the mosque bathrooms were closed, so the woman from the resturant took us accross the street to a place where guys were making fake prada shoes so we could use their bathroom. Then Ibrahim from the workshop came over and talked to us as the baker made our lahmacun. It was interesting to talk to him and he invited us for tea after we ate. It's nice being with other people because when I am alone I am sort of wary of talking to guys because they sometimes get the wrong idea. After the excelent lahmacun we went back to their hotel and had rakı on the terrace.

And then it was time to visit Bulgaristan (Bulgaria). I woke up yesterday at 5:40 am, and left to take the 6:15 boat. Except I had read the weekday schedule, and on saturdays the first boat is at 6:30. I had to meet Kelsey and Mija to take the servis to the bus station at 7, and it wasn't going to wait. I took a taksi from Karakoy to Besiktas, and I have never gotten their so fast. When I told the driver I had to be there at 7, he ran some red lights for me. I just made the servis, which took us to the main metro office, and from there we took a very crowded van to the bus station. The bus ride was about 2 hours to Edirne. Turkish buses all have a sort of attendent in addition to the driver. First the attendent splashes lemon cologne (mostly alcohol, used for hand cleaning) on everyone's hands, and then he passes out cups, tea bags, or nescafe, hot water, and a little snack. It all seems very civilized. I slept most of the ride. In Edirne we had to take another servis into town, and then after lots of confusing directions, found a dolmuş (shared taxi) that would take us to the border.

And then we walked accross the boarder. We got a number of funny looks. Some people aren't allowed to walk accross and have to get into a car, but they let us walk. First customs, then being stamped out of Turkey, then getting sprayed accidentally with the stuff they use to clean the bottom of cars, then stamped into Bulgaria, and customs on that side. There isn't much on the Bulgarian side. I changed some money and we had some fantastic pizza and bulgarian beer. Then we hailed a bus, but when he told us how much it was to Sofia, and that he wasn't going through any other towns, I had him let us off by the closest village. The village was named Kaptain Andreevo, and there we met some teenage boys with great mullets on very old bicycles. The older one knew some English, and they accompanied us on our walk around the village. In the village there were some photos of people posted on walls, and when we asked, the boy told us they had died. We walked toward the church, and when we asked if we could photograph it, the boy thought we meant the photo of a dead person, and said if we took a picture of that we would also die. We crossed the highway and found a store owned by a guy from Edirne. There we tried this really weird Boza stuff, and had some more beer. There weren't really any busses to svalengrad, the nearest city, and so we walked back and went back into Turkey. We had one problem when they just stamped my and Kelsey's visas again because they had not yet expired. The whole goal of the expedition was to get new visas. We asked and were told where to buy them and then had to get them stamped again. I think the cars we cut in front of might have been a bit pissed.

The custom's officer told us there were dolmuşes back to Edirne, and so we were just going to take the bus that was going through inspection straight back to Istanbul, when he found a woman going to Edirne that would give us a ride. She told us there had been a flood and that the border had been closed for four days, explaining why the line of Trucks to get into bulgaria extended all the way back to Edirne, some 20 kilometers.

Back in Edirne, we realized there were few hotels, and it was going to be expensive to stay. So after trying two places, we found a ticket the third place, where a weird guy worked that spent a lot of time telling mija how she could improve her skin. We were all tired and cold and had some soup and tea for dinner. Then used the internet and took a city minibus to the bus station to get on the bus back to Istanbul. When we got to the big istanbul station there were a lot of people, and drums. Guys were being thrown up into the air and there were firecrackers. Mija explained that a group of guys were about to begin their military service (mandatory in Turkey) and that their friends and family were there to see them off. Took another servis to taksim (had to stop at one point so the driver could put more fluid of somekind into the van) and then I took a dolmuş home.

In total that makes three large buses, 7 small buses/vans, one boat, one taksi, and one experience hitchiking to get my new visa. All in all I would have to say the day was a success and bonding experience.

And now to get out and enjoy the sunshine before the clouds return!

football and other chaos

First, the details of the going out last week. Thursday night I met Collette, Johannes, his sister Lisa, some other Europeans and later Hande. We ended up going to three different pubs in Kadikoy, the last of which was called teachers pub. So much for me deciding never to go there. At the last pub Collette just kept handing me beers, resulting in me being the second most drunk I have ever been in my life. I recall Collette and Hande walking me home and the stairs being easier when drunk. I also showed Hande the former wallpaper in my room. I was switching back and forth between Turkish and English. But I'm a bit hazy on what I said. They tell me I said nothing stupid.

The next morning before 8, Tom and Andy arrived to get their stuff. It was a bit too early. They moved all their stuff out on the landing and repacked it. Then Tom went off to Western Union, Andy started putting on his new wheels, and I went in search of kaşarli toast. I helped Andy dismantle his broken wheel and will attempt to sell the non-broken one on Ebay for them.

By that time it was noon, and so Tom made some very delicious lunch - potatoes, onions and pepper left over from the dinner monday put into pide bread with cheese - mmm. After lunch, Andy and Tom were hanging out on the landing, so I went to visit. And then, the door shut with my keys inside. This was half an hour before I needed to leave to go teach and I was still in my slippers. First Tom tried to break into the front door with no luck. Then, we went through my neighbor's flat to her balcony and he climbed onto my balcony from hers. I video taped the entire thing. He arrived safely, only to discover that the door wouldn't open from the outside. It was then I realized that Amy might be home and I could just get her keys. So I walked to her house in my slippers, and thankfully she was home.

When I left to go teach, my landing was completely full of gear, and when I got back two hours later it was gone. My room and balcony were empty, and it felt very strange. Then, I went out in the pouring rain to meet a couch surfer named Lisa and had dinner with her. We went to a pub, met more couch surfers and Kelsey, then Lisa went home and we moved pubs and met Collette. I drank a huge amount of apple juice, and Kelsey and I were unsucessful in getting french fries.

The next day I slept late, and then went to Boğazici to get the best kaşarli simit and finished Jane Austin's pursuasion, an extremely good book. Between Mom, William, Tom and Andy I now have a huge stack of books to read. Yay! That night I met some couchsurfers again and Kelsey and we went to a bar and then went out dancing. Good times. I have to say though, going out three nights in a row is a crazy thing.

Monday all was normal at school until a school inspector showed up. And so I had to leave. Monday is Orçun's day off work, and so for the first time in forever, Ingo, Orçun and I all had dinner together. Later that night Amy, Dilek, Dilek's sister and their friend showed up for Ingo's slightly delayed birthday cake. mmm cake

Wednesday saw me at my first football (soccer) match of my life. Turkey was playing Bosnia, and they had to win in order to qualify for the European Champeonship tournament in 2008. I went with Collette, four german guys and two Turkish guys. It's the first event I can remember being at where the women's bathroom was completely empty when I went in. For most of the match, the only other woman we could see was wearing a Turkish flag shirt and had her head covered.

Apparently the match was pretty boring, and by the last 15 minutes the announcer had started to come on and beg the crowd to cheer. When this didn't work he asked them to wistle, started to cheer himself, and then asked them to cheer for the soldiers. Turkey won 1-0, but there were some close calls at the end. After the game there were fireworks above the stadium. Then we left in chaos, took the metro to Taksim, a dolmuş to Kadıköy, and then visited a sports bar before I walked home.

Visitors!

Crazy that half a month has passed since my last entry. The time has flown by, mostly with rainy and cold weather. It's a bit like England or Oregon in the winter here it seems. Thursday I'm going to be celebrating thanksgiving with some other Americans. I'm going to attempt to make a pumpkin pie. They have enormous pumpkins here, but I have yet to see a pie pan.

On the whole things are going well. Mom and William came to visit about a week and a half ago. They arrived by train early Thursday morning. The same day I started hosting a couple of really cool British guys, Tom and Andrew, who are cycling around the world. My room was suddenly full of gear and the balcony full of bicycle. And they had to carry it all up my stairs. It was fantastic to see mom and William!! The first thing we did was go to the baazar so they could visit Hasan and Murat. I guess first there was lunch. That afternoon I took them to the book exchange and then we had dinner in a place we would never have found had we not been told about it. Completely unsignposted from the outside, like so many of the best places in Istanbul. I got back home to find Tom and Andrew reading in my room. That night I attempted to give Tom a turkish lesson, although I lied a lot and kept having to backtrack. I think he learned a few things though.

Friday I had to teach the english teachers of the future class, because it had been rudely cancelled due to a philosophy exam earlier in the week. After the class I met mom and William on the other side at Efdal's school. After waiting a long time for them and having my name written in fancy caligraphy, they arrived and mom discussed her study abroad program with the boss. Afterward, we got on the boat, and then I had my first ride on the nostalgic tram. I don't usually think of Mom and William as old, so it was kind of strange to see that other people do. I think it's because in turkey, many people, especially women, dye their hair. So mom is one of the few grey haired women, and the only one with long curly grey hair. Anyways, they didn't have to give up their seats on the tram.

Back at my flat I got to see some of Tom and Andrew's photos, and then a bunch of mom and william's photos. They liked my flat and neighborhood a lot. I was glad, because for many it might be too funky. We then went to my favorite resturant for dinner. There is a theme to their visit - food! That night Andrew, Tom, Ingo and I visited some bars on bar street - awesome old wooden houses that are now multilevel, very smoky bars. I have to say that hanging out with these british guys (and maybe the wet weather as well) is making my feet itch again.

Saturday saw me at another fantastic resturaunt for dinner. Before dinner I met mom on Istiklal Cadesi to look for shoes for her. Instead it poured and we ended up spending all the time on the terrace of a cafe that had been covered up. The floor was wet and everyone inside was wet. We got this really weird and very green pistacio and cocolate cake thing. The best part was the chocolate covered pistacios, and so I ended up in a seven year old moment, dismantling the cake in search of them. Yay playing with food. Later in the evening there was more playing with food - playing poker for tiny raisins. It was decided that it was a reqiurement to eat everything that was won.

Saturday morning was Ataturk's death day. There was a ceremony at school that morning, and because I was curious I got up really early and went. It was really well put together and I was really impressed with all the work my students had done. The only thing wrong was that while they were showing photos of Ataturk's mosoleum, they played 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' in the background. All in all a very interesting, memorable, and informative experience.

William got his NFL fix on Sunday. We went to my friend Collette's house, for the NFL party with the best turkish food ever. Or the only NFL party I've been to with Turkish food. That day I also visited Akmerkez, and sort of helped mom in her boot buying quest. Shoes, and more generally, buying clothing in Turkey is horribly expensive.

Monday, saint William made dinner at my house for my roommates, and the brits. We were lacking in plates, napkins, silverware, and chairs, but it was still a fantastically yummy basque dinner. At school that day I was asked to prepare a speach on the ceremony I went to Saturday. Three cheers for the cook!! That night my roof leaked, and there was much general wetness on many levels.

Tuesday was a teaching day. I have to say that before now, I have never really appreciated a shower where water does not go all over the bathroom, and you don't have to always hold the shower head thing in your hand. I got to take a shower at mom and william's hotel - and a more fantastic shower was never had. Perhaps that was more information than you wanted.

Wednesday mom and william left. It was very sad. But before that they bought half a kilo of the most amazing cookies in Istanbul and then we went to the fish resturant in the fish market. We discovered that the awesome goose that wanders around the market belongs to them - their boss. The fish was fantastic - not since the fish market in Casablanca have I had fish that amazing. I told you that the theme was going to be food. That morning I delivered a little speech I had been asked to write by the principle and my department head to the entire school. Apparently it may be published on the school website.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday involved far too much going out, and that story will have to be told at some time when my hands are warmer than they are now.

If you were at all curious when I mentioned that these two guys are bicyling around the world - check out their website at http://www.ride-earth.org.uk/

Happy Halloween

My house, Moda, Kadıköy, Istanbul, Turkey

Dedicated to Dillon - the cat who loved halloween

It seems very strange to be in Turkey where no one is celebrating halloween. Halloween and thanksgiving are my favorite holidays. I suppose I'll have to plan something for thanksgiving. I've been horribly lax in posting, sorry for that.

I've now been here two months. It seems like I just got here and yet that I've been here so long. I've been teaching at the school I found at the end of my last post for 6 weeks now. It's definetly been a learning experience. I have kindergardeners, second through seventh grade classes, high school english prep, and english teachers of the future. I see each class once a week for 40 minutes (known as an hour) (shorter with the kindergarden), making a total of about 12 hours a week plus planning time. A few of the classes are really challenging because they are too crowded and the kids don't listen, but for the most part they want to learn English. The other teachers have been really great about giving me ideas for lessons and generally helping me out when I have no idea what I'm doing. The turkish education is a bit different than the US system - more authority and less creative thinking.

I also have one private class. I'm teaching a businessman in his early 30s named Bora. He lived in San Diego for a year and his English is really good. Basically he's paying me a lot of money to talk with him for an hour and a half a week and assign homework. He just wants to make sure that he doesn't forget his english. He races sailboats, rides a motorcycle, and is looking for a house because he is about to get married, which means he gets to move out of his parents' house.

Just today I found another job teaching a conversation class 3 hours every sunday to recent university graduates. I have my first class sunday. Hopefully it will go well.

After being in Istanbul a month, and trying all the turkish websites, english websites, and builiten boards that I could find, I found a place to stay. Thanks so much to all the people who let me sleep on their couches (some of them fold out) while I was looking for a place to stay - Aylin, Kubi and Ali Kaan, Leah and the two dogs, Erol and his family, and Ali. I found a place by looking at the buliten board in the german bookstore at my friend Ferah's suggestion. I called and Amy answered.

The place I'm living is likely about 100 years old. I'm on the 5th floor, meaning I have a view and lots of stairs to climb. Out my window I can see hayasofia, the blue mosque, and topkapi palace. The floors are wood and the ceilings have been painted. On the down side the plumbing is a little bit sketcy and we haven't yet gotten a referigerator. But we do have hot showers, a stove, and a washing machine. Next month we plan to paint the kitchen and buy the refrigerator.

I have two and a half roommates. One is a Turkish guy named Orçun, a photographer by training who works in a book store on the european side. He only speaks Turkish. The other is a German guy named Ingo who is a photographer and that's what he gets paid for. He's only here til april. He speaks german and english. The half roommate is named Amy. She lives down the street and has a business that buys translation rights to books. She also does translation, and is using the last room as an office to do translation a few times a week. She is american and is fluent in Turkish. So when she's not around I find myself translating between Ingo and Orçun. Fortunatly Orçun is very patient and a good teacher. So I'm getting lots of Turkish practice.

When I moved in my room had this horrible wallpaper that was badly done. In my inocence, I thought it would be easy to take off. Three days later, and with some help from my friend Collette, it was finally off. Then I spent a day cleaning and sanding and two nights painting. After a week I could finally move my cusions into my room to sleep.

The bed was another story. When we moved in we found a carpenter to build a door to Amy's room. He was telling her how in the past he had made these seat bed things. I thought that sounded cool, and he told me he could make me one for 100 lira. That was thursday I think. He was supposed to bring it Tuesday. Tuesday and Wednesday nights I sat at home waiting. Thursday he brought a bed that looked like a set piece for a play. Except that had I built it, I could have done it better. Unfortunatly I paid him.

Next came seker bayram and my first ever trip to IKEA with Ali and his family. What an insane place. The stores were closed for the weekend, but on Monday, Orçun's day off from work, we got a washing machine and I got a mattress and a sort of closet made of cloth.

After a second trip to IKEA this past monday (republic day) and many trips to the ucuzlik pazari (store of cheap things) I feel settled in my house. I really really like it actually. My house is about a 15 minute walk to the ferry boat dock and the shared taxis that I take to work. I'm 5 minutes from two grocery stores and there's a corner store on my corner. A note about IKEA - the second time I went by bus and it was an adventure. It's designed for cars.

Today I got my first pay check (well, except that I'm not on the books so it was cash not a check). And then I went and opened a bank account. A few days ago I had gone to the tax office to get a tax number which is necessary for having a bank account. They are supposed to be sending me an ATM card in the mail.

That's about it for now. I'm gradually trying the resturants and cafes in my neighborhood. The guy who runs the bakery near my school knows me know because I go in there many mornings to get some breakfast on the way to school. Oddly I've been drinking more coffee here (turkey is primarily a tea drinking country) than I have in the rest of my life. I have brunch with roommates on the weekends and have already had two guests try out my floor. I've gotten into the networks of the professional american women in istanbul and the young female english teachers of istanbul. All the people in both networks are amazing. Life is good.

the job hunt saga

Istanbul, Turkey

A summery of progress so far. On Saturday I arrived. Sunday I went to a wedding. And Monday I started looking for work. I had made some conections at the lunch after the wedding. So I started calling and sending emails. I also went to Kadikoy and visited 5 languages schools there to ask about teaching English. At the end of the day I had filled out one application and sent in 2 cvs.

Tuesday I turned in my application to English Time. On my way to the boat to go visit Sam, I stopped at the Brittish English booth to see if they needed teachers. An american girl was sitting there and translated what I said to the turkish guys. I feel like asking for english teaching, I should ask in english, for some reason. The guys were helping her fix her shoe, which had broken. Turns out that she went to chapel hill high, graduated in 96, took time off, and then just graduated from UNC and spent a year at bogazici university. It's a very small world. So I took her with me to meet Sam. We had lunch at sultanahmet koftesi, and then wandered around the taksim area. Then we went to the internet cafe. I feel like I spend far too muchtime on the internet these days with job searching and all. I had an email from a friend of a friend. She had two job suggestions for me. I emailed my CV to one, and then called the other, Small Hands preschool. The guy there said that that the woman in charge would call me soon. Indeed, later that day she called me, asked me to send her my cv, and asked if I could meet her at the school in Etiler wednesday morning at 8:30. Thanks to russ my CV got emailed.

Wednesday I woke up at 6, and had to take a bus and then a boat to the other side. By the time I got there I had to take a taksi, because I didn't have enough time to take the other bus. I got to the school, to find it was the first day of school. Chaos. I met with the woman in charge, Leman. She's horribly busy because she's trying to run 4 schools. Turns out one of the two teachers of the yellow group 2 year old class hadn't shown up. So they asked me to work right away to try it out. And then kids started showing up. I tried. I used turkish I didn't even know I remembered. I played with kids, talked to their parents, helped feed them lunch. 2 year olds are super cute, but you can't reason with them. Leman asked me to come back the next two days and said we woudl talk on Friday

Thursday was more chaos in the preschool and getting up early. Wednesday night I had gotten a call from someone my mom knows and I had met once. So after the school day was over for me, I called her. She wanted me to come to Topkapi palace and send her a text message at 4:30. She must not have gotten my text message. When I texted her again at 5 she said I had just missed the performance she wanted me to see. I got all excited, maybe I could get a part time job doing theater stuff. I waited more while she did some errands. Turns out, she wanted me to work 2 days a week giving out flyers and convincing people to come to her show. I'm sure it's a fantastic show, but I hate trying to sell things. I emailed later to say no.

Friday, more preschool chaos. After I was done I waited around a long time, and was told Leman was busy, she would call me later. So I left. Then I get a phone call from my fellow teacher, Leman will call me Saturday.

Saturday I get sick with a cold. I go to some events with Aylin and Kubi. One of them is a ceremony for kids that are about to start primary school. Leman doesn't call.

Sunday I feel horrible and don't do anything. I call Jay, the mentor at the school. He tells me I can talk to Leman tomorrow morning.

Monday I wake up, drag myself out of bed and go to the preschool. Leman calls me into her office. She tells me she wants to speak to me personally and professionaly. She tells me I am a great person and work with the kids very well one on one, but I'm not that good with a group. If I want I can try out another of her schools on the asian side, but they only need a teacher in the afternoon. So if they can find me an assistantship in the morning, and if I work better with the kids over there, I can try it out for a week, and then maybe they can hire me. I said no. Maybe because I had started three days ago, didn't know turkish (I was supposed to speak enlish not turkish), the parents were still there, everyone was settling in, and I had no experience. Oh well. But I worked the rest of the day, and managed not to start crying. I did blow my nose every five minutes. They did pay me for the four days I worked.

Tuesday I call a woman at a private school who needs an english teacher. I heard about the job last week, but didn't call because I thought I had the job at the preschool. She said, can you come meet with me. Having thoughts of oh no, not again, another super busy woman, I went to her school. The school is nice, and she took time to sit down and talk with me. They want a native enlish speaker to go into each class's english class once a week and do conversation things. I would be working with kindergarden to 10th grade. But the english teachers woudl stay in the room with me. They paid well, and everyone seemed nice, so I said yes. She made me promise I wouldn't leave them.

Since then I've sent out numerous emails looking for another part time job in policy or geography, visited the american research institute in Turkey, visited the baazar again, and tried to get better.

Ramazan started yesterday here. It's weird to see all the food stalls open, but no one buying food. I think being in Turkey for Ramazan will be a very interesting experience. This morning I was woken up by drumming at 3:30am. Apparently guys play drums through the neighborhoods to wake people up so they can eat before the sun comes up and the first prayer. I reminded me of being woken up by the call to prayer the first night I was in Istanbul (that I remember).

Anyways, that's the saga of the job hunt so far. Sorry if it was a bit boring. I start teaching not this coming Monday, but the next Monday, the second week of school. And by that time I hope to have a room in a flat and another part time job.

Happy ramazan and jewish new year

in which i enter the former ottoman empire

Istanbul, Turkey

I arrived in Turkey. It was a rather long trip from Prague. First I took the 6:30 bus from Prague to Budapest. If you're in the czech republic I would highly recomend student agency as a bus company. First they give student discounts. Second, they give you free hot beverages from a machine that makes very sweet slightly lemony tea, just the thing if you had to wake up far to early. And third, they show really random czech movies, including one about a guy who pretended to be a waiter during socialism, and everyone was so tired of waiting to pay they gave him their money. Called run waiter run or something like that. Another was called mountains of carpathia. On the bus I met a very nice woman who had been doing a medical rotation in the czech republic. She offered to show me around budaest, but feeling like I really needed to get to Istanbul I had to decline her offer.

After navigating the budapest metro I arrived at the train station. I really think the man behind the ticket counter had never written a ticket to istanbul before, because he had to consult all sorts of booklets and it took a very long time. But I had my ticket. I was too tired to do anything besides go to the grocery store. The 36 hour train ride I was about to take would have no dining car.

The istanbul bound car was half first class and half second class. I don't think I've ever seen a car split in half like that. Most of the rest of the train was going to greece, and other cars were bound for romania and bulgaria. A guy not wearing a uniform helped me onto the train, put me in a first class compartment and took my ticket. I was a bit concerned, until he took the tickets of other people coming onto the train. It turned out that there was one older turkish guy, two austrailian girls, one brittish girl named sam, me, and the conductor on the train. So we each got a compartment to ourselves. I ate some food and then folded down my seat into a bed and passed out. I was woken up at about 11 when we crossed into Romania. There was a passport check and 30 minute stop on each side of the border. Romania didn't take any time changing their passport stamp to the EU format. Places like the czech republic still have their own stamps.

Around 11 the next day we stoped in some little town in Romania. We were there for about 3 hours, so Sam and I got off and wandered around. Our car was the only thing on the tracks, sitting all by itself. It was pretty funny. There wasn't much in the town except for some big power plant. We had some too expensive coffee and then walked around. Later we found the austrailian girls and all had beer. By this point we had gotten better at negotiating with our euros. Fortunatly this time I didn't need any money in Romania, since I still wouldn't have been able to get any.

We left, and I spent the rest of the day sleeping and looking out the window. That afternoon we crossed into Bulgaria, and the scenery immediatly got more beautiful. To cross into bulgaria we went over the longest steel railroad bridge in theworld, or something like that. At 2 in the morning we left bulgaria and entered Turkey. On the turkish side, everyone had to leave the train. Then we bought our visas in one line, stood in another line to have our passports stamped and then I got back on the train and went to sleep, only to be woken up by an official checking passports to make sure that everyone on the train had a stamped visa.

We arrived in Istanbul at about 8:30 in the morning. Not having a hostel, I followed Sam to hers. They told us that check in wasn't until 12, but the guy let us take showers, and then leave our luggage. We went to the place that Efdal teaches, and had menemen for breakfast. Not much had changed. It's nice to be back.

Sam was visiting Istanbul on her way to a wedding in Bodrum, so I kind of showed her around that first day. We visited the baazar, and Hasan and Murat. She found some shoes there. Then we walked down the hill to eminonu to get some balik ekmek. Returning back up the hill we stopped at a cafe, and then she went out to meet some friends of a friend. I called Aylin. She said, why aren't you staying with us? and, Nazende is getting married tomorrow morning.

So after that first night in the hostel, I got up early in the morning, and took my stuff on the tram, boat, and bus to get to Aylin's house. That was the last time I am taking all of it on public transportation! Never again will I travel with so much stuff! Although my arms are stronger now. It was great to see Aylin, Kubi and Ali Kaan again. He's four and a half now! I had missed the religious wedding, so was only going to the civil part of it. It was in a building sort of like a town hall. Nazende's dress was beautiful. Cemalnur had designed it. Aylin hadn't told anyone that I was back, so they were all very supprised when I showed up. After the wedding was a lunch, that in usual turkish fasion was a bit chaotic from trying to include everyone. Then later that night was a zikir, a sufi ritual. While I had been to many sermons (sohbets) I had never been to a zikir. I think I was a bit too tired to properly appreciate it though.