Nicer Dicer

OK, first, I feel a need to apologize for yesterday's post. I felt I complained a bit too much about the woman in my class. For a number of reasons, yes, she distracts me. I woke up feeling a bit ridiculous that I wrote about her here. Part of the reason I chose to write a blog rather than a diary was so it wouldn't just write about my day-to-day emotions. Having a potential audience, even one person, helps you fly right. So, my apologies.

Today, however, I had even more trouble with her than usual. Won't bore you with the details, but man, we just don't get along. I just can't handle her learned helplessness. I find it so frustrating. I know that she disrupts my learning, like this constant buzz coming from the far corner of the room. I also know the fact that we don't get along also drives me the most crazy. She seems to have no interest in making new friends here, relying on just her boyfriend and the people in Istanbul that she already knew from the States. Sure, I have come across a lot of people here and yes, I get on well enough with most of them. Perhaps the fact that I can tell she doesn't care for me is a part of what bothers me.

But please let's move on. I really must. I must say, though the honeymoon is over, I am really enjoying this next phase of being here. I feel a bit settled. Places are familiar, I understand most of what is going on. No, that doesn't mean that I really understand what everyone around me is saying. Unfortunately not. I do, however, feel fairly comfortable all the time. I know where I am most of the time. I have a basic understanding of how things work. Yeah, I feel a little like this is my home, at least for now.

This past weekend I went to Bakirkoy, an area that I haven't seen before except when coming in from the airport. Friday night, I went to a party with Seda, Cihan's Turkish English teacher. She works at a school that is run by an American university, and I had met some of the English teachers at a party the week before. I figured it would be an easy party for me for that reason. However, the party was mostly in Turkish. Not always fun for me, but very, very good. Learning a language is such a process. I feel on this I am also into the next phase. I can't say much but I understand a fair amount. Now, I will say, the nonstop chain smoking in a small unventilated apartment was not enjoyable for me, and, as hard as I try, the smoking here really bothers me.

The party was thrown by Alper, an English teacher at her school. He is an interesting guy. Besides being an elementary school English teacher, he is also the coach and impetus behind the new Turkish international baseball team. Yes, he has brought baseball to Turkey. He trained with the Milwaukee Brewers a couple of years ago. Alper was born in Turkey, but spent most of his life in Germany. I don't know where the baseball thing came from. The party was small, mostly teachers from the school, gossiping about the other teachers, gossiping about the students. After the party, I stayed over at Seda's house. Her cousin, a corporate lawyer with thinning hair, stayed over too as the traffic situation here means you really just can't get around at night. Ah, the traffic. We drank some Turkish wine, and Seda roasted some chestnuts. Seda's cousin is a really, nice, patient person. He was kind enough to insist that I talk only in Turkish. Whenever I switched into English, he pretended that he didn't understand me. Good for me, but not so much fun. Probably not so fun for him either.

The next day, Seda and I went shopping. Well, actually she went shopping, I observed. We went to a mall. There are so many malls here, including one of the biggest in Europe. One of them gave me vertigo, it had so many floors. The malls are open until like 10 or 11 at night. After that, we went to Ortakoy, one of my favorite areas in Istanbul. Ortakoy is on the Bosphorus, and has a number of little shops and restaurants. She parked her car on a corner with the hazards on, as there wasn't any parking for miles, probably. After she bought some boots and we picked up some "meat" sandwiches and aryan (salty yogurt beverage that I sometimes like), she tried to start the car. The battery was dead. Somehow she managed to find someone from a local garage to jump it in about 5 minutes. After he jumped it, she tried bargaining with him to get his low price down. He told her that she didn't have to pay if she didn't have money and then she paid him the asking price. Hm.

We drove back to my house in Beykoz and we ate our "meat" sandwiches. The drive took about 2.5 hours in total, to go maybe 20 miles, if that. I actually don't know how far it is and I feel like you can't ever know how far things are, because of the traffic. We hung out in my house. Seda was waiting for Cihan to start his weekly English lesson. I really hand it to him, he is very diligent in this. He spends all his free time on English. Burju, Cihan's daughter who I really like, was there. Burju is on break from college and just seemed so much like a college kid on break. The digital satellite wasn't working properly, so only the shopping channel was on. We watched the whole 30-minute infomercial for the Nicer Dicer, and Burju became obsessed with it. "Dad, if we had the Nicer Dicer, I could make breakfast for you in half the time." She then just started chanting, "Nicer Dicer, Nicer Dicer." Quite hilarious. At this point, Seda told me that the sandwiches we had in Ortakoy were made of intestines. That is why they had so many spices. I had noticed that they had quite a strong taste. Burju and I got bored while Cihan's lesson was going on, so we went in the garden, looking for cats. We saw one ("Fluffy") from the window, but he was long gone by the time we got there. We couldn't find a single cat. Typical Saturday night when the digital satellite is down.

At Home (He Feels Like a Tourist)

So, most of the folks I meet here seem to fall into one of two categories: those who possess a somewhat adventurous experience and those who don't quite fit in at home. OK, more I think of it, perhaps this more of a spectrum, that most folks have a bit of both categories in them. Lucky for me, most people I meet tend more towards the adventurous spirit than the oddball ex-pat. OK, I did meet an odd ex-pat from Northhampton, Mass. last night who spent three years sitting in a beach town, doing nothing, because "life comes to you" but that is separate story altogether.

Every now, however, I meet someone who I honestly can't figure why they are away from home. Unfortunately I have one of these types in my class. I'll call her Sarah, to protect her identity and to protect myself, just a little. Sarah is an American in my class and yes, she is the bane of my existence at present. She is from New Hampshire. She is maybe 26 years old. One day, during a class break, she dissed Vermont, remarking that Vermont is home to rampant polygamy. Um, what? I mentioned that I had never come across that in my time there and asked where exactly this was happening. She answered that it was a statewide reality. We have been slightly at odds ever since. She clearly did not like my challenging her in public, but honestly, it sounded ridiculous to me. And I hardly wanted people from other parts of the world registering my lovely Vermont in their minds as the degenerate, backwards state...especially from someone from New Hampshire! She said she read about this problem in her hometown paper... well, OK, that does make sense. Only a local New Hampshire paper is going to report on rampant polygamy in Vermont. Yeesh.

OK, so, yes, Sarah is trouble for me. She is going into a prestigious International Relations program in the fall, to study peacekeeping. Not sure about the fit there. She is here with her nice boyfriend to learn Turkish, though it sounds like this move isn't altogether necessary. Now, why is she the bane of my existence? Well, she struggles with the language. That is, of course, no problem whatsoever. We are all visibly struggling and we all make really big mistakes. Turkish is full of opportunities to make huge mistakes that are quite embarrassing. Using the wrong vowel sound can lead you to uttering some rather rough profanities. So, mistakes in class are hardly a problem.

What is a problem is that this woman has some seriously negative energy. Not a day goes by without her whining, honest to goodness whining... about how hard the language is, about how much she doesn't like being in class. She expands this negativity to remarks about how dirty Istanbul is (it isn't really, though the air is polluted), and anything else along those lines. Every time she answers a question in class, she laughs nervously and can barely finish her sentence. Again, that is just fine but there is a meanness to her that is not OK. She laughs at her boyfriend when he makes mistakes, which luckily he rarely does. She pouts her way through class and seems altogether miserable. She is such a distraction that I try not to look her way or react to her. I am hoping to not reinforce her negative drive for attention.

Trust me, I realize that part of the problem is that I spend four hours every day in a small room with the same eight people. At this point, I know what to expect from all of them. Three of them I just love - the Italian anthropologist, my good friend who is Dutch, and the hilarious Canadian guy; the others I like just fine. Then there is Sarah. I have noticed that, in general, the Americans struggle the most in class, and seem the most uncomfortable learning. Perhaps this is because we don't learn languages as readily in school. I am not sure that is it. I feel like there is something else going on here. I don't remember being put in situations that made me feel OK in making mistakes in public. I think, perhaps, we are conditioned to be really uncomfortable in making mistakes and struggling publicly. Plus we often make fun of each other. Maybe that is it? I don't know. Today, sadly we signed up for the next class today, and yes, it looks like I will have another month with this woman. Ah well, I realize I really need to not spend my time on this. Hey, maybe she is just an outlet for my own frustration. I don't know.

Dark Days Indeed

Ah, don't let the title and my long absence cause you any concern. I guess I got a little busy and far from the computer. As lame as this is, my Italian friend lent me her 750-page Elementary Turkish grammar book for the past week and I have been trying to get through it. That and a Turkish friend of mine emailed me a very dry paper on restorative dentistry (in English) for me to edit for his dentist friend. Oof ya! Both things took my free time I suppose. And yes, sure, I have been doing more interesting things as well.

One strange thing about living away from home is that you have no idea what is being reported in the papers there. The brutal murder of a prominent Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink, here in Istanbul in front of his newspaper's office has gotten most of the press here for days. People are rightfully concerned that Turkey's reputation will be further tarnished worldwide. Last week some of the students in my Turkish language class couldn't physically make it to school because of the huge protest march in our neighborhood. Dink was shot in the head in his paper's neighborhood about 15 minutes away. The protest march, with estimates of 100,000 to 300,000, marched from the offices in Sisli to Taksim Square, basically the heart of downtown Istanbul. They had to close one of the major bridges in town as it was en route. Here is the latest article I could find about this in the New York Times - I am just not sure where it appeared in the actual paper - front page? I wonder:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/world/europe/21turkey.html?ex=1170219600&en=3f78b3d7ca59ecd9&ei=5070

According to Reporters Without Borders, this murder makes Turkey the 8th most dangerous country in the world for reporters. Wow. This place feels quite safe, so that seems of particular concern. However, on the flip side, I see the huge support shown for Dink and the genuine concern that so many Turks have about the situation. I wonder how important this story has been in the States. Anyone know?

Long Honeymoon

OK, the honeymoon is over. Apparently I am hitting this point just when expected. Over a month has past; it has been six weeks. You can almost graph this thing, I have been told. Sure, I am still plenty happy, but I can tell I have transitioned into the next phase. The novelty has worn off. We were discussing this phenomenon in class a few days ago and apparently it can rarely be avoided. It is part of the process of living abroad. Part of what happens is that those things you liked the most initially are now the things you find the most annoying.

Take, as a case in point, Turks' relationship with time. Immediately I noticed that Turks are easy-going. Turks don't seem to have the same time pressures we have or at least don't let time get to them. They rarely seem stressed. However, unlike other places that have a different relationship with time, they do adhere to fixed schedules here, meaning their ferries and trains run on time. At first this seems like perhaps the best of all possible worlds: the trains run on time AND the people are quite relaxed.

So, in keeping with this, one thing most Turks refuse to do is plan. They might appear to plan but these plans are just blueprints that will not be followed. Jenny, my Dutch friend, told me that her fiance's friends might say they are coming over for dinner on Tuesday night at 8pm and will then show up at 8pm - on Wednesday. Right, 24 hours later. Wow. Can you imagine?

And, get this, they don't have voice mail on their cell phones.... When someone calls you, you are expected to answer. If you are at work, playing tennis, in class or eating at restaurant, you answer. If for some reason you can't, you are required to call that person back within the next two hours. Last weekend, I heard Seda, Cihan's Turkish English teacher, apologizing profusely on the phone for not picking up because she was in the shower... she really was in the shower. Now, I am someone who uses my cell phone as an answering machine with a headset, I find this most unsettling. I do not want my life dictated by my phone. Here, phones are used to make plans, but only at the moment that the activity is happening. What this means is that: you call someone, you tell them where you are and then you ask/demand that they to join you. Usually the recipient of the call will then go. The caller will check in with the call recipient, say 30 minutes later, and the recipient will always say he or she is 5 minutes away, though he or she may be one to two hours away. Right. So the phone becomes a bit of a ball and chain.. either you answer it and then are forced to go somewhere, sometimes somewhere far away (traffic is terrible here - have I mentioned that yet this post?), or you don't answer and may jeopardize your friendship. I don't play by these rules yet, but I am not sure how long I can keep up the "I am a Yabanci (foreigner), I don't understand" routine.

So, you will all understand why I am thrilled that tonight I have plans with my new American friend Sean - actual plans. Sean is here on a Fulbright, studying Turkish labor history. He had been the runner-up for the Fulbright for the Middle East, but the winner had planned to do research in Lebanon and got cold feet after the war broke out. Lucky break. Sean had done some research in Damascus last year, where he was regularly followed by someone from the Syrian government. The guy trailing him once left cigarette butts in Sean's apartment, probably just to let him know he had been there. So, Sean opted to return to Turkey where he had studied before because it is an easier life here. He is also studying Turkish at Dilmer. I do feel like a bit like I am cheating by having English-speaking friends, but it is so so nice to actually be able to communicate (and laugh) with someone. I have plenty of days where I barely speak, or just talk very simply. I live in my head a lot.

So, yes, Sean and I discussed this Turkish time/planning phenomenon yesterday, and decided we would make plans and keep them. Today we solidified our plan and I will meet up with him in about an hour, when he is done with class. Honestly, I can't tell you what a relief this is. Funny the things you miss. I miss plans. I never thought that would be what I would miss - plans. For instance, before Bayram, (the holiday after New Year's), Cihan said he had cancelled his trip to London so that we would practice English and visit the historical sites in Istanbul. As he is serious about his English learning, I figured that was a real plan. Then, two days before Bayram, Cihan told me that he was going to go to Mersin (another Turkish city) for two days instead. He left...and returned four days later. This is normal for here. Completely, don't bat an eye normal.

Rude Boy

Wow! I have been trying to open this site for the last hour and finally, I am in! I managed to set this computer to accept cookies for my blogsite in Turkish. This is an achievement. I guess my Turkish really is getting better!

So, I absolutely must write about rudeness in Istanbul, as I often think about it. First, I need to start with an acknowledgment that the Turks are some of the most welcoming and gracious people I have met. I have been given many a cup of Nescafe, countless little glasses of tea and even a few beers for no good reason... simply because people are nice. You can tell by their faces that they are sincere, and I, myself, have not been treated badly even once. I have not been hassled, except by one scam artist who tricked me into getting a shoe shine on Galata Bridge, but that was hardly a big deal. It was a very '80s squeegee-guy moment. This is a very cultured place.

I also acknowledge that this is a big city. A very big city. Estimates are currently about 20 million though it may be more. And sure, very big cities have a certain rudeness built in, a rudeness that is usually a response to a loss of personal space and a need to carve out that space.

However, in numerous situations, particularly those involving public transportation, I have yet to encounter a place more rude. Every day, as I board and exit the ferry, I am amazed by the rude behavior. People push to get on the metal ramp and steps that lead to the ferry. I don't understand it as the ferry waits. We will all get on. If the guys on the ferry see you running towards the boat, yes, they will acknowledge you and they will not pull the ramp away before you board. This is no NYC bus scenario. However, the pushing is as inevitable as it is unnecessary. When I am just standing there, someone will invariably push in front of me before the boat arrives. This is the kind of behavior that would never stand at an indie rock concert. So, we push on and then the boat ride is lovely - the boats are new, clean and the seats are comfortable. We pass by some wonderful sites on the Bosphorus: the remains of Mehmet the Conqueror's forts (Rumeli Hisari and Anadolu Hisari) that enabled him to conquer Constantinople, the opulent Dolmabahce Palace, beautiful yalis, etc. I love Istanbul at these times and already know how hard it will be for me to leave. Then, when the boat docks, the same rudeness ensues, and I don't care for this place at all. We will all be standing in the aisles, waiting for the boat to dock, and people will push out of their rows. There is no room for the people pushing out, so it is really weird. I want to say, "you know, the laws of physics dictate that we cannot both occupy this same space, so you might want to wait 'til I move up, say, three inches or so." Amazing. People will then push to get off the ramp though, of course, we will all be able to get off just fine. They then return to their cultured ways. I find it all so strange and, yes, another instance of the duality of this place.

Last night I had a similar experience on the bus. I had gone to a gallery opening in Nisantasi, a high-end neighborhood that probably somewhat resembles New York. The new Italian (Veronica the anthropologist) from class had invited me to the opening. The show was good. It was the work of an Italian photographer from Florence who explored ideas of collective memory through familiar icons, mostly classical ruins and sculptures. He coated the photographs with wax so that they collected dust, dirt, etc. He had brought his entourage from Florence and it felt familiar, like many openings in NYC. Everyone was really cool. The gallery assistants were all young women dressed all in black, of course. A friend of the photographer's, a Turkish movie star, came to the opening - his English was excellent. It is always interesting to meet a "famous" person when that means nothing to you. He was fairly attractive, very tall, though he was sporting a rather obvious cold sore.

Anyway, because I was still in the Beyoglu (the "New City"), I took the bus home. When it arrived, there were two young college-aged women who got on ahead of me. They were fumbling for change and the bus doors actually closed on me because they were in the way. Not a good feeling, that, to have dirty bus doors actually close on you. And no, these girls did not move out of the way to let me in, and their expressions never changed. I had to squeeze past them. They neither apologized and actually never moved from their poor choice of standing spots. As other people got onto the bus at the next few stops, they also ran into trouble getting past these two girls. However, no one seemed miffed at all. At home, many comments would have been made, but here, nothing. So, pondering this rudeness phenomenon, I realized that in order to be rude, you must realize that you are being so. At least there need to be larger social parameters that you are pushing against or even breaking. Here, it appears that there may be no such parameters or a concept of unacceptable public transportation behavior. I have yet to see someone be upset by behavior that is rude in my book. Perhaps the concept of rude doesn't really exist. Hm. Not sure. This is one place I think it might be impossible to not adhere to your own native concepts of politeness; they are just so ingrained. As I realize the futillty of being bothered by something that is not going to change any time soon, I will try to not mind being pushed around unnecessarily. We shall see.

School Daze

Classes started up again today at the ol' Dilmer Language School, conveniently located in Taksim, the center of the city. This is my second month at this school. I go 9am to 1pm every week day. I waffle between deciding that we are covering a lot and covering very little. Every day, I am confronted with duality, for lack of a better word, in Istanbul. It is both expensive and cheap. It is both modern and traditional. I don't think that I can say that it appears one way but actually is another; this is a different phenomenon. I don't think I will ever really "know" this place. I just can't figure it. I am always looking for clues.

OK, Dilmer. I realized today that I am going to a school that, if it was located in America, would have ads on the NYC subway. Ads with lots of smiling foreigners looking foreign (and being really excited about that fact). The school occupies one small building, and each classroom (one per floor) looks exactly the same. Same calendars on the wall, same Ataturk photograph. From what I have heard from students at other schools (Bosphorus University, Tomer), Dilmer moves the fastest and is the most lenient in testing. The school seems to be fairly evenly split between Russians (and ex-USSR republics), French & Italians, other Europeans and Americans. My class has nine students, five of whom were in my class last month. The class is now comprised of three Americans (myself, a guy named Tim who is planning on living in Istanbul for awhile, Benjamin the very smart ex-Four Seasons chef), one Dutch person (my friend Jenny who is engaged to a Turkish guy), a new Canadian guy (from Vancouver, so nice to hear that accent as it reminds me of my dear friend Colin - he is a freelance advertising copywriter whose hires himself out as a fixer of mangled translations), a Russian (this somewhat annoying guy named Andre who always wears the strange same highwaisted jeans and a belt that says "Boss"), a new quiet woman from the Ukraine ("Natasha"? - very doubtful), a new lively Italian woman named Veronica (who replaces the previous lively Italian Veronica - she is studying anthropology at one of the Universities in Istanbul), and the very bright and mathematically-minded Korean woman. She has the most amazingly methodical notes - they are all color-coded. Astounding.

Today I started out feeling really encouraged; the class felt really fun and enjoyable. We have Zeynep again, who is a really nice person, very cool, and a patient teacher... I know I like her as a person. And she speaks very slowly. One strong incentive to learn Turkish is to be able to talk to Zeynep, really talk to her. However, as it continued, I felt this sinking feeling that it was going to be simply a continuation of last month. Don't get me wrong, I learned a lot, but by the end I felt a little frustrated... I felt like we did far too much of the same. And yes, yet again, the lesson continued its well-worn pattern. We started off speaking in short sentences around the room. We talked about what we did yesterday or, as we just learned the future tense, what we plan to do. Do we plan to drink coffee tomorrow morning? (of course) Are we going to walk around Istanbul? (guess so) How will we get home? (ah, yes, again my six options for getting home.) Yeah, yeah, it is all worthwhile but I think we need to expand our horizons. We need to talk about more than just our most mundane existence. I don't think we can get into politics or religion quite yet, but I need to talk about more than just taking the boat to school, really. Hopefully I will be able to report a change soon. I have my fingers crossed.

Continue, Continue

This photo is of the library at Topkapi Palace, the great palace of the Ottoman Sultans built in the 15th and 16th centuries. No, it is not my house though Cihan often likes to refer to himself as "Sultan." Hm.

I don't have a lot of things I cook regularly, but the ones I do, I think I do quite well. I learned the secret to a good omelet from Martha Stewart and so, after many promises that I would one day cook breakfast, I made good on that promise yesterday. Seda was over at the house, and she made most of the breakfast items. Seda is Cihan's Turkish English teacher (stay with me here). She teaches him grammar and is a great help to him as she can explain the rules and translations in Turkish. She is a primary school teacher during the week at a private school run by an American university. She often comes over on Saturday night and stays in Burjuhan's room so that the two of them can have English lessons all Sunday. While she is pretty (she used to be a flight attendant on Turkish Airlines), I am certain that there is no funny business. Seda makes my job is really quite easy; she handles the grammar rules that I don't think I ever learned, and I just talk and listen. I have an easy gig.

So Seda came over Saturday night and taught grammar to Cihan for about two hours. I sat with them a bit and had to bite my tongue a number of times as she corrected him with some very awkward English sentence constructions: "Until when will my car be repaired?" I didn't have any problems with her making some odd sentence choices, it was that she was correcting his which weren't often that bad. My limited knowledge of Turkish sentence structure explained why she ended up with these constructions so I figured as long as they made some sense, I let them be. I don't want to knock down the confidence that is being built and sometimes English just doesn't make sense, grammatically. There were a couple of times, though, that I did have to say something... and get this - she challenged me with a tone of authority. "In English sentences, we put the subject first, then the verb... etc." I gently corrected her as I could. Ah, I do give her credit for teaching English while a native speaker is listening. She has this confidence that borders on arrogance, but I must say I like her.

Anyway, back to breakfast. A week or two ago I did admit to Cihan that I wasn't about to start cooking breakfast as once I started, it might become expected of me. This has become our first running joke. He will just say, with a laugh, "Continue, continue"... right. My fear. For example, IF I start doing some of the ironing, alas, I will become the one in the house who does the ironing.. and I have NO interest in starting bad trends.

So I made a 3 egg cheese omelet that we split. I put aside the fact that I know that eggs sit outside of refrigeration in the supermarket and that one of the ones I used had quite a number of little feathers on it. It was quite good (thanks Martha!). Seda put together the rest of the breakfast. Breakfast is a big deal here and you get to eat all kinds of things that I don't necessarily think of as breakfast-y: olives, halvah, salad. I asked if I could put out the white bean salad I had made the day before and she scoffed a little, and said "Uh no, that wouldn't be right for breakfast." Right. Note to self: halvah and olives are fine for breakfast, but don't even think of allowing beans on the table. So she put out the olives, bread, jam, cheese selection and some specialties she had brought back from her hometown where she spent the holidays. These specialties were a special beef sausage which was amazing and this soft cheese/butter thing that I think is actually the curds from fresh milk. I forget its name but it was excellent with honey on bread. The breakfast was wonderful and I was complimented with a Turkish idiom that means, roughly, "from your hands good health." Nice.

The Street Where I Live

I live in Beykoz, a smallish seaside neighborhood on the Asian side of Istanbul. (My house is the second white one from the left.) I have been told that it is the one of the most conservative parts of Istanbul. Turks have also told me that it is their favorite part of the city. The town has a lot of fishing boats and the town is concentrated on the Bosphorus Strait. When I first moved here, I thought of the Bosphorus as a river. Obviously this was my New York City background coming through. I mean, you can see the other side of the thing, so how can it be the sea? One side of the Bosphorus is Asia and other side is Europe. However,one good look at the color of the Bosphorus and you just know it is the sea. It has that sea green color, and that seawater clarity. It also has its fair share of jellyfish and obviously has a lot of other fish as well, as evidenced by all the successful fishermen lined up on its shores.

So I live in an apartment in a yali. A yali is a traditional shorefront Ottoman-era wooden house. Not many yalis remain as most were either burned or knocked down to build apartments. As with many things Ottoman, they were considered old-fashioned and passé. (Recently I heard a Turkish friend refer disparagingly to a ring as "so Ottoman." Funny.) Our yali is in a row of yalis, none particularly grand but all quite attractive. We have the top two floors, meaning the upstairs bedrooms, accompanying bathrooms and laundry area are under the eaves. Here is a link to the history of yalis may be of interest to you historic preservationist types (you know who you are). I pass the white yali on the cover page every day on the ferry ride to school - it is quite stunning:

http://www.anatolia.com/anatolia/2000/11/yali/default.asp

So, how did I get so lucky as to live in a yali? Well, that was thanks to an incredibly helpful, intelligent and well-connected woman who I met through the US Foreign Service boards on Yahoo. She had lived here in Istanbul for 4 years and had worked as an English teacher. She has since moved to DC to start her new career in the State Department. I, for one, am glad she is going to be out there helping Americans around the world. Anyway, she had a number of private clients including Cihan, a successful businessman who is super busy. He mentioned to her that he wanted to have a native English speaker live in his home so that he could practice his English in those few moments when he was home. As I was looking for a place to live, well, it was a perfect fit. He owns a large logistics business called Adahan (means Island and Sovereign or Khan - nearly all Turkish proper names actually mean something). He has a really nice college-aged daughter named Burcuhan who also lives here, when she is not at her mother's house. She is a law student.

My "job" is really easy as Cihan is never home. I mean never. He averages about two hours awake a week, honestly. I speak to him for maybe one of these hours, in slow careful English. I think the guy works really hard. He keeps saying that things will be slowing down at his business but I wonder. So mostly I am in this beautiful place alone. Sometimes I feel like Maria von Trapp or that Anna Siam woman, except that I have no children to manage and there is no attraction between Cihan and myself. I just get to live in the nice place, mostly on my own.

When I first asked around, I was told that Beykoz was really far away and would be very inconvenient. Yes, it is within the Istanbul city limits, but... However, I have found it to be both far away and not at all. Ah the complicated dual nature of Istanbul and perhaps Turkey in general rears its head yet again. On week days I can get to school in what is most likely considered the "downtown area" (Taksim) in 45 minutes, door to door. I live right next to the ferry pier, so if I see the ferryboat approaching the pier from my window, I can hightail it and make it on the boat in time. I then push onto the boat with the rush of the Istanbul pushers (more on this later), take my seat in my airplane type chair and be there in 30 minutes. A quick ride up the hill in the Funikular (think pully with a three or four subway cars attached) and I am at school. Now, coming home can take over one and one-half hours, but that seems to be true for most parts of Istanbul. I know I will write a post about the ridiculous traffic situation of this huge, a city of over 15 million that had several SINGLE LANE central roads, but will wait until I am suitably irate.

Cihan's apartment is lovely, very comfortable and bright. There are a number of windows that open right onto the sea. His apartment definitely reminds me of an apartment of a single man. Very functional, big plasma TV with digital satellite, stereo sound (Dad, you would love it!), comfortable couches, but few decorations. The downstairs apartment is occupied by a family, and their place is much more decorated. I don't know how long Cihan has been divorced but I think it has been awhile. So, yes, the apartment is fairly modern and is heated by radiant heating. We have many modern appliances, like a dishwasher and a washing machine - no dryer though as they are just not common here. Most of the furnishings are sort of upscale IKEA, except for a couple of carved wooden chairs that are next to the seaside window. One of my favorite pasttimes is to sit in the chair nearest to the window, just daydreaming. Oh, and studying. Of course I am studying. :) There is something so peaceful about watching the pretty wooden boats ferry people over to the European side. Also, I love to watch the gulls and the black birds that seem to be ducks. I mean they act like ducks... diving under the water when harrassed by a gull...but do ducks live in salt water? I am not sure. I think I might just need to watch them a little more.

Stray Cats

We have cats in our garden, lots of cats. I know that Garfield and Doman (Smoky) belong to the downstairs neighbors but I can't speak for the rest of them. There is Fluffy and Orangy and Patches... OK those are my names for them. None of them will let me touch them and that just kills me. Smoky and Garfield are 6-month old kittens that thankfully do let me scratch their heads and pet them. They are super cute and friendly. Garfield is fearless and curious and, of course, orange. Smoky meows a lot, but it is a quiet meowing so it is sort of sweet. I haven't tried to pick them up yet, fearing a repeat of the Trooper scratch-my-face-relentlessly scenario. Someday I will be so brave.

There are a lot of cats in Istanbul, mostly strays. Dogs too. Even in the busiest parts of town. Last week, I watched a pack of dogs chase an orange cat up a tree in my neighborhood and when I passed by a half-hour later, the kitty was still up there. I wondered if fire departments in Istanbul ever rescue cats from trees. I have been told* that once or twice a year, the City of Istanbul picks up the stray animals and, get this, takes them to the vet. No, they don't get sent east to some "farm" where they will be very, very happy. They get veterinary attention, a little tag on their ear (if they are a dog) and are released to go on their seemingly merry ways. While people don't generally touch these strays, people do feed them and give them water. They generally appear to be quite happy and healthy, and feel quite at home on the streets.

*There is a verb tense in Turkish that is used when something is merely reported to you, but you were not privy to the event. I realize that so much of what I "know" about this place falls in that category. I wonder if I will ever feel like I really understand Istanbul and all its contradictions.

Paranoid

From what I have heard, most of the prostitutes working in Istanbul come from Russia. They are commonly referred to as "Natashas." I am fairly certain that I have not seen any and I have no idea where they congregate. Perhaps due in part to their unwanted influx, folks coming in to Turkey from Russia et al only get one month visas while we Americans and EU members get an easy 3.

There is one woman in my class who I thought at first might be a Natasha. She is very pretty, with very dyed red hair . Red hair not found in nature. She has this one black lycra t-shirt with silver guitars printed on it and laces that run in and out of the grommets, going on the inside and outside of the shirt. I cannot imagine this shirt is the least bit comfortable. Anyway, within a week's time, however, I realized that not only is she decidededly not a Natasha, she might actually be brilliant. She is apparently an Ukrainian economist and somehow manages to speak this mathematical language without the American requisite stops and starts. Ah, the danger of stereotypes.

So, one of my biggest fears here in Istanbul is being mistaken for a Natasha. I do have a coat with a fake fur hood. And I have some blonde hair. Now blonde hair like mine is very commonplace and does not target me as a foreigner. And I personally think I look Turkish. People often launch into Turkish when they see me, for example. The only ones who think I do not look Turkish are my Turkish friends, but what do they know?

A few nights ago I had my first bad experience in Istanbul, involving my Natasha fears. However, what started as one kind of bad experience quickly changed into another. I had met up that night with Veronica, my Italian friend from class, her Turkish boyfriend and a couple of her friends who were visiting from Italy and France. Everyone spoke in one language and listened to another. A lot of Spanish was spoken, with English as a close second. We went to a Greek taverna in Taksim and had some red wine and meze (appetizers). I did have two bites of lemony brain and had a slight gag reflex with each bite. We then ate mini-paella clams on the street, followed up by desserts. I opted for some chocolate covered pudding while Veronica went for her favorite - chicken pudding. It has pieces of chicken in it though it also somehow manages to have a subtle flavor.

Anyway, though indigestion would seem the likely next turn of events, I am happy to say it was not. I was taking my metro/bus combo home. After taking the metro to Levent... the metro that seems to be buried about a mile underground ... I was waiting for the 121A bus. This metro to the Asian bridge bus option always sounds the fastest and easiest to me but always lets me down. Why? Because the bus is always crowded. Always. And standing for 40 minutes or so on a swerving bus is rarely fun. The bus arrived and yep, already there were folks standing. Ah well.

I got on and right away, this man in his 60s or so offered up his seat. This generally does not happen so I was happy. Gentlemanly. He then started talking to me rather quickly, and waas pointing at his watch. Hm. Generally I am fine not understanding what is going on, but this time I was concerned. He obviously wasn't asking me for the time as he had a watch. Was he trying to confirm his watch's accuracy? I think it was around 11pm.

Next up was a mini-tirade about a key. Huh. So now we seem to have some need to communicate about time and a key. In an effort to find meaning in it all, I decide that he thinks I am a Natasha and this is how things go down. You specify an amount of time and she provides you with a key. Oh and it also seems that he is asking me to go somewhere with him, but of this I am not certain. I put on my slightly angry face and look defiantly out the window. Finally I just firmly tell him no. He reaches for his cellphone... somehow I know this is also going to fit into my analysis of the situation. He shows me the phone and it says "Cihan" along with the number of the house where I live. He is Cihan's friend. All of a sudden he realize that looks familiar. I think I met him on my first day at my apartment. However, as Cihan has a driver who takes him around in his new Mercedes, I hardly expect to see one of his friends on the bus. I have since realized that he is the guy who cleans the hallway. We had a conversation of sorts for the rest of the bus ride. I apologized and hopefully told him that I didn't recognize him. I felt so horrible... he was just riding home from his brother's and I acted like he was a low-level criminal.

So last night, when I was walking along the seaside road in Yenikoy on the European side, I tried not to jump to conclusions when a car stopped next to me and honked. Cars honk all the time here; every dolmus (mini-bus) or free taxi honks as it passes you, just to let you know that they are willing to stop for you. I figured perhaps he was actually signalling someone else, another car perhaps. I walked along a little further until I was nearly at the little road to the pier for the small boats to Beykoz. He pulled up again and stopped near me. Who knows what that was about. Hopefully I can find out more about the MO of these Natashas .. seems to me that slightly ill-fitting corduroys and an oversized jacket hardly seem the costume. And a well-traveled route in a toney neighborhood also seems not what I'd imagine. Yet again, so much to learn and so little time.

No One Knows What It's Like...

Yesterday I took the ferry to Uskudar which is on the Asian side after visiting Suleiman's mosque and tomb. As I live on the Asian side of Istanbul in a seaside town called Beykoz, I have figured out exactly six ways to get home from the European side. Which method I choose depends mostly on the time of day and sometimes sımply on my preference: ferry/bus? bus/metro? ferry/funikular? Traffic is just awful here and I know I will post a long irate post on that subject in the very near future. In fact, I am amazed that is not where I am starting.

Anyway I sat on the wooden benches near a man who obviously had some kind of mental illness as well as physical ailments. When he walked he leaned very heavily from side to side. I also noticed that he had fairly large hands. So, he sat down by the window and when an older woman with a cane came up to our little group of seats, he emphatically offered up his seat. She turned him down. The boat started its 15 to 20 minute journey and once we were off, the man started to cry. Loudly. He wasn't wailing exactly but he was really sobbing... the kind of sobbing usually designated to a pillow. I realized that this was the first time that I had ever seen a man cry in public. I was uncomfortable. No one paid any obvious attention to him and I wondered if this was normal at all. These thoughts come to me often as to what is considered normal and why. Perhaps such things can't really be figured out in a foreign country. Only through decades in the U.S. do I know that a man crying in public is not considered normal.

Anyway, I fought my inclination to look his way and instead held my gaze on the little buffet and the waiter with the steady hand who was delivering little glasses of tea to ferrygoers, despite the tippy nature of the boat. After five minutes the man stopped sobbing and wiped away his tears with the back of his large hand. It is Bayram in Istanbul, which is linked religiously with Ramadan and socially with the New Year celebration. So I figured he was crying because he was alone during the holidays. Hopefully his short fit helped him feel just a little better. The holidays can be a little tough for all of us.