T-minus 10 days and counting...

...until I leave my now-beloved Istanbul. It only seems like yesterday that I was stepping out of that taxi in front of the dorm, knowing barely a dozen words in Turkish, blinking away the near-tears of amazement and fear, and now, I am only a week and half from leaving. I'm far from fluent, but now I can carry on a simple conversation in Turkish - enough to express the basics of my feelings and desires, how to order food, and lots of fun Turkish curse words. I have walked, head-scarfed and socked feet, over the carpeted floors of Sultanahmet. I have swum in the cold-blue Mediterranean. I have sat and stared up at the Library of Celsus at Ephesus. I have strolled the halls of the Grand Bazaar and Spice Market. I have climbed the ancient fairy chimneys of Cappadocia, and listened to the midday call to prayer from the highest point of Uçhisar. I have explored the shadowy nooks and crannies of the ancient underground city of Derinkuyu. I have scrambled over the backs of ruins that are older than Christ. I have acquired the Turkish "no". I have had an amazing time here, and I know, I know, that one day I will return.

Now I sit in my dorm room, glancing up at the calendar occasionally with both a pained look and hope in my eyes. It's an odd place to be. I love it here and I want to stay, but at the same time, I miss my home in California, my friends and family, and most of my, my Russ. I can't have one without the other. In order to go back home, I have to leave my Turkish home. To say hello, I have to say good-bye. Yes, yes, I'm being melancholy and overly dramatic. Shut up. I know. But if you spent four months in one of the most magical cities in the world, with some of the best people that this world has to offer, some of the tastiest cuisine, some of the most spectacular views and histories, then you would understand. I am going back home, but I cannot take the simits, the hamams, the lokum, the call to prayer, the tangled crowded bazaars, or any of it home with me. I will take the language that I know, the recipes that I have learned, the nazarlık, the scarves, the photos and music, and of course, my memories.

I will miss you, Istanbul.

Recap!

Okay, I've been a bit scarce around here. So here's a quick recap (aka procrastinating another ten minutes or so before diving into hardcore studying for my Turkish final)

School: Busy busy busy! The workload here is heavily weighted towards the end of the semester here, so while this is technically "the last day of classes", I still have four more classes in the next two weeks. And three finals and three projects still to go. So cue the caffeine. I need to conduct original research for all three projects, do a ton of reading and writing, and then studying. My Turkish final is tomorrow morning (on a Saturday!!), and then I have two more finals in my grad classes, which is unheard of back at home at CSUS. Who does finals for a MA TESOL??

Istanbul: Spring has arrived and everything is in bloom, especially the tulips for which the city is famous. The weather is warmer for sure, but is still fickle. One day it's cool and grey, and the next bright blue skies with a bit of humidity. I hear summer here is rather nasty, but now it's nice. It reminds me of home actually (Virginia, that is), and while I can't wait to go back to California, I'm not looking forward to the heat. Plums are in season, and the fresh fruit here is so delicious. I am going to miss Turkish cuisine.

Work: I'm still debating applying to a summer teaching camp in July in Poland, as well as one at the UCDavis Extension back at home in Sacramento which would overlap with the first week of school in the fall semester. Both are tempting. Now I just have to convert my résumé into a proper CV. Any tricks or tips from those academic types out there??

Travel: I'm still not yet sure at this point when I will be back to the US. (See above re: camp in Poland) When I do get back to the US though, my roommate here has invited me to visit her in Boston, a city I've not yet seen, and then of course, I want to spend at least a couple weeks in Virginia to see my best friend and her new baby daughter as well as my other friends and family.

We've made the plans for Russ' trip here to Europe, and booked the tickets, and will be getting the hotels soon too. We both arrive in Amsterdam on June 12, spend a week in the eastern Netherlands and Germany, and then two days in Amsterdam itself, and then head over to Dublin on June 21 for a few days there before Russ heads home on June 24. I will be heading down to Cork for a few days after that to visit a friend, her husband and her handsome little boy. After that? It's still up in the air.

Spring Break: Awesome! I will write more details later, promise, but for now, let me just say that southeast Turkey is absolutely gorgeous. It reminded me at points like California meets Virginia meets Germany meets Italy. If you guys ever want to travel somewhere international, I highly recommend Turkey - no, seriously. The country is beautiful, it's cheap (check the Turkish Lira against the dollar, yo), the food is delicious, the people are so friendly and hospitable, and you really can see and do a lot - and *touch* things! I climbed through an ancient city, Termessos, which Alexander the Great couldn't conquer, I explored the grand amphitheatre - seats for you and 25,000 of your closest friends! - of Ephesus, I scrambled over the mountainside with the ancient Chimera, naturally-burning fires that predate Christ, I swam in the cold blue Mediterranean, I strolled the pebbly beach of Konyaaltı in Antalya, and drank tea with Kurdish carpet sellers in their shop while playing with genuine Van kittens.

Aka Turkey = f*cking amazing. Come here. You will not regret it. Photos will get posted to my Flickr sooner or later (the Flickr loader is way slow), but they are all up on my Facebook. (If you can't find me there, let me know).

Souvenirs: I'm getting lots! Shopping here is cheap and lots of fun. So! What do y'all want? (Please be in mind that bringing back rugs and nargile would be at best challenging, so please don't ask for one of those, and please remember that I am a poor grad student living on my savings right now too.) What can I bring you that's cool from Turkey? Well, Turkey is known for its textiles (scarves, peştemal aka towels for Turkish baths, clothes), ceramics, tea, spices, nazarlık (aka the "blue eye" charm which wards away the evil eye - google it), and lots of other stuff. The chocolate here is also very good, so I'll be bringing a bunch of that home. Just let me know. I do already have a few things picked out for people, so you might be surprised. You can always email me privately too at mercurialmagpie at gmail dot com.

Oooh.. I should go study now. Fret fret fret.

*love*

The Facts of Life

It’s a little hard for me to believe that I’ve been in Turkey now for just over two months. Sometimes it feels like we only got here a couple weeks ago and other times it feels like I’ve been living here for months. I settled into a comfortable routine: sleeping until my body wakes up on its own, breakfast/lunch, reading for classes, keeping up with the world on the internet, classes in the afternoons Monday-Thursday, grocery shopping, exploring the city, making dessert with friends, tutoring Turkish students in English, sipping tea at cafes while studying Turkish homework, meeting friends for dinner any number of places in the neighborhood, just enjoying life. All the while learning Turkish, speaking Turkish, eating Turkish food, hanging out with Turkish friends, buying and wearing Turkish clothes. Lots and lots of Turkish.

I’ve had several blog entries just banging around in my head for a while now, slowly composing myself as I get settled in and figure out Turkish life. I’ve been meaning to post about life in Istanbul, about my classes and what they are like compared to classes at CSUS, about Turkish food, about seeing places around the city, just lots of stuff. So quite a lot of it is overdue. I know that a couple of you reading my blog are planning on coming to Istanbul next semester, so hopefully a lot of this is good food for thought for you two. For others who may wish to visit Istanbul (or anywhere in Turkey), hopefully I’ll provide some good advice and things to consider. For the rest of you, if nothing else, interesting reading. 

Okay, so Istanbul. What is it like to live in Istanbul? Maybe I could entitle this blog entry “Facts of life for living in Istanbul”. I wouldn’t want to say “Turkey” because really I’m sure that way of life in Istanbul would not apply to the way of life for all of Turkey. It’d be like saying that the way of life in New York City can be applied to the rest of the United States. So what is it like to live here? I’ll start with the basics in no particular order.

Time – Turks use the 24 hour clock, just like the military (24-11 = am, 12-23 = pm). So 15:30 is 3:30 pm; if it’s a number over 12, just subtract 12. Most Turks tend to say what the time as non-military time though, so 15:30 is “3:30”.

Metrics - Turkey, like almost every other civilized nation in the world, uses the metric system. I have a handy-dandy little conversion chart that I carry nearly everywhere I go just in case I need to convert something. So temps are in Celsius, distance is in kilometers, and you buy food in kilos and grams.

Money - Turkish currency closely echoes American/Canadian/European currency. Their currency is the Turkish Lira (TL), and they have 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 TL bills. The coins are called kuruş, and come in 5, 10, 25, 50, and 1 TL. The currency changed back in 2005, so there are various different kinds of coins floating around.

Food – I could likely write a whole blog entry about food. Turkish food, in a word, is delicious. I thought before coming to Turkey that it would be like a blend of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern, and some of it is, granted, but it’s quite different than I expected. There are a key few staples of the Turkish diet, namely bread, rice, tea, yogurt and meat. Chances are you will be served some kind of bread with every meal, and after every meal, you get tea. (As I believe I said before, it’s fascinating living in a country where you pay for the water and the tea is free). Rice is also very popular, both white rice and bulgur pilav (pilav being the Turkish word for rice, so now going back to America, I’m going to laugh every time I hear “rice pilaf” because it’s basically like saying “rice rice”.) Pasta is popular to eat as well, especially mantı, which is like mini raviolis. Pasta, by the way, is quite cheap here, and oh, pasta is also a Turkish word but it means “cake”. So a pastanesi is a cake shop, not a noodle shop. :) As you may have guessed, shish kebabs (or şiş kebap) are also very popular. While there are plenty of vegetarian dishes, Turkish cuisine tends to be a bit meat-heavy in my opinion. It’s rare to find pork, but there is also plenty of chicken, beef, lamb, and fish to be had, fish especially in Istanbul and along the coast. Fruits and veggies are plentiful, and foods are well-spiced, but not spicy. People drink lots of tea (obviously), milk, bottled water (drinking the tap water isn’t advised here), juice, rakı (a traditional liquor that’s flavored with anise), and ayran, which is about the only thing that I’ve tried here and didn’t like. Ayran is a drink that’s yogurt mixed with water and often salted. It’s supposedly good for an upset stomach, and is a quintessential Turkish thing, but none of the Americans have liked it (I think primarily because we’re not used to drinks being salty). Oh, and then desserts. The Turks know their dessert. Baklava is very popular here, as is sütlaç (rice pudding), helva (think sweet grits with pinenuts in it – sooo good!), künefe (it’s made of phyllo dough, but its texture is very similar to shredded wheat and it’s sweet and syrupy like baklava), and many others. And of course, there’s lokum otherwise known as Turkish delight. This is quite yummy too and especially delicious when covered in chocolate. You just haven’t eaten Turkish until you’ve had lokum. Oh, I could go on and on.

Transportation – Let me just say - traffic in Istanbul is horrible. I grew up in the DC area, and this is worse. Drivers here are crazy. If they can get through a space with an inch around their vehicle, they will. You think cab drivers in NYC are bad? The taksi drivers here are ruthless, and I’m being polite. They get you to where you need to go and quickly, but you may worry about speed limits and hitting pedestrians along the way. Drivers in general are more than a bit scary. They honk at everything, drive fast, and there have been more than a few times that I seriously thought that someone was going to get hit. The cars here are smaller, and there are plenty of models that you’d never see in the States: Fiat, Renault, Citroen, Daewoo, Daihatsu, and of course, in our area, Audi, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes. (Boğaziçi is in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Istanbul, btw, so it’s a bit high dollar around here, but still not quite what you’d think of in terms of high-dollar back home in the States). Mopeds and scooters are also quite popular, especially for delivery guys, and few drivers wear helmets, which scares me. I have seen very few bicycles which makes sense when you consider how crazy the drivers are.

The public transportation here however is quite good. There are lots and lots of buses, of courses, and trams, funiculars (underground metro trains), metro trains, metro buses, and vintage trams. Needless to say, the public transportation system here is extensive. I think you could live in this city for years and years and never ride on them all. But then, Istanbul is huge. Turks drive on the right hand side of the road, and the traffic signals and signs are very similar to those at home, save written signs are in Turkish. One of the first ones you learn is “DUR”, which is “STOP”. The lights are basically the same too, which means red is “fine, I’ll stop”, yellow “hurry the hell up! I can get through this!” and green “move, you &#%%$!”.  Walking is a fabulous if slightly hazardous way of getting around the city. As long as you keep in mind the idea that pedestrians don’t always get the right-of-way, you should be fine. Turks do a LOT of walking around Istanbul; sometimes it’s the only real way to get to a place. So accordingly, if you come to Istanbul, be prepared to do a lot of walking, aka wear comfortable shoes. Sidewalks here aren’t the smoothest either, so how the Turkish women wear high heels and don’t break their ankles, I just don’t know. 


Fashion – This is fascinating to me because I love people-watching, and I’m a girl, so I like fashion. I’m a jeans and t-shirt type of person myself, but admittedly, I’m still a bit of a girly-girl. Fashion among the students at Boğaziçi is rather varied. Most of it is European-influenced obviously, with lots of American brands being popular, and a healthy dose of the 80s mixed-in. Clothes from Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap, Levi, Guess and others can be seen, as well as many Turkish brands too. If I had to sum up Turkish fashion in only a few words, it would be “jeans, boots, and scarves”. Everyone wears jeans, everyone wears scarves – men and women, and boots are very popular with the women. Guys wear a lot of sports-inspired clothes, and women often wear skirts and dresses with tights and legwarmers. Women often wear pantyhose or tights under shorts too, and while in the warmer weather, they wear short sleeves, they don’t bear a lot of skin. Apparently tank tops, baring the midriff, and open-toed shoes aren’t very popular here. Tattoos btw aren’t either. I’ve gotten a lot of looks when mine is bared, some curious, some not-so-curious, and lots of questions from my Turkish friends. (For those of you who don’t know, I have a good-sized tattoo that covers most of my upper right arm and is very noticeable when I’m wearing short sleeves. There are of course a lot of women who wear the headscarves, long skirts and dresses, and beautiful long coats as well, keeping with Muslim tradition. It’s an interesting blend really – old and new, traditional and modern. All in all, Turks really seem to care about what they wear, and dress well, in clean neat lines.

People – Oh, the Turkish people. Turks are friendly, polite, gracious, patient, and overall, a very handsome people. Most Turks are dark-haired and dark-eyed, but certainly not all, though blonde and red hair isn’t very common at all. Most of the young men are rather good-looking and the women are beautiful. They will often go out of their way to make you feel welcome, appreciate people attempting their language, and will invite along to join them for meals, tea, and shopping, and don’t even offer to pay; they just take the check and pay! I’ve laughed over this with a few Turkish friends, and told them that they have to let me pay sometimes too, since it works as a two-way street in the American culture. They appreciate gifts, so I share the candy that I brought with me from the States, and they like to try American food. Religion is ever-present and important in the Turkish culture of course, and it affects a lot of the attitudes here. But they are some of the nicest people I have ever met too. I will not leave this city without crying because I’ll be leaving behind some fantastically sweet and generous people.

Religion – This is another thing that you can’t get away from being in Istanbul. It’s everywhere. As 99% of the population is Muslim, there are understandably mosques all over the place. They are very distinctive with their domes and towers, and several times a day you see the faithful going into the mosque to prayer. I’ve had the chance to see a few on the inside, and they are absolutely beautiful and definitely worth seeing. When it is not prayer time, you can go inside and explore them. No shoes, of course, and women must cover their heads. (Yet another reason scarves are so popular here likely.) Another fantastic thing about Istanbul is hearing the call to prayer several times a day. It is like a blend between a chant and a song, and is all at once eerie and beautiful. I’ve gotten used to hearing it, and it’s funny because when you hear it, you know about what time it is. It’s something that I know that I will miss hearing when I leave.

Music – Oh, Turkish music. Like many things here in Turkey, it’s a mix of old and new. On the older side, you can go and listen to traditional music played in cafes and restaurants in the city, and a lot of it is instrumental. On the new side, it’s a lot like what you hear out of America and Europe – pop, rock, haunting vocals, stirring rhythms, just an interesting blend. Some of it I think it is cute and peppy, and some of it I will definitely be leaving here in Turkey when I go. :) I’ll have to find a few samples online for y’all to hear.

So what else? What do *you* want to know about living in Istanbul?

First week of classes...?

This past week has been interesting, lots of ups and downs. I'm still mourning Shadow, but I'm trying not to dwell, and as I said before, trying to keep myself busy so I don't get caught up in sorrow. So this week was supposed to be the first week of classes, only three of mine were canceled - read: all of my grad classes - and I went to only Turkish. It's rather nice to be back in an introductory language class; it's been years. My class is split up, two hours on Tuesday, two hours on Wednesday, and is composed of mostly Americans but other several Europeans. So far we've gone over the alphabet/letter sounds (there are 21 consonants and 8 vowels in case you're curious), greetings, numbers, the days of the weeks, months, and seasons. A lot of this vocabulary we've already been using in our everyday interactions with Turks on the street, stores and restaurants. What is interesting is feeling my grad school training kick in almost immediately as I start to silently appraise the professor's teaching style, how her syllabus is written, and how she blends several introductory language teaching methods. (And yes, Dr. Heather, I thought of you several times in doing this! *grin*) When she discussed the eight vowels of Turkish and how vowel harmony works, the fact that the vowels are evenly divided between "front" and "back" made perfect sense. (Vowel harmony btw basically is "matching" the kinds of vowels. If a word has front vowels, then the plural ending will also have a front vowel, and if the word has back, then it's back vowel ending. It's a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea.)

So Turkish looks like it'll be an entertaining class. I may not have the opportunity to use the language very much after I leave Turkey, but it'll definitely be of immediate practical use while I am here, and for that, I appreciate it. It also provides a refreshing opportunity for me to reflect on what I've learned already about teaching language and see it in action for another language. One of the things that I didn't consider in the beginning when I was thinking about coming here to Istanbul, but have since decided is a positive aspect is that fact that Turkish is not related linguistically to Germanic or Romantic languages, so I have little to fall back on with respects to my own past training in both French and German. So this is a linguistic challenge for me, and is at times rewarding and frustrating, both really. It's very neat to be a market, buying fresh produce and making connections with people who only speak a few words of English when I only speak a few words of Turkish, yet with the help of a pocket dictionary and phrase book, we can make ourselves understood and both parties are pleased in the end. Every day more I feel like I can sympathize with my students who are surrounded by a language that they don't speak very well, or even when they do, they still cannot fully express themselves. We're all still at the most basic level, so it's so frustrating not being to communicate in the simplest ways. So it's a lot of give and take. Every word made clear on both sides is a victory. But I still have this overwhelming urge at times to slip into French, just to be able to say *something*. It's hard to explain. So much of the time, they can't understand me, I can't understand them, so I want to switch to a language that's different from both English and Turkish. I'm sure that I'll have plenty to say on this subject. It's ever-present for so many of us.

But yet one of the funny things is that we get through, we manage, we survive. I was just saying this to my roommate, Katie, and my friend, Lessa, when we were sitting at a local pastry shop sharing a couple slices of chocolate cake and tea after having gone to the local Saturday produce market this morning. We were discussing the thought that while we were "strangers in a strange land", surrounded by a different culture, different language, different customs and all, there are certain universal things that we just slip into like slipping into an old glove. We may not be able to speak much Turkish, but yet we can walk into a shop, point to what we want, sit and eat and drink, and then pay for our food and leave - just as though we would back home in the States. The only difference really is that we're in a foreign country, with a foreign language, and foreign people. But really it's about the same thing.

We've all been doing things like this. We figure out the bus routes ("take the 43R and the tram to get to the Spice Market or take the 559C directly to Taksim, etc"), we figure out the currency ("5 lira? That's about $3 American, etc."), we know enough to say "hello, good-bye, please, thank you, etc.", and really, we're good. Yes, I know that we all have plenty to learn, but we're getting by. It's funny - you put yourself in a situation where you're surrounded by *different*, and you just make do. We've been figuring out what we can get at the local grocery stores, what we can pick up at the street markets, and then from there, working with our limited cookware to make old favorites - pasta with cream sauce, stir fry, chili & rice, even chocolate chip pancakes and omelettes. A bunch of us are essentially working together to be sure that the others are well taken care of and well-fed. Lessa is going to do breakfast on the weekends, we've plans to do a dorm potluck of sorts, and if I could get my hands on any board games, I'd love to host some game nights. Already Katie and I have made dinner for other students and had guests at our dorm, and it's just so friendly and nice, it makes it feel more like home. Yes, I know I'm being sappy and sentimental, but at the same time, it's very cool how many people I've getting to know and make friends with.

Oh, more later. Katie and I need to get dinner ready: tuvak, pilav, ve soya sosu ve salatar (chicken, rice and soy sauce and salad), and for dessert, maybe elma ve peynir (apple and cheese). :)