Cappadocia Round Four

Six-thirty on a Saturday night. Jena and I had had a glass of wine. Then, thanks to a last minute idea and a phone call, we were in a car, headed to Cappadocia. The idea was to get a couple rooms, watch the meteor shower, and do some hiking the next day. The sky was clear and we could see Orion as we drove.

Other motives for the trip included the possibility of going out for Indian food and going out for some beers at a bar.

We easily found a hotel in the center of Goreme. Since it was the off-season (and possibly because it was nine o'clock at night) our cave rooms were 30-35 dollars. Cave rooms are those which are carved into the rock. Based on our previous experience in a cave hotel, I expected our rooms to be warm, but they were cold. Fortunately, Jena found the hotel cat to help heat our room up.

After Paul (of Paul and Cece, our couple friends and coworkers) took a few photos of the sky, we headed out to find the Indian restaurant.

Upon finding that the restaurant was closed, we had some Gözleme for dinner in a hole-in-the-wall place. Gözleme is a lot like eating a stuffed crepe, though the Turks like to call it a Turkish Pancake. While we waited for our food Jena and Cece left to look at rugs in another store, so when their food arrived before ours, we ate a few pieces of their Gözleme and replaced the pieces with food from our own meals before they returned.

After dinner, we brushed our teeth and headed out to a bar with a dance floor. It was on the second story of a building, and although it was incredibly loud, the overall feeling of the place was a major improvement over the only other bar in town, which we had visited on an earlier trip.

The beer in Turkey is bad. When we entered the bar, we asked them whether they had Bomonti. Unfiltered Bomonti is akin to a light hefeweizen, and it is easily the best beer available in the country, though it's like a bad Blue Moon. We were told it was available when we entered, but when it came to ordering, they said they only had Efes. It was like hearing the bar was out of everything except Keystone Light.

After our beer, which was 7 dollars per small bottle (they have large and small bottles here), we hit up the other bar for a game of Scattergories.

The other bar was more economical, as we knew it would be. This being my second time there, I can say it's an interesting place with pretty bad service and a horrible atmosphere. It's kind of like a dive bar in a run-down strip mall, and the interior has a bunch of bench tables like, as Jena put it, a crappy Pizza Hut. In it's own way it's kind of a fun place to be.

Feeling warm we headed out into the night to retrieve the car. We hoped to find a place just outside of town where it was dark enough to take pictures of the stars. Unfortunately, clouds had crept across the sky while we were at the bar, so those plans were foiled. Instead, we drove a little ways out of town to go on a couple night hikes. It was about one forty-five a.m.

First we explored a road that seemed to end at a field with white rectangular shapes sticking up at evenly spaced intervals. The light sensor and flash from my camera was my only source of light, so I announced that it was a graveyard. Upon further inspection, however, the shapes were merely sun-shades constructed for tomato or pepper plants.

We then hiked down into a valley that Jena and I had explored before. I led our group to a three-kilometer-long tunnel that dips into the earth for sections of one hundred feet or so at a time. Paul with his headlamp lead the way, and Jena and Cece stayed behind. We didn't go too far for fear that the girls would get cold waiting for us, so we soon headed back. At that point, we decided to call it a night.

After our breakfast the next morning, Paul and I went hiking while Jena and Cece did some shopping. On my way up a steep face, I lost my footing and slid down face first for about ten feet. I felt like Indiana Jones, and I had my wits about me to pull my hands up from the rock so that the forearm of my sleeves took most of the scraping, though I came away with a bloody wrist, elbow, and hip.

Later that day we headed to a new valley to explore, and we found old carved out dwellings that had multiple rooms, a stone door, and two long tunnels leading into and out of a chapel.

After working up an appetite, we headed back to town to try the Indian restaurant again. Finding that it was still closed, we settled for a Turkish lunch of manti (similar to ravioli), durum (similar to a chicken wrap/burrito), kofte (similar to meatballs), ayran (similar to yogurt and saltwater), and French Fries (which are very popular here).

As the day ended, we were back in the car and made it back to Kayseri at about five o'clock. The whole trip had taken less than twenty-four hours.


I can easily say that this was the best outing I've been on here in Turkey. It included good food, good friends (including the dogs and cat we befriended), a little drinking, a little riskiness (night hiking/tunnel exploration), and a little pain (sliding down the rock). I feel incredibly grateful that we have friends here that are willing to explore with us, and I'm lucky that our playground, Cappadocia, is so close by.

We hope to have more adventures in Cappadocia as the winter continues, and I can assure anyone who might visit us that they will be whisked off to help us explore this barren and beautiful landscape.

December Walk

Yesterday was a Saturday in December. I’ve been in Turkey for about five and a half months.

In the afternoon, I was studying Turkish while lying face down on the living room floor. Then I decided to go for a walk.

Ever since some cursory explorations, I wanted to explore further the ruins in the hillside of Old Talas. Old Talas dates back to 1500 BC according to the short, undisputed article about the town on Wikipedia.

I packed up a backpack and headed out on foot to the old city.

The day began with few clouds in sight, but by the time it was afternoon, it was overcast.

The monstrosities that are the apartment buildings still irk me, though now I don’t find them as strange as I once did. I told a friend recently that apartment living reminded me of a lot of little science experiments packed into boxes.

I had forgotten how far the hills behind Old Talas are from my apartment. After I’d been walking for fifteen minutes or so, I approached the Jandarma, which is a small army base that offers a respite of open fields to break up the urban sprawl.

 

Past the Jandarma, I found a pathway that went up the hillside among crumbling stone archways. Here, some young Turks walked together, stopping to take selfies and group photographs. Some people were also using the path to carry groceries from the valley floor to their houses at the top of the ridge. My favorite was an older woman using a cane and carrying her groceries as she went off-trail up the steep hillside.

Partially up the hillside is a mosque that was once a Greek Orthodox church (not the one pictured). The collection of history here, makes you feel as if every step you take has been taken before.

At the top of the hillside, I explored a room carved into the rock. The sandy floor was covered in animal paw prints, although the scattered trash suggested that humans commonly came there as well. I went as deep as I could without light, and eventually used my cellphone to light up the final room, which was strikingly large and cavernous.

The days here end at about four thirty, so I began the trek home as a light rain began to fall. At home Jena asked how the walk went, and as we began to relax into our Saturday night, we received a phone call from our friends. They suggested we go to Cappadocia to watch a meteor shower and to stay the night. In the morning, we would hike one of the valleys. We quickly packed, ready for exploration at another ancient site.

Untitled 1

This new tune was inspired by Ken's encouragement. Listen to it here: HERE.

Thanksgiving

Today Jena and I attended a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by a couple who works at Meliksah University with us. It was wonderful. When we came home, I made this song. All the tracks are mine except for the drumming, which Garageband supplied. Click here to listen to it: HERE.

Bogus Moment

Lights are out. The movie is playing on this inward curved screen. The movie theater is bigger than US ones. The movie--The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 1--is loud. Turkish subtitles line the bottom portion of the screen.

In the movie, masses of Pan-Am (or whatever) citizens are gathering for a confrontation with the suppressive forces. The movie cuts to the face of one of the soldiers. Then...

Bam. The screen goes black. It's like the power went out. The whole theater is black, except for the exit sign.

The faint words of a friend make shadows in my mind. Something about a smoke break. Jena and I look at each other. We both say: "This must be intermission."

I add: "Good. 'Cause I need to pee."

The screen flares up again, and the cinema company says something in Turkish about how we have ten minutes. Then a commercial or two play on the big screen. Obviously, I'm not sure what happened. I was one my way to pee.

When I returned, I kept thinking: Need to smoke? Need to pray? It's cool. We've got you covered. Ten-minute break. Mid-film.

I sat down, and Jena headed out to use the restroom. But it's not like we needed to save our seats because Turkey is AWESOME and there is RESERVED seating in MOVIE THEATERS. We were exactly where I wanted to sit. Close but not too close, and exactly in the center. Finally, my obsession with being punctual to movies--inherited from my father--has allowed me to reap a reward.

Jena returned. A couple more commercials played. Then nothing. Just everyone in a pitch black room together. Then bam. Two seconds or so before it cut out, we were back in the movie.

A Day in the Life - Part 2 - Being at Work

Check email. Check coursebook. Review plans for classes--classes which may or may not be consecutive--which will begin in T-minus 27 minutes. Determine whether additional materials need to be printed or photocopied. Commit plans, which have previously remained in your head, to a sheet of paper, folded in half. (It's important to you that this sheet with the Agenda, the Announcements, and the Homework is small. It makes you feel as if everything is more doable. It gives you confidence because there's a finite space to fill up, and it reminds you that you have the ability to improvise when needed.)
Read email. Make mental notes. Mark most emails as unread because you'll deal with them later.

Put computer to sleep. Unplug headphones, mouse, ethernet cable, and power-supply cable. Put computer, coursebook, student workbook, paper-clipped handouts, and half-sheet plan for lessons in computer bag. Wrap up power-supply. Put that in bag, too. Take one more sip of tea from mug. Pick up bag and head out of the office.

Walk along the balcony/corridor, hearing the din of students' voices on the ground-floor below. Say good morning in English and Turkish to a slew of coworkers. Go to the teacher's lounge to get attendance sheet from pigeonhole. Go downstairs.

Say good morning with a friendly tone, but without a smile, to any students who have arrived in the classroom. Set up computer. Make sure the SmartBoard is off by checking this minuscule, hardly transparent button to see whether it is green or red. Type in computer's password. Take the HDMI cable and the USB cable from bag and plug them both into the computer and the wall. Turn on the Smartboard. Hear it make a comforting noise, indicating that it will work. Try touching the projector screen. See that the SmartBoard is actually not working. Switch USB ports. Listen for sounds indicating whether it will work. Sometimes they're there; sometimes they're not. Resolve yourself, annoyed, to the fact that it doesn't seem to be working today. Take pen, marker, clock, and (just in case it magically begins to work) the SmartBoard pen from your computer bag. Write agenda, today's homework assignment, and announcements on the board. Say good morning to more incoming students. Feel a sense of pressure as you note the time and realize that it's T-minus one minute or so. Wonder where half of your students are, but try to be grateful for the punctuality and the bright-eyed looks from the ones who are there.

Begin teaching. Try not to get annoyed by late comers. Try to be patient when students knock on the door before entering. It's not a knock indicating that the student will wait for permission to enter. It's a knock that announces, I'm gonna enter in about one second. And then they enter.

Teach. Use weird, idiosyncratic hand motions to try to make new language more comprehensible. (Ignore the small, nagging voice in your head from your friend who once observed your class and suggested you're hand gestures make you resemble the Abominable Snowman. Ignore the other small nagging voice that reminds you that one of the gestures you're making--as far as you have been informed--indicate that someone is ****ing in the *** according to local interpretations. Ignore the final voice that reminds you that "um," the way you pronounce it, denotes a certain part of female genitalia in Turkish.)

Focus on more important things. Look for instances of students genuinely doing a good job. Praise them. Correct instances of language use that are developmentally appropriate for the class as a whole and individual students. Somewhere, sometime, in each lesson, get a positive, unassailable morsel of enjoyment out of something.

Finish classes. Return to office. Put stuff down. Try to scare up a couple coworkers to join as you make you're way up the campus-road to the cafeteria in the student center at the top of the hill.

Depending on a variety of factors, do your best to make interesting and/or humorous conversation with those around you. On some days just listen. Wait in line for your meal. Scan your ID card, and feel a little pang of guilt because you get this lunch for free. However, your Turkish colleagues don't because it wasn't explicitly mentioned in their employment offer. Sit down at a crowded table, and turn your tray sideways when necessary to make room for others. Eat. Pay attention to the time, especially where you've got afternoon lessons to teach. Finish up. Put your tray in the dirty-tray rack. Walk back down to the English prep-school building that you call home.

Teach in the afternoon.

Return to your office. Take care of what feels like a million administrative issues--recording attendance and participation, answering emails, checking homework, etc. Look over coursebook, and put stars next to activities you'll include in your lessons the next day. Work on specific "materials office"-related assignments, because that's your "committee" for the time being. Do some planning for your American literature class, whether it's putting together a PowerPoint, designing an activity, or grading. Eventually note that most of your officemates have left because the evening has begun encroaching. Hear the office door open, and see the top of Jena's head over the bookcase that obscures your view of the entrance to your office. Make eye contact with her. Know that it's time to go.

Shoulder personal bag. Turn off lights. Lock office door. Find Jena. Head home.

A Day in the Life - Part 1 - Getting to School

What is a typical day like?

A typical day begins with my alarm going off at 6:45 in the morning. The alarm has a standard sound--dee dee dee dee *rest* dee dee dee dee. Even though it is cheap, the alarm provides a wealth of information. It says the time (which I have set to military time, so I don't accidentally mis-set the alarm by forgetting to choose a.m. rather than p.m.). It says the day. It says the phase of the moon (maybe this feature makes the alarm popular in Turkey since Qur'anic holidays are set to a lunar calendar). It says the temperature in Celsius (although I can change it to Fahrenheit if I want to). And it says the humidity percentage. But at 6:45 in the morning, I am prone to ignore all of this information because my mind is preoccupied with a sense of indignation that my beauty sleep has been interrupted and now I must do something.

So then I walk across the living room, and there is Jena, sitting at the table. She is listening to NPR from her ipad, and she is applying makeup. She typically rises at least a half hour before me to do Pilates and to shower.

On some days I shower. On others I don't because I've showered the night before. I just douse my head with the handheld shower nozzle which helps to calm down some of my over-excited hairs that are standing on end after a night's sleep.

I eat a breakfast of yogurt and granola that I have made myself. This is one of my favorite parts of the day. One--I really like granola, especially my granola which I've made from honey, peanut butter, and cashews. And two, as I eat, I do some reading. At the moment, I'm slowly making my way through Moby Dick for a second time, although I'm thinking of changing books soon. While I love the book, it is a bit laborious during some sections. What I get out of it these days is mainly the similarities I see between Ahab and my office supervisor at work. After breakfast, I clothe myself, brush my teeth, pick up my bag, and head out the door.

Jena and I walk together to work on most days. We take the elevator down from our crows nest on the eleventh floor. We say, "Günaydın" to the security man. Usually it's the big guy who knows a little English. Sometimes Jena is turned off by his state of perpetual grumpiness, but it doesn't bother me. He seems bored with his job, and he seems like he's been cursed--due to his English--with dealing with all the "yabancılar" (foreigners) day in and day out.

The weather is getting cooler now, but some days are temperate. This was the case this week. The sky is sometimes grey with clouds, but they are often high clouds that don't give you that claustrophobic feeling the way rain clouds do.

We walk through this maze of square fouteen-story apartment buildings. I would compare it to the setting of the film The Maze Runner, but generally the atmosphere is a bit less gloomy than that. As we walk, Jena often wants to talk about our upcoming day at work and the logistics of winter vacation plans--both of which are extremely stress-laden topics for me. At this time of the morning, I prefer silence or music or the news so that I can disconnect from the realities of my somewhat unstimulating daily existence. I often daydream about what life would be like on a whaling ship. Or I yearn for the ability to travel back in time to the middle ages. (I have accidentally become engrossed in Game of Thrones, and normally I would chastise myself for having such a dependance on a television show. These days, though, I give myself a break and view it as a coping mechanism as I go through the requisite phase of adjustment that accompanies moving to another country and beginning a full-time job.)

We pass by a Turkish elementary school each morning, and in the play-yard kids are often running around. Some kids walk to school alone. Others walk with a parent. It's not uncommon to see a father carrying one of those micro-sized backpacks while his child, all bundled up, follows behind. Oddly enough, Jena and I walk by this school at almost the exact same time every morning. Yet, on some days the yard is mostly vacant. On other days the yard is mostly full. Just this past Friday, their bell--which sounds a lot like the Tetris theme song--sounded as we walked by, and all the children went running to the doors with so much enthusiasm that it made me jealous.

When Jena and I get to the top of this little hill, we cross the busy street to the main entrance of our university. I can't think of a better place for a crosswalk or at least a change in speed limit. Since neither are present, we look both ways with an extreme sense of precaution. I should note, too, that this is a divided road, the kind with a grassy median. Looking both ways sounds silly, right? While crossing to the median, you should only need to pay attention to traffic going one direction, right? Not in Turkey. I have been blindsided more than once by a horn from a car going the wrong way.

After this daily little panic attack of getting across the road alive, we walk through the main entrance of the university where things are a bit more mellow. We pass the security checkpoint for cars, and then we get to these gates--I'm not sure what to call them; they're the metal bars that are waist-high that you use in subway stations that revolve after you put your ticket them and push on them. So we get to these things, and on days when my brain has fully shedded the aegis of sleep, everything goes fine. On days when I can't get the damn things to work, and when my Turkish fails me when the security guy comes to help, I begin my days with a heavy sense of frustration and inadequacy. There's slight consolation in the fact that you have to put your ID against the sensor on your left side while you push through the bars on the right side. So counter-intuitive. So Turkey.

The final leg of the walk is pleasant. There are relatively few cars on the street that heads past the auditorium, past the library, and up into the main part of the university. Usually the bread guy drives by. He's one of the bakers who works for the bakery in the bottom floor of the apartment building next to ours. He's pretty patient when I practice my Turkish with him. There's another guy who rides by each day on a bike. I don't know what his job is, but you can tell he's got his ducks in a row. His bike is old, the kind that has a basket in front and those handle bars that bend back toward the rider. He has this piece of plastic, cut from a water bottle and attached to his mudguard. Clearly, he knows from experience that the mudguard, as originally manufactured, isn't working as well as it should. And when he rides up to the university, he does this little move to get around these speed bumps set in place for the cars. The speed bumps are made from these three or four-inch pieces of hard yellow plastic that are attached to the asphalt in two staggered rows. When the bicyclist gets to them, he maneuvers his bike just so between them and doesn't get jostled at all.

To our right on the sidewalk is a small park area. There's a green area that has flowers of various colors along its boarders. There are a few benches under free-standing arches. The scene is symmetrical: a path on the right and one on the left head to two staircases that circle up behind a wall at the far side of the park. Two small waterfalls splash down rocks on either side of the green area. On warm days students hang out here. In the beginning of the school year, there were concerts here as well.

Between the auditorium and the library, you can catch glimpses of the open area down the hill that belongs to the large state-funded university nearby. The university is growing, constantly erecting new buildings; yet, for the time being, there is a magnificent open area that is free from development. It provides a counter-point to the monstrous apartment buildings surrounding its borders.

Our building, the "hazırlık," is the first building on the left, after the main road curves up a steeper hill. Jena and I walk down the sidewalk to the front doors. Sometimes I keep an eye out for stray puppies because coworkers have found them here before. The front doors of our building are sliding glass doors, like those you'd find in a grocery store, but ours are bigger and free from advertisements. They don't have the most sensitive sensors, so sometimes you have to watch your walking pace so that you don't end up running your face into the glass. When the doors don't open, you take a step back and wave your hand up at the black ball at the top. It's not a huge deal, but the action makes me feel like a helpless idiot, nonetheless.

Once inside, we head up some stairs that are beside this strange amphitheater area that is never used for anything official and that faces a wall. The wall crowds in a little too closely on the stage area, and the wall is covered with wallpaper that makes it look like the wall is made from stone. But it's not. I've checked.

Our shared offices are on the top floor of the building, and when we get there, Jena always turns to me and says, "Have a good day." It's very sweet of her. My "You, too." sounds lackluster in comparison. But it's hard to get a longer phrase in because she is quick to disappear into her office, which right at the top of the stairs. I wander down the hall--to my left are more offices and a couple computer labs, to my right is a handrail because the hallway is actually a balcony that looks over the foyer and the amphitheater. When I get to the door at the end, I head in and begin my work day.

Contrasts

While I was dreaming this morning, I opened my left eye. The bright morning lit our ceiling, our wardrobe, the window, and my nose. Although my thoughts were deeply somnolent, I commanded myself to touch my nose to guarantee my location as fully present whether within a dream or awake. I felt myself touching my face. I saw no change from my open eye. This test having been tried three or so times, I was condemned to this half-world until I called out to myself, jumping up. I went to wipe my face, though now I saw my hands were deep under the covers.

"We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy your bodily warmth some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm." -Melville, Moby Dick

We explored ancient ruins today. Four Americans who had pulled to the side of the road in Turkey. To the side of a windy dirt road in the foothills. Across the valley from the mighty snow-capped Mt. Erciyes whose ashes once covered all our surroundings and were compacted into loose rock, easily chiseled. We ascended the foothills and dove in and out of man-made caves. Some were multi-story. Some had shelves, cubby spaces for beds, and chimneys clogged with fallen rock. This landscape is our home for now. It exists in parallel with those homes we left, the state we have in common that instilled us with the dialect and culture that so easily brings us together in this foreign land.

Cappadocia

Another epistolary post.

Today Jena and I explored a little of Cappadocia. It's a big area, kind of a region, containing a few towns that's known for its houses and underground cities that are carved into the rocks. Somewhere around 1900 years ago, some of the first Christians hid in the area because of persecution from the Romans, I believe. Now the place is totally touristy, kind of like Sedona, if it had ancient history sites everywhere you look. There are lots of "cave" hotels, for instance, that you can stay in. They're built into rocky mountain sides.

To me, the place looks like Bryce Canyon in Utah, although I don't think I've ever been there. The colors here are less spectacular, though. Put another way, it's kind of like the Valley of the Goblins in Goblin Valley, but many of the goblins have been hollowed out for living.

In any case, I thought of you two today because Jena and I stumbled into this place that reminded me a lot of the Fire Furnace in Arches because you couldn't really see where you were going--there were all these waves of rocks and ups and downs and trees and whatnot. There was a mess of narrow trails that went every which way.

Most interesting and scary was this human-made tunnel that went below and through all the rock formations. At times, it was completely black, and since I didn't have a flashlight, I had to use my camera, which produced an eerie orange light for me for a few seconds before the flash went off. At other times there were small holes in the roof that reached to the surface and let some light in. I didn't explore the whole thing because a) I was afraid of the pitch black sections when I could only see so far and so much with my camera, b) I was worried I might trip in the darkness and smack my head, thus leaving Jena with no idea where I was, and c) I had no idea where I'd pop out at times. There were some places where the tunnel was open to a hole above, but the floor of the tunnel was ten feet down or so. What would have really improved the experience would have been a flashlight, so maybe I can go back and do that another day. In fact, I think Jena and I are going back to Cappadocia tomorrow (we have rented a car). We may return to the place we were, but we may just dive into to another area.

American Literature in Turkey

Disclosure: This is an excerpt from an email I wrote today to a close friend of mine in Flagstaff. Since it's also an overview of one of the classes I'm teaching, I thought it would be interesting to post it. After coming across epistolary literature for my American literature class, like Christopher Columbus's letters, for instance, I have a new interest in the medium. Ideally, I'm not breaching too many privacy concerns.

Yesterday I had my first day of teaching the American lit. class. I had a nice group of eleven students. Honestly, I hope I don't get many more students because I like small classes. My students are an interesting mix with regard to their nationalities: a South African, a Russian (the only male in the class); two Nigerians, a German/Turk, and a handful of Turks. It makes me wonder how one decides to up and come to Turkey for one's undergraduate education. I understand that the school offers a lot of 50-100% tuition-paid scholarships, so that's probably a contributing factor. Like PIE students, though, I can't imagine showing up to a place, having one year (unlike the PIE's two and a half) to become fluent in the country's language and enrolling in classes. Possibly it's easier if you are going into the English Language and Literature major, and you already know English.

In any case, my first class was a long one. The boss said not to give the syllabus and go (like many other teachers do and did); rather he wanted us to make use of the copy machines and keep the students there for the full three hours. And that I did. By the time I was on my fourth PowerPoint, I was like, Holy shit, I do not blame my students for looking worn out. (One of these PowerPoints was actually Syllabus jeopardy, which went really well; it may have been the most engaging part of the class.)

After a discussion of What is Literature? during the second hour of class, we got into Yankee Doodle. What a dumb song. It was one of the first songs I memorized on piano as a kid, and I have probably played it more than 1000 times. I still think it's totally dumb in spite of its interesting origins. Luckily, though, the ridiculous diction and tune didn't seem like it was apparent to my international group of students. Or, at least they didn't act like it was. They even listened patiently to a professional performance of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzRhFH5OyHo

I guess the whole time I was viewing the lesson through the eyes of American high schoolers, who would probably have turned off at the notion of listening to what has become a child's song over time.

When I explained the original context of the song--from the Brits about Americans--one of my students said, "I think it's really sad." I asked why. She said, "You said that every American child knows this song, and it's about how stupid Americans are." That comment made me really happy. And it prompted an explanation of the American reappropriation of the song. I really wanted to say, it's like what rappers have done with the n-word, or what queer individuals has done with a slew of slurs. But without knowing how that explanation would go over, I decided to say it's like having a rock thrown at you, and you catching it instead of letting it hurt you.

I think some students got it. I wish I had a better diagnostic information about my students, but I'll probably get that with their first writing assignment which is due next week.

Anyway, thanks for listening to all this about my first day of class. It's simultaneously exciting and confusing, and it's also a ton of work. I feel like I would have told you all this while hanging out in the kitchen at the old Leroux house. Has the tradition of kitchen hanging out continued? I hope so. I guess it's still warm enough to be in the dining/living room, so maybe that's where you'll are these days.

Aside from work, life here is still an adventure. Lots of daily discoveries. Daily existence kind of reminds me of digging a hole in the backyard as a kid. Some of the stuff you find is worth taking note of (the location of grocery stores, places to go running, amiable street animals to pet); some of it's dangerous (fucking every intersection because of the drivers here, open construction sites, holes in the sidewalk). And some of it is just muck to get through (like taking the hot and crowded public transportation). Overall, it's survivable. The good news is that most Turks are really damn nice.

That That Surrounds Me

Granola is baking in the oven. The oven came from a generous coworker named Justin who had an extra one. It's like a family-sized toaster oven. Justin gave it to us at work, and I carried it home.

My wrist brace is on as I type. The combination of playing basketball and using a computer mouse at work has left me with a case of tendinitis. The wrist brace makes me feel like a cyborg. First, the pharmacy had to order one. When it came in, it was for the wrong hand. Eventually, I got the right one. The guy at the pharmacy put it onto my hand at the counter. I felt like a child and had to loosen it outside.

Our basil plant is dying on the coffee table. Ela, my officemate, took us downtown one day, and when we were walking past the plant stores, I stopped and wanted to buy it. I gave the man what would amount to a twenty dollar bill. He began to go from shop by shop to get change. This happens often. At the florist. At the corner market. Ela pulled the exact amount out of her purse and gave it to the man. She said to take the basil as a gift. Today I've pruned it and tried to give it more sun. I'm not sure how it will fare.

The card for our internet company sits on the coffee table next to the basil. On the card is a phone number in case I want to call them. I don't. Although I've never tried it, I'm guessing that speaking on the phone in Turkish is not my forte. It's hard enough to understand people in person when I have the help of paralinguistic gestures to guide me. The internet we have now is faster. I can use YouTube. But it cuts out sometimes, and I think it's the wiring in the building. On the night that we began the internet-getting extravaganza, the internet guy showed up to my officemate-and-neighbor's apartment earlier than expected. By the time I showed up our translator, another coworker, seemed as if she needed to go. I rushed to agree to a contract. The guy had me sign some papers and gave me a modem. Then he asked for my passport. I asked how long he needed it. My coworker said, "You'll go with him to the store now." I was in my slippers.

Our new bed is made and to my left in the bedroom. It is a queen, I think. One day this week the security man asked for our key. We gave it to him without knowing why. When we got home we had a new bed.

My legs are sore, although I rested all of yesterday and today. On Fridays the male coworkers play soccer together. I know it's called football here, but in the midst of conversations, I always forget and call it soccer. My coworkers say, "It's okay. We understand." I am fairly worthless when I have the ball. I have kicked the air more times than I'd like to admit. I have touched the ball with my hands. I have taken a shot from six feet away from the goal and despite deliberately aiming to the right of the goalie I have kicked it straight at him. Nobody knows what hackey-sacking is here, but I assure them that I can do that.

To my left, Jena is writing an email. She is the only person who understands ours trials and errors as closely as I do. And she is amazing. Case in point: We're at the home improvement store, and she knows the centimeter size for fitted sheets. Meanwhile I'm wondering to myself how I can say "Not King" to a store worker. Another example: After getting her haircut, she walked around with me in the sun today helping me to collect small Weeping Willow branches that I think I can make into baskets. I know this doesn't sound like much, but having a hobby, one that is fairly mindless and something that I can do while watching Star Trek, seems very important right now. Before we left, a professor of ours said that that Jena and I were lucky to begin our married life in a new country together. We could grow together strongly that way. Right now it feels like we have.

Work 9/2/14

work

meetings
people
trips to get water or chai (tea)
constructing a syllabus that is more internally consistent than it needs to be and that will change immediately upon the beginning of classes
distractions
realizing this is the most time Jena and I have spent apart for the last two or three months
trips to the bathroom
trying to remember everyone's names
getting computer errors in Turkish
learning about my "committee"--materials development and curriculum design
feeling competent thanks to four years of graduate education
finding out how to use the bus website
going on a "tour," which was really an excuse to buy plants, a toaster, bread, and salt and pepper shakers
discussing D. H. Lawrence with a Brit
asking Jena how her day was
easily being tired at night

Kayseri: The Next Generation 8/24/14

When it comes to this blog, it seems that no news is not necessarily good news. I think I am unintentionally following the Web 2.0 credo by only wanting to broadcast good news or news that portrays me and my setting in a positive light. When these types of news are missing, or when they are overpowered by, say, culture shock, it is difficult for me to find the motivation to write about how awesome my life is.

Yesterday or the day before, I commented to Jena that I wouldn’t even know where to start if I tried to blog right now. We have just moved to Kayseri, where we’ll be for the next year. Our life has therefore shifted from a vacationing lifestyle to a more work-centric and integration-oriented lifestyle. Jena, being supportive and compassionate said, just pick three things to write about. So today, I am going to make an attempt to see clearly through a haze confusion to blog about two things (not three) that have been going through my mind recently: Interpreting One’s Life through Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Relative Travails of Getting a Haircut.

Interpreting One’s Life through Star Trek: The Next Generation

After some convincing, I have finally gotten Jena to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) with me. (This comes after she has been game this summer to watch other favorites of mine including In Therapy and Twin Peaks.) The central premise of TNG, for those who are unfamiliar with it, is concisely explained by the short monologue from Captain Picard in the opening to each episode: "Space... The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It's continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before."

For Jena and me, it has sometimes been helpful to understand our journey here in Turkey under similar pretenses. Viewing ourselves as explorers who are interested in exploring our environment allows us to simultaneously remain distant from the culture, while slowly integrating into it. For instance, when we eat lunch at our university, which we have been invited to do each weekday, although we’re technically not on contract yet, Jena and I are, as far as I can tell, the only Westerners in the faculty dining room. For Jena, this experience must be amplified by the fact that she is often the only woman in the lunchroom line, or the only woman at our lunchroom table. Our only method of survival seems to be to eat our lunch (always Turkish cuisine) with our coworkers while doing our best to follow the TNG Prime Directive, which essentially dictates that members of Starfleet will not unduly disturb or impose upon existing cultures. An added complication comes from the notion that members of Starfleet must simultaneously protect themselves. And so must Jena and I. (Refer to my entry "Don’t Eat the Soup" for details of how adhering to the local customs may become problematic.)

Jena and I are fortunate that Kayseri is relatively unused to—and somehow unphased by—foreigners. When we were previously in Finike, a smaller town with somewhere around 30,000 people, we didn’t have this luxury. Finike is kind of a tourist town, but primarily for Turkish tourists. The local mentality seems to be that international tourists ought best be quarantined to the more popular destinations of Side, Çıralı, or Kaş. I imagined our experience was similar to one that a Chinese couple in a small American town might have. We were conspicuous and not necessarily welcome, presumably due to the otherness we represented.

Here in Kayseri, people may stare at us from time to time, but I don’t get the sense that it is with disdain, or at least I haven’t yet. Additionally, there’s not a culture of tourism, especially not in our suburb of Talas, so people aren’t persistently trying to sell stuff to us to make a living. This makes for more peaceful walks in town. I was amused, for instance, last night when we walked by a restaurant and a waiter said, “Hello.” We looked at him and said, “Hello,” back. He said, “I am here.” We smiled and said, “Okay. Thanks.” This was such a pleasant low pressure interaction compared to what we have been used to in İzmir, İstanbul, and even Finike at times.

So, as Jena and I watch TNG each night to decompress, it fulfills another function, which is to provide an interpretive lens through which to view our transition into life here. Currently, we are most definitely visitors from another land, and our mission is largely intellectual and, we hope, benign. Each day we begin with a sense of disorientation as we remember where we are and why we are here. In my head, I hear another set of words from TNG that begin each new episode, "Captain’s Log, Star Date …." (It makes me wonder if there’s an alarm clock that actually says that; if so, it’s certainly on my wish list.) And then Jena and I begin each new day of exploration to boldy remain stoic and flexible while coping with all that this new world has to offer.

The Relative Travails of Getting a Haircut

For the past week, I have been sporting my shaggy, unkempt hair in Kayseri, and normally I wouldn’t care since I rather appreciate hair styles of this sort. However, during the past week I have also been making my first impressions on my new boss, and I don’t want to give the sense that I’m completely disregarding the dress code: smart casual. While I interpret this as, My clothes are smart; my hair is casual, I can see that no one else at our university takes the same approach. In fact, the kempt-ness of one’s hair may even be prioritized here in Turkey, although I’m honestly not sure.

After a month of putting it off, on Thursday I finally went out for a haircut. I laboriously found pictures of a good haircut that I once had, and Jena graciously took pictures of them with her iPad. Armed with these and our combined knowledge of about 100 words of Turkish, we set off for the Erkek Kuaförü (male hair stylist).

Our apartment is not in a hopping area by any means, so finding an Erkek Kuaförü over the past few days had been somewhat of a challenge. A coworker suggested we look in downtown Kayseri at the mall, which we did but to no avail. Our only other lead was that there might be one or two in our suburb of Talas, but I had been warned that the quality of a haircut here might not be as good (though I pretty much ignored that comment since any haircut would probably be better than none at all).

While out on a run, one evening, I had finally spotted an Erkek Kuaförü, so that’s where Jena and I went. Fortunately, it was open, and the hair stylist, a guy in his young twenties, was incredibly friendly and enthusiastic, though he only spoke two words of English throughout the haircutting process: “Yes?" and “Finished?” During the haircut, Jena and I put our Turkish to the test by saying things like, “I would like to cut.” And, “This short.” In my regular life, I’m a nervous haircut client regardless, and this haircut, which tested language and cultural skills, had me sweating like a madman under my smock. At times things seemed relatively normal, and we tried to chat about our ages, where we were from, and whether we were married or not. At other times, however, the hair stylist did disconcerting things such as blow drying my hair so that it all stood on end. At this moment, he took a step back and asked something I didn’t quite understand. I thought he was saying he was finished, and I imagined walking back to the apartment looking like a strawberry blonde David Bowie from the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars/Aladidn Sane phase. While I would have liked that style at one time of my life, I wasn’t sure I was ready to be sporting it around in the notoriously conservative city of Kayseri, Turkey.

Fortunately, with enough body language and butchered Turkish phrases, I made it through such high pressure moments. The stylist seemed to be quite understanding, and he eventually made it look almost exactly how I wanted. The cost, in case anyone is wondering, was five dollars! And he wouldn’t accept a tip. After most haircuts (again, in regular life), I like to return home before I go out in public again in order to spend some time getting my hair to look presentable, but after this one I felt good enough that I had the energy to agree with Jena’s suggestion that we explore a new grocery store across the street from the stylist’s shop. (Finding grocery stores is a common activity for Jena and me because we want to know what’s available and where. It’s like charting where you can get more health, ups, or hearts in video game.) At the store we bought certain sought after items such as mushrooms and tiny adhesive felt pads to stop our doors from rattling so much. And then, with the breeze grazing the tops of my ears, we strolled back home.

Conclusion

The haircut experience, I realize, is another one of those look-how-awesome-my-life-is stories. It’s one of resilience and fortuity. As I noted in the beginning, I wish I could say that these have defined my experience in Kayseri so far, but they haven’t. Life is progressing at a slower pace, and we are already facing those moments of uncertainty about where we are and what the hell we are doing. We wake up wondering, for example, whether or not our university’s bureaucracy will spoil us as much as we’d like. This is sort of a familiar feeling, but whereas we once wondered whether our university in Arizona would give us free printing as graduate teaching assistants, we now wonder whether the university will do anything about the weird and almost insufferable smell emanating from open pipe in our apartment's bathroom. But, because there are enough things that are pretty decent about our apartment, this may be a condition we’ll have to endure. And possibly further investigation of this new world will reveal that most apartments have this condition, and we are simply following the Prime Directive and being polite by tolerating this phenomenon in this new society in which we now live.

Yesterday in a Timeline 8/13/14

11:30
We're standing beside the highway, feeling optimistic. We're smothered in sunscreen; yet we've got a patch of shade from a tree to stand in. Our apartment building is about 100 yards away, and being in sight of our place makes everything feel under control.

The first dolmuş (a shared minibus/van) that pulls up is going to our stop, so we clamor into the vacant front seats, of which there are two. My leg quickly adheres to Jena with sweat.

12:20
We're at our first stop--a rest stop. The day is hot, but there's a nice view off a covered balcony. We can see how the mountains descend toward the sea in the distance. We're headed down there to a so-called village that ideally contains ruins, a beach, and an eternal flame from methane spewing out of the rock.

12:40
A guy with funky teeth and a beaten up blue teeshirt wanders up to us and asks us in English if we'd like anything to drink. Although Jena and I are somewhat wary of talking to strangers, the guy's unhurried manner of speech makes him seem trustworthy. By way of an answer, I point a thumb to Jena since she has just remarked that she's thirsty. The guy lists off what they have, looking at me and ending with whiskey. I laugh and say, "Whiskey değil," which I hope means what I want it to mean: not whiskey.

12:55
Jena has now finished her can of iced tea. I am working on some Turkish grammar exercises in a book. I ask Jena whether she wants to practice reading sentences aloud, and she says something disparaging about studying in this heat. When I make conversation after that, she remarks I'm interrupting her whenever she's trying to read.

1:05
Nothing has changed. The signs in the windshields of the stream of dolmuşes we have seen do not say they're going to our destination. Because there's a group of guys with guitars who load into a certain dolmuş and I figure they must be going the same place as us. I speak to their driver. He says I've got the wrong dolmuş, but he tells one of the rest stop guys where where going. The rest stop guy makes a call and tells us it'll be a minute.

1:20
Our dolmuş pulls up. I read online that they arrive hourly. Or, maybe they just arrive after you talk to the rest stop guy and he gives them a call. Regardless, Jena and I are on our way once more. We're in the front seat of this VW bus, feeling like we're falling down the steep foresty road that winds down into our village. The driver asks me in Turkish which hotel we're going to. I say the beach.

1:25
We don't actually want to see the beach that much, but while we're here, I note that it's pretty--long, with thin rocky points that jut our at either end. But we'd rather head to the eternal flame, which I think it a short walk away. By some luck, there's a billboard with a map. The main road down here makes a loop. We're at the exact opposite end of the six-kilometer loop from the flame.  It's a longer walk than I thought. Jena is not happy. I start to walk. She miserably follows.

1:40
Jena: Can you take whatever is jingling out of your front pocket?
Alan: Why? (These are important things, which make me feel better to know that they are there--keys, money, and ID.)
Jena: It's giving me misophonia.
Alan: (Puts things in his backpack. Walks a little faster ahead because he's annoyed.)

2:00
The hundred degree heat is beginning to set in. Jena has asked that we stop to buy to drink. I have requested that we keep walking. To her, she needs to remain comfortable. To me, I want to finish this death-march as soon as possible so that we can relax. These are the types of disagreements you work out during your first year of marriage. But knowing that about them doesn't make the heat go away.

2:20
We're still on this godforsaken, desolate dirt road, where no one else is driving, biking, or walking. We're not speaking now, and our only interactions are comprised of the times when I stop, offering Jena sunscreen and her water. She says she doesn't want more suncreeen--she'll only sweat it off. Water she takes. We try to have a mature conversation about what we're both feeling. The heat makes us too obstinate for a resolution.

2:30
We know we're on track now, as we make our way up the driveway of the Eternal Flame National Park. There are these surrealistic paintings of a goat/bear/human/snake creature wandering through a flaming background. There's a phase painted at the top which says, "The Legend Continues." I would love these paintings if I didn't feel like I were walking through a flaming background as well.

2:45
The hike up to the eternal flame is a one-kilometer rough rock stairway and trail. As I see other couples taking care to walk together, I try to stick to Jena's side so that I can offer her water. When we reach the top at last, our first sight of the eternal flame (fire coming out of a blackened grey crag of rock) is spoiled by a guy roasting three hot dogs on a stick. Two kids are squirming with excitement and holding a plastic bag of hotdog buns.

3:00
We hike to the second spot in this barren, volcanic area where another flame burns. After being asked to take a picture for a group of Italians, Jena sees whether they'll take a picture of us. It's one hundred plus degree weather. With the flame burning beside our calves, we pose and are brought together by the notion that if we smile and act as if we love each other, this moment can transpire faster.

3:05
We're making our careful descent down the rock shelf and back to the trail when Jena whispers, "Look at her shoes." A woman is wearing six-inch wedges and walking across the rock with the confidence of a mountain goat. It's amazing, and I smile at Jena. Later, we'll see this woman at the bottom of the trail enjoying a cigarette and a bottle of water while her husband drinks a beer. Jena and I reach the trail and match paces. When she wants to rest, I am happy to do so as well.

3:35
We're wandering around new unknown roads now, and with the shade and some patience, we enjoy a conversation about the kinds of fruits that are growing on the trees. We're headed back to the village to secure our third dolmuş of the day.

4:00
We hop into a dolmuş that we think is headed the right direction, though we soon find out it's not. Together we speak to the driver, and he drops us on the highway.

4:30
We're still walking along the shoulder like common hitchhikers. A taxi driver pulls up and Jena and I work together to negotiate in Turkish, but we decide his price is too high. After he pulls away, we're left again on the highway again with the uncertainty of whether a dolmuş will ever pass us going the right direction.

5:30
I've told myself that everything is going to work out alright, no matter what happens. So far both on this trip and in my life, everything has. The feeling comes back to me now as Jena and I sit down in an air-conditioned dolmuş headed back to our town. Jena is beside me, practicing her Turkish. She wants to ask the driver to stop near our apartment. She shows me her little book, and and we go over the phrase together to make sure it's right.

Blogging 8/10/14

The blog post is a tricky medium, especially for amateurs. It’s even trickier for people who have resisted it on the basis of its potentially solipsistic nature.

I have come to the medium with such hesitations.

Like all social media, a blog is the child of Web 2.0, in which human interactions have changed from 1 to 1 correspondence to 1 to Group correspondence. We’re still in the broadcast phase, the look at me phase, the carefully groomed Facebook profile or faded Instagram selfie phase. A blog post, especially a personal blog is of similar ilk.

So what does one DO with a blog post? And what form should it take?

The first question is a question of purpose. Do I want to fall into that “Look how awesome I am” category where everything is rose-colored and happy? Even if I am awesome. Is it awesome to unabashedly propound awesomeness all the time? Maybe that’s interesting for the reader or the quick internet skimmer, but it doesn’t seem very human to me. I want the bad along with the good. BUT, if we present the bad—and by that I mean embarrassing or harrowing stories where things don’t end up okay and one has merely conveyed a strong sense of inner turmoil—does that turn the blog into a journal that is better suited for a more private audience: oneself, close friends, a psychologist? Overall, this ambiguity presents a problem. Without knowing the purpose of my blog per se, it is more difficult, I think to answer the second question, what form should it take?

In my view the best form for a blog is one that is post-modern, combining narratives and scenes with lists, asides, etc. (See the stuff on … what’s that obnoxious website called? … oh yeah, McSweeneys.) The general post-modern form is one I despise for its perpetual cleverness and carefully, or dare I say perfectly, crafted presentation. (Give me some good old fashioned narratives or the rough around the edges proto-creative-non-fiction of The Grapes of Wrath or Moby Dick that play with the notion of blending narrative and expository forms). At the same time, I appreciate the openness of post-modern forms. It’s as if literary endeavors have gone from merely using paint to blending mixed media. I hate it, and I love it, as long as it’s messy enough to have raw character.

These issues of purpose and form come to mind because each time I post on my blog, Jena has often posted on her blog as well. A seasoned blogger with fewer qualms about the nature of forms and of art, Jena is able to produce lively, witty descriptions of her experiences. She does so in a candid and honest tone through which the reader knows that the author behind the words is going to be okay. (In fact, this is one of her primary purposes—to tell her loved ones that she is still alive.) While I am jealous of her posts, and of her prolific ability to crank them out, I also wouldn’t like to emulate her style.

I’d rather be rougher around the edges. Have you ever seen the show Twin Peaks? You know in the intro of the show that precedes most episodes when they show that smoothly moving saw sharpener that comes down to the teeth of the brown sawmill blades. Sparks fly, and the saw sharpener lifts. The blade advances one tooth ahead and the sharpener descends again. That’s the kind balance of roughness and smoothness I want in blog posts.

So far I’ve experimented with narratives, but let’s face it; mainly they are rambly, unsophisticated, and boring. The only inertia created within them for the reader is the knowledge that it’s a blog post and as such it will end soon. In other words, they are not turning out the way that I’d like.

Then there are my occasional lists, with which I’ve had limited success. As with most lists in literary or comical genres—post-modern writings, newspapers, humor magazines, the David Letterman Show—a list is only as good as its weakest item (unless the point is to begin with mundanity and to progress to complexity or to the point of excessive mundanity or something like that). While I would like to refine my lists so that they have internal integrity, I find that doing so begins to violate one of my other unspoken rules of blogging, which is one that relates to time.

I have chosen to blog despite all my contentions with the medium because of the pressure it places on me to publish. Without a ticking time limit, I know that my habit is to refuse to lay an egg until I’ve gone over the beauty of its shell a thousand or more times to ensure that it’s as perfect as I can get it. This obsessive mentality has been the unfortunate result of having been in writing groups where it’s ultimately embarrassing to present less than one’s best foot forward. You waste everyone’s time. They give you feedback that you could have given yourself if you only had more time to go over the piece of writing. AND when you do present your best foot forward, it’s not uncommon to receive a lot of praise which increases your sense of autonomy (at the price of a billion hours of behind the scenes work, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).

Regarding blogging, I think I have reached a few answers here in that I have chosen to exploit this medium to train myself to find a balance between writing carefully and publishing rapidly. It’s hard. And I make a lot of mistakes. Forgiving myself for these mistakes is a purpose in an of itself as well. Knowing this, actually helps me to answer my first question. While Jena’s posts may be more oriented toward conveying that she is okay to the outside world, mine only have that as a tertiary purpose. And that’s acceptable to me. The second question, What form should a blog post take? I’m still not sure. But if I return to my purpose, I’d say that it’s not a bad idea to stick to what I’m doing—to choose a mode (narrative, expository, or so on) and write till the end of the post. If I recognize opportunities to enliven the prose, I can go for it. If I choose to play with a list, maybe I can make it a little shorter to refine the elements until they are all of the quality that I desire. Finally, and importantly, since my purpose is to exploit the medium so that I learn to publish faster, I can be creative. I don’t need to limit myself by expectations of length or narrative arcs or perfectly refined lists (that level of perfection is actually the the stuff I detest). I can throw something on the wall and see if it sticks. Even if I turn away readers, that’s an acceptable outcome because my goal really is really quite solipsistic. And that might just be okay.

A Day in Istanbul 8/7/30

On account of the overwhelming nature of Istanbul (the powerful heat, the dense crowds, and the competing music from the three bars below us that persisted until 2, 3, 4 AM) Jena and I slept until eleven in the morning. My first concern upon waking was the last minute lodging reservations that we made the night before. After two hours of debate with our laptops open and various websites up (Airbnb, VRBO), we opted to book an expensive apartment in Side for ten days because it would be easily accessible from Antalya and it would have certain necessities—internet, AC, grocery stores nearby, etc. (It did not have laundry, which was a point of concern, especially after our days in Istanbul, which produced plenty of clothing drenched in sweat. That said, the place promised that the reception could provide a laundry service.)

Mainly, the apartment was on my mind because of the price, which was more than 700 dollars. While I had already agreed that this price was acceptable because it ended our debate and promised to be easy to get to, I had of vague memory of the price of an apartment I had looked at a day prior. We had scratched this alternative apartment due to its location—in the less touristy and harder to get to destination of Finike. But the price of this alternative apartment  was hard to beat at just over 300 dollars.

Secondly, the apartment—the expensive one—was on my mind because we hadn’t received a confirmation email from the property manager. In the age of digital immediacy, the lack of confirmation was driving me up the wall since our time in Istanbul was ending in twenty-four hours. Jena told me to remember that the property manager probably had a busy schedule and that everything would work out.

Because we needed to shed the anxiety produced by the situation, we took to the streets to eat breakfast—though it was almost lunchtime. We chose to walk to the bus stop for the Istanbul regional airport (just to find scout out it’s location) with the hopes that we might see a breakfast spot on the way. We didn’t, though we found the bus stop easily enough and found out where to buy tickets the next morning—we’d buy them on the bus.

What happened next was somewhat typical of our travel adventures together. Jena said, “Let’s find some breakfast somewhere between here and our hotel.” I glanced around and thought the area looked expensive. Taksim Square is similar to Times Square in New York, though the prices aren’t that high, so I figured we’d be being suckers to eat in the popular area. I countered her suggestion with the idea that we see what the other side—the less touristy side —of the square had to offer.

As I said, this was a typical Alan move. Were there restaurants on the other side of the square, the area where there were fewer tourists? Nope. None but one or two in the lobbies of these giant hotels like the Hilton and the Marriott. We seemed to be on the financial side of the square and everyone was in suits coming in and out of buildings. So then I suggested that we walk to the second farthest point on the square from all the touristy restaurants. No dice. By the time we found a restaurant, we had made nearly a full circle. It was in the heart of the touristy area, the prices were reasonable, and the breakfast was wonderful.

(Heidi would find this situation familiar as well.

Alan: My car battery died.

Heidi: How old is it?

Alan: I don’t know. Old.

Heidi: Well, they don’t last forever. Do you want me to drive you to a car parts store to buy a new one?

Alan: No, thanks. That sounds expensive.

Alan borrows a battery charger from Duncan and tries a billion times to get the battery to hold a charge over the next four days.

Alan: Hey Heidi? Can you take me to the store to buy a new battery?)

Back in Istanbul, Jena and I ate our “Cajun” Turkish-style breakfast. I’m not sure what was Cajun about it, except that the name of the restaurant was “Cajun.” We enjoyed our meal and had wonderful service, noting that this restaurant might be a nice place to return to for dinner. Toward the end of our time there, Jena got the wireless internet working on her iPad, and we had received an email from the property manager of the expensive place we had booked. She said it was unavailable. She offered us an alternative or a full refund. Jena and I looked at one another and headed back to our hotel.

Jena worked out the refund while I contacted the guy about the apartment in Finike. To be honest, this was where I had wanted to stay all along, though I knew it would be a pain in the ass to get there. (And my lord, it was. See Jena’s blog for details.) This guy responded almost immediately and said that we could rent his apartment. My relief was tremendous. Finally, we had secured a place to go next. It’s really hard for me, I’ve noticed, to cope with the ambiguity of not knowing what I will do with myself without a home base. I tell myself that there are always hotels and hostels, but from my point of view, it’s like a see a calendar where the dates without lodging are blacked out. And I picture myself falling into a hole for eternity when those days occur. Then, when things do work out, when I step into that ambiguity once in a while and find out that everything is okay, it’s as if I’m being born again. Well, having  secured a reservation finally, I was back on my feet.

Jena and I then took to the streets. I had wanted to go to some of these audio shops near the instrument shops in Taksim, so that was our vague destination. However, the sky had darkened with clouds at that time, and I was the only one with an umbrella. When we turned back, the rain had begun to pour with the heaviness of the summer monsoon rains in Flagstaff. Jena grabbed an umbrella from our hotel, and because we wanted to spend some time outside of our hotel room, we ducked into the bar next door.

The place was vacant except for a jovial guy who seemed to be cleaning up. He didn’t speak any English, but that didn’t stop him from smiling and talking to us about the rain. For us, we really didn’t have any Turkish vocabulary for rainy weather, so we made a lot of “Whoa!” sounds and faces.

The bar had no glass in the windows, so the rain was splashing in at us from the tables on the sidewalk. Nevertheless, our seats were dry enough for us to sit with a tea and to study some Turkish. Jena wrote a letter to our former teacher, and I wrote a postcard to Özge. We looked up the word for rain.

Eventually, we ordered beers, and eventually, we were burnt out on studying. On top of that, two men who I think would be labeled as Arabs came in to order a hookah. (I later found out from our front desk clerk that Turks draw a distinction between themselves and Arabs, whereas in my mind I had previously lumped them all together as Middle Easterners. Jena pointed out that my schema is geographical. The Turkish distinction is more cultural. What is more, the front desk clerk told me that some Turks are not fans of the Arabic tourists. He didn’t provide a reason why except that five years ago Arab tourists had begun to overwhelm the inner city of Istanbul where Constantinople once stood. This is also the area with the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque.)

In any case, these two men were speaking English to communicate with another one of the bar workers. They swore at him in English, and then they took a seat anyway. While this interaction really had nothing to do with us, it still made us uncomfortable to hear our language spoken in such a hateful tone. Keeping an eye on these guys, we later saw them make up with the bar worker. Yet, they continued to speak to him with English curse words.

As Jena and I have seen, the use of English as a lingua franca is disconcerting at times. While it facilitates travel in a place like Turkey and especially in Istanbul (it’s spoken by tons of people), it is also the language people use to get angry at one another. (Jena and I saw an intense afternoon of this when we were stuck in the Istanbul airport due to a weather delay. Again, see her blog for details.) To me as someone whose culture is rooted in and shaped by the English language, hearing English used as a tool for altercations feels personally disturbing.

Needless to say, Jena and I were feeling uncomfortable, so we decided to settle up with the bar worker. Unfortunately, the jovial English guy wasn’t an official waiter, so we spoke to the English speaking bar worker instead. I’m not sure what kind of beer and tea we had been drinking or whether a mandatory tip was in place, but the bill was extraordinarily high. Possibly the guy was just tired of tourists for the day. Since Jena and I didn’t feel like disputing it, we paid and got out of there.

(Note: Nothing against Arabs here. They just happen to be the jerks in this story. Could have been two guys from any culture.)

Since the rain had let up by then, we decided to take another stab at exploring Taksim on our way to the audio stores. Istikal Street (which is more or less an incredibly large and crowded pedway) had fewer pedestrians although as Jena said, “If there’s one way to make a crowded walkway more awkward, give everyone an umbrella.”

As were we walking, I felt the dampness of my socks increase to the point that it was miserable in one shoe and hardly tolerable in the other. This is natural when walking in rainy conditions, but it’s also a consequence of having holes in the bottoms of both your shoes, which I did. (I wear my shoes hard. I use the same pair most days, and like a Honda, I want them to last forever.)

Jena asked how my feet were doing and asked if I wanted to buy some new shoes. I said I was fine. Shoes in a place like Taksim were certain to be too expensive.

As we walked, we both noted that we were feeling shaky from having eaten hours ago and from having tea and beer on top of that. Jena, in an uncharacteristic flash, saw a fish restaurant just off of the main street, and suggested we go there. “You want fish?” I asked. Just a day or two before, when Özge had said that Istanbul was known for its fish, Jena had said that she didn’t really have a palette for it. “I’m okay with it,” Jena said. “I need to eat something, so if it comes down to eating a snack now and having dinner later or eating dinner now, it will be cheaper to eat dinner now.” I consented.

We walked up to the place and had barely grazed the menu with our eyes when one of those annoying hosts came us to persuade us to come into the restaurant. He was pushy, and although we didn’t know it, he was the only adults with whom we would interact at this place. He kept on talking, comparing his restaurant’s prices to others (a bad sign). Because I had told Jena that she could make the call on this one and she said, “Okay,” we went in.

While we were walking, I noticed how deeply perturbed I was. I felt angry. In that moment, it occurred to me how much I hate taking the first option of something. How I like to have a large sample size so that I know I am choosing the best option out of those available. (It takes me hours to go grocery shopping, but I’m usually able to keep my total bill pretty low.) Here, I felt like I was falling prey to some trap that would ultimately lead to financial ruin. I have noted too, in another blog post that I don’t really “value” food, and this may be related to what is possibly a lower than average sense of smell. I like food and flavors, but they don’t really have the complexities for me that they seem to have for other people. So, if I’m already working from a limited stance of food appreciation, there are even more problems when I’m upset. My stomach tightens, and my appetite completely disappears.

At this seafood restaurant, a teenage worker lead us toward the stairs to the second floor. Here, another strange thing happened. Clearly, another customer and his child were coming down the narrow staircase, but the teenager didn’t stop from ascending the stairs. Up we went, awkwardly creating a traffic jam. The sense of being rushed again came over me.

On the cramped balcony where we were to eat and where other patrons were in the midst of their meals, the street noise was loud, and the children of a large family were crying. At the risk of sounding like a snob here, I’ll say that I have a really low tolerance for noisy situations. Let’s say that I may overcompensate for my lack of taste and scent with an acute sensitivity to noise. Good music to me is pure bliss. Certain soundscapes can be as beautiful to me as picturesque sunsets. On the other hand, shitty soundscapes such as that present on this balcony are hellish. Another bad sign.

At the table, an even younger teenage worker than the one who led us up opened a bottle of water and poured our glasses. This was a nice gesture as the tap water isn’t drinkable in Turkey and water isn’t always included in the meal. On the other hand, breaking the seal of a water bottle mildly connotes the contractual monetary agreement between the customer and the restaurant. After the young teenager left, another reappeared with menus. He told us about a sea bass special for two. Jena said it sounded good. I asked how much it cost in Turkish. With some scorn, he asked if we were going to speak in Turkish or English. The price was more than twice what we had been quoted outside. Jena said we needed to think about it.

When he left, Jena asked me if I wanted to leave. Her words were like the prick of a pinhole in a balloon. I exhaled and said yes. The waiter came back for a moment, and Jena told him that she was unexpectedly feeling sick. This guy, a teenager, nearly sprinted up to the next floor where the kitchen was. I guessed that he knew he had screwed up and that when the adult, the host and possibly his parent, saw us leaving the place, the kid would be punished.

Back on the the main street, Jena and I got lost in the crowd immediately because we, too, had that sense of having done something wrong and wanting to escape. When we had walked a block or two, I asked Jena if she wanted to split a simit (bagel-like thing). She said yes, and I successfully ordered one in Turkish from a guy at a stand. It was the best one-lira simit I’ve had.

From there we didn’t know what to do, but I felt happy despite the dismal weather and my wet feet. I asked Jena if she would go shoe shopping with me, and she did (though I’m sure she noted the irony). I found some well-made, waterproof, and reasonably priced shoes with an aesthetic I liked. I even had a great time speaking with the shoe salesman in Turkish and English. He ended up giving me a deal on the shoes, possibly because they didn’t have the exact color scheme I had wanted.

After that we returned to the hotel so that I could change shoes and socks, then we headed out yet again. This time we went up an alley that Jena and I had both noted during another walk. It looked like a place where the chic locals go since it was just off the main drag and not full of tourists. Jena chose a wonderful restaurant where, as she put it, “The meal looked better than it did in the picture on the menu.” I had chicken curry. Jena had a chicken salad. We both had some beers, and dinner came with complementary tea. I got such a good sense from the hipstery guys in their twenties who were running the place that I left a big tip.

We went to sleep that night feeling the way landlubbers do when they have their first night back on land after spending a few nights on the sea. The next morning we were headed to Antalya and from there we would adventurously follow the morsels of directions I gleaned off Trip Advisor to get to our place in Finike.