After an long, exhausting day at the beach we returned home to a bit of a do. Our shared courtyard was ablaze with candles and Bubbly Beril was busily dressing her patio table. Moments later, the flamboyant Sofiya floated through the garden accompanied by a younger woman slapped up like Coco the Clown on a bad hair day. Beril turned to Liam and explained in broken English that she was throwing an impromptu al fresco dinner party and we would be joining them. In five minutes. The menu was a generous selection of calamari and un-filleted fish. This was Liam’s worst nightmare – he simply can’t do fish bones and tentacles are an absolute no no. I watched my husband attempt to keep his gag reflex in check, but he struggled. Eventually, he resorted to stashing cuts of rubbery squid in the pockets of his bermuda shorts. Oh the shame.
The evening was an eclectic mix of insults and complements, with Sofiya acting as the unofficial translator. Her companion was half cut from the start. She sat po-faced and aloof, only opening her mouth to demand more rakı. My attempts to engage her in a friendly tête-à-tête went largely unrequited. When she did speak it was to brag about her English – a result of a ten year stint in Texas (or Teksars, as she called it). Her pidgin dialect seemed little better than my Turkish, but I let it go. The miserable Coco became more and more inebriated. As her tongue loosened, the reason for her truculence became crystal clear – I was the problem. She unleashed an unprovoked broadside in my direction about foreign residents not speaking Turkish. Caught on the back foot, I attempted to placate her with a humble apology and a promise to do better. Dissatisfied, she continued to snipe. After an hour I could take no more and asked Sofiya to intervene – she did so with grace and tact, as I would expect from an ex RADA girl. Sofiya’s friend delivered a theatrical but fake apology topped only by my own fake acceptance of it. She withdrew to the opposite end of the table to sulk and sup.
I do accept that my lack of ear for languages will hinder a meaningful engagement within my host community. However, to be dressed down by an old sop who, after spending 10 years in the USA, could hardly string a few simple words together in English was a bit rich.
Apple technology is not the best or always the most innovative but it is undeniably iconic with real feel appeal. Steve Jones was a genius but also a philosopher. ‘Nobody wants to die,’ he said. ‘Even those who want to go to Heaven, don’t want to die to get there.’ He knew better than most that death is the final destination for all of us. ‘Never settle,’ he said. That’s why Liam and I are in Turkey.
When I was on holiday and soliciting for guest posts, Dina, a Bodrum Belle of class and distinction, sent me two articles. The first, Siren Inflation was published last month, but I received her second piece too late in the day to include among the holiday crop. I’m unsurprised it was a little delayed as Dina and her partner Dave run a successful gulet charter business here in old Bodrum Town called South Cross Blue Cruising. It’s been a busy season.
Here is Dina’s second guest post.
Swearing in Turkish is an acquired art. The wrong word at a dinner party will guarantee a permanent ban, whereas a well-timed curse can open doors, and little is as satisfying as swearing profusely while driving in Turkey.
I once lived 20 meters up on a one way street from the main road in downtown Bodrum. This meant either driving up the one way street the wrong way in order to get into my private parking space, or circumventing the entire perimeter of Bodrum in order to arrive at the house 15 minutes and 2 liters of petrol later on the correct, one way route.
Fast forward to the bustle of August with Istanbul ’34’ number plates dominating all of the one way highways and tight Bodrum alleys. I was trying to get home and did a quick glance up my one way street which appeared completely clear. I gassed the little Fiat Uno up the alley the wrong way to duck into my parking space. From a parked position, a tired, late 70s model, avocado green, 34 plated Mercedes sedan crept out and met me at the entrance to my parking space, with just enough room to not let me into my garage. I signalled right – he shook his head. I signalled right again, as all he had to do is reverse one meter to allow me access. I made a face and pointed towards my alley. His brassy haired, bouffanted wife gave me the Turkish equivalent of the finger above her gold bangles.A combination of strong hormones and heat rash thus persuaded me to intentionally stall my Uno. Alas, two more 34 plates appeared behind the Benz, as did a neighbor’s 48 licensed Bodrum car behind me, with shortcut intentions similar to mine.
Salak kari! bellowed the fat, sweaty Benz driver through all three of his chins. (Stupid broad)
Lavuk! I tossed back. (Imbecile)
Oruspu! yelled the aging Istanbulite’s missus at me above her gyrating fist. (Prostitute)
Whore! I yelled back, trying to intimidate in English.
Manyak! screeched the red faced man, blowing on his horn at me. (Maniac)
Hiyar! I retorted out of my open window. (Cucumber)
The local market boys ran out to participate in the entertaining engagement. They first attempted to assuage the Mercedes, which, in the Turkish pecking order and its big city license plate, had potential clout which almost rivalled that of mine as a trusted and known neighbor. Realizing the aggressiveness and possible languid VIP factor within the aging Benz, as well as not wanting me to switch mini market loyalties, the market boys rearranged cement flower pots for me to pull onto the curb and allow the MB to pass. The Honda behind me continued the argument until the Honda became an ayi (bear) and the Benz became the son of a pimp of sodomy. Having delivered the purported greater insult, the 48 licensed Bodrum Honda backed up to let the frustrated 34 Benz pass.
We were wandering down Bodrum’s bar street, a procession of cheap and cheerful bars and hassle shops. We normally rush by; casual shopping in Turkey can be a bruising experience best only tried by the foolish or heroic. On this occasion, Liam popped into a corner shop to buy some cigarettes. Keen to use the local lingo, he asked for them in passable Turkish. The po-faced assistant looked at him blankly. Liam repeated the request. Another blank look. After a brief standoff, Liam relented and repeated the order in English. The surly man behind the counter viritually threw the cigarettes at Liam, snatched the payment and slammed the change on the counter. Welcome to Turkey where hospitality greets you at every corner. I know there are arses-holes in every country but next time we’ll just shout loudly in English.
Last month the fabulous people at Displaced Nation asked me about:
My most enchanting experience this summer
My least enchanting experience, and
Tricks of the trade for dealing with the unforgiving heat.
I feel a little trilogy coming on.
Displaced Nation Trilogy – Part 1
Bodrum is the most secular and modern of Turkish towns. Normal social rules don’t apply here. It’s where people come to escape the conformity of everyday Turkish society. However, scrape the surface and you will find magic of a different kind. We were visiting our friend Jessica – a thoroughly modern Millie and a gorgeous Bodrum Belle to boot. Jessica lives just a few hundred metres behind the swanky marina with its luxury yachts and raucous watering holes. Her home is set within a traditional quarter of whitewashed buildings huddled together along narrow lanes. As we approached her door, we noticed an elderly neighbour dressed in traditional livery: floral headscarf, crocheted cardigan and capacious clashing pantaloons. She sat cross-legged in a shady spot of the garden and seemed to be plucking a fleece. Liam and I are self-confessed city boys and asked Jessica what the old lady was up to. Apparently, she was preparing the wool for hand carding, straightening and separating fibres to weave on the spinning wheel she kept in her house. The amazing woman hummed as she plucked, happy under the cool of an ancient knotted olive tree and doing what women have done in Turkey for millennia. Now you don’t get that in Blighty.
Today’s guest post is from Yankee Erin who lives the Bohemian dream (she would say hand to mouth) existence in Berlin with teacher hubby, Ian. Very Cabaret. I first ‘met’ Erin when she interviewed me for Blogexpat. Erin writes her own blog about their Teutonic expat adventures in Back to Berlin…And Beyond, a wonderfully intimate glimpse into their lives. Today, Erin gives us a delicious titbit of their grand train journey to Istanbul and their first experience of the city that crosses two continents. Not quite Murder on the Orient Express but…
Erin
We had done it! We had lived in Europe for one whole year, just as we said we were going to. Going vegetarian for days at a time (even in cheap Berlin) to make ends meet on a teacher and sometimes writer budget, we had done it. And now it was time…time for The Trip. We were doing the collegiate run-around-europe-with-backpacks-half-the-size-of-our-body for over a month. In that time, we planned to visit 10 countries. We were crazy.
A week in (having just visited Austria, Hungary, & Romania), we boarded the train for Istanbul. Scheduled to be 18 hours, we knew it was going to be a long haul. A Kiwi couple paired with us in a sleeper and we spent long hours talking about our adventures and watching fields of crispy sunflowers roll by. Along with us on the train were some hippies from Germany (there is no escaping the Germans, I swear they seek us out wherever we travel), and a woman from Cyprus with 3 passports. One of hers literally had handwritten documentation. I was fascinated.
Night met the train in Bulgaria where we were told we would wait ‘a little while’ for a train from Serbia to meet-up. Making conversation with some of our fellow train riders, a Turkish man and his wife told us ‘Istanbul, big danger!’ They then charaded out the gestures of drugs and pick- pocketing. Oh, thank you for the advice.
The train
The hours ticked by and we realized our long train ride just got a lot longer. Finally, the two trains re-united and we were off again, struggling to sleep on the top bunks in the sweltering August heat. Screeech! Stopped again at around 4:30am, men with bug guns boarded the train, shouting at us in Turkish. The woman from Cyprus turned out to be a big aid as she spoke with the guards, and translated for us in German. ‘Kontrolle. Your passes…’ Oh- Passport Control. What a lovely welcome.
They took our passports and left the train. Don’t all the guidebooks tell you to never let that happen? We blearily followed, and forked over the money required for the visa. The Kiwi’s – those lucky bastards- got off without a fee. I see. As Americans, your country starts a bunch of wars- or wait excuse me – ‘conflicts’ and you don’t get very easy access to places.
The Blue Mosque
A whole day had passed since we boarded the train. We eagerly disembarked, ready to see a new continent, the place once called Constantinople – Istanbul! Immediately, we fell in love with the smells & sights of the city. Aggressive salesmen chanted at us ‘Spend money here, please?’ and we just smiled, happy to be swept away in the ocean of color. We found our way to our hostel in Sultanahmet and happily gazed out into the water. A little of this happiness dampened as a sour couple also on the roof top told us
‘There’s no water, you know?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘The whole city. No water’
She seemed to take pleasure at the looks of panic on our face. We had just spent a full day on a train in August. We weren’t exactly feeling so fresh or so clean. Running to the lobby we asked at the desk and the clerk apologetically told us it was true. They were running on their water tanks, but expected them to run out soon as the water had already been off for several days. He smiled sadly, ‘Welcome to Istanbul.’
Pigeon Lady
Whatever. We smelled. But we were in Istanbul! Pretzel vendors calling beneath our window, thousands of wild cats, a whole world of spices to discover…nothing mattered except that we were here for 3 magical days.
On the third day, we got sick. Call it Ataturk’s revenge (or possibly Vlad’s revenge as we had suspicion it might have come from Romania), but boy did we use those bathrooms. Struggling to maintain any ounce of dignity, we sweatily hung on as we continued to tour. It accompanied us to Kusadasi, Greek islands, all the way up Italy and through Southern France. By the time we got to Bruges we were almost recovered. A thoroughly effective weight loss program.
Time for Tea
Maybe it’s us. Or maybe it was some tough love from Istanbul. Maybe it’s best we didn’t have an easy time in Istanbul, because we really loved it, all of it. We survived the trip, celebrated our second Oktoberfest, said good-byes to all of our friends in Berlin, and flew home to Seattle. We even got married and have since returned to Berlin (I said it already – we’re crazy). But the trip to Istanbul stands out in my mind. I hate to pick favorites, but I wonder how much tickets are to Istanbul. Or maybe we should take the train.
Nowadays, who pays attention to aircraft safety announcements when fiddling uncomfortably in a cramped seat and thumbing through the glossy but vacuous in-flight magazine? Been there, done that, know the drill. We’re off on our holidays. Who wants to be reminded that we may die on the way? There’s no such thing as an atheist at 30,000 feet when the engines fail. Airlines sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to grab the attention of their passengers. Who hasn’t chuckled at the camp flying mattress flapping his arms about like a drag queen as he points out the emergency exits. Remember your nearest exit may be behind you. Pegasus, the no frills Turkish airline went one step further. It kept our attention and made us laugh.
The Turkish version is even cuter
In other words, when you hear the brace, brace announcement put your head between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye.
My fourth guest blogger is Bodrum vetpat and dedicated pansy fan, Carole Meads. Carole offers keenly priced, top-notch holiday properties in the pretty and peaceful resort of Torba, just 4kms from Bodrum. Take a look here if you’re thinking of visiting this part of the world (no, I don’t get a cut!). Here’s Carole writing about her attempts to learn Turkish. We’ve all been there.
Carole
Six and a half years ago I decided to make this idyllic coastal part of Turkey my home, along with a good friend who reassured me that learning the language wouldn’t be a problem. The Turkish language has its roots in Central Asia and the written form dates back to the 8th Century BC. in Mongolia. As part of Ataturk’s reforms in 1928 he changed the written form of the language from the Arabic alphabet to the phonetic form of the Latin alphabet. He hoped this would aid communications and simplify things for non-Arab speakers…
Sadly, for a first time new language student, grappling with a different word order is hard enough and then it gets complicated. The Turkish language is based on vowel harmony and agglutination. It has to sound right and words are built up into sometimes incomprehensible length in order to make a point! So armed with a library of grammar, phrase books and CDs we set about teaching ourselves but somehow it never came to anything. ‘Speak to the locals’ knowledgeable ex-pats advised. These attempts at communication were met with confused expressions, grunts or replies in perfect English!
We soon decided that living in Bodrum, learning the lingo was going to be no mean feat. To be fair we quickly picked up basic chat and essential phrases – we got by but as soon as the conversation went ‘off-piste’ we were flummoxed. Then eighteen months ago a minor miracle happened. We heard about a new Turkish course starting up locally and at a price which matched our “non working” status! By this time I had become convinced that I would never learn Turkish, my friend already having mastered a couple of other languages was not so easily put off and immediately signed up. Her enthusiasm spread, several of our friends joined up and eventually even I gave in and decided to give it a go.
Erhan our teacher can only be described as ‘saintly’. He painstakingly prepares idiot proof lessons, listens to our horrendous annihilation of his native tongue, laughs with us not at us, all the while trying to understand the idiosyncrasies of the English language and ex-pats.
These days I lurch between declaring that I will never be able to speak this damn language and catching the jist of overheard conversation as I sit crammed in amongst the locals on the Dolmus. They say you have lost about 90% of your ability to learn a new language by the time you reach nine years old. Having reached an age considerably past nine, perhaps I shouldn’t be giving myself such a hard time?
Geographically, Anatolian Turkey is in Asia and Thracian Turkey is in Europe. A simple glance at a map confirms it. Istanbul is not called the city that straddles two continents for nothing. For commercial convenience, the whole of Turkey is often classified as Europe for such things as travel insurance and flights. Lonely Planet lists Turkey under Eastern Europe and the Caucasus when it is part of neither (apart from Thrace). Is Turkey also part of the Middle East? This is less clear. The Middle East is an ill-defined term that always includes Arabic countries, but may or may not include the nations of North Africa (who speak Arabic) and may or may not include non-Arabic Iran. Where does Cyprus fit in? It’s closer to Asia than to Europe and the Greek side is part of the European Union (nominally on behalf of the whole Island but that’s another story).
Does any of it matter? Certainly not to long gone conquerors who marched across Asia Minor from all points of the compass at the drop of a helmet. Take a look at this to see what I mean.
It only matters to me when trying to catch the weather forecast on BBC World. The Beeb doesn’t seem to know where Turkey is either and generally ignores us altogether. Consider this. Geologically, Europe isn’t a continent at all. It’s an appendage to Asia with an arbitrary border drawn along the Ural and Caucasus Mountains. Those in the know describe the entire landmass as Eurasia. You see we’re all Asians really.
Sasha at On UR Way invited me to recommend my Turkey top five in her World Experiencesseries. I was really pleased to be asked. When you’re thumbing through a brochure or studying a guide book do you sometimes get the feeling that some of the authors haven’t actually been to the places they’ve written about? I’m not a travel writer (though who knows in the future) but at least I’ve seen and experienced the activities I’ve selected.
The evening was an eclectic mix of insults and complements, with Sofiya acting as the unofficial translator. Her companion was half cut from the start. She sat po-faced and aloof, only opening her mouth to demand more rakı. My attempts to engage her in a friendly tête-à-tête went largely unrequited. When she did speak it was to brag about her English – a result of a ten year stint in Texas (or Teksars, as she called it). Her pidgin dialect seemed little better than my Turkish, but I let it go. The miserable Coco became more and more inebriated. As her tongue loosened, the reason for her truculence became crystal clear – I was the problem. She unleashed an unprovoked broadside in my direction about foreign residents not speaking Turkish. Caught on the back foot, I attempted to placate her with a humble apology and a promise to do better. Dissatisfied, she continued to snipe. After an hour I could take no more and asked Sofiya to intervene – she did so with grace and tact, as I would expect from an ex RADA girl. Sofiya’s friend delivered a theatrical but fake apology topped only by my own fake acceptance of it. She withdrew to the opposite end of the table to sulk and sup.
Loudly in English
Perking the Pansies 