Going global sounds good, but momentum comes and goes. Teaching means having a job and hardly ever eating exotic... or even nice cuisine. It means taking the bus at a regular time. It means not strolling jauntily around in a foreign land. But it still sounds nice, and it's better than being stuck in your home town. It's much better to leave your home town and later wish to return than to never have left at all.
As it stands, sometimes get homesick. I also sometimes want to shoot off to India. My mind changes every time I see a travel program... but mostly I just want to leave this place.
Showing posts with label Izmir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Izmir. Show all posts
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Here in America
Back in America for the semester break. It's pretty cold here in Michigan... so cold that it feels unreal compared with the modicum of chill I get in Turkey.
I've gotten used to being on vacation and just like I don't want to leave this warm little apartment to go outside, I don't want to go through the hassle of flying around the world with nine hours of layovers and get back to Izmir just in time to go to work and face students and noise the next morning. However, I'm a little bit excited about the week's lesson plan and I'm doing a lot of reading to prepare for next year when I'll be teaching kindergarten (assuming that everything goes as planned).
In Turkey, the selection of beer is pretty pathetic, so I swore that in Michigan I'd spend some real quality time with the hops, but I had just a few non-Turkish beers the whole time I've been here. The best was Boffo Brown Ale, brewed in Michigan. I also tried Shipyard IPA, brewed in Maine. Any other beer I had was just basic: Killians and a light Mexican beer.
I also intended to get some nice curry, but haven't really gotten around to it. We run out of time so quickly on vacation.
I've gotten used to being on vacation and just like I don't want to leave this warm little apartment to go outside, I don't want to go through the hassle of flying around the world with nine hours of layovers and get back to Izmir just in time to go to work and face students and noise the next morning. However, I'm a little bit excited about the week's lesson plan and I'm doing a lot of reading to prepare for next year when I'll be teaching kindergarten (assuming that everything goes as planned).
In Turkey, the selection of beer is pretty pathetic, so I swore that in Michigan I'd spend some real quality time with the hops, but I had just a few non-Turkish beers the whole time I've been here. The best was Boffo Brown Ale, brewed in Michigan. I also tried Shipyard IPA, brewed in Maine. Any other beer I had was just basic: Killians and a light Mexican beer.
I also intended to get some nice curry, but haven't really gotten around to it. We run out of time so quickly on vacation.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Found the Road to the Flag
I found the road to the flag at the top of the mountain... now it's not as alluring as before. I can go anytime I want. Just take the bus to Cankaya and walk past the hat shop straight north to the big flight of stairs. There you are. I'll probably go this weekend and it'll take just a few minutes.
Actually, it's a pretty exciting walk... lots to pass and some good hawkers with good stuff to hawk. Furniture. I really need furniture, but I'm happy with my 'yoga room', which is a room that is completely empty except for a yoga mat because that is all the furniture I could afford when I first moved to Izmir. The yoga mat cost about $12 or $13 U.S., which is a real bargain when you consider the fact that I have a room that is always clean, and hiring a cleaning lady costs about 60TL.
In truth, I'd rather have a sofa. I'd rather have a table and chairs, but those are things that can be purchased or built, kept or thrown away. Over the years I've seen a lot of nice furniture come and go, get recycled, outlive its usefulness... but I've never seen a yoga mat that looked old or even used.
About my apartment, I know that it's the first place I saw in Izmir... the rent is reasonable, the neighborhood is OK, and it's a livable couple of rooms, but I'm beginning to envy the places my friends have. I think I'm going to stay here only as long as I need to before making some kind of move to a better neighborhood. The area is a little bit conservative and I'm having trouble with the Ramadan drummers at night... actually, they came around yesterday asking for money, a young guy and an old guy (I filmed them waking everyone up before, so I know it was really them).
They looked so sweet, so sincere, that I actually paid them. My anger over the sleep I'd lost these past few weeks melted away completely. I'm a sucker for tradition, and these guys seemed genuinely nice.
The recommended amount was about 5TL, but I only had small coins, about 1TL, in my coin bag. At the very least, these guys are doing their jobs well night after night, playing their drum to wake everyone up between 3:30am and 4:30am and deserve a few coins.
At the very, very least, I didn't kick their asses and take their silly drum.
Actually, it's a pretty exciting walk... lots to pass and some good hawkers with good stuff to hawk. Furniture. I really need furniture, but I'm happy with my 'yoga room', which is a room that is completely empty except for a yoga mat because that is all the furniture I could afford when I first moved to Izmir. The yoga mat cost about $12 or $13 U.S., which is a real bargain when you consider the fact that I have a room that is always clean, and hiring a cleaning lady costs about 60TL.
In truth, I'd rather have a sofa. I'd rather have a table and chairs, but those are things that can be purchased or built, kept or thrown away. Over the years I've seen a lot of nice furniture come and go, get recycled, outlive its usefulness... but I've never seen a yoga mat that looked old or even used.
About my apartment, I know that it's the first place I saw in Izmir... the rent is reasonable, the neighborhood is OK, and it's a livable couple of rooms, but I'm beginning to envy the places my friends have. I think I'm going to stay here only as long as I need to before making some kind of move to a better neighborhood. The area is a little bit conservative and I'm having trouble with the Ramadan drummers at night... actually, they came around yesterday asking for money, a young guy and an old guy (I filmed them waking everyone up before, so I know it was really them).
They looked so sweet, so sincere, that I actually paid them. My anger over the sleep I'd lost these past few weeks melted away completely. I'm a sucker for tradition, and these guys seemed genuinely nice.
The recommended amount was about 5TL, but I only had small coins, about 1TL, in my coin bag. At the very least, these guys are doing their jobs well night after night, playing their drum to wake everyone up between 3:30am and 4:30am and deserve a few coins.
At the very, very least, I didn't kick their asses and take their silly drum.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Urfa Kebab, Two Museums, Climbing the Mountain, Hawking the Hawker, Buying a Hat
Today there are sweat salt and sunscreen deposits on my shirt, my dogs are barking, and I learned how to use the metro in Izmir. It was a very, very good day that started out with on simple mission: to eat Eskender Kebabs on the Kordon with a big glass of beer. That was the simple Sunday task I set before myself to complete my day. I didn't manage it, but I managed much, much more.
First off, I didn't find Eskender Kebabs on the Kordon. There are a lot of good looking places to eat, but at one point I took a quick right away from the water and had an Urfa Kebab sandwich. It did the trick, but because there was no beer on the menu, I had a glass of ayran (the frothy kind), and it was heavenly. So far, so good.
In addition to failing to find an Eskender Kebab, I also failed at a game of 'capture the flag', although I played a pretty good game.
At the top of the hill overlooking Alsancak, there is a Turkish fort with a giant flag planted at its highest point. Today's mission was to get that flag. OK, the mission was to stand next to it and look like a tourist, take pictures, buy a bottle of water, then find my way back down.
I love walking (fancy people call it 'hiking'), old architecture, and strange, dodgey neighborhoods, so I trekked up the mountain through the streets of Kubilay, finding all of that and more in its maze of narrow roads and old women sitting on stoopes in front of colorful little houses. It was beautiful, but I spent most of the time wondering how all of those thousands of people llived up there where there was no industry, no work; There were only little bakkal stores that sold things like bottled water and ice cream bars. Traffic-wise, it was living in the narrowest point of a bottleneck in the messiest maze in the nastiest traffic in the world. Going to work would be so much work that (guess what?) no one would ever go to work.
Once or twice I saw some daring person driving (and Turks are all daring behind the wheel), some trucks that were too large for those streets, which forced them to slow down. I even saw a small delivery truck intentionally bust its plastic bumper on someone's front steps in order to get around another truck, with the person inside pretending to stare lazily at the sky with plenty of room to move (another thing I've learned in Turkey is that the people here are always "on". They don't miss anything. If it looks like they don't see something, they're only pretending).
It was hectic, it was heaven. I walked uphill for a long, long time, then downhill... my leg muscles actually shaking from the workout. The reward for me was finding something in the form of an old building, and there were quite a few of those, as well as some good views of Izmir down below, hugging the Aegean (It's about time I learned how to spell "Aegean"!)
In the end, I got pretty close to that flag... but not close enough to score a point at horseshoes. Only close enough to say that that particular road had taken me as far as it was going to. To the right was a short cliff, not visible from below. To the left there may or may not have been another way up, but heading away from the flag. All around, there were people eyeing my suspiciously, since no one had a reason to be in this neighborhood unless they lived there. I smiled and said, "hello" in English. They sometimes smiled, sometimes looked at me like I was retarded. Somehow, being retarded gave me the courage I needed to take pictures. I took out my camera and grabbed a few choice shots.
One person spoke to me, a man named Mehmet. He was sitting in his doorway with hsi wife, watching his three children play. He told me ruefully that he used to date an American for seven years, but ended up marrying his wife. His wife looked sad and he dismissively ordered her to a bakkal to get me a bottle of water. I didn't like it. I told him that I had water in my bag. I'll also add here that Mehmet's wife, a covered woman, was smoking hot and that he was a bit of an ugger.
So it goes.
After I got down from the hill near Basmane, I took a left and headed towards Konak, where some street children hassled me (my Turkish wasn't even good enough to get rid of them, but I didn't give them any money), had a coffee at Konak Pier, and then went into the bazaar to find a new straw hat. With all of the sun here, it's really surprising that Turkish men don't wear hats for protection. When Turks did wear hats, it was fez!
After walking through the stalls for an hour or so, I found only one that sold straw hats, and they only had three types for men. One was kind of a costume cowboy hat, one was too flimsy, and one looked exactly like the one I already have. I guess I'm stuck with it.
On my way to the main street to catch the tramway back, a guy stopped me and started speaking English with me, saying "Where you from?"
The hawkers are so friendly and so natural that when they speak English to a foreigner, it's both soothing and threatening. It's nice to hear your own language, and they speak it well. It also means that unless you immediately do something rude, you're in for a long, unwanted sales pitch. When the young guy acosted me, I was not in the mood to be rude, and I wasn't even particulary adverse to a long sales pitch. I had ideas of my own.
First I told him to help me to understand how he knew I was a foreigner. He hedged and said I looked like a tourist without saying why. I didn't like that.
He told me that he had a shop, and I was honestly interested in seeing it. The shop was even worth seeing; lots of nice wood and high-quality merchandise; all of it very "ethnic" and potentially attractive to if you wanted to export it to people in the States. I tried to talk turkey with him, telling him that I wasn't a normal buyer, but an aspiring businessman (and potential burden to him). He got tired quickly and ali-ooped me to his cousin, who showed me some lamps. I told him immediately that I didn't want to buy lamps today, but I wanted to start a company with him and export lamps to America. It became kind of a game. He sent me upstairs to another cousin, who wanted to sell me leather jackets, carpets, and counterfeit bags. The cousin was the hardest seller they had, but he used the word, "gavur," which I didn't care for. He asked if he could sell me a carpet, saying that they could send it to the United States. I said "no," several times and he responded with a very sharp "WHY NOT?"
In the middle of all of those counterfeit goods, I told him that he needed to have a catalogue to show customers overseas and that I could find customers. He was excited, the giant dope, but I don't know why. He said he was going to help me find suppliers for soap and spices, but kept pushing carpets. I started to describe a convoluted business plan that had no real benefit for him (probably not me, either... ). His eyes glassed over until he looked like a fish. I told him that carpets were too expensive, that we needed something smaller and cheaper than carpets, and not fragile, like waterpipes or lamps. He asked if i was going to open a shop like his. I said no. I was going to open a website. Suddenly, he didn't want me in his store anymore.
From that little bit of anti-sales experience, I think I actually got a little bit of sales experience. I also found a new way to deal with obnoxious Turkish salesmen.
First off, I didn't find Eskender Kebabs on the Kordon. There are a lot of good looking places to eat, but at one point I took a quick right away from the water and had an Urfa Kebab sandwich. It did the trick, but because there was no beer on the menu, I had a glass of ayran (the frothy kind), and it was heavenly. So far, so good.
In addition to failing to find an Eskender Kebab, I also failed at a game of 'capture the flag', although I played a pretty good game.
At the top of the hill overlooking Alsancak, there is a Turkish fort with a giant flag planted at its highest point. Today's mission was to get that flag. OK, the mission was to stand next to it and look like a tourist, take pictures, buy a bottle of water, then find my way back down.
I love walking (fancy people call it 'hiking'), old architecture, and strange, dodgey neighborhoods, so I trekked up the mountain through the streets of Kubilay, finding all of that and more in its maze of narrow roads and old women sitting on stoopes in front of colorful little houses. It was beautiful, but I spent most of the time wondering how all of those thousands of people llived up there where there was no industry, no work; There were only little bakkal stores that sold things like bottled water and ice cream bars. Traffic-wise, it was living in the narrowest point of a bottleneck in the messiest maze in the nastiest traffic in the world. Going to work would be so much work that (guess what?) no one would ever go to work.
Once or twice I saw some daring person driving (and Turks are all daring behind the wheel), some trucks that were too large for those streets, which forced them to slow down. I even saw a small delivery truck intentionally bust its plastic bumper on someone's front steps in order to get around another truck, with the person inside pretending to stare lazily at the sky with plenty of room to move (another thing I've learned in Turkey is that the people here are always "on". They don't miss anything. If it looks like they don't see something, they're only pretending).
It was hectic, it was heaven. I walked uphill for a long, long time, then downhill... my leg muscles actually shaking from the workout. The reward for me was finding something in the form of an old building, and there were quite a few of those, as well as some good views of Izmir down below, hugging the Aegean (It's about time I learned how to spell "Aegean"!)
In the end, I got pretty close to that flag... but not close enough to score a point at horseshoes. Only close enough to say that that particular road had taken me as far as it was going to. To the right was a short cliff, not visible from below. To the left there may or may not have been another way up, but heading away from the flag. All around, there were people eyeing my suspiciously, since no one had a reason to be in this neighborhood unless they lived there. I smiled and said, "hello" in English. They sometimes smiled, sometimes looked at me like I was retarded. Somehow, being retarded gave me the courage I needed to take pictures. I took out my camera and grabbed a few choice shots.
One person spoke to me, a man named Mehmet. He was sitting in his doorway with hsi wife, watching his three children play. He told me ruefully that he used to date an American for seven years, but ended up marrying his wife. His wife looked sad and he dismissively ordered her to a bakkal to get me a bottle of water. I didn't like it. I told him that I had water in my bag. I'll also add here that Mehmet's wife, a covered woman, was smoking hot and that he was a bit of an ugger.
So it goes.
After I got down from the hill near Basmane, I took a left and headed towards Konak, where some street children hassled me (my Turkish wasn't even good enough to get rid of them, but I didn't give them any money), had a coffee at Konak Pier, and then went into the bazaar to find a new straw hat. With all of the sun here, it's really surprising that Turkish men don't wear hats for protection. When Turks did wear hats, it was fez!
After walking through the stalls for an hour or so, I found only one that sold straw hats, and they only had three types for men. One was kind of a costume cowboy hat, one was too flimsy, and one looked exactly like the one I already have. I guess I'm stuck with it.
On my way to the main street to catch the tramway back, a guy stopped me and started speaking English with me, saying "Where you from?"
The hawkers are so friendly and so natural that when they speak English to a foreigner, it's both soothing and threatening. It's nice to hear your own language, and they speak it well. It also means that unless you immediately do something rude, you're in for a long, unwanted sales pitch. When the young guy acosted me, I was not in the mood to be rude, and I wasn't even particulary adverse to a long sales pitch. I had ideas of my own.
First I told him to help me to understand how he knew I was a foreigner. He hedged and said I looked like a tourist without saying why. I didn't like that.
He told me that he had a shop, and I was honestly interested in seeing it. The shop was even worth seeing; lots of nice wood and high-quality merchandise; all of it very "ethnic" and potentially attractive to if you wanted to export it to people in the States. I tried to talk turkey with him, telling him that I wasn't a normal buyer, but an aspiring businessman (and potential burden to him). He got tired quickly and ali-ooped me to his cousin, who showed me some lamps. I told him immediately that I didn't want to buy lamps today, but I wanted to start a company with him and export lamps to America. It became kind of a game. He sent me upstairs to another cousin, who wanted to sell me leather jackets, carpets, and counterfeit bags. The cousin was the hardest seller they had, but he used the word, "gavur," which I didn't care for. He asked if he could sell me a carpet, saying that they could send it to the United States. I said "no," several times and he responded with a very sharp "WHY NOT?"
In the middle of all of those counterfeit goods, I told him that he needed to have a catalogue to show customers overseas and that I could find customers. He was excited, the giant dope, but I don't know why. He said he was going to help me find suppliers for soap and spices, but kept pushing carpets. I started to describe a convoluted business plan that had no real benefit for him (probably not me, either... ). His eyes glassed over until he looked like a fish. I told him that carpets were too expensive, that we needed something smaller and cheaper than carpets, and not fragile, like waterpipes or lamps. He asked if i was going to open a shop like his. I said no. I was going to open a website. Suddenly, he didn't want me in his store anymore.
From that little bit of anti-sales experience, I think I actually got a little bit of sales experience. I also found a new way to deal with obnoxious Turkish salesmen.
Friday, July 16, 2010
İzmir Gypsy Street
To a simple midwestern American searching for something to compare this place to, maybe it looked like a renaissance fair... a purpose-built, festival grounds, but without the costumed re-enactment fetishists and their false British accents. The action was real, the crowds real.... no false fronts on the buildings or the people, just winding narrow streets lined with neat, colorful little concrete/brick homes and shops that looked too make-believe to be beleived. There was also a whole lot more shouting and life on the street than a fesival - five fights and one wedding while we were there, lots of cars and scooters, kids playing and getting into trouble, and business being conducted.
We sat with our host and his family on plastic chairs drinking tea for most of the evening, and the night hadn't even started when we left at about 10:30. Our hosts were extremely gracious; gypsy hospitality must be the finest in the world.
We thought the wedding was starting when a '64 Chevy Impala convertible, decorated with rows of lights and carrying a mother, father, and two children dressed in white satin, came tearing through the main street to celebrate the boy's circumcisions.
I was cursing myself all night for not having a camera, but that moment really made me feel the misery of my failure.
We sat with our host and his family on plastic chairs drinking tea for most of the evening, and the night hadn't even started when we left at about 10:30. Our hosts were extremely gracious; gypsy hospitality must be the finest in the world.
We thought the wedding was starting when a '64 Chevy Impala convertible, decorated with rows of lights and carrying a mother, father, and two children dressed in white satin, came tearing through the main street to celebrate the boy's circumcisions.
I was cursing myself all night for not having a camera, but that moment really made me feel the misery of my failure.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Packed and Ready
There's not a lot left to do - just a couple of fussy details to take care of so there won't be any problems with checking in at the airport or getting through security.
Once I arrive in Turkey there'll be a couple of bureaucratic hoops to jump through before I can start working, and we need to figure out once and for all what Nilu is going to do about her school.
Thoughts?
None right now. Dogs know instinctively when they're about to go to the vet, but most of my head is too thick to process the fact that I'm going somewhere for a long time. The ticket, the passport, these bags, and people hugging me to say goodbye should be enough to help me realize that I've already spent my last night here in Michigan, but it still feels very unreal. Twelve hours from now, I'll be in the air. In less than 36 hours I'll be in the heart of one of the world's biggest cities, jetlagged and disoriented.
Once I arrive in Turkey there'll be a couple of bureaucratic hoops to jump through before I can start working, and we need to figure out once and for all what Nilu is going to do about her school.
Thoughts?
None right now. Dogs know instinctively when they're about to go to the vet, but most of my head is too thick to process the fact that I'm going somewhere for a long time. The ticket, the passport, these bags, and people hugging me to say goodbye should be enough to help me realize that I've already spent my last night here in Michigan, but it still feels very unreal. Twelve hours from now, I'll be in the air. In less than 36 hours I'll be in the heart of one of the world's biggest cities, jetlagged and disoriented.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Preparing to go...
A couple of months before Go Time... it's difficult to know exactly how to prepare. No two people are the same, I'm sure... and it kills me that I'm not able to bring my bike, at least not at first. It looks like Turkey isn't the greatest place for cycling - maybe I'll find another sport.
As for what to bring, I've started buying little things... like a little computer.
I just don't want to get bogged down in decisions about what to bring and what to leave, so I'm prepared to make some deep, painful cuts - starting with my bicycle. When I moved from Japan back to the U.S., I brought a ton of useless junk that I never looked at again, and it cost hundreds of dollars. This time it's going to be bare essentials only.
As for what to bring, I've started buying little things... like a little computer.
I just don't want to get bogged down in decisions about what to bring and what to leave, so I'm prepared to make some deep, painful cuts - starting with my bicycle. When I moved from Japan back to the U.S., I brought a ton of useless junk that I never looked at again, and it cost hundreds of dollars. This time it's going to be bare essentials only.
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