Jullee’s Trip

The long-anticipated arrival of Jullee Kim was met with tears, news crews, star-eyed boys and a brass section. As she stepped off the plane, it was reported that the faint of heart dropped like flies by an electric lamp. At least that’s how I remember it. It was about a month ago, though, and I don’t fact check. There were, as always, many faces to the Jullee.

The surreptitious tourist.

The elegant diner.

The (very) amateur photographer.

The real joy of having her around was that it allowed me an excuse to indulge myself in food that I had been reluctant to go and eat on my own. So we ate and were stuffed.

Sadly, Jullee was made to leave here fan base in Istanbul. The date of her departure is on the fast track to becoming a national day of mourning on which posterity will recognize her by glutting themselves on mackerel and cream-top yoghurt.

My two-month hiatus from blogging is ended with a retrospective weigh-in on Jerusalem, a post that I have been dreading to write. I have, in the end, nothing to say except the falafel was good.

I got in on a sherut (a shared taxi, like the Turkish Dolmus) and journeyed out the Bethlehem the same evening after arrival. I waited in line behind some hundreds of SLR-toting American tourists waiting to see the birthplace. The payoff was a small silver star in the basement of a chapel.

That night I made friends in the hostel and barhopped outside of the Old City. It took the edge off of the desert night spent on a rooftop, but ate any chance I had of seeing the dead sea that trip. 

For two days I saw the sites. Wailing wall. Mount of Olives. Mexicans riding a camel and taking pictures at the Mount of Olives. Tomb of David. Church of the Holy Sepulchre (crucifixion site one). Mary’s Tomb. Garden Tomb (crucifixion site two). Solomon’s Pillars. Zacharia’s Tomb. The Basilica of Agony. Golgotha? Here they are, in random order.

The only thing I did not see was the Dome of the Rock, which I’m told is the coolest thing in the city, but which was closed to non-Muslims for the holiday.

That’s it. There, I’ve done it. I don’t need to tell you about being intimidated by pre-pubescent street kids or hassled for money from every person with a pulse. You don’t need to hear about the pervasive anti-semitism of the invention of relics from the crusades. I doubt you’d be interested to know that there is nothing holy that isn’t being sold and that Abraham’s legacy is the peddling of cheap wares and indiscriminate violence. Thinking about those things is what kept me from writing this post for so long, so if you want to hear about it, go there.

Tel Aviv - Miami Redux

Spectacular beaches? Check. Beautiful people? You betcha. Art deco galore? Oh yeah. The kind of pathetically short history that considers art deco to be high priority for cultural preservation? Check. Cubans? Not so much. Then again, who needs pork sandwiches when you’ve got falafel?

It’s clean, it’s got a promenade, and it’s legalized a kind of synthetic marijuana that is marketed as, you guessed it, Mr. Nice Guy. This kind of thing wouldn’t surprise me in, say, Berkeley. But here? Keep in mind this is a city that shares it’s limits with Jaffa. This is where Jonah was swallowed by they whale and Napoleon visited plague houses (taking plenty of pictures of course). Yet one of the biggest new cities of the near east holds none of the stuffy historical backwash that torments pretty much every other square inch of land in the country. I can’t help but think that it’s an American thing, but I don’t want to steal Israeli thunder here. Maybe it really was their own doing, and maybe Israel is looking for nothing other than to raze the past and look forward. No, really, I mean it. Seriously. All right, that’s going a bit far, but they do recycle and they do have dog parks and fixed gear bikes and open air artists markets selling the kind of nifty doohickeys that you could make out of that piece of plywood, the rusty nails and the leftover paint if only you weren’t too busy working a nine-to-seven saving up for that fixed gear at the international bank among whose problems is trying to figure out how much longer an eighty-floor steel building can last on a sand foundation before toppling over and taking a good six hundred would-be cancer victim beautiful people on the strip and that guy who thinks it’s okay to urinate on a wall in plain view of a toddler in one of those bathing tutus that really are cute I don’t care who you are. So that’s what they’ve got, and I took pictures.

 open air market

candy

 No, those are not my legs.

 Port of Old Jaffa where Jonah was supposedly gobbled

 The Modern Reader

At a club during Shabbat

More to come on my three-day sojourn in Jerusalem...

Alive and Well

Just putting up a quick post to let you all know that I was safe in my apartment when the suicide bomber attacked this morning. It was in Taksim Square, not two streets from my apartment and I heard the explosion but didn't know what had happened until hours later. Police shut down the square and then main pedestrian road, and all I saw was a policeman power-washing the cement. It was a grim image to behold on a pristine fall day. Nobody was killed except for the bomber and thirty-two were injured. They think that Kurdish separatists were behind it but nobody has claimed responsibility.

A Room Of One's Own

I'm nearing the end of my first month in the new apartment, and it's coming together after an admittedly shaky start. I didn't have hot water or heating for the first three weeks here, and I still don't have my own internet connection. My toilet broke a few weeks back and I had a panic attack not knowing how to shut the water off (turns out the only option was to turn the water off to the whole apartment, and the main line could only be accessed in the hallway), but I've finally gotten to a point where I know how to fix most problems. The biggest difficulty so far was definitely the time I walked out the front door with the keys to Brigid's apartment and turned around to lock the door only to realize that I had locked myself out. It was late at night and nobody could let me in until the morning. This was an issue seeing as how I had left a window open and a light on in a notoriously break-in prone part of town. After deliberating in the hallway for about an hour, kicking my foot out in front of me every ten seconds to catch the motion detector that kept the light on, I decided to break into my own apartment. I live on the second floor and the french-style embellished facade was easy to scale, but I didn't want to attract any undue attention, which was unavoidable given the people sitting outside at the nearby cafe. Luckily, nobody said anything and merely watched as I did something that wouldn't have occurred to most well-adjusted and civilized people. So I've learned 1) never leave a window open even if you're just walking next door to drop off your laundry and 2) never set two approximate sets of keys next to each other, because on a long enough timeline you will undoubtedly pick up the wrong set at least once. Here are some pictures of the place:

Shoes and a Tramp

My Only Furniture

 An Assembly Line of Personal Hygiene

    

 The World's Smallest Kitchen

(the fridge is in the cupboard) 

 My View

The World's Cheapest Set of Sheets

Exploring the Space of a Shoe Box 

I realize that this is a meager post after a month of silence, but I'm trying to ease back into the habit of regular posts, which might be easier now that I have a proper abode and steady internet (courtesy of my neighbor, the Laterne Cafe). I booked a flight for Tel Aviv and will depart in two weeks, so make sure to check back in to hear what that was like. 

Just a small-town boy

When you tell people that you are going to Istanbul for a year abroad, the responses vary:

            Stephan: “Brutal Turks. Good luck.”

            Jinhee: “Really? Fuck dude, I hope things improve over there.”

            Jondreau: “Man have fun but keep in mind it’s a weird fucking place and one minute you might be having the time of your life but turn your eye from your drink for one second and the next thing you know you’re getting ! up the ! by a donkey.”

*quotes have been approximated.

So, with this rock-solid advice under my belt, I was prepared for anything.

1. The first, mafia-involving and potentially expat-fun-ending mistake:

                I was warned. I should have known. There were so many signs!

                It was the night of the party at the British Consulate. That is, the once helpful, passport-distributing, amnesty-offering consulate and present-day house of the British Community Council, a glorified Party Planning Committee here in Istanbul. I went there to meet with a friend of mine who was already inside. I was stopped at the gate and surrendered my passport to a man with a list.

- There’s a list?

- Yes, list. Name?

- Thorne. I’m not on the list.

- Yes, list. I am not see your name.

- I’m not on the list.

- Are you sure you are on list?

- I’ll call my friend.

                Three rings, he answers and emerges minutes later from the black gate. He is blitzed and splutters at the guard:

- My friend’s not on the list because we thought he might come but we didn’t know if he could he just came in this morning I’m sure you understand he’s a friend of myself and so-and-so…

- Yes sir, but I talked to person and person says he cannot come in so he cannot come in.

                My friend reels, smiles.

- Sorry, mate.  I’ll call you in an hour.

                I kill an hour with dinner, beer. He doesn’t called because he is blitzed. I know this because I got a text the next day:

- Sorry we didn’t meet up Saturday. We ended up getting thrashed at the consulate. Everyone threw up!

                In the meantime, I am sitting in Taksim square and taking in the scenery. I stand to leave and someone asks for a light in Turkish. I look confused and he asks again in English, good English. He is young, tells me he’s on vacation from Izmir and that he works there as an exporter of marble and porcelain. Porcelain is the bigger business, he explains. He asks if I want to get a drink, and assuming that he means at one of the outdoor bars nearby, I agree.

                Fast forward five minutes and I’ve been taken into a strip club, but nobody’s stripping yet so that’s not immediately obvious. He orders a bottle of raki. He says he wants to get girls. My dumb ass is telling myself that although I know I can’t pay for anything (apartment deposit wiped my account clean that morning), I should stick around because he seems like an okay guy who just wants to have a good time. I think I’m humoring him.

                I stop thinking that when a Bulgarian girl sits down next to me and a Russian plops down on the bench opposite. Mr. Izmir looks satisfied.

- These are beautiful girls, yeah?

                They are not, but I haven’t the heart to say anything.

- I think they work here, dude.

- I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. They are beautiful girls!

                I turn to my sad, bucktoothed, Bulgarian escort.

- So. What’s your job?

                She blushes and sits up straight.

- You sit down and have dinner with people in clubs? Cool job. You see that guy over there? I don’t know him. We just met and I think he’s about to stick me with a very expensive bill. I’ve read about these scams and I know that he works with the club. I’m fucked, aren’t I?

                Her English is quite good, and she kindly beckons to her friend to leave before Mr. Izmir can buy them drinks. I smile and finish my glass of raki, taking up some melon that has been put before me.

- I can’t pay for this. I have no money, you know? Hich param yok, yeah?

                The digested version: Mr. Izmir gets pissed, makes me show him my wallet, which contains twenty-five lira; the bill for two-hundred lira comes and the waiter takes my card, which is denied because I HAVE NO MONEY; I am taken to the back of the restaurant, resigning myself to a beating. I check the exits and am about to bolt when someone in the corner says something, which is then translated:

- You can go, boss says you can go.

- You’re letting him go? Mr. Izmir argues.

                I think I smile, and at least inwardly I have one of those doves-flying-as-the-church-organs-sound moments. I turn and half-run towards the front door without hearing a word more. As I leap up the stairs two at a time, a strippers fake, tasseled breasts shimmy out my exit.

The second, less life-threatening mistake:

                This one’s a little more simple, and it ends with me losing my wallet. I’ll skip straight to the moral: When a malcontent Brit asks you to go get drinks at 4:30pm on a Thursday at a bar reserved for watching the results of horse races, say that you’ve got other plans.

These experiences, once related to a teaching colleague, bring out a new piece of advice.

                 Bev:  “You go around thinking that people are people and that you can trust them, but you can’t trust anybody, especially the people who want you to trust them. The trustworthy ones are the ones that never ask you to trust them and don’t want you to because they know what a bad idea it is. But you have to trust somebody because you’re a person, and people trust each other.”

We’re back to square one on the issue, but we’re wiser, and even when we get duped into joining an importer/exporter in a house of ill repute, we can still find time to drink a glass of raki and laugh in the face of the blushing, bucktoothed, Bulgarian escort who is trying to take the money we don’t have. We promise to be wiser, and we promise not to make the same mistakes twice. We promise not to post any more stories like this which have probably given the Moms a heart attack and others a reason to watch their backs around Turks. Most of all, we promise not to use the royal “we” in sum-ups of our blog posts.

Bitter Lemons

                Some time has passed since my last post and quite a lot has happened. I started work and am currently teaching a cool twelve hours of English to the 5^th grade at a private school here. The children generally speak at a high level and are as well behaved as they can be at the cusp of puberty. It has been a gentle introduction to teaching, as I only have to give three different lessons per week to four different classes. I have been told that the hours will go up, but for now I’m sitting pretty.

                Now for the good stuff, and my trip to Cyprus. First was the Kyrenia Castle, which was inhabited by your man Richard the Lionheart and the Knights Templar. That factoid was enough to get me to pay the entrance fee.

                As I started to explore the subterranean works of the castle, I stumbled upon a few unsettling models of the castle’s medieval heritage. This experience was only made worse by the energy-efficient system of lighting, which didn’t allow you to see the room until you were well inside. You can imagine my surprise (and girlish squeal) upon finding this:

                The real reason I went to the island had more to do with sun and sand than flayed and bearded wax statues, so I’ll give you a taste of my days spent at the beach and on the boat.

                The water was gorgeous, and it was a real shame to see plastic bags, water bottles, and cans filling up parts of the beach and the coastline. I don’t know if it’s Turkish culture, lack of infrastructure or what, but respect for nature was totally absent.

                My favorite part of the trip was the morning I spent at Bellapais Abbey, made famous by Lawrence Durrell’s “Bitter Lemons,” a novel about the Greco-Turkish conflict that today is manifested in the green line, which separates northern (Turkish) Cyprus from the south. I stood under Durrell’s “Tree of Idleness” while waiting… and waiting… and waiting for a cab:

               

                Here’s the abbey itself:

                I was made aware of the unintended side-effects of my Jesuit education when I entered the chapel and was able to recognize most of the icons by sight. There was good ol’ Georgie:

                Pauly D? (that's what the tour guide said, but I'm used to the younger, Mr. Tumnus-looking Paul):

                Mike ("The Situation"):

                And of course the big three:

                This was my first solo vacation, and I have to say it’s a much different experience. At first I felt awkward as a loner surrounded by tour groups, but by the third day it felt perfectly normal. Had it been a vacation from school, it probably would have been more welcome, but as it was I went from being isolated in Istanbul to alone in Cyprus. On the up side, going out on your own makes you realize the importance and the startling rarity of good friends.