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.

Organic goodness, a job, and nostalgia.

                After weighing the pros and cons of a few different offers, I finally signed a contract with a primary school here. The decision broke my promise to avoid children, but I decided to suck it up and deal with the sniveling eager needs of the little germ-sacks. The pay is good, they give me housing, and I start in a little over a week. They assure me that all the work has been done, with worksheets and course materials planned out, but I have problems trusting Turkish organization. Don’t ask why. I’ve already discovered the principal drawback of working at a primary school: clubs. They think that my skills will be invaluable to the formation of a Spanish club, a snowboarding club, and a ceramics class. At least I didn’t tell them that I worked in a restaurant, or I’d be teaching pre-pubescent turks how to make tomatillo sauce and steamed tamales.

                I just have to interject and say that I’m watching a guy clean his car with a series of water bottles, just dumping them over the windshield. I’ll start collecting material for a post on Turkey’s brutally indiscriminant use of natural resources. As an American, that might be a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, but what the hell.

                I found an organic market today and made some defuckinglicious (stole that from Joe Nugent, who lamented yesterday that Boston was “97 defuckinggrees”) pasta sauce from overripe heirloom tomatoes, one of which I split open to find a worm squirming around. Believe it or not, it made me feel good to have proof that no pesticides were used. Also, Brigid purchased yogurt and eggs from some farmer who treks into town twice a week to sell his produce. I know it seems masturbatory to say that I ate the platonic ideal of an egg last Wednesday, but I did, so deal. The best part (besides the piquant, deeply gold and beat to airy thinness egg that ran like a fugitive over the painted plate – Oh!) was the man who came to deliver the goods. I heard a bell ringing and I looked out the window to see someone walking down the middle of the street with a carved wooden bar with a bucket of eggs on one end and yogurt on the other. He looked like he was escaping the stockade. I suppose I could just show you…

And here are the eggs, along with my pathetic attempt to compose an interesting photograph:

The last picture I have to show you is a shameless inside joke for the BC grads that I know follow my life (sad, lonely and unemployed – them, not me!). I learned that “yeni” means “new” in Turkish, and on the same day I was walking to Taksim when I passed this restaurant:

 The translated “New Hong Kong” was the go-to late night Chinese restaurant at school, and I fondly (read: fuzzily) remembered ordering from their impatient cashier after a long night of getting blitzed off of Jim Fields’s “Tsing Tao” six-packs. They always included cokes, although we never ordered them, and the experience was (probably, I really don’t remember and I might be making this up) followed up by hookah in the dorm rooms with a grocery bag tied around the smoke alarm. Sadly, it was the most homesick I’ve been. Anyway, I’m off to the plex… er… gym to go work off the gozleme that I ate earlier. It’s good but not too fancy. It’s a crepe without the delicacy of a crepe. It’s the crepe that bullied the other crepes in crepe school, a hood crepe.  One last thing, I splurged on a ticket and I’m going to North Cyprus for Bayram, staying at a place that Brigid recommends called “Nostalgia Hotel” in Kyrenia. It looks gorgeous and I cannot wait. 

CELTA Graduation

                CELTA finished on Friday and we had a small get-together on the roof of British Side with the students. Pictures were taken, info exchanged, and broken English spoken.

                After that, it was time to head over to Taksim where a mezze spread and a few bottles of raki patiently waited. 

                Here’s the arcade that housed the restaurant:

                And here’s a dead fish:

                Dancing, invariably, ensued:

                Now that I don’t have CELTA work to do, I’m spending my time mostly refreshing my gmail in hopes of a new, better job offer. I sent off my friends Umit and Didem last night over shisha, and I made more fig jam this morning after finding out that Brigid really liked my last batch. One of the cats has been placing spewed land mines around the house, so every step is now a new adventure. I’ll need to find a beach soon, but I’ll probably wait until I have a job first. I also started studying for the LSATs again, so I’ll be under pressure for yet another month. Come November, I’ll (hopefully) be able to relax and enjoy my time here.

Let Be

                The CELTA course is finally coming to an end and while it remains a huge time commitment, I’ve had to think about the next step. I had a moment of panic in which I was looking to book a flight and flee Istanbul for South America, but I think I’m passed that now. I have been offered two jobs, one at a language school which pays 500USD for 40hrs and hires me out on a week-by-week basis. The other is at a private university, which I’ve heard is where dumb rich kids go after they’ve failed to get into the more prestigious state schools. They pay about the same as the language school, but I only have to teach about 25 hrs/wk. I’ll probably end up taking it as all the good schools have long since filled their faculty positions, but I still have to sort out some “minor” details like who’s going to be paying for my work permit and how am I going to get there every day (it’s on the “asian side” – on a side note, this whole euro/asian city divide reminds me somewhat of west-side story for inexplicable reasons. I’ve never seen the play and don’t really know what it’s about. Snapping fingers? Shark week? Something like that). In the meantime, I’ve spent somewhere around 60 hours each week in this building:

                 And when I get home, I have to feed this:

                Speaking of the cats, I’ve been told that they are called Oscar and Wilde, but I still don’t know which is which. Both Brigid and I call this one Fatso. She says their names don’t matter because they don’t listen to us either way. One of the nice things about living with someone who has travelled the world is that they have a completely different relationship to material things. Since my arrival, Brigid has thrown out two large pieces of furniture because she didn’t feel as though they belonged. At the same time, the coffee drinking process is always accompanied by a heart-shaped tray, a bowl of sugar cubes, and a wooden mixing spoon. Yogurt is eaten out of clay bowls only. 

                The nights have gotten cooler and the days more bearable. I’m almost to the point where I can turn the fan off at night, and when I arrive at school I no longer do so with a steady stream running from by brow to the tip of my nose. I think I offended the students once because I was so sweaty. They looked horrified when I walked into the classroom. The balcony on this house is a great spot to sip whisky after a long day of CELTA. I took this picture at night with a long exposure:

  

                Soon I will have a certificate with Cambridge’s pompous name splattered next to mine and I will be a happy camper. You can expect more upbeat posts after this Friday’s post-CELTA binge and my subsequent beat-the-heat escape to the Princes' Isles.