villa luna

why do they do that?

a week ago i joined a bunch of girlfriends (no husbands or boyfriends) for drinks at a friend's house and then to a club to go dancing (oh my knees hurt!). i go out dancing maybe once every 2 years or so - and then usually only when forced. it's not that i don't like to dance - i'm happy to dance when i'm home alone and listening to music.

of course, a bunch of women, especially foreigners, attracted a lot of attention from the local men. we did our best to ignore them but... they really made it impossible. while dancing i felt a guy's hand on my ass. i caught it and turned his hand backwards as i turned around to see who it was attached to. he thought he was funny and tried to kiss me. i pushed him away. he tried again. i pushed him a little harder. all the while, two other guys were standing just a little ways behind him, laughing. i'm not sure if they were laughing at him or me. in retrospect, i can't believe they did nothing to help.

then he grabbed me and tried again to kiss me. i raised my fist into his face - like i was going to hit him! i can't believe i did that. everything else was ok but not threatening to punch him. and what was i going to do if he hit me back????  i am not a violent person!!! i don't talk about violence. i don't watch it. i don't use it. until that night - when i threatened to punch a guy. i am going to have to think about that. on the funny side. i am taller than most of the people in this country so i was looking down at him.

interestingly, when i told other foreigners, they mostly laughed. when i told turks, men and women alike said i did exactly the right thing, or maybe not even enough (although one turkish man told me we were asking for harassment for not having even one man with our group!). every single woman said i should have kicked him in the whatchamacallits. err... that's even less likely than me actually punching someone.

all i can say is, i love turkey and i generally find people here to be very friendly and respectful. but this kind of stuff happens too often. what is it with turkish men that says, "be an ass. be way too aggressive. it'll get you women"?

sigh. so it'll probably be another couple of years before i go dancing at a club.

invade my kitchen

had an impromptu dinner party on sunday night. m wanted to cook (something he's been promising to do for almost a year!) and i blithely offered my kitchen.

happy to report that the flat is still in one piece, no one suffered any injuries and we ate so well!

                                             

to be honest, i'm not entirely sure what we ate. mostly i served as the sous chef - i chopped onions, peppers, carrots and potatoes and you can see the eggplant. at one point, i looked over and m. was looking at the bottles on the counter and the jars of spices on the shelves, wondering what looked good. he would pick something up, sniff it and sort of shrug - "yeah, i think that'll be good."

we had rice cooked with curry and which had sauteed peppers, eggplant, mushrooms and garlic mixed in with it. he garnished the rice plate with hard boiled eggs that had been fried and sliced. interesting.

the chicken (which is in the right picture) - had all the above mentioned veggies and vinegar and wine and who knows what else in it.

whoda thunk? a heavy metal musician and cook. it was an amazing feast and m. seemed to enjoy being the only guy at a table full of women.

how many millions?

a couple of weeks ago, i had a VERY istanbul evening. went out with turkish friend who is a photo editor at one of the papers here. he brought along an english photographer friend. after a few minutes of talking, turned out the english guy used to date one of the turkish women i've met at the acrassicauda shows and who is friends with the band. a few minutes later, we realized we had emailed and talked on the phone about a year ago - about work stuff - but we had never met.

then the two guys said something about how they were going to meet with their danish photographer friend, who they named. my first thought was - "j? noooooo.... can't be the same j." about that time, an iraqi friend showed up. the turkish guy mentions j again and the iraqi said, "oh, you're going to hang out with js?" ahhhhh.... it IS the same guy i was thinking about! i'd never met him but know his name because he filmed part of the "heavy metal in baghdad" documentary in baghdad. (rockumentary?)

i left the guys talking and went to meet an american friend (we met in bucharest a few years ago) who was in town for her job at microsoft vienna (tough life!). as we were sitting outside a restaurant having a drink, the guys all walked by so i finally got to meet j. a few minutes later, a friend from work and his bulgarian girlfriend and her family walked by and stopped to talk. then a few other friends passed. my american friend was stunned - especially given the huge crowds out on the street at that time.

after dinner, my friend and i went to meet one of her turkish friends and his wife for drinks. in the middle of that conversation, he looks at me and apropos of absolutely nothing that i could discern, says, "you know c, don't you?" at that point, i didn't even have to ask which c. for probably the same random reason he asked, i knew who he was talking about. yes, i do know her. she is my neighbor. in fact, i live in her old apartment.

did you know, there are 17 million people in istanbul, plus or minus about 2 million? and that's just the residents, not the expats.

so it goes.

this past saturday, as i was walking home around 8 in the evening, after an afternoon of aimless wandering, i ran into c and her husband and sister. they were headed for nevizade for meze (think tapas) and invited me to join them and some other friends. as we sat at the exact same table where my friend and i sat the week before, we were joined (as planned) by several other friends. what wasn't planned was that my roommate was at the same restaurant with her friends. nor was it expected that another friend and his wife would also stop by.

welcome to istanbul. it only seems like we all know each other.

yirmi, XX

it's raining, again.

onsekiz, XVIII

right. so i didn't really get kidnapped yesterday. but my day did go off in a completely unexpected direction after the old woman told me i should be covered in the black bedsheet (i'm sure those weren't her words - black bedsheet), i started talking to the turkish guy who had translated a little for me when the woman was leaving.

we people watched, commenting on what we saw going by, talking about turkey and turkish politics, food, people, travel and whatever else popped into our heads.

after a while, i figured it was about time to go, when ali suggested we go have a fresh orange juice. errr... why not? sounds great!

he started walking me down a small street near the spice market i'd only walked part of the way up before. there on the side of the street was an open air sort of street cafe where you could buy doner sandwiches and durum (wraps) and about a dozen or so different kinds of fresh juice combinations they squeezed to order.

orange? greyfurt (grapefruit. i think that is one of the silliest words in turkish.), pomegranate (which ali thought was an equally silly word in english. it's nar in turkish.), apple, banana, pineapple, kiwi... i'm sure there were more. they even had something called grippin they would add if you wanted something to help you ward off a cold (grip). i was overwhelmed by the choices and let ali decide. orange and pomegranate it was. and it was amazing! yum!

the next thing i knew, ali was ready to walk me to "a great place to buy electronic stuff" because i mentioned i needed a new cable for my i-pod. just a few streets from where we were is a small shopping "mall" full of teeny tiny electronics shops selling everything you could think of. there were electric razors and toothbrushes, i-pods and knock-off i-pods, a wide variety of digital cameras and video cameras, new and used cell phones and accessories, all manner of cables, cords and digital media cards, security cameras and even medical devices for testing i don't know what.

not only did they seem to have everything i could think of, it did seem cheaper than anywhere else i'd seen similar things. ali said he rarely saw foreigners there and figured it was because they just didn't know it was there. i have to admit i felt a little like an oddity. but what's new in that?

then we walked from eminonu, across the galata bridge and up the hill past the galata tower. ali walked me up a steep street that was a shortcut to the end of istiklal caddesi (the pedestrian street) but warned me it wasn't a place to walk alone - esp. at night. i thanked him for taking me to a sketchy neighborhood but he assured me i would be ok with him. still, i was ready to whack someone with my new soup pot if i had to.

then suddenly, we were at galata tower and walking up the street where all the shops with musical instruments are. he pointed out the dervish place i knew was in the tunel/galata area but had never found.

back when we were drinking juice, ali told me about one of his favorite places on istiklal that had really great pudding. so of course, we had to go have pudding. we walked into a pudding shop that has been on istiklal since 1930-something and had to walk up to the 3rd or 4th floor before we could find an empty table - it is that popular.

he was right. the pudding (i had chocolate because as any sane person knows, that's really the only flavor of pudding worth eating!) was really really good. watch out bill cosby! we talked about my work (editing), his job (teaching music) and the beetle club he belongs to. that's beetle as in volkswagen beetle. apparently, turkey has some very active beetle clubs. whoda thunk?

we traded phone numbers and then i headed home (because i had to make a blog entry before midnight!) and he went off to play music with some friends.

it wasn't the afternoon i was expecting and that was perfect. it's those days where you get the opportunity to surrender yourself to whatever is happening that are sometimes the best ones. i hope i made a new friend. even if i didn't, i learned some interesting things, found some new places and had a great time overall.

it was a far cry from the black bedsheet lady and her leeches!

(sorry for lack of editing. must to give laptop back to flatmate!)

onyeti, XVII

i went over to the grand bazaar today in search of christmas presents. it's a great place to wander around and people watch and window shop but it does require a certain amount of mental fortification to face the endless salesmen trying all sorts of lines to get you to stop and talk to them so they can get you into their shop to possibly buy something. ("hey lady! you dropped something!" "come see my flying carpets!" "come let me spend your money for you!" "i have everything you need!")

i found a few things (not telling!) and then headed down to the spice market. i walked down a different street than i usually take and found myself in an area with few tourists and got more than a few curious looks. i try not to think of it like i'm some sort of an oddity - like a two-headed freak - and think more like i'm a rock star and they are in awe. otherwise, the whole thing sort of creeps me out.

after some more successful shopping outside the spice market (best place to buy kitchen stuff!), i plopped down on one of the low stone walls to sit and people watch for a bit. the area outside the spice market has a lot of food shops selling everything from fish to fresh cheese to nuts to chocolate. there are all sorts of turks there - mostly from the lower middle class. you'll see everything from village women in their flower print pantaloons and conservative muslim men with beards and small caps to ordinary istanbullus and their families.

a few minutes after i sat down, an older woman in a  - i don't know what it's called. you know the whole black head covering/ body tent (turks call them black sheets)?  - spread out a piece of newspaper she picked up off the ground and sat down next to me.

she pulled a small water bottle out of her shopping bag and i couldn't help notice there were holes poked in the top. i looked a little closer and realized she had a bunch of live leeches wriggling around in there. she noticed i was looking and, as happens all too often to me here, she started talking to me a mile a minute in turkish.

why does that happen? i couldn't look less turkish if i wore a big american flag or a billboard that said, "not from these parts!" but it does.

and the strange thing - i usually get the gist of whatever is being said.

she explained to me the leeches were for putting on cuts on her skin. eww!!!! and she laughed when she accidentally spilled a little of that leech water on my jeans. double eww!

then, slapping my knee after i made a face, she told me i was pretty (which i did understand in turkish) and then told me i should be covered - like her.

at which point, i figured the best thing to do was to pretend like i didn't really understand and laugh like it was funny. well, actually, it is funny. right. me in a black bedsheet. not going to happen. ever.

then she lectured the headscarf women sitting next to me - telling them they shouldn't be smoking. they smiled at her like one would a crazy aunt. sweet, but completely insane.

she slapped my knee a few times, shook her head over the women next to me, told me her friend was coming and once again said i should be covered.

as she got up to go, the turkish man next to me said something to me in english. she asked him if i spoke english and then demanded he translate (in that crazy aunt authoritative way). she wanted to know if i was from america. did i speak english. and then, once more for good measure, said i was pretty but i  really should be covered like her.

with that, i smiled and said goodbye as she turned to walk away. her parting words were for allah to bless me.

at least, that's what my newfound friend, ali, told me.

tomorrow, i'll tell you about how i got "kidnapped" for an afternoon.