Settling in, in a once-strange land

Not long ago, I sat down to watch the popular Turkish film Issız Adam (“Solitary Man”). As the title character ducked into a small shop on the winding street where some of my friends live, or chatted with diners inside a restaurant where I’d eaten with coworkers, I felt the same warm sense of nostalgia one might experience while looking through vacation photos long after an enjoyable trip. But in my case, the stores and streets and scenic views were all still just outside my front door.

After three years of living in Istanbul, the things that so gleefully widened my eyes as a tourist – the skyline full of minarets, the man selling vegetables from a horse cart, the labyrinthine backstreets of Eminönü – have inevitably faded into the background of day-to-day life. Somehow seeing these same sights on film, contributing to other viewers’ romantic notions of the city, momentarily made them fresh again.

Settling in is not exotic. It’s not exciting. It doesn’t create the same rush of sensation as travel. Instead, it’s being handed half a mandarin to eat while I pick out my produce, or chatting with the butcher about the best cut of meat for a particular dish. It’s knowing what the latest crowd of demonstrators on İstiklal Caddesi is protesting, and being able to laugh along at some of the onstage banter at a rock show. And when I do travel, it’s realizing that all my reference points have shifted to relate to my new home.

This post has been entered into the Grantourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition.

Turkman Eastwood

I was at a bar on a visit home once when my drinking companion pointed to a poster on the wall, saying, "Check that out!" I looked. I looked some more. It was a poster for the movie "Death Race 2000." I didn't understand why this should be of interest to me.

And then it hit me: The poster text actually read "Ölüm Yarışı 2000." I had read it without realizing I was translating, or that it was strange to see Turkish in an American bar.

Clint Eastwood looks a bit Turkified in this poster for the first Dirty Harry sequel, "Magnum Force" -- or "Gun's Strength" in Turkish -- which another friend emailed to me this week after spotting it in the men's room at a San Francisco wine bar.