Pazar günü

It's kind of funny that in a city where you can walk for blocks without finding a store that sells anything other than pipe fittings, you can also buy live fish and
children's clothing at adjacent stalls. Not to mention head scarfs, underwear both immodest and enormous, SpongeBob SquarePants sweat pants, and a "Girls Just Want to Be Fun" t-shirt. (No, that's not a typo--at least, not my typo.)


Today was Çocuk Bayramı (Children's Holiday), and I'm not really sure what that means, except that I got the day off from school. On the recommendation of Phil Bey, I trekked out to the Fatih street market, which was possibly even more crowded than Eminönü. After taking a couple of laps, I heeded one of the many calls of "beş lira, beş lira, hepsi beş lira" and plunged into the sea of women snatching up completely random t-shirts. With so many people pressed up against the table, you could really only examine what was within arm's reach, but fortunately the vendors had concocted an imaginative solution to this problem: Every few minutes, they turned the whole heap of clothes over like a compost pile and tossed it to another part of the table. Voila! A brand new supply.


Connoisseurs of t-shirt slogans will surely be disappointed that I opted against buying the "Angel Fashion Ref Forever Glamour Lucky Girl" or "It's good to have a journey with Mr. Perky" models. (Let's take a vote on that last line, shall we: Is it a sexual innuendo or a druggie one?)

Ödev yapan kız

Bir gün (someday), I hope I'll be to read and speak some Turkish without having to mentally convert everything into English first. Of course, that will deprive me of the fun of making literal, word-for-word translations like this one:

"The accident-making men are sad."

(That's "Kazar yapan adamlar üzgün," for anyone who's playing along at home.)

Hemen, kahve içen kız okula gideceğim.

Goin' places

I just booked a bus ticket to Sofia, Bulgaria, for my first trip out of the country. I can't believe I've been here almost three months already. Am looking forward to getting a couple more stamps in my sadly empty new passport. Plus, I hear they have pork there.

Canım için avuntu

Halıç
Originally uploaded by mission75

When I'm feeling stressed or down, I'm drawn to the Galata Bridge, where the views of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn never fail to soothe the spirit.

Amerikalıyım

Those who know me can vouch that the last way I would probably describe myself is as "an American." I'll proudly claim my San Francisco and California roots, but patriotism is not exactly my strong suit. So one of the things that's been interesting about being away from my country of origin is realizing how much I've been unwittingly marked by it. My generally unfailing punctuality is one dead giveaway, as is my nagging tendency to want to cross streets in an orderly manner, at stoplights and between well-marked white lines. (The latter habit I've made great strides toward breaking, as trying to follow it in Istanbul would mean I'd still be waiting at the corner with last week's groceries.)

More challenging to confront is the gravitational pull toward "productivity." For the first time since I was 17, I don't have a job, and though this does not pose any practical difficulties at the moment, it does open up a philosophical cans of worms. Who am I without a job? (I still say "gazeteciyim"--I am a journalist--even though I'm one without a outlet for my byline at the moment. For me, after all, that career has always been as much a way of looking at the world as a way to earn a check.) What am I accomplishing? What am I contributing?

Though to me those are all very personal questions, many people here have told me that they are also "very American." If I have the opportunity to not work for a while, they say, I should enjoy it, explore new things, stave off the 9-to-5 for as long as possible. I don't think I'll ever shed the desire, the drive to accomplish things, but I hope I can expand my definition of what that entails. And not just to make it less obvious where I hail from.

UPDATE: I'm apparently not the only expat who feels this way. This American woman who's been living in Scandinavia for 32 years puts it well:

"When you're an American living in America, it's one thing but when you live abroad in another country, in certain ways that feeling becomes even stronger because you realize that things that you think are individual characteristics are actually national ones so you identify even more strongly with your nationality."

Geçtim!

Hey, how'd that happen? I completed my second level of Turkish classes on Friday, and here's the proof. My class went out to a lovely lunch afterwards, then I took myself to see an inspiring photography exhibit, and of course there was some celebratory Efes drinking after that. Haydı, kutlayalım!

Aynı değil

I haven't been here long enough to miss much about my life back in the States, but I can already say with certainty that reading the Sunday New York Times online, even while drinking a decent cup of coffee, is just not the same as curling up on the couch with the real thing.

Beş lira, beş lira, buyurun!

Alışverişten nefret ediyorum (I hate shopping), but I do love wandering around in Eminönü, where everything from sweaters to watches seems to be 5 YTL.

It starts in the passageways underneath the busy waterfront roadway, where I swear yesterday I heard one guy call out "Altı lira, buyurun," before he was drowned out by a chorus of other guys undercutting him. (Buyurun, by the way, is pretty much the world's most useful word. It can mean welcome, here you go, have a seat, come over here, and who knows what else.)

Shopping in Eminönü proper is as kalabalık (crowded) as an American mall the day after Thanksgiving. Except the mobs are outside, pushing strollers and carts of merchandise over piles of freshly torn-up asphalt, picking their way through mud and around the guy using a blowtorch in the front of his shop, stopping to examine wares laid out in the middle of the street, and getting out of the way of the occasional driver crazy enough to try and plow his car through all of this.  Oh yeah, and it's like this every day.

İlkbahar başlıyor

On a rare tatil günü (holiday) from class, I crossed the Golden Horn and explored the areas around Eyüp and the city walls. As you can see, it was a perfect day for it.

Hoş geldiniz, günes!

Fishing seems to be a pretty democratic pastime in Istanbul. On sunny days, you'll find old men, young couples, even whole families casting their lines off of bridges, piers, or, in this case, the sidewalk, with empty yogurt tubs or water bottles full of wriggling fish behind them. My favorites are the iş adamılar (businessmen) in their suits, collars loosened and cigarettes dangling out of the sides of their mouths as they wile away their lunch hours.



And yes, this is the same city that was covered in snow 10 days ago.