Turkey
(again)
January13, 2017
to January 17, 2017
2017-01-13– FRIDAY- ISTANBUL-DAY 1
The man kisses us on
both cheeks.
Roman carts rumbled
along this street 2,000 years ago. We could speed along it in one of Istanbul’s
sleek silver trams, but we walk, following the tracks, window-shopping, the
rumble of history only slightly beyond hearing. We pass the stops for the Grand
Bazaar and Istanbul University, then turn away from the tracks at the lovely
Mosque of the Sultan's Mother and walk uphill, the Sea of Marmara at our backs.
Above, is a
neighborhood famous for restaurants and a rice and chicken dish drawing our
drool across Istanbul and one restaurant
best at it. If only we can find it.
Our directions from
friend Zeki are detailed, specific, clear lines on a map, and wrong. This is
not tourist territory. Clearly lost, we’re rescued by a stylish woman who
recognizes taste buds in extremis, understands what we two hungry looking
foreigners are here for, nods, smiles, turns us around, and walks with us a few
streets back the way we came, then semaphores directions way clearer than our
mapped ones, waves and goes back up the hill. Not a word passes between us.
Semaphored seaward,
then right, we hit the mother lode, a wide street with butchers and fruit
stalls down one side, open air restaurants on the other, bare trees down the
middle, and at the far end the perfectly preserved aqueduct built by Emperor
Valens in 373, arches atop arches. As a setting, it delivers.
Our 'famous restaurant'
is now a butcher shop. We cross under trees to the restaurant side, pick one at
random. Yes, they have 'perde pilavi'.
Take a mixture of rice,
cooked chicken, almonds, currants, and wispy spices. Wrap it into a turban of
thin dough, then bake it until the turban turns to gold. Slice it open and
serve it with several plates of salad: one of fresh coriander and lemon juice,
another of shredded lettuce and tomatoes, a third of a green, leafy wonder, and
the fourth, an exquisite confection of onions, tomatoes, garlic, chilis, all
finely chopped and dressed with olive oil, lemon juice. This is worth crawling
across Istanbul for.
Travelers don’t wander
into this neighborhood. Our waiter asks us where we come from, welcomes us.
Chairs scrape from
across the room as the only other eaters ready to leave. One stops, walks up to
us. We hear the question again. When we say,'America', he grabs our hands in
his, then captures us with his smile. 'I am Iranian. I am so happy to meet
you.' We tell him we have been to his country and had a wonderful experience
with his people. The smile widens. He thanks us, grabs our hands, and wishes us
safe travels back to his country.
Then, he kisses us on
both cheeks.
And that, boys and girls, is why we travel.
2017-01-14– SATURDAY- ISTANBUL-DAY 2
We sail into Asia.
If we count Madagascar
as 'Africa', as geographers do (but Malagasys do not), this is our third of
Earth's seven continents in 3 days. In two days we will add a fourth, North
America, too soon even after 55 days on the road.
We sail out of the
Golden Horn and across the Bosphorus. Beneath the ferry are three-foot swells,
above blue skies, deep in color and reach.
Istanbul, both European and Asian, shimmers all around us, mosques on all the
hills, minaret fingers pointing upwards at the sun.
Two years ago, in a
crowd watching the sunset over the surreal central Turkish landscape of
Cappadocia, we met Turkish Nüri, and his travel buddy, Venezuelan Diego. We’ve
stayed in touch, a friendship midwifed by Facebook and WhatApp. Today, Nüri
delivers the real thing, starting with hugs, racing through travel stories, and
resting over lamb köfte, then walking the streets of his neighborhood, Asian
Istanbul's charming 1930's Üsküdar. Nüri has a serious case of wanderlust,
somewhat assuaged at his job. He helps match up students who want to go abroad
to study English with schools offering short term English programs. Our radar
buzzes. Is something like this in our son's future?
By 4 we’re back in
Europe, heading north in Zeki's car to pick up Muzzeyyin and baby Yusef,
sharing the back seat with Yusef's car seat, and the road with most of
Istanbul's 16 million people. Ali, somehow (never made clear) Zeki's 'boss', is
driving. Correction. He is behind the wheel. As for the other ingredients
usually associated with driving... Hand? On phone. Attention? Occupied, filling
us in on events our last visit (twin daughters, impending migration to
Germany). Eyes? Left, right, up down,
anywhere but ahead. Ali is a totally non-observant Muslim. I’m hoping Allah
hasn’t noticed.
Dinner is Zeki's treat,
and, at our request, it’s scrumptious tintuni, a sort of Turkish soft flour
beef taco, and ayran, a cold yoghurt drink. We ooh and aah over the food. The
tintuuni chefs and rollers ooh and aah over Yusef, at 18 months, adorable,
flirtatious, and tireless. Muzzeyyin appreciates the break.
We’ve known Zeki for 4
or 5 years, from free roaming bachelor desk clerk, to besotted father and hotel
manager. This is our family's night out.
Zeki drops us off
outside of the old city to avoid the traffic. We slap our Istanbulkart on the
pad, get buzzed into the station, and run into the waiting tram. The familiar station names roll by, ours the
last before the tram rolls down the hills towards the sea. We cross the huge
park lit by colored fountains and bookended by two of the most magnificent
buildings on earth, the Blue Mosque, and Hagia Sofia. They’re floodlit. The
light catches seagulls, flitting feathered fireflies in the black. This spot
always stops us, never disappoints. Like Istanbul, it is magic.
Istanbul, and our friends here, have claimed us. We go
willingly. Lucky.
2017-01-15– SUNDAY- ISTANBUL-DAY 3
The sunrise
call from the mosque right next door opens our day. The sun, coward, opts out,
stays above the rain and cold, damp drear.
My ankle,
still a bit testy after yesterday’s unfortunate, twisty, semi-traverse of a
bottom step, suggests a day of rest would be a good idea. I listen. In 4 days I
have first rehearsals for my two appearances as a servant in Madama Butterfly.
The director wants a shuffler, not a limper. I’ve been Italian, French,
Cypriot, Spanish, Chinese, and Egyptian in 10 operas, and don’t want to miss
being Japanese in Number Eleven.
Our rainy
day unfolds inside, and couch bound, chatting with Sergei Ibragimov, Hotel
Peninsula's almost omnipresent Turkmen desk clerk. He speaks Turkmen, Turkish,
Russian, and rapidly improving English. (Italian is next, lessons courtesy of
his fiancée from Milan, subject of many conversations, all smile-driven.) He
has the time. Turkey’s tourist industry is in a nose dive. There are only a few
guests (UK, Russia, Algeria, and us). The streets are empty, the hotel windows
dark, the restaurants hurting, waitstaff staring into the rain. Even for the
winter low/slow season this is painful…and boring for people used to the
friendly hustle.
Sergei's
training is computer science, but there are no jobs in Turkmenistan. He took
this one to improve his English. So, we chat, and he tries to recover some
files that my chip reader ate.
Another call
to prayer marks the progress of the day.
For us, the call to prayer is a passage into the exotic, no more. In
some neighborhoods, like the one with our chicken and rice in a turban, but not
this one, men face Mecca, lay out prayer rugs, kneel. Non-observers respect
their space. They pass behind them, never in front. Here, in Sultanahmet, the
Old City, waiters lay tablecloths, rug sellers offer carpets on the sidewalks
in front of their shops, and take shelter indoors, not in the rituals of Islam.
Out for air, we walk past, respectful of their need for customers, but we’re
barely lookers, certainly not buyers.
Abel calls.
The connection is raspy and broken, but his energy makes it work. He has just
finished his final in Statistics and feels good about it. Double Dads are happy
and proud and tell him so. The details follow, and the Dads are rushed back
over half a century. He pulled an all-nighter, overslept, woke because a friend
called, did OK anyway. Dads dispense advice, but trust him to manage the run-up
to the next four exams, in Computer Science, Management, Calculus, English. My
eyes glaze over at the idea of a course in statistics. Calculus sends me round
the bend. I'm glad he doesn’t have my genes.
Across our
lane, Omer, charming 23-year old waiter at Rumist Café and Art Bistro, sits
under the ceiling heaters that drop warmth into the damp, twiddling his thumbs
over his phone, until we scoot across through the raindrops, twice. We’re the
only customers, the only people in sight at lunch (tender, moist chunks of
chicken, kebab-ed into perfection, and a tangy salad of raw sweet and sour red
cabbage), and dinner (pizza and Rumist's lentil soup, apotheosis of the lowly
bean). Omer works a dozen hours a day. The job has been a passport to his astonishingly
good colloquial English. He can stop passersby with hello in French, Spanish,
Italian, Chinese, Japanese. That smile and charm do the rest. Tonight, it’s
just us and the street cats.
And the call to prayer that ends the day.
2017-01-16– MONDAY- ISTANBUL-DAY 4
“Find me a
very, very, very, very, very nice one.”
Bariş laughs
and gives us our charge: 25 or so, open-minded and open to a family of 2 to 3
kids, smart, educated, film-buff, ….
Bariş is a
catch. Thirty-one, bachelor's in art history, working on a graduate degree in
political science and international relations, a current affairs and film buff,
he’s a great cook, good-looking of that dark-eyed, dark-haired, swarthy type
rampant in Turkey, with a slight Humphrey Bogart tough guy cast to his face,
that’s totally misleading, as was Bogie's. He is kind, sweet, generous, maybe
too much of all, according to our mutual friend Zeki, his college roommate.
People take advantage of him. To this history, Bariş laughs fully, and shrugs.
And he looks
good in jeans.
On our last
night in Istanbul we’re hunkered out of the cold rain in the lobby of the small
(and almost empty) hotel he manages. He's ordered in a favorite Kurdish fast
food he wants us to try. It's flat like a pizza, thin like a tortilla, an 18
inch by 10-inch soft canvas for a dusted mixture of tiny pieces of minced roast
lamb, tomatoes and spices. “You'll want two each, so I ordered three each,
regular for Dennis, spicy for us.” He squeezes fresh lemon juice, Turkey's
universal final touch. Ayran, thin yoghurt as soft drink, adds another layer of
flavor. I manage two and a half. “Tea!”
It’s not a question, never could be in Turkey. Bariş two-steps up three
floors to the rooftop terrace kitchen to brew and delivers huge mugs of
Turkey’s essential universal solvent. We sip.
Goodbye
isn’t easy, but Turkey’s gracious hug and two-cheeked semi-smooch is a salve on
our farewell. It will hold us until the next visit.
Istanbul
will never be just a spectacular skyline, superb food, minarets and the call to
prayer scraping the sky. Bariş, Zeki, his wife, Muzzeyyin, baby Yusef, Nüri,
Sergei are here.
We’ll be back. And,
maybe we’ll do our job for Bariş, very, very, very, very, very well.
2017-01-17– TUESDAY- ISTANBUL-TORONTO-MIAMI
At the
entrance of Turkey's Atatürk airport is a memorial listing the names of the
people killed in the terrorist attack in 2016.
Two security
checks, two passport checks, a long wait in a line of drowsy people that never
moves, a swipe of the explosive detection tissues through the backpack and
booty bag, and me from head to foot, a nice thank you, and we're through
pre-boarding for Air Canada flight 811. We don’t mind.
It’s cattle
class to Toronto, babies included at no extra charge, but better than a one-way
trip to oblivion.
We leave at
12:24, will fly 8200 kilometers in 10 hours, and arrive in North America two
hours after we leave Istanbul.
Hours later,
outside we’re skirting Nanortalik, Greenland. Inside I’m still trying watch a
movie I started over Ireland, a whole ocean ago.
My seat is
possessed.
Air Canada
deserves a Special Mention by the Bureau of Public Inconvenience for its aisle
width, and seat armrest design. The non-removable control for the excellent
seat back entertainment center is embedded in the armrest. I rest my arm. It
presses buttons. Sound explodes through the headphones, or evaporates, or
channels change, the system shuts off, springs back on.
There are
two solutions: sit with arms tight against my body, hands in the prayerful
position that brings back memories of my year in Catholic school and of Sister
Mary We’ll Have None of That Nonsense Marie. The second choice is to put a
pillow between my arm and my possessed demon spawn control. Stifling works.
But. And butt. A big one. Every time one
of the broad-beamed flight attendants, wide as two Ninas and a Pinta, sails
down the narrow aisle that butt hits the pillow and/or the arm, and devil spawn
escapes. Channels fly, volume soars or sinks. My movie has become a TV series
delivered piecemeal. ‘Tune in next t… bump… for the excit…'
I give up.
There is more interesting drama going on between my seat mate and the flight
attendant.
“May I have
a Canadian customs form.”
“Kleenex are
in the restroom"
“Uh, no, a
Canadian customs form.”
“Beer?”
“Uh no, a
Canadian customs form.”
“Okay.”
The flight
attendant turns, sails on. I grab my pillow, too late. Devil spawn returns.
My seatmate
shrugs, gives up. I never see if his customs form ever appears. My pillow stays
put, so I doubt it.
Air Canada
Flight 811 has dropped enough stars to be recognized as a meteor shower.
We’re over
Labrador, first landfall in North America. Two more hours to Toronto, a 2-hour
plane switch, 3 hours south to Miami, overnight there, three hours to Nokomis,
another two hours to drop the rental car at the airport…and we’ll be properly
home.
And so, we
return. What are our first impressions? Really dependable hot water and water
safe to drink from the tap are really nice. But my overall reaction is how
packaged, wrapped, plastic-ec, sterile everything seems. It’s as if we are
afraid of the real world.
I miss
seeing life being lived, not avoided.
