Horse Poop, Rocks and the Dating Game

It's one of life's little truths: it's just not a beach without sand.

With my gastric-intestinal distress behind me (hooray for Imodium!), I headed for Buyukada today, one of several islands off the coast of the city. Together, these islands are known as the Princes' Islands and have a reputation for scenic beaches and streets. Interestingly, aside from a few municipal vehicles, there are no cars on the islands. Consequently, the islands are quiet and smell strongly of horse poop.

It takes almost two hours by ferry to reach Buyukada. Sunday is the day to visit the islands -- arrive less than thirty minutes before ferry departure time and you're not getting a seat. No matter. I have a miraculous ability to fall asleep anywhere and my spot on the stairs was no exception.

When we arrived on the island, things were still going as expected. Scenic? Check. Lack of motor vehicles? Check. Smelly horses? Check check check. So we boarded a carriage pulled by one of the aforementioned farm animals, paid our 6 lira fare and headed to the nearest beach... which just so happened to charge 20 lira a head for entrance and prohibited outside food and drink. Somewhat disappointed and more than a little irked, we found a shady spot off the side of the car-less road and set up our picnic. Admittedly, the sidewalk is an unorthodox place for lunch. But this is Turkey, where public spaces are used for seemingly everything; I saw two old men playing chess between two parallel parked cars last week. Compared to that, three American women picnicking off the curb shouldn't be so strange as the Turkish passers-bye seemed to think it was.

Chatting with the locals revealed that there is in fact a free beach on the island. So we headed back in the direction of the ferry, found a beachy looking grandma-grandchild pair and followed them to the public beach.

...The sand-less public beach. In fact, there wasn't even grass to speak of. But there was trash. And slime. Maria and I were out of the water almost as soon as we were in it.

Like the water in the Bosporus, the Marmara is cold and choppy. This particular area was also dirty. Hardly the resort atmosphere we had anticipated during our ferry ride. I don't want it to sound all bad though: even if rocks aren't sand, they are good for lounging about and drying off. I found a nice, big flat one, waved good-bye to Maria who was off to explore for a bathroom and refocused -- water, splashing children, a beautiful view -- it wasn't what I expected, but nevertheless it did have some redeeming qualities. I got twenty-minutes of relaxation before the man who had been lurking since I got out of the water sat down on the rock beside me. I am always torn when this happens: one the one hand, I want to speak Turkish with Turks. On the other, I am tired of playing the Turkish dating game, answering the same questions over and over with the same answers. This conversation, like the others, went like this (although in Turkish, obviously):

Hello! Where are you from?
Hi.... (I ignored his question)
Do you speak English?
Yes, but I also speak Turkish.
Oh, good good. How old are you?
I don't think that's important.
Why are you in Turkey?
I am studying at Bosporus University.
Where are you from? Germany? England?
I don't think that's important either.
Why won't you tell me? I just want to know...
You know I speak Turkish and am a student. I think that's all you need to know right now.
So you won't tell me where you live? Tell me about yourself... have tea with me? What is your name? I love girls with white skin. You have such white skin. Is this your first time in the sun? You are very beautiful.
....thanks....
Have tea with me?
You know, I really just want to sit here. I am waiting for a friend.
A boy friend?
[lying] Yes in fact.
Will he hit me? Will he be very angry?
No, I don't think so.
[More awkward questions ensue, Turkish man's friend begins looking over at me... Maria still isn't back...]
Well it was nice meeting you! [walk away]
[Various protests, invariably including "But when will I see you again?"]

The whole conversation sounds benign, I know. But it would never happen between a Turkish man and woman who didn't know one another. This kind of attention is reserved for obviously foreign woman and often makes the city feel like a construction site. While Turks who know one other are overtly affectionate, strangers are just as overtly formal. It is not appropriate for a man to begin asking a woman on the street questions like, "where are you from?", it's just not the way gender relations work here. So the beach incident was but a variation on a theme, only this time I was half-naked. Whatever -- I got 20-molestation free minutes to watch the salty water splash against the rocks and the clouds roll by over-head. It's hard to complain too much about an afternoon on a Mediterranean shore, even if it does lack sand.