Two weeks in review

Since my arrival in Istanbul two weeks ago, I've moved three times. While I appreciate the convenience of rolling suitcases, I'm happy that my days as a wanderer (Anatolian nomad?) are over. I'm finally settled in at the consulate apartments in Etiler, the same neighborhood I lived last summer.

When I tell people you could fit my Austin apartment in the kitchen of this unit, I'm only exaggerating a little. I once read that Hitler's office in the Fuhrerbau was so big that it took five minutes for a person to walk from the door to his desk. Hitler's office and my living room have this in common -- the room is big enough to roller skate in. Since I left my roller skates at home, I'm thinking it's a perfect place for a dance party. There are five more rooms, three baths and two patios that face the Bosporus. The family who lived here was recently transferred to a different post, which means I get to squat in this enormous unit until the next family arrives (conveniently several days after my departure for the states).

View from my kitchen porch. Appreciate your tax dollars at work -- the USG pays over $100,000 a year to rent a single unit at this property.

Before dragging my belongings to my current manse, I stayed a week with the brother ["The Engineer"] of a Turkish friend I met in Austin. The Engineer has a small apartment in Şişli and was kind enough to provide me with a place to sleep until the consulate found me earth-quake safe housing. He's also a great host -- last Saturday we spent a lovely day walking around Ortaköy and Üsküdar before eating an amazing meal on the Bosporus. I had never eaten in a restaurant so nice that even the lemons got dressed up.

Mr. and Mrs. Lemon, the wedding

The dramatic Ortaköy mosque

Yeni Valide Mosque (1710), Üsküdar

Yesterday, the Engineer took me to Kelios, a town on the Black Sea (unfortunately, there are no pictures from yesterday owing to the abundance of camera destroying elements at the beach). Some of you may remember my unfortunate experiences with sand-less Turkish beaches, but yesterday was perfect. The Black Sea is clear and cold. The sand it orangey-brown, littered with rocks and shells. Ships waiting to pass through the Bosporus -- almost 30 of them -- filled the horizon. And the food was amazing: an open buffet composed almost entirely of my favorite Turkish foods. We left the beach in the early evening and wandered through Yeniköy, a Bosporus side neighborhood. The day ended on the Marmara Sea in Kadaköy. For the record, that's every body of water in the Istanbul area.

Hoş Geldiniz!

After two years of Turkish class, I felt moderately confident about traveling to Turkey, and you know, maybe even trying to talk to some of the people living there. After tossing around some greetings and thank yous though, two things -- and by things, I mean significant barriers to communication -- became very clear. First, classroom Turkish is not real Turkish. "Your father has beautiful eyes" nicely illustrates a double genitive construction but doesn't help get lost luggage out of Munich to Istanbul. Second, the problem with actually revealing that you (an American!) speak Turkish is that it causes people to speak Turkish back very, very quickly.

Welcome to Istanbul.

My introduction to the city began in a neighborhood named Ortakoy. Following my misguided adventure in beef tongue sandwiches (I blame jet lag for my brief lapse in vocabulary pertaining to anatomy) a handful of us set out to see the Bosporus, chase stray cats, drink Turkish beer and otherwise conspicuously mark ourselves as Americans. Sunday is market day in Turkey (aptly named "Pazar") -- Ortakoy's streets were lined with vendors wares ranging from beaded curtains to tea sets. Oh, and rabbit hair bracelets. Or at least what I thought were rabbit hair bracelets made from hair combed from these incredibly sedate rabbit families. Further Internet research revealed that these rabbits are actually regarded as fortune tellers. And while this doesn't explain their un-rabbit like behavior -- marked absence of hopping about, ear twitching, bunny sex, etc. -- it perhaps makes about as much sense as bracelets woven out of combed rabbit hair.

When I returned to my hotel room later that night I was greeted by a Turkish wedding taking place immediately below my window. Virginia (my roommate) and I eagerly assumed our front row seats and watched the madness, complete with Aretha Franklin renditions and strobe lights, unfold. The wedding was so loud it might as well have been in the room. Night two in Ortakoy brought a simialar scene on the patio below our window. Virginia didn't quite make it all the way under the bed when the first celabratory firework went off, but she definately had all vital body parts under cover. I may or may not have fallen out of my chair. I maintain that these reactions are natural among students of international relations. And, well, dogs.