Tag Archives: family

Raise your Glass

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Happy Anniversary.  No.  Not my wedding anniversary.  That was back in February which, of course, both The Turk and I forgot.  No this celebration marks the first year of the rest of my life.  My new life.  In Turkey.  To be honest, I didn’t think we would make it, I mean just buying toilet paper can be difficult at times.  But we have survived unscathed to tell the tale.  Mostly.

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Today is also the day that The Turk leaves for Australia.  Yes one year ago today we arrived in Turkey and now one year later The Turk is leaving.  Just for a short time.  We hope.  I think.  He is tying up some loose ends over there but I suspect he will enjoy the First World lifestyle and I will probably have to go and bring him back (or not).

It has been a year of growth, not just for me but for Daughter too.  Immersing herself in a new language, a new school and new friends.  She has grown too.  She is so tall now.  Those long legs will never quit.  She is more beautiful now if that is at all possible.  The Turk wants to keep a cricket bat at the front door to swat at the boys that will no doubt soon come to call.  I had to remind him that it is doubtful that we will even find a cricket bat here in Mersin (or in Turkey for that matter).  And now she can swear in two languages (actually three as she can swear in Italian too – a proud parent am I).

The challenges of living in Mersin have been real and raw and exhausting.  Dealing with homesickness, Turkish bureaucracy (read that as Turkish bullshit), school struggles, family loss, culture shock and everything else that comes along with moving to the other side of the world has brought me closer to the edge of insanity than I thought I would ever reach.  My first trip by myself to the supermarket is a memory best forgotten.  Or a spider bite that resulted in my needing 12 shots to survive (what the??) and my numerous, read that as hundreds, of trips to the Emniyet and Nufus to try and get visa’s, a kimlik and citizenship.  Holy crap!  Turkey will knock you for a six!

I must say I thank goodness for blogging.  I can get my crazy out here, with you, rather than taking it out on others.  You can either read it or, if you are sick of my rant, you simply close the page (after you “like” it of course).  Easy.

Thank you to each of you who have supported us in our journey so far.  I have made some great friends on here in the blogging world, people that I would never had had the opportunity to get to know unless I did write my blog.  I have also found some real friends here in Mersin, expats like myself thrown into the deep end of hell trying to survive each day.

So let’s raise your glass – Şerefe!

 

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Satan called. He wants his weather back!

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It is seriously 10,000 degrees here in Mersin at the moment.  I am trapped in hell, sitting in my underwear right in front of my air conditioner which is about to pack it in under the pressure.  It is trying to give me what I want.  I need it.  I want it.  I feel like it is nearly there then – nothing.  It packs it in.  Someone came too soon and it wasn’t me!

hot sun

Loyal followers of this blog (and personal friends) will know that I pretty much spend all my winter months whinging about the damn cold.  I complained like a whingy feck.  “I can’t wait until summer,” I cried.  “I’m going to swim.  I’m going to swim at the beach every damn day”.  Well no I’m fecking not swimming in that cesspool that is the Village beach and no I am not taking 3 buses to get to the first clean beach outside of Mersin.  Feck my life!

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I definitely did not sign up for this kind of heat.  This day in and day out never ending hell that is the Village in the middle of summer.  You can’t go outside.  The sun will turn you into ash.  Armageddon heat.  Fire ants on crack heat.  I am thinking of spraying “Norsca” in my stairwell turning it into a Swedish sauna because that’s what it fecking feels like when I walk out my front door!  Don’t get me wrong.  I do make an effort to get out of the house.  All the time but then I step out into the Swedish sauna that is my stairwell, my brain starts to swell, my shoes start to melt and when I come to I find myself lying on the couch watching an episode of Ellen – the same episode of Ellen.  Very Groundhog Day.  Am I going to be forced to relive this hellfire summer until I do it right, Groundhog style?  I bloody hope not.

Incidentally there are a few shows here in English with Turkish subtitles but can someone tell me why I seem to watch the same show of Ellen every couple of weeks.  It’s got those two extremely obnoxious little English girls “Fatty and Rosie”.  I don’t know their names – wait I lie.  The little blonde girl is named Rosie.  She is the cute one that lip syncs or mimes.  She is the one that won’t need therapy while the other one who I have called Fatty sings, or tries to sing.  When she is older and realises how her parents have exploited her – she will definitely be spending her earnings in therapy.  How is this entertainment?  My mind tends to block it all out but they are on the show with Vince Vaughan who is probably trying to contact his agent to scream, “Why the feck am I on with these two fecking brats?  How low have I fallen down the ladder of Hollywood power?”  He is also probably wondering why he has never won an Oscar.

Back to my story.  Yes the heat.  Its fecked!

Too hot to sleep at night so I find that I have become a night crawler.  I leave the house around 10 pm with My Hurley Dog (aka The Terminator) and we troll the streets, waving to people we know and hoping to not draw attention to myself to those that we do not (after all the heat does bring the crazy out in most people).  It’s too hot for My Hurley Dog to walk throughout the day anyway.  He would rather hold his poop in until November than go outside and poop with the hot sun beating down on him.  I mean it, literally plug his butt than walk outside in this white scalding heat.  He was not designed to live in this relentless, torturous, horrid heat.  He has had yet another terrible haircut which he is totally embarrassed about.  To top it off he was attacked yesterday by two – yes two – mamma cats who ganged up on him when he went over to congratulate them on the birth of their babies.  Those bitches!  The Turk was so angry that he threw a bucket of water on the mamma cats but missed and mostly the water landed on My Hurley Dog.  I don’t think he minded though because it’s too feking hot!

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Speaking of The Turk, he has taken to sleeping on the tiled terrace in his underwear.  Daughter went out there a couple of nights ago to find him stark naked.  She came running in shielding her eyes and squealing, “What has been seen, cannot be unseen!”  Once I convinced her to not gouge out her eyes she returned to her bedroom to sleep.  A new house rule is that the Turk will always wear his underwear now.

The only one of us to doesn’t seem to give a shit about the heat is My Kedi Cat.  He no longer lives with us.  He lives in the front garden or by the front door with Evil, only coming in to eat.  He refuses to eat cat food and so I find myself cutting up pieces of steak or chicken to satisfy this bitch cat that I dragged all the way from Australia who hates my guts!  My Kedi Cat spends his days being primped by Evil (his only love) and attacking other cats who venture too close to our front door.  I sometimes see him when I am on my late night walk a couple of blocks away wandering around looking for something to kill.  He ignores me though.  Hate that cat!

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So that is today’s rant.  I am supposed to go downstairs and help make bread with the ladies.  I don’t want to unless I can go down there in my underwear but The Turk vetoed that idea.  Well if I cannot go down there in my underwear then I want to stay right where I am in front of my poor, groaning air conditioner until either it or I give up for good!

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Turkish Housewife Failure

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I had nothing but good intentions when we first moved here.  I was going to amaze with my cracking culinary skills, real food too not all this Turkish stuff day in and day out.  I was going to make lemon meringue pies, electrify the family tastebuds with my beef wellington and delight them with my knockout gnocchi.  I brought at least 10 cook books with me including a Turkish cookbook – how could I go wrong?  I also intended to keep the house spick and span.  I was going to iron my sheets (my mum used to do that).  I was going to dust away the dust bunnies and my home was going to look like it had come out of a Better Homes and Gardens catalogue – after all I did have a lot of free time.

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Good intentions mean shit when you realise that you can’t cook and you hate cleaning.  I was not designed to be a housewife but even more troubling is I was definitely not designed to be a Turkish Housewife!  They put the super size into every meal and super freak into their cleaning.  Who needs to be like that anyway?

The other morning my teyzer (aunt) arrived as I was making breakfast and she gave me a lesson in boiling eggs.  Truly.  It’s a feking egg for Christ’s sake, “how hard can it be?”  Well it seems I have been doing it wrong for all these years so I sat back and let her boil my eggs (that sounds a lot dirtier than it should).  “Ello darlin’, come here and I’ll boil ya eggs for ya!”  After she boiled my eggs she showed me how to cut up a cucumber.  Yes really.

And it is not just my cooking skill that requires lessons on how to be a better Turkish housewife.  More than once I have had my sister in law turns up uninvited to clean my windows because she could see the hand prints from her home.  Really?  I have also had my neighbour come knocking on my door to show me how to do my laundry as my washing drying in the sunshine did not look clean enough from her garden.  Um, thanks.

Well it seems that I will never make any of the ladies in the village happy with my housewife skills.  Frankly I am surprised that they haven’t taken The Turk aside and given him a speech about how bad of a wife I really am. 

“Maybe they have?” questions my inner demons.

Well maybe I don’t care!

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Elektrik ve sürprizler

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The good people of Icel are not sharing nicely and now it seems we are running out of electricity.  I am not sure how a city (or in this case a province) runs out of electricity but in order to control the said good people of Icel (and maybe to teach them a lesson in sharing) they have all been put in the naughty corner by the local Electric Company who has decided to switch off the electricity to teach everyone a lesson (although they are calling it maintenance).  

Not only are they switching it off in the middle of summer they are switching it off in the middle of the day so for the next week (with the expected weekly average of 35 degree – that’s 90 degrees for readers in the US – in temperature) the electricity will be turned off for a period of 4 hours each day between the hours of 9 to 5.  You don’t know when.  It will be a surprise. 

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Speaking of surprises I find that my house is a revolving door.  There is always people coming and going.  Family, friends, neighbours.  It can get on your last nerve when you hear the door bell (which is an annoying tune of Greensleeves) constantly blasting.  Last night we had Kemal’s aunt visit and then a cousin.  Then his sister in law, brother and their two kids showed up.  His elder brother popped up to give me some paperwork (for my fiasco of a residency visa application) and finally . . . it was quiet.  When suddenly that damn doorbell rang again!  Enough!

“Kim o?” (“Who is it?) 

Again.  “Kim o?”

Nothing.  I have had enough.  I put on my shoes and stomp down the stairs to give the visitor the death stare when . . . sürpriz!  A friend and her family visiting from the UK.  Wow!  They are staying in the village with her husband’s family for the next two weeks!  I can honestly say I have never been so happy to see someone.  Not only does it mean I am not the only yabanci in the village it also means there is someone with possibly even less Turkish in the village than me!  Win, win!

They are coming for a BBQ tonight which will be amazing of course but I warned her “Don’t ring the door bell.  Knock on the door!”

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Dog Tired

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Growing up in a very small family we did not have the social interaction that I have now in Turkey.  There was just me, my brother, my Mum and Dad.  Just the four of us.  On occasion we socialised with our neighbours or with a few close family friends but the constant of social activity just did not exist in my world.  Even as an adult I still lived by that creed.  I would socialise with my family, my neighbours or a few close family friends.  

Now I find myself in what could possibly be described as a nightmare.  A never ending party.  Do not get me wrong – I love a good party.  I love a night out.  I love going to my friend’s house or to a neighbour’s house for dinner but I also need time for me.  Oh and I need to sleep too.

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No one ever seems to sleep here.  They are up at the crack of dawn (which suits me as I am usually up very early too – residual from my time working in a law firm) but as I get up early I like to retire early.  I like to watch a show, read a good book and then lights out by 10.  Some would call me “dull”.  I call myself “sensible”.  Your body needs a good 8 hours sleep after all.

With Seker Bayrami in full swing the last few days has been filled with social activity.  I have been to parties, visiting family, visiting friends, visiting cemeteries.  I have been to BBQ’s.  I have been to the beach.  Two restaurants and even a club.  I find myself going out for ice cream each night (but not before midnight) and I have not gone to bed before 3 or 4 am.  

This is not me.  I don’t know who this is but it is definitely not me.  I am shattered.  Dog tired.  I need some quiet time and I look around me at these happy, smiling faces and ask myself, “How on earth do these people keep doing this day after day after day?”  In particular the kids.  None of them go to bed before midnight.  Young or old they all stay up until whenever and run around in the darkness.  Daughter looks like hell.  Honestly.  Her and her cousins stay up all night watching movies, giggling and gossiping.  She just left now on her bike to go to a friend’s house.  She was in tears.  She was Miss Cranky Pants.  She will not admit to being tired but she is.  She stubbornly won’t listen to me or to The Turk and she pushes herself to keep up with everyone but I can see the outcome.  She is going to crash and burn.  Probably soon and I don’t think I want to be around when Daughter has her meltdown.  

I can hear The Turk talking with his sister downstairs.  They want to walk to their Aunt’s house for cay.  Yes!  Go.  Take your time.  Stay all afternoon if you like for I am going to sleep.

Goodnight.

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Festival of Sweets

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The month long fast of Ramazan concludes with a three day national holday of Ramazan Bayrami (Arabic – Eid al-Fitr) and is one of the Islamic calendar’s major holidays.  This three day holiday is full of family time, fun and food! 

Ramazan Bayrami is, of course, a religious celebration.  It is a festival to restore oneself after the fasting and growth of Ramazan.  It is also called Seker Bayrami (Festival of Sweets) and the number one thing that I have learnt is to have sweets on hand.  Lots and lots of sweets.  This is to fulfil the tradition of children going around the neighbourhood wishing people a happy bayram.  As a reward they receive a sweet, a lolly or even a coin. seker

We too would visit family members and in particular the older generation.  We kiss their hand and place it on our forehead as is custom to show respect.  We greet them with “Bayrammiz Kutlu”.  We also take time to visit those who are deceased and visit the cemetery as a sign of respect.

As it is a national holiday everyone in the family has been at home which means we have had a lot of BBQ’s and outings as a group.  These few days reminds me of how Christians would celebrate Christmas and I must say that Seker Bayrami is definitely high on my list of excellent fun in Turkey. 

Be aware that during any national holiday most shops, banks and government offices are closed and leading up to Bayram the shopping centres and banks are overflowing with people stocking up on everything they will need over the coming festival days.  There is also a lot of people on the roads with family members travelling great distances to visit loved ones.  Intercity buses are packed and public transport operates on a holiday schedule so you may find yourself waiting some time for a dolmus (I know I did).  

The Return

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Daughter and I have finally settled back in from our holiday in Australia.  Visiting Australia.  I was a visitor, a tourist if you must, visiting the place of my birth and what I have learnt from this visit?  I learnt that Sydney and Australia is a fecking beaut place to live.

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Mother nature did us a major and the weather was sensational.  It didn’t rain.  It didn’t even think about raining.  Beautiful, albeit cold, winter days.  Every day.  Fresh air.  Lush gardens.  Grass.  GRASS!  We are the only people in the Village with grass in our garden.  Grass is, of course, seen as a luxury item as everyone else utilises every inch of their land.  Deli yabanciler (crazy foreigners).

It was nice to not be on the cusp of a war zone too staying in beachside Collaroy.  Yes I gloss over Syria and its issues but Mersin is approximately 150k from the Syrian border.  We are safe obviously or I would not even think about living here but there is always an underlying threat, the knowledge I guess, that we are not too far from an area of such unrest.  Plus there is the whole Israel-Palestinian issue, the Middle East is a powder keg ready to blow and even Ukraine to the north is a mess.  Bloody hell!

Friends and family of course.  Obviously Australia wins on this front as well.  I am blessed to have some of the best friends in the world.  Friends that are always there with open arms.  What I wouldn’t do for one more boozy lunch or one more hug from my girls.  Of course this is difficult for Daughter as she has her family, her cousins that she adores, in the Village.  She has many friends in the Village but for me Sydney and Australia will win every single time.

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Speaking of boozy lunches I don’t think you can beat an Aussie Red.  Australian wines really are some of the best in the world.  I would go so far as saying that Turkish wine is swill at best and really, really expensive!

Medical care wins in Australia over Turkey as well (well duh!).  Australia has Government facilitated Medicare and even though you pay through the tooth for many things (including the dentist) visiting the doctor here is a much easier process (mainly because everyone speaks English).  So I am now drugged up for the next 12 months (my medicine cabinet is overflowing) and I have been poked and prodded and given a clean bill of health.

Shopping was a bonus too for me in Sydney.  My Rubenesque physique is now adorned in new clothes.  Oodles of new clothes.  I no longer need to wear the same jeans every single day.  My credit card did take a beating and we did have to send home 10 kilos by post but at least I now have an outfit for any occasion which is a good thing as we have at least 4 weddings to go to over the coming weeks.  Daughter’s opinion differs on this front as well as the styles in Turkey are a lot more varied and on trend.  For Daughter clothing in Turkiye is also a LOT cheaper as well.

Bacon.  Ding!  Ding!  Ding!  Winner!!!  Lots of exclamation points here.  Yes.  Bacon.  That is all.

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Sydney did have a few downsides too.  It was so damn expensive.  Food was expensive.  Clothing was expensive.  Petrol was expensive (actually petrol is expensive in Turkey too).  I guess I have had it too cushy here in Turkey with 50 kuruş for 1 kilo of tomatoes (about AU$0.25) while they were AU$4.50 in Sydney (TL9).  Plus the fresh food is not particularly fresh.  Ick!

Peak hour traffic did my head in too.  What a bloody mess.  We had a few early morning starts and fighting my way from the Northern Beaches to the City was diabolical to say the least.  It was nice to be behind the wheel again although my first few attempts at parking were a little less than successful.  Daughter likened my parking skills to a Turkish person so I really have acclimated haven’t I?

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I think I can sum Sydney up as “Real Life”.  My friends are all working.  My family are all busy (some might say too busy to find the time to see me or even call).  The cost of living is high and the stress levels are even higher.  I know that if I too were living in Sydney I would be working.  My stress levels would be off the chart (visiting my old place of work proved that beyond the shadow of a doubt) and Daughter, The Turk and I would be miserable.  Real life sux!

The Village also has another bonus (well along with The Turk).  It has My Hurley Dog.  I love My Hurley Dog.  I missed My Hurley Dog and he missed me!

Hurley

 

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Tale of Two Cities

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It seems that I am an expat caught between my two loves, Sydney and Mersin.  I have always felt distinctly at home in Mersin but returning to Sydney, my homeland, has brought back dwindling thoughts, self doubt and mixed feelings.

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I definitely loved my time in Sydney and Daughter and I hit the ground running.  We found ourselves with a frantic social life during our visit and it became increasingly difficult to fit in all my friends when I had to share my precious, precious time with Daughter and all of her social activities.  I swear since stepping off the plane her damn mobile did not stopped beeping, buzzing or ringing with her friends constantly arranging visits, movies, lunches, sleepovers and any other activity that you can think of. The squeals and “Oh. My. God’s” that I have had to endure has been soul numbing.  I guess I don’t really notice the squeals and “Oh. My. God’s” when they are in Turkish.

Fitting everything in required precision timing.  Morning, lunch and evening slots were allocated.  Daughter likened this “holiday” to a business trip with us running from one meeting to another.  I have missed out on catching up with a few friends that I really wanted to see and I quickly realised that 3 weeks in Sydney is just is not enough time.  Friends that live on the other side of Sydney or friends that live just up the coast missed out and I feel incredibly sad.  I am thinking of two of my friends in particular right now but honestly we just ran out of time. Plus I got sick.  I am still sick.  Damn flu. Damn sickness.  Damn it!

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Have I had my bacon?  Yep.  Practically every day.  I think I have put on 4 kilos.  It feels like 8 kilos.  We did have a bacon situation that practically caused an international incident at a restaurant in The Rocks that caused Daughter to update her Facebook status thusly:

Made with Repix (http://repix.it)

We have also done a few touristy things which is nice.  It reminds me just how wonderful Sydney is.  It reminds me just how much I miss this beautiful city.

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It has been a frantic few weeks.  It has been a wonderful few weeks.  Early breakfasts, brunches and lunches, dinners and sleepovers.  I could go on.  It has been impossibly fun.  I need to go home to Mersin for a holiday from our holiday.

Now our time in Sydney has just about come to an end.  I am becoming increasingly forlorn and not just because I cannot fit everything into our suitcases.  I just want one more lunch, one more drink, one more chorus.   I am an expat torn between two loves.

 

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Birthday

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The most important event that took place in Turkey this past weekend was Daughter’s birthday party.  Her birthday is not actually until next week but as we will be in Sydney it was imperative that we threw her “the party of the season” before we left.

Alright I can do this, after all I have thrown 11 other birthdays for her so one in the Village can’t be that different.  I did, however, give myself a sneaky lesson in Turkish birthday etiquette while recently attending her cousins 10th birthday.  It is clear that birthdays are not huge events here even though Daughter considers it should be “the party of the season”.  Here in the village a birthday is celebrated with family, a cake and maybe a few balloons.  Easy.

Sunday morning I was up early cleaning the house.  Daughter had had a sleepover the night before and they attempted an all-nighter so she was as grumpy as a toothless troll in the morning.  I threw her in the shower to wake her up and sent the girls downstairs for breakfast (there were kids everywhere on Sunday morning so I took advantage of my sister in law who had arrived from Adana the day before to feed the masses).

The Turk and I left to get the cake and a few last minute items and when we returned less than 15 minutes before the party was due to begin we arrived to find Daughter had turned our living room into a balloon pool.  She had blown up every single balloon in my “Mega-bag” of balloons that I recently purchased at Metro for the bargain basement  price of 10TL.  That means close to 200 balloons were blown up.  It was crazy.  There was also music blasting, the Wii was set up and the piñata that I had put away (as I considered that it fell under the heading of “ostentatious”) was now hanging in the garden downstairs.

Cousins arrived.  Friends arrived.  More friends arrived.  Chaos ensued.  Music blasted (I think I heard Adriana Grande’s hit “Problem” about 20 times).  Cake was eaten.  Pinata was destroyed.  Balloons were popped (and one eaten by My Hurley Dog).

Here are a few snaps from the party.  If you are wondering the significance of the “A” it is a reference to Daughter’s favourite television show, “Pretty Little Liars”.  Only 3 days until the Season premiere people – I know this as Daughter has been counting it down for weeks now.  Will we find out who “A” is?  Only time will tell.

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Was this considered the “party of the season”?  Yes, yes it was.  I have also fallen into the category of “Coolest Mum Ever” with Daughter’s friends which sits well with me because it is true!

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Take-away

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Do you remember getting take-away when you were a kid.  I do.  We would go to the fish and chip shop up at Narraweena.  We would get fish and chips (duh), hamburgers and potato scallops.  It was always amazing.  Because it was take-away.  Food is always better when you don’t have to cook it.  Then home delivery became an option and my culinary world exploded.  Chinese food!  Wow.  I really am a kid from the 1970’s aren’t I?

Here in Mersin take-away and home delivery is certainly an option.  They have Dominos that delivers as well as Hungry Jacks (which is a disgusting thought).  Many of the little restaurants here in the Village also home deliver and on occasion The Turk has had people knock on the door at odd hours delivering huge bags of food but I have not felt the need to partake – until now.

A couple of nights back The Turk decided it was too hot to cook (it is definitely warming up here in Mersin – I expect I will be complaining about the heat to you sometime soon) so he made a couple of calls and arrange for home delivery.  I was excited.  What would it be?  Obviously Turkish food, no option there but Turkish food could mean practically anything.

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Two hours (!) later and Daughter and I were getting a little edgy.  The Turk is well aware that if I do not eat at my allotted hour I become quite the bitch, well add Daughter into the mix and we were both chomping at the bit for dinner.  Finally a young boy arrived carrying an abundance of food that could have fed a whole army.  He firstly handed over two bags which contained Kiymali pide, Peynir pide, salads, freshly baked bread, rice and Ayran.  Then he disappeared back down the stairs returning with the largest clay plate of Kağit Kebabi I have ever seen.  This huge plate with a circumference of 60 cm was filled with lamb, mushrooms, eggplant and handfuls of spice.  Holy moly this was a feast.  Total cost 25TL (about AU$13).

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Was it worth the 2 hour wait?  Oh.  My.  God.  Yes.  This was a taste sensory overload.  Possibly the best thing I have ever put in my mouth (don’t be dirty).