Tag Archives: Turkiye

What’s Mine is now Yours

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Now I don’t know what the correct etiquette is in this situation but let me tell you a story and perhaps you, my dear and favoured readers, can give me some advice.

Over the past six months I have been photographing my zeytin ağaci (olive tree) in my garden with the intent of showing my olives growth, change of colour, harvest and finally the curing of my olives.

The past few weeks I have been keeping a close eye on the olives as they were looking pretty good and, in fact, I asked The Turk prior to him leaving for Oz as to when I should harvest.  “Give it two weeks,” was his reply.

Done.

So today I went out to my olive tree, my big beautiful olive tree and … my olives have been pilfered!  How is this possible?  How did I not notice that the olives were gone?  I mean I must be pretty oblivious sitting here typing away on the computer and not hearing or seeing what is no doubt going on right under my nose.

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I feel violated.  Robbed of what could potentially be my best blog post.  I had researched the best way to cure olives and also researched some quick solutions for curing (including fast curing in the oven).  I was going to bring you some amazing pieces about my olives but now I have hiçbir şey (nothing at all).

After some nosing around I found out that my sister in law harvested the olives last weekend and has already begun the curing process.  Next year then.

But let’s just look at my olive tree over the months shall we?  April – little tiny buds.  Spring has sprung and the olives are just starting to push through to reach that precious, precious sunshine.  May – I can see it, there will be olives.  They will no doubt be delicious because I am going to cure them and make them my own.  June – yep, keep it coming little olives.  I see you are trying your hardest to be the biggest, juiciest olives ever seen in the Village.  July – I think you WILL be the biggest, juiciest olives ever seen not just in the Village but in all of Turkiye.  Champion olives!  And finally August – you will soon be in my tummy!  Or not!

Don’t fret though gentle readers I still have my biber salçası (pepper sauce) that is currently drying out in the sunshine upstairs.  I will give you a blow by blow account of that soon enough (assuming someone doesn’t swipe my sauce under the cover of night).

So what do you think I should do?  Let it go?  Say something?  I am at an impasse.  I know, I know I will have many opportunities to cure my olives and I appreciate that my sister in law was trying to help but I really wanted to try and do this myself.  Bilmiyorum.

As easy as “bir, iki, üç”

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With Daughter now back at the village school and with The Turk in the Land Down Under I find that some spare time on my hands.  What to do?  What to do?  I could lie in the sunshine and work on my tan?  Or I could go for lunch at the Marina or Forum with friends?  Nah.  I need to do something constructive with my free time and so I decided on having some private Turkish lessons with Daughter’s Turkish tutor.

Daughter’s tutor is a cousin of a cousin of a cousin or something and is absolutely a delight.  She was recommended to us by an English teacher from one of the private schools in Mersin but we seriously hit the payload when we realised that she was related and not just some random teacher.  Bonus!  Her enthusiasm to teach Daughter has made it a breeze for her to pick up the language and Daughter loves her because she is young, beautiful and funky.  She and Daughter bonded over their mutual love of Starbucks and shopping!  If only all teachers could be Ipek!

I admit that hang my head in shame knowing that I have been in the country for over a year and my Turkish is still ridiculously bad.  I had every intention of enrolling at Mersin University and taking Turkish classes (also a great way to meet other expats) but the idea of making my way on two buses at the crack of dawn 4 days a week did not inspire me to learn.  I had also assumed that immersing in the language would mean that I would pick up the skills in no time.  Yep.  Nope.  I just did not realise it was going to be quite so hard.

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Ummm …

In just one lesson I have learned that half of what comes out of my mouth is complete gibberish and it explains why Daughter gets so darn embarrassed when I attempt to speak in public.  We end up coming to blows most of the time because she is embarrassed by me and I am annoyed at her attitude in return.  Last weekend we were on the dolmus and usually I leave it to Daughter to ask them to pull over but I thought I would have a go and ask the driver myself.  “Musait bir yer“.  I sounded great.  Well I thought I sounded great anyway.  Daughter said I sounded like I was speaking an Alien language and now, after my first lesson with Ipek, I realise I was speaking an Alien language.  I sounded like a dead set goose. Incidentally musait bir yer does not say “stop the bus” or “let me off” it translates literally to “suitable a place”.  Can you see why I am having difficulties.  Who talks like that (other than Yoda and Google translate).

I survived my first lesson by learning my alfabe (alphabet). “A, B, C’s” although I now know it is not “aye, bee, see” it is in fact “ah, be, je”.

Right, so back to kindergarten for me.

A Smile

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Each morning at a little after 7, whether it is rain, or hail, or shine, I watch a little old lady passes by my front door.  I do not know her name, I do not know where she lives, all I know is that our front door forms part of her morning constitutional.

When I see her I always smile and call out, “Gunaydin”.  She has never acknowledged me.  She has never wished me a good morning or even glanced in my direction, she merely makes her way past my front door as part of her usual morning routine.  She walks slowly but with purpose. Some mornings I see she is walking with difficulty but today I noticed she has a new appendage to help her on her constitution – a cane.  She seemed a little more sure of her step this morning but she still did not wish me a good morning when I waved at her from my terrace.

It is difficult to win over the old ladies in the village.  After their initial curiosity of the yabanci amongst them I have generally been ignored.  A few teyzer will say good morning and one or two of them will even ask me to join them for çay but on a whole I am left alone these days.  That suits me fine.  I am happy in my solitude and it gives me more time to write.

I do wonder, however, what I have to do to win this little lady over.  A smile, that is all I am asking for.  Maybe tomorrow.

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So what’s my peeve today?

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Let me enlighten you.

The Turk has been gone nearly one week.  What have I realised in The Turk’s absence?

The Turk does the cleaning.  I hate cleaning.

The Turk does the vacuuming.  I hate vacuuming.

The Turk really is a sensational chef.  To anyone who knows The Turk personally knows just how good a chef he is.  His pizza is legend – wait for it – ary.  Legendary!  I attempted pizza for Daughter and I last night.  It was not legendary.  It was – adequate.  Daughter called it adequate.  *Sigh*

The Turk also goes to the butcher.  I loathe going to the butcher.  I loathe the smell of the butcher and I loathe looking at the meat hanging on hooks.

I know that we have already established that I am a failure in the Turkish Housewife stakes but I am starting to realise that perhaps The Turk does more around here than I have given him credit for.

And this brings me to my next peeve.

A mountain of garbage that is accumulating outside my home.  I live between what is currently a building site to my right and a 3 level building consisting of 4 apartments on my left.  Each apartment has a family member living in it.  The building site does my head in, always has, always will.  Minus the fact that Vito has built their shop and home abutting our building their builders would have to be the laziest and dirtiest builders I have ever had the non-pleasure of coming across.  Crap everywhere and while I am on that subject “Where do they crap?”  There is no toilet facility built yet and I am curious as to where they go when nature calls.  You know when we were building out balcony my mother in law caught our builder doing a shit in our basement!  Yes seriously!  She went ballistic.  Best thing I ever saw.  She picked up the bok (shit) in her hand and chased him with it before throwing it in his face.  We never saw that particular builder again.  There’s your Turkish word of the day – bok!

Back to my peeve.

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To our left we have the three level building with 4 apartments.  While The Turk was here I would often see him carrying bucket after bucket of garbage to the large dumpster down the street.  With him now gone the buckets are overflowing, the stray cats are ecstatic and the smell is all consuming.

This morning I witnessed a family member who shall remain nameless throw a bag of garbage out the window narrowly missing My Hurley Dog and I as we were in the garden.  WTF?  Not only are they too lazy to take the garbage to the bin now it seems they are even too lazy to walk it down the stairs?

My frustration levels are at boiling point.  These people are happy to live in filth but I am not.  They drop garbage where they stand.  The neighbour’s dog poops everywhere and no one cleans it up.  It’s a Rottweiler folks.  That bok is bigger than my foot!  Recycling is non-existent.  This really is getting out of hand.

As I sit here on my balcony enjoying the warm autumn breeze (thankfully not coming in from the east) I honestly wonder whether this mountain of crap is one lightning bolt away from becoming its own entity, with thoughts and feelings.  And if this mountain of crap is only one lightning bolt away from becoming its own entity do I have to feed that too?

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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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Presidential Election

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Today Turkey will be heavily featured in the international news for its historic first Presidential election.  For the first time ordinary people will decide on a post that is normally chosen by parliament.

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There are three contenders for this position.  Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and Selahattin Demirtas.  Erdogan is, of course, the current Prime Minister of the country and will no doubt win this election today as well.  Why?  Well he is the face that people see every day in newspapers, on television.  The Turk said to me that for him Erdogan is the leader of a cult which has smothered democracy.  A rock star if you will.  He is adored by his followers and his smooth talking can turn even the most hardened head.  Erdogan has allowed religion and politics to mix and that’s not on in The Turk’s mind.  The other two contenders Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and Selahattin Demirtas really do not have the power to pull in the numbers that Erdogan has.  Ihsanoglu was previously the leader of the International Islamic Organisation so really isn’t that well known here in Turkey.  Selahattin Demirtas is a young Kurdish hopeful but, as Turkey was at war with the minority Kurdish only a few years ago, the fact that he is running at all is a milestone for the country I think.

So what will happen from here?  Probably nothing.  Erdogan will move into the presidential position, one of his flunkies will move into the position of Prime Minister and life will go on.  His control will continue, his opinions will be flaunted (Israel and foreign interests) sometimes to the detriment of the country but for me as a yabanci living in Turkey I just hope that Turkey continues to be a safe home for me and my family.  We will see.

I am a Selfish Bitch (apparently)

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The heading speaks for itself people.  I am a Selfish Bitch.  Apparently.  The Turk informed me of such this morning so it must be true.  See this is where he and I differ in opinion because I always thought that I was pretty awesome.  I have been known to high-5 myself on occasion for my awesomeness.  I help others.  I give to causes.  I am totally generous.  Selfish bitch?  Nope.  Doesn’t really sound like me.

He didn’t really mean it, The Turk.  He was just a little exasperated with me this morning that’s all.  Let me explain.

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On Tuesday morning I woke at the crack of dawn suffering from the succubus that is jetlag.  It usually takes me days to get over it so there I was feeling like crap and desperately needing a cup of tea to jolt my body awake.  Having successfully made my tea (remember Turkish tea is a drama in itself) I made my way outside onto our terrace intending to watch the sun rise over the village when it happened. 

I looked around and . . . what?  Where the fek is my feking terribly expensive outdoor furniture?  It had disappeared.  Were we robbed?  Doubtful.  Was it there last night?  Dunno.  Like an idiot I looked left and right.  Nope.  I stuck my head back through the door into the living room.  Not there.  I started back inside when my eyes were drawn to Vito’s home next door.  Immediate brain fart!  There’s my feking terribly expensive feking furniture!  What the holy hell?

Living here in Turkey I have learnt that it is not unusual to do a solid and lend something to a neighbour or a relative or even the man that lives on the other side of the village and it will definitely be returned with thanks (well mostly anyway).  I get it and I am totally on board with this arrangement but when I went downstairs to examine my terribly expensive outdoor furniture it was looking more than a little worse for wear with oil splatters on the table, stains on my cushions and even a cigarette burn or two.  Fek! 

I did not lose my temper.  I did not have a fit.  I merely asked The Turk for my terribly expensive outdoor furniture to be returned to its rightful place however it had not appeared before I went to bed on Tuesday evening.  The Turk guaranteed that it would be returned on Wednesday morning as soon as Vito returned home from work.  Wednesday came and went and again despite my request for the return of my terribly expensive outdoor furniture my terrace was still looking bare and sad.  What made it worse was that Vito had some friends over Wednesday (last) night and I watched them stealth-like through my window fuming and spitting fire while they lounged all over my terribly expensive outdoor furniture like they were the feking Queen of England, smoking their cigarettes and no doubt dropping more crap all over it! I was losing my shit people!

This morning I again asked for my terribly expensive outdoor furniture to be returned and that is when The Turk cracked it.  After calling me a selfish bitch he suggested that if I wanted my terribly expensive outdoor furniture back then I should go and ask for it myself!  The thing is that after being married to The Turk for over 12 years I know too well that when he starts throwing around insults it means that he is attempting to deflect an issue that he does not want to deal with.  Ah ha!  He did not want to ask his brother for the return of the terribly expensive outdoor furniture.  He was embarrassed.  We’ll fek it!  I’ll feking ask him! 

And ask him I did.  Vito might have ummed and aahhed after I knocked on his door this morning but when I returned from the market I found The Turk on the terrace relaxing comfortably on my terribly expensive, albeit now slightly marked, outdoor furniture.  “Darling, would you like a cup of tea?” he says. 

So there you have it.  I might be a selfish bitch although I really don’t see it that way.  It’s one thing to borrow a book, or a frypan but another thing all together to borrow furniture with little or no intention of returning it.  The Turk is happy though.  My terribly expensive outdoor furniture has been returned and he is not the bad guy.  I am.  I am a selfish bitch but whatever.  I am still awesome though.

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:

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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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One Day in Istanbul – or Three Things in Istanbul

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As you are all aware Daughter and I are in Sydney visiting family and friends.  Currently I am suffering from a nasty bout of the flu and hating just about everything and everyone but I am quite certain I will feel better after a little blogging and a little TLC.  While recuperating I thought I tell you about our day in Istanbul visiting all of our favourite haunts.  I posted Five Things back in March but today as our time was limited we did not get to complete our usual five instead we downsized to Three Things.

Shopping – or where my credit card takes a beating

I was well aware of the fact that we were returning to Sydney and that shopping in this great city is amongst the best in the world but for Daughter shopping at Top Shop on Istiklal Caddesi is amongst the “totally best thing” in the world and I automatically become “an alright mum” as a result.  I accept that lacklustre award.  I don’t really mind that much to be honest as it is cheaper to shop in Turkey for Daughter than it is in Sydney.  Knock yourself out sweetheart.  I did have to remind her though that her suitcase will not magically make the space so desperately needed and once it is full, it is full.

For me I needed to stop at The Grand Bazaar and stock up on Turkish Delight and gifts for my family and friends.  An empty suitcase makes it very easy to buy up big – which I did.

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Basilicia Cistern – or that cool place that was in that James Bond movie back when

Yes again.  Oh how I love coming here.  If you time it just right you can get the place to yourself although there was no chance of that during this visit.  Istanbul always has been a mecca for tourists but during our limited time here it seemed that each and every one of them decided to go to my Basilica Cistern while we were visiting.  After waiting just over an hour to get through the door the normal cool underground respite became a hot and frankly a little on the nose.  Daughter made her way down to Medusa’s Head to make her wish while I stopped and ordered a cay from the elderly man who works at the café.  I recently heard there are a few other cisterns here in Istanbul including the Sultan Sarnici and Nakilbent  Sokak.  We did not have to time to visit them today but on our next stop in Istanbul it will definitely be on the cards.

Suleymaniye Mosque – or if you don’t visit the Mosque you will hate yourself later

Istanbul is full of the most amazing mosques but as we always stay at Sirkeci Mansion in Sultanamet we usually walk up the third hill of Istanbul to Suleymaniye Mosque.  Morning or night this mosque is quite a commandeering sight and each visit to the Mosque gives me a new experience.  On this visit we spent time walking through the gardens that surround the mosque before making our way to the tombs of Suleiman and Hurrem Sultan.  Though Hurrem Sultan was gossiped about and ostracized she was Suleiman’s true love and they now spend eternity together buried in the grounds of Suleymaniye Mosque.  I have told the story of Suleiman and Hurrem Sultan many times to Daughter over the years and her take on their relationship is thus:

“If you are meant to be then nothing is going to stop you.  Like Edward and Bella (Twilight).”

Alright so it seems that Suleiman and Hurrem Sultan are the Edward and Bella of the 1500’s.

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If you only have 24 hours or 1 day in my Istanbul and even if you only see one or two things this beautiful city has so much to offer.

 

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