ten days in Istanbul over; now time for Vienna

After a three-am taxi ride to the Ataturk International and a stopover in Ljubljana, Slovenia (surrounded by mountains, really one of the most beautiful airports I've ever seen), I am sitting at the airport in Vienna right now, waiting to meet my parents, who should be flying in from Chicago, by way of London, at some point in the next four hours. We will be staying here for several days with my second cousin Jennifer, before going first by boat to Budapest and then by train to Istanbul for some good ol' family vacationing.

My stay in the hostel was fun. A lot aimless wandering, a good deal of sitting around doing nothing and surprisingly little sleep (blame it on the 8 person room and pesky mosquitoes). I even made new friends, some of whom, travelling to far off corners of the world, I'll never see again and some of whom I might just run into when I get back to Istanbul. At some point I'll upload pictures from the last ten days. After two failed attempts, I await an internet connection sturdy enough to do so.

frightening signs from a globalized world

The entrance of American culture into Turkey is far from subtle. Case in point: as I write this Martha Stewart is playing on the TV at the hostel. Yesterday, however, I encountered something far more terrifying than recipes for how to make the perfect cookie. As I sat in a park on the Marmara coastline at the entrance to Bosphorous, making my way through a delightful interview with a 16 year-old Turkish girl who had written a soon to be published historical novel, I stumbled upon something peculiar. When asked as a final question who her favorite authors were, she gave a distinguished although standard list: Nitezsche, Balzac, Tolstoy, Wilde, Camus, Poe and a few Turks who I didn't know. Yet the last sentence gave me pause: "Also, I find myself very close to Ayn Rand's philosophy." It was a little unexpected and a little scary that she would mention the writer of such moving odes to America, but perhaps appropriate being that the question she was asked translates literally as "Are there any cult authors of yours?"

Istanbul!

As I write this I am sitting in my hostel room in Kadıköy, which is on the Asian side of Istanbul. This morning I said goodbye to my host brother and left Bursa via ferry, arriving in Istanbul at around 11:30. To be honest, I was very happy to leave Bursa. Two months of an intensive language program--the same people, the same class every day--was both stressful and tiring and frankly Bursa is not the most exciting place. I really did enjoy my experience and the people I met, but it'll be great to be able to do my own thing in a world-renowned city and practice a little real-world Turkish.

I'll be staying in the Hush Hostel for the next ten days. It's in what is claimed to be an old Ottoman mansion (surprisingly, it looks like an old Victorian style house in Oakland, especially because it needs a new coat of paint) and seems like it will be a comfortable place to stay. I've only met a couple of the staff members here--one Austrian, one Turkish--and none of the other guests, probably because I came in just as they were leaving to tour around. The common language here is English. After one of the staff members saw me watching TV in Turkish, she asked if I understood anything, and was I think a little surprised when I said yes. We ended up chatting for a few minutes in Turkish. Very few of the guests here know any Turkish she said.

Since arriving in the hostel, I've been mostly wandering aroundand ran a few errands. First on my list was a haircut, dearly needed in hot Turkish sun. Because haircut terminology isn't something you learn in school, the barber kept resorting to an English speaking fellow customer (actually a transplanted German, son in tow, who was "stranded here six years ago") to double check that he was doing exactly what I wanted. I ended up getting it cut very short (i.e. the longest length on a mechanical razor). Despite the linguistic difficulties, it was a good experience, and very cheap--13 TL for haircut and shampoo. I also went to buy a cell phone, because I had to return my CLS-issued one. Because I opted for the cheapest one, I ended up with the same exact model I had before (who would have thunk it?). I handled the entire thing in Turkish, and for some reason, the Turkcell guy was extremely impressed with my Turkish. Quite the confidence booster.

As I was out today I also got a few times what at first impression was a very interesting question: "do you know English?" While my first response in my head was "duh!" and both times I answered with not "yes," but "I'm an American," on further reflection it might be a good thing. First I don't immediately come off as an American and second it's further proof of English's stature as an international language, only confirmed by the example of the hostel. Next time I get asked the question I'll answer simply "yes," and try to see where people think I'm from. Hopefully someone will ask me where I learnt such great English.

Ramadan is here

Ramadan (Ramazan in Turkish) started yesterday. While some of the people on the program with previous Turkey experience were eagerly anticipating its start--"it's a like a party every night and we don't have to fast because we're foreigners," I remember one girl saying maybe a month ago--I was a little bit anxious. It wasn't because I was scared of not being able to get lunch, rather it was because things were changing in this country I had just adjusted to, and in a way that I couldn't predict. But, as the last couple days have past, my Ramadan experience has been far less than overwhelming.

The lead up to Ramadan was long. For at least the past month, Ramadan related ads have been circulating. It began with billboards advertising the special foods traditionally eaten during Ramadan and restaurant or banquet halls that specially cater to serving an iftar, the evening feast that breaks the fast. As Ramadan approached, a wider variety of companies began to work in Ramadan to their advertisements, and everything from cellphone companies to Pepsi, began to take a Ramandan-time tinge. While my friend wryly pointed out that the Muslims made the wrong holiday for capitalism because unlike Christian holidays, which now tie so well into commercialism, Ramadan involves people not consuming for a significant portion of the day. I think, however, that the steady advance of the Turkish economy is proving his words wrong.

Though Ramadan fever is certainly in the air, my own personal expectations have been a bit different. I have been living for the past week and a half with just my host brother. My host parents went off three or four weeks ago to their summer home in Bodrum and my host sister disappeared a week and a half ago. I suspect she's in Istanbul, staying with the family's oldest son, but it'd be awkward now to ask where she is because she's been gone for so long. Anyhow, the day before Ramadan began my host brother told me that he was only planning on fasting sometimes and that the real meaning of Ramadan was not fasting but sitting down to a big meal with everyone in your family together. With no family in sight, Ramadan at my house has been a rather low key (read non-existent) affair.

While unfortunately, I haven't been able to have a iftar meal first-hand, it's just been just as interesting watching Turkey change during Ramadan. While I don't know exact numbers, my teacher reckoned that about 2/3rds of the people in Turkey fast during Ramadan. This seems hard to measure, because I have a feeling a lot of people say they fast but don't actually keep it through the day. Yet still with possibly two thirds of population not eating, the day-time face of Turkey could change significantly. My fears however were allayed when I walked out my door yesterday and saw the neighborhood simit (halfway in between a bagel and a pretzel) vendor selling to a customer as usual. Making my way to school, it appeared that maybe a third or a half of the restaurants were closed, a far cry from the cataclysmic predictions of some that only McDonalds would be open. Having feared the worst (i.e. savored the opportunity), we had all decided the day before to go to the food court at the abnormally plush mall 5 minutes away from my school for lunch. While most of the restaurants were open anyway, we sat down to a delicious lunch of KFC and Burger King (which is actually on the expensive side in Bursa). A curious item at the food court was a man and a pair of headscarfed women, who we assumed must have been fasting. The question echoed through our group: were they showing off their piety or just taking a respite from the hot sun in the air-conditioned food court?

The experiences of my classmates have been interesting too. While one or two are fasting along with their families, it seems like at most half the families are fasting, which conforms to the same secularist bias I've perceived throughout the program. One friend of mine had a particularly interesting experience regarding fasting in his family. While every member of his family said they'd be fasting for Ramadan, when he woke up at three in the morning to have the traditional pre-sunrise breakfast, he found only his mother awake, who informed him that she was the only one fasting. In regards to Ramadan, there definitely seems to be a bit of a disconnect between what people say and they do.

As I said before, my Ramadam experience hasn't been particularly marked, but I'm only two days in so far and we'll see how it changes as the month goes on. Inşallah, I'll get to an iftar.

In other news, tomorrow is the last day of classes in the summer program. We've been taking exams (meaningless actually because we don't get a grade from the program) for the last several days and tomorrow evening most of the students will be leaving Bursa tomorrow night to fly back to America. Because I'll be staying, my plan is a bit a different: I'm taking the ferryboat Saturday morning to Istanbul, where I'll be in staying for the next ten days by myself. Anyways, I'm off to pack.

last week or so

I've been quite busy as of late. Last weekend we had a group trip to Ayvalık and Pergamon, this Tuesday I took off to Istanbul to meet up with my friend Margaux who was passing through the city on a cruise with her family, and this Friday we had off from class, so of course I spent the day out with my friends.

beach near our hotel in Ayvalık

our hotel

Pergamon

Asklepion

Ferry ride to Istanbul

Margaux and I outside the Hagia Sophia

Hagia Sophia

out in Bursa with Evren, my Turkish buddy

in Turkey, they write odes to milk companies on the side of milk cartons. No, the Turkish does not translate to the English. And yes, it does make a little more sense than the English (but it's less poetic!)