Everyone is selling something in this country. Seriously, at night carts slowly roll into the streets of Istanbul filled with oranges and tomatoes, nuts and honey soaked deserts. Blankets are laid out with lighters and safety pins, tarps unfolded with scarves and mittens, suitcases unlatched with cell phones and electronics inside. When it rains, someone is out selling umbrellas, when you need tissue, a young boy has some for sale. If you are hungry, buy a banana, a stuffed mussel, or an ear of corn. Every time I think I have seen it all, someone is selling something even more random. There are beggars for sure, women in rags holding babies, men with scabbed legs and stubs for feet, amputees rolling their wheelchairs between cars stuck in traffic. But most people are offering something, a shoe shine or wet naps, the famous sesame rolls found on every corner in Turkey, you can ever weigh yourself for 25 cents. Literally I have seen strips of highway where every one hundred yards another man is holding up ghost masks in one hand, cell phone car chargers in another.
While I am still a firm believer in social welfare, I have to say its nice to see a country where everyone has a purpose, even if it is rolling a cart down the street and collecting second hand appliances or rummaging through the garbage bins for scraps to sell. And I think people help their neighbor more here because they know they cant rely on social services. That being said, I don’t find myself thinking too highly of a government that has disabled people begging on the highway and children running around throwing tissue at strangers hoping they will buy.
There are super markets here of course, and malls and everything else corporate. But most shops you go into, most restaurants and bakeries, have the owner at the cash register. They work all day in their little shop or sell things on the street. And these are the places you can bargain. Its expected at the bazaar because everyone has their little stand and the competition to sell is fierce, people are yelling and customers are sampling. That’s another things I love about this country…. You can sample anything and everything.
But bargaining goes beyond the bazaar. And its nice because it isn’t about being cheap like it would be seen in America, it’s a game. I never felt particularly weird about offering less than was asked, suppose it’s the garage saler in me, but I think its strange for most people. It can be a tiring game as my mom and I learned at the very expensive and aggressive Grand Bazaar in downtown Istanbul. It’s a bit of a tourist trap where lurking Turkish men with perfect English are ready and waiting for unprepared Americans. They start salivating when they see Americans because they think we are all rich and because we don’t know how to bargain. We are at such a disadvantage. Its like playing an away game in a sport that you don’t know the rules. You are gonna lose, and probably lose big. Especially when the other team has played the game for 20 + years. .
Its normal in Turkey to bargain at the bazaar, in fact its expected and money and goods trade freely after friendly bartering back and forth.But bargaining isn’t restricted to stalls with old Turkish men selling fake Prada purses. The other night we went out to the clubs after a team meal. We went to a nice bar where the drinks are roughly 20 dollars each. We were all feeling good already after a bit of wine at dinner but we wanted to take a shot of alcohol. First we talked to the bartenders and got the price down to 15 dollars, then we got a waiter who got the price down to 10 dollars, then we searched high and low for the cute host and got the price down to 7 dollars. Sold! And we all bellied up and had a great night.
A few days later I went to the local gym by my new apartment. I went with my two Turkish teammates, one of whom lives down the street.(Its always a good idea to take a Turkish person with you) It’s a small gym, one room of cardio, one room of weights, and a downstairs for step classes. We started talking to the owner about membership and prices. He said 90 lira (roughly 60 dollars) for one month, we said 60 lira. He said 75 lira, we said both of us for 100 lira. Sold! So I am now a happy member of my local fitness club.
I walk into the gym the first day as soon as it opened (mind you it OPENS at 10 am, some days at noon, closed on Sundays), to find the place packed with women. Every single cardio machine was filled up and women were filing in the front door with bags and children in tow. Surprise it was women’s day! I soon learned that three days a week the mornings are reserved for women only so they can remove their headscarves and jazzercise their fat away without the fear of men looking at their hair.
It was nice actually. I am never too interested in working out around women only, I get enough of that at practice, but it was cute to see these women warming up before aerobics, chatting on the treadmills, no doubt talking about their husbands and losing weight, the way women everywhere in the world do. I put my things over to the side and prepared to get on the elliptical before my teammate arrived. The women on the bike next to me began talking to me about my hair in Turkish which started a conversation with all the women on one side of the gym, not one of whom spoke a word of English….. which is something I sort of appreciate about this country….not everyone speaks English here. It keeps up my motivation to learn.
So the four of us had a long conversation about Turkey, Turkish food, Turkish men, (and for some reason my blonde hair) the topics that most interest me and strangely enough are included in my small vocabulary. There were times when I didn’t know what we were talking about but the fat women on the elliptical next to me smiled and smacked my ass to show me that she liked my figure…..we became fast friends.
The women at the gym are in all sizes and the variety seems to look more realistic, how women are supposed to look. The older ones, like the one I spoke with, are rounded and plump, years of lamb kebap and baklava having softened the angles of their bodies. My friend obviously wanted to lose weight and seemed intrigued by the fact that I was athletic but she didn’t look overly concerned about it, not headed for an obsessive exercise routine or starvation diet. I’m pretty sure she was there for the social aspect and seemed perfectly content with that. She kept admiring my body, though she stopped spanking me, but wasn’t going to get an eating disorder over it.
I am always intrigued by cultural differences in regards to food and Turkey certainly has its differences. Its true that you don’t see a lot of obesity here but you also don’t see a lot of skinny people, especially older ones. Older people here, like I said, are rounded out for the most part. And for good reason, their food here is excellent. But its not a fantasy world, my teammates are often on diets and think they are too fat many times. but its still different. They don’t starve themselves and when they say they are fat, they don’t really seem to feel too bad about it. None of them would ever give up food or do anything extreme to lose weight, at least it doesn’t seem that way. They eat when they are hungry, eat like vulchers, but when they aren’t hungry they don’t eat. What a concept.
The way people talk about weight here is different also. My coaches are constantly telling me I am fat, or pointing at my ever protruding stomach that has stuck out for as long as I can remember. They don’t have to worry about people getting an eating disorder so they comment on our bodies without reserve. So we comment back and tell their butts to get in the weight room and work on their pecs. They are blunt about everything though…. If they don’t like your shoes they will say so, if you wear something weird they will say that too. Its really strange at first, but then you get used to it and realize that if they really thought you were fat they probably wouldn’t say it to your face…. At least I hope not.
So my gym is pretty much hilarious. The people are all super nice and sociable and no one but me comes in with their ipod and tunes the world out while they work out. Everyone is friendly and talking and enjoying themselves. Its nice in many ways but weird in others. Like when the little four year old girl is sitting on a weight machine pulling on the cord and no one seems to mind or the fact that they have buffets of food downstairs amongst people who are trying to lose weight.
I went into the gym one Saturday morning, or should I say afternoon since it doesn’t open until noon. I was the only woman there since it was a normal day. I had a good workout, talked to the owner a bit in Turkish and then went downstairs to get my things. As I am leaving, the six Turkish men who finished their workouts called me over to their smorgasbord of food. They absolutely would not take no for an answer and insisted I sit down and join them for some post workout lunch. The food was amazing, some Turkish concoction with eggs, cheese, tomatoes, and green chile peppers. It may very well have been my favorite Turkish food since I insisted on finding it the next two days at various restaurants, never finding it to be as good as the food served at the gym. So I sat down and shot the breeze with all the Turkish guys, who also go to the gym to lose weight I think but end up eating all together. Its pretty funny though, at a fitness center people are stuffing their faces while someone else is smoking. Gotta love Europe.
Four days later the same thing happened when I was at the gym with my teammate. We worked out, went downstairs, and as we were leaving got called over to the feast and ate. These days when I see men gathering near the juice bar I immediately think how I can escape without eating. Its nice when you are hungry but Turkish people do not take no for an answer when it comes to food. I swear to god, they take it as a personal insult if you won’t eat something they offer or won’t sit down and drink their tea. They get this sad look on their faces like you really hurt their feelings. My teammates even feed me like a baby, holding up food like my mom used to do. “here comes the airplane” They do it to each other also but they really want visitors to feel welcome and enjoy their country and their food. Hospitality is a huge part of their culture. And no matter how hard I try to convey that I can’t have caffeine at night, it never seems to get through and I have to look at their sad faces when I refuse their Turkish Coffee.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Unexpected Guests
We had two full days off this past week which hasn’t happened in the whole time I have been here. Unfortunetly, we got back at midnight from our road trip so couldn’t really take advantage of the break and go anywhere. Plus I was tired and was looking forward to having some time to catch up on writing, emails, and to spend some much needed time in a coffee shop reading. I woke up early Monday morning and headed to my new fitness center where the women all but cheered for me on the treadmill. I swear they have never seen anyone sweat like I do and were sure to warn me about getting sick from wearing a wet t shirt around. After a good workout I headed home to shower and eat before going to the hospital for my daily physical therapy. As I climbed the six stories to my apartment I heard voices. I knew the cleaning lady would be making a stop in my apartment that day but I didn’t expect her to have company.
I am not entirely sure how I ended up with a cleaning lady. Nothing was every discussed or explained but since I have moved in she comes in periodically on her own, the cigarette smell lingering long after she is gone. I never would have thought to get household help seeing as my place takes all of five minutes to straighten up and I don’t exactly work long hours, but its nice to come home to the dishes done and the rugs vacummed. Plus she is really super nice.
Anyway, I walked into the open door of my apartment to find two men sitting in my living room, only one of whom I recognized from our club offices. They were watching skiing on television, the commentators speaking in some Scandanavian language. They each had a clipboard and I looked down to see one had also taken the liberty of wearing my house slippers. The other was wearing my mom’s pair, a size 7 with pink and yellow flowers. So much for coming home and showering, I had company. I went to my room to unload my bag and the two men started walking around my apartment, talking, checking their clipboards, and eventually writing, in big red marker, numbers on everything from my dresser to my washing machine. Each one is now inventoried and vandalized.
To add to the ridiculousness of the situation, I hadn’t yet fully unpacked from our road trip the night before, clothes were strewn all over the living room as I had searched for my uniform and other immediate washing concerns. So not only was a stranger sitting in my living room, watching my tv., wearing my slippers but he was also sharing the couch with a pair of my underwear whose color hadn’t yet been up in line for the washing machine.
I love my apartment but the privacy I expect isn’t always consistent. No one ever tells me if workers are coming and I walk into my home and find random people sitting in my living room, watching my t.v. wearing my slippers, and babysitting my underwear. I probably should have offered them something to snack on but I was too surprised. They wandered around like they owned the place while I felt like a visitor who forgot to bring a housewarming gift. I just kept looking at the guys pink and yellow slippers, his feet hanging out the back, and laughing at the complete absurdity of the situation.
I am not entirely sure how I ended up with a cleaning lady. Nothing was every discussed or explained but since I have moved in she comes in periodically on her own, the cigarette smell lingering long after she is gone. I never would have thought to get household help seeing as my place takes all of five minutes to straighten up and I don’t exactly work long hours, but its nice to come home to the dishes done and the rugs vacummed. Plus she is really super nice.
Anyway, I walked into the open door of my apartment to find two men sitting in my living room, only one of whom I recognized from our club offices. They were watching skiing on television, the commentators speaking in some Scandanavian language. They each had a clipboard and I looked down to see one had also taken the liberty of wearing my house slippers. The other was wearing my mom’s pair, a size 7 with pink and yellow flowers. So much for coming home and showering, I had company. I went to my room to unload my bag and the two men started walking around my apartment, talking, checking their clipboards, and eventually writing, in big red marker, numbers on everything from my dresser to my washing machine. Each one is now inventoried and vandalized.
To add to the ridiculousness of the situation, I hadn’t yet fully unpacked from our road trip the night before, clothes were strewn all over the living room as I had searched for my uniform and other immediate washing concerns. So not only was a stranger sitting in my living room, watching my tv., wearing my slippers but he was also sharing the couch with a pair of my underwear whose color hadn’t yet been up in line for the washing machine.
I love my apartment but the privacy I expect isn’t always consistent. No one ever tells me if workers are coming and I walk into my home and find random people sitting in my living room, watching my t.v. wearing my slippers, and babysitting my underwear. I probably should have offered them something to snack on but I was too surprised. They wandered around like they owned the place while I felt like a visitor who forgot to bring a housewarming gift. I just kept looking at the guys pink and yellow slippers, his feet hanging out the back, and laughing at the complete absurdity of the situation.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Turkish Delight
So Turkish men are also known as Turkish Delight which is also the name of a desert mostly served to tourists. They are a fun topic though. On the whole, there are a lot of beautiful men here (see picture of my coaches). Sometimes their jeans are too tight yes, but sometimes you don’t even notice the jeans because you are too busy staring at their eyes. They aren’t all beautiful of course, some are hairy and greasy others are short and slender. But on the whole, two thumbs up in the looks department.
But it isn’t all good. Turkish men like to stare. Between me with my blonde hair, my teammate from America who is black, and my Australian teammate who is 6’5”, we definitely get all eyes on us where ever we go. The usually scream out something original like “basketball” or they just stare like we all have three heads.
When I am out by myself, there is less yelling but more talking. I can easily meet three of four men when I am out exploring. At that’s when I am not even trying to meet anyone. I meet men on the metro, vendors selling food downtown, carpet dealers (big surprise) but mostly I just meet men on the street. I am not so naïve to think that all of them have the best of intentions but I do appreciate boldness and while sometimes it can be annoying, a lot of the time it is annoying, but other times it is amusing to be hit on when I am in sweats, walking down the street after practice with wet unbrushed hair. If I go out at night, sometimes I am one of the few women walking down the street to the metro. I swear women don’t leave the house here. So it can be really weird to be stared at so intensely. And inevitably some brave fellow or two will approach me and start talking. Its not at all uncommon for them to ask me to drink tea with them or try to get my number after a thirty second conversation. But the flip side of that aggressiveness is an excess of jealously.
Meek, Marita and I have gone out a few times since we have been in Istanbul and its always the same story. We get in the cab at the end of the night laughing about the stupid shit that some Turkish man did or said. Basically they think they own us if they start talking to us, dancing with us, or buying us a drink. Meek literally had a guy say to her after 10 minutes of broken conversation that he didn’t want her to talk to any other men at the club and wanted her to be his girlfriend. I also have had a Turkish man call thirteen times in a row. I alternately pressed reject on my phone or let it ring but nothing deterred him. I sat there talking to my mom and wondering how much embarrassment can one person take? Marriage proposals are not at all uncommon.
I swear sometimes I feel like I have a huge sign on my forehead that says ‘please yell at me on the street.’ Men here just don’t have the fear of rejection so inherent in so many Western men. I can’t say I particularly like it, but I can say that I would like a happy medium; something half way between cat calling and men that act like it is a secret if they like you.
A few weeks ago I was leaving the club at about 3 in the morning. I stepped out on the busy street and started walking. Immediately two guys started talking to me in Turkish and asking if they could give me a ride home. I started laughing and kept walking. After two minutes of them following me and begging me to come with them, they finally gave up. But low and behold, three steps later another Turkish man fell into step beside me. Once again, he spoke no English but kept insisting that he drive me home. I kept telling him he was crazy in Turkish and that I wasn’t going to get in his f-ing car. He followed me onto the shared taxi van and sat down with me until he realized that I was really not going to go home with him.
I know it sounds scary maybe and just a little stalkerish, but none of these guys feel dangerous. Its not that there aren’t a lot of weirdos in this city to avoid, but most of these guys are just throwing out the lines, hoping to get a bite and think nothing of embarrassing themselves in the process. Also Turkish men are very protective as well so I do know at any point if a man was inappropriate, I could say something to some strange men and they would take care of it for me. It would most likely make their night to kick some guys ass on my behalf.
I am pretty bold these days though. I will be very nice to most people but if I get the weirdo feel from men, I am the biggest bitch ever. I have no problem making a scene if the situation makes me uncomfortable… hence the screaming at the police officer a few weeks ago. For instance, I was walking in downtown Istanbul one day when I noticed a Turkish man staring at me. I kept walking, down through the underpass where merchants had created a small shopping center. I looked back and the man was following me, his dark eyes unwavering even when I looked directly at him. So I stopped and looked at socks, he stopped and looked at lighters. I continued walking and he followed. I stopped again and he kept on past me but then stopped a bit ahead and stared back, waiting for me to keep going. Finally I looked at him from 15 feet away and said, ‘WHAT?’ as loud as I could. I scared the shit out of him and I never saw him again that day.
A few weeks later I was on the tram. It was crowded but I made my space, grabbed a hand rail, and covered my purse. The tram kept lurching back and forth, probably braking for a crazy driver on the tram line. I felt someone touching my leg every time the crowd of people moved but I didn’t really notice at first. When I did start paying attention, it was hard to decipher if it was accidental. It was some Turkish guy about my age who acted like he was minding his own business. Then the tram almost slowed down and then sped up and his hand brushed my leg opposite the momentum of everyone else. To that I looked at him and said. “don’t don’t don’t’. he shook his head yes and pleaded with his eyes that I not make a scene.
I have definitely had a number of cars stop on the street as well. Sometimes they ask me if I want a ride, sometimes they circle back and drive by slowly, sometimes they pull off on the side of the road and wait for me to walk past so they can ask me to get in. Last weekend we were in traffic as we headed to the clubs and the car next to us kept trying to get me and Marita to ditch our taxi and hop in with them. If they are blunt about things I will generally just laugh or say ‘no’ but if they are lurking, and creepy I might get a little lippy.
But it isn’t just men, safe in their moving cars, that say things. Turkish men on every corner say random things like ‘you are an angel. Are you from heaven?’ Yesterday I was walking to the gym, dressed in sweats and a huge down jacket, when two older men said ‘hello’ and then ‘ahhhh smiling, always smile.’ To which I laughed. Its always funny when people directly speak to you in English when you haven’t said a word, even funnier when their English makes no sense. Then the one man said ‘I love you’ and the other ‘I love you too,’ as I walked around the corner shaking my head.
Never a dull moment…..
But it isn’t all good. Turkish men like to stare. Between me with my blonde hair, my teammate from America who is black, and my Australian teammate who is 6’5”, we definitely get all eyes on us where ever we go. The usually scream out something original like “basketball” or they just stare like we all have three heads.
When I am out by myself, there is less yelling but more talking. I can easily meet three of four men when I am out exploring. At that’s when I am not even trying to meet anyone. I meet men on the metro, vendors selling food downtown, carpet dealers (big surprise) but mostly I just meet men on the street. I am not so naïve to think that all of them have the best of intentions but I do appreciate boldness and while sometimes it can be annoying, a lot of the time it is annoying, but other times it is amusing to be hit on when I am in sweats, walking down the street after practice with wet unbrushed hair. If I go out at night, sometimes I am one of the few women walking down the street to the metro. I swear women don’t leave the house here. So it can be really weird to be stared at so intensely. And inevitably some brave fellow or two will approach me and start talking. Its not at all uncommon for them to ask me to drink tea with them or try to get my number after a thirty second conversation. But the flip side of that aggressiveness is an excess of jealously.
Meek, Marita and I have gone out a few times since we have been in Istanbul and its always the same story. We get in the cab at the end of the night laughing about the stupid shit that some Turkish man did or said. Basically they think they own us if they start talking to us, dancing with us, or buying us a drink. Meek literally had a guy say to her after 10 minutes of broken conversation that he didn’t want her to talk to any other men at the club and wanted her to be his girlfriend. I also have had a Turkish man call thirteen times in a row. I alternately pressed reject on my phone or let it ring but nothing deterred him. I sat there talking to my mom and wondering how much embarrassment can one person take? Marriage proposals are not at all uncommon.
I swear sometimes I feel like I have a huge sign on my forehead that says ‘please yell at me on the street.’ Men here just don’t have the fear of rejection so inherent in so many Western men. I can’t say I particularly like it, but I can say that I would like a happy medium; something half way between cat calling and men that act like it is a secret if they like you.
A few weeks ago I was leaving the club at about 3 in the morning. I stepped out on the busy street and started walking. Immediately two guys started talking to me in Turkish and asking if they could give me a ride home. I started laughing and kept walking. After two minutes of them following me and begging me to come with them, they finally gave up. But low and behold, three steps later another Turkish man fell into step beside me. Once again, he spoke no English but kept insisting that he drive me home. I kept telling him he was crazy in Turkish and that I wasn’t going to get in his f-ing car. He followed me onto the shared taxi van and sat down with me until he realized that I was really not going to go home with him.
I know it sounds scary maybe and just a little stalkerish, but none of these guys feel dangerous. Its not that there aren’t a lot of weirdos in this city to avoid, but most of these guys are just throwing out the lines, hoping to get a bite and think nothing of embarrassing themselves in the process. Also Turkish men are very protective as well so I do know at any point if a man was inappropriate, I could say something to some strange men and they would take care of it for me. It would most likely make their night to kick some guys ass on my behalf.
I am pretty bold these days though. I will be very nice to most people but if I get the weirdo feel from men, I am the biggest bitch ever. I have no problem making a scene if the situation makes me uncomfortable… hence the screaming at the police officer a few weeks ago. For instance, I was walking in downtown Istanbul one day when I noticed a Turkish man staring at me. I kept walking, down through the underpass where merchants had created a small shopping center. I looked back and the man was following me, his dark eyes unwavering even when I looked directly at him. So I stopped and looked at socks, he stopped and looked at lighters. I continued walking and he followed. I stopped again and he kept on past me but then stopped a bit ahead and stared back, waiting for me to keep going. Finally I looked at him from 15 feet away and said, ‘WHAT?’ as loud as I could. I scared the shit out of him and I never saw him again that day.
A few weeks later I was on the tram. It was crowded but I made my space, grabbed a hand rail, and covered my purse. The tram kept lurching back and forth, probably braking for a crazy driver on the tram line. I felt someone touching my leg every time the crowd of people moved but I didn’t really notice at first. When I did start paying attention, it was hard to decipher if it was accidental. It was some Turkish guy about my age who acted like he was minding his own business. Then the tram almost slowed down and then sped up and his hand brushed my leg opposite the momentum of everyone else. To that I looked at him and said. “don’t don’t don’t’. he shook his head yes and pleaded with his eyes that I not make a scene.
I have definitely had a number of cars stop on the street as well. Sometimes they ask me if I want a ride, sometimes they circle back and drive by slowly, sometimes they pull off on the side of the road and wait for me to walk past so they can ask me to get in. Last weekend we were in traffic as we headed to the clubs and the car next to us kept trying to get me and Marita to ditch our taxi and hop in with them. If they are blunt about things I will generally just laugh or say ‘no’ but if they are lurking, and creepy I might get a little lippy.
But it isn’t just men, safe in their moving cars, that say things. Turkish men on every corner say random things like ‘you are an angel. Are you from heaven?’ Yesterday I was walking to the gym, dressed in sweats and a huge down jacket, when two older men said ‘hello’ and then ‘ahhhh smiling, always smile.’ To which I laughed. Its always funny when people directly speak to you in English when you haven’t said a word, even funnier when their English makes no sense. Then the one man said ‘I love you’ and the other ‘I love you too,’ as I walked around the corner shaking my head.
Never a dull moment…..
Saturday, February 17, 2007
A Whore in Horhor
It was a few Sundays ago now but it was an interesting day to say the least.To kick off the second half of the season we kicked some serious ass in our game. We started off 23-1 i think and although we let them back in for awhile, secured a much needed win on our home court. Our fans were going crazy and despite the fact that they arent so numerous, they can scream pretty loud. All our junior teams come and there are about 50 young girls cheering along with a few boys teams and the other random people associated with our club somehow. The little boys were chanting outside our locker room after the game. So cute.
Anyway after a nice afternoon with my parents enjoying the sweet taste of victory, I decided to meet out with all the other Americans in the hippest part of Istanbul,which is now ten minutes from my new fabulous apartment. (Which by the way is located in a neighborhood named 'Horhor'. I can just hear my college friends now and the ridiculous jokes that they will come up with.) I didnt actually take a taxi until about midnight and by the time I found them they were drunk and rapping on the median of the busy street in Taksim. From there it was time to find the gay bars so we started walking with half a clue where we were going. In the meantime, a Turkish guy starts coming up and talking to me about money. I don't speak a whole lot of Turkish but i was pretty sure he was asking for money so I tried to tell him no and when that didnt work I tried to just ignore him. Finally it was time to be mean. He followed us down the street, over to the next one, and back up the same one we started on...... like i said we didnt really know where we were going but the girls were insistent on finding this gay bar. It was a Sunday night so the streets werent busy and many things were closed so we were just wandering around aimlessly.
The Turkish guy was still following us despite the fact that every single 6'2'' girl in our group had gone up to him yelling and telling him to go away. Nothing gets to this guy and then he even started talking about a hotel to which i realize that the money talk earlier was him most likely asking me how much i cost. Sweet. I tried to tell him in broken Turkish that I wasnt a prostitute....one Turkish word I have learned. At one point as we are walking down the street i feel an arm through mine and figured it was my friend. no it was the weird guy. Finally one of the players started hugging me and telling the guy that we are together. Literally i had like eight women around me pushing the guy and telling him to leave me alone. He was just standing there like a dumbass. I mean how much embarassment can one person take. The only reason we lost him is because we went into a gay bar called 'the other side'.
Inside 'the other side' we found boys and more boys. Most of the girls in our group were not too happy that there were no ladies in the joint but me and my teammates could care less and began singing karaoke and dancing with every gay guy there. Marita was up on the bench dancing and Meek and I were dancing with the MC who insisted on taking his shirt off. Gay bars are gay bars anywhere in the world i guess. We didnt stay long though because the place was small and it was Sunday night so it wasnt that much fun. So we hit the streets again in search of something happening but all we found were kebap stands and ended up talking in the square and then going home.
I took a taxi home and got dropped off on the main street. As I made my way down the hill i felt much better when I saw four police men having a picnic on the front of their patrol car. The waved me over and began offering me everything available. A buffet of kebap and rice, yogurt and flat bread was spread out on the vehicle and they kept trying to serve me coke to which I declined, trying in my broken Turkish to explain that I can't have caffeine at night (a concept Turkish people,who drink tea at all hours, cannot comprehend.... it always feels like I am giving them a personal insult but a girls got to sleep). As I am declining coke and accepting water from the supplies in the car, another officer is using his fork to force feed me kebap, which was excellent by the way. The guys speak no English but they did invite me to join them every Wednesday night as they eat at 2 in the morning. It was late, I was freezing, and I had exhausted my knowledge of Turkish small talk so despite one of them offering me his coat, I said goodnight. They were so sweet.
So I made my way up the hill waving to my new friends to my apartment building half a block away. As I was bending down to unlock my door, another patrol car approached with some young guys hanging out waving. The car stops and the driver runs out. Great, I am thinking, another Turkish guy who is going to try to flirt with me. Instead he asks for my passport. I don't generally bring my passport when I go to the clubs so I showed him my drivers license and told him my passport was in my house.... the house that I am half in at the moment. He speaks zero English by the way which is not making the situation super fun. So he insists that I get my passport and starts following me in the building.
As we are climbing the stairs he puts his hand on my belt. Half his hand was below the belt, half his hand was above. I knocked his hand away and asked him what the f he was doing. When i go to the security door I tried to explain to him that my mom and dad were upstairs asleep and really didnt want to wake them to find my freaking passport. Then I told him I didnt have my passport at all and then he wanted to take me into the station. I am feeling super uncomfortable at this point because I dont know what my rights are. I really just wanted to jump behind the security gate and run to my apartment. Then I thought of calling my manager. As I am thinking of how to deal with this asshole he puts his hand on mine and I flip out. I look at him and tell him not to put his fucking hands on me and take off down the stairs and out the building. I am screaming and hollering down the street at two in the morning as my police men friends with the buffet are looking on. I am screaming that this guy is crazy and trying to show the nice police officers that this little shit tried to touch me. Not one person speaks a word of English but anger is pretty clear without words and everyone can tell that I am not happy. They were probably a little scared but it worked. The young officer got in his car and drove down the hill and pulled up next to the picnic. They start talking to each other... no doubt asking what he did to piss this crazy woman off. Finally the older guy motioned with his head for the car to get the hell out of here....probably figuring it just isnt worth it. I'm pretty sure they had no idea what I might do next. So I looked at the little shit driving and started telling him to go....go....go. He was super mad having some woman yelling at him I am sure but he drove off while I ate more kebap with the nice police officers. They were so sweet and tried to calm me down. Soon I went into my apartment, this time without getting molested but I was so mad I could hardly sleep.
I live in a neighborhood that has a lot of undocumented workers I guess so the police patrol and stop people. I dont look like an undocumented worker though and when I am opening my front door I generally want to be left alone. I told my teammate and she said the officer was probably hoping i didnt have papers so he could blackmail me into sleeping with him. Gross. For all I know he probably thought i was a prostitute too. I get asked if I am Russian alot and I never know if that is code for 'you look like a hooker' because all I hear about is how Russian women are beautiful and 'made for sex'. Literally that is what they say. There are apparently a lot of Russian prostitutes here.
Two nights later I got stopped again and I am not sure if it was the young officer sending his friends but they were much nicer. I took a taxi to my front door this time, uninterested in getting pulled over walking. I had just gone out with some American mens players who are black and listened to them complain about the cops here. They were trying to figure out how to get home and hoping they could time the stop lights so they didnt stop because the police would pull them over for being black.The week before they had spent seven hours in the police station because they got in an argument with a taxi driver who eventually fabricated a story about them urinating on a Turkish flag. They never got charged with anything but were detained all night. Its so frustrating not knowing your rights or speaking the language.
Turkey is not generally a scary place and I don't get the oppressive government feel that probably exists a little East of here but it is different, I am just unclear as to how much different. They dont have Freedom of Speech for instance. Try saying something about the Armenian Genocide and see where it gets you. Anyway, its the kind of place that probably wouldnt look too kindly on an American woman kicking a passport policeman in the nuts, despite his attempted fondling.
Anyway as my taxi is pulling up to my front door a police van pulls up along side us and, as I am rummaging around for money, our car gets surrounded by officers. They start talking to the driver and then ask me to get out. I am like 'here we go again'. One of the officers takes my arm to lead me to the van and I pull my arm away. He wasnt being inappropriate but my radar was up and I dont trust police officers here like I did two days prior. But these guys were nice and the driver spoke English. He looked at my ID and that was it. I got into my house faster than ever.
Guess there are good cops and bad cops everywhere....even in Horhor.
Anyway after a nice afternoon with my parents enjoying the sweet taste of victory, I decided to meet out with all the other Americans in the hippest part of Istanbul,which is now ten minutes from my new fabulous apartment. (Which by the way is located in a neighborhood named 'Horhor'. I can just hear my college friends now and the ridiculous jokes that they will come up with.) I didnt actually take a taxi until about midnight and by the time I found them they were drunk and rapping on the median of the busy street in Taksim. From there it was time to find the gay bars so we started walking with half a clue where we were going. In the meantime, a Turkish guy starts coming up and talking to me about money. I don't speak a whole lot of Turkish but i was pretty sure he was asking for money so I tried to tell him no and when that didnt work I tried to just ignore him. Finally it was time to be mean. He followed us down the street, over to the next one, and back up the same one we started on...... like i said we didnt really know where we were going but the girls were insistent on finding this gay bar. It was a Sunday night so the streets werent busy and many things were closed so we were just wandering around aimlessly.
The Turkish guy was still following us despite the fact that every single 6'2'' girl in our group had gone up to him yelling and telling him to go away. Nothing gets to this guy and then he even started talking about a hotel to which i realize that the money talk earlier was him most likely asking me how much i cost. Sweet. I tried to tell him in broken Turkish that I wasnt a prostitute....one Turkish word I have learned. At one point as we are walking down the street i feel an arm through mine and figured it was my friend. no it was the weird guy. Finally one of the players started hugging me and telling the guy that we are together. Literally i had like eight women around me pushing the guy and telling him to leave me alone. He was just standing there like a dumbass. I mean how much embarassment can one person take. The only reason we lost him is because we went into a gay bar called 'the other side'.
Inside 'the other side' we found boys and more boys. Most of the girls in our group were not too happy that there were no ladies in the joint but me and my teammates could care less and began singing karaoke and dancing with every gay guy there. Marita was up on the bench dancing and Meek and I were dancing with the MC who insisted on taking his shirt off. Gay bars are gay bars anywhere in the world i guess. We didnt stay long though because the place was small and it was Sunday night so it wasnt that much fun. So we hit the streets again in search of something happening but all we found were kebap stands and ended up talking in the square and then going home.
I took a taxi home and got dropped off on the main street. As I made my way down the hill i felt much better when I saw four police men having a picnic on the front of their patrol car. The waved me over and began offering me everything available. A buffet of kebap and rice, yogurt and flat bread was spread out on the vehicle and they kept trying to serve me coke to which I declined, trying in my broken Turkish to explain that I can't have caffeine at night (a concept Turkish people,who drink tea at all hours, cannot comprehend.... it always feels like I am giving them a personal insult but a girls got to sleep). As I am declining coke and accepting water from the supplies in the car, another officer is using his fork to force feed me kebap, which was excellent by the way. The guys speak no English but they did invite me to join them every Wednesday night as they eat at 2 in the morning. It was late, I was freezing, and I had exhausted my knowledge of Turkish small talk so despite one of them offering me his coat, I said goodnight. They were so sweet.
So I made my way up the hill waving to my new friends to my apartment building half a block away. As I was bending down to unlock my door, another patrol car approached with some young guys hanging out waving. The car stops and the driver runs out. Great, I am thinking, another Turkish guy who is going to try to flirt with me. Instead he asks for my passport. I don't generally bring my passport when I go to the clubs so I showed him my drivers license and told him my passport was in my house.... the house that I am half in at the moment. He speaks zero English by the way which is not making the situation super fun. So he insists that I get my passport and starts following me in the building.
As we are climbing the stairs he puts his hand on my belt. Half his hand was below the belt, half his hand was above. I knocked his hand away and asked him what the f he was doing. When i go to the security door I tried to explain to him that my mom and dad were upstairs asleep and really didnt want to wake them to find my freaking passport. Then I told him I didnt have my passport at all and then he wanted to take me into the station. I am feeling super uncomfortable at this point because I dont know what my rights are. I really just wanted to jump behind the security gate and run to my apartment. Then I thought of calling my manager. As I am thinking of how to deal with this asshole he puts his hand on mine and I flip out. I look at him and tell him not to put his fucking hands on me and take off down the stairs and out the building. I am screaming and hollering down the street at two in the morning as my police men friends with the buffet are looking on. I am screaming that this guy is crazy and trying to show the nice police officers that this little shit tried to touch me. Not one person speaks a word of English but anger is pretty clear without words and everyone can tell that I am not happy. They were probably a little scared but it worked. The young officer got in his car and drove down the hill and pulled up next to the picnic. They start talking to each other... no doubt asking what he did to piss this crazy woman off. Finally the older guy motioned with his head for the car to get the hell out of here....probably figuring it just isnt worth it. I'm pretty sure they had no idea what I might do next. So I looked at the little shit driving and started telling him to go....go....go. He was super mad having some woman yelling at him I am sure but he drove off while I ate more kebap with the nice police officers. They were so sweet and tried to calm me down. Soon I went into my apartment, this time without getting molested but I was so mad I could hardly sleep.
I live in a neighborhood that has a lot of undocumented workers I guess so the police patrol and stop people. I dont look like an undocumented worker though and when I am opening my front door I generally want to be left alone. I told my teammate and she said the officer was probably hoping i didnt have papers so he could blackmail me into sleeping with him. Gross. For all I know he probably thought i was a prostitute too. I get asked if I am Russian alot and I never know if that is code for 'you look like a hooker' because all I hear about is how Russian women are beautiful and 'made for sex'. Literally that is what they say. There are apparently a lot of Russian prostitutes here.
Two nights later I got stopped again and I am not sure if it was the young officer sending his friends but they were much nicer. I took a taxi to my front door this time, uninterested in getting pulled over walking. I had just gone out with some American mens players who are black and listened to them complain about the cops here. They were trying to figure out how to get home and hoping they could time the stop lights so they didnt stop because the police would pull them over for being black.The week before they had spent seven hours in the police station because they got in an argument with a taxi driver who eventually fabricated a story about them urinating on a Turkish flag. They never got charged with anything but were detained all night. Its so frustrating not knowing your rights or speaking the language.
Turkey is not generally a scary place and I don't get the oppressive government feel that probably exists a little East of here but it is different, I am just unclear as to how much different. They dont have Freedom of Speech for instance. Try saying something about the Armenian Genocide and see where it gets you. Anyway, its the kind of place that probably wouldnt look too kindly on an American woman kicking a passport policeman in the nuts, despite his attempted fondling.
Anyway as my taxi is pulling up to my front door a police van pulls up along side us and, as I am rummaging around for money, our car gets surrounded by officers. They start talking to the driver and then ask me to get out. I am like 'here we go again'. One of the officers takes my arm to lead me to the van and I pull my arm away. He wasnt being inappropriate but my radar was up and I dont trust police officers here like I did two days prior. But these guys were nice and the driver spoke English. He looked at my ID and that was it. I got into my house faster than ever.
Guess there are good cops and bad cops everywhere....even in Horhor.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Still waiting...
İ hope to have my computer back next week so that i can post some more blogs. These Turkish keyboards are not at all easy to type on so İ am waiting for my lifeline to return. Next week İ will join the real world again. Sorry for the delay. İ do have a good post though having to do with police. kebap. and prostitutes. Stay tuned
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Turkish Toilets
That’s right they get a whole blog entry to themselves. Sorry for the two disgusting entries in a row but hey, I have to cope somehow.
I remember the first time I saw a Turkish toilet. We were at a rest stop in Greece, traveling the ten hours back to Athens from a road game. It was during the hourly smoke/coffee break when me and my American teammate went to the bathroom and found a little surprise. We looked down at the hole in the ground in horror. Naturally, we went and got our cameras to capture the event. In the two years I played in Greece we saw them occasionally and they were disgusting every time. Not that the normal toilets were much better but they did make me realize I was lucky to have water under me.
I should have known what I was getting into, the ubiquity of Turkish toilets in Turkey. But you would think in a modern city like Istanbul that most places would be a little more, well modern. Not so much. So for anyone that is eating or thinking about eating, might not want to read along….
All of our gyms have Turkish toilets and I use them because I have to. You do get used to things and when you got to go you got to go, especially before a game. I’m not a princess, I use the porta pottie at the outdoor court in Seattle, while camping or in emergencies I’ve been known to go in the bushes. But on the whole I prefer a clean normal toilet with all flushing capabilities and toilet paper. I don’t think that is too much to ask. I’ll even do without the toilet paper since I’ve learned to carry tissue since living abroad. Just a clean, normal toilet please.
So for those of you that don’t know or haven’t guessed, Turkish toilets are the porcelain holes in the ground with the convenient foot grating on the side so you don’t lose your balance and fall in a bunch of shit. They were no doubt about it, invented by a man. They do flush, some of them, but many only have a hose on the side or a faucet with a pitcher of water beneath so you can wash everything down by hand. Its exhilarating to feel so in control! What’s even more disgusting is I think the water hose is there for cleaning other unmentionable areas as well. Moving along….The problem I have is not so much the squatting. Its not fun but you know a little leg workout never hurt anyone and I am pretty used to it after never wanting to put my tush anywhere near the toilet seats in Greece. My problem is two fold; The distance to the drainage point from your body is too far and the porcelain is way to shallow. There just isn’t a landing point for all the matter that falls. Basically pee splatters and therefore every bathroom smells like piss. And I do mean piss, that distinct smell that isn’t pee, isn’t urine, it can only be sufficiently described as piss. I swear the bathroom at my gym hasn’t been cleaned since I got here. It just stinks more and more and you can see the sticky pee stains everywhere, on the ground, on the door, on the porcelain. I walk out of there close to vomiting every time. They do clean here in some places, they basically seem to flood the bathroom with soapy water to disinfect the whole piss splattered place. Maybe its on a timer and comes through the fire sprinklers. Either way it helps the smell but doesn’t help the safety. Slippery surfaces is just what I want when trying to keep my balance perched above a sea of urine and other things.
Like I said, I am getting used to them. One can get used to almost anything. But I do find myself, a bit like George in Seinfeld, making a mental note of bathroom facilities. Before I know it I will be able to identify a modern toilet in every part of the city. Making the most of my free time….
I remember the first time I saw a Turkish toilet. We were at a rest stop in Greece, traveling the ten hours back to Athens from a road game. It was during the hourly smoke/coffee break when me and my American teammate went to the bathroom and found a little surprise. We looked down at the hole in the ground in horror. Naturally, we went and got our cameras to capture the event. In the two years I played in Greece we saw them occasionally and they were disgusting every time. Not that the normal toilets were much better but they did make me realize I was lucky to have water under me.
I should have known what I was getting into, the ubiquity of Turkish toilets in Turkey. But you would think in a modern city like Istanbul that most places would be a little more, well modern. Not so much. So for anyone that is eating or thinking about eating, might not want to read along….
All of our gyms have Turkish toilets and I use them because I have to. You do get used to things and when you got to go you got to go, especially before a game. I’m not a princess, I use the porta pottie at the outdoor court in Seattle, while camping or in emergencies I’ve been known to go in the bushes. But on the whole I prefer a clean normal toilet with all flushing capabilities and toilet paper. I don’t think that is too much to ask. I’ll even do without the toilet paper since I’ve learned to carry tissue since living abroad. Just a clean, normal toilet please.
So for those of you that don’t know or haven’t guessed, Turkish toilets are the porcelain holes in the ground with the convenient foot grating on the side so you don’t lose your balance and fall in a bunch of shit. They were no doubt about it, invented by a man. They do flush, some of them, but many only have a hose on the side or a faucet with a pitcher of water beneath so you can wash everything down by hand. Its exhilarating to feel so in control! What’s even more disgusting is I think the water hose is there for cleaning other unmentionable areas as well. Moving along….The problem I have is not so much the squatting. Its not fun but you know a little leg workout never hurt anyone and I am pretty used to it after never wanting to put my tush anywhere near the toilet seats in Greece. My problem is two fold; The distance to the drainage point from your body is too far and the porcelain is way to shallow. There just isn’t a landing point for all the matter that falls. Basically pee splatters and therefore every bathroom smells like piss. And I do mean piss, that distinct smell that isn’t pee, isn’t urine, it can only be sufficiently described as piss. I swear the bathroom at my gym hasn’t been cleaned since I got here. It just stinks more and more and you can see the sticky pee stains everywhere, on the ground, on the door, on the porcelain. I walk out of there close to vomiting every time. They do clean here in some places, they basically seem to flood the bathroom with soapy water to disinfect the whole piss splattered place. Maybe its on a timer and comes through the fire sprinklers. Either way it helps the smell but doesn’t help the safety. Slippery surfaces is just what I want when trying to keep my balance perched above a sea of urine and other things.
Like I said, I am getting used to them. One can get used to almost anything. But I do find myself, a bit like George in Seinfeld, making a mental note of bathroom facilities. Before I know it I will be able to identify a modern toilet in every part of the city. Making the most of my free time….
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
The Turkey Baster
I’m not sure how many men are going to like this story but all women will definitely be able to relate and get a laugh….
I just had one of the more interesting days I have had overseas. A pap smear is one of the few things that all women in the developed world, that care about their health of course, share and universally despise. It’s greeted with a collective groan from all friends when the big day is approaching for any of us. I’m pretty much over it after this past summer when I had every imaginable invasive procedure done in that area. Pap smears are like flossing to me now, not entirely comfortable but far from getting a cavity drilled. However, pap smears in foreign countries are a different thing entirely as the comfort level immediately drops considerably.
I told my manager exactly what I needed at the hospital and hoped for the best. When I mentioned that an English speaking doctor might be helpful she assured me that she would be there to translate. On the big day I woke up early, drank some coffee to add to my anxiety and made my way to the gym. I actually wasn’t too worried until I realized that my manager wouldn’t be there, instead our video guy was sent to accompany me. Not really interested in having him translate ‘vagina’ for me but at least at this point I am guaranteed to have a good story. He, of course, has no idea what is going on, he thinks I am going for physical therapy for my shoulder. Uhhhhhh, not exactly. I swear my team cannot communicate, even amongst the Turkish speakers.
Sure enough we walk directly into the physical therapy department and our video guy starts talking to the same male doctor who examined my shoulder last week while half our junior team’s players are running around getting therapy. I swear they get more medical attention than us. At this point I am really hoping that the same guy who diagnosed my shoulder isn’t going to have his fingers up me in a few minutes. They just keep telling me to sit down and wait so I do, but I just keep imagining that pretty soon I am going to be interrogated about my sexual past with my video guy translating and the physical therapist putting on the rubber gloves. They’ll probably tell me that Allah would be ashamed. Keep in mind now that my Turkish vocabulary lessons from my teammates haven’t exactly covered a pelvic exam unless you count the time on the back of the bus when they taught us how to say “f- off” and um…..the p-word/c-word. I can’t even stand to type that but I do know how to say it in Turkish. ‘Um’ isn’t a person thinking here, its slang for a woman’s area. My Australian teammate catches herself saying ‘vagina’ in Turkish every time she speaks.
So, there I am, sitting in the physical therapy department on an old pleather chair imagining the worst, with no idea what is going on. Then the doctor and our video guy walk over to me and I am really wishing I had told my manager that I want a woman examining me. But its too late. The doctor tells me I can go over to the other building and get physical therapy. Apparently he still hasn’t gotten the memo that this is not a ‘shoulder day’ and I’m not sure our video guy has really grasped the idea either. I’m trying to tell the doctor that I am not here for physical therapy but instead I need a ‘woman’s exam’ as I point to my um….uterus. So my video guy calls my manager whose phone is off. Finally I get the point across and they apologize and tell me to wait some more. Eventually they say I have thirty minutes until I can go see the woman doctor. Great I am a drop-in client, I’m standby for a pelvic exam. I swear my manager said I had a ten o’clock appointment. Keep in mind I still don’t know if they are saying ‘woman doctor’ or ‘women’s doctor’ but I am hoping that in a Muslim country the women doctors do all the fondling.
Out of nowhere a woman doctor appears who speaks some English. Hallelujah! Plus she is young and dressed cute which makes me feel a bit better but she still has that dorkiness that I like my doctor to have, you know the look that says I like to read and study things. So she starts asking me questions and I am understanding most of what she is saying, enough to feel uncomfortable with the door wide open and my video guy next to me when we are going over my medications. I don’t have much to hide, I’m just not used to my doctor feeling more liberal with my personal information that I am. And then we start walking down the street in between buildings, past people waiting on benches while the doctor and I are talking about pelvic exams and birth control. Normal conversation, unusual environment. So much for privacy laws. Naturally, the next day I see her when I am getting treatment for my shoulder. I’m pretty sure she is a physical therapist talking to me about gynecology but at least her English was decent. Beggars can’t be choosers I guess.
I was starting to feel like I was in a dream. The nurse in women’s health turned out to be my teammate’s mom, and a guy with a cape over his scrubs walked by me. I was sure the doctor was going to turn around and have the face of my sixth grade math teacher, the one with the wig. To add to the weirdness of the situation, my teammate’s mom looks just like my teammate and speaks absolutely no English. I was glad to have a ‘mom’ on hand but then she started directing me in the stir ups, looking under the sheet covering me and giving my vagina directions. Of course then I see my teammate at practice and can’t help but have flash backs to her mom’s hand motions, like she was directing a pilot landing a plane.
So we arrived at the women’s health department and after filling out some paper work I went into a room where I could immediately see another woman’s feet behind the screen propped up in the stirrups. I could see the doctor pull out the samples with the male assistant looking on. I’m thinking ‘shit, I am next.’ Once again, so much for privacy. There was literally a screen shielding me from the door that isn’t locked. But I hopped up on that examining table ready to get it over with. But then I saw blood on the floor, blood from someone else’s cervix that they hadn’t cleaned up. I’m just hoping they clean the equipment even if they can’t get to the floors. At least I have a paper towel under my butt to protect me from the chair. I’m really trying not to laugh out loud at the absurdity of everything. Plus, people keep coming from behind the screen to take a look at me in all my glory. Like I said, I felt like I was in a dream but at this point more like a nightmare. I mean if this isn’t the naked dream at its worst I don’t know what is. Finally it ends and I get my pants on faster than ever before, happy to be through with my very special pelvic exam in Turkey.
Of course it wasn’t over though. After the pap smear, it was on to the ‘ultrasond’ room, the place that every single young woman loves to enter without explanation. And its pants off again which is very uncommon. America its one and done. This time it’s a dildo camera thrust inside of me with my physical therapist, my teammate’s mom, the technician, and two other random males looking at the monitor next to my head as she probes and probes. I felt like asking if any of them wanted popcorn but I didn’t want to prolong the exam. At this point I am alternately laughing and wincing because she isn’t exactly gentle. Plus I am thinking of naming the camera either “Turkish Delight” or the “Turkey Baster” but I’m pretty sure I am the only one in the room who would find it funny. To add to the discomfort I am also looking down at someone else’s blood on the floor of this room too. It was like an assembly line, go behind the screen, strip, change places with the patient who finished and around we go. After I finished my exam I squeezed past the next patient in line and began gathering my things when I noticed her underwear hanging precariously from the coat stand. Group medical care just isn’t my thing. So, anyway after I got deflowered with the camera in the ‘ultrasond’ room, it was past the ‘menopoz’ room with twenty head scarved women waiting outside, to the ‘onkoloji’ room. Great, I’m thinking and laughing to myself, I am either pregnant or have cancer. I’m not really worried, I’ve been mostly laughing the whole morning, I just don’t have a clue as to what is going on, yet I keep getting directed down hallways and into offices where I am either signing things I can’t read or taking off my pants. It was really fun times….
I just had one of the more interesting days I have had overseas. A pap smear is one of the few things that all women in the developed world, that care about their health of course, share and universally despise. It’s greeted with a collective groan from all friends when the big day is approaching for any of us. I’m pretty much over it after this past summer when I had every imaginable invasive procedure done in that area. Pap smears are like flossing to me now, not entirely comfortable but far from getting a cavity drilled. However, pap smears in foreign countries are a different thing entirely as the comfort level immediately drops considerably.
I told my manager exactly what I needed at the hospital and hoped for the best. When I mentioned that an English speaking doctor might be helpful she assured me that she would be there to translate. On the big day I woke up early, drank some coffee to add to my anxiety and made my way to the gym. I actually wasn’t too worried until I realized that my manager wouldn’t be there, instead our video guy was sent to accompany me. Not really interested in having him translate ‘vagina’ for me but at least at this point I am guaranteed to have a good story. He, of course, has no idea what is going on, he thinks I am going for physical therapy for my shoulder. Uhhhhhh, not exactly. I swear my team cannot communicate, even amongst the Turkish speakers.
Sure enough we walk directly into the physical therapy department and our video guy starts talking to the same male doctor who examined my shoulder last week while half our junior team’s players are running around getting therapy. I swear they get more medical attention than us. At this point I am really hoping that the same guy who diagnosed my shoulder isn’t going to have his fingers up me in a few minutes. They just keep telling me to sit down and wait so I do, but I just keep imagining that pretty soon I am going to be interrogated about my sexual past with my video guy translating and the physical therapist putting on the rubber gloves. They’ll probably tell me that Allah would be ashamed. Keep in mind now that my Turkish vocabulary lessons from my teammates haven’t exactly covered a pelvic exam unless you count the time on the back of the bus when they taught us how to say “f- off” and um…..the p-word/c-word. I can’t even stand to type that but I do know how to say it in Turkish. ‘Um’ isn’t a person thinking here, its slang for a woman’s area. My Australian teammate catches herself saying ‘vagina’ in Turkish every time she speaks.
So, there I am, sitting in the physical therapy department on an old pleather chair imagining the worst, with no idea what is going on. Then the doctor and our video guy walk over to me and I am really wishing I had told my manager that I want a woman examining me. But its too late. The doctor tells me I can go over to the other building and get physical therapy. Apparently he still hasn’t gotten the memo that this is not a ‘shoulder day’ and I’m not sure our video guy has really grasped the idea either. I’m trying to tell the doctor that I am not here for physical therapy but instead I need a ‘woman’s exam’ as I point to my um….uterus. So my video guy calls my manager whose phone is off. Finally I get the point across and they apologize and tell me to wait some more. Eventually they say I have thirty minutes until I can go see the woman doctor. Great I am a drop-in client, I’m standby for a pelvic exam. I swear my manager said I had a ten o’clock appointment. Keep in mind I still don’t know if they are saying ‘woman doctor’ or ‘women’s doctor’ but I am hoping that in a Muslim country the women doctors do all the fondling.
Out of nowhere a woman doctor appears who speaks some English. Hallelujah! Plus she is young and dressed cute which makes me feel a bit better but she still has that dorkiness that I like my doctor to have, you know the look that says I like to read and study things. So she starts asking me questions and I am understanding most of what she is saying, enough to feel uncomfortable with the door wide open and my video guy next to me when we are going over my medications. I don’t have much to hide, I’m just not used to my doctor feeling more liberal with my personal information that I am. And then we start walking down the street in between buildings, past people waiting on benches while the doctor and I are talking about pelvic exams and birth control. Normal conversation, unusual environment. So much for privacy laws. Naturally, the next day I see her when I am getting treatment for my shoulder. I’m pretty sure she is a physical therapist talking to me about gynecology but at least her English was decent. Beggars can’t be choosers I guess.
I was starting to feel like I was in a dream. The nurse in women’s health turned out to be my teammate’s mom, and a guy with a cape over his scrubs walked by me. I was sure the doctor was going to turn around and have the face of my sixth grade math teacher, the one with the wig. To add to the weirdness of the situation, my teammate’s mom looks just like my teammate and speaks absolutely no English. I was glad to have a ‘mom’ on hand but then she started directing me in the stir ups, looking under the sheet covering me and giving my vagina directions. Of course then I see my teammate at practice and can’t help but have flash backs to her mom’s hand motions, like she was directing a pilot landing a plane.
So we arrived at the women’s health department and after filling out some paper work I went into a room where I could immediately see another woman’s feet behind the screen propped up in the stirrups. I could see the doctor pull out the samples with the male assistant looking on. I’m thinking ‘shit, I am next.’ Once again, so much for privacy. There was literally a screen shielding me from the door that isn’t locked. But I hopped up on that examining table ready to get it over with. But then I saw blood on the floor, blood from someone else’s cervix that they hadn’t cleaned up. I’m just hoping they clean the equipment even if they can’t get to the floors. At least I have a paper towel under my butt to protect me from the chair. I’m really trying not to laugh out loud at the absurdity of everything. Plus, people keep coming from behind the screen to take a look at me in all my glory. Like I said, I felt like I was in a dream but at this point more like a nightmare. I mean if this isn’t the naked dream at its worst I don’t know what is. Finally it ends and I get my pants on faster than ever before, happy to be through with my very special pelvic exam in Turkey.
Of course it wasn’t over though. After the pap smear, it was on to the ‘ultrasond’ room, the place that every single young woman loves to enter without explanation. And its pants off again which is very uncommon. America its one and done. This time it’s a dildo camera thrust inside of me with my physical therapist, my teammate’s mom, the technician, and two other random males looking at the monitor next to my head as she probes and probes. I felt like asking if any of them wanted popcorn but I didn’t want to prolong the exam. At this point I am alternately laughing and wincing because she isn’t exactly gentle. Plus I am thinking of naming the camera either “Turkish Delight” or the “Turkey Baster” but I’m pretty sure I am the only one in the room who would find it funny. To add to the discomfort I am also looking down at someone else’s blood on the floor of this room too. It was like an assembly line, go behind the screen, strip, change places with the patient who finished and around we go. After I finished my exam I squeezed past the next patient in line and began gathering my things when I noticed her underwear hanging precariously from the coat stand. Group medical care just isn’t my thing. So, anyway after I got deflowered with the camera in the ‘ultrasond’ room, it was past the ‘menopoz’ room with twenty head scarved women waiting outside, to the ‘onkoloji’ room. Great, I’m thinking and laughing to myself, I am either pregnant or have cancer. I’m not really worried, I’ve been mostly laughing the whole morning, I just don’t have a clue as to what is going on, yet I keep getting directed down hallways and into offices where I am either signing things I can’t read or taking off my pants. It was really fun times….
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
In the Swing of Things....
My life here continues to be interesting although I am in much more of a normal flow. I still am meeting new people and exploring new parts of the city but basketball keeps me pretty busy. We’ve had three road trips in the last month, all of them on the Eastern side of Turkey. Road trips are interesting. Its never the crowds that seem to be the biggest obstacle but the refs. We played an opponent outside of the farming city of Adana on the Southern side of the country. I think it was a team I had decided not to sign with and as we drove through the countryside and veered off into a small town, with deserted streets, I was extremely glad I had the foresight to choose a large metropolis like Istanbul as my home for eight months. There is some charm of course, the horse drawn buggy of oranges riding along the shoulder of the highway, small shops where I am sure everyone knows your name. There were children playing in a park and an old man squatting on the field in the exact same spot as the day before. But on the whole I’m sure it’s a place that gets old quickly, especially if you don’t know the language.
While we were in Adana, the anniversary of Ataturk’s death occurred. I had heard about it and the whole week before we saw huge pictures of him being sold on the street. They LOVE him here. I’ve never seen anything like it. We have nothing equivalent in America, not even close. Anyway, at the exact time of his death everyone stops what they are doing (we definitely had a minute of silence before our game the next day as well) and all the cars on the street honk their horns. Its 9:05 am and we were eating breakfast in the hotel when we heard all the cars honking at the same time. By the time we ran out life was going on as usual.
It is interesting to see the farming country. Turkey has so many different kinds of fruits and vegetables. Their produce seems quite diverse and varies from good to excellent in almost everything. But it blows my mind how cheap things are. How anyone makes any money on tomatoes that are consistently less than the equivalent of 30 cents a pound is beyond me. I have one friend whose family has been in farming for years and they are in the process of selling a whole lot of acres for that very reason. You can’t make much. But farming is different here than America it seems. Setting aside the corporate farming in America, most of my friends in Iowa who came from farming families worked on the farm. Their parents toiled the land so to speak and they grew up bailing hay and living on the farm. I still remember telling teammates in college to pretend they were lifting a pig when we were in the weight room. Doesn’t seem to be the case in Turkey. My Turkish friend grew up in the city and knows nothing about farming. His father owns the land but hires out all the work.
Labor is obviously cheap here and as we drove through the farm land we could see whole families out in the field, old women in raggedy clothes and head scarves bent over the cotton plants. I can’t imagine how badly their backs hurt. But to think that those tomatoes they pick go all the way to Istanbul, a good eight hours, and are still that cheap, they must be getting paid next to nothing.
Anyway, we lost our game. It sucked and the refs cheat. I’m not one to sit around and bitch too much about refereeing but road games outside Istanbul can look an awful lot like football and I’m not exaggerating. We got home late that night and while my friends went out to the club I went to sleep mad as hell.
The next day I decided to spend some alone time. I went looking for a New York Times, which I still haven’t found, but settled for an International Herald. I curled up in Starbucks and read about the news around the world, went and ate some soup in a Turkish restaurant and finally decided to top my day off with an American movie. There is nothing quite like going to an American movie overseas. It’s the ultimate escape from the constant stress of living in a culture not your own. It’s a bit of pride if the movie is good, a bit of nostalgia if it’s set in a place you know well, and a deep sense of relief for knowing what is going on if only for two hours.
I decided on ‘Babel’ because it was the one with Brad Pitt and it looked good, or more likely because he looked good. I settled into my non assigned seat and hoped no one would notice (they actually give you seat assignments here, and have an intermission for smoking….. so maybe not a total escape). I started eating my Turkish quesadilla and waited for my fun to begin. The lights dimmed and the music started. Unfortunately, the movie opened in Morocco and the actors were speaking some sort of tribal language I think, because it sure wasn’t French (not that it made a difference if it were). I started having flash backs to watching the ‘Interpretor’ in Greece when the first ten minutes of the movie was in the Koo language. Kind of difficult to know what is happening when the sub titles are also in a language you don’t understand. But, I’m following the movie. Something is going on about a gun. You know, the usual. Plus, I’m thinking, this is a Hollywood movie and Hollywood movies only have subtitles for a very short amount of time. You know impatient Americans don’t really go to the movies to read. So, no problem, this tribal language is going to stop pretty soon here and Brad Pitt will come on the screen looking beautiful and I’ll be happy. Not so much. Then the movie cuts to America but its San Diego so they are speaking Spanish. Not really what I was hoping for but I’ll definitely take Spanish over a Moroccan mountain dialect. But I mean really, I just keep thinking this is a Hollywood movie, this can’t continue.
Finally, Brad Pitt comes on, a bit reticent I might add. Him and his wife Cate whatever her name is, aren’t talking a whole lot but at least it’s a familiar face. Sweet, here we go I am thinking, ENGLISH. Ahhhh but wait, from the two famous actors I can understand, the movie cuts to Japan and guess what they are speaking cause it sure isn’t English! I’m sitting in the movie theatre thinking ‘for real?’ I’m really wishing my brother was here so he could make some sense of the Japanese because with my limited Turkish I can only make out when they are talking about basketball which is never or food and people in this movie apparently don’t eat. I can’t get up at this point, we are 20 minutes into the movie and I’m not going to be the dumbass schlepping my gym bag across the theatre, ducking below the screen to go to the ticket office to explain that I can’t understand to someone else that I can’t understand. Not gonna do it. Plus, the quadruple lingual has to end soon and I am doing alright understanding the movie. And then it happens….. The Japanese girl is deaf and the movie then goes into sign language. SIGN LANGUAGE! I am sitting in this movie theater thinking this might be the only movie ever made that has such a wide spectrum of languages and I just have to see it overseas. And still the optimistic side of me is still thinking the movie has Brad Pitt in it, it was made in Hollywood, the bulk of the movie has to be in English and since we have only had five minutes tops of English so far, the rest HAS to be in English. Not so much….. the rest of the movie was a nice conglomerate of international travel; Mexico, Japan, America, Morocco, maybe even a little Egypt but I’m not sure because I don’t know how to spell Egypt in Turkish, and a whole lot of deaf people. However, due to my keen sense of body language and guessing I could follow the movie for the most part, or at least convinced myself of things to cover up the holes in the plot. Until the end, when…. Well, I won’t ruin the movie for you but lets just say all of a sudden someone was naked and I didn’t really know why. Kind of a big gap in the plot I would say. Oh well, I got up from the movie, entertained but maybe not in the way the director had in mind. I LOVE living overseas!
The next road trip was a five hour bus ride and thankfully done during the day this time. Unfortunately, it was also Thanksgiving so I knew it was going to be difficult to call home outside my apartment. All my extended family was getting together and its always a good opportunity to pass the phone around and catch up with relatives I haven’t spoken with in awhile and hear about all the food I am missing. We were staying in a nice hotel in the capital city of Ankara so I was hoping it wasn’t going to be a problem. Oh but it was. I don’t know what business people do here. I had my manager on the task with me but it obviously didn’t help. First they told me they don’t have the capability to call outside the hotel. Then I asked them how they called outside the hotel and then they remembered there was a phone right to the left of their hand that magically calls outside the hotel. They said I could use the front desk phone but they would charge me, but they didn’t know how much they would charge me. So how will you know how much to charge me was my next question. I felt like I was talking to a two year old. He thinks about it and then says it will be 1.30 lira a minute despite the fact that I have my own phone card. Where am I?!!! I said thanks but no thanks. So that was that and I went to my hotel room and got a massage from our trainer. To top things off, hotel food in most of Europe is sub par in my experience and we were served pounded down chicken schnitzel, apparently they serve this fried crap in Turkey. It was a pile of grease with fries. So much for turkey and mashed potatoes. Ah well.
We lost our game on Friday and then went to Burger King (not the best road trip food on the whole this time around) before getting on the bus to head back to Istanbul. I had a nice long talk with my coach at a rest stop and told him we need to play five on five full court in practice. Just a thought, might help us to be ready for games. Half court is fine for some things but literally we didn’t play full court all week. Luckily he listens to me for the most part despite the fact that I always have a lot to say and many suggestions. Now this whole week we’ve been getting up and down the court in practice so that’s good.
We had the whole weekend off so Saturday I meet up with my teammate to workout. Unfortunately, despite checking with both coaches, the gyms were both taken. So we got some weights in and then luckily got half court cleared for a bit. The guys that work at the gym all coach the younger teams. There are girls from about eight years old and up and they are SO cute. Everyday I am there they run up and give me kisses, want me to do their hair, speak to me in Turkish or practice their English. Their coaches clear everyone away and have a couple of them rebound for me. Their passes are more like lob passes but they hustle their butts off rebounding. Then if I am there at the end of their practice they have me say the ‘1,2,3’ in Turkish for their cheer. Today I got there when they were having a layup competition from the left side. Every single one of the ten year olds was traveling but they all were yelling and arguing about the score long after the game was over. The little eight year old with her long braided ponytail was stomping her foot in consternation, just disgusted with the parent who was working the score clock. She twirled around and stomped off, mad that it was a tie. I’m sure I was that kid. I was dying laughing.
So this weekend we had three birthdays on our team. Saturday night was a party at a Turkish teammate’s house then it was out with a bunch of the other American players for Marita’s birthday. Our Turkish teammates were all having a sleepover but we had to go out. At least I did. I needed to go out in the worst way. It was to the point where I didn’t even remember the last time I dressed up and looked like a girl. When I saw my teammates they thought I had gotten my hair cut. No, I just blow dried it. I have never been so happy to put on makeup and heels. After making our way home from the party at 10 ish, we all met up at Meek and Marita’s with about 10 Americans, one whom I played with in high school (Enjoli Izidor), three that I played against in college, and three that I played against in Greece. The basketball world is a small one. After drinking and catching up, we crowded into cars and made our way to the hip hop club but not before getting stuck in traffic and throwing Reece’s Pieces into a friendly cabbie’s car and making friends with all the other passengers in cars rolling along with us. It was about 1 am at this point and after walking through a hotel trying to find a bathroom (“act normal, act normal” we kept reminding each other), it was into the club and free shots from the bartender I met my first weekend here. Just a little something to get the night started right. The rest of the night was typical European clubbing; loud music, packed dance floor, and a really really late night, five in the morning to be exact. As a special treat my most favorite teammates showed up as they had left the sleepover when the birthday girl fell asleep. I was so excited to see them.
Anyway, not much else to report from the club, at least not much that I remember. I really didn’t sleep but a few hours because even after we left the club we kept having fun. I woke up the next day smiling which is quite the opposite reaction I usually have from getting annihilated and not sleeping. For some reason it was just what the doctor ordered. After the stress of the last few weeks I just needed to have some fun. The next day we had off from practice but our whole team dragged themselves to scout our next opponent. Seems like everyone who was at the club was at the game and we all just looked at each other’s tired eyes and laughed. I was asleep by eight.
While we were in Adana, the anniversary of Ataturk’s death occurred. I had heard about it and the whole week before we saw huge pictures of him being sold on the street. They LOVE him here. I’ve never seen anything like it. We have nothing equivalent in America, not even close. Anyway, at the exact time of his death everyone stops what they are doing (we definitely had a minute of silence before our game the next day as well) and all the cars on the street honk their horns. Its 9:05 am and we were eating breakfast in the hotel when we heard all the cars honking at the same time. By the time we ran out life was going on as usual.
It is interesting to see the farming country. Turkey has so many different kinds of fruits and vegetables. Their produce seems quite diverse and varies from good to excellent in almost everything. But it blows my mind how cheap things are. How anyone makes any money on tomatoes that are consistently less than the equivalent of 30 cents a pound is beyond me. I have one friend whose family has been in farming for years and they are in the process of selling a whole lot of acres for that very reason. You can’t make much. But farming is different here than America it seems. Setting aside the corporate farming in America, most of my friends in Iowa who came from farming families worked on the farm. Their parents toiled the land so to speak and they grew up bailing hay and living on the farm. I still remember telling teammates in college to pretend they were lifting a pig when we were in the weight room. Doesn’t seem to be the case in Turkey. My Turkish friend grew up in the city and knows nothing about farming. His father owns the land but hires out all the work.
Labor is obviously cheap here and as we drove through the farm land we could see whole families out in the field, old women in raggedy clothes and head scarves bent over the cotton plants. I can’t imagine how badly their backs hurt. But to think that those tomatoes they pick go all the way to Istanbul, a good eight hours, and are still that cheap, they must be getting paid next to nothing.
Anyway, we lost our game. It sucked and the refs cheat. I’m not one to sit around and bitch too much about refereeing but road games outside Istanbul can look an awful lot like football and I’m not exaggerating. We got home late that night and while my friends went out to the club I went to sleep mad as hell.
The next day I decided to spend some alone time. I went looking for a New York Times, which I still haven’t found, but settled for an International Herald. I curled up in Starbucks and read about the news around the world, went and ate some soup in a Turkish restaurant and finally decided to top my day off with an American movie. There is nothing quite like going to an American movie overseas. It’s the ultimate escape from the constant stress of living in a culture not your own. It’s a bit of pride if the movie is good, a bit of nostalgia if it’s set in a place you know well, and a deep sense of relief for knowing what is going on if only for two hours.
I decided on ‘Babel’ because it was the one with Brad Pitt and it looked good, or more likely because he looked good. I settled into my non assigned seat and hoped no one would notice (they actually give you seat assignments here, and have an intermission for smoking….. so maybe not a total escape). I started eating my Turkish quesadilla and waited for my fun to begin. The lights dimmed and the music started. Unfortunately, the movie opened in Morocco and the actors were speaking some sort of tribal language I think, because it sure wasn’t French (not that it made a difference if it were). I started having flash backs to watching the ‘Interpretor’ in Greece when the first ten minutes of the movie was in the Koo language. Kind of difficult to know what is happening when the sub titles are also in a language you don’t understand. But, I’m following the movie. Something is going on about a gun. You know, the usual. Plus, I’m thinking, this is a Hollywood movie and Hollywood movies only have subtitles for a very short amount of time. You know impatient Americans don’t really go to the movies to read. So, no problem, this tribal language is going to stop pretty soon here and Brad Pitt will come on the screen looking beautiful and I’ll be happy. Not so much. Then the movie cuts to America but its San Diego so they are speaking Spanish. Not really what I was hoping for but I’ll definitely take Spanish over a Moroccan mountain dialect. But I mean really, I just keep thinking this is a Hollywood movie, this can’t continue.
Finally, Brad Pitt comes on, a bit reticent I might add. Him and his wife Cate whatever her name is, aren’t talking a whole lot but at least it’s a familiar face. Sweet, here we go I am thinking, ENGLISH. Ahhhh but wait, from the two famous actors I can understand, the movie cuts to Japan and guess what they are speaking cause it sure isn’t English! I’m sitting in the movie theatre thinking ‘for real?’ I’m really wishing my brother was here so he could make some sense of the Japanese because with my limited Turkish I can only make out when they are talking about basketball which is never or food and people in this movie apparently don’t eat. I can’t get up at this point, we are 20 minutes into the movie and I’m not going to be the dumbass schlepping my gym bag across the theatre, ducking below the screen to go to the ticket office to explain that I can’t understand to someone else that I can’t understand. Not gonna do it. Plus, the quadruple lingual has to end soon and I am doing alright understanding the movie. And then it happens….. The Japanese girl is deaf and the movie then goes into sign language. SIGN LANGUAGE! I am sitting in this movie theater thinking this might be the only movie ever made that has such a wide spectrum of languages and I just have to see it overseas. And still the optimistic side of me is still thinking the movie has Brad Pitt in it, it was made in Hollywood, the bulk of the movie has to be in English and since we have only had five minutes tops of English so far, the rest HAS to be in English. Not so much….. the rest of the movie was a nice conglomerate of international travel; Mexico, Japan, America, Morocco, maybe even a little Egypt but I’m not sure because I don’t know how to spell Egypt in Turkish, and a whole lot of deaf people. However, due to my keen sense of body language and guessing I could follow the movie for the most part, or at least convinced myself of things to cover up the holes in the plot. Until the end, when…. Well, I won’t ruin the movie for you but lets just say all of a sudden someone was naked and I didn’t really know why. Kind of a big gap in the plot I would say. Oh well, I got up from the movie, entertained but maybe not in the way the director had in mind. I LOVE living overseas!
The next road trip was a five hour bus ride and thankfully done during the day this time. Unfortunately, it was also Thanksgiving so I knew it was going to be difficult to call home outside my apartment. All my extended family was getting together and its always a good opportunity to pass the phone around and catch up with relatives I haven’t spoken with in awhile and hear about all the food I am missing. We were staying in a nice hotel in the capital city of Ankara so I was hoping it wasn’t going to be a problem. Oh but it was. I don’t know what business people do here. I had my manager on the task with me but it obviously didn’t help. First they told me they don’t have the capability to call outside the hotel. Then I asked them how they called outside the hotel and then they remembered there was a phone right to the left of their hand that magically calls outside the hotel. They said I could use the front desk phone but they would charge me, but they didn’t know how much they would charge me. So how will you know how much to charge me was my next question. I felt like I was talking to a two year old. He thinks about it and then says it will be 1.30 lira a minute despite the fact that I have my own phone card. Where am I?!!! I said thanks but no thanks. So that was that and I went to my hotel room and got a massage from our trainer. To top things off, hotel food in most of Europe is sub par in my experience and we were served pounded down chicken schnitzel, apparently they serve this fried crap in Turkey. It was a pile of grease with fries. So much for turkey and mashed potatoes. Ah well.
We lost our game on Friday and then went to Burger King (not the best road trip food on the whole this time around) before getting on the bus to head back to Istanbul. I had a nice long talk with my coach at a rest stop and told him we need to play five on five full court in practice. Just a thought, might help us to be ready for games. Half court is fine for some things but literally we didn’t play full court all week. Luckily he listens to me for the most part despite the fact that I always have a lot to say and many suggestions. Now this whole week we’ve been getting up and down the court in practice so that’s good.
We had the whole weekend off so Saturday I meet up with my teammate to workout. Unfortunately, despite checking with both coaches, the gyms were both taken. So we got some weights in and then luckily got half court cleared for a bit. The guys that work at the gym all coach the younger teams. There are girls from about eight years old and up and they are SO cute. Everyday I am there they run up and give me kisses, want me to do their hair, speak to me in Turkish or practice their English. Their coaches clear everyone away and have a couple of them rebound for me. Their passes are more like lob passes but they hustle their butts off rebounding. Then if I am there at the end of their practice they have me say the ‘1,2,3’ in Turkish for their cheer. Today I got there when they were having a layup competition from the left side. Every single one of the ten year olds was traveling but they all were yelling and arguing about the score long after the game was over. The little eight year old with her long braided ponytail was stomping her foot in consternation, just disgusted with the parent who was working the score clock. She twirled around and stomped off, mad that it was a tie. I’m sure I was that kid. I was dying laughing.
So this weekend we had three birthdays on our team. Saturday night was a party at a Turkish teammate’s house then it was out with a bunch of the other American players for Marita’s birthday. Our Turkish teammates were all having a sleepover but we had to go out. At least I did. I needed to go out in the worst way. It was to the point where I didn’t even remember the last time I dressed up and looked like a girl. When I saw my teammates they thought I had gotten my hair cut. No, I just blow dried it. I have never been so happy to put on makeup and heels. After making our way home from the party at 10 ish, we all met up at Meek and Marita’s with about 10 Americans, one whom I played with in high school (Enjoli Izidor), three that I played against in college, and three that I played against in Greece. The basketball world is a small one. After drinking and catching up, we crowded into cars and made our way to the hip hop club but not before getting stuck in traffic and throwing Reece’s Pieces into a friendly cabbie’s car and making friends with all the other passengers in cars rolling along with us. It was about 1 am at this point and after walking through a hotel trying to find a bathroom (“act normal, act normal” we kept reminding each other), it was into the club and free shots from the bartender I met my first weekend here. Just a little something to get the night started right. The rest of the night was typical European clubbing; loud music, packed dance floor, and a really really late night, five in the morning to be exact. As a special treat my most favorite teammates showed up as they had left the sleepover when the birthday girl fell asleep. I was so excited to see them.
Anyway, not much else to report from the club, at least not much that I remember. I really didn’t sleep but a few hours because even after we left the club we kept having fun. I woke up the next day smiling which is quite the opposite reaction I usually have from getting annihilated and not sleeping. For some reason it was just what the doctor ordered. After the stress of the last few weeks I just needed to have some fun. The next day we had off from practice but our whole team dragged themselves to scout our next opponent. Seems like everyone who was at the club was at the game and we all just looked at each other’s tired eyes and laughed. I was asleep by eight.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Beginning of Bayram
This was a few weeks ago but here goes....
After practice on Saturday I made plans to meet up with a friend of my friend Sam. Andrew is living in NYC and just happened to be visiting Istanbul for the next week for vacation. We'd never met before but we both knew having Sam in common is enough conversation to last for days. Plus I've never met a friend of Sam's I didn't adore immediately and Andrew turned out to be no exception. So I hauled ass to get downtown on a dark rainy Saturday, got ripped off my a taxi driver who had no more than 1 lira in change, and made my way down to Sultanhamet square where Andrew was waiting with an umbrella, bless him. I am never prepared for the weather here, it goes from hot to cold to rainy to windy to sunny in a matter of hours so you never know what to wear or what to bring. But let’s be serious here, I never have an umbrella even in Seattle.
Anyway, we started walking and made our way down to Eminonu where we bought fresh fish sandwiches and boarded a ferry to Uskudar, on the Asia side of Istanbul. The same as last time I went, market shopping with all the colors and smells, beautiful fruits and vegetables, hot fresh flat bread from the bakery, and puddle jumping and taxi dodging. We walked a bit further, out of the commerce area and in the destitute residential area, sharing travel stories and talking about NYC and Sam’s group of mutual friends. Its always nice to meet someone new that has experienced life in different unique ways (lived in India, France, Greece) and has that adventuresome spirit and curiosity of the world that keep conversation and life in general interesting.
We came back on the ferry to the Europe side and walked up through the Spice Bazaar with its multitude of sweets, spices, and teas, and back to Sultanhamet. We were on our way to see the Turkish Baths when we stopped at a travel agency, some Turkish guys Andrew had met the day before. Turkish people are not only generous with money but generous of spirit as well. They take a lot of pride in your experience of their country and are most hospitable. Plus they are just generally happy and nice and social. So we sat in the travel agency for a good 45 minutes while they finished up business for the day before the long holiday begins. The end of Ramazan is celebrated in a grand finale of feasting for 3,4, 9 days (we’ve gotten about 5 different answers) where most things are closed and everyone is visiting family and friends. We sat and drank chai, talking to a few Filipino nurses working in Dubai, and generally just hanging out even after the power goes out, and watching tourists walk by. I was busy staring at the gorgeous Turkish agency owner, every time he looked at me with his dark eyes I about lost it. Andrew was just laughing at me and feeling weird about waiting…. He lives in New York where if someone had you waiting around that long you would feel like a tag along and very unwelcome. Here of course it means things are normal.
Finally, in the dark of the travel agency we all decided to get going. Mus, one of the very cool Turkish guys who currently lives in Berkeley took us walking to look for some food. We stopped every few minutes to say hello to his friends, carpet salesman, hotel owners, etc. All complete
characters. We settled in an outdoor café in the hotel district where people were sitting around smoking hookah, drinking chai, eating beautiful Turkish food, and listening to three men on stage playing Turkish music. We crammed into the small booth and began ordering way too much food. Half way through our soup a Dervish dancer came on stage and began spinning, his white skirt flaring up in the night breeze, his upper body completely still and face transfixed by the music. It is a strange site but very beautiful and amazing that someone can spin that long without getting dizzy as well as do it with such precision.
After many cups of chai we made our way back to Mus’ friend’s hotel where he insisted that I get a ride home. I live about 30 minutes away without traffic and it takes me an hour on the metro. I am in fact trying to move closer in the city and closer to our gym, it just makes more sense. There is no reason for me to be in the suburbs and its boring to boot. So we all pile into the hotel’s van with a random driver and make our way up the coast to my neighborhood. Mus knows everyone in Istanbul by the way. He worked in the tourist industry for awhile and has really good connections. Plus he is super nice so makes friends with everyone. At one point I looked at Andrew and said, “you realize you met The Man right?”
I had the next day off so Andrew and Mus and I had decided to meet up and spend the day sightseeing. We met up mid day and began walking. I naively expected the first day of the holiday to be a bit like Thanksgiving where the streets are empty, everything is closed, and everyone is at home with family. Boy was I wrong. I could barely get on the metro it was so packed and by the time we got downtown people were screaming at oncoming passengers that there was no room. Getting off was like sumo wrestling, pushing your way through before the doors closed was quite the experience. Finally I made it downtown where the streets were packed, everyone out eating and enjoying themselves. Kids are off school for the next week and most jobs have a four day break. Mus, Andrew and I started walking through Topkapi Palace Park all the way through to the end where it opens up before the sea. We bought meatball sandwiches and ayran, a yoghurt drink, and sat along the boardwalk where people were walking, fishing, and eating everywhere. Fisherman were in little boats, riding the currents out further,
the ferries riding low in the water, completely packed with people spilling out from every spot available. All public transportation is free for the holiday and everyone in the city was taking advantage of it it seemed. After eating a great sandwich we too got to walking. And walking we did. We made our way down to Eminonu on foot, then over the Galata Bridge, then over to the other Europe side where we stopped for chai, then up to Taksim where we ate dinner at a packed Turkish restaurant. Finally it was time to go home but not after making more plans, to eat no less, for the next day and my brother’s arrival.
We came back on the ferry to the Europe side and walked up through the Spice Bazaar with its multitude of sweets, spices, and teas, and back to Sultanhamet. We were on our way to see the Turkish Baths when we stopped at a travel agency, some Turkish guys Andrew had met the day before. Turkish people are not only generous with money but generous of spirit as well. They take a lot of pride in your experience of their country and are most hospitable. Plus they are just generally happy and nice and social. So we sat in the travel agency for a good 45 minutes while they finished up business for the day before the long holiday begins. The end of Ramazan is celebrated in a grand finale of feasting for 3,4, 9 days (we’ve gotten about 5 different answers) where most things are closed and everyone is visiting family and friends. We sat and drank chai, talking to a few Filipino nurses working in Dubai, and generally just hanging out even after the power goes out, and watching tourists walk by. I was busy staring at the gorgeous Turkish agency owner, every time he looked at me with his dark eyes I about lost it. Andrew was just laughing at me and feeling weird about waiting…. He lives in New York where if someone had you waiting around that long you would feel like a tag along and very unwelcome. Here of course it means things are normal.
Finally, in the dark of the travel agency we all decided to get going. Mus, one of the very cool Turkish guys who currently lives in Berkeley took us walking to look for some food. We stopped every few minutes to say hello to his friends, carpet salesman, hotel owners, etc. All complete
characters. We settled in an outdoor café in the hotel district where people were sitting around smoking hookah, drinking chai, eating beautiful Turkish food, and listening to three men on stage playing Turkish music. We crammed into the small booth and began ordering way too much food. Half way through our soup a Dervish dancer came on stage and began spinning, his white skirt flaring up in the night breeze, his upper body completely still and face transfixed by the music. It is a strange site but very beautiful and amazing that someone can spin that long without getting dizzy as well as do it with such precision.After many cups of chai we made our way back to Mus’ friend’s hotel where he insisted that I get a ride home. I live about 30 minutes away without traffic and it takes me an hour on the metro. I am in fact trying to move closer in the city and closer to our gym, it just makes more sense. There is no reason for me to be in the suburbs and its boring to boot. So we all pile into the hotel’s van with a random driver and make our way up the coast to my neighborhood. Mus knows everyone in Istanbul by the way. He worked in the tourist industry for awhile and has really good connections. Plus he is super nice so makes friends with everyone. At one point I looked at Andrew and said, “you realize you met The Man right?”
I had the next day off so Andrew and Mus and I had decided to meet up and spend the day sightseeing. We met up mid day and began walking. I naively expected the first day of the holiday to be a bit like Thanksgiving where the streets are empty, everything is closed, and everyone is at home with family. Boy was I wrong. I could barely get on the metro it was so packed and by the time we got downtown people were screaming at oncoming passengers that there was no room. Getting off was like sumo wrestling, pushing your way through before the doors closed was quite the experience. Finally I made it downtown where the streets were packed, everyone out eating and enjoying themselves. Kids are off school for the next week and most jobs have a four day break. Mus, Andrew and I started walking through Topkapi Palace Park all the way through to the end where it opens up before the sea. We bought meatball sandwiches and ayran, a yoghurt drink, and sat along the boardwalk where people were walking, fishing, and eating everywhere. Fisherman were in little boats, riding the currents out further,
the ferries riding low in the water, completely packed with people spilling out from every spot available. All public transportation is free for the holiday and everyone in the city was taking advantage of it it seemed. After eating a great sandwich we too got to walking. And walking we did. We made our way down to Eminonu on foot, then over the Galata Bridge, then over to the other Europe side where we stopped for chai, then up to Taksim where we ate dinner at a packed Turkish restaurant. Finally it was time to go home but not after making more plans, to eat no less, for the next day and my brother’s arrival. Thursday, November 09, 2006
This is my life....
This is a long one....
A few weeks ago we had a tournament in Central Turkey. I found out about it soon after I arrived in Istanbul in the beginning of September and realized it was the week my brother Jordan was scheduled to fly into Istanbul. But I knew far enough ahead that I could arrange for him to get another flight and meet us in Kayseri, right in the middle of the country for a few days. It was serious drama figuring that out due to the fact that they couldn’t tell me our hotel name ahead of time and my address in Istanbul is a building number and no taxi driver would know exactly where it is. But luckily I have a good Turkish friend who speaks perfect English to help me out.
My first week in Istanbul I am taking care of the usual logistics, making sure the bugs are all dead in my apartment, braving the metro, getting a cell phone, perfecting my Turkish “thank you”, and getting a bank account. My team manager helps me with most things and her English is fine but by no means is our communication without its snags. We are sitting at the desk of a young banker, my manager and him discussing whose name it will be under, handing passports back and forth, I am signing, no joke, twenty eights pieces of paper all written in Turkish. Probably signed away my first born, when the banker says, “Sign here.” In perfect English. I look up surprised as it has been eight whole days where I have not talked to one person comfortably. I wanted to stay there, get his number, take him out to lunch, hug him. But I simply comment on how good his English is. He says he lived in America for six years. “Really, where?” In Iowa he responds. “I lived in Iowa! I went to Iowa state.” Me too he says. And so we continue with graduation years (one year apart), where we lived, what bars we went too, when we last went back. Etc. I couldn’t believe it. Of all the places in the world. Anyway, Kavanch and I have become fast friends and he was so nice to help me get my brother to Kayseri.
So our team informs us that we will be driving to Kayseri, eight hours on a bus, after practice on Monday. Every other team is flying of course or at least only has a four hour bus ride. But its fine, I am fairly used to long bus rides after playing in Greece and they aren’t so bad. I know the drill, someone is inevitably smoking, we stop every forty minutes for coffee (or tea), and my teammates, being mostly under 20 years old, will have more energy for socializing than I can even imagine. But overall, it a good chance to team bond and eight hours really isn’t so bad when your usual travel arrangements consistent of crammed transatlantic flights. So, I’m thinking, no problem, we will practice early on Monday, drive to Kayseri, practice Tuesday and rest and play Wednesday through Sunday. No big deal. Oh was I wrong….
So Sunday they inform us that we have weight lifting Monday morning and then will need to bring our bags to night practice so we can leave for Kayseri from the gym. Fine. Then we find out that not only is night practice not earlier than normal, it is later. So we will finish at 8 pm, then have a no less than 8 hour bus ride. Sweet. ETA: Four in the morning.
At this point we should have known that NO ONE within our organization has a freaking clue what is going on or why and if they do, no one communicates anything to us at all. After we finish weights they decide to tell us that we need to go downtown, another hour in traffic to sign our contracts that could have been done oh say, WHEN WE GOT TO THIS COUNTRY!!! Instead of the day we are too leave when my teammates haven’t packed for a week long trip. And if they had only told us the previous day we could have planned accordingly. But then it would have been too easy. Ahhhhh. Plus we are starving as we get shuttled from the bank, the tourist agency, back to the bank, with no explanation. We just sit there looking at random Turkish people typing away, shuffling papers and talking to our assistant coach. So we are tired, hungry, confused and unsure when we are getting home. We start getting a little loopy and laughing at things that really aren’t funny except when you are in a foreign country and the only other option is to scream.
We get back to our apartment with a good 45 minutes to get everything together and rest for practice before a “special taxi” is going to pick us up. Special taxis are people that like to make money but don’t want to be licensed taxi drivers. They are considerably cheaper, but illegal, and they look like any other driver. For the first week I was here I kept thinking that it wasn’t someone’s dad driving us to practice. Five minutes before the scheduled pick up I drag my bags down the hall into the coffin sized elevator and out onto the street where every passing car stares at me like I have two heads and every taxi tries to take me to the airport. I don’t know who I am waiting for, like I said, they look like every other car. But you know, how many blonde American women on the side of the street with luggage could there be, I’m pretty sure he’ll spot me. But I am still waiting. All I really know is that my assistant coach text messaged me that the special taxi is going to pick me up, then him, then we will go to the gym for practice. 20 minutes later my coach text messages me again, “where are you?”. Waiting on the side of the freaking road! To which I get no reply. Its now about 45 minutes until practice time which, in the current Turkish traffic exchange rate, is more like nothing. Finally a mini euro van type thing pulls up to the curb and a small Turkish man starts loading my luggage into the back like a man on a mission. I’m guessing this is the right guy. So I get in and he starts asking me things in Turkish. I answer with directions to my teammates’ apartment, hoping that’s what he wanted. Sure enough, they are sitting on their suitcases on the side of the road looking every bit as confused as I am. We load them up and continue driving, hoping that we are headed to our assistant coaches house. Fortunately the route seems familiar and we relax until we arrive at his apartment and he isn’t waiting outside. Meek text messages him that we are in the taxi waiting for him outside his building, he calls back saying he is in a special taxi headed for her house. Apparently the first taxi drove by my apartment early, didn’t see me, and left. So then our assistant got another taxi without telling us and decided to come pick us up instead. But then the first taxi decided to give it another go, doesn’t tell our coach, and comes to pick us up like he was supposed to the first time around. The blind leading the blind. Our coach tells us to get out of the
taxi. So after paying the guy that f-ed it all up, we unload our luggage onto the pavement, drag them behind a car and sit out in the side of the street and watch cars go in reverse down the one way street and laugh. At this point there is nothing left to do but laugh. What is going on? And why does this stuff keep happening to us? Because this is Turkey and this is how things get done, with the most complications as possible. So there we are, a blonde American, a black American, and a 6’5” Australian, stranded on a random street in Istanbul, late for practice, packed for a trip to central Turkey, laughing hysterically and shaking our heads. How ridiculous do we look? Talk about incongruous. Then an old man from the coiffeur in the basement comes out and starts speaking to us in Turkish. We communicate that we play basketball for Istanbul University and yes please we would love some chai. So we chill out in the barber shop for a good 15 minutes, drinking chai, and trying to ask if they give manicures before our coach finally shows up with two special taxis and we load all our crap in one and cram ourselves in another and make our way to practice. This was just getting to the gym, mind you, something that we do every single day. Warning flags all over the place and yet we still had no idea what we were in for…..
After practice we turn the cold showers on and let them run for 10 minutes hoping that like some days, the water just needs time to warm up. Some of our teammates seem to be dressing to leave however and its then we realize that everyone else is going home, for a hot shower, to gather their things, and to get some home cooked food from mom. We are standing in a cold locker room naked, with clothes from our suitcases strewn all over, waiting for the water to warm up before a long bus ride. So now we realize we are leaving at 10 pm. ETA: 6 a.m. Even better.
After 15 minutes the water still hasn’t warmed up a degree and word comes from someone that the bus service wants us to hurry. I politely tell them to tell them to f off and get some hot water. So Meek, Marita and I jump in the cold showers screaming, rinse off the soap and dry off shivering the whole time. We change and gather our things. Mind you this is a week trip with five games and no hope for laundry. So, needless to say there is an excessive amount of things to manage, three uniforms, underwear, socks and everything else that goes with it. Plus, with a long bus ride there is the necessary books and laptap, ipods and dvd players. There is a lot of crap we are lugging down the hallway and down the street, and up the curb, and across the arterial, and over the grass median, down the cobblestone street, through the mini park, down the hill, and up the stairs to our club. Yeah, they decided to have us walk in the dark, across streets filled with crazy Turkish drivers, with our roller bags going over two foot curbs and cracked sidewalks. This in itself, not so bad. Kind of ridiculous, kind of humorous, but looking back, just a hint of what was to come.
So we wait at our club for the bus, my trainer and yelling at me for having wet hair and how I am going to get sick even though it is 65 degrees outside and its not like I had a choice anyway. We had practice so I am going to get my hair wet, I can’t go home, and wouldn’t have time to blow dry my hair at the gym even if I had brought a dryer since they were yelling at us to hurry up. Plus, I felt like saying “shut the hell up and get some hot water at the gym.” I hate when they talk to me like I am 10 years old. Especially when I am older than ! Plus when my trainer tells me, after our bus ride that the reason my neck is stiff is because my hair was wet, I have a hard time listening to anything he says after that.
So we rush down the street to get kebap with our coaches, who are stressed and hurried and make it back to the bus with fresh chicken wraps and settle onto the bus, waving at the junior players and teammate’s families as they watch the bus roll down the street. Finally we are on our way, about 11 pm, with a good 8 hour bus ride. I start braiding hair and practicing my Turkish with teammates when a movie gets put on. “She’s All That” which I watched for about 10 minutes until I realized that I just can’t do American teenage movies anymore. It was making me nauseas, feel old, and generally embarrassed to be American. It wasn’t 30 minutes into the ride before we pulled up to a gas station so everyone could use the one toilet stall that didn’t flush and buy snacks and tea. A good hour after that stop it was time to stop again. Us import players stayed on the bus until 15 minutes passed and by that time really did have to pee. So we go pay our 50 lira cents and use the loo. As we come out, its now 1 in the morning, and we still don’t see a soul from our team until we look up on the balcony and see our bus driver chilling with a cigarette and chai. So we make our way up to the restaurant where our whole team and coaches are sitting around a table talking and ordering chai. Meek and Marita
and I just stare at them in disbelief. I’m not really shocked, I had already warned the rookies of the road trip stops, the frequency, the duration, and the ultimate elongation of our journey. So now ETA is 7 am. Basically we are on a red eye. And we aren’t on our way home for Christmas…
30 minutes later we are back on the bus and everyone settles in to sleep a bit. I am in the back of the bus with a few teammates that also find it difficult to relax on the seats that rise up the in the middle, little peaks that dig right into your back if you try to lay down. At about two a.m I put my eye mask on and try to get some shut eye but I can’t get comfortable. Finally I end up laying on the floor, caked with muddy shoe tracks, waking up often from freezing next to the air conditioner, someone stepping on my leg on their way to the bathroom, or because I smell smoke in the air, tobacco from our coaches smoking a pipe in the front seats. The floor was cold and I could feel every crack in the road on my spine, every gear shift in my bones. We were swerving on the road as usual and all I could think of was we were sure to get in an accident, just to top everything off. When I am finally asleep for good I wake with a throat sore from the air conditioner and tobacco smoke to the sun shining, the bus stopped, and extremely loud mosque prayers blasting from none other than are very own radio. It was all I could do to not scream at the “Allah Allah” moaning with a big fat “SHUT THE F UP.” Thought that might be a little disrespectful although I am sure even the Muslims on the bus felt the same way. It was the worst wake up you could possibly imagine after the worst night sleep. But at 8:30 the following morning, at least we had finally arrived. Then it was into the hotel for more waiting, followed by breakfast, followed by slow realization (because we don’t get actually told anything) that our rooms weren’t quite ready yet so we were welcome to go sleep back on the bus. Riiiiight, so we drove overnight to get to a tournament the day before we actually play without arranging for the hotel rooms to be ready early. I mean seriously, the rooms were $20 a night, pay the freaking extra so we can just sleep and stop this nightmare. So its back to the bus where Meek and I can’t seem to find our travel pillows anywhere. Soon we realize that our bus driver sleeping in the back has bogarted every pillow and blanket in sight.
Finally we go to our hotel rooms, about as nice as you would expect $20 a night to be, and laid down for a short rest before our 1 o’clock practice. It was tourist school/hotel where the students, in their school uniforms were working in the hotel, cleaning rooms, serving food, working the front desk. On the second floor you could literally walk into the school. We watched film in a classroom one morning. It was the strangest thing. Anyway, we get to the gym at 12:45 at exactly the time another team is walking up. And of course, we both had practice scheduled at the same time. So we have a 45 minute break where Meek and I go in frantic search of some coffee or tea. I am seriously struggling at this point and my throat keeps reminding me of how little rest I got. So we start walking, and walking, and asking every business owner, from a restaurant to a bakery to a hair salon where we can possibly get chai. But its Ramazan and the whole city is fasting until 7 pm and we can’t find anything with caffeine. This just doesn’t happen in Turkey, chai and Nescafe are sold on the street and in every shop you can imagine; from carpet shops to travel agencies. Finally we find an upscale café and sit and drink some instant energy. It doesn’t work and I go into practice feeling like I was run over by a truck.
The next five days were a bit of a blur. I got pretty sick with a sore throat and runny nose and we played every day in the morning or mid afternoon. So I sucked it up in the morning, wore my body down every afternoon, and slept the rest of the day. They don’t seem to have Nyquil here so I drank hot lemon tea from a pharmacy to help me sleep. It was miserable. Every morning I woke up and we all ate breakfast together in the hotel, bread with butter and honey, tomatoes and cucumbers, Turkish cheese and salami, boiled eggs, and coffee or tea. And for the next two meals we ate at the same Turkish restaurant. Five days, 10 meals, all at the same place. It seemed like every four hours we were back on the bus going to a feast of food at the same restaurant. Great food, wonderful people working there who actually started coming to our games. Gifts were exchanged when we left, t shirts for them, cheese for us. We ate Turkish soup (which is now my favorite), kebap, Turkish pizza, flat bread, rice and baked meat, yoghurt, and pickled vegetables. Every meal was excellent. But it was just overkill. By the fifth meal I didn’t want to see food again. I felt like I was on a cruise.
On the fourth day in Kayseri, however, my brother Jordan arrives which made everything seem better. He came to every game, walked around the city, found a Turkish bath, and ate with our team at the Turkish restaurant. It was so nice to have him there but he soon realized that I was a bit of a prisoner to our team. He kept saying it was like I was in the military and how the inmates were running the asylum. By the second day he stopped himself every time he began to ask me what was going on, what the schedule was, what the plan was for the rest of the day. I barely knew what time our game was the next day or had the game and opponent wrong because someone told me the wrong thing. Every night we met with our coaches and watched film, of us, of the next opponent and talked about what we need to improve on and scouted for the next game. Then we met in the morning before we left the hotel in case the two hours of film the night before wasn’t enough. One night he seriously has us in the auditorium of the hotel until 11 o’clock at night with wake up calls at 7:30 the next morning, stopping at literally each offensive and defensive possession and telling us what we did wrong. And I was sick so I wanted to punch him in the face I was so tired.
The tournament was fine, we went 2-3 but with a young team, we seem to be improving a lot. Our first league game is this next weekend so it will be nice to finally be playing for something that counts. The refs were beyond terrible again but our captain keeps telling me I haven’t seen anything until we play away games outside of Istanbul where the games are more like boxing matches. My favorite memory was running out for a game with fifty 9 year old boys in the stands from the nearby school yelling and heckling us. Little crazed futbol fans in the making no doubt. Give them a couple of years and they will be the adolescent males with their shirts off in the cold, waving flags, and banging drums. I don’t know what they were saying but they were clearly cheering for the other team. So cute.
We finished our final game on Sunday afternoon at 2 o’clock. We had wisely checked out of the hotel, so after showering at the gym there was plenty of time to get back to Istanbul at a reasonable hour. I couldn’t wait to get on the bus and relax and get home. But we all knew it wouldn’t be that easy. My brother was traveling with us now and was well aware from his experience and our stories of what he was in for…. Sort of.
We started putting bets on how many times we would stop. The import players and my brother that is. I don’t think the Turkish players thought there was anything unusual about the whole trip. Anyway, we put the over/under at 5 stops. I chose over. Sure enough there were almost 5 stops before we even left Kayseri. We went to eat one last time at our favorite restaurant and watched the rain pour down outside, eating Turkish soup and chicken kebap. Then we puddle jumped our way to the bus, two young Turkish boys screaming at us from an upstairs apartment window, bored from being forced inside from the rain. Then it was time to stop at a pastrami shop, cured beef being the regional specialty. Everyone unloaded the bus and crammed into small shops with sausages hanging in the window, sampling meats and buying gifts for their families. Jordan and I bought some and made our way back to the bus where we waited for a good 30 minutes for our coaches, teammates, managers and bus drivers. What they
were doing for 45 minutes in a meat shop I’ll never know. Then it was back to the gym where we had to pick up our captains bag because….. I don’t have a clue. That’s three stops.
Its pouring outside and our coaches decide that we are going to stop in Cappedocia where caves are carved out of 30 million year old volcanic rock. Its supposed to be a must see in Turkey and I did want to see it. So we make our way to Cappedocia while our coach puts the game film from that afternoon, we lost obviously, in the bus dvd player and gets on the microphone to dissect every play. There we are driving through the Turkish countryside, seeing fields of gold and yellows, small villages of shacks, and strange plants I have never seen before, while our coach stops and rewinds, criticizes and rewinds over the microphone. It was my idea of hell.
Finally we arrive in Cappedocia and stop at a cave viewing area. The museum is closed so we all
start climbing around the caves, taking pictures and watching stray puppies run down steeps hills playing in the fading day light. It got dark pretty quickly but we got to see a fair amount of caves, carved into the cliffs or built into mushroom shaped cones of rock. After a bit it was time to load onto the bus. I decided there was no way our coach could possibly put the film back on after jumping out from behind the caves trying to scare people. Thank god I was right.
We drove for another 15 minutes into town where we stopped again. That is five stops and we haven’t gone 40 miles towards Istanbul. We unload the bus and everyone goes to the bathroom in the most disgusting public toilets I have seen and then convened outside. My brother and the other imports are there and we are all confused and looking at each other. Finally we get word that we are staying in this deserted tourist town for another hour and a half. Why? Not really sure. But its raining and cold and dark and now 8
o’clock at night and we aren’t on our way home. Plus all of us are wearing our team windbreakers, with all our other clothes in the damn bottom of the bus.
We are standing outside the bathroom in the dark after squatting over disgusting Turkish toilets and wondering what in the hell we are doing in a deserted tourist town. I try to ask my coaches but get different answers each time I ask. “The bus driver has to eat because he has been fasting for Ramazan.” As if it makes perfect sense for everyone to wait when we could have driven and then stopped when he had to eat. Plus, after digesting his ridiculous answer, Marita says that we saw him eating with us at lunch to which we all agree. “The bus driver wants to drive at night.” To which I reply ‘get a new bus driver’. At this point I am still slightly amused by the whole thing, not completely chilled to the bone yet and not as tired or irritated as I will be soon. So, I settle into the old man’s club and play cards with my teammates D and G and my brother as old men bring us chai. We aren’t really supposed to be in their special club but they didn’t seem to mind, they were busy smoking
water pipe, playing backgammon, and watching futbol. It was clearly the happening place in town. After teaching my teammates ‘hearts’ and drinking my limit of chai we take to the streets, convinced it has to be time to leave finally. We don’t know where anyone is, the bus is locked, and it is now raining and getting cold. This is the girl that was sick for a week because of their dumb idea to take an overnight bus ride and now I am out shivering in the cold with my brother’s arm around me trying to keep me warm. At this point my ability to see the good in people or laugh at cultural differences is expired and my patience has reached its limit. There are cultural differences, and then there is just plain stupid. So we walk around the shops, buying trinkets at a store where every centimeter of space is occupied by something old, the ceiling, all the walls, covered with jewelery, guns, antique 
collectibles. Then it was into the carpet shops where old men were playing instruments and singing. We huddled around and looked at carpets, listened to music, and generally stayed because it was slightly warm.
Finally our coaches and the rest of the team show up looking like they were on vacation and just finished an exhilarating day of sightseeing. ‘What the hell are you so happy about’ I am thinking to myself. "Where's your coat?" they ask and I about lose it. “Its on the freaking BUS!” Finally after a good 6 hours of NOTHING but wasted time, we load the bus. After making a mile turn around and all of us joking that we are headed back to the gym, we circle through the town and get going on the road. Its now nearly 11 o’clock at night and I settled into my uncomfortable seat and watch the bootleg dvd that has constant digital issues until my eyes hurt.
At about 1 a.m we stop to eat because we haven’t eaten dinner. Jordan, Meek, Marita and I huddle over our Turkish food and wonder what idiot dreamed this whole trip up. I have never wanted to be home so badly, and by home I mean Istanbul. At this point I know for sure that I will never be making another overnight bus trip regardless of what the team plans. We could have flown to Kayseri for probably $150 dollars and saved ourselves from the misery. Of course then we wouldn’t have such a great story.
After eating we load the bus up again and I get on the floor, sleeping under peoples legs and once again feeling every crack in the road on my spine. It was a long, uncomfortable, and cold night. We road over the Bosphorus bridge early in the morning and made our way to our club house at about 8:00am. After unloading and watching our teammates walk away we stood on the curb with our coach and manager and waited. Our service bus doesn’t start working until 8:30 so we had to wait for them to arrive. I think that is one of the other idiotic reasons we left central Turkey so late, as if we can’t take a taxi home. At this point I can’t even look at anyone from our team’s management without feeling great feelings of contempt. I am SO tired and really don’t have patience for them roughhousing on the curb with energy to spare asking me if I slept well. “What the hell do you think? I slept on a freaking bus.”
Finally the service picks us up and I proceed to ask my other coach whose genius idea it was to drive overnight, hoping that there was at least some logical reason for all of our discomfort. No luck. Got the answer about the driver preferring it or something ridiculous. Finally we arrived home and Jord and I slept for hours before getting up and wandering around the city.
All in all it was the trip from hell and looking back I can laugh. In the midst of the madness however, I could hardly believe that any sane person could allow a trip to unfold how it did. This is when living overseas is not all at romantic and only serves to remind you that cultural norms run deep.....
A few weeks ago we had a tournament in Central Turkey. I found out about it soon after I arrived in Istanbul in the beginning of September and realized it was the week my brother Jordan was scheduled to fly into Istanbul. But I knew far enough ahead that I could arrange for him to get another flight and meet us in Kayseri, right in the middle of the country for a few days. It was serious drama figuring that out due to the fact that they couldn’t tell me our hotel name ahead of time and my address in Istanbul is a building number and no taxi driver would know exactly where it is. But luckily I have a good Turkish friend who speaks perfect English to help me out.
My first week in Istanbul I am taking care of the usual logistics, making sure the bugs are all dead in my apartment, braving the metro, getting a cell phone, perfecting my Turkish “thank you”, and getting a bank account. My team manager helps me with most things and her English is fine but by no means is our communication without its snags. We are sitting at the desk of a young banker, my manager and him discussing whose name it will be under, handing passports back and forth, I am signing, no joke, twenty eights pieces of paper all written in Turkish. Probably signed away my first born, when the banker says, “Sign here.” In perfect English. I look up surprised as it has been eight whole days where I have not talked to one person comfortably. I wanted to stay there, get his number, take him out to lunch, hug him. But I simply comment on how good his English is. He says he lived in America for six years. “Really, where?” In Iowa he responds. “I lived in Iowa! I went to Iowa state.” Me too he says. And so we continue with graduation years (one year apart), where we lived, what bars we went too, when we last went back. Etc. I couldn’t believe it. Of all the places in the world. Anyway, Kavanch and I have become fast friends and he was so nice to help me get my brother to Kayseri.
So our team informs us that we will be driving to Kayseri, eight hours on a bus, after practice on Monday. Every other team is flying of course or at least only has a four hour bus ride. But its fine, I am fairly used to long bus rides after playing in Greece and they aren’t so bad. I know the drill, someone is inevitably smoking, we stop every forty minutes for coffee (or tea), and my teammates, being mostly under 20 years old, will have more energy for socializing than I can even imagine. But overall, it a good chance to team bond and eight hours really isn’t so bad when your usual travel arrangements consistent of crammed transatlantic flights. So, I’m thinking, no problem, we will practice early on Monday, drive to Kayseri, practice Tuesday and rest and play Wednesday through Sunday. No big deal. Oh was I wrong….
So Sunday they inform us that we have weight lifting Monday morning and then will need to bring our bags to night practice so we can leave for Kayseri from the gym. Fine. Then we find out that not only is night practice not earlier than normal, it is later. So we will finish at 8 pm, then have a no less than 8 hour bus ride. Sweet. ETA: Four in the morning.
At this point we should have known that NO ONE within our organization has a freaking clue what is going on or why and if they do, no one communicates anything to us at all. After we finish weights they decide to tell us that we need to go downtown, another hour in traffic to sign our contracts that could have been done oh say, WHEN WE GOT TO THIS COUNTRY!!! Instead of the day we are too leave when my teammates haven’t packed for a week long trip. And if they had only told us the previous day we could have planned accordingly. But then it would have been too easy. Ahhhhh. Plus we are starving as we get shuttled from the bank, the tourist agency, back to the bank, with no explanation. We just sit there looking at random Turkish people typing away, shuffling papers and talking to our assistant coach. So we are tired, hungry, confused and unsure when we are getting home. We start getting a little loopy and laughing at things that really aren’t funny except when you are in a foreign country and the only other option is to scream.
We get back to our apartment with a good 45 minutes to get everything together and rest for practice before a “special taxi” is going to pick us up. Special taxis are people that like to make money but don’t want to be licensed taxi drivers. They are considerably cheaper, but illegal, and they look like any other driver. For the first week I was here I kept thinking that it wasn’t someone’s dad driving us to practice. Five minutes before the scheduled pick up I drag my bags down the hall into the coffin sized elevator and out onto the street where every passing car stares at me like I have two heads and every taxi tries to take me to the airport. I don’t know who I am waiting for, like I said, they look like every other car. But you know, how many blonde American women on the side of the street with luggage could there be, I’m pretty sure he’ll spot me. But I am still waiting. All I really know is that my assistant coach text messaged me that the special taxi is going to pick me up, then him, then we will go to the gym for practice. 20 minutes later my coach text messages me again, “where are you?”. Waiting on the side of the freaking road! To which I get no reply. Its now about 45 minutes until practice time which, in the current Turkish traffic exchange rate, is more like nothing. Finally a mini euro van type thing pulls up to the curb and a small Turkish man starts loading my luggage into the back like a man on a mission. I’m guessing this is the right guy. So I get in and he starts asking me things in Turkish. I answer with directions to my teammates’ apartment, hoping that’s what he wanted. Sure enough, they are sitting on their suitcases on the side of the road looking every bit as confused as I am. We load them up and continue driving, hoping that we are headed to our assistant coaches house. Fortunately the route seems familiar and we relax until we arrive at his apartment and he isn’t waiting outside. Meek text messages him that we are in the taxi waiting for him outside his building, he calls back saying he is in a special taxi headed for her house. Apparently the first taxi drove by my apartment early, didn’t see me, and left. So then our assistant got another taxi without telling us and decided to come pick us up instead. But then the first taxi decided to give it another go, doesn’t tell our coach, and comes to pick us up like he was supposed to the first time around. The blind leading the blind. Our coach tells us to get out of the
taxi. So after paying the guy that f-ed it all up, we unload our luggage onto the pavement, drag them behind a car and sit out in the side of the street and watch cars go in reverse down the one way street and laugh. At this point there is nothing left to do but laugh. What is going on? And why does this stuff keep happening to us? Because this is Turkey and this is how things get done, with the most complications as possible. So there we are, a blonde American, a black American, and a 6’5” Australian, stranded on a random street in Istanbul, late for practice, packed for a trip to central Turkey, laughing hysterically and shaking our heads. How ridiculous do we look? Talk about incongruous. Then an old man from the coiffeur in the basement comes out and starts speaking to us in Turkish. We communicate that we play basketball for Istanbul University and yes please we would love some chai. So we chill out in the barber shop for a good 15 minutes, drinking chai, and trying to ask if they give manicures before our coach finally shows up with two special taxis and we load all our crap in one and cram ourselves in another and make our way to practice. This was just getting to the gym, mind you, something that we do every single day. Warning flags all over the place and yet we still had no idea what we were in for…..After practice we turn the cold showers on and let them run for 10 minutes hoping that like some days, the water just needs time to warm up. Some of our teammates seem to be dressing to leave however and its then we realize that everyone else is going home, for a hot shower, to gather their things, and to get some home cooked food from mom. We are standing in a cold locker room naked, with clothes from our suitcases strewn all over, waiting for the water to warm up before a long bus ride. So now we realize we are leaving at 10 pm. ETA: 6 a.m. Even better.
After 15 minutes the water still hasn’t warmed up a degree and word comes from someone that the bus service wants us to hurry. I politely tell them to tell them to f off and get some hot water. So Meek, Marita and I jump in the cold showers screaming, rinse off the soap and dry off shivering the whole time. We change and gather our things. Mind you this is a week trip with five games and no hope for laundry. So, needless to say there is an excessive amount of things to manage, three uniforms, underwear, socks and everything else that goes with it. Plus, with a long bus ride there is the necessary books and laptap, ipods and dvd players. There is a lot of crap we are lugging down the hallway and down the street, and up the curb, and across the arterial, and over the grass median, down the cobblestone street, through the mini park, down the hill, and up the stairs to our club. Yeah, they decided to have us walk in the dark, across streets filled with crazy Turkish drivers, with our roller bags going over two foot curbs and cracked sidewalks. This in itself, not so bad. Kind of ridiculous, kind of humorous, but looking back, just a hint of what was to come.
So we wait at our club for the bus, my trainer and yelling at me for having wet hair and how I am going to get sick even though it is 65 degrees outside and its not like I had a choice anyway. We had practice so I am going to get my hair wet, I can’t go home, and wouldn’t have time to blow dry my hair at the gym even if I had brought a dryer since they were yelling at us to hurry up. Plus, I felt like saying “shut the hell up and get some hot water at the gym.” I hate when they talk to me like I am 10 years old. Especially when I am older than ! Plus when my trainer tells me, after our bus ride that the reason my neck is stiff is because my hair was wet, I have a hard time listening to anything he says after that.
So we rush down the street to get kebap with our coaches, who are stressed and hurried and make it back to the bus with fresh chicken wraps and settle onto the bus, waving at the junior players and teammate’s families as they watch the bus roll down the street. Finally we are on our way, about 11 pm, with a good 8 hour bus ride. I start braiding hair and practicing my Turkish with teammates when a movie gets put on. “She’s All That” which I watched for about 10 minutes until I realized that I just can’t do American teenage movies anymore. It was making me nauseas, feel old, and generally embarrassed to be American. It wasn’t 30 minutes into the ride before we pulled up to a gas station so everyone could use the one toilet stall that didn’t flush and buy snacks and tea. A good hour after that stop it was time to stop again. Us import players stayed on the bus until 15 minutes passed and by that time really did have to pee. So we go pay our 50 lira cents and use the loo. As we come out, its now 1 in the morning, and we still don’t see a soul from our team until we look up on the balcony and see our bus driver chilling with a cigarette and chai. So we make our way up to the restaurant where our whole team and coaches are sitting around a table talking and ordering chai. Meek and Marita
and I just stare at them in disbelief. I’m not really shocked, I had already warned the rookies of the road trip stops, the frequency, the duration, and the ultimate elongation of our journey. So now ETA is 7 am. Basically we are on a red eye. And we aren’t on our way home for Christmas…30 minutes later we are back on the bus and everyone settles in to sleep a bit. I am in the back of the bus with a few teammates that also find it difficult to relax on the seats that rise up the in the middle, little peaks that dig right into your back if you try to lay down. At about two a.m I put my eye mask on and try to get some shut eye but I can’t get comfortable. Finally I end up laying on the floor, caked with muddy shoe tracks, waking up often from freezing next to the air conditioner, someone stepping on my leg on their way to the bathroom, or because I smell smoke in the air, tobacco from our coaches smoking a pipe in the front seats. The floor was cold and I could feel every crack in the road on my spine, every gear shift in my bones. We were swerving on the road as usual and all I could think of was we were sure to get in an accident, just to top everything off. When I am finally asleep for good I wake with a throat sore from the air conditioner and tobacco smoke to the sun shining, the bus stopped, and extremely loud mosque prayers blasting from none other than are very own radio. It was all I could do to not scream at the “Allah Allah” moaning with a big fat “SHUT THE F UP.” Thought that might be a little disrespectful although I am sure even the Muslims on the bus felt the same way. It was the worst wake up you could possibly imagine after the worst night sleep. But at 8:30 the following morning, at least we had finally arrived. Then it was into the hotel for more waiting, followed by breakfast, followed by slow realization (because we don’t get actually told anything) that our rooms weren’t quite ready yet so we were welcome to go sleep back on the bus. Riiiiight, so we drove overnight to get to a tournament the day before we actually play without arranging for the hotel rooms to be ready early. I mean seriously, the rooms were $20 a night, pay the freaking extra so we can just sleep and stop this nightmare. So its back to the bus where Meek and I can’t seem to find our travel pillows anywhere. Soon we realize that our bus driver sleeping in the back has bogarted every pillow and blanket in sight.
Finally we go to our hotel rooms, about as nice as you would expect $20 a night to be, and laid down for a short rest before our 1 o’clock practice. It was tourist school/hotel where the students, in their school uniforms were working in the hotel, cleaning rooms, serving food, working the front desk. On the second floor you could literally walk into the school. We watched film in a classroom one morning. It was the strangest thing. Anyway, we get to the gym at 12:45 at exactly the time another team is walking up. And of course, we both had practice scheduled at the same time. So we have a 45 minute break where Meek and I go in frantic search of some coffee or tea. I am seriously struggling at this point and my throat keeps reminding me of how little rest I got. So we start walking, and walking, and asking every business owner, from a restaurant to a bakery to a hair salon where we can possibly get chai. But its Ramazan and the whole city is fasting until 7 pm and we can’t find anything with caffeine. This just doesn’t happen in Turkey, chai and Nescafe are sold on the street and in every shop you can imagine; from carpet shops to travel agencies. Finally we find an upscale café and sit and drink some instant energy. It doesn’t work and I go into practice feeling like I was run over by a truck.
The next five days were a bit of a blur. I got pretty sick with a sore throat and runny nose and we played every day in the morning or mid afternoon. So I sucked it up in the morning, wore my body down every afternoon, and slept the rest of the day. They don’t seem to have Nyquil here so I drank hot lemon tea from a pharmacy to help me sleep. It was miserable. Every morning I woke up and we all ate breakfast together in the hotel, bread with butter and honey, tomatoes and cucumbers, Turkish cheese and salami, boiled eggs, and coffee or tea. And for the next two meals we ate at the same Turkish restaurant. Five days, 10 meals, all at the same place. It seemed like every four hours we were back on the bus going to a feast of food at the same restaurant. Great food, wonderful people working there who actually started coming to our games. Gifts were exchanged when we left, t shirts for them, cheese for us. We ate Turkish soup (which is now my favorite), kebap, Turkish pizza, flat bread, rice and baked meat, yoghurt, and pickled vegetables. Every meal was excellent. But it was just overkill. By the fifth meal I didn’t want to see food again. I felt like I was on a cruise.
On the fourth day in Kayseri, however, my brother Jordan arrives which made everything seem better. He came to every game, walked around the city, found a Turkish bath, and ate with our team at the Turkish restaurant. It was so nice to have him there but he soon realized that I was a bit of a prisoner to our team. He kept saying it was like I was in the military and how the inmates were running the asylum. By the second day he stopped himself every time he began to ask me what was going on, what the schedule was, what the plan was for the rest of the day. I barely knew what time our game was the next day or had the game and opponent wrong because someone told me the wrong thing. Every night we met with our coaches and watched film, of us, of the next opponent and talked about what we need to improve on and scouted for the next game. Then we met in the morning before we left the hotel in case the two hours of film the night before wasn’t enough. One night he seriously has us in the auditorium of the hotel until 11 o’clock at night with wake up calls at 7:30 the next morning, stopping at literally each offensive and defensive possession and telling us what we did wrong. And I was sick so I wanted to punch him in the face I was so tired.
The tournament was fine, we went 2-3 but with a young team, we seem to be improving a lot. Our first league game is this next weekend so it will be nice to finally be playing for something that counts. The refs were beyond terrible again but our captain keeps telling me I haven’t seen anything until we play away games outside of Istanbul where the games are more like boxing matches. My favorite memory was running out for a game with fifty 9 year old boys in the stands from the nearby school yelling and heckling us. Little crazed futbol fans in the making no doubt. Give them a couple of years and they will be the adolescent males with their shirts off in the cold, waving flags, and banging drums. I don’t know what they were saying but they were clearly cheering for the other team. So cute.
We finished our final game on Sunday afternoon at 2 o’clock. We had wisely checked out of the hotel, so after showering at the gym there was plenty of time to get back to Istanbul at a reasonable hour. I couldn’t wait to get on the bus and relax and get home. But we all knew it wouldn’t be that easy. My brother was traveling with us now and was well aware from his experience and our stories of what he was in for…. Sort of.
We started putting bets on how many times we would stop. The import players and my brother that is. I don’t think the Turkish players thought there was anything unusual about the whole trip. Anyway, we put the over/under at 5 stops. I chose over. Sure enough there were almost 5 stops before we even left Kayseri. We went to eat one last time at our favorite restaurant and watched the rain pour down outside, eating Turkish soup and chicken kebap. Then we puddle jumped our way to the bus, two young Turkish boys screaming at us from an upstairs apartment window, bored from being forced inside from the rain. Then it was time to stop at a pastrami shop, cured beef being the regional specialty. Everyone unloaded the bus and crammed into small shops with sausages hanging in the window, sampling meats and buying gifts for their families. Jordan and I bought some and made our way back to the bus where we waited for a good 30 minutes for our coaches, teammates, managers and bus drivers. What they
were doing for 45 minutes in a meat shop I’ll never know. Then it was back to the gym where we had to pick up our captains bag because….. I don’t have a clue. That’s three stops.Its pouring outside and our coaches decide that we are going to stop in Cappedocia where caves are carved out of 30 million year old volcanic rock. Its supposed to be a must see in Turkey and I did want to see it. So we make our way to Cappedocia while our coach puts the game film from that afternoon, we lost obviously, in the bus dvd player and gets on the microphone to dissect every play. There we are driving through the Turkish countryside, seeing fields of gold and yellows, small villages of shacks, and strange plants I have never seen before, while our coach stops and rewinds, criticizes and rewinds over the microphone. It was my idea of hell.
Finally we arrive in Cappedocia and stop at a cave viewing area. The museum is closed so we all
start climbing around the caves, taking pictures and watching stray puppies run down steeps hills playing in the fading day light. It got dark pretty quickly but we got to see a fair amount of caves, carved into the cliffs or built into mushroom shaped cones of rock. After a bit it was time to load onto the bus. I decided there was no way our coach could possibly put the film back on after jumping out from behind the caves trying to scare people. Thank god I was right.We drove for another 15 minutes into town where we stopped again. That is five stops and we haven’t gone 40 miles towards Istanbul. We unload the bus and everyone goes to the bathroom in the most disgusting public toilets I have seen and then convened outside. My brother and the other imports are there and we are all confused and looking at each other. Finally we get word that we are staying in this deserted tourist town for another hour and a half. Why? Not really sure. But its raining and cold and dark and now 8
o’clock at night and we aren’t on our way home. Plus all of us are wearing our team windbreakers, with all our other clothes in the damn bottom of the bus.We are standing outside the bathroom in the dark after squatting over disgusting Turkish toilets and wondering what in the hell we are doing in a deserted tourist town. I try to ask my coaches but get different answers each time I ask. “The bus driver has to eat because he has been fasting for Ramazan.” As if it makes perfect sense for everyone to wait when we could have driven and then stopped when he had to eat. Plus, after digesting his ridiculous answer, Marita says that we saw him eating with us at lunch to which we all agree. “The bus driver wants to drive at night.” To which I reply ‘get a new bus driver’. At this point I am still slightly amused by the whole thing, not completely chilled to the bone yet and not as tired or irritated as I will be soon. So, I settle into the old man’s club and play cards with my teammates D and G and my brother as old men bring us chai. We aren’t really supposed to be in their special club but they didn’t seem to mind, they were busy smoking
water pipe, playing backgammon, and watching futbol. It was clearly the happening place in town. After teaching my teammates ‘hearts’ and drinking my limit of chai we take to the streets, convinced it has to be time to leave finally. We don’t know where anyone is, the bus is locked, and it is now raining and getting cold. This is the girl that was sick for a week because of their dumb idea to take an overnight bus ride and now I am out shivering in the cold with my brother’s arm around me trying to keep me warm. At this point my ability to see the good in people or laugh at cultural differences is expired and my patience has reached its limit. There are cultural differences, and then there is just plain stupid. So we walk around the shops, buying trinkets at a store where every centimeter of space is occupied by something old, the ceiling, all the walls, covered with jewelery, guns, antique 
collectibles. Then it was into the carpet shops where old men were playing instruments and singing. We huddled around and looked at carpets, listened to music, and generally stayed because it was slightly warm.Finally our coaches and the rest of the team show up looking like they were on vacation and just finished an exhilarating day of sightseeing. ‘What the hell are you so happy about’ I am thinking to myself. "Where's your coat?" they ask and I about lose it. “Its on the freaking BUS!” Finally after a good 6 hours of NOTHING but wasted time, we load the bus. After making a mile turn around and all of us joking that we are headed back to the gym, we circle through the town and get going on the road. Its now nearly 11 o’clock at night and I settled into my uncomfortable seat and watch the bootleg dvd that has constant digital issues until my eyes hurt.
At about 1 a.m we stop to eat because we haven’t eaten dinner. Jordan, Meek, Marita and I huddle over our Turkish food and wonder what idiot dreamed this whole trip up. I have never wanted to be home so badly, and by home I mean Istanbul. At this point I know for sure that I will never be making another overnight bus trip regardless of what the team plans. We could have flown to Kayseri for probably $150 dollars and saved ourselves from the misery. Of course then we wouldn’t have such a great story.
After eating we load the bus up again and I get on the floor, sleeping under peoples legs and once again feeling every crack in the road on my spine. It was a long, uncomfortable, and cold night. We road over the Bosphorus bridge early in the morning and made our way to our club house at about 8:00am. After unloading and watching our teammates walk away we stood on the curb with our coach and manager and waited. Our service bus doesn’t start working until 8:30 so we had to wait for them to arrive. I think that is one of the other idiotic reasons we left central Turkey so late, as if we can’t take a taxi home. At this point I can’t even look at anyone from our team’s management without feeling great feelings of contempt. I am SO tired and really don’t have patience for them roughhousing on the curb with energy to spare asking me if I slept well. “What the hell do you think? I slept on a freaking bus.”
Finally the service picks us up and I proceed to ask my other coach whose genius idea it was to drive overnight, hoping that there was at least some logical reason for all of our discomfort. No luck. Got the answer about the driver preferring it or something ridiculous. Finally we arrived home and Jord and I slept for hours before getting up and wandering around the city.
All in all it was the trip from hell and looking back I can laugh. In the midst of the madness however, I could hardly believe that any sane person could allow a trip to unfold how it did. This is when living overseas is not all at romantic and only serves to remind you that cultural norms run deep.....
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Great Teammates....
D, Marita, G, and Me
This past weekend was so much fun in Istanbul. Friday night we finished practice about 7:30 and quickly walked from the gym down to the main street. My two Turkish teammates, D and G and I had decided on MSN Instant Messenger that we would go out to eat after practice. At morning practice however they had seemed hesitant and soon revealed that they were waiting to get paid from the club so they could afford to go out. I tried to tell them I would pay but they wouldn’t hear of it. Turkish people are so beyond generous that they just can’t imagine letting someone else treat them even if it should be your turn.
Anyway at a quick stop at a guitar shop, Meek is planning on learning to play, we hopped in a taxi and made our way to Taksim square, the hippest most lively place in Istanbul. It is a large square with a fountain and statues but the main strip goes on for probably ¾ of a mile and is perpetually packed with people out at the clubs, popping in clothes stores, eating from vendors on the street, buying excellent chocolates with hazelnuts or pistachios, or eating and drinking at the many restaurants and hookah bars. Most of the side streets wind around with outdoor bars and cafés. It’s a fun place to hang out.
All five of us, Meek, Marita (Australian teammate), D, G and I all get out and start down the
street, walking arm in arm and working on Turkish and English, pointing at new things, checking out the American movie selection at the cinema, and stop at a self service Turkish food place. The self service places all have great soup and have a cornucopia of beautiful Turkish dishes. I saw many things I have eaten and enjoyed, stuffed bell peppers, grilled meatballs, lamb kebap, but decided on some tomato cucumber salad and dared to try a custard topped mushroom and meat soufflé that didn’t disappoint. We sat down, ate voraciously, passing food from forks to mouth, insisting that everyone try everything and help us all to finish the plethora of food before us.
After dinner we continued down the street, popping in to try a pastry mound covered in dark chocolate syryp (Turkish specialty) while G went to buy perfume at the perfumeria next door.
Then it was time to stop for Meeks favorite waffle with ice cream and fruit. That got packed up to go with us as we piled into another taxi, all five of us, and took off down to the Galata bridge. The bridge connects the two Europe sides of Istanbul, so at night you can sit at the many restaurants and cafes that line the bottom of the bridge, and look out at the Agia Sophia and every mosque in the city lit up beautifully at night, with “Happy Ramazan” messages spelled out in lights hanging between the tall minarets. We settled in at a café where many kisses were given to the host, and looked out from our comfortable bean bag chairs on the deck. In front of us hung fishing lines every few feet, the fisherman up above drinking chai and talking in the moonlight I suspect because they weren’t getting many fish. Fishing season is just beginning and I am hoping to partake in the popular pastime. 
We all sat in the cool night air, talking, sipping chai and smoking a coffee flavored tobacco from a from a beautiful multicolored hookah pipe, the brass cup of hot coals refilled regularly, the quiet gurgling sound of the water, and the soft smell of tobacco and coffee all putting us in a good mood. It was so relaxing being out on the water at night. Istanbul is a beautiful city from any point but looking from the water you can see the city in all its glory, from Asia to Europe and all the boats and bridges in between.
Anyway at a quick stop at a guitar shop, Meek is planning on learning to play, we hopped in a taxi and made our way to Taksim square, the hippest most lively place in Istanbul. It is a large square with a fountain and statues but the main strip goes on for probably ¾ of a mile and is perpetually packed with people out at the clubs, popping in clothes stores, eating from vendors on the street, buying excellent chocolates with hazelnuts or pistachios, or eating and drinking at the many restaurants and hookah bars. Most of the side streets wind around with outdoor bars and cafés. It’s a fun place to hang out.
All five of us, Meek, Marita (Australian teammate), D, G and I all get out and start down the
street, walking arm in arm and working on Turkish and English, pointing at new things, checking out the American movie selection at the cinema, and stop at a self service Turkish food place. The self service places all have great soup and have a cornucopia of beautiful Turkish dishes. I saw many things I have eaten and enjoyed, stuffed bell peppers, grilled meatballs, lamb kebap, but decided on some tomato cucumber salad and dared to try a custard topped mushroom and meat soufflé that didn’t disappoint. We sat down, ate voraciously, passing food from forks to mouth, insisting that everyone try everything and help us all to finish the plethora of food before us.After dinner we continued down the street, popping in to try a pastry mound covered in dark chocolate syryp (Turkish specialty) while G went to buy perfume at the perfumeria next door.
Then it was time to stop for Meeks favorite waffle with ice cream and fruit. That got packed up to go with us as we piled into another taxi, all five of us, and took off down to the Galata bridge. The bridge connects the two Europe sides of Istanbul, so at night you can sit at the many restaurants and cafes that line the bottom of the bridge, and look out at the Agia Sophia and every mosque in the city lit up beautifully at night, with “Happy Ramazan” messages spelled out in lights hanging between the tall minarets. We settled in at a café where many kisses were given to the host, and looked out from our comfortable bean bag chairs on the deck. In front of us hung fishing lines every few feet, the fisherman up above drinking chai and talking in the moonlight I suspect because they weren’t getting many fish. Fishing season is just beginning and I am hoping to partake in the popular pastime. 
We all sat in the cool night air, talking, sipping chai and smoking a coffee flavored tobacco from a from a beautiful multicolored hookah pipe, the brass cup of hot coals refilled regularly, the quiet gurgling sound of the water, and the soft smell of tobacco and coffee all putting us in a good mood. It was so relaxing being out on the water at night. Istanbul is a beautiful city from any point but looking from the water you can see the city in all its glory, from Asia to Europe and all the boats and bridges in between.
D and G have just been the best friends. They are only 18 and 19 years old and go to the university where they are studying Coaching I think. They are obviously very busy with school and basketball as well as commuting for both but they always make time to hang out with us and they keep me endlessly amused. G guards me in practice and is a tough little thing, D is a wing player with endless potential but no confidence. They both love basketball and work really hard at it. Its frustrating in many ways though because I am limited in how much i can communicate with them. It difficult trying to be a leader, a veteran in many ways, without being able to successful and consistently communicate with your teammates. But in other ways, I feel really close to them and I know that we will just get closer as the season progresses. More soon....
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