2010 Istanbul Tulip Festival

The Istanbul Tulip Festival comes to the city once a year during the first two weeks of April. Every year, the city government plants THREE MILLION tulips in various parks in order for them to blossom during the very peak of Spring.

Beth and I decided to spend an afternoon wandering around Emirgan Park looking at the flowers and eating the box of Girl Scout cookies her Mom had brought me from home. 5 steps, bed of flowers, cookie; 10 steps, bed of flowers, 2 cookies.... Thin Mints, one of my staple American foods, and an afternoon of beautiful gardens was the perfect way to take in Turkey's tribute to the tulip. I recently learned that the tulip actually originated in this part of the world, specifically in Turkey and Iran. The tulip has generally not been a flower that I'm immediately drawn to, but after seeing so many of them sprawled out across this park I think I'm beginning to like them more.

In Turkish, tulip means "lale" which I think is pretty word. It just sounds like it should be related to a flower, doesn't it? I just did a quick wiki search and found that "lale" is actually the persian word for tulip and it just happens to be the same in Turkish. We decided to call it a "tulip" after the French word "tulipe" or the Modern Latin word "tulipa"..and Ottoman Turkish called it "tulbend" which means "gauze", and then that for some reason was pulled from the Persian word "dulband" which means turban? I don't know, I'm confused.

At any rate, here are some pictures from the festival - enjoy!

MOOF WATCH 2010

Did I follow this man down Istiklal to capture the jagged little tendrils hugging the back of his neck? Absolutely.

Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Zdrasti! That's Bulgarian for hello to good friends. I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend filled with family, friends, mutant chocolate bunnies and harmful, non-biodegradable basket fillings. My Easter was great but certainly different than ones I've had in the past. The normal routine of hunting for an Easter basket in the most obscure location my parents can think of (dishwasher) was replaced by a little trip to a faraway land called Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

My tourist visa expired on April 3rd so I decided to make a little vacation out of the border run. There were 4 of us - myself, Beth, our friend Kait and our other friend Ben, that departed from the Sirkeci Train Station at around 10pm on Friday the 3rd. This station held the main terminal (which is still intact) for Istanbul during the 1800's when the Orient Express was operating. Istanbul was the endpoint of the 18 stop, 1,200 mile long train trip from Paris.

The overnight train to Plovdiv was doable although I'm not sure if I'd do it again. It certainly provided the bare necessities one would need for an overnight train ride - horizontal sleeping device (not to be confused with "bed") and fabric (not to be confused with "sheet"), but that's about as far as it went. Our train was probably assembled in the early 7th Century B.C. so I'm surprised that I'm even alive to relate this story to you all!

We got to the border station at around 4am which, let me tell you, was a special treat for us all. Picture a dark and desolate train station in the middle of nowhere; a giant line full of sleepy, smelly train goers in a tiny little room lit with those awful, awful white light bulbs. AWFUL. The man behind the counter looked like border control was the last thing he wanted to be doing at 4:00 in the morning. When I gave him my passport (which expired the next day), he goes, "Oh...BYE." I considered this a win despite whatever his intentions had been. Any successful exit out of the country without having someone interrogate me on why I've now spent 6 months in Turkey "travelling" is fine by me!

Upon entering the city of Plovdiv, the feeling that it was once a Soviet occupied area slowly began to creep up on you. In the distance, atop one of the seven hills in the city, was a militaristic statue that we later discovered was a Russian soldier built to commemorate the Russian's liberating Bulgaria from the Nazi's in 1944. Soviet bloc housing units towered over various parts of the city and old rundown factories were just laying in vacant outlying fields. Plovdiv lies at the bottom of the Rhodope Mountains; a beautiful mountain range full of rocky cliffs and rivers that I think must have been a bizarre contrast during the Soviet occupation between something that is so naturally and aesthetically pleasing versus something that pushed for such severe uniformity. I kind of assumed that once the Soviet regime ended, all of the remnants would have been destroyed and people would have wanted to break off as far away and quickly as possible? I don't know, maybe culturally this happened, but architecturally speaking I was just surprised to see so much left over from those days. We took a trip out of the city on Sunday and passed what looked like an old Soviet compound with a giant yard of rusty tanks! I really wanted to go sit in one, but a) I would have been trespassing and that's about where that idea fizzled out.

Once we got a little deeper into the city of Plovdiv we noticed that not everything was decrepit and anti-happiness feeling. No judging a book by it's cover eh? I think the city has done a nice job preserving itself despite what it's been through and how old it is. It dates back some 6000 years and has traces of a Neolithic settlement in 4000 BC. Dayummmm..who knew Bulgaria was so old? It was also an important Roman city (which makes sense because there are ruins EVERYWHERE - both excavated and available to the public eye as well as some that have been built over - oops!) in addition to being an important city for E. Europe in the Middle Ages.

I really enjoyed walking around looking at all the buildings because it was so different than what I've been seeing for the past 6 months in Turkey. It reminded me of Prague a little bit except smaller and not as built up. There were two mosques left over from the Ottoman Empire that may or may not be active - we couldn't be sure because no audible call to prayer was being projected. After spending 6 months where one mosque is basically call to pray battling the mosque across from it, it's a little weird for me to see a silent one. Other architecture around the city goes something like this: fierce gladiator ampitheater, precious little houses from the Middle Ages, giant gray cinder-block apartment; half-crumbled bathhouse with goddesses carved into them, adorable housing from the Middle Ages, giant gray cinder-block apartment that has been converted into a McDonalds.

As we were told before leaving on our trip, there really isn't much to do in Plovdiv other than walk around, eat and drink cheap beer; therefore, this is exactly what we did! This pattern makes for a surprisingly relaxing weekend in a place where you've never been to before and don't speak the language. I don't mean that to sound like we spent the entire weekend drinking, because we didn't; I just mean that it's nice not having an agenda. We spent most of Saturday walking through the little cobblestone streets taking pictures, eating ice cream and thinking of what our next meal would be. It was also AMAZING to be back in a country that eats and appreciate pork. One of the downsides of being in a Muslim country is that it's slim pickins on the pig menu. The "ham" they sell in Turkey looks more like balogne so I tend to steer clear from it. The ham in Bulgaria though....that's what I'm talking about. It's amazing AND it's dirt cheap. You can buy about a lb of bacon for $3, so naturally we bought 2. They also have cheese galore (stocked up on that too) and a decent selection of national beers that perhaps would get old after awhile but tasted a heck of a lot better than Turkey's one and only Efes, which tastes like poisoned drinking water.

We spent some of our afternoon at a beergarden overlooking the city which turned out to be a nice change of scenery from the masses of istanbuli's packing themselves into smoky (no smoking ban yet) bars. I really, really, really needed this getaway into the greenery. I wouldn't call our afternoon at the beergarden a NATURAL experience per se, but it was just what the doctor ordered in terms of grass, fresh air, quiet conversation and cheap beer. By the end of the day we were all so exhausted from lack of sleep and walking around that we all fell asleep at 9pm after having a gigantic meal of pork, chicken, hearty veggies and yes, fried cheese. YUM.

Easter Sunday started off with a giant breakfast of bacon, toast and homemade jam provided by our hostel. My friend Kait and I decided to set up an Easter egg hunt around the hostel for Ben and Beth while the two of them ate breakfast. Poor planning on my part caused 2 of the chocolates to melt as I had placed them directly into the sun, but nevertheless the two enjoyed the surprise hunt and Easter sunday started off with a success.

We took a bus to Bachkovo Monastery which is situated in the Rhodope Mountains. The monastery is one of the oldest Eastern Orthodox churches in Europe and has been around since 1083. As it was Easter sunday, and in Bulgaria Easter is a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge deal, there were hoards of visitors visiting the monastery. There were monks in long red robes and fun party hats - eek, kidding, symbolic Easter headwear; 3 sacrificial lambs (I think) tied to a small fence outside of the church and tons of churchgoers waiting in line to partake in the ceremonies. The inside of the church was unbelievable as it was decorated with giant frescoes and solid gold crown-molding EVERYWHERE. I had forgotten how ornate Eastern Orthodox Churches were until I was greeted by a herd of giant angel babies sitting on top of clouds at the entrance to the church. Yesssssss....that's right.....leave no space...

After visiting the church/the monastery's courtyards, we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon hiking and looking for a good picnic spot in the surrounding hills. We ended up finding a little waterfall about 30 minutes away from the monastery that had a perfect meadow to plop down, eat and just chill out for a couple of hours. On our walk back to the bus station we passed by a line of vendors selling local Bulgarian honey and jams to everyone passing through the Monastery. I bought a jar of wild "sroberry" jam as well as blackberry and they were SO GOOD. I'm ashamed to admit this, but after two weeks both jars are almost gone. It's disgusting to think about how much of it I've eaten but I just haven't been able to contain myself!

That night we went to our last and final stop before boarding the bus back to the Bull. We went to a microbrewery, which I'm forgetting the name of, but the food is cheap and each table has their own beertap. Genius! Not to mention it was some of the best beer that I've ever tasted. On top of that our meal, consisting of pork medallions, sausages, traditional Bulgarian salad, some veggie dish baked in a clay pot and homemade nacho chips/salsa, was unbelievable and the whole thing set us back 59 Bulgarian Leva which is $40. So cheap!

Before I go, one last important issue I should address is the Bulgarian hair. Honestly guys, I don't know what it is about this part of the world but there must be something in the water. As we've discussed, the Turkish men have the whole gel situation that for comfort-level issues we don't need to discuss again. Now, as much pain as it brings me to merely type this word, I have to because you all must know this. Bulgarian women...crimp their hair ISWEARTOGOD. What's even worse (I think?) is that it's only at the roots... We did a crimp count and I'd say 1 in 3 Bulgarian women crimp their roots. UNREAL.

XOXO

K

Once upon a time...

1. I quit the preschool!
2. I went to Germany
3. I stopped eating Baclava (for lent) --> not true anymore
4. I joined a gym --> currently on hold

So, starting with #1: The Preschool. After many months of deliberation, I decided it was time to suck it up and high tail it out of there before they drove me completely insane and caused me to figure out a way to get myself deported. I've withheld a lot of the juicy details from this blog for fear that they somehow would hunt me down on the internet, but now that I'm gone and have no affiliation with them whatsoever, I have no problem expressing the animal house that is E.G.P. (still going to use acronyms bc I would be lying if I said I wasn't still a LITTLE scared of them). I can't remember everything I've said in previous posts so I'm just going to sum up the situation with a little story.

A rich couple - we'll call them Dan and Mary Istanbul - woke up one day in their marble canopy bed and exclaimed "Hey! Why don't we start a school? We, like, have alllllllllllll this money and we just can't figure out what to do with it because we already own so many expensive cars, a house on the moon and an underwater city in the middle of the Atlantic." They agree and think this is a brilliant idea because the wife can speak English and English is like, becoming one of those popular languages that like, everyone should know. SO, they buy a house in a nice, upscale neighborhood and convert it to a school. Then they think about what they should call it and decide it doesn't really matter as long as the words 'English' and 'International' are in the name and on the pamphlets. "OK, so we have a school and a name, now we just need staff and students" says Mary. Dan says, "OK, so re: enrollment, I think we should accept everyone who wants to attend our school because, like, we'll get more money that way." Mary says, "yes, I totally agree and don't think it really matters how many kids we have. It's not like children under the age of four need to be heavily supervised, right?" "Right" says Dan. Then, they think and think and think about what kind of staff they will need for their English International school. Suddenly, Dan is like "Mary! I've got it! Stay with me on this, ok?" And then Mary is like, "okk...?" And then Dan says, " OK. We're in Turkey, right?" "Right." "We want these children to learn English, right?" "Right." "There's a huge draw to Istanbul for native-English speaking teachers, right?" "Right." "Then why don't we hire a mostly Turkish speaking staff? You know, like, native-Turks?" "Perfection!" cries Mary.

A few months pass and their plan seems to be running smoothly...the schoolhouse is finished, the Turkish staff is staffed and so on. Only one minor problem keeps popping up, which was enrollment.

"Dan, I was doing some thinking, and I know this sounds crazy, but what happens if none of the Turkish staff can teach the children English?" Dan slowly put's down the latest edition of Turkey'$ BIGGE$T MONEY MAKER$ on his 5 billion dollar coffee table and says "Holy WOW Mary, you're right! See..see how I'm holding up three fingers on each hand and then putting them next to the 'O' that my mouth is making..see? See how that spells wow?" "Wow, that is wow! Look - I can do it too..see?" Dan and Mary continue like this for almost an hour until Dan realizes they've gotten off-track again. "Anyways, Mary, That means we should probably hire someone who's a native-English speaker then, right?" "Yep. I think so, but like here's what I'm thinking. We'll hire someone to fill a director position and then maybe teach a class too....that way she'll be like the poster child of successful English teaching and learning and being Englishy in Istanbul..and then she can just talk to everyone and make it look like all we do here is speak English....and I guess... sometimes I can pop my head in during school hours just so people know I exist, you know, face time.." "Totally." "...but I have this other important businessy job, as we both know, so this English school can't obviously be MY main priority..." "Obviously?" "...right, so since you speak absolutely zero English, why don't you run the school and then have the director lady do the talking blah blah I'm repeating myself so we agree, right?" "100%!" "Perfect, lets send something out on this website called power-hungry-alpha-females-for-hire and hopefully someone will respond..." ...but Dan was already on it; the advertisement was posted before either of them could say "giant mistake", and alas, four days later, they hired a power-hungry alpha-female from England who we will call Crazy Bridgett who ..!!!!! has a 3 year old !!!!!!.. that will attend the school.

Crazy Bridget is awesome at schmoozing, so they love her. As per the original plan (because it made the most sense this way) Crazy Bridget was the director of the school as well as the English teacher for the 4-year old classroom. Time was spent dashing between office and classroom answering phone calls, typing up a cute monthly newsletter, applying hot pink lipstick and providing students with a quality education. I don't know, nor do I care, how long E.G.P. has been around, but lets just say that for hundreds of years Crazy B was the English speaking staff save for a few Turkish girls who pronounced words like "baby bear" as "baby beer", ship = sheep (and sometimes shit) and blah blah blah.

As the years passed, Crazy Bridget grew her hair long like the Turkish women - except that she looked nappy because she wasn't Turkish - and continued applying the hottest of hot pink lipstick all over her face. One day after a very hectic day at school, she realized that as crazy as it was to grasp, they just couldn't pretend that they were actually speaking English at the school anymore. She dug deep down into the memories of when she worked in a less insane work environment and realized that it was impossible for her to act as the entire English staff of E.G.P. She proposed the idea to Dan and Mary to hire more native-English teachers for the 2 year old class and the 3 year old class, and because they were a giant, happy family now, they agreed to hire a real staff for the 2009-2010 school year. The road, however, did not come without it's shortcomings...

"Mary, this is starting to cost us more money. I thought you wanted an English International Preschool? We already have the Turkish teachers, Crazy B as our English speaking staff...what more do you want?" Mary looked at him and huffed with frustration. "Dan, honey, duh it will be more expensive. That's why we'll hire them and pay below minimum wage, not offer any health benefits or work/residence permit. We'll just have Crazy B talk our school up so much that we'll establish a name for ourselves in the international community, and then like everyone will be happy and all the wars will stop and I dunno, maybe we can rent one of those babies from a developing country and get our picture taken with it on opening day so everyone will think that we're really spending our money on selfless acts of kindness rather than a year's supply of bad cologne for you.."

It's now September, the start of term and E.G.P. has *Sally from NY to teach the 2 year old class alongside *Turkish Girl 1 (TG1); *Monica from Turkey to teach the 3 year old class alongside TG2; and then of course our dear friend Crazy BBkins who is being all managery/teacheryish alongside TG3. October 2009 begins and they decide to fire Monica because she "didn't have enough personality". At around the same time, Sally quits because she is moving back to America. Coincidentally an e-mail pops up in the inbox of Crazy Bridget from yours truly expressing interest in any English Teaching positions available. Crazy Bridget immediately starts banging on her keyboard and replies with "OMGZ, YES! We have an opening! Prestigious International School! Talented English-teaching professionals are sought!" So, blah blah we chat, she liked me and a day later I'm in Turkey. 3 months later I will find out that our preliminary phone conversation was basically so she could gauge whether or not "I sounded attractive, because you know, you can never tell if they are skinny or fat".

So, I move to Turkey and Crazy B sets me up with her friend Deniz, aka "my neighbor that I love soooooooo much, she's SO sweet, young at heart - you'll love her!", who coincidentally lives across the street from Crazy B - perfect for micromanaging her new little minion that in her mind she has just "flown over" from Prague. These are all direct quotes btw, and FYI - by "flown over", she somehow, I guess, decided in her head that she paid for my plane ticket because I'm not sure in what universe does one say they have "flown you over" without contributing a penny to your flight. I normally wouldn't be making a big deal about this but it's something that will come back later so take note of this..

Because Crazy B likes to control everything, she almost uncomfortably forces me into riding with her to work to/from school. I know at one point I had said that I appreciated her doing this, and in the beginning I definitely did, but over the weeks I came to find that this was just a result of her needing to be in complete control of everything. As we all know, I moved out of Deniz's flat at the end of October for reasons I don't need to delve into again because I've already talked about that; but in short, nudity and generation gap were the winning factors. When I inform Crazy B of my relocation, little parts of her start melting because she suddenly realizes she can no longer control me as much - it means I ride to/from work on my own and -GASP- wont live 50 feet away from her. When she realizes she's exposing her inner core of demon skin, she quickly comes up with a story to reel me back in that goes something along the lines of... "Oh I figured you wouldn't want to live with her anyways. It's probably so hard to live with an old woman like that! I barely even know her anyways. She just made *Poppy sweaters sometimes so occasionally I'd go over and say hi." I think WOW - what a deceiving woman you are, Bridge.

This now brings us to November of 2009 where I begin to daily question my position at the school. My assistant and I aren't working together very well mainly due to communication problems but also some blurry lines re: our respective job responsibilities. The difficult part about the situation was that I normally wouldn't have had a problem pulling her aside and professionally discussing my concerns with her; however things like "Hey, I feel like we are having difficulties communicating our goals for the classroom. Can we talk about this?" or "I was hired to be the English teacher in the classroom and I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't undermine me in front of our students" are difficult to express to someone who is only familiar with a handful of standard vocabulary terms and can only comprehend about 15% of what you say without a translator. It turned into a whole lot of me trying to talk around the problem using basic vocabulary so she'd understand me, but because this whole process took atleast 5 minutes, the moment would pass and after trying to communicate "I THINK WE HAVE A COMMUNICATION PROBLEM" it just became pointless.

December of 2009 rolls around and I'm back home for Christmas. Friends and family kept asking me what my job was like and all I really had to respond with was "it's going along, but it's nice to be home." Then, my wise parents pointed out that all I do is talk about how miserable I am at the preschool and that why don't I do something about it otherwise it's going to ruin my time here. I head back in January and sit down with Crazy Bridget to discuss my concerns in a very professional way so as to work with her on fixing the problem rather than up and quitting. Rather than giving me feedback, she tried to remedy the situation by sympathetically discussing my assistant's lack of proper education - "she wasn't educated like us, you know?" I found this to be completely inappropriate and just downright mean. If her education was a problem then they wouldn't have hired her in the first place, right?

Around mid-January they fired the replacement they had hired to replace *Sally from NY because she "didn't connect with anyone" a.k.a. the Turkish teachers didn't like her because she tried to do her job, so they combined the 2yr old and 3yr old class which left me with my 3 year olds + three-four 1-2yr olds (11kids --> 15 kids). Then, because Dan and Mary Ist. just love those big numbers, they kept enrolling students to start whenever was convenient for them - nevermind the fact that we were severely understaffed. Come February the 2 year old class grew to 6 children - 2 of which had a constant temper-tantrum and spoke only Turkish. Crazy B separated my class with the 2 year olds so she could take over the 2yr old group completely since she could communicate with them. The 4 year old class (her old class) was then left without an Eng. teacher so the 3 and 4 year old classes were combined. SO, my class went from 11 to 23 children in a matter of hours with two teachers (myself included) to supervise. Then, Crazy B gets pregnant and announces that she'd be leaving at an unidentified time, yet there was no mention of any replacement teachers so the future of the school year was basically me, the 3 turkish girls, the house-keeper who was sitting in as an additional teacher and almost 30 children under the age of 4. A.K.A. a hot-bed for an English education.

I know that's a long story and a little confusing at the end but that's pretty much how I felt when all of this was going down. I decided that it was just a complete joke of a school and that I would give a two-weeks notice on February 13th. When I submitted my notice, Crazy B basically combusted into giant flames and started telling me that I was unprofessional, young, naive, selfish - that "first I quit on Deniz and now them?! How could I do this after everything they did for me...after 'getting me over from Prague'?!" Then - my favorite part! - she asked to speak with my mother. I responded by reaching over with a moist napkin and gentled dabbing her mouth to wipe off the hot pink lipstick...similar to what my mom did for me when I dressed up like Barbie for Halloween in the 8th grade (so many fun memories from middle school!). Then I took a pair of scissors and cut her hair, and when I was finished, remarked with "Ah, much better."

Sadly, that didn't actually happen. What really happened is that I just sat there and took it because unlike her, I wanted to be professional about my resignation. A girl can dream though, and perhaps in another lifetime I'll be Crazy Bridget's stylist and accidently shave all of her hair off or give her a fierce mullet. The moral of the story is that E.G.P. is a giant clown of a school and has been TEFL blacklisted by yours truly. Nowadays, my schedule is more free and I'm much happier in the city. I work almost solely with private lessons which allows me to do quite a bit more exploring than I was able to do before. This post was quite long so I'll try and wrap this up before I hurt everyone's eyes! Re: Germany - I went on my spring break with my friend Clarisse to her hometown of Heidelberg. It was cute, quaint and refreshing, and nice to get out of the city for a little bit! I toured the castle that is just NBD plopped in the middle of the city as well as celebrated a night of Heidelberg Carnival festivites. This included the two of us dressing up as 80's aerobics instructors drinking cheap German beer and dancing to everything from the Black Eyed Peas to the music from Flashdance.

Lastly, in a nutshell, I failed at giving up baclava and I didn't renew my March membership bc I wanted to save money. The weather has gotten nicer though so I think I'm just going to brave it and run along the water near my house - who cares if people stare at me!

As always, hope you all are doing splendid and please send e-mail updates!!
XOXO
K

Pass the hair gel please.

I know I haven't written in months, and I know that's surprising, but rest assured I have a nice, long account of the last two months brewing in my Edit Post box that will be finished, I swear, by the end of the week. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to share one of my all time favorite things in Turkey thus far because on this day, March, 4th 2010, something that I thought couldn't get any better than it already is, did. Without further ado, I would like to introduce you to something I deem: The Moof (man + poof). Before I discuss this Turkish phenomenon, I'm going to provide a little context so you may understand just how truly beautiful the Moof is.

Once upon a time, lets say...somewhere between 1993-'94, the entire world woke up and realized that big hair wasn't actually attractive, or cool, on anyone. Everyone on Earth realized that for 15 or so years they had blacked out and were unaware of what they actually looked like when they walked into broad daylight. It was an epiphany heard around the world. Men and women abound worked around the clock to rid themselves of as many cans of extra strength hair spray and extra hold hair gel that they could. Crimping irons were selling like hot cakes in second-hand markets to naive, undeserving locals who didn't know better. Left and right, people were tossing products into the trash and only keeping what would provide for a normal, friendly and non-threatening hairstyle. The purge took days and concerned government officials began wondering where all of the excess hair equipment would, rather, could go. After weeks of deliberation, top government officials decided on an area of the world that they just, well, didn't really care what would happen if Earth's supply of hair gel got into the hands of these people. The United Nations, in partner with The Red Cross, was enlisted to paradrop billions upon billions of tons of hair products into an area right outside of what is now known as present day Istanbul, Turkey. To this day, no man is allowed to step foot on the drop zone due to the shared belief that this land is sacred and holy.

Let us now fast forward to February, 2010. A couple friends and I were chatting about our middle school days and just how uncomfortably awkward they were. Lots of platform sneakers were discussed - unfortunately - along with swishy pants from Abercrombie & Fitch and regrettably a lot of straight leg/regular fit (not to be confused with skinny-leg) pants. When it became my turn again to share a traumatizing experience, I was immediately reminded by the unfortunate case of lice that I got in the 7th grade. I got lice and I got it bad. Nevermind the fact that I was already an awkward 13 year old with braces, slightly chubby and chock full of emotions...lice just never, ever, ever, ever makes someone feel better, ever. ever. I had it so bad that I had to put vaseline in my hair and it wouldn't wash out for about a week to a week and a half. Now, I don't have a picture of what it looked like, thanks Mom:), but I have provided two links a la google images that I believe pay some tribute to the creature that was my 13 year old self.

Exhibit A: http://www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thedailygreen/images/ZB/use-vodka-lush-hair-lg.jpg

Exhibit B: http://static.nme.com/images/071113_111549_MCR11_111107_DN.jpg

At this point you hopefully have a nice mental image because it's time to press on with our story, friends! So far we've covered the mass infiltration of styling products into Turkey as well as the perils of being a chubby 13 year old. Now: the Moof! Rewind back to October 15th, 2009. You just moved to Turkey and it's your first weekend in Istanbul. Senses are on overload with the smells of Döner kebab, bad cologne (or body odor - which one is worse?) and the Bosphorus Strait. Your ears are adjusting to the sounds of a language that's not English, the call to prayer, the "scrap metal man" who walks down your street pushing a rickety cart summoning you to give him your broken appliances and the "Simit guy", who yells SIMMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT at the top of his lungs on your sidewalk just in case you need a snack (Simit = turkish "bagel") at HIS becking call. Then, there are the sights - the mosques, the palaces, the ancient architecture, etc.. etc... but it's the people that stick out to you most. One particular characteristic, in fact, is the hair. The women of Turkey have long, dark, rapunzel hair that my friend Beth so intelligently pointed out "makes them look like mermaids". They walk around with it romantically cascading down their bodies and you're left wondering how they get away with looking so magical rather than being "that weird girl with the long hair". If they were anything other than Turkish, you'd be judging them because they look more like the female version of Anthony Keidis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, circa mid-1990's. CASE IN POINT: Kind of like how everyone hated on me last summer when I had hair that went past my shoulder blades. I believe some of you said or were in agreement with something along the lines of "thank GOD you cut it, you were starting to look like a dirty hippy".

The men, on the other hand, do not look like giant mermaids, nor do they look like Anthony Keidis. If they do, or are in any way, shape or form attractive, they've ruined it by choosing a hairstyle that makes them look like they've just survived a dangerous oil spill in their bathroom. Up until today, most of the moofs looked more Johnny Bravo and less the excess bacon grease from Sunday morning breakfast. I swore to myself that I didn't think it was possible for the moof to look anymore mullety-eurotrash than it already it is BUT IT DID! It honestly did, and I couldn't even believe it. It was like Christmas morning all over again. Here I am riding the 29D back to my apartment when all of a sudden at 4.Levent Metro, something shiny..sparkly?!..catches my eye. I swear to God, for a brief second I was brought back to the horrendous bout of lice and the helmet of vaseline that was tightly secured on my head for 9 days. I shuddered not only at the thought of the lice themselves but also the fact that as a 13 year old I had endured 168 hours of "wet" hair. My thoughts quickly came back to 4.Levent as I realized that this sparkly little treasure catching my eye was not in fact my 13 year old self but a man, a Turkish man, DISTRIBUTING FLYERS to any and all pedestrian traffic entering one of the busiest metro stops during prime-time lunch hour. Not to mention...are those are acid wash, distressed denim JEANS?!?! With zippers on the pant legs? I began to weep softly into my sleeve. I thought to myself: this bothers me. This man voluntarily used that much vaseline because he actually thinks he looks cool, or even worse....sexy? And then, what about his hands? What about when he was finished?! How much time did it take for him to wash it off before all the grease was gone? Did it....does it ever go away?

I was stressed, and upset, because I didn't have the answers to any of these questions. I also didn't have my camera which is the worst part because I have no documentation of my little prince. Yet, because I know that this man is out there, I'm optimistic that there are others. Perhaps they all have an apartment together? Or, maybe just a giant bathroom where they sleep, gel their hair, sleep, gel their hair, sleep, gel their hair...and continue this process until someone says, 'Hey! Lets go out in public!', and the rest of them cry, 'Hooray!' And then they all walk out, arm in arm, laughing and just being the little chatterboxes that they are, discussing their favorite celebrities, what 5 items they would bring on a deserted island and how quickly their hair would burn in a rogue fire. From this day forward I'm beginning what I'm calling Moof Watch 2010. Any and all Moof's will be uploaded to this post so please check back frequently.

Time to call it a night....as always, I hope you all are doing great. E-mail updates are always welcome and appreciated:) Lots of love!

XOXO
K

Misc. Images

Hagia Sofia.

Something old, something new.

Marmaris Sea - Heybeliada, Princes Islands.

Passerbys on Istiklal Caddesi in Taksim.

Sunrise from my friend Clarisse's balcony.

My street! Gazi Umur Paşa..

My apartment building.

Fountain for holy water outside of Sultanahmet.

Hagia Sofia (Ayasofya) - church turned mosque turned museum.

Sultanahmet - Blue Mosque.

View of Sultanahmet from a ferry I took to the Asian side (from the European side) of Istanbul across the Bosphorus Strait.

Mutlu Yillar!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a nice holiday and is at least trying to enjoy being back to work:) I should sincerely apologize for how poorly I have kept up with my blog since my last post at the beginning of November. So much has happened in 2 months and I feel bad that I have unfortunately kept you all out of the loop.

For starters, I parted ways with dear Deniz on November 15th and moved into an apartment in a smaller but more 20something-friendly apartment. It unfortunately left us not on speaking terms but it was the right move for me at the end of the day. She was mad about not having the money from my rent, which is understandable, but she ended up saying things that were like "you broke my heart", "all good things I ever thought about you were a lie", etc.. so it made for a slightly uncomfortable departure.

My new place is in Balmamcu, a subdivision of an area called Besiktas. It's situated about 20 minutes from where the popular downtown area is, as well as tons of busses and the tram line that takes you to the old part of the city where all of the touristy stuff is. I found the apartment on craigslist that was posted by a 26 year old Turkish girl named Serim. I am now 2-0 in finding cool roommates on Craigslist! After a few exchanged emails, we set up a time for me to see the place and within 5 minutes of being inside I LOVED it! Serim and I also have a ton in common, which is pretty neat to find with someone who lives almost halfway around the world from you. We both work/worked in Advertising, had the same major in college, same tastes in music, like food, a litle goofy/same sense of humor, and the list goes on. Serim is fluent in English but we have recently begun saying small things in Turkish so I can improve my language skills. She's started saying things in Turkish, followed by the English translation, and if I can I will try and respond in Turkish. However, my vocabulary is very limited so I usually can just respond with yes, no, or I don't know, haha.

My room in the apartment is perfect. It came equipped with an IKEA metal-closet thing, a desk, bed, small dresser, a giant framed picture of Snoopy that says" I am the sunshine of my life" and my own private entrance to our adorable outdoor patio. What more could I ask for?

Other fun amenities of the apartment include a working tv (I differentiate bewteen tv and working tv bc my apt in Prague just had not one but two "tv's"), nice stereo, dishwasher, washer AND dryer (uncommon in many turkish apartments - only having a washer is the norm), BOARD GAMES (trivial pursuit) and a cat. Mirno (pronounced murno), the cat, is awesome and acts more like a dog than anything.

A few things I've been wanting to write about for awhile are just some fun facts about Istanbul and my observations so far of the cultural differences between America v. Turkey. For starters, I learned that Istanbul is the 5th largest city in the world. It has 39 districts (ie Besiktas, Sariyer - the district that Tarabya was in) and is not in fact the capital of Turkey but Ankara is. Turkey is also the only country that is situated on two different continents - Europe and Asia. It's split by the Bosphorus Strait, which makes the two giant bridges that connect Europe and Asia extremely important where trade is concerned. Istanbul was also once the capital of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Latin Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Turkey became it's own country in 1923 so technically it hasn't even existed on it's own for a century! The Ottoman Empire only ended in 1922..isn't that crazy?! That's why everyone is obsessed with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (the first president of Turkey) because he only recently made the reforms that put Turkey on the track to becoming a modern nation. Even though he's no longer alive, he still has such a following that you'd think he was a famous rock star or something. Any kind of modernization that you see in Turkey is because of this man...any shift towards a secular government, welcoming other religions, women's rights, education etc etc...is all because of Ataturk. Unfortunately though, the current government in power - A.K. Parti - is more conservative than Ataturk was when he was in office so they have actually tried to go back on some of the Ataturk's reforms. For example, any public display of religion in government buildings/schools was restricted under Ataturk because they wanted to keep things neutral. Any woman wearing a headscarf would have to remove it if she entered a school and the same would go for anyone wearing a cross. The new government tried to reinstate the headscarf in gov buildings, but there was such a backlash against the idea that they never followed through with it. So, because of Ataturk, you still can't publicly display your religion in these places. I guess it kind of sucks if by choice you want to display your religion, so in a way their freedom of speech is actually pretty limited, but there seems to be such a confusion about what kind of Muslim you are/how strong your beliefs are that I think keeping things secular is a good thing. The whole Ataturk movement has established a very open and liberal minded community of practicing and non-practicing Muslims which is really interesting to experience. You still will see a lot of women wearing headscarves here though, and even a few wearing the black, full-body eyes-only burkha. I can't really determine what the breakdown is between conservative and liberal, but I guess it's conservative enough to elect the current party into office.

It's crazy how much living in a developing country will make you realize just how civilized your home country is. When I think of what I grew up with in the US I think of the fact that we have the ability to pretty much do whatever we want, regardless of being male or female, as long as we work hard to get there. Be nice to others, love your family, have a successful job, keep good friends and do what makes you happy. It's seems very balanced to me and it's available for whoever wants to go after it. Here, the general mentality is so unbelievably different than that sometimes I feel like I'm living on another planet. There are parts of it that I like and am trying to embrace while I'm here, but there are other parts that make me appreciate the kind of upbringing that I've had. Turkey is all about the good neighbor policy which I both appreciate and despise. In the US, we're taught to be self-sufficient and earn what we want. To me, this translates to being able to do things without having someone tell me how to do it or walk me through it. Here, people place such an emphasis on doing favors for others that for instance at work, even if it means interrupting what you're doing (and even if you might be doing it right), someone might literally interrupt what you're doing and say no no, it's ok I'll do it! This might sound nice but after a few times it starts getting a little old and feels intrusive to someone who's used to working for what you want. What I've had to realize though is that it's not because this person doesn't think I can't do whatever task I'm doing, it's that they think they're doing me a favor by taking over my job so I don't have to do it. It's more an act of hospitality than anything. So, like I said, I can appreciate it because that's just part of their culture and I think it's nice that people are so genuinely concerned about you and your well-being. However, I don't like it because it can feel intrusive and when you think about it it's a really hard thing to get used to, especially in the workplace!

Something else I've noticed with Turkish women is that a lot of them are pretty submissive. I think it's probably because the idea of women's rights is so fresh. Maybe it's the religion, maybe it's because Turkish people are really hospitable in general? I really have no idea. My roommate was telling me about this mentality that is pretty common in conservative families where the daughter is seen as the "property" of the father until she finds a husband, where she then becomes the "property" of her husband. I'm assuming that that's common in Arab and Asian cultures, but it's surreal for me to actually witness it first hand and be so close to it. I think what's most surprising for me is that I kind of associated that mentality with people who might not be as educated or fortunate, yet after Serim told me that I realized I had some good friends here who were well-educated, multilingual, knowlegable about pop culture, art, music, literature, etc....but they have that mentality and actually abide by it. I had remembered things some of these friends had said to me that made me a little confused at the time, but after Serim said that I realized these girls had been alluding to that kind of situation with their families.

OK, enough for today - check back soon for another update:) Lots of love!

Kelsey