Turkish Muse

Off to Fethiye

Tomorrow morning Jeff and I are heading out the door just before 6 am to catch the bus to Fethiye. It will be a whirlwind of a weekend: we arrive in Fethiye around lunchtime, whereupon we will head to our hotel, then while away the afternoon by the pool, hopefully with a drink in hand.

We're hoping to meet up with the lovely people behind Turkey's For Life, one of my favorite expat-in-Turkey blogs, and then Sunday we're heading over to Kayakoy for a discussion/book signing with Louis de Bernieres, the author of "Birds Without Wings". (Thankfully, I have just finished it!) Sunday night we head out by bus at 11:30 and get back to Izmir around 6 in the morning.

I am looking forward to this trip, despite the crazy schedule, because it's been a rough couple of days for me and I'll be glad to get away for a little while. One of the kittens we've been taking care of for the past couple of weeks died last night. I always root for the little guys, you know, the ones who have the least chance of surviving, and it just breaks my heart when they don't make it.

I'm not sure exactly how a discussion of the Lausanne Treaty and the 1923 population exchange between Turkey and Greece will cheer me up, but I'm sure it will reorient my current state of mind.

I'll be back next week with a full report on the talk and of our first impressions of Fethiye and Kayakoy!

P.S. Also, I have not forgotten about the Aphrodisias post! It is coming! There are just so many photos! And history! And descriptions of marble! It will be posted next week.

Kekik Köfte

You would absolutely be forgiven if, while wandering down Alsancak's main drag, you wondered where all those culinary delights Izmir is known for are. Where are all the mezes in olive oil, you might wonder. Where are all the famous head meat (söğüş in Turkish) places and the lokum shops?

In fact, if you walked down Kibris Şehitleri Caddesi, the main pedestrian street in Alsancak, and saw the "fried chicken" joint masquerading as a Chinese restaurant, an Applebees-wanna-be where the 7 TL hamburgers really do sound too good to be true, and several pizza places sporting names like Pizza Tomato and Stockholm Pizza (I am not making this up) and turned right back to your hotel to eat nuts from the mini-bar, I wouldn't blame you.

Yes, Coco Loco is the actual name of a restaurant. Sigh.

But if you did that, you'd miss Kekik Köfte, one of the street's food highlights, and I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you about it.

It's a pretty safe bet that if you're at a restaurant named after a particular dish, you'll probably do well to order that dish. And while Kekik Köfte certainly does offer a wide variety of classic Turkish dishes, its signature dish and namesake is most certainly what the majority of customers order and what keeps people coming back.

When Jeff and I are in Alsancak, Kekik Köfte is our lunch spot of choice these days, as we're still not tired of the classic combination of köfte, bread, tomato sauce and yogurt! But Kekik's köfte is slightly different than your average, run-of-the-mill meatball: it's moister, shaped somewhat like inegol kofte, and far tastier than izgara (grilled) köfte.

Don't the köfte look like little breakfast sausage links? Thankfully, they don't taste like breakfast sausage links; I can't stand those. When I was living part-time in Istanbul during the week for work a few months ago, I used to dream about kekik köfte while considering my dinner options. It was kind of crazy, now that I think about it, to be in Turkey's culinary capital and to pine for a food from another city! But, really, that's how good this is!

The Practical Info: Kekik Köfte, Kibris Şehitleri Caddesi No. 17, Alsancak, tel: 0232 464 9594. See a map of Kekik Köfte's location here. There are actually two options when it comes to kekik köfte, one served with just bread and the other with tomato sauce and yogurt, which is absolutely the one you want. Both variations cost 9 TL and include a complimentary salad (called ikram salatası in Turkish) of lettuce, grated carrot and pickled cabbage, plus a small plate of cheese and (more!) bread.

Following footsteps in Nysa

Mostly when I travel in Turkey, I bring along a few books, most usually a guidebook (or two), and a novel to read. I don't usually bring books by people who have come before me, people who have traveled the exact same route I am traveling, who have seen it all and done it all before me.

But on a recent bus trip to Nysa and Aphrodisias, I had a copy of John Freely's "The Western Shores of Turkey: Discovering the Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts", a conglomeration of memories of his travels with his family along the coasts of Turkey. It's an excellent book and I was delighted to have discovered it, though disappointed that I hadn't had it at Bergama where I am sure my lackluster appreciation of the city would have been a bit improved with Freely's prose.

Though "The Western Shores of Turkey" doesn't cover much of Nysa, our first stop on our trip, Freely referenced another writer who had not only traveled to but lived in the city during its heyday: a Greek scholar named Strabo.

A little more than 2000 years ago, Strabo studied at Nysa, about 50 km east of Ephesus in modern-day Aydin province. Though born in what is now Amasya, Strabo came to Nysa for schooling because it was an important center for learning in the 1st century BC. Throughout his life, Strabo traveled extensively and often wrote about where he went and what he saw, but it was his writing about Nysa that I encountered first:

"Nysa is situated near Mount Messogis, for the most part lying upon its slopes; and it is a double city, so to speak, for it is divided by a torrential stream that forms a gorge, which at one place has a bridge over it, joining the two cities, and at another it is adorned with an amphitheatre, with a hidden underground passage for the torrential waters. Near the theatre are two heights, below one of which is the gymnasium of youths; and below the other is the market-place and the gymnasium for older persons."

Despite the passage of 2000 years, Nysa is not that much different from how Strabo describes it. There is the "double city" aspect of Nysa, made plain by the large gorge separating the two sides of the city, with only part of a bridge that once connected the east and west still standing today. Though Strabo describes the "torrential waters" that course down from the mountain through the gorge, I imagine that in 2000 years the torrent has gradually declined to a steady stream because though I could hear the water, I never was able to see it.

Certainly the theatre at Nysa is impressive, being as it was built to join the two sides of the city. That is, the theatre was built above the torrent and manages to join the east and western halves of the city.

You can just barely make out the dip of the gorge in the above photo; find the handsome guy in the red jacket on the stage (that's Jeff!) and then look up.

Behind the stage, and unfortunately behind bars, are carved reliefs of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus, which you can imagine once adorning the stage itself amid local wine festivals and grape harvests.

But, for me at least, the most impressive part of Nysa is its library. It's not nearly as large nor as grandiose as the one at Ephesus, but Nysa's exudes a aura of calm and serenity that the one at Ephesus never did for me. At Nysa, I could imagine students trekking past the gorgeous abundant poppies for a discussion of contemporary literature or for a course on Socrates.

Though not the main attraction on our tour -- Aphrodisias was the headliner -- Nysa was quite pleasant and I was surprised at how much there was to see for a site that's not very well-known.

Practical Info: We went on our tour with an Izmir-based company called FMA Travel, but as their website is a bit confusing to follow, it's probably easier to see what tours they have going at Turizm Sayfaları, which organizes a bunch of travel companies' information together in one place. If you want to get there on your own, take a bus from Izmir to Denizli and tell the driver you want to get off at Sultanhisar. Walk about 3km uphill and you'll get to Nysa. Admission is 3 TL.

Priorities

It was maybe the fourth or fifth time that our bus stalled that I realized this problem wasn't going to go away quickly. We were on the highway south of Izmir on our way to Aphrodisias when the bus stalled once, twice, three times. It continued to stall every 500 metres or so, slowly puttering to a complete stop in the right lane of a busy highway.

It seemed our bus didn't like hills and was protesting even the slighest inclines. Slowly, slowly, we'd hear the engine slow, then sputter to a stop. Then the driver attempting one, two, three, four times to start it again.

As the driver attempted to get the engine to turn over, everyone on the bus clucked their tongues but said nothing. No one asked if the driver or the tour operator had called a mechanic. No one asked if they had any inkling what the problem was. No one asked what the contingency plan was for situations like this. And neither the tour operator nor the driver thought to let us know what, exactly, the plan was if the bus left us stranded.

Jeff pointing to our bus as it sat stalled on the road. The driver's solution was to have a cigarette break.

So maybe you can imagine my surprise when we finally made it to the restaurant for lunch (the price of which was included in our tour ticket) and everyone started clamoring for more of this and different of that.

"Why isn't the water included in the price?"

"What's wrong with this soup? It tastes funny."

"Can we have another salad? This one is too small."

"We don't like the set menu. Can we have pide?"

I mean, really, it was hilarious. No one bothered to ask about the problems with the bus, no one wanted to know if a mechanic was coming to fix it, but by golly they sure let it be known that their soup tasted funny!

As for me, I wasn't really too bothered by the whole thing. On the bus I had my iPod and  episodes of "Modern Family" to keep me busy, and I found the lunch to be positively delightful, particularly the dessert.

And, yes, the bus did get fixed: while we all ate our lunch (or complained about it), a mechanic came out and fixed the engine!

The Aegean Work Ethic

Over the weekend Jeff and I were at a party for his work and got to talking with some people about the variable work ethic (some people call it laziness) of people from the Aegean region and, specifically, people in Izmir.

One guy says, "Well, if we're lazy, you know who's even lazier? The Cypriots. They're the laziest."

And another guys say, "What? No way. The Italians are the laziest of all. And the Greeks!"

"Oh yeah!" another guy pipes in. "And the Spanish. And the Portuguese."

People all start nodding and murmuring in agreement.

"Basically, people all along the Mediterranean and the Aegean are lazy," one guy sums up.

"Yeah, and you know what other people say, like you Americans and the Europeans?" says the guy who said that the Italians and Greeks are the laziest of all. "They all say 'Oh, but they live a slower pace of life and they really know how to enjoy themselves and they don't rush.' Yeah, well, that means they don't work!"

This elicits a hearty laugh from the group, and I have to admit, I do agree with him.

The funny thing is, I read all the time, especially in travel writing, about the slower pace of life along the Aegean and the Mediterranean, about how people there really know how to live and don't take life too seriously. They have a better work-life balance, Americans like to say.

And while most of us like to wax poetic about that lovely lifestyle and how wonderful it is, many people don't realize that the Aegean and Mediterranean propensity to relax means that cafes, restaurants, barbers, produce shops, electricians, even museums, will close at random hours, especially in the summertime, leaving tourists confused and perplexed as to what, exactly, they are supposed to do between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.

And while on the Turkish side of the Aegean, most places don't actually shut down for the afternoon in the summer (though some places do), it's difficult to get anybody to do anything around here in the afternoons. But would you want to fix a leaky faucet at 3 p.m. in 35 degree heat? Neither would I.

I'm looking forward to summer already.

Cerveza: Izmir's Dart Bar

It's a sad fact that in Turkey all bars are basically the same. There are no pubs here with half a dozen ales and lagers on tap, there are no dive bars where the vodka tonic is a bit too strong, and there are very far bars that make every effort differentiate themselves from any other place.

Most bars here are pretty much exactly the same: same chairs, same tables, same crappy music, same Efes beer. In fact, some bars are even called "Efes Beer Pub" just so you know what exactly is on tap. As if it's any different from the guy next door, or the guy next door to him. Maybe, if you're lucky, instead of Efes, there will be Tuborg on tap, but never at the same bar. It's either one or the other.

That's why Cerveza, a small bar in our neighborhood, is kind of refreshing. We first started going there when we moved to Izmir a year and a half ago, and to be honest, I'm not sure why exactly. It probably had something to do with the fact that the people there were nice to us instead of surly like most of the other bars in our neighborhood.

It probably helped too that the inside looked cool; with its dark green booths and wood paneling, Cerveza reminded me of a real pub, a place with character, not just the result of some guy's dream to get rich quick by selling a few pints of Efes and overpriced french fries to Izmirlis on a Friday night. It's a place where people know each other's names. And the bartender remembers that you like your Efes in a glass from the freezer.

Plus, Cerveza had a dart board, and no body else had a dart board. Back when we first moved here, there was only one dart board, affixed to one narrow wall like an afterthought almost.

But then, the one dart board became three and pretty soon an entire wall was dedicated to the dart boards. Naturally, the tables had to be rearranged. Slowly, the game began to catch on and regulars started coming back two, three, sometimes four nights a week to play against their friends.

 
And that's when Jeff started going more regularly, and I started to go too, on the weekends I was at home during those few months recently when I worked in Istanbul. Tuesday nights became practice nights and Thursday nights became league nights (the only night of the week when, if you're not part of the league, you can't play darts).

Then, last month, the bar started hosting meze and raki night on Wednesdays, another way of differentiating itself from the many other bars on the street.

And even though the dart boards are supposed to officially be closed on Wednesday nights, for those people (ahem, like myself) not too keen on darts, the boys couldn't help themselves last week.

Next time you're in Izmir, stop by one night. Maybe you'll find us there.

The Practical Info: Cerveza, Cemal Gürsel Caddesi 470, Bostanli. Tel: 0232 364 4700. To get there, walk from the Bostanli Ferry Station towards Karsiyaka. At the first light, turn left and you will a road that sort of forks to the right away from Hasan Ali Yucel Boulevard (the street you were just walking on). This street is Cemal Gürsel Caddesi. The bar is just up ahead on the right. See a map of where Cerveza is here.

Advice for exchange students coming to Turkey

I recently got an email from a young woman in central Pennsylvania -- where I'm from! -- asking for advice about youth exchange in Turkey. She just found out that she is coming here this summer -- she's not sure where exactly she's headed yet -- but she will live in Turkey for a year, go to high school, and live with a host family, which is precisely what I did back in 1999!

For those who are unfamiliar with exchange programs, youth exchange students typically spend about a year abroad living with a host family and attending a local high school. Students are typically between 16 and 18 years old and are fully immersed in local culture and are unlike university exchange students who mainly go abroad for academic reasons. Two popular exchange programs are Rotary International Youth Exchange (through which I came to Turkey) and AFS Intercultural Programs (for which my parents now volunteer).

A group of Rotary exchange students in early 2000. Can you guess which one is me?

Here's what I told the soon-to-be exchange student in Pennsylvania:

Coming to Istanbul in 1999 for me was such an incredible rush, and I don't think that feeling every really left me during the entire time I was here. Turkey is a wonderful place to be on exchange and it won't matter too much whether you are in Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara, Bandirma or elsewhere. Sure, life might be a bit more exciting in Istanbul but the quality of your exchange year depends largely on you and what you make of it. You can learn just as much of the Turkish language, Turkish culture, eat just as much amazing food, and form life-long relationships with your host family and friends just as easily in a smaller city.

I was given a lot of advice before coming to Turkey, some of which was very good and some of which was not so good at all. I listened to all of it, took it all in and decided which to implement myself. Here's my completely unofficial list of advice for exchange in Turkey:

Make friends with everyone. I had someone tell me waaay back in 1998 before I came on exchange to make friends with all the Turks and not to spend as much time with the other exchange students or foreigners in general. If I had listened to that advice, I never would have formed a lifelong friendship with my friend Kara who lives in Canada and I never would have planned a four-week long backpacking trip through Brazil with other exchange students from around the world who were in Turkey the same year I was. I have made some truly lasting friendships with some of the other exchange students. Now that I live in Turkey, I see some of those people every year when they come to visit! So my point is, really, to try to make friends with everyone. There will be people you don't like, sure, but don't limit yourself to certain groups of people to befriend.

Treat your host family better than you treat your own family. Most of the advice on this front says to treat your host family the way you do your own. I say differently. Your host family is doing you a huge favor in letting you live with them, often for an entire year! And no matter how close you get with these people, they are not your real family. Don't pull the same crap with your host brother that you pull with your real brother, for example. Make every effort to integrate into your host family's household, schedule and natural rhythm. That's part of the exchange experience -- learning to adapt to a completely different environment, whether it's a new country or new household rules and chores.

Start learning Turkish before you leave home. Learning Turkish, I think, is the single most important thing you can do to ensure you get the most out of your exchange year. Not only is everything easier when you speak Turkish -- you can order food for yourself and tell a taxi driver where you want to go, for example -- speaking some basic Turkish opens up doors to the culture that simply will not be available to you if you insist on speaking English with everyone. I know for a fact that my cultural learning of Turkey has stagnated in recent months because my Turkish language learning has suffered.

Learn how to cook a couple of your favorite dishes before coming to Turkey so that you can make them for your host family. Turks love food -- really, who doesn't? -- but food plays a much more central role in daily family life here than it does for most people in the US. Gifts are nice, but preparing a full-on meal every now and again for your host family is excellent. Host families are usually eager to learn more about your culture and your family and food is an excellent way to do that!

Eat a little bit of everything. No one's saying that you have to like everything given to you, but at least try it. Don't wrinkle your nose at something based on the ingredients. Eating pudding with chicken inside it sounds gross, but believe me, it's really excellent! And if you find a dish or dishes that you really like, learn how to make it! Turkish restaurants in the US are hard to come by outside of New York and D.C.

Come to terms with the fact that there are going to be a lot of things you don't -- and will never -- understand. This, I think, is right up there with starting to learn a bit of Turkish. Turkey can be a very modern place at times, but sometimes it just isn't. There will be a lot you just don't "get" -- and that's ok. You'll have to learn to not have all the answers to your questions, like "where are we going?" and "why?" The best way to do this is to cultivate patience and understanding in yourself so that you can deal with all of the curveballs people will throw at you here. In the end, everything will always work out, even if you have no idea what just happened!

There is so much more advice I could have given, but I had to remind myself that 1) there is no way I could possibly tell her everything; and 2) she's supposed to figure out a lot of this exchange stuff on her own, in her own way.

Fellow exchangers, what advice would you add to students coming to Turkey? Or, if you haven't been on exchange here, is there any general advice you can offer on coming to Turkey?