Thanksgiving

We had a real Thanksgiving feast last Thursday. We had a houseful of guests, lots of good food and drink, and even a turkey!

 Finding a turkey can be tricky, but in October, I had the forethought to ask if we could order one through our Happy Turkish Butcher.  "Evet, Evet" (yes, yes) he assured me.   When the time came to order,  I sent Jim,  all by himself, with a picture of a  turkey, and "Hindi" ("turkey") written below it.    Transactions done in foreign languages always unsettling.  When Jim came home he said, "Well,  I'm not sure if I just ordered one turkey that weighs 6 Kgs or 6 turkeys."

Lucky for me, it was just one turkey, because that one turkey cost 148 Turkish Lira. That translates to about 100 American dollars.  Ouch.

I had made plans with my friend Jamila, (one of the Halloween planners) to have Thanksgiving together, along with a few other families that live near by.  Jamila had planned to host it, however two days before Thanksgiving, her husband and son came down with the flu.  So we changed the locale to our house.  It just so happens that my new Turkish maid comes on Thursdays, so while I was busy cooking  in the kitchen, she was busy cleaning the rest of the house.  May I say wholeheartedly, THAT is the way to do it!  I never had to worry about a thing, except the food, which is the way it should be on Thanksgiving.

We had around 20 people, kids, teenagers and adults.  Between Jamila and I, we made two turkeys, a ham, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes,  broccoli, carrots, swiss chard, cornbread, biscuits,  cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin cheesecake.  Hatice (from Turkey) brought homemade dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), Elisa (Italy) brought chocolate salami--not salami really, just a yummy chocolate dessert in the shape of a salami, and Trisha brought the treat that every kid there was drooling over -- a box of real Krispy Kreme donuts!

Here's Tuncay, Hatice's husband getting ready to dig in.  Jamila is tossing her steamed broccoli and carrots with olive oil and lemon.  As you can see, everything is on the table but the turkey.  I really goofed.  I didn't remember to have Jim carve the turkey till everything else was on the table and ready to eat.  But the guests were very gracious about it all.

Here's Jim, Elisa (from Italy) and Joan (from Washington DC).  Joan's working on  her master's degree in Art History.    I guess because I was concentrating on getting photos, I forgot to tell Jim to carve those turkeys. But then once I remembered about the meat carving, I forgot to take any more pictures.

There were no football games on television, nor did anyone get the day off.  It was a regular school day for the kids.  But, as the house  filled with good company, laughter, and the aroma of roast turkey, it really was a day for which to be thankful.

Halloween

One of the strange things about living overseas, is how easy it is to let our native holidays pass unobserved. You have to work hard to celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving, because no one else around you is. It's also when you notice how big a role the media really plays in promoting holidays. There are no newspaper ads for costumes or candy, no sales on Butterball turkeys, no magazine covers displaying scrumptious pumpkin pies. Absolutely nothing to warn you that a holiday is coming! So last year, Halloween was just another day on the calendar for most of us--especially those of us who had just arrived and were still in culture shock.

Tara at left, snapping a photo

My friend Tara, who is from New York, and has 3 small children, decided to change all that this year. She asked a few of us to help plan an "Istinye Park Halloween Trick or Treat" party, because last year, being new herself, she let it pass by unobserved as well. When Ella and Michael asked her in December, "When's Halloween going to be here, Mommy?" she was consumed with guilt, and vowed to change things in 2010. Since we've had several new ex-pat families move in, we knew there would be interest. What Tara did differently, though, that was a stroke of genius, was to include the entire complex, not just the people we knew.

Shakila's girls and Boo Boo, Jim behind them.

Invitations were created and delivered to every door in Istinye Park. It explained what Halloween was, how trick or treating works, how to participate--or not. We weren't really sure if the Turkish families would choose to participate, but we knew that extending the invitation was the right thing to do. We also included any other families in Istanbul that we thought would be interested. We invited everyone to gather at 4:00 at the pool for pictures and, the trick or treating would get underway by 5:00. I figured we might have 50 people show up.

People started pouring in by 4:00. The bar next to the pool was quickly covered up with all kinds of halloween snacks, cakes and cookies. 

Within a very short period of time, the kids deserted the bar to play outside, while the adults remained inside, socializing.   Between the costumes and the anticipation of candy, it got a little crazy out there. I had given my camera to Devlin, and later, laughed at the shots of what was happening outside, while we adults mingled.

As the party grew larger, the excitement of the children grew palpable. Having given many a birthday party in the past, it was clear there needed to be some direction given. It fell upon me to try to round them up for group photos, and lead a parade around the pool, so parents could get individual shots. 

Lining them up for the parade, beer in hand

 

Once the parade was over, they set off with their parents to begin trick or treating. I had brought a bag of American candy back with me, containing 105 pieces of Snickers, Mars bars and M and M's. I never expected to go through the entire bag, but at 8:00p.m., it was gone, and I had to turn out the lights, just like Pecan Grove.
The best part, was that the Turkish kids came out in droves! Istinye Park Management was very happy with us the next day. They thought it was a wonderful event, that brought everyone together for fun and laughter. They even asked us to consider planning a monthly event! Hmm. That will take some thought. Over the course of the following week, I got thank you emails and phone calls--one mom said that she has lived in Istanbul for 13 years, and this was by far the best Halloween her children have ever had. She said it was just like being back in America!

So, Thanks, Tara, for letting last year's disappointment turn into this year's biggest success! A real American Halloween, was enjoyed by children and adults alike, in a county far, far from home.

Mememen

One of the greatest things about living in Turkey is the food. I've eaten out more since I've lived here than I have at any other time in my life, and I've never had a bad meal. I have had a couple of cases of food poisoning, but even the food that turned to poison tasted great while I ate it.

Pictured at left, is the plate of warm menemen that I had this afternoon. It has become a habit to grab a quick lunch after Wednesday's Turkish class. There are several sidewalk cafes from which to choose in Etiler; today we chose " Mado". It's a funny little place, where the menu has 4 pages of ice cream desserts, and only one page of actual food. But everything is tasty, and you can relax outside in the sunshine, spending as long as you wish to sit and chat. A Turkish waiter will never hurry a customer out the door.

Menemen is called a Turkish omelette, but in fact it is actually scrambled eggs sauted with tomatoes, onions and peppers. I've had it at several different places, and it is always served in it's own dish, usually copper. The eggs are soft and light, never dry, and never, ever rubbery. It is always perfectly seasoned. Recipes mention just using salt and pepper, but I think there is something else in there--something I haven't quite figured out yet. At any rate, mememen is absolutely delicious--much more so than scrambled eggs or omelettes.

Here's a basic recipe for Menemen, although if you google it, you'll find lots of variations. And nothing beats eating it on a warm afternoon, overlooking the Bospherus.

Menemen
6 eggs, well-beaten
4 juicy tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 onion, finely chopped
4 fresh banana peppers, finely chopped
1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
2 tsp spicy pepper flakes
1 tsp black pepper
salt
1-2 tbsp butter or oil, or combination

Nothing is written in stone, so you can use more or less of anything above. Feel free to add add pitted and chopped olives, garlic, or cheese.

-In a frying pan heat oil and add onion. Cook on medium until they're soft and then add fresh peppers.
-Once they're cooked, pour in tomatoes, salt, and both peppers. Wait until tomatoes cook down a little. -Stir in beaten eggs and stir constantly.
-Right before eggs are cooked,  add chopped parsley.

Re-entry!

Entrance to our flat: Kamelya B

We are back home in Istanbul after a lovely 8 week summer break. What a difference a year makes! Instead of feeling amazed and awestruck, yet disoriented and disconnected, we feel ourselves in comfortable and familiar surroundings. When we moved into Istinye Park last year, there were two other expat families living here besides ourself. Over the past 6 months, several new consulate and world bank families have arrived. I think the total is closer to 25 now. I find myself in the delightful position of being an old-timer, and not a newcomer.

Last year, I forced myself to go to every newcomer's social event held, hating every minute of it. Walking in alone to any new group is daunting for me. You look around at all the groups of merrily chatting women and try to determine which one is most accessible. Then you go through the necessary introductions, and hope that the small talk coming from your lips is witty, or interesting or at the very least, articulate, and not just desperate babbling. After all, your intent is to find friends, not have them roll their eyes and run for cover. I would come home from every new social outing absolutely wiped out.

But in the long run, the effort paid off. By the end of the year, I had made a few close friends and several amiable acquaintances. I even hosted an impromptu girl's night out party at our place for all the ex-pat women in our complex, which was tons of fun. I left Istanbul feeling upbeat and optimistic.

We landed Tuesday night, and were promptly thrown back into life Wednesday morning, despite only 4 hours sleep. Jim went back to work, Devlin went back to school, and I had a PTA committee meeting to attend. Friday, I was at school welcoming newcomers to the IICS PTA, conscripting willing volunteers to serve on committees. Saturday was the school Welcome Picnic. I had great sympathy for those newcomers walking in, with that slightly bewildered, deer in the headlights look in their eyes, due to jet lag and new culture indoctrination. And so thankful that I wasn't one of them! I worked hard at meeting as many new families as I could, and that evening I was again wiped out--but in a good way. I was exhilerated and excited about how much more fun life was going to be this year. A year filled with friends, with laughter and with purpose.

It's going to be a great year!

Spring Fun Night

The PTA Spring Fun Night was held last Saturday evening. I had volunteered to be on the planning committee back in January, but because of bad weather, the committee didn't meet till mid February. As usual, the group was short on volunteers, and long on ideas. I offered to handle ticket sales, thinking I would sit there and collect tickets the night of the event. Much to my dismay, the job entailed all the logistics of pre-selling tickets to a two campus community distributed all over the city of Istanbul. It also meant dealing with large sums of money and keeping track of numbers--jobs to which I am not at all well suited. But! I had wanted to get involved in something that would get me out of the house and working with people, and this fit the bill nicely.

When I take on a project, I love the planning part. I enjoy getting down on paper, how to get from point A to point B, creating forms, making lists, and even writing letters. I hate the worry that every new project brings. Have I done it the right way, will it be successful, have I forgotten something....all those niggling worries and doubts that plague us all in the wee hours of the night. Added to that, was the fact that the event was hitting it's stride about the time I had visitors, and was grinding to completion the week I went home to Houston.

I arrived back in Istanbul 3 days before the event, and hit the ground running. Like every volunteer event I've ever been concerned with, the last 48 hours are filled with last minute details and disasters that need to be addressed, and I could hardly keep up with the phone calls and emails that were flying back and forth between committee members all day Friday. On Saturday, Jim and I arrived early to set up. Wait, I should say, we traveled together, but when Jim took one look at the mass of confusion in the room, he decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and quickly disappeared downstairs. I couldn't blame him. One Turkish woman was directing several workmen in hanging swathes of tulle all over the room. A German family was dutifully blowing up helium balloons and tying them to resemble flowers. Others were hauling up crates of silent auction items to be displayed, and amidst it all, the service help were setting up tables, glassware and cutlery for the evening. With only three hours before the guests were to arrive, I couldn't imagine how everything was going to get done in time.

But of course, it did. The evening was billed as a fundraiser, and the 85 TL each price tag started the profits. However, it included a full course buffet, with unlimited cocktails---the only PTA I have ever been connected with that allowed alcohol. Along with the silent auction, there were ongoing raffle tickets being sold for on the spot prizes, bingo, a "Name that Picture" game, and a quiz night sheet--which every man playing used their high tech phones with which to google the answers! Later, an oldies band provided great music for dancing.

The night was an unqualified success! Despite the cat fight I had to break up at the silent auction table, everyone seemed to have a great time, as it was well into the wee hours of the night before the party broke up. I don't think Jim nor I have had so much fun since we came to Istanbul. The taxi we took home dropped us off at the gate and the guards took one look at us and decided we were in no shape to walk up the hill, so they put us on the back of their golf cart and drove us. The size of my headache on Sunday was in direct proportion to the amount of fun I had the night before.

On Wednesday we had a committee meeting, where I learned that we made somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000 profit! But even more meaningful to me, was the warmth with which I was greeted by everyone, and the feeling of camraderie that a group has for one another when a project has come to a successful conclusion.

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March Madness

March is disappearing in a whirl of activity. Devlin's spring break came the first week of March, and the two of us spent most of it in London. It was fun to be a tourist in a different city, especially one where there is no language barrier. We visited the Tower of London, the British Museum (twice) the Imperial War Museum, Covent Garden, Bankside, Marylebone and of course, Madame Tussaud's. One night, we walked to the theatre and saw the revival of "Oliver". We ate at some great restaurants, and some, not so great, and even enjoyed watching the BBC. (Britain is big on quiz shows)

The most astonishing thing I learned, is that Istanbul is cheap when compared with London! Just riding the tube cost 5 pounds a pop, which is roughly $7.50. Here I ride for roughly $1.00.

We got back just in time to get ready for Amy and Landon's arrival. They spent 5 days here, and we were on the go again: Aya Sofia, Blue Mosque, Topkapi palace, the Cisterns, the Spice Market, The Grand Bazaar, and the Bosphorus. It's always fun to see your city through the eyes of a guest, and even more wonderful to do it with loved ones. Luckily the weather was pretty good--still cool, but no rain, and mostly sunny. Istanbul always shows well, and you can't get a bad meal here. The days were full, and flew by much too quickly. 

The last night we ate at "Meyyali", a traditional Turkish restaurant near by. We chose several different mezes to start: eggplant in yoghurt, red pepper salsa, flat bread, eggplant and tomatoes, just to name a few; they were all were delicious. Then, we were brought a couple of mezes we didn't order. After greedily digging in, I realized it was fried lamb's liver. That was one dish that we never finished. Then of course, the main entree, and after dinner, a complimentary dish of desserts, followed by tea and Turkish coffee. I wasn't hungry again till Friday night.

Next Tuesday, I leave for the U.S. for a week. Emily has been patiently waiting for me, so we can go wedding dress shopping. We have a few other wedding details to attend to also, but the big push is to "Find the Dress!" I arrive back to Istanbul on the 31st, just in time to turn the calendar to April.

Taxi!

I am a suburbanite, and have always had a car at my disposal. So learning to use public transportation is brand new concept. My familiarity with taxis are confined to what I've seen on movies and television--you jump in a cab, tell the driver where you want to go, and moments later, you arrive. Not so true here. You never quite know what you're in store for when you jump in an Istanbuli cab.


The biggest shocker was that cab drivers here usually don't have any more idea on how to get to the destination than I have. The first time I watched a cabbie stop and ask for directions, I thought maybe I had a brand new driver. But when every subsequent driver did the same thing, I realized this was considered normal. The school where I take Turkish lessons is probably a five or six mile drive from my apartment. With a knowledgable driver is should take 15 minutes and cost under 10 lire. However, on one occasion, the driver stopped three different times for directions--that ride cost 20 lire and I was late to class. Yesterday, not only did my driver take the long way, but he also stopped at a gas station to air up his tires.

Luckily, as I've gotten my bearings and learned a bit more Turkish, I can now help the cabbie along---"Dus, dus!" (keep going straight) "Sola! (turn left). But even then, some of them don't believe me, and stop and ask directions anyway.

I've gotten used to the way they accelerate into traffic, directly in front of a city bus or dump truck, or how they think nothing of turning left in front of incoming traffic, even how they slam on their brakes, blow their horns and curse at whomever is slowing them down. But I just can't get used to how they tear hell-bent for leather down narrow streets crowded with pedestrians. At that point, I just close my eyes and pray.

However, a couple of weeks ago I had an incident occur that tempered my Taxi Angst. I realized one Tuesday morning that I couldn't find my cell phone anywhere--I'd searched the apartment, and sorted through the contents of my purse that I had dumped out on the table. My last hope was that I had forgotten it at Monday's class, so I decided to wait till after Wednesday's lesson before declaring it officially lost. Late Tuesday afternoon, Jim called me from the office to tell me that my cell phone had been found. Since I hadn't even told him yet that it was missing, I was a little befuddled. As it turned out, it had dropped out of my purse when I was paying the cab driver the day before. The driver used the phone directory and found the only Turkish name in it--Gokan, our driver. When Jim and Gokan went to pick it up, Jim tried to tip him, but the driver refused to take any payment. So in a city of 18 million people, one of them was lucky enough to have her lost phone returned to her, due to the kindness and diligence of a Turkish cab driver.






I think of that incident every time I get into a cab. It gives me the heart to sit down and experience the next wild ride.

Turkish Lessons

I am learning to speak Turkish!

L-R: Victoria, Me, Martina in green, Elisa and Lise

I enrolled at a language school that came highly recommended and attend class twice a week. (Mondays and Wednesdays, from 10:00 till 12:00) The class has been the best thing I have done since arriving in Turkey. Although I am still at the beginning level, my speaking skills have vastly improved. Not only can I now call for a taxi--and it arrives--I am able to give the driver basic directions instead of just sitting there patiently, waiting to find the destination. My reading skills are better than my speaking, and my speaking is better than my listening comprehension. With reading, one can take the time to think and decode the words--with listening, one is forced to decode instantaneously.

The language is so different than English. They put their words in a completely different pattern. In English, the sentence "I am going shopping at Istinye Park" becomes "Istinye Parkta alisveris yapiyorum" or "Istinye Park to shopping I go."  So even when I know the vocabulary, I need to think about how to place it. In Turkish, the endings of the words are extremely important, so it forces you to listen differently. (and that's why google translations of webpages are pretty useless!)

I love the structure having a class brings to my week. No more days of trying to find ways of filling the hours. Learning a language is something that takes a great deal of time, at least for me. Homework is always assigned, and I usually spend an hour or two extra each day, learning vocabulary or practicing sentence structure.

I mostly love my class for the friendships it is forging. In our class we have Dorothee, from France, Faranak from Iran, Martina from Germany, Amanda from England, Elisa from Italy, Victoria from Latvia, Lise from Norway and me. Most of them speak more than two languages; I think Victoria speaks five! But we are a merry, convivial bunch, laughing at our mistakes, and commiserating with one another over difficulties. Most are like me, in that they are new to the country, so we find ourselves going out for coffee after class, or meeting up for lunch. The past month has flown by; I've been busy, happy, and my days have purpose.

Cok guzel!

Becoming Home

I have been away from Istanbul almost a month--it was a wonderful Christmas holiday, reuniting with family and reconnecting with friends. I quickly fell into my old lifestyle, stayed busy and felt happy and comfortable the entire time. By the end of the trip I realized that I really didn't want to go back to Istanbul. It's a great place to visit, but......it really isn't home.

However, knowing Jim would probably not appreciate my new insight, and Devlin really needed to go to school, I boarded the plane anyway. An odd thing happened when we touched down and deplaned. Suddenly, it all wasn't new anymore. I knew which coin to insert for the baggage trolley. I knew what "cikis" meant. (exit) Of course, Jim was waiting outside customs for us, and his was the first smiling face I saw. But the second was Gokan's, our driver. And it seemed perfectly natural, after greeting him with affection, to hand him all the baggage to carry, while Jim and I walked hand in hand to the car. 

So it has been, these past two weeks. Nothing has seemed as hard as it did before Christmas. Coming back renewed, I enrolled in Turkish language classes, and attend twice weekly. I am enthused about learning it, and spend a good deal of time outside of class studying. It's a completely different language base than anything I have ever known, and the grammar structure is odd compared to ours. For example, in English, the sentence, " I would like a taxi, please", would be, "a taxi would I like, please". But just a few lessons have made a difference, since now I can actually say that sentence into the phone and a taxi actually comes.

I realized that Istanbul is becoming home. Entirely different than the one I left behind, but one that is every bit as real. It's an awakening, to realize that. It makes me feel much more at ease, much more contented, and much more confident. Much more like my old self.