kalabalık

You know the traffic is bad when weaponry is being sold on the road.

that old familiar face

Last year, I was shocked and delighted to discover this Atatürk mask hanging among the knick knacks of a shop in Durbar Square. Of all the people in all of history— Atatürk? In Kathmandu? It was so very odd, so unexpected. After a brief conversation with the shop owner about how he acquired the mask (he wasn't sure), and a quick history lesson about the fall of the Ottoman Empire, I left Atatürk in Kathmandu, among the toothy faces of demons and other characters.

You can guess what my first thought was upon returning to Durbar Square. I ran off in hopes of seeing that old familiar face. An entire year had passed— could someone have randomly bought this strange, handsome mask? Did other travellers from Turkey perhaps, take him home?



There, against the same brick wall, the stern and charismatic founder of the Republic of Turkey remained, watching over the square with a furrowed brow. By good fortune, I had met two other teachers from a school in Istanbul, who just happened to be staying two doors down from me at Ngudrup Guesthouse. I had told them about the mysterious presence of our home's father, and when we all discovered he was still in the same place I had described, we burst into laughter. Cameras clicking and loud declarations of disbelief brought a suspicious shop owner out to investigate.

"Do you remember who this man is?" I asked the curious shop owner, pointing to the silvery mask.

"Mustafa?"

another bump in the road

Well my dear readers, it seems as though Turkey has shut down Blogger after some blogs were posting football footage that a local cable provider, owns the sole airing rights to. So rather than penalise those specific bloggers, a court in Diyarbakir decided to keep the entire nation from being able to write and read freely online.

This does not make me very happy, and if there is a way in which I can post to you, I will find it.

I believe I may have already.

the mall has it all

...including indoor ski slopes, giant aquariums, and front-door parking for Lamborghinis and Maseratis.

heading home

The last day in New Hampshire was white with snow. Loads of it. I began to get concerned that Natasha and I would not be making it back to Istanbul as planned— but oh, how it was gorgeous. When we awoke to an empty sky on Tuesday, we were both relieved and sad, as this was the last time she would see our parents and littlest sister before she moved to Dubai. While I am over the moon for Natasha and her new job, I can't help but feel a little selfish and want to keep her here with me. Life is movement— and there's nothing in the world like a sister.


We got to Boston Logan Airport three hours ahead of time, curious about the new security measures in place. Relatives had phoned us the night before with rumours of invasive pat-downs and restrictions on what you could and couldn't take on a plane with you. We breezed through the usual security lines and found ourselves with hours to kill. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar orange and magenta sign, grabbed Natasha's arm and ran toward it.

My college years in Rhode Island were dotted with orange and magenta memories. Feeling an extreme wave of nostalgia, I needed to order what I missed most about Dunkin' Donuts: an egg, sausage, bacon and cheese sandwich on an everything bagel and a hazelnut coffee. It's a heart attack in breakfast form, and absolutely delicious. Since the airport D&D was out of everything bagels, I settled for the next best thing, an English muffin.
Nostalgia tastes incredibly good.


The ride to New York's JFK airport was fraught with disappearing stomachs and sweaty palms. The plane, a Delta heap of metal from most probably the eighties, shook and fell and bumped and lurched its way down the East Coast. I can take turbulence, but I need to have confidence in what's holding me up in the sky. Fortunately, the flight was only 76 minutes.

We arrived with only ten minutes to reach our connecting flight to Istanbul, and hurried towards the gate on wobbly legs. The flight was full, the seats small. The man in front of me seemed completely unaware of his surroundings, crushing my left toes under his big boat of a shoe, oblivious to my yelling and seemingly unable to feel my foot under him. Eventually I was released from his torturous hold, and he sat down with an expressionless "sorry." I grabbed my foot and rocked back and forth in my seat, ow-ing and wondering if he was on drugs. Ok, it was an accident and nothing was broken, whatever. I had nine hours to let it go. As soon as we were airborne, his seat crashed down into my knee— which I expected, and decided to ignore. As I reached into my bag on the floor, suddenly his elbow swings back— right into my forehead.

The rest of the flight was fine. Exhausting, but fine. While I was doing some light stretching in the back of the plane, a flight attendant called out to her co-worker, "Hey Fiona!" (or something like that) "Come look at her tramp stamp!" This, of course, referred to the large tattoo on my back. Then she asked if Turkish men were afraid of me because of it, and tried to set me up with another passenger, then decided he was too young for me.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people have no filters.

island of fall and the surprise liver

Thursday we walked to Margit Island in the middle of the Danube. Margit Island was full of churches, monasteries and nunneries from the 12th century until the Ottomans came in and destroyed it all in the 16th century. Today, the island is a peaceful recreational park with lots of trees and running paths. There's a hotel with a spa at the Northern end, a swimming pool and a theatre. It reminded me a bit of Golden Gate Park in places, except for the yellow and oranges of fall leaves.


We took the bridge on the Northern end, and wound up in the middle of massive Soviet-style apartment blocks— quite the contrast from what we had seen the rest of the week. The buildings were enormous, grey and rectangular, with no sense of individualism whatsoever. A few apartments had painted their balcony walls a bright red or orange, but most of what we saw was bleak and monotonous. It was quite fascinating, I wonder what living in a space like that feels like.


All that walking around in the cold air was making me hungry, and it seemed as though the area we had wandered into had nothing edible anywhere. Suddenly out of nowhere, a giant, ugly steel and glass structure popped out between the Soviet-style buildings. It was either a market or a bizarre spaceship from the early 80s. Excited, I dragged Mirco across the street, convinced there was food inside the ugliness. We were amazed by the amount of pickles and produce, meats and clothing made in China. It was awesome— and we started to search for a cheap solution to our hunger. We soon found on the upper floor, a red fast-food stall that offered plenty of csibe, which I had learnt meant chicken. Chicken sandwiches seemed ok, and the backlit pictures on the menu didn't offer any clues as to what the difference between the sandwiches was. I settled on the Süper Csibe Szendvics— because, well, it was super with an umlaut.

We paid, and got a red plastic tray with very plain looking breaded chicken sandwiches in paper sleeves, and a paper plate of fries. I spied a couple of tomatoes and a mushroom in mine, and figured they were what made a Csibe Szendvics süper, since Mirco got a regular szendvics and was without produce. At first bite, I ran into some pickles that added to the süperness, and discovered there was no sauce of any kind at all— which was odd to me— I had expected a mustard of some sort at least. It was alright, and I was hungry, so I ate it happily until Mirco discovered something odd on the receipt.

The women behind the counter decided to charge us for an extra sandwich— a problem we pretty much ran into everywhere we ate. I had read that this sort of thing is a common occurrence in Budapest affecting tourists, but figured it was an exaggeration. Sadly, if you are a tourist, you absolutely must check every receipt and bill you get before you pay. Mirco bravely went back to the counter, where the woman was beginning to look nervous. I sat back and took another bite of chicken and suddenly, my mouth was filled with a horrific taste. At first, I didn't know what had happened— it was dreadful! I dissected what was left of the sandwich to discover that what I had believed was a mushroom, was no mushroom. I began to recognise the wretched flavour— it was liver. The süper in a Süper Csibe Szendvics is a big ole hunk of beef liver! I began to look around at the other customers— livers were poking out between buns everywhere! Apparently I was the only one disturbed by this.

Mirco strode back in victory, and I had missed the entire exchange between the brawny lady and my friend, thanks to the liver surprise. It was good of her to give the money back, she knew she was doing something wrong, the guilt was all over her face. I think in most places, you'd never see that money again. I'll be happy to never see this sandwich again.


Later that evening we met some fun new hostel guests, Molly and Nancy from Washington— Nancy is in the midst of taking her daughter Molly on a tour of Europe. They had been through England, The Netherlands, Switzerland, France and Spain, and were passing through Hungary on their way to the Czech Republic. Nancy was determined to find a delicious local restaurant for dinner, and asked us along. Desperate to wipe away the memory of that liver nightmare, I happily joined them in finding Café Csiga, an artsy café with hearty divine dishes. We got a little lost, and I'm still not sure how we found it, especially since the café had no sign, but before we knew it, we were seated in a smoky, sultry space bursting with conversation and music. This is the kind of place where you imagine everyone is a writer or painter, and they've come for beer, cigarettes, and words like "existentialism."


I tried to get a picture of my delicious beef in black beer, but it was so dark and my little camera just can't handle low light situations. It was a fantastic liverless meal, accompanied by a lovely Hungarian red. We stayed on into the night for beer and conversation, enjoying the ambiance.

what a bargain!

take a picture, it'll last longer

In a culture where staring is not only accepted, but seems to be as natural as breathing, the last thing you want to do is something that will draw attention to yourself. I will now be known at the Cihangir çaybahçe as the yabancı drawing girl who fell off her chair onto her ass. Imagine the horror I felt, as I discovered the back right leg of my chair was standing on nothing but air. I felt that odd slow-motion sensation you get when you know something bad is about to happen, and as I tried desperately to use every muscle in my body to balance myself, I realised gravity was just going to have its way with me.

Down I crashed— down three steps onto my backside— legs in the air, chair somehow beneath them. As I am lying on the pavement, I decide to take my time getting up. If I am going to have an audience, let's not give them the expected posture of humiliation. No hanging of the head, no red cheeks, no nervous laugh. I sit up, right the chair, slowly rise to my feet and casually dust myself off, as if it's a perfectly ordinary thing to fall off a chair. Shoulders back and head high, I fluff my hair, straighten my shirt, sit down and order a tea. I feel dozens of eyes on me, hear whispering I cannot understand, and give them absolutely nothing. Eventually, everyone goes back to their previous conversations and staring— at someone else.

the conker, the slip and the bob

I am not sure how or why I let a man with a pencil moustache cut my hair in an underground vintage store, supply me with beer in a teacup, and give me a conker to hold while he snipped away.

Here I was last night, just showing a friend this funky store I had discovered, when all of a sudden, I hear a voice behind me in the sequin section rattle off something about my hair in Turkish. Somehow, through my pathetic Turkish and his few words of English, I am able to gather that he thinks I need my hair trimmed and shaped into a fabulous bob. I explain very brokenly:

Önce ben bir cok güzel bob var, ama her zaman Istanbul'da kesim yaptim, saçım çok kötü!

He laughs, either at my language or at the expression of dread on my face— every time I have gotten my hair cut in Istanbul, there have been terrible results that have nearly made me cry. I am not a girl who cries easily, mind you. I don't understand what happens— Turkish women have fantastic hairdos. Perhaps it's the texture of my pin-straight volumeless hair; hairdressers think they have all this hair to work with, but a few snips and I might as well shave it off.

He is so persistent, and explains he is not a hairdresser, but an artist. He understands hair, and knows what my hair wants to do. To his aide glides in a delightfully elegant Spanish man dressed head to toe in white— my sudden translator. My horror stories are now conveyed in perfect Turkish, and the moustached artist's assurances of his brilliance are expressed in clear English, with a beautiful Spanish accent. I don't know why, but I agree to be led by the hand to a striped setee. Before I know it, a vintage slip is tied around my neck and a teacup of beer is placed gently in my hand.

Nefes! Nefes!

The hair artist gestures the movement of a diaphragm with his hands as he exhales and inhales deeply— I understand he is telling me to relax and breathe. As if a light bulb switched on in his mind, he disappears for a moment and returns with a shiny conker and folds it in my palm, whispering, "this, very special."

Two hours later, I do indeed, have a fabulous bob. I thank my new hairdresser— hair artist— and he offers to take me fishing. I politely decline, and thank him for giving me back my bob.

They even have lederhosen!

By Retro is in the Rus Konsolosluğu karşısı, Suriye Pasajı off Istiklal Caddesi.
There is usually a guy in a gold lamé sultan Ottoman costume out front trying to entice you to come in.

what's in a name?

The only place I can generally get a soy latte in Istanbul is at a Starbucks. I'm not a fan of Starbucks for several reasons, but mainly I just don't like the way the coffee tastes. Now, I know I am in a veritable coffee wonderland— and yes, there is nothing like a tiny, sweetened silty cup of Türk kahvesi, but sometimes I just want a paper cup of creamy soy and espresso.

The funny thing about ordering a drink at a Turkish Starbucks is that you can order it in Turkish, but the baristas call the drinks to each other in English; a "grande buzlu soya latte," as it is on the menu board, is yelled out as an "iced grande soya latte." If you order the drink in English to start with, the baristas will think you are a foreigner and speak only English to you.

Then they ask you for your name.

This has become a rather interesting experience, as there is no "Samantha" in Turkish. I have learned that the first two "a"s in my name sound more like the Turkish "e"— and there is no "th"— so I have seen my name attempted in a variety of ways:

Sementa
Semanta
Samenta
Cementa

To make things easier for everyone (and for a bit of fun), I've been trying out popular Turkish names: Lale, Sema, Deniz, Leyla, Hande— but today I was caught up in some daydream. Samantha slipped out, and I soon discovered "Sabanta" was scrawled in Sharpie on my paper cup.

Sabanta.