Jack-o-melons?

The kids' school has a lot of students from NATO families (though no Americans) and on the whole it made a valiant attempt at costumes and celebrating Halloween but otherwise there is no sign of such a holiday here in Izmir. I went to the store for a crazy spotted gourd I had seen to make a jack-o-lantern but it turned out to be a melon (like honeydew but much mushier) so Zach and I carved two jack-o-melons. The older kids love the Halloween idea but were way too preoccupied with their costume party last night to really give much thought to melon carving. After 15 years of jack-o-lanterns I sense the days of Halloween pumpkins in the house are numbered.

We've never been so 'hood' as we are
now that we're out of the U.S.

"Honey please, no more opera."

Are we really half-way through??

Sam here again. There are still some things that I miss about the US but life here has become so ordinary that most of them don't come to mind much anymore. For example, when I see a new picture of Diesel or chat with my friends I feel a little bit of a yearning to go back to the States, but for the most part I really do not want to return. I like living in an apartment in a city along with the slight bit of freedom it gives me, and I have really fallen in love with our little school MEF. I can’t quite put a finger on why but there is just something majestically intriguing about Turkey to me. I no longer miss TV, something I thought I could physically not live without a couple months ago. The only thing I would use TV for would be to watch sports but just watching the highlights online can fulfill even that craving.

I am at the point where I no longer notice new things at such a great rate. Izmir doesn’t seem like a new place anymore and I think more about how I wish my new friends lived in Alsencak (downtown) with me rather than how much I can't wait to go back to the US. Every time I contemplate the thought of going back I feel a huge pang of sadness hit me in the gut, because I really just do not want to leave. I beg every which way to finish out the year with my new friends, or try to find a way to come out to Izmir this summer. And as our Turkish language ability slowly inches up to the point where communication is no longer super frustrating (either that or we have just gotten really good at indicating what we want with our hands) communicating doesn't seem nearly as difficult. There are things at school that I wish I could look forward to like the MEF Idol or even just the end of the year, but I know I am only going to be there for another two months.

One morning I came out of my room and just sat down and grabbed an iPod which happened to be Zach’s. I was looking through his apps and I found the “How many days until Christmas” app and I remembered looking at it almost everyday during the last 3 months till Christmas last year. This time when it said 63 days left I felt crestfallen, because 63 days just seemed so fleeting in comparison to the 5 months that we originally set out for. Of course I know we will probably be in Izmir for another 10-20 days after that, but those last 10 days are going to be filled with hectic confusion including packing and ending our extended vacation. To me it feels almost like one of those super corny movies, where the main character sets out to do something that will benefit him and never really considers what will happen as he does that thing. He then becomes attached to that new temporary life which was taken on for a completely separate reason. I came to Turkey originally to have an adventure, but also so that I could go back to the U.S. as a more mature freshman, but instead I have become attached to the point where I don’t want to go back period. Having fresh bread in our house, being allowed to go down to the little store across the street and get myself a soda and candy bar, or just living next to the sea, seem like automatics now, but in the lifestyle we live back in the U.S. that would never happen. Where in Lower Merion would ever find perfectly fluffed fresh bread every day of the week? How could a kid go about doing anything without his parent driving him there? Now this is not exactly a fair example because our parents have put quite a few miles on our rental Doblo here, but I do have a certain measure of freedom that would never be granted in Lower Merion. And who in Philadelphia can drive to the shore in less than a minute? So although the U.S. is a great place and I would not mind going back and seeing all my friends again or watching a game of football, in the end I would end up back in Izmir.

Can someone please FedEx me a burrito?

We haven't had Mexican food since August 22nd and for me that's the longest dry spell since I moved to Southern Cal in 1986. The other night in Migros supermarket, somewhere between the olives and the sheep cheese I saw what looked like tortillas and I decided to take matters into my own hands. The tortillas were huge, about three feet in diameter, and super thin but I figured the kids would get a charge out of rolling burritos in tortillas that nearly cover the table. 

Sam was second happiest about
the prospect of Mexican food.

First stop, chicken breasts, no problem. Plenty of onions and garlic to go around in Turkey so no problem there either. Black beans versus pinto beans is always a question to savor...but not at Migros. Kidney beans would have to do but I think what the heck. Salsa? Can't find that either but maybe I can chop up more onions, jalapeno peppers and cilantro to give it an authentic zing. OK, negatory on the jalapenos and cilantro but there are plenty of peppers available so I figured we could get by.

At home I mashed up the kidney beans with the idea that refrying kidney beans may do the trick i.e. infusing enough onion and garlic could change them. By this stage it's pretty clear I'm jonesin' bad for Mexican food and will let nothing get in the way, especially not common sense. A few hours later, with the kids finally gathered around the Mexican feast, Jasmine says she smells cinnamon and holds up one of the tortillas which we conclude must be a giant phyllo dough crepe of some sort. Guess I hadn't noticed that smell before but it was hard to avoid once Jasmine planted the thought. 

The kids were polite but it was a quiet dinner marked by steady chewing and no seconds. For the record, fajitas made by substituting crepes for tortillas, kidney beans for black beans and tomato sauce for salsa taste fairly predictably like kidney-bean-and-tomato-sauce crepes with a hint of cinnamon, no matter how many onions you add.

Dance with the grape vendor

It's harvest season here and everyday on my way back from Turkish class I see a street vendor with really plump looking green grapes which are hanging on display over the edge of his wheelcart. Buying grapes off the street is a little suspect, especially since there is only one person selling them, but unable to resist a deal ($1.50 for over two pounds) I one day finally edged my way into the fray and asked the price. I then watched others buy to be sure I wasn't being given the special American markup and sure enough, the grape vendor seemed to be charging everyone the same price. Step 1 of the dance, getting a fair price from the unmarked vendor cart (feared even by Turks), has gone OK.

When I actually stepped up and ask in my limited Turkish "Bir kilo lutfen" (one kilo please) he quickly threw a few bunches in a bag, weighed them and collected his lira. At home however, the grapes didn't seem nearly so big or so plump. I had a flashback of sorts where I remembered everyone else picking out their own grapes and now I realized why. I had unwittingly let him give me the scrawny leftovers! (FYI Ladan washes these street grapes with a vegetable wash that smells like it could take the paint off of cars.)

On day 2, (yes we ate 2 lbs. of grapes in a day) when he reached for the little loser grapes I had my big bunch of display-worthy grapes already in hand. Step 2, choosing the best grapes, seemed an almost audacious step in the right direction and I'll admit I felt a slight thrill that I had graduated to the ranks of folks who bought the fat display grapes. When I got home however, it still seemed like about a third of the grapes were small overripe strays. Dang.


Business was slow on day 3 and he showed me a copy of a Che Guevara biography that he was reading. "You know Che?" he asked, "Che good man." I tell myself to ignore the revolutionary undercurrent and just focus on improving my third grape purchase. This time when we got to Step 3, making an even kilo, I had a second bunch of display grapes ready and started to break off a clump. "On no you don't" (or something worse) he says in Turkish. "Che good man" I say but it doesn't seem to move him. Breaking up the display grape bunches was clearly a no-go and the thrill of Day 2 is long gone. I'm in no mood to have him top off a kilo with grapes that can't survive Ladan's scouring process so I agree to two big bunches of grapes or about three pounds. Even our family can't put away three pounds of grapes in a day but I wasn't about to go backwards. I overbought and then overpaid further because no one in this city seems to have any change, at least for me.


I leave the apartment on a mission on Day 4 with exactly 3.5 lira in my pocket and can hardly wait for class to end. This time when it comes to Step 4 in the dance, payment for the two big fat bunches I have chosen, I slowly hold out my palm with three and a half lira. He says no, he needs 4 but when I pull out my pockets and show him I have no more coins he lets out a big laugh and shakes my hand vigorously. Have I passed a test? The Che test? Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure there is some mutual respect happening between us. I have made a nearly perfect grape purchase, in front of my mother-in-law no less, and imagine that I understand some of the nuances of the bazaar.


Day 5: My new buddy Che is nowhere to be found (and we have quite a backlog of grapes).

Zach's Apartment Dog Blog (updated with pix of Shortie)

Hey Zach here again,

So I have been planning this blog for a LONG time (really just forgetting to actually do it), but once I got the pics I jumped on the idea. 

"One Eye" as you can see has  1 eye.We think he lost it in a fight.

Anyway, there are these stray dogs that live right outside of our apartment. After seeing them and feeding them little treats sometimes, we decided to give them names. There's "One Eye", "Horse",

We named him "Horse" because he is
the size of a small horse.

"Brindle" and "Shortie". Unfortunately Shortie hasn't been at the apartment lately so we haven't gotten a picture of him.  All of them like me except for one.......... Horse. 

It started out fine with me and him but lately he's been getting angry and barking when I go to pet him. Today after we took the pictures I went to pet him and he barked, and when he barks your heart skips a beat. After treating me poorly he got up and went to my dad and ASKED my dad to pet him by nudging his leg. You know what they say though, "Love the one's who treat you right and forgive the ones who don't". I think that's what they say, but when I pray for horse I get lost: "... um... please help horse .... um....not....... uhhhh,  just help horse."

I will try to get a picture of Shortie A.S.A.P. (just got them so here they are)

Shortie looks like any other dog
when he's lying down...

...but when he stands up, he has no legs

You also will often see cats lying on cars.

This is "Brindle" who looks like One Eye a bit.
He, as you can tell is the color Brindle.

S'mores on Mt. Olympus

In a couple of weeks our school has a field trip to Mt. Olympus. Not a random mountain named Mt. Olympus; I'm talking about the real deal. It is this huge mountain that spits fire. The Greeks thought that it was the home of the gods because fire randomly spews out of the ground. In reality there are just holes in the ground which release gases that combust instantaneously with the air and they cannot be extinguished.
Anyways, our teacher who is running the trip was wondering what we would like to do in the evenings when we are not climbing the mountain. Instantly I thought of the traditional American camping activity: roasting s'mores. At first nobody knew what I was talking about; apparently only people from the U.S. roast smores. After explaining the process of roasting smores to my teacher, she agreed that if we brought the marshmellows, grahm crackers, chocolate, etc., Sam and I could teach everyone how to roast smores. But... wait for it. We are going to roast our marshmellows over the everlasting fires on the mountain. That will surely be a story to tell. How many people can say they roasted marshmellows on Mt. Olympus?!
So, now the only challenge is finding marshmellows in Turkey. Till next time, Jasmine.

Turks, Germans and the Utopian Ideal

I’ve traveled to Germany a couple of times from Turkey and what a contrast it is to go back and forth between the two countries. The municipality of Izmir makes a huge effort to kept the city tidy, at least near the bay where we are, but it’s still way different from the German’s version of tidy, with bathrooms in public places as the exception (see our earlier blog “We finally found one…”). My own, only slightly informed opinion is that littering just doesn’t seem to be taboo or carry a stigma in Turkey and of course in Munich it’s unthinkable.

More importantly, differences such as these are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the anti-Turk, anti-Islam sentiments that are running high throughout Europe. Germany is no exception and even Chancellor Angela Merkel a few days ago came out and said “multi-culturalism” is not working. This of course has the Turks bristling since in their eyes they do the jobs in Germany that Germans don’t want to do. Furthermore, the flip side of the total integration coin is losing one’s cultural identity.

Remember reading in high school civics class about the utopian societies from the late 19^th century? I have no firsthand experience even though my kids are sure I was alive then but it seems that a lot of the friction between Germans and Turks at least on the surface has to do with 1) Turks who work but don’t integrate, 2) immigrants who don’t work but come to the country and immediately avail themselves of the generous social services that Germany has to offer. Greatly oversimplified, Germany’s utopian ideal is that the German culture will remain unadulterated and that everyone will be like-minded enough to work hard even at the unpleasant jobs and only fall back on the social net in the case of extreme conditions. Since most of the folks doing the low end jobs come from and live in extreme conditions it seems like a catch 22 for both sides.

Note to Germany and its politicians: don't completely alienate the folks who are doing the dirty jobs unless you have a backup plan. Your need for cheap labor carries a social and cultural price tag.

"Iran-adjacent" (Dad)

Turkey is one of the few places where Iranians don't need a visa to come and go which is convenient for Ladan's folks. They've been here for the past week or so and their reaction to Turkey's progress has been gracious but in a sad sort of way. We had no idea if they would love it or hate it but it's been a real pleasure seeing it through their eyes and with the benefit of their observations (and yes, they really like it). It's also been a little sad since Iran was well down the path to what Turkey has become even way back in the '70s. What a concept to have Iran as a modern nation acting as a responsible and democratic ally of the US. It never does any good to play the "what could have been" game but it's also pretty hard not to. It will be interesting to get the kids' reactions to Iran now that they have a new, non-US basis for comparison. I won't get to visit Iran with the family but perhaps I'll get to practice my Turkish on shopkeepers up and down the block (without embarrassing my children in the extreme).

All Quiet on the Eastern Front

Jasmine writing again. This is a bit overdue, but between my brothers and my dad, there have been a lot of blog posts lately, and I did not want people to become overwhelmed with the number of posts that we made. This is going to be in two sections, so for those of you who want to read about my family's faux pas go to the first section. For those of you who want to hear about the recent referendum in Turkey, go to the second part. And for those of you who want to know about  both, just keep reading as you are. 

My number one pet peeve, is how loud my family is. I mean we are loud by United States standards. We can easily be some of the loudest people in the noisiest of settings. Even at the dinner table my brothers feel the need to shout everything they say, even if the person they are speaking to is mere inches away from them. It drives me crazy to have to shout at the top of my lungs to be heard and to have everyone stare at us in public because we are the family who is yelling at each other from across the store/park/anywhere we are. My brothers are the worst with this, but all of us, even me, are at fault.

Ever since we got off the flight in Germany (we flew Newwark to Munich, Munich to Izmir to get here), the people around us have been near mute, only ever elevating their voices to near whispers if anyone ever did talk. The Munich airport was literally silent. 

Zach and Sam practice open field running in Munich airport.

We even saw a girl have a seizure in the middle of the airport and nobody broke the quiet. In Turkey, the noise levels went up a little bit, but not by much. Depending on where you are, the Turks' noise level ranges from a 3 to a 6 on a scale of 1-10 (with Germany being a 1 and my family being a 10). The only time I have been mortified with my family here is when we yet again manage to be the loudest people in the vicinity, and we have every head turned our direction wondering who the crazy Americans are. Zach, who has picked up on the surrounding silence the least, will run around stores yelling like a hooligan either because Sam is chasing him, or because "Daddy, you NEED to see this". We have no shame in making every head around us turn because we are at least 10 bajillion times louder than everyone else.

OK, I know I promised something on the referendum but I actually have to go. I know my dad already said something on this topic, so I will leave it at that. 

Smoked like a sausage

I just returned from Munich where it was cold and raining...and smokey! Smoking is banned on public transport, hospitals, airports and in public and federal building but not, unfortunately, in office buildings. After only two days of secondhand smoke it's good to be back in smoke-free Turkey where pods of smokers puff away outside office buildings. OK, smoke-free might be overstating things a bit and Turkey is still one of the major manufacturers of cigarettes in the world but at least here in Izmir if you "smoke like a Turk" it's probably outside.

Rattling the scimitar?

Prime Minister Erdogan
pictured here with his wife.

I heard an interesting theory last night at dinner and it may have some legs. While folks in western Turkey are very concerned about Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s gradual movement towards conservative Islam (they are worried it's slowly turning into another Iran), he may have other motives. With the idea of letting Turkey into the EU on the wane perhaps Erdogan is doing what every other leader does who wants to get the attention of the US: flirt with the bogeyman of the “East”. Seems like a win-win-win for him in that he collects the votes of the country’s faithful, does a land office trade with the pariahs of the world like Iran and Syria, and meanwhile gains leverage with the US who will push like heck to have them join the EU to help counter the growing outreach of radical Islam. Notice the difference between becoming more religiously conservative, which is where Turkey seems to be headed for the moment, and radical Islam which is what produces terrorists.

Sounds like a pretty interesting plan if you ask me.  Of course just to be clear no one has asked me and these are purely my own ramblings. And BTW, if Turkey joins the EU, who’s next? Lebanon? Israel? Iraq? 

If they only had some signs

Zach, turn around and head towards the Middle East.

My foot-in-mouth disease hasn't cleared up any in the Aegean sunshine.  A few days ago at the kids' sailing/windsurfing school I commented that we were as far west as we could possibly be while remaining in the Middle East. Whoops, gave myself away on that one! I was politely corrected that Izmir doesn't consider itself the Middle East and that Turkey is part of Europe. Of course I get the age-old debate and Izmir doesn't feel much like other parts of the Middle East that I've visited (see photos), but even now that we're living here I'm a little baffled as to when Turkey wants to be part of Europe and when it wants to be identified with the M.E.

This is Turkey, those hills are Greece.

Surely the eastern border of Turkey, where it meets Iran and Armenia is considered the Middle East. I'm pretty sure Iran thinks it is. And surely Turkey's border with Syria is considered the Middle East. Historically the Asian side of Istanbul was considered the east, as in the beginning of Asia Minor, so maybe Istanbul, the Aegean and the Mediterranean are excluded but everything else in the middle counts? Or maybe it depends on the audience? Or maybe "Middle East" is just a term that we over use in the US? Or perhaps this is simply the magic of Turkey, i.e. neither east nor west...and both whenever they want to be.

BTW, one aspect we've become increasingly sensitive to is that "Muslim" doesn't equal "Middle East." Sounds obvious but it doesn't always feel obvious. I really do need to get out more. Comments welcome.

speaking Turkish and the regime of no technology

Hey, it's Jasmine. It seems that once again, I need to keep Dad in check. In his post about the electronics, my dad made himself seem like the heroic parent who stood up to his kids and saved them from excessive screen usage. What he left out was the severity of this new regime. I am honestly a mild technology user. Sam is a bit more excessive in his use, but he is also much more tech savvy than I, therefore he embraces technology more. And Zach is only ever concerned with checking his email and playing Akinator. Our parents though, seem to think we are unengaged and "get angry" when we experience screen withdrawal. First of all, Sam is naturally cranky and it has nothing to do with his ipod use. Second of all, what teenagers want to spend every waking second of the day in intellectual conversation with their parents? There aren't even that many teenagers who want to spend any time with their parents. 

The idea that we are "checked out" came from our trip to Kapadokya, when we drove for 11 hours, and our parents actually had encouraged us to bring our ipods on the long drive. They were insulted though, when we didn't want to listen to their endless reading from the guidebook and thus we were labeled disengaged, and the ipods were dubbed evil machines. 

On a different note, as I'm sure he has told you, my dad has started taking Turkish lessons at the official Turkish language center, Tomer. He now comes home everyday and spends hours (I'm am not kidding) trying to pronounce all the different Turkish sounds correctly (and in the end says almost none of them correctly). He also spends afternoons trying to get us to converse with him in Turkish and quizzing us on all his new Turkish words, acting extremely surprised if we do not know the answers (because we speak fluent Turkish, not). But, one thing we have taken to doing is pronouncing Turkish words we see/ hear, under our breath, as I had previously mocked my father for doing. Even my mother (who refuses to learn Turkish) and I (well I just don't like sounding like a complete idiot) have taken to muttering words we see on signs to ourselves. This is because the only thing more frustrating than nobody understanding you because they don't speak English, is when people still don't understand you when you try to speak Turkish. 

So now, I am just going to give a brief low down on what is happening here. It is now regularly chilly here (like 40s Fahrenheit), we are going to start sailing lessons tomorrow, Sam is going to a birthday party, Zach is basking in the glory that kids here actually laugh at his jokes, my mom wants to start learning Spanish (in Turkey, go figure), mom is also going to Paris next week, and dad is going to Germany soon after she returns. The grandparents are coming while my dad is in Germany and yeah, that's about it. 

Beyond ironic

Did anyone see the NYT article this week on the US military's use of renewable energy in their Afghanistan efforts?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/science/earth/05fossil.html?th&emc=th

Seems they've brought in a Marine company of solar power specialists to try and lessen the military's reliance on easily-ambushed tanker trucks full of fuel for military generators. Perhaps this week will be remembered as the week we lessened our military's dependence on foreign oil so they can more effectively fight to maintain access to foreign oil. Or something like that. Maybe a silver lining here?

It's longer in Turkish (Dad)

I started intensive Turkish courses this week and it's been a hoot. OK, to be honest it's a hoot conceptually but painful for my own brain to stretch out and try to absorb all of that information. In the words of Steve Martin they really do have a different word for everything and wow, I've never seen words that grow like they do in Turkish! You can basically create a decent sized paragraph with a single word.

We're in class for nearly 4 hours every morning and it's hard for anyone in the class to keep pace the following day without afternoon study time.  We'll see how long I last. Since the class is made up of lots of nationalities the teacher doesn't have the flexibility to translate from Turkish to English but instead does a good job of defining one word with another more familiar Turkish term. As a result we learn two Turkish words in the process.  For example, "deniz" which means "ocean" is written everywhere here and is the hint for memorizing "mavi", the color blue.

Oddly enough, 4 out of the 11 students in the class are Americans. We all look at each other and ask "what are you doing here?" and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who isn't State Department.  Then again, they represent 4 of the flimsiest stories I've ever heard and I have a hunch they're thinking the same thing...that is, besides the guy with the photographic memory.

Electronic warfare on the open seas (+ pics)

Raise your hand if you have teenagers who snarl at the slightest provocation and who are constantly, incessantly listening to music or playing games on their iPods or Touches. In a fit of insight Ladan and I actually connected the two behaviors and didn't let the kids take any electronics with them on our boat trip. It's an understatement to say that this did not go over well but after the initial detox we actually had our kids back. When we were bored on the boat we had only a few choices: read, snorkel, hold a conversation for 30 seconds or more or swim ashore and hike around.

Look ma, no earphones! Call it parental pride but it's
easy to imagine real thoughts going through his mind.

I know I sound pretty old and curmudgeon-like by now but I actually think I saw some neurons stirring in their developing minds. I know for a fact that we didn't have the vacant "I-have-my-ear-buds-in" stare nor did we have the endless loop conversations where they claim to be listening except that they can't remember that we had the same conversation less than 30 minutes before. I'm sure they could make the same claims since I wasn't checking my Blackberry every few minutes either.

Hey everyone, a book!

What a pleasure it was to have so much time on our hands and so few distractions that we enthusiastically embraced a few of the classics and even a little of the WWI history the kids are studying in class.

(I have a hunch there will be a rebuttal so stay tuned.)

Killer time on the boat (+ photos)

Zach liked the boat and the boat liked Zach.

We just returned Monday evening from 4 days and 3 nights on a sailboat and truly enjoyed ourselves. The boat itself was new but still looked like a mini-pirate ship and at least part of the crew looked like they came from central casting.

One of our favorite memories is sleeping on deck under
the stars every night.

Swim in clear blue super salty water first thing in the morning and then eat breakfast like a farmhand? Sure.












Swim some more and hike to ancient ruins in the afternoon? Why not. Snorkel around looking for old stuff that in the US would be encased in electronic theft detection alarms? Come on kids, let's go.

Must be a prop pencil since I'm pretty sure there
wasn't any homework completed on the boat.

It was incredibly relaxing, so relaxing in fact that after three days I realized I needed to get off of the boat or my IQ would drop below the point where I could actually remember how to leave. Truly an amazing time that highlighted the unspoiled nature that Turkey has in abundance along its southern coastline.

We finally found one...

Yes, in a perverse twist the family has concluded that the bathrooms are uncommonly clean wherever we travel here in Turkey and so we've been on the lookout for at least one smelly bathroom. We've spent at least 30 hours in the car in the last month which has meant lots of gas station and off piste bio-breaks in the middle of nowhere and the cleanliness of these bathrooms has been nothing short of remarkable. No photos for this blog entry but why can't we do this in the US? I've asked the women in the family to give me a reality check and their collective view is that every service station bathroom in Turkey has been better than any service station bathroom in the US.  How is this possible? It reminds me of 30 years ago or so when McDonalds figured out that clean bathrooms were a key attraction for bringing folks into their stores. Somehow Turkey got the memo that most of the US and Europe missed regarding how much travelers REALLY appreciate clean restrooms. Comments welcome on what I'm missing here.