Bursa

Being where I didn’t mean to be and doing what I didn’t mean to do are becoming vital aspects to my traveling. This weekend I set out for Bursa early on Saturday, with a specific set of plans in mind. Everything went awry, and completely for the better. I think this going to become the central theme of my travels from here on out. Inshallah.

I am quickly and happily adopting the inshallah mindset. Once I hand over responsibility for my plans to god, my accountability vanishes. Inshallah (god willing) is a confirmation of intention, but denial of responsibility. I hope it happens, but if it doesn’t, don’t look at me. It was with this mindset that I neglected to reserve my seat on the 8:30 ferry, and with this mindset that I arrived to the port to find it sold out. Oh well! I gain 1.5 hours on a bench to eat simit and read 100 pages of Gone with the Wind (wow! highly recommended!).    My journey to Bursa does not end with the ferry ride, but merely begins. After that I take a bus, then the metro, then walk. Once I get to Bursa I can’t quite seem to find my way. I locate the market (huge, central), but repeatedly can’t get my bearings from either the map or written directions in my guide book, which I increasingly wish I had tossed into the Sea of Marmara when I had the

inside Ulu Camii

chance. Slowly slowly I begin to find the places I had hoped to see – the silk market, Ulu Camii (great mosque), Yeşil Türbe and Camii (Green Tomb and Mosque). Due to my late arrival and constant confusion, the hour increases and I know I have to confirm my place to stay for the night. The firmest option is to move on to the nearby town of İznik (aka Nicea), where an inexpensive pansiyon promises a bed. Leaving for İznik, though, means leaving two thirds of Bursa unseen. I decide to whip through a last destination and then move on.

Ditching my guide book, I make the park I see on a cliff overlooking the city my destination. I have numerous pleasant conversations asking someone every corner or so – how do I get there? (pointing at the destination). I’m told it’s Tophane Park, and I should go, approximately, that way. Eventually I find the stairs that lead up, and begin the climb. I find the entrance of the park, but spot some pleasantly old houses and a sign for a mosque in the other direction, and go that way instead. Best choice! The streets are old, winding, quiet, pretty. The houses in this area (later I learn was the first center of Bursa) are largely still in Ottoman style, interspersed with small beautiful mosques and tombs. I wander behind one such mosque and find myself able to climb onto the old city wall to overlook the mountains and city. The view! Such victories are increased manifold when discovered without guidance. I vow to use my guide more sparingly and plunge back into the labyrinthine

huge! 600 year old tree in İnkaya

neighborhood.

Soon thereafter, and newly pleased with the breadth and depth of my Bursa experience, I begin making my way back toward the center of the city from where I will catch a shuttle to Iznik. On the way though, I spot a hotel I remember mentioned in my guide. I stop in and ask the man at the desk how much a room costs there. He says they are full, and turns to consult a friend visiting on the lobby couch. They recommend a little hotel, very inexpensive, run by a married couple, frequented by travelers. Elaborate drawn maps and verbal directions later, I realize it’s the place I had tried to call in the morning, without success. With the help of directions I find the place, where I’m shown a tiny, sunny room. We agree on a rate and I deposit my things to head back out for an early dinner and continued tour of Bursa.

kahvaltı under the tree

I go into a busy lokanta – inexpensive, unpretentious, home-type food pre-prepared and served from cafeteria trays. (Always) immediately spotted for a foreigner, the owner beckons a young woman drinking tea at a table. She says she can help explain the food in English, if I would like. I end up with lentil (always order lentil – ‘mercimek’, it is always different, and always delicious) soup, a meat-stuffed eggplant, and buttery rice. Too much food, but delicious. Zubeyde invites me to join her, and we continue our humorously broken Turkish-English conversation.

After a few minutes a young guy across from us interjects, I imagine curious about our English-speaking. He is a Turk, but knows English fluently, and happily facilitates our conversation. Soon he and his friend join our table and we all move on to tea. We are all about the same age, and students. Zubeyde and Salih are Turks working on their English, while I’m an American learning Turkish. Hayri, who alone speaks both languages, is amused and pleased that we have all found each other by such chance in a little neighborhood lokanta. We decide we’ll stick together after dinner, the three Bursalı showing me (quickly dubbed Zehra, for ease of pronunciation) around their hometown. We walk to the park, see the tombs and pay our respects to buried Ottomans, walk through the local artists’ area and talk to the artisans about their work. At each place I am introduced as ‘our American friend’, and everyone is excited to show me something about their life in Bursa. We walk to the market, and spend the evening call to prayer inside the Great Mosque. Afterwards, hungry again, we go to a cafe for simit and tea. The evening is unimaginably pleasant, constantly tinged with the unrealness of being the recipient of such great fortune. I’m in a constant struggle to follow the Turkish, smilingly slowed and simplified for my benefit. When a thought or story requires full detail, Hayri enthusiastically retells it in English for me, as Zubeyde interjects with English grammar and usage queries.  Exhausted and buzzing iwth good fortune, we part later in the evening with plans to meet up again the next afternoon. Another day and many pictures and memories later, I find myself accompanied to the bus stop where I will await the last bus home.

I ended up not seeing half the things I had planned, but many more things instead. I get home late late that night, but am awake and ready for Monday morning class’s weekly round of ‘bu haftasonu ne yapıyorsun?’ – ‘What did you do this weekend?’

Kıyıköy

    This weekend Mom's rule came to mind – If possible, don’t plan a trip where you’ll spend more time traveling than at the destination. I’ve always thought this was a pretty good idea, and have tried to apply it.  On my first excursion out of Istanbul, today, I ended up breaking that rule pretty thoroughly.

     I’ve been glued to my Turkey guide for days, doing careful calculations about which destinations I can reach in what periods of time. Kıyıköy, a town on the Black Sea, I had marked as a ‘day trip’ – a mere 2.5 hour bus ride away. Today I woke up early and headed out, fully expecting everything to go wrong.

     To a certain extent, everything did go wrong. My anticipated traveling time each way expanded exponentially so that in my 13.5 hours trip, I had exactly 1 hour at Kıyıköy. Kind of silly, but kind of wonderful. As my college application outlined, the journey is more important than the destination anyway (my justification for a liberal arts education, particularly an expensive one).

    Today I encountered not a single English-speaker, and had innumerable pleasant interactions, gained invaluable knowledge about public transportation in Turkey. Some highlights:

-Stranded in Vize for two and a half hours. Described by my Turkey guide as an ‘attractive backwater,’ Vize was my stop between Istanbul’s main bus terminal and Kıyıköy. I arrived at noon, eventually ascertaining (with the help of every son, uncle, grandmother, bystander in sight) that the next van leaves not until 2:30. Furthermore, the last van back from Kıyıköy was to depart at 4:30. Alas! We all had a good laugh once my comprehension becomes evident.

    My time in Vize was enjoyable-  I crossed the street to a busy lokanta – an inexpensive restaurant with pre-made hot food. I requested soup, and the proprietor responded with the type of soup that day. Unable to understand, I was pointed to a seat. Whatever was in it was sufficiently disintegrated that I will never know- maybe thankfully, as liver, brains, tripe are real possibilities. After lunch I wandered through town a bit, perfecting the smile I return to stares, with intermittent success. I bought an ice cream cone from an extremely professional 15-year-old boy. An hour later I was at the bus station again, whiling away the remaining time reading my guide book.

-First successful use of a Turkish/squat toilet! Uneventful, until the automatic lights shut off.

spooky cave-church

-Whirlwind tour of Kıyıköy. I first circumabulated the town, viewing the bluffs, sea, cove with fishing boats. I had read about the cave-church, located west of town. I walked in that direction and began to ask everyone I passed for directions, ‘Affedersiniz, nerede kilise?’ I relied more on pointed fingers than verbal directions, but found it eventually. On my way back to the main street I poked my head down some alleys, spying men repairing nets, chopping logs. The main street is populated entriely by men sitting in clumps of 3-5 drinking tea, talking, sitting, watching. Uncertain of how to interact with them, I settle for a slight smile, a nod, and brief eye contact.

-Busride home. Having slept most the way there, I was surprised and pleased by the scenery on the way home. Pleasant, largely undeveloped and agricultural, I realized I could just as easily have been in rural Pennsylvania, or a number of familiar places. The tv was on the whole time, spewing the day’s election results (ugh, incumbent victory). Long-distance buses in Turkey characteristically have tvs played loudly throughout the journey, free drinking water (in little sealed cups), and an occasional distribution of rosewater. Similar to a mother squirting purell into children’s outstretched hands, the bus aide goes up and down the aisle and splashes rose water from a salad-dressing type bottle into everyone’s hands. It is unclear to me the exact purpose of this ritual, but everyone seemed to expect and enjoy it. It did smell very nice.

     In the end, a good day. I realized that there may be no such thing as a day trip out of Istanbul on public transportation, and I’ll allow an extra half-day at least next time. Although a little discouraged about my speaking skills (I had to rely on pantomiming much more than I had hoped), it was nonetheless invigorating to be without my usual ubiquitous crutch of basic English knowledge from my interlocutor. In some ways Istanbul is the most Turkish of cities, but in other ways it’s the least. My trip to Kırıköy was a good start in seeing what the rest of Turkey is about.

Fish Sandwiches

The past two days I’ve had class from nine until one, then set off in exploration of the area. It’s hot out and I tire quickly, so my forays have been limited. Yesterday I used public transportation for the first time – a really exciting prospect. Public transportation, I think, offers one of the best glimpses into local daily life. Today I was slightly more ambitious, setting a complex of buildings at Istanbul University as my destination. At the last minute a friend joined, and we left just after one.

We got off the tram near the university, and proceeded to search out an entrance. In what seemed more like me charming the guard with my garbled Turkish explanation of our intention than official permission, we made it inside. The campus is lovely, very treed with typically imposing stone buildings. Not unlike campuses in the US. We found the famous mosque dating to the 1500s from its minarets, visible from afar. I like visiting mosques – unlike in Israel, visitors are expected and welcomed.

From there we headed to the Kapalı Çarşısı/Grand Bazaar – the largest covered market in the world. The bazaar was strangely unimpressive – in comparison to Jerusalem souks it was clean and polished, in comparison to US mall it just had more unusual wares and aggressive vendors. Some things seemed pretty cool, and I’d like to go back when I’m more in a shopping mood, but today we wandered just long enough to get lost and then made our way back out. My Turkey book alluded to a book market, which we quickly tracked down and enjoyed, despite the lack of worthwhile English titles.

From here our afternoon shifted. Previously guided by descriptive paragraphs, here on out we found our books had ceased to be of use. Uncertain of where next to go, I spotted the water and suggested we head that way- I hadn’t seen much of the water yet. The water turned out to be further than it appeared from the top of the hill, and finally at the bottom we found ourselves next to the metro tracks in a charming and slightly dilapidated neighborhood that has potentially never seen a tourist before. Glad to have male companionship, I led the way across the tracks toward a heavily secured port of some sort. Perplexed, we saw Istanbul’s center to the north and turned left. Just beyond the port we entered a fish market, full of properly salty men in rubber boots and gloves. The fish stalls were cool, watered, and artistically displayed. Every few stalls there was a guy grilling fillets and making sandwiches. What luck! Four lira ($2.60) fish sandwiches in hand, we pressed on. Soon the market opened up to a park along a shore, filled with families picnicking under the trees, old men sunbathing on the rocks, boys jumping in for a swim.

Sea of Marmara to the right, the city to the left, the Bosporus and Asian side of Istanbul visible ahead, I reflected again on how nice it is to get off the beaten path, and how much I like Turkey. The Aya Sofya, Sultanahmet Mosque, and Turkish and Islamic Art Museum yesterday were as incredible as I expected, but it’s really great to find out what the Turks are up to and enjoy that too. A couple just-comprehensible Turkish inquiries later, we made our way to a train then a bus home. Despite the uneasiness with which the fish is sitting in my stomach, it’s been an excellent day. Plans to repeat tomorrow after class.

Turkey, Day 1: Ayla

View from my window

     My arrival to Turkey was a bit haphazard. Just a phone number and address in hand, I arrived to Atatürk International Airport with no Turkish Lira, phone, or confirmation that my host family exists or knows I’m coming. It worked out ok- I found an ATM, my bag, and my way to the post office, where I was able to make a call for 2 TL. The gods smiling on me, Ayla not only picked up the phone, and was expecting me, but switched to English after 18 seconds of my flustered Turkish.

I took the Havaş shuttle from the airport to Taksim Square where I grabbed a taxi. The driver seemed to take a while figuring out where we were going, but we had a pleasantly stilted Turkish conversation about mosques and American music. It continues to surprise me when Turks know what I’m saying in Turkish.

    Finally at the correct apartment (my twice transcribed 1 had become a 7), I called up Ayla again. She said, ‘Wait there! I will send my boyfriend to help you with your luggage.’ Steven, a well-muscled and silent Tanzanian was there in a moment and immediately whisked my moderately large suitcase up seven flights of spiral stairs effortlessly. At the top I (out of breath) was greeted by Ayla, fabulously dressed in a long leopard-print shirt and tights, and her mom, a 6”2’ Bulgarian woman. Ayla immediately set about making a smoothie for us to drink to cool off a bit.

Ayla is wonderful. She is the perfect combination of welcoming and casual that makes me feel quite at home. She has a big personality, but is also very considerate – a rare and pleasant combination. After a couple hours of shifting things around the apartment, a nap for me and a shower for her, we two headed toward Taksim Square. Ayla lives about twenty minutes on foot to Taksim Square, the heart of Istanbul and a major shopping, tourist, and leisure center. While I immediately fell in love with Turkey and Turks (somehow I missed the “honeymoon” phase of culture shock when I was in Israel), Ayla concentrated on finding her friend, Ayşe. Ayşe found us in the square and while she and Ayla affectionately greeted one another I continued to gawp at our surrounding. Ayşe is petite, very cute, and speaks less English than I speak Turkish. Ayla bilingually explained to us that while we were going to carry on conversation in Turkish for my benefit, maybe Ayşe would pick up some English as well. We set off down İstiklal Caddesi, the main street, in search of a hair dryer then dinner.

     Turkey is worth gushing about, but the real excitement yesterday evening was the sudden transport into a real life of a real Turkish person. Ayla and Ayşe, both several years older than me, took me in as another friend and the three of us had, I imagine, a typical evening out with friends. In Turkish. Surprised at how much I found I could say, I was even more taken aback by the ease of learning new words in such a situation.

Things so far are going splendidly. It is my habit to identify the linchpin in successful situations, and in mine thus far that is Ayla.

Traveling with Mom

    Less than twenty-four hours before I was leaving home for this trip, Mom and I were scrambling to finalize our plans for meeting up. She was planning to attend a conference in Hungary starting a week after my program in Jerusalem finished. If she were to fly out a week early, we could meet somewhere and travel together. Ultimately we settled on Israel – so that I would have one fewer flight to Turkey, and mom would have an expert travel guide.

     We’re about five days into our travels together, and I’ve settled on a positive verdict. I hadn’t been worried about traveling with just Mom for such a prolonged period, but curious. As it turns out we are admirable travel partners, and in many ways it’s proved an interesting experience.

     Having traveled the past two months in a new country, with new people, doing new things, at times I’ve worried that I could have changed drastically and not have noticed. Traveling with Mom has soundly re-oriented me. On one hand, the ways in which she and I are different have provided this comfort. Until being with Mom all the time again, I had begun to think I have turned into a worrier. As it turns out, I am not – at least in comparison to Mom. Her anxieties range from sensible to absurd (“Mom – I promise we’re not in the West Bank. Look, there are some more Israeli flags.”) Maybe just the knowledge that Mom has the worrying under control has made me carefree, but I am by no means an anxious person.

     In more ways, traveling together makes glaringly obvious the ways in which we are the same. To a large extent, it’s a matter of preferences. Some of these preferences are incidental, but amusing to note. We share a distaste for onions, as well as bathing suits. (Notice our matching tank top/gym shorts outfits). We both habitually write in cursive. We share a different sort of sense of humor, I think. Illustrative story:

Mom tells, “If I ever knocked on a door to ask who was behind it, Pappap would answer, ‘Yehudi!’ I never understood who Yehudi was and would ask, ‘Well, where is he from?’ ‘Shikshinny!’

Well, I never understood about Yehudi, but now I realize that he must actually be from Israel.”

Mom’s colorful anecdotes had us both in stitches driving along the Golan Heights.

     It can be rather trying to arrange plans around several disparate preferences, and due to our similar priorities Mom and I had no such problem. Immediately apparent was our shared value in gastronomic experiences. Especially, we are always on the lookout for an opportunity to stop for coffee, tea, or wine. One such spontaneous wine-stop occurred in the midst of our obligatory souk-shopping afternoon. Impatient with tourist-jaded rosary-sellers, we dealt with them at top-speed, stopping only for a leisurely glass of wine in the Austrian Hospice gardens. Our similar attitudes toward the relative value of shopping and consumption of food and beverage smooth spontaneous decision-making.

     A lot of our similarities stem from a notion Mom invented, familiar to her family and now several of my friends, of ‘graded activities.’ Over time I have come to accept this model of potential activity analysis as well. The spectrum of low- to high-grade activities runs from video games to museums. Museums are the highest grade, most especially of art. Eating can be high up, shopping is pretty low down. Beaches are usually low-grade. People watching is moderately high-grade, to a certain extent. Going for a drive is surprisingly high-grade, as well as most walks (through swamps included). Anything having to do with nuns is trump-grade (Mom and I both harbor secret desires to become nuns and live in mountain monasteries.  I would be the beekeeping nun and Mom could be the teacher nun).  

    This ladder of priorities helped us immensely planning out our week. While a visit to the Dead Sea was necessary and worthwhile, we made just a short trip to avoid sun-fatigue. Instead of whiling away the afternoon baking on the sand (eek!), we cleaned up and headed north for a drive around the Sea of Galilee at sunset.

     A whole afternoon on the other hand was spent at the Israel Museum, where we sped through the nauseatingly symbolic ‘Shrine of the Book’ to the art wings, which were extraordinary (check out William Kentridge). The first part of that day in Jerusalem was spent at the Shuk (Jewish produce market), which coincides with my personal prioritization of vegetables, and conveniently agrees with Mom’s contentedness with people-watching.

     Our shared interest in and attraction to Catholic things was most relevant for this trip. One night we stayed at a convent, where we pretended we were nuns, and even considered working in silence. We speculated about a nun-initiate we met, and fantasized that we would wake up early enough for 7:15 mass. Our morning in the Old City we spent a good amount of time at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where we reviewed the last four stations of the cross, and gawked at the giant candlestick. Later in the week we had our ‘pilgrim day’, where we saw the churches of Nazareth (most spectacularly the Basilica of the Annunciation, celebrating Mary) and then drove up Mt. Tabor, the site of Jesus’ Transfiguration. My relationship with Catholicism sits somewhere between bemusement and fondness, rendering pilgrim activities a constant if unattached pleasure. 

    Taken out of our usual student-daughter-young person/adult-mother contexts and placed on more equal footing as co-travelers, Mom and I found out the things we have in common. What fun! It’s been a nice week.

An Authentic Two-Fer

(Guest post by Mary Jo Meixell)
Some look for the comfortable and the familiar when on holiday. Some look for adventure – which I thought I might find traveling in Israel with a college-aged daughter. But this has been something else again; my daughter has supplied me with an authentic Israeli experience. Not to say there wasn’t adventure this trip. I was challenged with the borders, the bathrooms, the driving, and the parking – not to mention the time change and difficulty of getting a good night’s sleep. But it has been worth the angst; we have seen interesting places and had novel experiences. In one week, I drank the best coffee anywhere at the flea market in Old Jaffa; experienced a nun yelling at me at the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene for my inappropriate attire (well, maybe that is not so novel, it does seem familiar); drank Turkish coffee with the old Arab men in the souq in Old Jerusalem; shopped for souvenirs in the souq and sharpened my negotiation skills; slept at a convent guest house; swam in the Dead Sea and then slathered myself with its beneficial mud; listened to “Tick Tock” by Dana International (this year’s Eurovision award winner) along with other Hebrew and Arabic music on the radio while traveling to Tiberias; survived an unplanned security stop provided by the Israeli military who pulled our luggage out of our car and searched it (I guess my story that we were on holiday wasn’t plausible, we did have an awful lot of luggage); traveled the two hair-raising miles up the switchbacks of Mt. Tabor to the site of the Transfiguration; ate falafel at a lavish swarma shop in Nazareth; circled the Sea of Galilee by car at sunset, then ate St. Peter’s Fish for dinner (why didn’t anyone warn me it was a whole fish with scary looking spikes?); and had some of the best food anywhere at a little restaurant in the Yemenite section of Tel Aviv, a book store café in Zion Square in Jerusalem, the Ticho house museum restaurant, and an Ein Karem roof top restaurant. - Yes, it has been quite a week, a two-fer, both spending time with my grown up little girl and experiencing Israel. Thank you Faith!