English books in Turkey

I love books, but getting books in English here in Turkey is a bit of a challenge. In the US I bought a lot of used books. We do have a Kindle, but I still find it difficult to pay 10-15 bucks for an e-book. I know I can sign up to borrow books on the Kindle, but I'm such a slow reader that I would never finish the books in time. I takes me a good 6 months to read a book. Before you judge, let me say that I'm usually reading 3 books at a time. I don't know why I do this. I just do. Psychoanalyze me if you must.

As far as new books go, there's always Amazon UK or even Ebay UK, although they usually end up costing an arm and a leg because of shipping. A few bookstores here also sell new English books, but, still, the price is pretty steep. Still, it's a nice option to have. For those in Turkey, Remzi Kitabevi seems to have the best selection, and they have stores in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

On to used bookstores, called "sahaf" in Turkish. There are actually used bookstores with a decent selection of English books here in Izmir, and if I'm just looking for some casual reading, that is the place I go. The books there are usually 3-5 bucks. If you live in Izmir or Ankara, here is a website that lists the used bookstores for those cities: Used bookstores

Now with Moonpie in the picture I'm thinking more about building a children's book library since she won't have access to a real library in English like I did when I was a kid. There is a library of leftover books from the old NATO library in Izmir. It's called Kent Kütüphanesi, and it's located across from the Alsancak train station. However, most of the books there are older (from the 70s and 80s). Still, it's a nice resource to have. Here's a website where you can search their catalog (it's in Turkish).

Enter resource #1 - Better World Books. This is a website that sells new and used books, usually for a slightly higher price than Amazon, but they offer free shipping to anywhere in the world. This is amazing for me. The books take a good month to arrive, but Moonpie usually isn't in a rush, so we've placed a few orders now. To me the slightly higher prices are worth not having to lug suitcases full of books around the world. And as a bonus, they are a "social enterprise", which means your purchase with them also supports literacy initiatives around the world.

And my new favorite resource #2 - Nadirkitap.com. This is a Turkish website, so if you don't live in Turkey you'll probably not be very interested. Basically, used bookstores all over Turkey have put their inventory online, and you can order through this website. There are also quite a few English books, and you can use the advanced search option to find them. Not an amazing selection, although I did find five books that I had on my wishlist. Most of the children's books were 3-5 lira, which is about 1-2 dollars, and you'll pay another 5 lira or so on shipping, so it's a pretty good deal all things considered. And again, these are books I now won't have to lug (or ask someone else to lug) from the other side of the world.

If you know of another resource for English books outside of the US or UK, please leave it in the comments! 

Picnic

The Muslim Sacrifice Holiday was at the beginning of this month, so we got a 5 day weekend and tons of family togetherness. I'm pretty impressed by how much we maximized our time. The big highlight for me was our picnic on Monday. There is a picnic grounds out by the zoo, and we had never been there, so we decided to check it out, keeping in mind that it could be a great place or fairly creepy place, but there was no way of finding out without going ourselves.

It turned out to be full of families and pretty fun, although I'm thankful we didn't have to use the "facilities" there. That may have been not so fun.

Moonpie had a great time discovering her independence with her new walking skills and exploring nature, which were mostly eucalyptus leaves and sticks on the ground.

She even made a little friend names "Asia" who came over to steal some of her toys, but ended up staying to play. They were talking back and forth in some really expressive baby language and seemed to understand each other perfectly. So, so cute. I even did a really Turkish thing and gave someone else's child a cookie. The parents didn't seem to mind since they were happily swinging in their hammock and paying us no mind at all.

After lunch we took a walk and found a grove of these trees. They are "oleaster" or silverberry, or wild olive trees, but are being cultivated as agricultural research next to this picnic grounds. They look like olives and taste kind of similar to dates, but not as good. They are common in the Mediterranean region, and through my research I learned that they are probably the trees mentioned in the Bible when Paul talks about wild olive trees in Romans 11. I still have lots to learn about Turkey!

                                     

And that was our picnic!

Raising a baby in Turkey - Part 2: Baby love

My last post about an American raising a baby in Turkey was about a diametrically opposed culture clash between Turkish and American ideas of what's best for a baby, so I thought I'd look at a more positive difference this time.

Turks love babies. I mean, pretty much almost every Turk goes gaga over every baby. It's amazing. They don't seem to lose their enthusiasm. When I go out with Moonpie I get stopped probably at least 10 times by people who just want to oodle over her. I can't just run into the grocery store "real quick" because the cashier will literally stand up, walk around the register and kneel down by Moonpie's stroller to play with her and try to get her to smile for a few minutes before checking me out. I am not even kidding, people.

Kids barely older than Moonpie come over to look at the "baby". Yeah, I don't like it when two-year-olds are touching her face, but hey. At the park last week a pair of 10-year-old twin girls wanted to slide with her down the slide and push her around the park by themselves (I said no, for the record). It's just hard to explain the universality of the baby love in Turkey. 20 year old men go crazy for babies. Moonpie's sock once fell off in an Adidas store and once one staff member realized what we were looking for we had 5 guys looking through the whole store. We couldn't find it, so we left, but then one of the guys came running out after us waving the pink sock and put it back on Moonpie's foot, all the while raving about how cute she was. True story.

We went to a restaurant with my parents and I wish I had taken a picture of the three waiters hovering around Moonpie's highchair, occasionally reaching in to give her a spoonful of food if I was otherwise occupied for a second. I think my parents were both mystified and horrified. People (friends and strangers) have given her chicken, cookies, pudding and ice cream without my permission, and a woman on the metro tried to give her a chocolate bar when she was like 5 months old. In America people would hesitate due to the possibly presence of allergies, or, I don't know, respect for the parents, maybe, or common sense? I digress.

I'm not even going to mention the over 50 female crowd. There is a word in Turkish - "Mashallah" - that basically is meant to protect the person spoken to from evil powers and such, and it's said to babies and kids (and me, not sure why, usually seems to be because I'm tall). Anyway, Turkish women say that word often and go absolutely nuts for my baby, even when they have their own grandkids. They just can't get enough. I think it's so sweet. I love it when people oodle over my baby.

The hard part about this for me is that strangers try to hold her, as in try to rip her out of my arms. Random woman at the bank, random woman in the checkout line, cleaning lady at the hospital, just people everywhere. This is the hardest part about this cultural difference. I know they aren't trying to be creepy, but it still creeps the heck out of me. I just say, "No, baby doesn't want you to hold her. She'll cry." They usually back off.

I'm not saying Americans don't love babies, but it's a different kind of love. Americans definitely don't go as crazy over strangers' kids. There's not really a concept of "stranger danger" for kids in Turkey, for better or worse. Americans admire kids from afar, with words like "cute baby" or "oh, look at the baby". There isn't a lot of reaching into the stroller, touching the face, giving of chocolate bars or grabbing out of the mother's arms going on in America. 

Sure, I feel protective about people touching her face (germs!) and giving her food, and we decided as a general rule not to let strangers hold her, but it feels great to have people making such a fuss. She looooooves the attention, too. She's such a flirt. Even at three months she was flashing her toothless grin around seeing what kind of reaction she could get. I just chalk it up as part of our multi-cultural life!

My in-laws are driving me crazy! A must read for ALL in-laws

Hehe, I got you with this title. This is not a rant about my in-laws.

I have stumbled across a book that I would like to recommend to the entire world. Ok, just people who are or have ever been married, or related to someone who is or has been married, have kids who are or have been married or parents who are or have been married. That is probably 92.8% of the world's population, taking into account that that statistic is totally made up.

It's called Don't Roll Your Eyes: Making In-Laws into Family by Ruth Nemzoff. As people who know me or read this blog know, I'm in a cross-cultural marriage, so my in-laws have a different culture than I do. Before we got married, perhaps the number one question I heard was "How do you get along with his family?" accompanied by a cringe from the questioner. Turkish (and Greek, and Italian, and maybe all) mother-in-laws have a really bad reputation. Even Turkish daughter-in-laws rarely get along with their mother-in-laws, so throw in the cultural difference and people figured I was toast. And I have to say honestly, it has been a bumpy road so far for all of us. I'm not going to go into details because that won't be helpful. Reading Moonpie's birth story might give you an idea. But what is helpful is this book I'm reading. And she points out what I pointed out in my previous blog post - ALL marriages are cross-cultural. ALL marriages are the coming together of people from different backgrounds, and the coming together of two different, sometimes VERY different, families. It was really nice to read that and confirm what I had suspected.

This book is just so, so helpful. She addresses each chapter to different relationships, first parents in relating to their children's spouses, then adult children relating to their spouse's parents, then siblings relating to their sibling's spouses, then both sets of parents relating to each other, etc. She gives lots of examples, which won't ring true for everyone, but demonstrate principles to live by. Her main point, if I may summarize it, is that we are all different, and that is not a bad thing. Especially in in-law relationships we need to leave room for difference while giving each other the benefit of the doubt, and we need to turn the other cheek. A lot.

This book is by no means written from a Christian perspective, but it honestly gives better practical advice that I've read in any "Christian" book or website, which usually mention Ruth and Naomi. I wonder how many situations that story actually applies to in terms of losing all male relatives, converting to your mother-in-law's beliefs and moving with her back to her hometown where you marry one of her relatives and become an ancestor to the Savior of the world. I also wonder if the story of Ruth and Naomi was meant to be a model for in-law relationships, or rather a demonstration of God's generous redeeming grace. Anyway, I digress...

Another of her main assumptions is that you can't change other people, but you can change your attitudes and responses. If you really want to change your in-laws, you probably won't like this book, and if you just want to rant and rave about how crazy they are (I have been guilty of this), it also won't be your favorite book. It is a really challenging, but really rewarding book.

I think even people who think they have a great relationship with their in-laws should read this book. As she pointed out, big life events in a family like marriage, birth, illness, death, and divorce all ripple through a family and can change dynamics, possibly souring what was a great relationship if unspoken expectations aren't met. I wish someone had given me this book before we got married.

All this to say, I won't force you or twist your arm, but seriously, read this book.

                                                             

Kazakh Cultural Center and a taste of Kimiz (Fermented Mare's Milk)

Some friends of ours, a German-Turkish couple, had asked us a while ago if we wanted to get together, as we do from time to time, but the past few weekends were too busy for either or both of us. Finally, last weekend we were both free, and they said they had heard of a place to check out - a Kimiz Farm. I had heard of kimiz before. It's apparently a very traditional Turkish drink that is still a big part of Kazakh culture. (All pictures taken with our new Samsung NX1000. I just want to point out that Moonpie is not blurry. You may continue.)

Some flags of places where Turks live

For people who aren't aware (as I wasn't until I got interested in all things Turkish), there is a large group of Turkic peoples in the world who live in areas stretching from China to Turkey, and most places in between, including Russia, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and some others that don't come to mind at the moment. Oh, Azerbaijan. They all speak fairly similar languages, share similar cultures, and quite of bit of ancestry. They were historically tribal nomadic people who migrated probably from somewhere around Mongolia out into a huge part of the world I just mentioned. Anyway, this is by no means a completely accurate or complete overview, I just wanted people to know why Turks would be interested in Kazakh culture.

Hello there!

Anyway, the "farm" (it's more like a cultural center) is about 1 hour from our house just outside of Kemalpasa. As soon as we got there we had to stop and show the kids the horses. They have horseback riding, but both of the little tykes were too little, and none of the adults wanted to risk crushing a pony, so we skipped that. Then we learned that they had a cultural talk in the replica traditional "otagi" basically like the traditional Mongolian ger.

Moonpie and friend

We went inside and were greeted by a Kazakh woman who immediately asked what part of Germany I was from. Um, actually, I'm not, oh nevermind. She kept stopping the talk to ask if I had understood her, which was pointless because I wasn't listening to most of it as I was trying to keep Moonpie and our friends' two-year-old from poking each other's eyes out or slamming each other's fingers in the conveniently low to the ground right at baby level windows in the "tent" (it was made out of concrete in the shape of a tent). Anyway, I did glean some information, like traditionally Turks didn't eat vegetables because they were nomads, so they got all of their nutrients from horse meat, sheep meat, yogurt and kimiz. Wow, I thought, kimiz must be awesome. My interest was building by the minute. I also learned that they burned dried dung for their fires (I did not know the Turkish word for dung until this day) and it was very important for each nuclear family to have their own tent. No sharing. I think that was a great idea on their part. Anyway, it was all pretty neat, and although I didn't understand the whole talk, I enjoyed looking at the items and decoration in the room.

Really nice motifs

On to lunch and the famous kimiz. They brought out the kimiz before the meal, and only my German friend had tasted it before. She didn't seem very enthusiastic, but I thought, wow, this must be great. If you drink this you don't have to eat vegetables.

You drink it out of little bowls instead of cups, so I poured some into my bowl. Mr. Stitches advised me to go easy. I took a sip. YOW! WOW! That stuff has pop. I could not keep a straight face for any of my sips of kimiz. That flavor really pops around your mouth, and not in a good way. My German friend's husband thought that maybe they were ripping us off and just selling us sour yogurt souped up with vinegar.

Awesome Kazakh (and Uzbek) food!

Kimiz was not a hit, but I did finish my bottle because we had paid the equivalent of 3 dollars for it. My theory was that it would go down easier with food, and I was right. The food, by contrast, was amazing. I enjoyed every single thing, and I would go back just for the food.

Moonpie found a pine cone

Here's their website which includes an informative video. Although it's in Turkish, you can see the gist of the place.

For those in Turkey and wanting to visit, it's called Kimiz Ciftligi and it's on the road between Kemalpasa and Torbali, closer to Kemalpasa. Their phone number is 0232 878 14 43.

Alaçatı

I had never been to Alaçatı (roughly pronounced AL-a-chat-uh) before, but heard it was a nice little town, so we went in to check it out and have dinner one night. Most of the downtown has been restored, a rare sight in Turkey. There are quite a few chain stores, but also smaller boutiques, although we didn’t do much shopping. 

Cute shops

I loved this little corner. And I'm pretty sure those pillows are from IKEA.

We ate at Rasim Usta at the end of the first main street. The food was good and not too pricey, which I was worried about since Alaçatı has a reputation for being a bit hoity toity, and we were there on one of the biggest travel days of the year with it being the last day of Ramadan. 

Rasim Usta in Alaçatı

Good food, good prices, great service

Alaçatı is famous for its windmills, now restored and proudly overlooking a booming little town.

Alaçatı at dusk

Vacation with the fam on the Aegean Coast

The last two times my parents came to visit were for our wedding and right after Moonpie’s birth. In the first case they spent most of their time assembling wedding programs, bouquets and corsages, and in the second case I think we left our apartment once. Their big outing was waiting outside the American consulate, eating a hamburger and drinking a Starbucks. What an exotic Turkish experience they had.

So, this time, we really wanted to get them out to the beach. We rented a villa near Alaçatı (more on that later), and we were off!

Besides the initial little mishap of forgetting the suitcase with the sheets and towels in it, it was a great time, as time spent in a villa by the beach should be.

Turquoise water, sandy beaches, happy baby (very important) and time spent together – what more could I ask for?

Ramadan in Turkey and Baby Sleep

I haven’t had much else on my mind lately besides sleep. I want some. I want Moonpie to have some more, and not in the “so I can watch a movie and put my feet up” sense. I really think her mood and possibly health are suffering due to a lack of sleep. Mine definitely are. In a major, major way. I’m not complaining about Moonpie. I know she’s not deliberately plotting ways to make me lose my mind (although that did cross my mind the other night at 2:37AM). She just needs a little more help to fall asleep and stay asleep, and I’m not sure what that help should be, because nothing I’ve tried seems to be actually helping her.

Got this image from http://www.emirdagcity.com
They usually aren't this cute, though.

And then we have the delightful tradition of the Ramadan drummer – we are now in the month of Ramadan in Turkey (and everywhere else, actually), and here there is a tradition of having someone walk through the streets banging a drum to wake people up in time to eat before the sun rises, since people are theoretically fasting during daylight hours. Ramadan is a month in the Islamic calendar, which is lunar, so Ramadan rotates through the entire calendar year. This year it’s smack in the middle of summer, which means people who are fasting are fasting for 16 hours or so on the hottest days of the year with no water. It also means that the drummer comes around at 2:30AM. Sometimes Moonpie is already awake at that time, but sometimes...she's not. And then she is. And I get stark raving mad angry at those drummers.

I understand why they have the drummer, (here is a nice video on BBC and here is an article) and I usually think it’s nice when people hold onto their traditions, but I have to admit I would like to see this one tradition go. My in-laws, who do fast, also think that having the drummer is ridiculous. They just set their alarm clocks J I’m just an outsider looking in on all of this, so I can’t make a full commentary. I just know that I want my baby to sleep, and I don’t want someone banging on a drum at 2:30AM!

Beach Weekend with Baby in Didim

This past weekend we went to Didim, a beach town on the Aegean Coast of Turkey. I was extremely worried that it would be a disaster. But, I didn't want to be a person who drags her feet reluctantly to a weekend at an all-inclusive hotel on the beach, so I decided we would just go with the flow and hopefully Moonpie wouldn't cry the whole time. And...it was great! It was amazing! Moonpie loved the beach, and that made me love the beach even more. My wonderful husband took her back to the room for her nap so I could stay on the beach...get this...by myself! I...get this...read a book! It was just what I needed to get back some perspective and recharge my batteries. I hadn't realized how much two weeks of very little sleep had affected my ability to cope with, well, anything. I now feel great and recharged and ready to take on Moonpie's sleep challenges with more patience and grace!

Here are some scenes from the trip:

Moonpie chillin' and checkin' out the scenery on the drive there.

Turkish countryside

View from our balcony

"What's this Mommy? Does it taste good? No, it does not."

Beach!

I love this view.

Baby feet in the sand!

On the drive home

Cross-cultural Marriage Series Part 3: Variety! And more variety!

This is kind of predictable, but with a cross-cultural marriage you get a lot more variety. It’s most obvious with what we eat. I’ve definitely jumped on the eggplant wagon since getting married. Those things are tasty! Our newest eggplant discovery is eggplant soup. Delicious! Maybe I should start posting recipes on here? Let me know if that’s a good idea by posting a comment.

Moonpie munching on artichokes. In a laundry basket. On our balcony.

Turks, especially where we live, love to eat outside in the summer. This usually takes the form of eating on the balcony. Someone commented that there is a “balcony culture” where we live, and it is so true. In the summer you can see many families eating together on their balconies. Incidentally, people also love to eat outside in Arizona, although usually more in the spring than the middle of summer. There’s no balcony culture in Arizona, but there is The Backyard Barbecue! We have sort of combined the two into a balcony barbecue thing we do every now and again. We use an electric grill, so not quite the same as my dad’s awesome propane “grill the heck out of everything simultaneously” grill, but it’s still not bad. We also usually have avocado on our burgers, which my husband has discovered because of me and now loves, as does Moonpie. I already included a picture of grilling burgers in my 4^th of July post, so I won’t delight you with another image of raw meat.

Turkish Breakfast...on our balcony

Another big food culture thing here is Turkish breakfast. Now, I have to say, when Americans first move here we usually aren’t too enticed by the Turkish breakfast. The thought is usually that one has given up a breakfast food called “bacon”, which is not readily available here, and has been offered instead a breakfast food called “cucumber”. No thank you. However, I have found that once you take Turkish breakfast as a whole, it is really quite good. The flavors meld together into a perfect mix of yumminess. The traditional Turkish breakfast includes eggs in some form and meat in some form. If you’re lucky, this will be beef sausage. If you’re not, this will be bologna. Then you have the cheese, tomato, cucumber and olive plate, which is rounded out with a big basket of bread and something to spread onto said bread. If you’re lucky, this will be jam. If you’re more lucky, this will be honey and cream. There are variations on the way the eggs are cooked, types of cheeses, types of meat and sometimes there are different veggies or bread products, but basically that’s it. Oh, and of course, the tea. You usually have tea with breakfast and maybe coffee after. It is way more delicious than it sounds. It really grows on you!

And when we get tired of all this, we just make ourselves some blueberry pancakes!

Back to Work

After writing that post title I feel like singing the dwarves' song from Snow White. "Hi hooooooo! Hi hooooooo!" My grandparents had a Disney Sing Along VHS when I was little and I LOVED it. 

Anyway...

Turkey may have some bizzarro policies, but I have to say I really appreciate their maternity leave. Between paid leave, unpaid leave and my vacation time last year, I ended up with 10 months off, half of them paid. If I have to come back to work at all, returning 9 months after giving birth feels just about right.

My school was moved to the main campus the week after I left for maternity leave, so when I came back I didn’t have a desk and all of my stuff was in a box. I had to ask where the restrooms were and had to be shown how to use the phones. My computer didn’t work and I learned that everyone was issued a new laptop while I was gone and I had to exchange my old one out for a new one that was “on the network”. In some ways it felt like starting a new job, except I already know almost all of the people.

Coming back to work after an almost 10 month “break” has been way easier than I had imagined. June 2nd was a date looming over me since I wrote my petition for unpaid maternity leave in November. How would I leave my little Moonpie? How would I spend all day with other adults? Some days I thought it would be great to go back to work, mostly the days she cried all day. But as June approached, I began to savor every little thing she did. I realized that at work no one would cry if I left the room. They probably wouldn’t even notice. And at work I would sit down and eat lunch with coworkers who are not nearly as cute as Moonpie and don’t smear banana all over their faces. I realized our afternoon walks had come to an end, and waking up whenever she did and getting dressed and showering whenever I had time were a thing of the past. So, on Sunday night I set my alarm, which wasn’t necessary because she woke me way before that anyway. I put her back to sleep, took a shower and ate breakfast, double and triple checked her three (yes, three) bags, then got her up and ready, and headed out the door. I put on some worship music in the car to maintain an atmosphere of peace for myself on the drive to my in-laws. I took her inside, sat down and chatted a while, kissed Moonpie and left her for longer than I’ve ever left her before. And she didn’t cry! And I didn’t cry! I did get a little choked up, but reminded myself that she was in great hands and I wasn’t leaving her for that long, and millions of mothers do this every day, etc. etc. And…SHE WAS FINE, of course. Didn’t cry or fuss at all, took a two hour nap and gave me a big smile when I got back. That’s my girl. I am now a working mother!

So, here I sit, in my quiet office, all alone, typing on my brand new laptop (yay!), which is sitting on a nearly empty desk. I decided I didn’t need most of my old stuff in the box anyway, so I’m going for a fresh start, because I know my desk will be full of books and papers to grade and random scribbled notes in no time!

Lake Bafa

On our recent vacation we went to a nearby lake. We live on the coast, but neither of us were feeling like a beach holiday. So, we packed our car and drove the two hours to the lake shores. Our hotel was delightful, and the lake was pleasantly clean and untouched. The hotel buildings were situated in a huge olive grove, and our window looked right out onto the lake. I would take the peace and quiet of that lake over crowded beach towns any day. I have found a new favorite.

 

Anyway, another appeal of this area is that there are about a dozen historical (old, ancient, and pre-historic) sites within an hour or two’s drive from our hotel. On the first day we visited a site on the opposite side of the lake. The modern village is built directly on top of the ancient city, so to walk around the ruins you just walk around the village and try not to step in cow pies. I did not succeed.

The next day we visited two different sites, Miletus and Priene. Miletus is in the Bible, so we thought we’d check it out. It’s in Acts 20, where Paul stopped there and sent for the elders from Ephesus to come to him. Today the port is all silted up and the ocean is miles away, but back then it was a port city. In fact, the lake where we stayed also used to be a port, but with the silting it was cut off and became a lake. Anyway, Miletus is an extensive site, and not much of it is excavated. However, Priene was the best part of the trip for me. The ruins there were cool. It was the first city built on a grid system, so I felt a little at home there J There were also humongous lizards everywhere, which really creeped me out, and I know this is 100% because of Jurassic Park where the little cute lizards end up killing people. In reality, they are totally harmless (says my husband).

"I am cute, but I will spit venom at you and eat you."

But the best part of Priene was the modern village next to it. We stopped there for lunch, and there were women making dolls. Village women making dolls of village women. The dolls were so pretty and unique, true folk art. I decided to get one, and while I was talking to the ladies, they said, “Oh, there’s an American professor here today downstairs in the carpet workshop.” American professor? Carpet workshop? My curiosity had been piqued. After lunch we went down to the said carpet workshop, and low and behold, there were carpets and Trader Joe’s snacks. Evidence of an American.

Anyway, we looked at all the rugs and decided to get one for our living room. Then the esteemed professor came in, and we chatted for a while about the workshop and his art show in Istanbul. The workshop is run by the township, and all of the proceeds go right back to the weavers and the workshop, so I felt good about buying a rug there. I had always avoided buying rugs because they are usually huge schemes for ripping off tourists. Take a look at their website  

http://www.prienehali.com/2011/02/gullubahce-gullubahce-beldesi-1920.html

Our trip was off the regular tourist path, so I almost felt like a local. Not to mention I was traveling with a local, who I am also married to. Hey, maybe I am a local! Almost…

Milk and Mechanics

This week I faced new challenges! I did things I had never done before! I realized this week that no matter how long I live here, I will never get past the challenge of doing something for the first time, because there is always something new to do! My first challenge will sound like, well, not a challenge, but it pulled out a feeling in me that I hadn’t felt in a while.

For some reason I had gotten the urge to buy fresh milk (unpasteurized) and boil it myself at home. I had this idea that it would be healthier and better tasting. Conveniently, there is a place that sells fresh milk about a 5 minute walk from our house. So, last Sunday we decided to be spontaneous and go buy some fresh milk (I know, my life is incredibly exciting). We went there, my husband handled the whole transaction, then we came home and he showed me how to boil it and skim the fat off the top, etc. I was having WAY too much fun for what we were actually doing. I was actually giggling. My husband enjoyed it, too, because when he was a kid there was no pasteurized milk, so his mom always used to boil their milk and he and his sister fought over the skimmed cream off the top. So, we had great fun and drank our milk all through the week. Then, a couple of days ago, I said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to buy some more milk?” We happened to be coming up on the milk store (I don’t know if there’s an expression for this in English. Lactisserie? Dairist? Anyone?), so my husband stopped the car and gave me some change from our change pile in the car. But…

I panicked! What should I say? I don’t know how to buy fresh milk? What do I ask for? Is it a kilo or a liter or what? You go! You do it! My husband just put the money in my hand and insisted I go. Ask for a liter. It’s just milk. Of course, he was right. Why did I panic? It was a new thing, but I’ve done thousands of little new things here since I came here four years ago. Buying milk certainly doesn’t even make the top ten of difficult things I’ve done. I even speak the language now. Anyway, I walked in and bought the milk, and everything was fine. I still don’t know why I panicked.

Then, yesterday I had another little episode. Our car seemed to be really close to overheating a few days ago, which is strange because the weather is actually pretty cool these days, so we thought a mechanic should check it out just in case. I insisted I could take it because our mechanic is literally down the street from my workplace. In the past, my father-in-law has taken the car in because he didn’t trust the mechanic yet, and he didn’t want me to get ripped off. But now we know the mechanic is honest, so I said it would be ridiculous for my father-in-law to come all the way down when I was so close. My husband sent me a map and told me what to say (my car vocab is still developing). However, when the time came, I panicked. What if I don’t know what to say? What if I don’t understand him? What if I can’t find it? In the end, I found the place (I only had to make one U-turn), I told him the problem, he checked everything out, and of course I understood everything. Again, why did I panic? Maybe I’ve gotten too comfortable in my routine where I know what to expect all the time. I have to admit, I did feel a sense of accomplishment after both transactions. I’ve decided that new adventures are good for me. Maybe I can even welcome the next one. Has anyone else panicked over something small?

BTW – There’s no problem with the car J

Legal Immigrant

Well, I hit the ground running yesterday! Part of being a foreigner here is renewing my residence permit every year so I remain a "legal immigrant". My permit expires Thursday, so I knew I would have to go down to the central police office and renew my residence permit sometime this week. Yesterday, I emailed our HR department to ask if they could send over my renewal paperwork right away. I got a phone call an hour later from a colleague who also needed to renew hers saying that they were sending the paperwork for both of us over and we could go together. For some reason you have to go the same day as the contract renewal letter is dated, so we had to go yesterday. So, we trekked down about 1:45. I have to submit a new picture every year, as well as various copies of my passport, so I went to get my picture taken first. Every year I say I’m actually going to have a nice picture taken, but every year I end up going while I’m jet lagged/sick/extremely overheated at the end of August, and I always look depressed and/or deranged in my photos. Yesterday it was the hair that gave me away. I wanted to explain to the police officer that I had just come back yesterday, as he could see from my paperwork, and that’s why my hair is bad in the picture. He didn’t seem to care, though, so I let it go.

We got to the office and got our number at around 2:30. I got number 500, and there were 44 people in front of me, my paper number informed me. Bad sign. So, we decided to go back out and sit in some A/C for an hour. The only problem is that to get into the police compound you have to go through two security checkpoints. My colleague is getting married in 3 weeks and had just received a package with her wedding shoes in it, which she brought with her. So, at every checkpoint the guards made her open the box and they went over the shoes carefully. In total, I think we went through 6 checkpoints yesterday. At least it was her, not me, who mentioned that maybe she shouldn’t have brought the shoes in retrospect. I’m glad we were together, though, because she had her Kindle with her and we played word games while we waited until her battery ran out.

Anyway…we got our paperwork turned in at 4:45, and it just so happens that my husband works next door to that building. Convenient! I just waited 30 minutes or so until he got off work, and we headed home. I should get my documents in about 2 weeks, so that’s all taken care of. I wasn’t expecting it to happen so quickly, so that was definitely a nice welcome home!

Driving

I think it’s time to write about driving. Driving sounds like no big deal, but it has been a major hurdle for me. When I moved to this country 4 years ago, some friends suggested I buy a car, and I basically laughed in their faces. “No way am I driving here!” I said. I scoffed. I was a scoffer. Why, you may ask? Drivers here are crazy. Traffic is crazy. Lane lines are usually non-existent, and when present, are taken as polite suggestions. Traffic lights are also suggestions, unless there is a police officer standing at the intersection. I just heard yesterday from a local – only the stopped police write tickets. The ones driving around are also breaking the rules, so you don’t have to worry about them. Wow. Laws are there, they just aren’t enforced. It’s perfectly normal to park a car on a main road. Just stop in the right lane and get out. As a courtesy, you might put on your blinkers to let people know that you are at a complete stop on a major road full of moving traffic.

And the pedestrians. Oh, the pedestrians. First of all, they are everywhere. They can jump in front of you on any road at any time. One classic from earlier this year was a man eating pudding while crossing the road. Nope, he couldn’t wait that extra 30 seconds. He was standing between two lanes of moving traffic just eating his pudding, waiting for a space to clear. And that’s pretty normal.

I describe all of this to support my position of not driving here, ever. I haven’t even mentioned the motorbikes, recycle carts, horse-drawn wagons, tractors, trucks, busses (we saw a bus literally rip the side off of a car one day AND JUST KEEP GOING!), and the dream team - taxis, shared taxis, and shared minibus taxis. These wonderful fellows’ normal mode of operation is to cut in front of everyone available, slam on their brakes, then speed ahead until they see another passenger, at which time they repeat their dance all over again. I did not want to drive.

Then we bought a car. Then we said “It would be a good idea for Marie to learn to drive.” Did I mention we bought a manual transmission? Did I mention I never got around to learning manual transmission? My first lessons were on the nearby college campus, which is built on a mountain top and whose entrance road is a big, steep hill with speed bumps. There are also wild dogs living on that campus. Oh, and the campus busses. Thankfully, it was pretty empty on weekends, so I got some good practice in. That was in January. I’ve driven about twice a month in the city since then, and I’ve been traumatized about twice a month since January. I’m happy to say, though, that after a debacle on Sunday when I couldn’t even get the car out of our neighborhood without stalling out (our neighborhood is really hilly, ok?) we made a new game plan. For three days this week my husband has been driving us to his work, then I switch over and drive to my work alone. It’s a 20 minute trip, all flat, lots of traffic, starting, stopping, etc. It’s perfect practice for me until I can get my confidence back up. I only had one mishap on Monday morning when I tried to start in 2nd gear. Other than that, I think I’m improving ever so slightly. And I’m even starting to enjoy it. I can do things here that I always wanted to do in the States, but knew would never fly, like inventing new lanes of traffic for myself, honking my horn at annoying people, and cutting people off in traffic. Confession – I also stop in the right lane on a major road when I’m waiting for my husband after work. No one even gets upset because it’s the normal mode of operation! Hey, I might get into this.

 Do any of you have driving stories? Did anyone else have trouble learning manual transmission?

Flowers, Flowers Everywhere!

I haven’t written lately because I’ve been so busy having various adventures! Here is one:

We went to a flower festival a couple of weeks ago about 1.5 hours from where we live. I heard about it from a Scottish coworker, and since I got the flower loving gene from my mom, I immediately wanted to go. Unfortunately, the week before the festival we had to rip out our living room floor (or more accurately, pay someone to rip it out) in anticipation for our shiny, new, non-squeaky floor that visitors and kin would not fall through. But that is another story, or two, so back to the flower festival. As written in a previous post, workers and repairmen are not the most reliable crowd here. In fact, their unreliability is quite reliable. We had offered to take our Scottish friend to the festival with us, but then had to cancel and reinstate those plans about 47 times during that week. The final word on Friday night was that the new floor was going in on Monday, so the flower festival was a go! At that point our living room floor was bare cement and all of the things that had been in the living room were then not in the living room and had found homes in our other two rooms or kitchen. So, the house was a bit difficult to live in, and a day out at the flower festival was looking better all the time. So off we went to pick up our friend.

It was a pleasant journey, until we reached the part of the highway that they had decided to turn into an unimproved dirt road, which was the last 30 kilometers of our journey. There was a water-sprayer truck, which seemed to help a bit with the dust, but also created a bit of mud. When we got back into the city, the guy at the carwash was amazed – “Where did you go with this car?” It looked like we had driven to Siberia and back, driving directly through any lakes or rivers in our way. Actually, I felt pretty cool driving around like that for a few hours. Oh yes, we are cool enough to have a car THIS muddy.

Anyway, when we entered the little town holding the festival, it was instant charm. They had posted signs for a free parking lot, which turned out to be someone’s olive grove. We just chose a tree and parked under it. Then, we followed the sound of the banging of drums to the main part of the festival. Inexplicably, there was a group of about 10 middle-aged women dancing quite rambunctiously around the drummer. This spontaneous drumming and dancing lasted the whole day. It looked like a little mini-wedding wherever they popped up. We all just had to shrug our shoulders and say “Whatever”, because there was no real rhyme or reason to it.

And we come to the festival itself. There were a hundred or so stands of flower sellers laid out on two main streets in the city. They had also set up the normal market, so there was quite a large area to walk around. The flowers were, of course, beautiful, and even better, really cheap. We got 3 rose plants between the three of us for about 4 dollars each, and many plants were just one or two dollars. We had lunch in a nice little hidden garden café that our friend knew about (he goes every year), which was a nice reprieve from the drum and dance routine. We came home with 6 plants total, some of which I don’t know the names. One was a kind of daisy, one is called the “Prayer Plant”, one succulent I found online and identified as a blue echeveria (?), and two roses, as I said. We gave the orange rose to my MIL and kept the pink one. All plants seem happy so far and are playing well with the other plants.

All in all, the festival was quite cute and worth the drive.