It was my 55^th birthday and I was sitting on a white, double-decker transport boat with my husband, Sankar, whose employer had recently transferred us to Istanbul, Turkey. We were heading to the Princes’ Islands, a small archipelago in the Sea of Marmara where exiled royalty had lived during Byzantine times. Sankar’s new colleagues had recommended we spend a day visiting the largest island, Büyükada, known for its charming car-free streets, picturesque homes, and lovely vistas.

I wasn’t sure I was going to like Turkey. Sankar was busier than usual in his new job, supporting company business in the entire region, including Eastern Europe, Russia and South Africa. With our grown children thousands of miles away, I was already feeling lonely and underutilized. Still, I hoped we could make a good start.

A company driver had picked us up that morning and taken us to Istanbul’s Kabataş pier, accompanying us inside to help buy our ferry tickets. Watching him complete this simple task reminded me that, although I was in my mid-fifties, in terms of being able to get around Turkey, I was more like a child. I wondered if I would ever feel competent in this place.

We were among the first to board the boat, taking seats on wooden bench seats facing each other. Sankar pulled out his Blackberry to answer work emails, and a man came by selling little paper cups of hot tea. I sipped one and looked out the window, feeling a little resentful. Was Sankar going to look at his phone for the entire hour-and-a-half ride? Why hadn’t I thought to bring a book or magazine to read?

As the boat’s engines began to start up, the seats around us filled. A stocky middle-aged man with broad features and a stubbly beard sat down beside Sankar. A typical Turk, I thought. Several women wearing headscarves filled the seats alongside him.

The boat started to move and the man caught my eye. “Where are you from?” he asked, in English. We had been told that Turks routinely ask that question, even of other Turks, in order to know what ancestral town or village the person comes from. Important information in Turkey.

Sankar looked up, but I replied, and then asked the obligatory, “Where are you from?”

I was expecting to hear the name of some unfamiliar Turkish town, but instead he said, gesturing at the women and young child sitting next to him, “We’re from Iran.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed and Sankar put down his Blackberry. We were sitting by people from a place that my country considered an enemy. It was going to be an unusual ride!

I was aware of the U.S.’s fraught history with Iran. The 1979-1980 hostage crisis to be sure, but also a U.S.-sponsored coup in the fifties, ousting Iran’s only democratically-elected president. It was 2010, and few Americans had ever thought about the possibility of losing their democracy, but due to us, Iran had endured over a half century of dictatorship. A sheepish feeling came over me and to counter it, I started talking.

“Iran! Last night we were trying to use some Iranian saffron we bought at the Grand Bazaar! But we didn’t know how. So, we were just throwing strands of it into a pot of rice!”

“Saffron . . . saffron,” the women repeated, looking at me and then at each other, puzzled. Then, finally, one of them said, smiling, “Oh, you mean zafran!”

The man introduced himself as Farhad (I have changed some names and details due to the current political unrest in Iran). He was wearing a casual black jacket, a striped polo shirt and khakis, much like Sankar. His wife, who introduced herself as Fatemeh, had a red headscarf tied under her chin, a line of dark hair framing her face, and a black trench coat with matching slacks. The three younger women, two looking to be in their late teens and also head-scarfed, were their daughters.

If I had had more experience in Turkey, I would have known immediately that this family wasn’t Turkish. Turkey’s “covered women,” approximately half the female population, wear what appear to be bathing caps under their scarves to make sure no tendril of hair escapes. In contrast, the two Iranian daughters’ scarves covered just the backs of their heads. The littlest girl, who looked to be about 8, was bareheaded, wearing a pink shirt and blue jeans.

Farhad told us his family was on holiday here, and mentioned that Turkey allowed Iranians to enter without visas. I recalled reading Prime Minister Erdogan’s foreign policy motto, “Zero problems with neighbors.” That would pose a challenge in the coming years.

The two older girls were named Nasrin and Neda. The name Neda was familiar because just a year before, during an uprising against faulty election results, a young Iranian woman with that name had been shot dead while sitting in her car. She had become a cause celebre.

Nasrin told us she was studying medicine, and gestured at her father, who told us he was a doctor. Neda had just finished an engineering degree, and she said that just about everyone in her university graduating class was hoping to do further study in the U.S. She asked us about the difficulty of the GRE exam, and what American schools might be possibilities for her.

As Sankar has a graduate degree in engineering, we were happy to offer help. I took out the notebook I was using to record Turkish words, and we started making a list of possible schools. I then drew a rough U.S. map to show where they were located. For a moment I felt competent.

Conversation was flowing easily, and we complimented our new friends on their excellent English. They replied that they had learned by watching The Walking Dead and Grey’s Anatomy. I had imagined Iran as completely isolated from the West.

At some point, Sankar mentioned that it was my birthday. Hearing that, Fatemeh pulled from her bag a package of plump Iranian dates and offered us some. They were juicy and delicious.

We started discussing the recent hit movie, Avatar, which the family had seen. Fatemeh told us that her college major had been religious studies, and she and Sankar began talking about the use of avatars in Hinduism.

The previous year’s unrest in Iran came up, and both Neda and Nasrin became animated, proclaiming in dismayed tones that innocent people had been killed. Farhad and Fatemeh sat silently while their daughters spoke, but finally, Fatemeh commented, “When you mix religion and politics, the religion gets dirty.”

I have thought of that comment many times since. Not in the context of Iran, but in regard to my own country.

Over an hour had passed, and we were approaching the Prince’s Islands. We could see nineteenth-century buildings with red tile roofs, and behind them forested hills. Other boats, ferries and fishing craft, sat in the harbor.

My memory of our time on the Prince’s Islands pales in comparison to our conversation with the Iranian family. I do recall the crowd of men who met our boat as we disembarked, each holding a menu from his restaurant and pleading for us to dine there. I remember quiet streets, lovely wooden houses with balconies, and a tasty meal at a kebab restaurant. Then, since our tickets were for the same ferry, we had another hour-and-a-half ride back to Istanbul with our new friends.

During our years in Turkey, whenever the topic of Iran came up, Turkish friends told us, “Iranian people are exactly like us. They just have a bad government.” One story they recounted made me laugh. Apparently, the Iranian government tries to segregate men and women on the ski slopes. To counter that, young men have been known to don women’s jackets and caps so they can ski with their girlfriends. Clever!

Neda and I became Facebook friends, and for a couple of years she sent me birthday greetings. She completed graduate work at a Canadian university and lives there. Nasrin now works as a doctor in The Netherlands. On her Facebook page I recently read this:

Goodbye my dictator goodbye

Cause everybody’s sick and tired

We’ll all be dancing when you die

Goodbye my dictator goodbye

The youngest sister must be about twenty now. I wonder what she is doing and how she is reacting to the current unrest.

Birthdays are good times to take stock, and this one had been most surprising. If Sankar and I hadn’t met this friendly family, he would have spent most of that time looking at his Blackberry and working. We might have talked about mundane topics: the date our shipment of furniture would arrive from the U.S. and how to set up the apartment we’d rented. Instead, due to chance, I was able to glimpse the lives of people often deemed “the other”– and leave behind my own homesickness.

The ferry ride made me realize that I shouldn’t worry so much about living in Turkey. That often, all I would need to do is show up, and interesting things would happen. That birthday on the boat was the beginning of a fascinating and rewarding three years.

For further reading: https://www.stephan-orth.de/english.html

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We’d been in Europe for three days, and we’d tried to do everything right, but now it looked like we could face a 250€ fine from the Belgian government.

We had spent the day with 3M friends in the scenic town of Knokke-Heist, enjoying delicious meals and bicycling along the North Sea coast. On beautiful, paved paths, we’d biked through nature reserves and sheep-covered farmland, and even across the border to the quaint Dutch village of Sluis.

As we said goodbye to our hosts and headed toward Bruges, my phone rang. It was the Belgian authorities. Due to a “Personal Locator Form” we’d submitted at the beginning of our trip, on the advice of the airline, they were tracking us.

The woman on the line was polite and soft-spoken, but also firm. She told me that if we planned to be in Belgium for more than 48 hours, which we did, we needed to get covid tests and then quarantine until we got the results.

That was a big ask. Did she really think that tourists who were vaccinated and had no symptoms would remain in their hotel rooms? But I gave her credit for trying. Maybe persistence is one reason Belgium is a European leader in fighting covid. According to our friends, outside of Brussels, it has a 91% vaccination rate.

We arrived in Bruges a half hour later, and the hotel clerk informed us that Belgium has an honor system regarding testing. If we were stopped, and found without the required test results, he said, there was a 250€ fine. Thus, immediately after checking in, we headed to a nearby “Apothekery,” paid 30 € each, and got rapid covid tests. The results would be available in a few hours.

To access our results, we had to visit a website, entering a long string of numbers, letters, and symbols into our phones. Then we had to enter eight-digit codes. After doing that, the program asked us if we were robots. To prove we weren’t, we had to pass a one-question test.

That is where we got stuck. Even though the first part of the website was in English, the quiz was in Dutch, and we had no idea how to decipher it. We decided to go down to the reception desk and ask for help. There, we watched the clerk ace the test by selecting all of the photos of cars from a tiny gallery. The site responded that our results weren’t ready. Later, when we went back into the site, the test question had, of course, changed. And the front desk was closed for the evening.

We’d gotten our tests, but we didn’t know the results. Certainly not what the Belgian authorities wanted. I pictured us taking an early evening stroll around Bruges and being stopped and hit with a 250€ fine.

Sankar is more patient than I am. He went in and out of the program five or six times. It would “speak” English all along, but then switch to Dutch for the robot test. Back and forth, back and forth, he went, until finally, miraculously, the English came through. Hurrah! We passed the robot test! And our covid tests were both negative. Double hurrah!

SAFE TO TRAVEL?

We’d had second thoughts about taking a trip in the middle of a Delta surge. Our plan, hatched in the golden days of late spring, 2021, was to spend two days in Amsterdam; an overnight with (vaccinated) Belgian friends near that country’s coast; two nights in Bruges; and then two nights in Trier, Germany, before returning to Amsterdam and then home. An eight-day, late-August trip.

We are both vaccinated, so what, we wondered, was the worst thing that could happen? One or both of us could get mildly sick. Or more seriously ill, which we felt was unlikely. Still, recent news about viral loads made us wonder. This quote, in a New York Times letter to the editor on August 26, seemed to sum up the situation: “Instead of making it to the light at the end of the tunnel, it seems that we are going to have to learn to see in the dark.”

I also wondered if it would be safe to travel overseas because it involved spending a great deal of time with several hundred strangers. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the people that would be close to me, breathing in and breathing out. Several friends assured me that ventilation systems on planes had been upgraded and were excellent, but I wasn’t convinced.

It was only when I was seated on the plane that I came to my senses. Every single one of the people around me was vaccinated (it was requirement to enter the European Union). Every single one had tested negative for covid within the last 72 hours, also a requirement. And every single one was wearing a mask. There wasn’t a better group in the entire world with whom to spend the next eight hours! I’d been in a spiral of illogical anxiety.

We did also realize that, once in Europe, we could get word that we had been exposed to covid, and asked to stay and quarantine for a week or two. Or, we could test positive prior to returning home, which would also put us in quarantine. We were prepared for those possibilities. While packing, I tucked in a few extra items in case we had to stay longer. We had nothing back home that required our prompt return.

In addition to being thrilled about finally traveling, we were curious about how other countries were handling the pandemic. What kinds of precautions would they be taking? Would they be more, or less conscientious than us Americans? And, with our health antennae up, would we feel safe to travel in three different foreign countries?

Just two years ago, a blog about a trip to the Low Countries would have been a sleeper. But now, I felt like an intrepid traveler, taking my readers where they dared not go!

Before we took off, we listened as the flight crew issued the same lengthy reminder no less than three times (“. . . It is a federal offense to refuse to wear a mask. . .”). I no longer felt afraid, and even forgot I was wearing a mask, except when turning in for the night. It is annoying to have material over your nose when you’re trying to sleep. I solved that problem by pulling the blanket over my head (it’s also a barrier, right?) and pushing my mask down to my upper lip.

IN LOVE WITH AMSTERDAM

After eight hours, we were in Amsterdam, a hub we’d landed in many times before, but always heading elsewhere. This time, we were going to stay. Temperatures were in the 60s, but it felt good to wear jackets after our hot Minnesota summer.

It wasn’t long before we were gliding  alongside a series of curving waterways toward our hotel. I knew Amsterdam featured canals, but I had no idea of their extent. Turns out they hug the Oud Stad (Old City) in a watery grid. And the streets between are them festooned with flowers. And then there’s the bicycles! Armies of citizens were pedaling along using their own marked lanes. Sankar remarked that Dutch bikes reminded him of the one he’d had in India fifty years ago, sturdy and upright, dark in color, and without any gears.

Neither of us visited Amsterdam in the seventies, when it was at its hippie apex, so we had no memories to rewrite.  For us, the city was bright and fresh. As we strolled, it felt like we were being pulled along, one slim, brick canal house and quaint, curved bridge after the other. We walked seven miles the first day, and six the second.

Amsterdam is full of world-class museums, among which, with some difficulty, we selected three, the Resistance Museum; the Van Gogh Museum, located near the Rijksmuseum; and Our Lord in the Attic, a hidden Catholic chapel dating to the 1600s when, due to conflict with Spain, that faith had fallen out of favor. We chose well: it was an interesting, thought-provoking variety.

The Dutch people are tall: it wasn’t uncommon to see attractive couples strolling along, he about 6 feet 3 and she over 6 feet tall. The people we met were cheerful and helpful. The city is also interestingly diverse, with immigrants from many places including little-known Surinam.

We ate good food, mostly continental, but also croquettes (delicious, but how do they deep fry something that isn’t solid to begin with?). One afternoon, we saw a familiar sight, the Turkish Simit Sarayı, where we happily munched borek and drank ayran.

“I didn’t see one service person wearing a mask,” Sankar commented as we drove out of Amsterdam toward Belgium. It was true. We hadn’t seen many masks on the streets either, and only sparingly inside public buildings. At the Van Gogh Museum, an entrance sign advised that masks weren’t required but that “others would feel safer if you were masked.” We stood in clumps, gazing at paintings and reading the accompanying placards. And even though I was masked, that was the only time on the trip that I felt vulnerable.

EXQUISITE BELGIUM

On to astonishingly green Belgium, which, our hosts told us, had experienced more rain this summer since the 1840s. And that country, covid-wise, was a different story. Every indoor public space required masks. Museums. Hotel lobbies and hallways. Restaurants as you entered and exited. And everybody was complying.

Our Belgian friends told us that the Dutch “say what they think,” but Belgians are more diplomatic. We found Belgians kind and gracious, careful, and exacting (that impression from the precise, right-angled trimming of most shrubbery). We ate more croquettes in Belgium, and also frittes, French fries, which our guidebook insisted were Belgian, not French in origin. I stay away from them in the States, but when traveling, why not? They are served with mayonnaise, which sounds odd, but is actually quite tasty.

Bruges was a wealthy town in medieval times, and remains austere and beautifully preserved. Graceful trees line quiet banks of canals that ring the city. We enjoyed a free canal tour, part of a city promotion (lots of smiles under the obligatory masks); visited a first-class weekly outdoor market; and after that just wandered around, basking in the ambience. It was a quiet and peaceful couple of days.

With our 20^th century mindsets, we had worried about showing papers, in this case, vaccination documents, while crossing European borders. But the actual borders were almost nonexistent, less noticeable than going from one U.S. state to another.

GERMANY’S OLDEST TOWN

Germany’s oldest town, Trier, is small, but bustling, nestled in a green valley only about fifty kilometers from the Belgian border. Its main attractions are a half-dozen Roman structures dating from 30 BCE to the 300s CE. These include a spa, a bridge, a city gate, and an old church. Also, a gigantic building called The Basilika, that served as Emperor Constantine’s throne room, and is the largest, unsupported single room to survive from ancient times. Some of these monuments were located alongside busy intersections, making sightseeing a little hectic.

The citizens of Trier, Germany displayed the same covid caution as those in Belgium, wearing masks in all public indoor spaces. At an outdoor ampitheatre, as we paid the 4€ entrance free, we were reminded to put on our masks, asked for our vaccination papers, and required to fill out a form with our address and telephone number. This, we later learned, was to notify us for possible quarantine if it was determined that we’d been exposed to Covid.

In Germany, we received no official phone calls upon arriving, but instead, thanks to another Personal Locator form, we got a text asking us to get tested.

Testing in Trier involved a trip up to the hills surrounding the town, the test facility located in a set of temporary structures outside a medical office complex. We chose PCR tests over Schnell Tests, costing us a whopping 75 euros each. Since this result would (hopefully) allow us to return home in two days, we wanted something highly accurate.

Getting the results was, thankfully, easier than in Belgium. First, we went to www.corona-results, and then we each entered a code and our birth date. No robot quiz, and Sankar pulled up both of our (negative) results on his phone. But then he wasn’t able to text a screenshot to me. We surmised that perhaps this was a security feature to prevent widespread texting of results. We were able to link the results to our passport numbers, a feature that made leaving the EU smoother, but which some people might find intrusive.

Leaving the test site, we stopped and took in a lovely panorama of the town. We could see the Imperial Baths illuminated by the morning sun, the Mosel River flowing behind the city, and a vineyard whose rows of plantings seemed to descend the hill at a 45-degree angle. But for the test, we wouldn’t have driven up to that height, and we decided to count the splendid view and our resulting photos into our 150€ outlay.

It’s hard to convey how wonderful our trip was. Not because of highly spectacular or world-renowned sights—in Europe, most of those are located elsewhere. It was simply the chance to get away. To see, hear, taste, and feel something different.

In our eight days overseas we were constantly aware of covid regulations and that kind of thing might have seemed like a spoiler just a short time ago. But now, it was not. Even though fraught, this opportunity to discover new places–and to fall in love with Amsterdam–was much sweeter because of the twenty isolated months that proceeded it.

Trips are short, but memories are long, and we are already cherishing these newest ones. Was it safe to travel? Yes!

Related links:

• One in 5,000, by David Leonardt
• Show me the Data, Zeynep Tufekci 
• Book, Amsterdam, by Russell Shorto

The post Is it Safe to Travel Overseas During Delta? Come Along With Us on Our August, 2021 Trip to Europe! appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

“India is literally burning and Bangalore is in shambles. The whole day we hear the sirens of ambulances and see horrific images on T.V and the newspapers. It is a grim scenario.”

THE PANDEMIC

Nimmou Nilakantan

We called it Pandemic
It was World War 3
Where we fought the Invisible Enemy…

We called it Pandemic
But it was World War 3
Every battle fought against the Daily Lonely…

We called it Pandemic
Every soldier had one task
To wear the weapon – A Mask…

We called it Pandemic
No condition could be worse
When humans became People Averse…

We called it Pandemic
It was World War 3
Imprisoned at home, no Longer Free…

We called it Pandemic
We wrote ourselves into history
By the failure of Human Society…

We called it Pandemic
It was World War 3
When will we ever return To Normalcy?

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All this is the result of careful selection. I skim movie reviews, search Rotten Tomatoes, listen to celebrity interviews, and read pundit predictions for Oscars and Golden Globes. Which film should I give up a weekend night for?  Which movie am I willing to pay $10 or $12 to see?  If I’m going with a friend, which movie have neither of us seen?

Not anymore. My evenings are free from now until the end of time—or end of pandemic, whichever comes first. My car sits in the garage, full of gas, no place to go. And I no longer see movies with friends (this blog is my attempt to re-capture friend film fun).

I feel sorry for all the talented people involved in creating films, because their work now has to be squeezed onto small screens. But I’m learning to enjoy the new pandemic way of going to the movies. After dinner each evening, I head upstairs, turn on the television, and start streaming.

Most of the films I watch are free—with subscription to the provider—but I have paid extra charges of $4 up to $20. Sultan the cat usually joins me; try that at your neighborhood cinema!

So far, dear reader, I have had the joy of screening over 20 movies. Most have been good, and some have been fantastic.

Here are seven films that have satisfied me, moved me, and taught me things I didn’t know. Let me know what you think–and by all means, send me your recommendations!

All In: The Fight for Democracy This documentary, about America’s history of voter suppression, highlights Stacey Abrams’ get-out-the-vote efforts. Historical details moved me to tears, and the film also inspired me. An “urgent broadcast,” writes critic Ben Kenigsberg. On Prime.

The Cave  Amani Ballour, a pediatrician just out of university, is selected to lead a subterranean hospital near Damascus during Syria’s civil war. We watch as she encounters resistance from patients and, with her team, overcomes shortages of food and medicine, and endures chemical attacks. The film is riveting, and Ballour has won the Council of Europe’s Raoul Wallenberg Prize for her courage and commitment.  On Hulu, Prime, National Geographic and others.

Dick Johnson is Dead   Documentary filmmaker Kirsten Johnson enlists her elderly father to participate in a film about his decline. It is poignant, inventive, and sometimes surrealistic. I am always looking for older role models, and Dick Johnson is a wonderful one. On Netflix.

First Cow   Two young men from different cultures team up in mid-nineteenth-century Oregon Territory to create a business that relies on the theft of a key item. An unusual take on those who settled the West. The New York Times states that the film is “keenly attuned to details of history, both human and natural.”  On Prime, Hulu, Showtime and others.

Miss Juneteenth   A disappointed former beauty queen hopes her daughter can navigate teenage years better than she did. A charming debut. On Prime and others.

Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always   A lonely 17-year-old in a small Pennsylvania town is pregnant. She and her savvy cousin travel to New York to terminate the pregnancy. The movie’s matter-of-fact approach and the obstacles the two women face add up to what the critic Manohla Dargis calls a “low-key knockout.”  On Hulu, Prime, HBO Max and others.

Promising Young Woman   Directed by Emerald Fennell, who plays Camilla Parker-Bowles on The Crown. A revenge thriller about rape culture, starring Carey Mulligan. Shocking and insightful. On Prime and Vudu (this was the $20 movie, and it was worth it).

I will update this blog as I’m able to stream more movies. In the meantime, whatever you’re watching, have fun!

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/first-cow-reviewed-kelly-reichardts-fatalistic-portrait-of-early-american-entrepreneurs

https://paidpost.newyorker.com/article/national-geographics-remarkable-documentary-cave/

https://www.google.com/search?q=golden+globe+nominations+2021&oq=golden+globe+nominations+2021&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0i3j0i131i433l4j0i3l2j0i20i263j0i3.20979j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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You know you’re planning something illicit when you hesitate to tell people about it. I mentioned our trip to only a few friends, and said nothing to others, even when they asked.

We had cancelled it twice.  First in March, when our daughter, Angela, asked us to babysit our toddler grandson, Mattias, during his day care’s spring break. And again, in early May. Finally, as Minnesota announced store openings, and with Angela and Joe needing help as they packed to move from their apartment, we decided to drive to Denver.

Like many others, we’ve been bored and irritable at home. We’ve also spent time thinking of the Common Good and how to be responsible citizens. It’s hard to defend a road trip in the middle of a pandemic. To that, I plead grandparent insanity.

Our plans included a large dose of worry. Would it be possible to socially distance while stopping for gas and bathroom breaks? Was it safe to stay in hotels? And Angela and Joe lived in a tenth floor apartment; how would we avoid being jammed into a crowded elevator? Finally, what if we got into a car accident somewhere along the way? It would be impossible to socially distance if we needed emergency help–although at that point, Covid-19 would probably be a lesser concern.

I managed to plan my way out of most concerns. We’d wear masks at rest stops. We’d ask for first floor rooms at hotels. And we discovered we could simply pick up breakfast items in hotel lobbies and eat them in our rooms.

Setting Off

We left on Thursday, May 14. Our first stop was at a Kwik Trip an hour and a half south of Minneapolis, and I pulled on my cloth mask before entering. I usually try to buy something in exchange for using the restroom, but I noticed that none of the other people inside—at a glance, they appeared to be all males—were wearing masks. Perhaps I’m over-aware of mask politics, but I felt a distinctly negative vibe, like I was holding a “Hillary for President” sign. I hurried out.

I understand that some folks don’t want to appear vulnerable. And pressure from certain leaders and media outlets makes them ornery. Wearing a mask feels like submitting to government rules they consider arbitrary.

Unexpected Hospitality

We continued on to Ames, Iowa, where on last year’s Denver trip, we ate sandwiches in our car outside a coffee shop, and then purchased lattes. That shop, in Ames’ “historic downtown,” was closed, but Google informed us we could get a cup of joe at a chocolate shop on the same block.

What a find!  Chocolaterie Stam is a Victorian fantasy offering a delicious array of filled chocolates and nutty barks. The shop is just 25 years old, but the Stam family has been making chocolate for over hundred years, starting in the Netherlands. We were thrilled to purchase a box of their candy, several pieces featuring the Iowa State University logo. And the young clerk kindly allowed us to eat our bag lunches inside the shop, at one of two widely-spaced tables. We did so gingerly; although healthy, we’d been holed up for so long, we felt we were contaminated.

Spring colors along the way were lovely. Both Iowa and Nebraska were adorned in lacy lime green, and eastern Colorado as well.

Not Boring Anymore

Normally mundane aspects of our trip now seemed interesting. At the Fairfield Inn in Kearney, Nebraska (the town is a popular stopping-off place), we had to phone the front desk from outside double doors and answer questions about our temperatures and quarantine status in order to be admitted to the lobby. Inside, we stood behind a tape line and talked to a masked clerk through a plexiglass shield.

We had asked for a first-floor room and, from the noise in our corridor it seemed everyone else had, too. Thankfully, we only passed one man in the corridor.

Breakfast, the staff had assured us, would be provided, so we didn’t pack cereal and milk in our cooler. It turned out to be a mealy apple, a granola bar, and a stale pastry loaded with frosting.

Mile-High City

In Glendale, Denver, the Residence Inn lobby procedures were about the same as pre-pandemic, with the exception of a masked clerk. He gave us a third-floor room, which raised our eyebrows, but it was a quiet floor, and we were usually the only ones waiting for the elevator. The few times we weren’t, one or the other party kindly agreed to wait for another car. Nobody cleaned our apartment-like room during our five-night stay, but we could exchange towels at the front desk. For breakfast, the hotel offered little boxes of cereal, packaged pastries, and coffee. The best part was the price, down from $190 just months ago, to $110.

We formed a kind of Covid unit with Angela, Joe, and Mattias, who had seen very few people in the last two and a half months. Angela and Joe have been working at home, and Mattias has been with only one other child, whose parents do not leave their house, and a nanny who is single and lives alone.

My biggest concern, elevators in Angela’s building, didn’t turn out to be a problem. We were required to wear masks throughout the building, and nine out of ten times were alone in the elevator. Again, when others were present, they or we, politely offered to wait for the next car.

The overall patience and courtesy we encountered reminded me of the weeks after 9/11, when we all treated each other tenderly.

Mattias is an exuberant 20-month-old, whose language skills are exploding, and who loves trucks and buses. Their apartment looks down on the top of a parking ramp, which, from seven stories up, is like watching an animated movie. Paradise for a vehicle-oriented child!

When Mattias is out and about, he scouts the horizon for unusual vehicles and doesn’t hesitate to point them out. BUS!  DOZER!  BEEP! (pick-up truck)  GA-GUCK! (dump truck). After a few days, I also found myself pointing excitedly–even when Mattias wasn’t with us.

Mattias also loves animals, in particular “raffes” (giraffes), “wow-els” (owls), and walruses (he can actually say this word). He is building a collection of stuffed creatures.

Walks and More Walks

I emailed a friend that, in Denver, we “did no socializing, no restaurants, and no shopping except groceries.” At Safeway, I watched an unmasked guy ahead of me groan as he was turned away.

For entertainment, we walked. A few blocks from their apartment is a park with a rugby field. It is apparently one of the best in the country, and groups of men regularly practice on its artificial turf, using the odd, oblong rugby ball. Mattias went after a ball one afternoon and we laughingly picked it up and threw it back to a player, who introduced himself as from Fiji. He told us he played for an Argentinian group that practices there.

Just after that, a pretty six-year-old girl started skipping alongside Mattias. She told us her name was Tomra, and that she was from Macedonia. The next day at the same park, Mattias spent time chasing another toddler who was there with her father, both from Zacatecas, Mexico. It was one of Mattias’ last days in that neighborhood, and I felt wistful that their new community, more upscale, would likely have fewer immigrants.

Across the street from their new house (they picked up the keys before we arrived) is a park with playground equipment, but the slides and swing sets were wrapped in yellow crime-tape in fear of lingering virus particles. That wasn’t a problem for Mattias, who didn’t quite realize what he was missing. He instead enjoyed walking to a nearby field with huge climbing rocks, scanning grassy areas for butterflies, and picking up interesting stones.

The new house has a family room big enough to accommodate the large Fisher-Price toys–a food truck, a castle, a farm–he has accumulated, and he will have his own bedroom. Oddly, on the windowsill of the landing up to second floor was a tiny metal device that I recognized as a Turkish spice grinder. I’m not sure why it was left behind, but it was the perfect welcome for our Turkey-loving family.

Unexpected Tears

On a trip, one’s regular routine disrupted, allowing new thoughts. I realized that so far, this entire year has been one of unexpected change. In mid-January, my 91-year-old mother had a stroke, which precipitated moving out of her apartment of twenty years and into a nursing home. This wasn’t completely unexpected, but it did come suddenly, drawing us into a flurry of emotion-laden activity that didn’t settle down until mid-March, just in time for shelter-in-place. And how could I have predicted that the country would be convulsed with protests before May ended? The upshot for me is a renewed awareness that anything can happen at any time, and a reluctance to believe that any plans I make are completely firm.

Talking with Angela on our last day, I started to choke up because Mattias is changing fast, and I didn’t know when I’d see him again. Driving to Denver isn’t an easy task, and I don’t know how comfortable I’m going to be with flying. She feels the same way. So unlike last year, when I saw him every two or three months, I don’t know how much older he’ll be when we come face-to-face again.

The Drive Home

It was time for the final part of our Covid road trip. We left Denver early on May 20th, anticipating long and uneventful hours between Denver and Omaha. We planned to eat lunch at Subway, either in Ogallala or North Platte. That chain is fortunate to have an optimal pandemic model: food both easy to take out and easy to eat in a car. We chose North Platte, and found its Subway franchise inside a huge Walmart, where about half the shoppers were wearing masks.

As we waited for our sandwiches, we noticed a sizable eating area in which alternate tables were taped off. Only one couple was seated and Sankar said, “Why don’t we sit down?” It sounded like a good idea and so there it was, our long-anticipated First Post-Covid Restaurant Meal, at a Subway in a Nebraska Walmart.

The Unlikeliest Indian Restaurant

On our drive to Denver, just a half hour out of Kearney, Nebraska, we saw a sign on the north side of the road that read, “Taste of India.” It was 8:30 in the morning and we weren’t up for curries or samosas, but we noted the town, Overton. Now, on our way back, we were considering a cup of coffee when we realized Overton was just ahead. We pulled off and found, a few blocks from Route 80, an establishment called The Jay Brothers, “J” undoubtedly standing for some multi-syllabic Indian last name. It was a modest gas station, convenience store, and Indian cafe. Propped up next to the cash register was a hardcover book about Nebraska opened to a page spread about the Jay Brothers themselves who, the article stated, had arrived from India in the 1990s to take over their father’s gas station. The article lauded this very particular American dream.

We ordered masal chai, hot, milky tea containing ginger and cardamom, and walked out with two delicious drinks, shaking our heads in wonder at the range of the Indian diaspora.

In Omaha we stayed near Old Town in an elegant federal building converted to a Residence Inn. Restaurants there had opened, and the receptionist gave us a list of choices, so we decided against take-out. We chose a southwestern grill called Stokes, and made reservations, although we wouldn’t need them. There were only three other parties in the place, well spread out.

Our waiter was dressed in black, including a mask, and was helpful and prompt, although he didn’t stand six feet away, rather two or three. The food was fine, and the experience felt like a thrilling novelty, but also like something we didn’t need to do again for awhile.

Striped Hills

Conventional wisdom has it that Iowa is flat, but I can tell you that isn’t quite true. Heading east into Iowa from Nebraska, we saw what is surely a spring phenomenon: striped hills. These occur when fallow, brown fields are separated by ridges that have greened up. Kind of like mountain terracing, although more modest. These seemed to be a thing only in western Iowa, and they were lovely.

Long hours in the car again gave me a chance to reflect. Although I’ve felt whiplashed by recent events, Mattias’ life is truly a blur of change. His daycare situation collapsed in March due to the pandemic, taking him away from most of his little friends, and it will likely change again in August. He is moving to a new house, and will soon forget that magical parking ramp vista. It’s anyone’s guess what vehicles or animals will steal his heart next — who would have predicted ga-gucks and wow-els? Yet he marches on each day, encountering nearly everything with delight (we’re all entitled to a tantrum now and then!) Maybe I, too, can start to better appreciate newness.

Another few hundred miles, two more Subway sandwiches in Clear Lake, Iowa, and we were arriving home. Our Covid road trip had ended. Purple and white tulips were in bloom, a flyer attached to our front door promoted a nearby two-for-one pizza special, and the grass needed its first mowing. It felt great to be back.

The post Minneapolis to Denver and Back: How to Take a Covid Road Trip appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

A few weeks ago, the ducks were dressed for the pandemic, with white masks stretched adorably, but poignantly, across their bills.

Now however, they have changed into gardening outfits. One carries a tiny rake and bag of leaves, the other a bough of wisteria.

The ducks are moving on, and soon we will be, too.

My pandemic job has been to stay home. While others have been treating the afflicted and providing essential services, I’ve faced the diaphanous challenge of filling long hours at home. It’s been odd and irritating, but I’ve learned to cope–and to change.

My husband and I have been running errands together, something we previously considered inefficient. Every week, we deliver supplies to my mother in her new care center (thankfully, residents are virus-free) north of the city. Then we loop back to our neighborhood grocery store and adjacent bakery, returning home in less than an hour, thanks to incredibly light traffic. I will miss that, but this week, my husband has been busier and I’ve begun venturing out on my own. It feels good.

I take walks with two neighborhood friends several times each week. Like ducks, we proceed in V formation, six feet apart. Each week is both warmer and greener, and that hour or so of activity anchors my day.

As shelter-in-place rules were coming down, an immigrant friend twenty-five years my junior texted, “I can make your grocery shopping for you.” I was touched, but have felt comfortable going to the store. Seven weeks in, I am still exhilarated—penne! paper towels! shower cleaner!—when I find something I didn’t expect. Our food supply chain is amazing!

When our house arrest began, I was due for a haircut, but that appointment was cancelled and I wondered what I was going to do. In my twenties, I used to cut my husband’s hair, and now we’ve decided to be each other’s barbers. We’ve been through two rounds and are still speaking to each other. A subtle blessing, but I’ll be relieved to see my usual stylist, hopefully sometime soon.

I am apparently not alone in enjoying the lack of social pressure. In the New York Times, Larry David commented, “I will say that the lack of invitations, OK, that’s been fantastic.”  A confirmed introvert, I no longer fret that someone hasn’t gotten in touch, or wonder if I’m being remiss in not seeing a particular friend. I don’t feel like a loser on Friday and Saturday nights if I don’t have plans. And the “share the peace” handshake in church, which I’ve never liked, is probably gone forever.

I’m also grateful for gratefulness. The brilliant work of nurses, doctors and other health care workers has been an overdue revelation. And a bright contrast to pandemic wreckage is the Minnesota spring, early this year. It is surely the most colorful and fragrant ever—or am I simply noticing it more fully? Whatever, it fills me with hope.

Inspiration characterizes almost every quiet day. It is a joy to observe the leadership of governors from Washington to California to Ohio. Tim Walz has been calm and competent. And Andrew Cuomo’s hard-hitting, heartfelt updates are a crucial, reassuring part of my day.

I’ve discovered that extra time, even when it’s bundled with boredom, brings forth new ideas. Well-rested, I generate new writing, sketch out future trips, and plan possible home improvements. Like many others, I am trying new recipes (Turkish poğacas recently), and I even started taking an online class: Renaissance Art History!

Every day I check pandemic happenings in other states. How is California doing? What about Louisiana? New Jersey? Reading about acts of selflessness around the nation makes me realize how much we all have in common, and I’m daring to hope we might finally appreciate the role government plays in our quality of life.

As I write this, I look out my window and see folks walking and riding bikes. My neighbor is carrying a leaf bag, just like one of those iron ducks. I’m glad change is coming, but don’t want to forget the subtle blessings this quarantine, these forty or so quiet days, has provided.

For more reading, go to:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/opinion/covid-gratitude.html

The post As the Shutdown Starts to Fade, Recalling its Subtle Blessings appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

Berlin was at a disadvantage. That’s where we were heading after four surprisingly sunny, whirlwind days in London. I feared that the Germany half of our December trip, organized to use soon-to-expire hotel points, would be a disappointment. And I knew that part of the problem was my stereotype of Germans.

In London we ate pappadums and paisam with Sankar’s cousin and family. We strolled along the Thames with old friends, Matthew and Louise, photographing landmarks such as, “the walkie talkie,” “the cheese grater,” and “the London Eye.” At the British Library, we peered at manuscripts ranging from the Magna Carta to Paul McCartney’s jotted Yesterday lyrics.

I thought ahead to Berlin. I’d long perceived German people as stern and humorless. Exacting, and demanding. Waiting for an Agatha Christie play to start on our last evening, I commented to our friends, with only a bit of hyperbole, “I’m afraid I’m going to do something wrong in Germany. I’ll break a rule or something, and people will yell at me.”

“I don’t think so,” Matthew replied

As we carried our suitcases through Paddington Station the next day, I felt the kind of fatigue that indicated a cold was coming on.

My Stereotype of Germans Goes Way Back

I’d spent just one day in Germany over twenty years ago, and had no significant interactions with Germans. But back in the eighties I’d spent a year working for a German boss who was temperamental and disapproving. I’d found German foods—sauerkraut, dumplings, pickles—lacking.

I also have a kind of psychological back story with Germany. I guess every American does. Although the country has done an admirable job of reconciling its 20^th century history, how can it counteract the near-continuous onslaught of Holocaust-related books, films, and television programs? It can’t. I’d been saddened and horrified more times than I could count.  

Thus, my perception of Germans. I had actually been known to proclaim that I had no interest in visiting Germany. It’s not difficult to make that kind of statement at age 64, because there are so many countries to visit and so little time.

One thing I never did, however, was connect my proclamations about Germany with my irritation over the question, “Aren’t you afraid to visit Turkey?” that Sankar and I receive whenever we travel to that country.

So why, then, did Sankar and I choose Berlin over, say, Bruge or Amsterdam? Well, we felt Berlin was a cosmopolitan “world city,” with fascinating Cold War and World War II sights. A place we really should see. We also knew Berlin had a Turkish neighborhood that might evoke the wonderful years we spent in Turkey. And I think a tiny part of me knew that my stereotype of Germans was ridiculous, and that it was time to challenge it.

A Rainy Start

It was drizzling when our plane landed in Berlin. We caught an Uber to our hotel, just three blocks from the Reichstag. The city appeared spread out, almost suburban. The Tiergarten, adjacent to our hotel, looked more like a forest. Aside from the regal Brandenburg Gate, most buildings appeared modern and undistinguished. They reminded me, disappointingly, of downtown Minneapolis. War—and the Soviet emphasis on functionality—had apparently erased most of Berlin’s charm.

A Worldly New Friend

We checked into a comfortable hotel room at the Marriott. There was a coffeemaker on the side table, but no water bottles, a nice nod to the environment. When we visited the lobby for information, the concierge, to our surprise, was a slim, neatly groomed Turk named Oğuzhan. We were so happy to meet someone from Turkey that we greeted him like an old friend.

Oğuzhan told us he had grown up in Germany, his parents Gastarbeiters, guest workers, who arrived over fifty years ago. When we lived in Turkey, I met several offspring of Gastarbeiters. My elegant supervisor, Dilek, fluent in Turkish, German, and English. Several 3M Turkey wives, well-educated and secularly inclined; their mothers had worn the headscarf, but they did not. One, an engineer, worked for a German company that sold chemicals to Iran, which she told us was the makeup capital of the world. “I go there every month.”

Oğuzhan was warm and eager to help, hardly my stereotype of Germans, and I realized with some envy that growing up trilingual would make a person quite cosmopolitan. He smiled when we told him we had, several years ago, spent a night in his ancestral town of Afyonkarahisar.

Oğuzhan gave us a map of a dozen or so Berlin Christmas markets, and we walked to the nearest one, in Gendarmenmarkt Square. Gendarmenmarkt contains the 19^th century Berlin concert hall and the 18^th century French and German churches, all of which, I later read, were restored after the Second World War. In the center of the square stood several dozen holiday shops in white tents with pointed tops. Some had open sides, but many were enclosed by clear plastic, and even heated. Shopping delights beckoned.

Christmas Galore 

Gendarmenmarkt stores were bursting with colorful ornaments, wooden candle carousels of all sizes, leather wallets and purses, hats, gloves, scarves, and hard candies in long, pointed cellophane bags. Close to a dozen establishments offered refreshments: glühwein, various bratwursts including “currywurst,” which sounded slightly alarming, and dishes involving noodles, potatoes, and pork. I was curious, but not quite ready to dig in.

History Lessons

Over the next two days, we walked through the extensive and up-to-date German History Museum. We learned that Germany prior to unification under “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck, wasn’t much more than a disparate collection of provinces, each with its own ruler. After an hour and a half, which brought us up to the twentieth century, we sat down for tea in its formal, but somehow cozy café.

The next day we visited the Pergamon museum, located on an island in the Spree river. It was a dazzling (but shameful) collection of artifacts from other lands, including the gates of Babylon and the market gate from Miletus, a Roman site in western Turkey.

Nearby was “Pergamon Museum. The Panorama.” This new site featured a three-story, multimedia diorama that put viewers in the middle of the ancient Roman city. With dramatic background music and evocative lighting, we watched Romans emerge from their homes at sunrise, worship at temples, shop at agoras, and gather to view performances in the evening.  It was a don’t-miss experience. 

On our last day, we toured the Berlin Wall Memorial, a sober, informative remembrance strung out along a quarter mile stretch of former Wall.

Tall, sometimes slightly plump, but rarely fat, Germans dressed in earth tones, wearing sensible shoes and warm-looking jackets. They appeared casual, confident, and unpretentious. I felt the comfort of looking similar in appearance, something I’ve missed in our travels to Latin America, southern Europe, and Asia, where Sankar has blended in.

It was odd, but as soon as I arrived in Germany, I got so caught up observing and interacting that my stereotype, alive for years, seemed to exit my mind. It was like when you imagine a place, but find that when you get there, the old image becomes difficult to recall. New impressions were quickly writing over my old ones.

Patriotic Immigrants Were Not my Stereotype of Germans

We climbed into an Uber early one day with, “Good morning,” only to hear an emphatic “Guten tag,” from the driver. This was the one and only reprimand we received in Berlin, and it was given by a Turk. A recent arrival, he told us in Turkish that he liked Berlin, particularly its manageable size and ease of getting around, and jotted down for us the name of a popular restaurant in Kreutzberg, the Turkish neighborhood.

A-a-a-choo!

The rain kept falling and my cold kept getting worse. Sankar and I both felt tired, and with no social engagements, we found ourselves dozing off in mid-evening and sleeping late in the morning. That felt good, but we were wasting precious sightseeing time.

We had forgotten to bring decongestants, so we stopped at a pharmacy. The woman at the counter was the pharmacist herself, and to my surprise, I had her attention for more than five minutes. “How much congestion do you have?” “Do you have a cough?” “Would you describe it as a lot, a little or not at all?” “Do you want to take something dissolved in water, or would you prefer a pill?” Again, not my stereotype of Germans. The Grippostad she sold me for less than $10 made me feel a bit better, though I longed for Sudafed.

A Splurge

The night after our Gendarmenmarkt visit, I woke several times, thinking about a small black purse I’d seen there. The leather on one of its sides had been worked into a lovely flower shape. We went back to the market and ended up buying it. The vendor was also the artist, one Karin Scholz, from Dusseldorf, her card read, perhaps fifty years of age. After we finished the transaction, to my astonishment, she came out of her booth and gave me a long, tight hug.

Seeking a light lunch, we sat down at a picnic table in a market café warmed by heating lamps, and ordered noodle soup. We were surprised to find ourselves beside four travelers from Guatemala, and enjoyed a lengthy Spanish conversation.

We returned to the market another day, this time for chocolates and candle holders. After making our purchases, we sat down in another café, whose menu highlighted goose products, and ordered potato soup. It came full of various herbs and weiner slices, delicious, but not overly fatty. It was only 2:00 pm, but daylight was fading. We lingered in the warmth of the cafe, feeling a glow of companionship with the other patrons.

Unexpected Kindness

The Marriott charged thirty Euros for breakfast, so each morning we headed to a coffee shop across the street from our hotel, whose counter displayed a tantalizing array of pastries. I can say that German croissants are every bit as good as French ones. On our second morning, with no hint of their availability. Sankar asked if they had eggs. I was a little surprised he’d asked (but it didn’t occur to me to wonder that he—or we—would get yelled at). The young clerk admitted that they did have eggs. In just a few minutes a plump, beaming Fraulein emerged from the back kitchen and placed in front of him a generous plate of scrambled eggs topped by herbs and accompanied by a green salad. 

It was pouring the afternoon of the weekly market in Kreutzberg so, sadly, we gave up on visiting the Turkish neighborhood. Late that afternoon, the sky still dark, we were resting in our hotel room. We had 5:30 Reichstag reservations, made online back home, which had generated official-looking confirming paperwork. But we couldn’t motivate ourselves to put on our rain gear and venture out.

We didn’t even want to leave our hotel, so for dinner we decided to splurge at our hotel’s “American-style Steakhouse.” The menu was limited and expensive, and the waiters a bit snooty, but I was able to order barbecued pork ribs (I think pork is on every menu at every meal in Germany) and Sankar a ribeye. After our food was served, we were surprised by a visit from another smiling Fraulein, whose job seemed to be to make her way around the restaurant asking every diner how they liked their food. She was delighted when we told her we were pleased.

Debriefing

Our Berlin guidebook opens with the phrase, “Berlin is a city of leafy boulevards.” It goes on to say that, “Berliners love to hang out in parks and along riverbanks, as if enjoying a continuous open-air party.” Clearly, the city is at its best in warmer weather, and I don’t really recommend it in the winter. For Christmas markets, we might have chosen a smaller, more picturesque German city or town, although we probably would have experienced rain there as well.

Back home, my cold lingering and combining with jet lag, I slowly completed my Christmas shopping and house decorating. I didn’t download my photos for a couple of weeks, nor did I reflect on my travels. But then a friend asked, “How was Berlin?” and my quick answer, “Fine. The people were really nice, friendly and helpful,” made me realize that my perceptions had changed.

Immersion—even one as brief and lackluster as our four rainy, half-sick days—had produced positive emotions—gratefulness, warmth, feelings of connection and inclusion. And these emotions had replaced my stereotype!

Everything, it seems, boils down to emotions. And now I began to understand “Aren’t you afraid to go to Turkey?”  It’s a stand-in for emotions surrounding decades of sad and horrifying news from the Middle East. But it is also changeable.

Over our three years in Turkey, we hosted 26 visitors. Some hesitated to make the trip. But as they left, they all had the same comment. “Wow! What a great place!”

For additional reading about Berlin, go to: https://www.fodors.com/world/europe/germany

For more on unexpected kindness, go to: https://suesturkishadventures.com/unexpected-kindness/

For more on stereotypes, go to: https://suesturkishadventures.com/perceptions-and-illusions/

The post Is My Stereotype of Germans Fair? appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

In September I posted a message on the TAAM (Turkish American Association of Minnesota) Facebook page seeking a Turkish speaker for conversation practice. I got several replies. One woman lived an hour north of the Twin Cites. Another was starting a Ph.D. program in political science. The third was a young woman named Delal, who lives in Minneapolis. We agreed to meet.

Delal has been in Minnesota for about a year. She and her husband, Kerem Yucel, a photographer, moved from Turkey because he received an EB-1 visa, one of only ten granted each year to “extra-talented artists.” Delal is also extra-talented. She has published two fantasy/adventure children’s book series that tell of lost islands, ancient societies, and mysteries of the sea.

Delal and Kerem chose Minnesota because her sister and brother in law are Mayo Clinic doctors. Getting used to a new country has been challenging, but Delal’s diverse childhood experiences spent “aboard ships with a monkey and parrot who joined me in Nigeria” have helped.

“We can all get along together,” she told me the first day we met. She was speaking of Turkey, where there is a deep religious divide. I had never heard a Turk express this sentiment, and it made me feel I could and should say this about my own country.

My talented new friend, Delal, is inspiring my Turkish. We recently read this adorable picture book (just about right for my Turkish comprehension), called What Color are Kisses?

Delal is also helping reawaken my curiosity about Turkey. Just the other day, she told me of a “fairy tale village” in eastern Turkey near Elazig, that in the 1920s sheltered Armenian families fleeing the Ottomans. In this village, she said, there is a lake so overgrown with moss that you can walk on its surface. Ancient stairs underneath lead to water, and a snake with horns resides in a nearby well. Thanks to my talented new friend, I’m thinking about a quest to seek out this enchantment!

For more on Delal Arya:

https://delalarya.com

For Beginning Turkish lessons:

https://turkishteatime.com/turkish-lessons/

The post A Turkish Sea Captain’s Daughter and Children’s Book Author is My Neighbor–and a Talented New Friend! appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

When my husband, Sankar, and I moved to Istanbul in 2010, we anticipated a lot of challenges. Communicating in a strange new language. Navigating a city of 16 million. Experiencing culture shock. But we didn’t quite anticipate the number of hours each weekend we’d be spending by ourselves.

During a previous overseas move, to Costa Rica in the 90s, we’d had young children. Making friends with parents we met through school had been a cinch. We were empty nesters now, and had arrived in early summer, just as other expats returned to their countries for the summer. Although Turks were friendly, and several of Sankar’s colleagues had immediately invited us over, those outings only took up three or four of the 36 plus hours we had to fill each weekend.

Why not get out and see Istanbul? Several reasons. It turned out that city traffic was fiercest during weekends; Istanbulus take public transport to their jobs, but on Saturdays and Sundays, they jump into their cars. So driving around our vast and decentralized new metropolis wasn’t a good idea. We had already visited the major tourist sites, and weren’t familiar with lesser sites, nor the city’s mass transit system. Walks were definitely an option; in fact we enjoyed them many weekday evenings after Sankar got back from work. But what else could we do?

Working out was one idea. We had joined a health club, Hillside, that was attached to a nearby mall called Istinye Park. The club’s floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked layers of brand new concourses and shops with unfamiliar and intriguing names. Paşabahçe. Stefanel. Roman. Ipekyol, which means Silk Road. A branch of a grocery store we liked was also located in the mall (why don’t U.S. malls have food stores? I know, too many bags to carry. But we simply saved that errand until last). So after working out, we’d stop to pick up a carton of milk, a bunch of bananas, or something for dinner.

We discovered that the entire north wing of the mall’s second level was taken up by a fruit and vegetable market under an atrium so high it felt like we were in the open air. And that was surrounded by shops that sold nuts, dried fruits, smoothies, and fresh fish and meat. Soon we were sampling Turkish Delight, raisins with seeds (surprisingly delicious) and fistikli atoms, meatball-sized concoctions involving pistachio nuts and carrot paste that taste way better than they sound.

Since Sankar seldom had time to shop and was perennially short on clothes, we’d peek into one of the mall’s more than half dozen men’s stores. Ramsey. Sarar. Massimo Dutti. W., which made us think of our recent president. We followed a preordained Turkish script when entering a store. The proprietor would greet us with “Hosh Geldiniz,” We are happy you came. And we would respond with “Hosh Bulduk,” We are happy to find you. Though rote, this generally put smiles on faces.

I grew up in Minnesota, home of Southdale, the nation’s first enclosed mall. I shopped at my local mall, Rosedale, and worked as a sales clerk there during my college years. There were times that, having spent my one-hour lunch breaks walking around, I felt I knew every item that was for sale. I had totally overdone the mall experience.

Later, when I had small children, the idea of trudging from store to store with them was unappealing. Thankfully, catalog shopping was becoming a thing, and after that I switched to online ordering. By the time I left Minnesota for Turkey, I rarely paid a visit to a mall.

I hadn’t expected to buy much new clothing in Turkey. Somehow I didn’t envision Turkish women as fashionable. Instead, because Turkey is 99% Muslim, I wondered whether I’d need to follow a dress code. I would not. Although half of Turkish women cover their hair with babushka scarves tied under their chins, others wear chic, up-to-date styles: short, color block dresses; wool Bermuda shorts; and thigh-high suede boots.

After shopping, Sankar and I would sit down at a kahvaltı (breakfast) restaurant and drink tea. Then we’d scan the lunch options; anything to avoid going back to our apartment. Near the open-air market, were several small, attractive fish and meat restaurants (I’m not sure why, but these two entrees are generally offered in separate restaurants in Turkey). Somehow, we never thought we were cool enough to eat at those places.

Instead, we’d head to the food court, located at a busy junction on the second level. It featured scrupulously clean tables, friendly workers who bussed plates, and a total absence of the fried food aroma that often plagues American malls. We chose from Mezzaluna, a casual Italian bistro; a Turkish buffet called Kasik La, With Spoon, that made delicious Ramazan bread; Gunaydin, a doner restaurant; and Le Pan Quotidian, from France. Gelato for dessert, and a visit to Starbucks or—hurrah for the home team!—Caribou Coffee.

After eating, without any discussion, we’d do something that still surprises me. We would simply sit, sometimes for more than an hour, and watch our new countrymen. The bright Turkish sun streamed in from a glass ceiling three stories over our heads, and people of all ages strolled past or sat, eating. Although America was in recession, but the Turkish economy was booming and there were plenty of shoppers. Nobody seemed to notice us, and nobody came up to talk with us, but we’d been so unfailingly well treated by every Turk we’d met that we felt we were among friends.

“We’re hanging out at a mall!” I rebuked myself. But I couldn’t argue with how peaceful and settled it was making us feel. We didn’t have to navigate new roads or make new decisions. The familiar setting made us feel we were back home, albeit with just enough points of difference to spark our interest.

Although Istinye Park mall was in an affluent neighborhood, there were brand new malls catering to all income levels in Istanbul. Some, in conservative neighborhoods, featured decidedly more demure female clothing, often in pale or dark colors, and often festooned with sweet little bows. Just outside the city were discount stores: on one of our first crossings into Asia, we were startled to encounter a gleaming outlet mall, complete with an attached, sit-down restaurant. Spending time in those malls was also pleasant. We had come to a flourishing country with a younger population. One where malls were still magical.

At first I found Turkish clothing too flirty and frilly for my tastes. Necklines were low, hemlines were high—and women of all ages seemed to dress young. Eventually, however, my tastes changed—and I found some stores that had more variety. I loved the ethereal tops and scarfs at Yargici, the chic city stripes of Mudo, and the bright, inexpensive sweaters at Mango. Prices were always moderate: not cheap, but rarely expensive.

Even after we started to make friends and have weekend plans, our mall love continued. When visitors Laurie and John arrived, we took them to the mall on their very first day (granted, Laurie needed a bathing suit—and she found an up-to-date black two piece). When Arlene and Scott came, we headed to the mall for a kebab dinner. Every time we visited the mall, we remembered our lonely first months in Turkey and how the mall had stepped up and helped us.

The most fun was when our kids visited. Angela loves to shop, and she found Turkish stores interesting and unique. She was familiar with H & M, Zara, and Mango, but others—Bershka, Stradivarius, Pull and Bear, Mudo, ADL, and the British chains, Marks & Spencer and Debenham’s—were completely new. And those were just the clothing stores. Several designer-quality shoe stores, Inci, Hotiç, Derimod, among others, offered an impressive array of flats, heels, and riding boots. We’d examine the windows of all the shops—once we passed a display with a half-nude model (“In a Muslim country!” we exclaimed)—splurge on a new scarf or some Yargici earrings, and then have a crazy good lunch, for example savory roasted lamb on pide bread, accompanied with ayran a salty yogurt beverage.

It turns out that as far as both design and production, Turkey is the textile capital for the Middle East and North Africa. “All our clothes come from Turkey,” my Iraqi students informed me. Later in Minnesota, when I taught Ethiopian immigrants, they told me Turkish clothing was popular in their country, too.

Sankar ended up establishing a years-long relationship at a venerable men’s store, the Kurdish-run Abdallah Kiğili, whose tailoring and comprehensive selection he liked. He bought many pairs of slacks, shirts, and even a few suits there over the years—and has stopped there on visits to Turkey even after we moved back to Minnesota. The Kiğili staff always served us tiny tulip glasses of tea, but eventually we graduated to lattes. And when the son of the proprietor was getting married, we got an invite.

I miss living in a place where malls are still magical. Angela and I bought some wonderful clothes in Turkey, and we’ve been wearing them for five years now.  A fur vest. Some pretty earrings and necklaces. Faded-navy tie shoes with a contrasting sole. A gray, belted raincoat—I received a compliment on it in a Minnesota restaurant. Some have worn out–my coat is fraying now, but I am going to have it refurbished. Angela has also cherished her Turkish clothes. She wore out a pair of Inci boots, but I promised to bring her a new pair when we visit this coming fall.

Traffic is a big problem in Istanbul, and even before we left, an online service, Markafoni, was gaining popularity. And as I prepared a list of Turkish clothing websites for you (below), I noticed that many of these stores now offer online shopping. A convenience, but in a place are malls were still magical, I’ll be sad if they start to decline. They brought me face to face with the exuberance of a youth-oriented, economically strong country. They were odes to unexpected beauty, and a chance for some girl time with my daughter, who lived almost nine thousand miles away. Most of all, they were a soft place for us to land, soothing and sheltering us in the weeks and months before we found friends in Turkey.

For more information, visit these sites:

http://shop.yargici.com.tr/home

https://www.incideri.com/

https://www.mudo.com.tr/

http://www.adl.com.tr/en/

The post Where Malls Are Still Magical appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

I was surprised to encounter similar items when I spent time in non-Christian countries. In Singapore, a hotel lobby nearly the size of a football field greeted us with a half dozen flocked trees. In Delhi last year, a group of child carolers, who surely didn’t know the meaning of the words, warbled “Silver Bells” and “Holly Jolly Christmas” outside our restaurant.

In Turkey, where I spent three years, huge, cone-shaped “trees” stood in shopping malls. Grocery stores devoted aisles to wrapping paper and ornaments. And Santa Clauses of all sizes appeared, made of ceramic, wood and felt. How appropriate: the original St. Nicholas was the 4th century bishop of Myra, a town in southern Turkey.

Turks seemed downright enthusiastic about Christmas. Artificial trees with presents underneath adorned friends’ apartments. Wrapping up a sweater for me, a shop clerk confided, “Ever since I was a child, I loved Christmas!” And a fellow teacher whose research papers I’d helped edit presented me with a beautifully-wrapped music box that played Deck the Halls.

Clearly coziness and sentimentality are part of the worldwide appeal of Christmas. But does that appeal have anything to do with Christmas’ deeper meaning?  To help answer that, I thought about how I approach others’ religious celebrations.  I tend to first ask the reason. And then I want to know the details. In Turkey I learned that the Muslim world’s most significant religious observance centers on the prophet Abraham’s faithfulness in agreeing to sacrifice his only son. Muslims observe this by slaughtering sheep and giving meat to the poor, but the observance has also evolved into the purchase of new clothes and the preparation of special meals.

Actually, I already had my answer. Each December my Muslim friends send me greetings. And they are invariably, “Mary Christmas.” In past years I’ve tried to correct them, tried to explain the word, merry. But then I stopped. I realized that the mistake was really an attempt to get at something more profound.

The secular aspects of Christmas—decorations, songs, Santas—are the easiest for our foreign friends to grab onto. But those who observe the holiday, even in a tiny way, are acknowledging a Christian custom. In these times, that feels like a gift. In gratitude, I hang a couple of whirling dervish ornaments on my tree.

To read about the history of St. Nicholas, go to:

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-is-st-nicholas/

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