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

The post My Most Unusual Birthday 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.

Sankar’s job was winding down. He had already started working on projects in other parts of the world. It was time to head home. “We’ll be home for Christmas,” I told Angela on the phone. I loved those sentimental words.

“No,” she replied. “I want one more Christmas in Istanbul.” Greg agreed.

Sankar and I were surprised, but pleased.

Even though our kids had visited the past summer, we had new things to show them. The Panorama Museum, with its 360-degree floor-to-ceiling murals that put visitors in the middle of the battle for Constantinople. Akdeniz Hatay Sofrası, where you could call ahead and order delectable chicken or lamb roasted in a salt casing. Sensus, a new wine bar next to the Galata Tower. The Anglican church we’d belatedly joined, Crimean Memorial.

On Christmas Eve, the temperature in the fifties, the four of us drove to the nearby suburb of Gayretepe (gayret = endeavor; tepe=hill) and left the car in a parking ramp. Then we jumped on the metro to Taksim Square. We walked the length of Istiklal Avenue, passing roasted chestnut vendors, window-shopping, and admiring the holiday lights that arched over the iconic street. We ran into Pastor Ian, sitting outside a coffee shop smoking a cigar with a friend, and stopped at Sensus for a glass of wine and some hors d’oeuvres. Fortified, we headed to church.

We arrived at the service early to get seats. The church was filled with people we knew. Robbie, a Californian who had married a Turk and worked in public relations for the AKP Party. Robbie had always been particularly friendly to me. Professor William Hale and his wife, Kathleen, Brits with whom we’d gone on ARIT trips. I had been surprised at William’s fluency in Turkish. Beate, a long-time Istanbulu from Germany, who had invited me to dinner at her historic Terabya home one weekend when Sankar was away.

We gave up our seats to Warren Winkler, an eighty-something American physician who had worked in Turkey since World War II, and his stylish Dutch wife, Ineke. We had attended a party at their lovely,  unusual home, a former Turkish bath.

I love evening church services and this was our first in our new church’s late nineteenth century building, with its choir screen separating the altar from the nave, adorned with frescoes including one of the Christ child grasping a simit (Turkish bagel).

After the service, we spoke with a British couple we had recently met. They were new in Istanbul. Now I hugged her goodbye, feeling wistful: all the confusion and exhilaration of the city was ahead for her. For us, well, movers would arrive as soon as the kids left.

Ümit was taking our guest beds and the desk Sankar had so thoughtfully purchased for me before I arrived. We were shipping most everything else back home. But what to do with our liquor? We owned a surprising amount, given that we rarely drank it. A large bottle of rum, which I’d bought for a cake recipe—a smaller size wasn’t available and, with fifty percent tax, the bottle had cost close to $75. Two bottles of rakı, Christmas gifts from 3M Turkey (along, one year, with a carton of Marlboros). A bottle of gin, and some scotch left over from when Sankar’s brother visited.

We decided to give all of these spirits to our 3M friends, Gökhan and Burcu, who had invited the four of us for a final meal at their apartment. That evening, we loaded all our bottles into the trunk of our car for the drive over the bridge and into Asia. When we reached their place, we discovered that the rum had spilled all over the inside of the trunk. We carried the rest of the bottles into their apartment and forgot about the rum.

We stayed late at Gökhan and Burcu’s apartment that night, and didn’t get back home until after midnight. The kids were flying out early the next morning; we’d be back in the car again by 5:30.

It was still dark as we set out for the airport. Sankar took the freeway entrance toward Atatürk International and accelerated confidently; there was little traffic at this time of day. But then he noticed several police cars, and an officer standing on the left side of the road, motioning us over. We stopped—had we been speeding?—and Sankar rolled down his window. The officer leaned in and without a word, stuck a plastic device in Sankar’s face. Then, issuing a sharp command, he shoved the breathalyzer right into his mouth.

The car still reeked with the fumes from the spilled rum, and I turned toward the kids, my eyes wide. Sankar passed the test and the officer waved us on. But we were shaken. “Can I get sick from having something like that in my mouth?” he asked.

It was the flip side of that Turkish order and kontrol we’d so often admired.

I had started leaving Istanbul months before our departure. I began by saying goodbye to seasonal treats I knew I’d miss. In April: grand gardens of tulips in every shade of pink, red, and yellow, and hundreds of ordinary roadside plantings. Goodbye, lale!

In June: mulberries, little white sweetnesses dangling from tree branches, fortifying my ascent from sea to apartment. Goodbye dut!

In summer: the juiciest, most luscious melons I have ever tasted, some with orange or yellow fruit, others bright green. They lasted for a while after harvest, but finally in mid-fall I ate my last one. Goodbye, wonderful kavun!

Then it was time for pomegranates, ruby red and bursting with flavor. They were still in season as I left Asia Minor, but goodbye nar!

And the sea, a visual reward. I would so miss those unexpected glimpses of pale blue water shimmering at the turn of a street, or a spray of mist as the car rounded a bend. I didn’t say goodbye, but I tried to fix each dreamlike view in my mind.

I also began saying goodbye to the language I’d tried so hard to learn. Ever since my summer visit home, my Turkish skills had been weakening. I could no longer understand conversations as well as I had in May and June, and my speech became more hesitant. “From now on, I’m going to listen to at least an hour of Turkish television each day,” I declared in my final months, but then avoided doing so.

As I intensified my wanderings around the golden city, checking off items to see one last time, I was pulling back. While I tried to stay in the moment, I could also see myself as I’d soon be: far away.

Maybe 55 had been the perfect age to meet Istanbul. I had been ready for its melancholy, what Orhan Pamuk calls the city’s huzun. The visitor is constantly reminded that Istanbul is old, and it is a reminder that you, too, will be old.

Filled with huzun, I had, more than once, longed for an entire life lived in Istanbul. To know all of its wisdom and secrets. I had learned to make difficult personal changes here. I had learned to create optimism and to cope with things I didn’t agree with. I had learned to accept lavish hospitality that I, myself, could not reciprocate. I had been humbled in Istanbul, but I had also stood up for what I believe in. But surely there was a lot more the city could teach me.

In the apartment when all was quiet, I took stock. Had our marriage improved? Had we made a better go of things here than in Costa Rica? Yes to both. Our marriage had been strengthened through discovery of shared interests, particularly in ancient and medieval history. This discovery had occurred in great part because I had opened myself up to it. I had set out for Turkey with a positive attitude, and had (mostly) refrained from complaining.

Had Turkey solved all of our problems? Surely not. I still lamented my lack of professional success, and sometimes, took out negative feelings on Sankar. And Sankar still had a tendency to brush off my concerns. But I smiled as I recalled his frequent efforts to make me happy here, cobbling together bits of Turkish, Spanish, and English to help us find the way to our next historic treasure.

Turkey had showed me that I could overwrite the patterns we’d developed in Costa Rica. That I could break the cycle of resentment and blame, and instead speak up and ask for resources to help me succeed. When a space was cleared that had once been full of negativity, there was room in our marriage to let common interests bloom. We had grown closer through our magical explorations with ARIT and by hosting numerous visitors. We had made wonderful new friends, and we had a list of Turkish places, such as the lost Armenian city of Ani, that we still wanted to visit together. Forever now, at least when we talked about Turkey (and we would talk about it a great deal), we’d talk as a team.

The most challenging experiences often produce the most rewards. The year spent teaching—the hardest job I’d ever had—had actually been a balm. It had provided a crucial sense of accomplishment, enhancing my sense of self and easing our fraught expatriate relationship. It had given me insights into the Turkish culture that I wouldn’t have gained sitting in our apartment or hanging out with other expatriates. And it had allowed me to be the kind of American I wanted to be: hardworking and dedicated. For a long time after I left Turkey, I would think of ÖzU as my employer, and its teachers as my colleagues.

My job had also pointed the way to a new career: teaching English as a Second Language.

I was proud of how I’d handled the challenge of Turkey, and I was already looking back on the experience with satisfaction. I would not only miss Turkey, but I’d miss myself in Turkey. I had, for the most part, been wise here.

Finally, our last morning—a Saturday in January. We’d already bid farewell to our Turkish and expatriate friends, our apartment, and our neighborhood, moving for our two final days to the Radisson Blu in Ortaköy. Ümit was busy with a family matter, so we’d already said our goodbyes to him. We expected to take a cab to the airport, but Taner, Waverley’s driver, did something I would surely not have thought to do: he volunteered to get up early on his day off so that our last ride wouldn’t be an impersonal one. He arrived at 5:15 am to take us to the airport.

In Istanbul, traffic is never far from mind, but as Taner turned left out of the Radison Blu, I smiled. The Sea Road was ours this morning! We were in for a quick ride on the most consistently clogged road in the city. Over the years, I had sat for what seemed like hours on its surface, studying the shiny, black and white photographs of Atatürk’s life on the Yildiz Parki walls to pass the time. Now, we whizzed along, and I busied myself trying to think of something pithy to say to Taner to mark our last car ride in Istanbul.

We were approaching the Galata Bridge when I emerged from my reverie. Just ahead was Eminönü, the centuries-old, maze-like commercial area I’d been most drawn to during my time in the city. I hadn’t planned to see Eminönü again; Ümit would have taken us on a newer route west of the city. But here it was, in all its ancient splendor. And like me, it was just waking up.

The rising sun was hitting the dome of the Suleimaniye Mosque, Sinan’s sixteenth century masterpiece, at the very top of Istanbul’s Third Hill. The largest mosque in Istanbul: how many times had I climbed crowded streets past Istanbul University to visit this house of worship? How many times had I gained a sense of peace from its soaring, taupe and terra cotta interior and enjoyed a timeless view from the green expanse on its north side?

From Suleimaniye, Eminönü’s buildings cascaded down the hill toward me, so crowded together that they looked as though they stood on risers. It was as if the heart of Istanbul had convened a special chorus to bid me farewell. I felt emotions rising; how was I going to go on living without weekly trips to Eminönü?

Still dark, but its outlines visible, on the right side of the “choir” stood the small Rustem Pasha Mosque, another Sinan jewel, adorned with precious Iznik tiles. The mosque had been built on top of a block of businesses. I had been inside it a half dozen times and just the week before, had ascended to its courtyard on the way to a nearly-hidden spice vendor with Greg.

“Take off your shoes and go in,” I urged him impulsively, and he did so without protest, emerging some minutes later to remark, “It felt really good in there.”

The Spice Bazaar itself, Byzantine-striped and surprisingly diminutive given all that it contained, stood in the front row. To its left, the multi-domed 17^th century New Mosque, my absolute favorite; I always felt like I was inside a cloud when I stood in its sanctuary. The plaza between the two, usually bustling with visitors and pigeons, was dark and quiet. Behind them receded a tangle of little streets winding up to the Büyük Valide Han, where we loved climbing to the roof and hearing surround sound prayer call.

And finally, in front like a featured soloist, the magnificent Hamdi Restaurant, overlooking the Golden Horn, where we always took guests for their first lunch. They never failed to marvel at the view of water, medieval towers, and minarets that seemed only to lack a flying carpet or two.

How often had I walked in and out of Eminönü’s shops, buying boxes, cooking chocolate, coffee cups, Turkish Delight? Enjoying smoky whiffs of grilled beef, lamb, and chicken. Stopping for a morning su boreği, or an afternoon kunefe at the outdoor lokanta where a hatchet-faced man stood day after day grilling the melted cheese and syrup dessert. How many tiny tulip cups of tea did I sip in shops throughout Eminönü? How many times did I climb up through the maze to the Grand Bazaar or walk down from the Bazaar in the late afternoon when bescarfed Turkish shoppers were out in force?

We expatriates joked that everything in the world could be found behind the Spice Bazaar, and it was true. Buttons, fabric for a Christmas tree skirt, Turkish coffee, barbecue grills, outlet strips, Jordan almonds, the idiosyncratic red and white tea sets everyone used, googly eyes for a children’s craft project, umbrellas of every design. . . there was even an entire store dedicated to baby showers.

I wanted one more moment with the Eminönü choir, but we were already across the bridge. As Taner turned left, I gulped and blinked away tears. Sankar was intent on a text message to China, working as usual, which somehow seemed appropriate. He had worked much of the experience away, and that had given him other insights.

A moment later the fanciful pink Sirkeci train station, the last stop on the Orient Express, came into view. How I had enjoyed pointing out this belle époque edifice to visitors on our way to Sultanahmet. Now we were heading west on John F. Kennedy Caddesi, an eight-mile stretch that hugged the Sea of Marmara. The ruins of Emperor Theodosius’ double-thick sea walls lined both sides of the road. Built of stone and double-baked brick in the 400s and never breached, they were worn to an oatmeal-like texture, crumbling to nothing in some places and rising impressively in others. Several bus stops and two lighted billboards—one for KFC and one for something called Kofte-mania—stood in front of them, a metaphor for the mix of profound history and bright novelty that is Istanbul.

On we went, one mile, two, and then finally a big corner chunk of wall arose on our left, the Marmara Sea glistening behind it. This is where the sea walls turn at a right angle away to march across land, becoming the land walls. I looked to my right for a last glimpse of Constantinople’s land walls, climbing north with the slope of the land and then finally curving east to meet the water at the Golden Horn. They were considered state-of-the-art for a thousand years but, thanks in part to the invention of cannons, a section was finally breached in 1453, allowing the Turks their turn in this marvelous city.

The corner chunk was a farewell sentry. Now we were outside the walls, the Old City behind us, passing handsome modern apartment complexes, hotels, and a convention center. We turned and drove under the grand, Soviet-like arch that announced Atatürk Havalımanı, parked, and got out of the car, pulling suitcases loaded with Turkish clothing, jewelry and gifts. Taner could have simply dropped us off, but he came in and waited until all our ticketing and baggage was taken care of. Even at the very end, unexpected generosity. “We can never out-nice these people,” I thought for the umpteenth time.

We had come down from our magic carpet ride. Back in America I would feel an odd exhilaration: I had seen so much beauty, majesty, and wonder; I had challenged myself and grown more than I thought possible; surely I had something to new to offer to my country. But I also felt, with great conviction, that nothing else I experienced would ever be as profound.

Turkey. Asia Minor. Quite simply: where we come from.

Inside the airport, checked in and through passport control, I glanced at Sankar. He would never think of weeping in public, but as we headed to our gate, he stopped and looked back toward where we’d just bid Taner goodbye. He paused for a moment and then he looked at me beside him, and nodded. Together, we walked toward the waiting airplane with the same thought in mind. We had been happy here.

The post Leaving Istanbul appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

A death in the family forces you to reflect, and six weeks into building a new life is a good time to stop and assess. Here in Istanbul the heat and midsummer inactivity means that I have met few people. I haven’t jumped into any new activities yet, and it’s not clear if or when I’ll find productive work. I could put this adventure on hold and return to my predictable Minnesota life.

But throughout these uneventful, air-conditioned days, I find myself composing Turkish sentences in my head, thumbing through Mary Lee Settle’s lyrical Turkish Reflections, and marking possible walking tours in John Freely’s Strolling Through Istanbul. Clearly, I’m trying to figure this place out.

I want to travel to Amasya, deep in a gorge where the Halys and Thermadon rivers meet. I want to see where King Midas, St. Nicholas and Aladdin Keykubad lived, and to gaze on the ruins of Troy. I want to visit Trabzon, the Black Sea kingdom that held out for eight years after the Roman Empire crumbled. I want to walk past Lycian tombs, climb Crusader castles, and explore the ruins of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the Ancient Wonders of the World.

I want to find out if there are any blue-eyed, red-headed Galatians left in central Turkey, descendants of the wild Scottish Gauls transplanted there in 264 B.C.

Visiting these enigmatic places will build great memories, but I’m after more. Shaken by last week’s tragedy, I am seeking clues on how to better live my life. And I have every indication that the gregarious, generous Turks will help show the way. Settle writes:

I found there the greatest capacity for friendship I have ever known. It was in the genes and in the past of the Turkish people, so deep and so beyond individual choice that I have wondered ever since about its sources.

The post A Time to Reflect appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.