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.

Traffic wasn’t usually a problem until we were on the bridge, but one December morning, we came to a complete stop just a few blocks from our apartment.

“What’s going on?” Sankar asked, looking up from his text messages.

Up ahead, we could see a cherry picker truck. It seemed to be blocking a roundabout.. As we inched closer we could see a dense-looking artificial Christmas tree standing sentinel in the middle of the grassy circle. Perhaps fifteen feet in height, it was made of some kind of tufted green substance and blanketed with tiny white twinkling lights. A bright red, eight-pointed star already sat on top.

The tree had only about a third of its ornaments; this project could take awhile. What to do? Noticing a break in the oncoming lane, Ümit backed up a quarter car length. Then, with a snort of exasperation, he swiveled the steering wheel, turned sharply, and headed toward a different O-1 entrance ramp.

As we got into a long line of cars on the First Bridge, I pondered a Christian holiday causing Muslim commuters to be late to work.  I also thought about my job. My one-year contract would end in late January. I was a better teacher now, at least according to survey results I had just received. My students had given me above average ratings, and several had even commented, “She is a good teacher.” I was enjoying my coworkers. Six of us teachers who shared an office had become friends, telling jokes, passing snacks, and occasionally going out for coffee after classes. I was pleased to be included in this group. Everyone else was under thirty-five.

When ÖzU first offered me a teaching contract, I was so grateful that I thought, even if Sankar was transferred in the middle of a school year, I would stay and soldier on, finishing out the year, perhaps living alone in a small apartment on the Asian side. I thought the job would be just the thing for me: absorbing and fulfilling. And it often was. But it was also becoming too much. I was starting to dislike standing in the classroom for four hours each day and spending another three or four hours every day preparing. I was on a treadmill and I wanted off.

But the idea of not re-upping when my contract ended put me in a quandary. First, I had made a major fuss about getting work here in Turkey, and I had received considerable help getting a job. Second, work had carried me away from the boredom and frustration so corrosive to expatriate marriages. I actually believed it had rescued my entire Turkey experience. It had changed my focus from myself to my students. I had allowed me to have a professional experience just like Sankar. It had even boosted my self-worth, fragile after years at home raising kids.

Teaching here had also led to a significant personal discovery. Despite my struggles with unruly students, I loved the interplay of culture and language that teaching English as a Second Language involved. I wanted to pursue ESL teaching back in the States, and I planned take a certificate course when I returned, although I had no idea what my marketability would be at age 57. Now, with a year of experience under my belt, I asked myself: If I taught at ÖzU for another six months or even a year, would that increase my chances of getting a teaching job in Minnesota? I wasn’t sure it would.

I did realize that, if I wasn’t employed here in Turkey, I would certainly experience some unproductive days. But I didn’t think resentment would make a comeback. The decision not to work would be mine; there would be nobody else to blame for it. Still, it was an open question, sort of like, “If I stop taking the medication, will my headaches return?”

My teaching colleagues worked because they needed income. I was different. I didn’t need the money. My $28,000 annual salary wasn’t necessary to keep Sankar and me afloat. So increasingly, a Grinch-like voice in my head whispered: “Why are you giving up five full days each week? Why are you giving up eleven months each year?”

I had thought that, by moving to Turkey, I’d be saying goodbye to Christmas. There hadn’t been any signs of the Nativity in Yemen back in 1979 and ’80, and I didn’t expect any in Istanbul, either. While packing to move, I had, however, tucked a few Christmas ornaments into my suitcase. I thought maybe I’d be able to find the top of an evergreen tree or some potted plant to decorate when the time came. Last year, I had taken off for the States in mid-December to celebrate the holiday back home. This year, Sankar and I would be staying in Turkey. Angela and Greg would join us.

At Istinye Park mall, located in an upscale neighborhood  north of us, a huge cone-shaped Christmas “tree,” laden with gold stars and red garlands, now stood on the main floor. Hundreds upon hundreds of artificial red poinsettia blooms decorated the edges of the mall’s many balconies and arches, with strands of white lights hanging from them. Thousands of Westerners lived in Istanbul and I knew this was a commercial effort, but I felt sentimental during the Christmas season, and a dose of familiarity helped prevent homesickness.

Rows of blue and white lights now twinkled high above historic Istiklal Avenue. When I entered a men’s shop to look for a gift for Sankar, the middle-aged woman waiting on me confided, “Ever since I was a child, I loved Christmas!” At grocery stores in Kuruçesme and Levent, I stared in amazement at entire aisles devoted entirely to Santa hats, wrapping paper and ornaments.

It was a delight to observe creative and sometimes quirky Turkish efforts to commemorate the holiday. One shop window displayed a Christmas tree made of pale wooden dowels, with red and white wooden balls on their ends. A shoe store had a tree made entirely of overlapping red leather slippers. Santa Clauses of all sizes, made of ceramic, wood and felt, were everywhere. Several malls even had life-size mechanical versions that moved their lips and tilted their shoulders. Beside them, shoppers—mostly adults and mostly Turks—posed for pictures.

Perhaps all of this shouldn’t have surprised me. Turkey had been Christian for a millennium and the original St. Nicholas was the fourth-century bishop of Myra, a town in southern Turkey. And Turkey was secure in its identity, unlike neighboring countries bitter about Western colonization.

Christmas tunes burst forth in shopping centers and at Atatürk International Airport. Most were secular, but some lyrics were apparently not well understood. Over and over, we heard Loreena McKennitt’s devout “The Seven Rejoices of Mary,” with its verse about “the Holy Baby.”

We needed to find a Christmas tree. From what I understood, the city of Istanbul prohibited the cutting down of any kind of tree. And, although artificial trees were available, I wanted something real. So Sankar and Ümit, two good sports, neither of whom grew up observing Christmas, went to a nearby nursery and bought a four-foot-tall potted pine. It took some effort for them to lug it up to our apartment. When it reached there, I decided it needed as much light as possible, so I placed it out on our balcony. After Christmas, we would give it to Ümit’s mother to plant in her garden.

Earnest about helping me observe a major religious holiday, Ümit accompanied me to the mall to buy decorations. He quickly found a string of hot pink lights and held them up, declaring, “These are the best ones.”  I ended up buying them along with a matching set of ornaments.

The drive to the mall took Ümit and me through a tunnel. Now, the inside of that tunnel glowed with tiny white lights. “What are these for?” I asked Ümit.

“New Year’s,” he replied.

The New Year was already looking busy. It was possible we’d be transferred home in June. And in the early months, we had three groups of visitors arriving. Each would stay for over a week, a nice diversion from work. I was already feeling distracted, however, by something I wasn’t able to participate in. Waverley had gathered a group of expatriates—mothers from the international school—who went out each week to explore Old Istanbul. They called themselves The Monday Ladies.

A year before I would probably have dismissed a group like this as a bunch of bored wives trying to kill time. But I now wished I could go with them. I longed to wander the narrow passages of the Bazaar Quarter, poking into obscure mosques and defunct Byzantine churches. I longed to have the time to soak up the atmosphere of Constantinople.

With this allure and a feeling that my time in Turkey was growing short, I broached the topic of leaving my job with Sankar. He was surprised. The job meant a lot to me. He understood my desire to delve into Istanbul, but was wary of old patterns reemerging. “Don’t assume we’re leaving here in June,” he warned. “You might be sitting around here all year.”

He was right. But now that I’d opened the door to leaving, little things at work began to annoy me. Management tended toward severity. After I received eighteen positive and two negative ratings from my students, my boss said she wanted my reaction in writing. I  pretended I didn’t understand, murmuring that I was flattered my students thought so highly of me, but I knew which ratings I was being asked to address.

And then my Turkish colleagues. They sometimes acted as if we foreigners were just a necessary evil. Although formal meetings were conducted in English, occasional department discussions in Turkish excluded us. And how was it that they almost never asked us native speakers for English help? (A rare and admirable exception was the deputy director, who stopped me in the corridor one day with, “Sue, is it better to say ‘I am in the Internet’ or ‘I am on the Internet?’”)

There was an administrative assistant to whom we teachers had to go for office supplies, copier assistance, and other support. Friendly to the Turkish teachers, this person managed to “help” us foreigners as little and as grudgingly as possible.

“It’s because we’re needy,” Caitlin explained. Yes, we foreigners did have extra needs. We were clueless about department minutiae and we periodically needed help with paperwork for our work permits. It was very rare to meet unfriendly Turks, and now came the enticement: if I quit, I won’t have to deal with this anymore.

And finally, there was the upcoming Christmas season during which, regardless of whether or not I signed a contract for 2012, I’d have to work straight through. While Angela and Greg were here, I wouldn’t have much time to spend with them, nor would I have much time to shop, bake or decorate. I did understand that Big Nergis couldn’t give us five or six Christian teachers days off without looking unfair. We had taken advantage of all of Turkey’s Muslim and secular holidays. But still, I found the situation irritating.

Caitlin also felt squeezed by the holidays, and she and I discussed this dilemma. Finally, we decided to ask Big Nergis if we could work on Friday morning before the Sunday holiday (thank goodness we didn’t have to work on Christmas Day itself) instead of our usual Friday afternoon. That would extend our holiday weekend a half day. We’d have to make special arrangement, however, as classrooms would be full of regularly-scheduled students. After Big Nergis agreed, we decided to combine our two classes and meet in the auditorium.

“I know—we’ll show a movie! The Grinch who Stole Christmas,” Caitlin suggested.

“Huh? A Christmas movie?”

“We did it at Bilkent and it went over just fine.”

She was right.

As the holiday approached, Neslihan, a colleague who occasionally asked me for help with her American Studies doctorate papers, presented me with a pretty music box that played “Deck the Halls.” The elegant Çirağan hotel, formerly an Ottoman palace, hosted Christmas carolers from the British School, including one of Waverley’s daughters. Turks sitting in the lobby applauded. Adjacent to the carolers stood a gingerbread house of such dimensions that it looked like the Houses of Parliament. Next to it, customers could buy little Christmas trees made of white chocolate and adorned with the words, “Mary Christmas.”

Angela and Greg arrived the week before Christmas, and our gifts for each other began forming a line on the living room ledge overlooking the Bosphorus. They admired Istanbul’s decorations and enjoyed the balmy weather that allowed us to stroll comfortably outside.

We ate a huge Turkish meal that week at Gokhan and Burcu’s apartment alongside their small artificial Christmas tree. On Christmas Eve we went to St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church on Istiklal for late afternoon meditation. Christmas Day dawned sunny and 55 degrees and, after gift-giving, Angela and I walked with some sense of irony to the seaside Rumeli Hisar fortress that Mehmet the Conqueror had put up in four months in 1453 prior to conquering Constantinople. We climbed its ramparts and composed photos that included the European fort’s stone crenelations, ships gliding back and forth on the Bosphorus, and the distant hills of Asia. Two continents in a single frame. I would never forget this unusual family Christmas.

Back at work on the 26^th, I was still hearing “Merry Christmas” from my Turkish colleagues.

“It’s over,” I told them, “but thank you.” The wishes, oddly, kept coming. Was it because Turkey’s religious holidays generally involved multiple days? On December 29, several large boxes appeared near the office photocopier. The next day, an artificial tree had been assembled next to it, and the doorways in our suite of offices were adorned with shiny red garlands. Two cute little Santa dolls were rappeling up a ladder made of string on one doorframe. They had almost made it to the top.

I stood and stared. How had my colleagues gotten the date of our holiday so wrong? How had they not known?

But it turned out I was wrong. On New Year’s Eve, Noel Baba (Father Noel), a secular character long promoted to commemorate St. Nicholas, makes his rounds (I am not sure if chimneys or sleighs are involved), leaving gifts for Turkish adults and children. Preparations were right on time.

I would miss my friendly colleagues and our camaraderie, borne out of a kind of shared suffering. I knew that once I left ÖzU, I wouldn’t see them much again, and that pained me. And I felt guilty choosing leisure when they had to work. My array of economic choices was surely undeserved. But then I reminded myself that I hadn’t missed one day of work, not even one hour of teaching during the entire year. I had tried my hardest every class period, and although I hadn’t been a very effective teacher at first, I had listened to advice and I had improved.

I had earned my $28,000.

Finally, one morning as I struggled with an inattentive class, my decision crystallized. Teaching is above all a dance between teacher and students, and students can make or break the experience. Unfortunately mine were disrespectful, inconsiderate, and even disruptive. I would never quite understand why this was the case in such an otherwise courteous country, but I guessed their family wealth made them feel entitled.  I no longer wanted to teach spoiled kids.

Of course some of my students came from humble families and some of them were appreciative. But the image of Deniz strutting across the classroom in thigh-high suede boots trumped that of shy, simply dressed Yildiz. And the sight of Nilgun and Hamza roaring down Kuşbakışı Caddesi in a late-model SUV overpowered that of Recep trudging out of class with a worn backpack slung over his shoulders. I was painting in broad strokes, kind of like the hot pink holiday decorations around me. Kind of like a Grinch.

“And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!

That’s one thing SHE hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!”

Yes! That was the truest true of all. Above all, it was the noise that was driving me away from Ozyegin. The noise from my students, who talked while I talked, and whom I had never been able to quiet nor tame.

And so, feeling as sour as the infamous Seuss villain—and just as eager to force a change—I pressed the GONDER button on a email to big Nergis late one December evening, informing her I wouldn’t be returning for a second year. But first, I called Sankar’s secretary, Didem, who had been of such great help ferreting out job contacts, writing letters, and setting up interviews for me. I wasn’t very eloquent in giving her my reasons, but I did thank her sincerely for her help. And I told her how deeply I had appreciated having the job. I meant it.

As I packed ornaments and bows away, I felt lighthearted. In less than a month I’d be out of the classroom, the Work Caravan to Asia disbanded. Then I could begin the rest of my life in Istanbul.

The post A Grinch-y Christmas appeared first on Sue's Turkish Adventures.

In mid-morning, driver Umit took me to nearby Cevahir (pronounced Je VA hear) mall. To my surprise, he decided to accompany me to pick out Christmas ornaments but first, we paused to look at the mall decorations. The palm trees and poinsettia trim were impressive, but something didn’t feel quite right. Later, after looking at my photos, I realized I felt the same way inside Istanbul’s Hagia Sofia: inordinately tiny. I did some quick research and discovered that, with over a hundred thousand square meters of shopping area, Cevahir is actually twelve times as big as the Aya Sophia. Wow.

Cevahir has six levels of retail shops. Like other Turkish malls, as you ascend, the merchandise becomes more expensive. We stopped at Koctas, a home improvement store on the lowest level, and looked at Christmas decorations. I put some red and silver balls in the cart, and Umit insisted on some hot pink snowflake ornaments,  I mentioned needing a Christmas tree skirt, and I’m not sure Umit understood the concept, but he gamely asked the clerk, who replied that that item had not come in yet.

While waiting in a rather long line to pay, Umit asked me which days of the Christmas season are most important. He listened intently, and then said he thought Christmas encompassed the entire week before January 1.

“Ah, well you’re not alone,” I told him. “Last year at work, people kept wishing me Merry Christmas on the 26^th, 27^th, and 28^th, and I had to keep telling them Christmas was over.”

“Because we don’t know,” he replied. (The biggest Muslim holiday of the year involves nearly a week of observance.)

He then asked about candles, and I replied that yes, we often light candles on Christmas. But then I realized he meant lighting a candle for someone in church. I explained that was a Catholic practice, and he told me that one of his Turkish friends also goes to church and lights candles for people.

We stopped at Migros, a supermarket chain, to ask about tree skirts, but received the same “they haven’t arrived yet” answer. I wondered if that was simply a pat response, a way of saving face in front of a foreigner obviously more knowledgeable about Christmas arcana.

As we walked back into the mall we passed a kiosk selling chocolates, and I noticed a possible stocking stuffer, which I will keep secret. The young woman at the kiosk, her hair wrapped in a beige scarf, greeted us with a smile and handed us each a sample in a tiny cardboard gift box.

We ended up standing and chatting with her. She wanted to know where I was from, and then where exactly in America. Minnesota wasn’t familiar to her, but she said her cousin was studying in Santa Barbara. “Oh, that’s a really good place,” I told her.

“Where should I go in America?” she asked.

Hmm. What to say. “Ah, do you like cold weather?”

She didn’t answer that, but instead began telling me how difficult it was for her to find a job in Istanbul. “My major was broadcasting and communications,” she began. “I call and arrange job interviews without any problem, but when they see me, they tell me they won’t hire me because of my headscarf.”

The three of us talked about the situation for “covered women” in Turkey and in the U.S., and I ended up giving her my business card and telling her to get in touch if she had any more questions. She thanked us, and reached under the counter for a few more chocolate samples.

I walked away pleased, commenting to Umit that I almost never get the chance to talk with headscarfed women.

Umit then went on his way, and I proceeded to make the rounds of stores on each level. Zara Home, a Spanish chain, was playing a jazzy version of Jingle Bells. At British Debenham’s,  I picked up a few men’s items, one with the brand name, “Maine.”

Just after noon I headed up to the fifth level for lunch at a wonderful pide (PEA day) place Angela and I discovered this past summer. Pide is a lot like pizza, only without the tomato sauce, but today I ordered a lamb kavurma sandwich. It involves rich, roasted lamb and chopped up tomatoes, onions and spices in a delicate, crispy bun.

After lunch and more shopping, I stopped at Starbucks.  I had been telling Umit about the coffee chain’s holiday peppermint and pumpkin lattes, but he said he hadn’t seen them. He was right: they weren’t on the menu. I sat down on a velvet upholstered chair and sipped an ordinary latte, munching on the gift chocolates, and listening as a Beach Boys tune and then Frosty the Snowman played. Two Arabic-speaking men sat down at the next table.

My last surprise of the day was wrapping paper in individual sheets at a shop called Notebook. There’s a general dearth of wrapping materials here, and I’ve been hoarding anything that might cover a gift, but most of what I have is shiny, plasticky foil and isn’t at all Christmas-y.

I haven’t quite completed my Christmas “job,” but I’ve made a significant dent. Not a bad day. And not a bad-mood-day at all

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