Not helping things...

I was reading this week that Turkey is using thermal cameras in airports, scanning international travelers who enter the country as part of their entry/passport control procedures. The effort is to detect those infected with swine flu, whose feverish symptoms are easily recognizable in the camera.

Libertarian concerns aside, I think it's a neat idea for finding infected people, ensure that they are treated, and containing the spread of a deadly disease.

Similar cameras are in use at the Bulgarian and Greek border crossings.

A colleague traveled to London, over the weekend, and so I asked her about the entry procedure. As she explained, there are two lines for passport control, one for Turkish nationals and another for foreign nationals. The line for foreign nationals was apparently backed up for hours, because each individual entering through this path had to pass through one of the cameras. However, it is a lucky time for Turks. They don't have to deal with the uncomfortable wait, long lines, or the thermal cameras: the only people being scanned, before entry into Turkey, are those who do not possess a Turkish passport and ID card.

I can only speculate, but the logic must run something akin to: Turkish people are Muslims and Muslims don't eat pork. Thus, Turkish people can't have been exposed to swine flu.

Knee deep in 'Bul...

The suffering from jet-lag lasted through Friday, which is to be expected, and the return to Istanbul has been otherwise rocky, with visa responsibilities and such. We have furniture in our living room, so be looking for pictures in the next few weeks. My school is still crazy (no surprise). The weather is unusually warm, for February, and I've gotten the bike out again. I'm getting back into the rhythm of life abroad, and there's only one nagging problem...

I am having difficulty weening myself from the excesses of the past two weeks. In fact, I think they may finally have broken me down, as I sit here with a lung and tonsil infection, and a rather high fever.

Isn't the road to wisdom paved in excess?

I'm estimating some of these, but the numbers for Sean's two weeks in America break down roughly so:

2,978.6 miles driven

12 tanks of gas ≈ 120 gallons

≈ 4.5 gallons of beer (good stuff too, and PBR)

1 cigarette

14 slices of pizza

7 pancakes

3 plates of hashbrowns, eggs over medium, and some greasy meat

7 egg/cheese biscuits

a milkshake the size of my head

1 salsa lesson

7 places slept (including the car)

1 car battery killed
1 car towed

2 episodes of Gossip Girl watched

I missed the USA.

I also discovered a few things that I didn't think I would miss... among them, TELEVISION! While I've been gone, TV made radical improvements, and Veronica Mars and The Wire have dominated much of my sick-leave. I know it's old stuff, but who can really expect me to keep up on trends. Better to wait for the DVD anyhow, which offers hours of instant gratification, as I lay shivering in my bed.

Being on the road as much as we were, I observed a lot that I wasn't prepared for. The state of the economy is showing, or at least seems to be. I was shocked at the condition of the roads, which reminded me of Istanbul's, and New York's subway was pretty assed-out. Also, the people in gas stations were no longer peers (as they were years ago when I worked in such an establishment). Rather, the folks behind the registers were consistently older, over 30 and maybe even 40. I also distinctly remember a kinder gentleman in his 50s, who delivered a Dominos pizza to us at a friend's home.

That's probably the most alienating experience I've had, since moving abroad: realizing that I am doing very well, while our people suffer.

Here's hoping that people get organized...

Re-entry...

I'll be coming back to the United States in a week, along with a room mate, for a two week whirl-wind trip to visit EVERYBODY. As we ate lunch yesterday, we started to rattle off a list of the things we missed and looked forward to. I pressed my memory to remember as many of those things as I could below:

A cooked bird
Stuffing
Hash Browns
Waffles
Filtered Coffee
Milk Shakes
The Greasy Diner
Thai Food
Options other than Turkish cuisine
Making fun of Democrats
Driving
Infrastructure
Grids (City Planning)
Personal Space
People not caring about our behavior
Guiness
Red Stripe
Being funny
Being understood
Talking to girls

I'm excited to be heading home.

I'm not smoking cigarettes...

... this year.

In the tradition of recycling New-year's resolutions (in 2007 and 2008, I resolved to brush my teeth three times a day), I've decided that the cigarette I smoked the morning of January 1st is my last for the year. Since I wasn't smoking that much to begin with, this is more like an extended Lent, as I'm giving up a pleasure and less an addiction.

Turkey is the reason I smoke at all, and a testament both to the power of peer pressure and nostalgia. The conniving, insidious Turk, is always ready to offer their cigarettes to others: leaving them on tabletops to be plucked at will, offering them with glasses of tea, and insisting that the always-within-reach pack be shared. Also, and I know non-smokers won't understand this, a cigarette ties together the experience of a full Turkish meal quite nicely.

Three years ago, my friends Gregg, Mahir, and I, took a trip to the south-east of Turkey, hitchhiking our way around. You meet a lot of people that way, and Turks are probably friendlier than most Americans are either used to or able to fully appreciate. This "Turkish hospitality" often involves offering whatever is available to be offered: tea, food, wall decorations (true story), or smokes. After a week on the road, I had mostly filled an empty pack, graciously taking the gifted cigarettes and storing them away. After that week, I just started trying to smoke them, and thus, another bad habit was born!

I've never been more than a pack a month smoker, and often much less, but the considerable body of evidence showing how bad smoking is for me, and the mysterious cold I've had of late, have led me to abandon the practice... for now.

I haven't been put to task yet, but temptation will surely be a problem the next time I sit down for mezze and fish, reach for my rakı, and watch all my friends light up.

To be honest, just thinking about the experience makes me a little sad that I've taken the vow.

Maybe I'll just try to keep the number of cigarettes I smoke this year under twenty or so...

Moving Sucks...

Road Trip!

We had the week off from work, to spend celebrating the end of Ramadan... or to do something cool, like traveling. In the last two weeks, I considered no less than six destinations: Athens, Belgrade, Chicago, Mardın, Marseilles, and New York.

We went to Edirne!



Just three hours north of Istanbul, getting to Edirne was as easy as swiping a Turkish room mate's car (he was out of town with family), rousing the riffraff, and hitting the long, empty highway.

My friends, Kristen and Henry, had business to attend to (renewing their tourist visas by passing into Greece, and then coming back), so Gregg and I dropped them off and made arrangements for a place to drink and another to stay.

Here are some pictures, courtesy of Gregg:

Henry and I enjoy Turkish börek, starchy potatoes wrapped in greasy, flaky pastry.

Kristen reacts to something Gregg said....

Turkish 4-wheeled people carrier.

Gregg and the Prophet, Muhammad (peace be upon him).

This image is here for no other reason than to satisfy Orientalists.

It was really great to travel, though Edirne can only be described as "quaint". Despite my fascination (or lack thereof) with the city, I still realize that there is something therapeutic about such mindless doffing about as we experienced in Edirne.

Destinations be damned, I need movement to really be happy!

Thanks, Elwood.

This evening, as the sun was setting over the western Taurus Mountains, I took a sailboat out on the Mediterranean Sea. It was just a little Lazer, a learner's boat, but it was damn fun!

I haven't been sailing in about four years, when my sister and I took out my uncle's MC-Scow, and proceeded to capsize it multiple time on a blustery day at Cross Lake, in Shreveport, LA. The scow is a squirrely boat, unlike other sailing vessels. Designed with a flat bottom, the pilot is supposed to keep the thing on one keel or the other, for maximum effect.

Anyhow, that was a learning day.

I really learned to sail in a Sunfish on Lake Mauvaisterre, back in Jacksonville, and did a good deal more of it in Copper Harbor, MI, where Elwood and I lived and worked during the summer of 2000. It was mostly Elwood who taught me to sail, so, thanks.

Today's was a new experience. The Mediterranean was especially choppy (apparently, an Agean storm has things stirred up), but the wind was not fast, a steady 6 knots, and I puttered around for about an hour, as far from the coast as I dared venture.

No disco music.
No Russians in tacky bathing outfits.
No absurd job.

Bliss.

I was really rusty though. It's amazing how poorly a person can remember something that they never really learned to do confidently. I breezed of the dock, looked really good doing so, and didn't have any problems until I was about a half kilometer from shore, attempting my first tack. It went so poorly, that I decided to head upwind, and make a long series of close reaches and a lot of tacks for practice. Elwood and I had always tried to milk speed out of our boats, which was really hard in J'ville. Anyhow, the knack came back, and I began to get the hang of dealing with the waves and how to predict what pitching and rolling would do to my speed and direction.

I started to get... confident.

I had been heading southwest, for about a kilometer, and decided to turn around. I set myself up for a long, downwind tack, back in the direction the resort. I was feeling good, smart, and once I began heading east, decided to practice jibing. You know, just to get the hang of it, again.

In my life, I've taken three women out in a boat: my mother, my sister, and my first girlfriend, Kate Nelson. Jibing, a maneuver in which the stern (back) of the boat passes through the source of the wind as it turns, has always been a challenge for Sean. Pulling it off with an extra person consistently proved a disaster, and each of those women I share love with ended up in the water.

Not exactly proud moments.

Like I said though, it was just me, and I was feeling smart.

Of all the things Elwood taught me, knots, maneuvering, reading the wind, the love of sailing...

...today, I am most grateful he taught me how to right a boat.

False cognates...

My job has taken me away from Istanbul, again, after a four day visit which involved a job interview sandwiched between visits to the Istanbul Police Office (where I applied for and received a residency permit).

Still not sure if I got the job.

I should talk about the residency application process, sometime, but this isn't the post where I want to complain about Turkey's bureaucratic difficulties of Ottoman proportions. I'll just say, I was glad my friends Gregg and Emrah came along. Their commentary made the affair a good deal more fun.

Monday, I took the midnight flight to Antalya (48 minutes), was received by a bewildered driver at the airport ("Sean" sounds distinctly feminine, when Turkish logic is applied to the phonemes. Read it "se-an"), was then driven to Club Salima (50 KM from the Antalya airport), and by 2:30 was settling into my room at a Mediterranean resort.

I was excited!

The veil of expectations, however, was lifted the following morning. Although waking up to the sounds of children, blowing whistles and singing to club music, at 10 AM (which is an early hour, these days), didn't do much for my confidence in a pleasant stay, I think it was a scantily clad, obese Russian family that finally enervated my hopes.

At Club Salima, I'm that guy who thinks the whole place is retarded (or insane, or absurd), and who invariably (I try not to!) exhibits disdain in every movement, spoken phrase, or dip in the sea.

I'm reminded of Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation, because that is exactly how I feel.

It's been four days. I've gotten to know several of the staff, all good people who seem to have had their nerves frayed by a summer of working with the globe's neediest population: tourists. I've also met some Russian college kids, and though they don't speak any English, they were excited when I smiled at them, said "I like Russia", and gave them a thumbs-up. That, and I bought several rounds of vodka for the lot of 'em (and then suffered the worst hangover in years).

Today really tied it all together. Another beach-goer had seen me speaking Turkish with the staff, and then correctly surmised that I wasn't from around here. This Turkish man was doing his best to figure out what I was doing at a resort for Russians, Italians, and Germans, and tried a little of all three languages before settling into Turkish.

He asked me if I was an animatör.

I didn't understand, what could give him the impression that my line of work involved drawing, much less drawing cartoons. So, I offered him the side-to-side head shake and shrug, which in Turkish means, "I don't understand".

Again, "are you an animator? Do you do animation here at the resort?"

I told him "no", but also asked that he explain. The mimes that this request provoked took me off guard, as the man began jumping from side to side, jazz-hands in the air, smiling like a fool.

Then he said "animation man", several times, and it clicked.

A Turkish animatör is an entertainer.

"My hands smell like poop."

Expatriate life involves new and exciting experiences for many of the most mundane of daily tasks. I've said before, that the main reason I travel is the puzzle that a new country presents for everyday tasks: using the post office, ordering food, asking directions, brushing my teeth, and yes, using the toilet.

Two friends and I kicked it up a notch, though, in the summer of 2005. We took a cross-Turkey hitch-hiking trip. It was a blast. I have no idea how many kilometers we covered, but if I ever find the map I kept, I'll try to post the route we took. I've linked a map of Turkey, so folks can at least get an idea of the scale. We started in Istanbul, and finished there, having visited Nevşehir, Malatya, Hasan Keyf (not shown), Urfa, Mardin, Batman (no joke, check the map), Tatvan, and then some other obscure places: Doğubeyazıt and Çalderon (basically, this place was Iran), before Diyarbakır, whence we took the train to the 'Bul.

Instead of the full three-week narrative, I'll put this out there in pieces, and I'll try to consult my friends to get up some pictures up, too.

This is a story from Mardin.

By the time we arrived there, we had been traveling for about ten or twelve days, and we had been exposed to a number of new foods, many truck stops, and less than sanitary conditions. We were all ill with something, and I was taking my turn with a stomach illness.

An Istanbullu friend had insisted we contact his family in Mardin, when we got there. On the day in question, a brother-in-law was giving us a tour of a Syrian Orthodox church, The Fourty Martyr's Church (click here for a crappy panoramic tour).

When I see churches in Europe, 'opulent', 'excessive', and 'huge', are all words that come to mind. I hear the message they tried to send to the infidel:

"Our God is a really, really big God, and he can squish you."

On the other hand, this church is older, by about five hundred years, than the oldest that I saw in Christendom. It spoke to me that day, three years ago, a message about community, tolerance, peace, and clean bathrooms.

I excused myself from our tour and entered the immaculately white-tiled restroom. Windows, carved into the rock above, illuminated the interior, and while walking through, the contrast of light and shadow danced in the room and from the mirrors. I checked each stall, as I am prone to do with an upset stomach, and found that there were no European-style toilets.

This was a squatty-potty day and it would be messy.

Diarrhea doesn't negotiate, really, so I counted myself lucky to have found a tiled hole, measured against the very real alternative of shitting my pants.
Skipping the details, lets just say I was happy to have gotten up and out of that situation having only soiled my hands. There wasn't any toilet paper, and if you check the picture, you'll notice the faucet at about knee-height next to the toilet. That's a pretty typical feature in Turkish toilet facilities, the idea being that water is cleansing. Indeed it is, and even though I had a wet bum, the alternative was, again, far more uncomfortable. I find that I am often willing to accept a poor option when the only alternative is a horrifying option. Given my overall feeling of discomfort and ickyness, I was really looking forward to a good hand-scrubbing.

I have a former room mate that consistently pointed out to me, that Europeans use paper on their backsides and that this doesn't clean everything. He always joked about European people, referring to them as "shitty-asses". It was cute, and I never bothered to mention that the bidet has a silent "t" because it is a French invention. In any event, water is a big part of Turkish backside-cleansing culture. Use a squatty-potty often enough, and one can learn to enjoy the intimate interaction with one's 'down-theres' that the quest for true cleanliness entails.

As I approached the sink, my heart, dare I say it, felt as though it had been flushed. In front of me were five immaculate sinks (again, there was the light and all that). Each sink had a soap dish, carved into the marble counter, and above each, on the wall, were attached plastic soap dispensers.

All shone with that shiny newness that accompanies never having held soap.

My first good haircut in Turkey...

... was followed immediately by my worst, by about six weeks.

I wish I had a camera to show it off, but then, I was actually so embarrassed by it, that I took the long way back to the hotel, through an alley from the barber's, and then, a construction site. I doubt it would have occurred to me to take a picture. I have found a limit to my self-deprecating sense of irony.

I don't know why I can't get a good haircut here, generally, because I have the vocab and always explain what I want. In June, I went to a place near the hotel, and felt dumb for doing so when I was charged 20 YTL for the cut. On reflection, in the mirror, I realized that the barber had done a perfect job: not too short, not cut like a soldier's hair, layered on the sides, reasonable bangs... it was... nice to look at, fitting my personal aesthetic and demanding no attention whatsoever.

Until, it needed to be cut again.

I figured, I had gotten what I paid for, the haircut I wanted.

Never before had I had that in Turkey. I even once cut my hair myself, with a beard trimmer, because I couldn't rationalize paying 5 YTL for another Amerıkalı saç tıraşı, the 'American haircut', the one that makes me look like I'm a Marine. Lately, I've been in the habit of fixing each trim at home with the same beard trimmer.

Nothing against Marines... I just don't want to look like one.

This, I always thought should be simple, but over and over again, I got the same result, no matter what I asked from a barber. If I insisted my hair be kept long, or asked for "just a trim off the top", the result was always the same. Sometimes, barbers would even sneak up on me, and achieve the crew-cut effect with scissors, what the electric clippers could do in a quarter of the time. Just so long as they gave me the Amerıkalı saç tıraşı, which must be what they thought I really wanted, even though I never said it.

Thus, I was so happy with my haircut of eight weeks ago, that I returned to the same barber, fully prepared to pay another 20 YTL. I don't care if that's too much, or even if they were ripping me off. You must understand, in my quest to maximize utility, my lowered expectations had finally found an appropriate balance of price and quality.

Something went wrong...

The barber who had cut my hair previously was busy, but we made eye contact on my arrival. I read in his gaze that I could trust the other barber to do the same, fine job he had done, the job I would ask for after sitting down, and the job this new barber actually began doing. In fact, it is the same, fine job, of the first barber, but with a tragic or ironic twist.

Actually, with a totally tragic faux-hawk twist.

One must understand, the Turkish barber shop culture is about comfort. The barber didn't just trim my hair. He shampooed and conditioned my hair, twice. He massaged my face and shoulders with lemon cologne. He lulled me into a sense of security, a feeling of comfort, and I let down my guard. Then, while my eyes were closed, he attacked me with hair gel, a blow drier, and then hairspray.

Having not used 'product' on my hair, since high school, I thought, "let's see how the pros do it".

There is a logical fallacy in abdicating one's habitually simple desires to the whims of 'experts'. These same experts lead the way in fashion trends that I never follow, advertising campaigns for products I never buy, and are the same people who brought us Crystal Pepsi.

The mistake was short-lived. Though I didn't have the courage to tell the barber to wash it all out, ten minutes later, I was in my hotel room doing just that.

Getting what you want, even if it isn't that complicated, can truly be an adventure in a foreign country. From now on, I'm trusting my hair to the beard trimmer.

The People I Meet When I Travel: The King of Bahrain

OK, so that's a lie, I didn't actually meet the king of Bahrain.

I did, however, become wildly inebriated within fifty feet of him.

I did not know he was there.

I was waiting for him to arrive, and my buddies were late pointing out that I'd missed him coming in.

Basically, I popped down to the hotel lobby because there was a lot of noise in front of the hotel. I was with two of the military intel people that help me pass the time, so I figured, "what the hell, let's see what this is all about".

There was quite an entourage. Security people kept wandering in, slowly. Some were dressed like tourists, except for their funny earpieces. Others had their suits. As more of these folks began to arrive, the lobby bar slowly cleared out, until only myself and my two pals were left. I actually missed his entrance because I went to the little boy's room.

If we were expected to leave, nobody said anything. Some security people just sat down next to us at the bar. I hope these people understood English, cause it would be nice to think that someone from the king's crew could follow our jibes.

Everyone comes from a birth canal, and each of those is pretty special, in its own right. So, I'm not about to regard someone who came from a 'royal' birth canal as particularly unique. Certainly, I'm not about to give any person absolute power on the basis that the birth canal from whence they were delivered is superior to those of other mortals.

In the case of King Hamad ibn Isa al-Khalifah, he was actually the emir of Bahrain, up until he changed his title to king. So much for divine right. Abandoning one's own ridiculous absolutist customs for those of the European middle-ages may, at first glance, seem desirable. Let's be honest though, everybody can see through what you're doing, and they still think you're a dick for it.

The ceremony with which the king departed the lobby drove the point home, for me. Everybody in the lobby stood (that is, everybody except me and the remaining intel guy). There were two rows of dignitaries, military men, and security, through which the king proceeded, on his way down to the hotel club. I couldn't see him until he was very close, and learning why had a pronounced effect on my reaction.

When I saw that the king comes up to about my shoulder, and has a striking resemblance to Ron Jeremy, well, I choked on my beer and began coughing... loudly.

The People I Meet When I Travel: Military Intelligence, The Translator

This sub-series of The People I Meet When I Travel will need to be broken down. There are twenty or thirty military intelligence people living in the hotel, somewhere above me. I've only spoken with some of them, I only know what one of them does, and, well, as is the nature of their work, I'm not really sure I know enough to write about.

They are fun to drink with, though.

As happens, when you combine alcohol and people, a chemical reaction takes place that can be observed in a person's increased comfort with their surroundings; inhibitions are reduced, laughter and merriment are easily achieved, and people talk more readily about what's on their mind.

I won't learn anything classified from these folks, cause they are, well, professionals. Also, I won't learn what they are doing here, or why their mission is a short-term one (Nov. 2007- Nov. 2008).

They do bitch about work though, about bosses (which are generals, in this case), about co-workers (I've met some of them, and yes, there are insane people in uniform), and about the logic of their mission.

Saturday night I got lit with the translator. He's an American, who went to high school in Turkey, knows Turkish fluently, and then returned to the states to attend the Air Force Academy. Much respect. Dennis is a husky guy, reddish hair, freckled skin, and when he speaks Turkish, it sounds like Ankara people speaking Turkish... so, it's a little weird to watch (as I imagine it must be weird when I speak).

He knows the language and the culture, and Turkish women, and he's great company because we can joke about all three. Dennis can also share anecdotes about the embarrassing ways that the American military, when it doesn't consult him, puts its proverbial 'foot' in it, while trying to accomplish some task requiring Turkish and American cooperation.

Something Dennis notices often, is the way Americans try to reward a job well-done, by a Turkish counterpart. Military operations have a number of local support staff, and sometimes, personnel want to express their gratitude to the natives. People's hearts are in the right place, the execution, however, leaves much to be desired. He explains:

I look over and Janet is pressing a twenty YTL bill into the hands of this hotel waitress, as she stands alongside two co-workers. Then, Janet just walks away, leaving the other wait staff hanging. Those were all people we see everyday., and all three had been serving our group that evening. AWKWARD!

What gets me, is that I'm the cultural/linguistic advisor. I write memos on this shit and circulate them through the office. I helped develop a whole protocol for appropriately acknowledging the good work of our Turkish support staff. I know the culture, and the language, and one might think that my area of expertise matters, but obviously, people can't be fucked to read that shit, and the result is that we look like we're out to award servility. This kind of thing is dangerous, it attracts greedy people, makes us look like snobs, and it smacks of the behavior of empire builders. Just, give 'em a fucking certificate or something, but stop tossing tax-payer money around!

I tend to agree.

Dennis is the only fluent Turkish speaker on staff with his office. He is also the only person there who has lived in Turkey for any amount of time. Next week he goes home, and there isn't anyone coming here to fill his shoes.

George Carlin introduced a list of oxymora to his stand-up act, and along with Jumbo Shrimp there was Military Intelligence.

I tend to agree with him, too.

The People I Meet When I Travel: The Turkish Envoy to Iraq

I met the Turkish envoy to Iraq on a flight to Ankara from Istanbul, in May. We were sitting next to each other, and when I noticed him reading an English newspaper, I struck up a conversation. I don't know what I said to get it started, and I never remember, so whenever I find myself in a situation to start talking with someone, I usually don't know what to say. I lucked out, anyhow, cause once he got his turn to speak, it turned into a mini-lecture, and I was saved all the effort of actually having to talk, or think about how fast an object free-falls.

He was on his way back to the capital from Baghdad, where he said the security situation was "improving". He and his staff never felt at risk, but it had taken time to get used to gun shots and explosions... which were a daily occurrence.

I didn't learn anything that research wouldn't turn up, but he had this matter-of-fact manner for describing the role of Turkey, vis-à-vis US foreign policy towards Iraq. He used terms like "mediator" and "intermediary" and "alternative voice", and discussed very honestly how Turkey's policy cues and talking points come largely from Washington. Perhaps, if he'd known the term, "step-and-fetch" would have been among them.

"Your State Department," he said, "needs Turkish diplomats to assert much of their agenda, because Iraqi's are growing tired of the American presence. It is an occupation, after all, and it helps if we can step in to make it look and feel less like that."

Iraq needs a lot of help, and Turkey has been doing a great deal of that, under the direction of the United States. He indicated that this kind of diplomacy was, obviously, very helpful for furthering Turkey's relations with their southern neighbor.

I assume there are additional, unspoken advantages, for both Turkey and the United States. I don't know what they are. I speculate, however, that one reason the House of Representatives abandoned its efforts to recognize the 'Armenian Question', as it's called in Turkey, as a genocide, has to do with our present interests in the region.

If the gentleman's demeanor was any indication, the Turkish government can do some serious bargaining with the US on a number of fronts. He seemed to feel pretty good about that.

My trip to Bulgaria...

This was written on March 26, of this year. I am posting this here because it so accurately characterizes many of my previous travel experiences in Turkey, and it does so from the perspective of having anticipated the trip's failure (which was, at the time, a first). I'll make an effort to post a, yet unwritten, follow-up of the actual trip.

26.03.2008, 11:27

Those of you who knew that I was going to Bulgaria this morning will find it odd that I've already completed a story about the trip. Here's the secret to my celerity: I missed my bus.

Actually, the service shuttle, that should have taken me to the bus station, left me behind.

This morning is one that started yesterday evening with the prediction, to my room mate Emrah, that I would "wait in the appointed place, at the appointed time" and still miss the shuttle, which would be both late and somewhere else. This sort of thing happens often enough, to me, that I've become good at predicting not merely that something will go wrong, but also the manner in which it will go wrong.

In fact, I even explained to Emrah, that there would be an argument with the driver, or the person who issued my ticket, or someone else, who would tell me that I had misunderstood/been late/been in the wrong place... which is to say, that I was wrong, and not the people or person who gave me poor instructions or didn't show up on time. Blaming the victim is popular in Turkey, too.

So, at 7:20, with all the optimism of a person heading to Bulgaria for three hours, and a packed lunch and books I wouldn't read, and looking forward to falling asleep as soon as I was on board, I waited across the street from the Boğaziçi University South Campus gate. This is important, because last night, both the person who issued my ticket and myself spoke to the service shuttle driver, and we each confirmed twice (four times total) that the shuttle would pick me up across the street from the Boğaziçi University South Campus gate at 7:20.

At 7:25, I knew that I would not be picked up and that I would miss my bus. It wasn't fatalism or pessimism, but experiential knowledge informed by many missed buses, only a few of which I can claim responsibility for.

Still I waited. Despite knowing I was stuck, I chose hope, and remained at the corner, across from the Boğaziçi University South Campus gate for another ten minutes. This impulse to reject one's fate is, perhaps, one of the more peculiar features of the human experience (I could, but prefer not to, cite a list starting with Global Warming and the Iraq War, but alas, time). I waited, consciously yielding to the Fates, but also having no other course of action in mind.

I was also pissed. I never have fun when I'm right about something... which is to say that I am right about only the wrong things.

At 7:35, I dabbled in reversing destiny. Also, I had gotten bored of waiting and knew I would be awake for several more hours (I'm not a morning person, so this is a rare day). I ran home, had Emrah call the bus company, and we both spoke to a man yelling about the shuttle, that it definitely passed Boğaziçi University, but that I shouldn't be waiting there anyway, because the service shuttle leaves from a place nearby there, a "yazı hane", which is a local bureau office. I should emphasize the yelling and the tone, both of which implied that I was a fool, but were additionally difficult to understand. It was at this point that I began to feel victimized.

On Emrah's advice (which I love, because he uses the phrase "As much as I know..." to introduce facts about which he is unsure, although they are almost always correct) I sought out the departure point for the MetroTurizm shuttle bus, and found only a sign and an empty parking spot. The place is less than 100 meters from South Campus, but it is in no way across from the gate, nor visible from there. On the way there, I think I saw the MetroTurizm shuttle disappearing around a bend... can't be too sure though. I jumped at every shuttle that came by this morning, which was a lot of jumping. Shuttles exist for schools and companies and large workplaces, and it seems all of them use the same orange and blue logos and have the word "Turizm" written on them somewhere.

I called the bus company again, with my last phone credits. They connected me to the same man I had spoken with before, who I thought was the shuttle driver. In a breath, he was yelling at me again, and I realized something: When an adult yells at me I really don't like it, because I both feel I'm being treated like a child, and also that the person is absurd (and therefore, probably wrong about whatever information or situation has led them to yell). When I'm yelled at in a foreign language, however, these feelings are coupled with the knowledge that I probably won't understand what is said, and that I am also helpless to have any good comeback or means to assert myself. In Turkish, I can jump from polite, daily language, to swears that Turkish sailors don't use, but I lack the acceptable middle-ground for this sort of a situation.

So, I just got louder and told the man not to speak to me that way, and to stop yelling. At the same time, I thought about the various curses I learned at Beşiktaş matches, things to say about his mother and her affinity for the village donkeys and traveling bands of gypsies. It ended up, that telling him not to yell was sufficient to sate my ego.

I hung up the phone, and got on a city bus heading for Taksim. I figured that, while I was awake, getting my ticket changed would be wise. When the bus got to Beşiktaş, it occurred to me that, rather than go all the way to Taksim, I could go into the office there, which is exactly what I did once I peeled myself out of the bus (rush hour gets crowded here).

The man behind the desk was on the phone, and he had a familiar voice and manner. When he got off the phone, I began my rehearsed explanation for needing a new ticket. He cut me off to clarify that I needed a new ticket, and asked if I was coming from Etiler. At about the same moment, we both realized that we had each yelled at the other over the telephone.

He began yelling about the "yazı hane" before I could react. Taken off guard, and now face to face with the man who had harshed my traveler's mojo, I did something uncharacteristic. I started humbly explaining that this was no way to speak to customers, much less foreign guests of his country. In fact, I asked if he always yelled at people this way. I went on to say that I had spoken with the driver the night before, and been in the right place at the right time, that I didn't want his explanations because I had found the "yazı hane", and I just wanted the same ticket for the next day.

He stopped yelling, became polite and, more importantly, quiet, and issued my ticket.

It all happened in Turkish, haltingly, but still, it felt pretty damn good.

Tomorrow morning, at 7:20, I'll be leaving from the Etiler bureau office by a service shuttle to the central bus station. I'll tell you about it when I get back.