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Published: November 18th 2012
Adjusting To Life in Izmir Welcome to the chronicles of Eric, the Turkish Traveler!
Welcome back to the continuing story of our new found adventures in the land of Turkey. A lot has happened since my last post, but I’ll try to give you the “Reader’s Digest” version of it.
The first big thing that I’ve accomplished since my last post is that I’ve obtained my Turkish residency permit. This is huge because it means that I am living here legally should I ever be asked to show my papers. This is the equivalent to an American green card and has now taken the place of my passport since the tourist visa on my passport expired 90 days after my arrival.
Campus Life: Campus life is wonderful so far. The work environment is intimate due to the small number of teaching staff and students. This is a new university that is still small but is growing quickly. It now has almost double the number of students from last year. The students are friendly and extremely curious about the yabanci (foreigner). When I first started teaching here, I had
many of them gathered around my desk after class asking me all kinds of questions about America and how well I like Turkey.
Since I began working in June, I have had over one month’s worth of paid holiday time already. The university has an awesome dining room, where the teachers are catered to by a wait staff. The authentic food is prepared by Turkish chefs and is absolutely amazing. The entire experience makes me feel like I am dining in a five-star Turkish restaurant. Oh, yea did I mention that it’s free? In addition, we drink gratis tea (numerous varieties), coffee (Turkish and Nescafe), and gazoz (a sprite like drink) all day long. My students always see me with a cup of cay in my hand.
Unfortunately, I haven’t taken my camera to work yet so I only have a couple of images that were taken during a birthday celebration for one of the English teachers (Franco, who is pictured in the bottom right of one of these images wearing a purple shirt). He’s an Italian-American who lived in New York (hey, nobody’s perfect – just joking Franco – we love ya!).
The only thing that constantly confuses me here are the floor numbers. They start at zero (0) in Turkey instead of one (1), so I’m constantly off by one number as to which floor I’m actually on. I’m starting to get used to it now, but I get disoriented easily in every building I’m in.
Those Crazy Dolmuş Drivers: One thing that every tourist must experience when visiting here is riding on the dolmuş (dole-moo-sh). It is an instant cultural immersion experience that occurs in a close-up and personal manner because of the size of the buses and the type of interaction that takes place on them.
These small buses are designed to seat about fifteen (15) people; however, some of drivers will allow an additional 10-15 people to cram into the aisle way and stand during the trip (hanging onto the rails for dear life as they navigate the curves and hills). If you are unlucky enough to sit at the front of the bus (as I did in the beginning) strangers will constantly hand you change as new passengers board and pass their money to the driver. While this
may be just fine if you are a native, it is most uncomfortable if you don’t speak the language because each time someone hands you money, they explain what their destination is and how many passenger’s it is intended for. Are you kidding me? I can barely say hello in Turkish and now this? I’ll just sit at the back of the bus and pretend to blend in.
The drivers of these buses are indeed a rare and special breed. Not only do they have to be fantastic drivers in order to navigate the overcrowded streets, while avoiding accidents with the other race car drivers who seemingly own the streets here, but they do this while talking on their cell phones and making change for the passengers who are constantly handing them money. I actually saw a driver the other day that was driving with his left elbow because both hands were full. In addition, they have to quickly pull over to the side of the road in just a few seconds notice whenever a passenger tells them that they want to get off, or when a new pedestrian flags them down. WOW! I’m impressed and petrified
at the same time.
On most days I catch my morning bus early (around 07:00 hrs.), hand the driver my money (1.75 TL or about 0.75 cents U.S.) then find a good seat as close to the back of the bus as I can. If I’m lucky no one asks me the time, or any other question that I can’t answer, and my trip goes pretty smooth. My cover is blown however, when I have to speak in order to tell the driver that he has reached my destination (they don’t have pull cords here like the buses back home do). I somehow manage to utter my awkward, “Posta hanedey inejectvar lutfen” (I want to stop at the post office please) and then I notice that most of the bus is now staring at me because my cover has just been blown. Obviously, my accent is pretty thick and it’s painfully apparent that I’m a yabanci (foreigner). The reason for the stares is because although a lot of foreigners visit here, not all that many of them live here, so when the Turks spot one, they are a source of curiosity.
Life’s a Beach: The weather is usually the ultimate small talk topic but I must say that compared to Ohio, the weather here is absolutely amazing. We arrived in Turkey on 18 June 2012 and on 22 OCT it rained for the first time since we arrived. That represents over four solid months of NO RAIN baby! (That’s just since we arrived, who knows how long it had actually been). All through the month of October it was still hot here with temperatures averaging in the upper 80’s during the day and dropping into the low 60’s at night. Now that it’s November the days are still averaging somewhere in the mid-70’s with temperatures dipping down into the upper 40’s to mid-50’s at night. From this Buckeye’s perspective, that ain’t bad at all…in fact, I’ll take it!!!
Lately, we’ve started getting out and exploring our neighborhood a little more, so I’ve managed to bring the camera along a time or two and capture a few images of it. We live in an older part of town and Alev estimates that the buildings here are somewhere around 100 years old or so. They keep adding new buildings and new additions
onto existing old buildings, so it’s a “developing” old neighborhood.
We also decorated our flat finally, so I’ve included a few images of that to show you as well. You will probably notice in the pictures, but to bring a little piece of the U.S. back into our living room we hung a large picture of Manhattan over our dining room table.
My camera and I reached a little milestone last month. On 23 October 2012, I officially took my 10,000
th photograph with my little Canon Rebel. We’ve seen quite a few memorable sites together and, God willing, we’ll continue to see quite a few more before our relationship is over.
House Hunters International finally contacted me and they are interested in my story. We sent them the pictures of our flat and a little ‘introduction’ video, so we’ll see what happens.
A Gathering of Foreigners: Alev and I went to the Yabancılar Şube Müdürlüğü (Foreigners Police Department) in Konak (a nearby town) to apply for my Turkish residency permit and guess who I ran into? Three players for the Ohio State Buckeyes basketball team who were
here on contract to play for the Karsiyaka (the city where we now live) basketball team. What a small world huh? I saw one of the players enter the waiting room wearing an OSU t-shirt and I just had to strike up a conversation with him. He even gave me some advice on how I can watch the OSU football games from here in Turkey. Sweet!
I kinda felt like I was back home for a minute because the lobby of the Police Department was filled with foreigners from across the globe who were living and working in Turkey for one reason or another. Apparently, there are more Americans living in Izmir now than ever before. It’s good to know I’m not the only one (although I never see any other foreigners in my neighborhood).
A few weeks later when we returned to the police department to pick up my residency permit, I met a Turkish friend of ours that we knew from Columbus. He and his family moved here a short time ago and he works at a sister university here in Izmir. Talk about a small world!!!
The Power of English:
During our last visit to the Yabancılar Şube Müdürlüğü (Foreigners Police Department), I noticed an Asian girl sitting by a man of unknown origin. She was filling out some paperwork and had a question that she apparently thought this man could answer, so she asked him in Turkish. He immediately replied, “Do you speak English?” and then the two of them began speaking in English. Witnessing this scenario made me realize just how important English has become on a global scale. It is truly the one international language that is used to bridge the communication gap between people of different countries. What an amazingly powerful concept this is. Since I am an EFL teacher, this fact means even more to me.
The very next day, I experienced yet another situation which reinforced my observation of the importance and power of the English language. While I was riding on the dolmuş I met a man who was a sociology professor from Italy. He was here in Turkey to visit friends and family during the Bayram (pronounced Buy-Rum) Holiday. We were able to communicate by speaking English and we had a wonderful conversation about the upcoming
U.S. presidential election, life in Turkey, life at the university, and a few other topics. It was an extremely pleasant and indelible experience to talk to this educated man who was fluent in three languages. Only our ability to speak English as a common language allowed us to have this unique and meaningful conversation. I reflected once again on this powerful concept and felt overwhelmed by it. It made me realize how important my work here truly is.
The Sacrificial Lamb: Last month I not only observed, but actually participated in my first Kurban Bayram (Core-Ban Buy-Rum) sacrificial feast Holiday. This is a time of remembering the poor and donating meat to poor people who otherwise couldn’t afford to eat it. Each year, all Muslims pay to have a lamb slaughtered, and then they find poor people to donate the meat to. During our slaughter I actually participated and helped to chop up the lamb’s legs and other body parts. Once again, I didn’t have my camera with me so I’m not able to share these images (although I’m not sure you’d want to see them).
These Are a Few of My Favorite Things:
I wanted to briefly mention a few things that I absolutely love about my daily life here. These are small things, but big things if you know what I mean. Two of these are standard in all Turkish homes and should be, but aren’t, in American homes. These are the kind of things that can represent a better quality of life and will be sorely missed the day I decide to leave here.
The first thing that is standard in all Turkish homes is the tankless hot water heater. This system uses a small box to regulate the hot water temperature instead of a large hot water heater, which can leak and takes a long time to fill and heat if you have a large family taking showers, etc. They do have these in America as well, but they certainly aren’t standard and can be quite expensive to install.
The second thing that is standard in all Turkish homes is the bidet that comes pre-installed from the factory on all toilets here. I quickly adjusted to this little gadget and we have become best friends. I also like the way the toilet
drainage system is designed to be much larger with not as many bends in the pipes. The design of these toilets is extremely conducive to not clogging, which is a wonderful break from my routine back home. In our old condo I had three plungers, one for each bathroom, whereas here I don’t even need one.
I discovered my new favorite Turkish fish: Palamut (Paul-o-moot). It comes from the Black Sea Region and is a salty fish containing noticeably fewer bones than any other fish I’ve eaten here. It is the most amazing fish I’ve had since Golden Pompano (we used to buy this at the Chinese market by Microcenter in Columbus). Unfortunately, palamut is only a seasonal fish that you can only get once a year for a couple of months. I guess in a way this makes it even more special.
I also discovered that my favorite Turkish sweet bread is called Haşhaşli (pronounced Hush-Hush-Luh). It’s called Hashish bread because it’s made from poppy seeds. I almost died laughing when I learned this. Of course it’s my favorite! If you have one of these along with a few cups of Turkish coffee
in the morning, then you’ll be in a great mood all day!
Well, I think that’s all the rambling I’m going to do for now. As I get time, I intend to travel as much as I can and capture whatever interesting landscape comes my way. Thanks for visiting me again and stay tuned for more details of my daily life in Izmir.
Please view all of the photos I have included on this post. I can only fit 11 photos into the content of the article, but I have posted several more along with this.
Thanks for reading,
Eric, the Turkish Traveler.
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Sherri VanTassel
non-member comment
Thanks for sharing
Eric What a fabulous story you have to share and I so appreciate you giving me a glimpse into your adventure. Please keep us informed as your new life continues to take shape. What an opportunity.