Culture shock means...

~ it suddenly feels like every person on the bus makes a point of touching me
~ all 15 million+ people in the city are staring at me
~ my heart races every time i have to pay a bill, make a phone call, buy anything, ask a question
~ i leave my house full of joy and 5 minutes down my street i'm frustrated again
~ the grass is greener in America
~ no matter how grammatically perfect i say something, no one will understand me, EVER
~ if it can go wrong, it will
~ mini bus drivers are in a conspiracy to kill me
~ every smoker in the city is trying to blow their smoke in my face

Ok, ok, so most of these are a bit exaggerated. But I'm definitely at that point in a different culture where the way I perceive things are not always the reality. Sometimes it is, but not usually. Thankfully I'm a child of the one true God who can beat culture shock and false perception. This world is not my home anyway...not even beautiful, perfect America. :-)

Tagged

Now that I've been tagged twice, I guess I'll comply. Peer pressure... :-)

four jobs i've had:
1. American Eagle sales associate
2. Optician
3. Surgical/clinic nurse
4. Church receptionist

four movies i've watched more than once:
1. Moulin Rouge
2. The Princess Bride
3. Gone With the Wind
4. The Money Pit

four places i've lived:
1. Istanbul, Turkey
2. Chicago, Illinois
3. Breckenridge, Colorado
4. Fort Worth, Texas

four tv shows i watch:
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. Cemberimde Gul Oya
3. the office
4. Chuck

four places i've been:
1. Cologne, Germany
2. Bregenz, Austria
3. Paris, France
4. Antalya, Turkey...favorite place in Turkey, so far!

four of my favorite foods:
1. french fries
2. chicken parmesan
3. Dad's grilled venison
4. bbq brisket

four things i'm looking forward to in the coming year:
1. visiting America!!
2. seeing Angela in Paris!! (and Chris, too, of course)
3. boat trip to Black Sea
4. seeing my Turkish improve

four friends i'm tagging:
1. Sherry Stout
2. Allison Brake
3. Heather Speigel
4. Rebecca Alexander

Intercontinental moving

So here's how the move went down yesterday. Raise your hand if you've moved from Asia to Europe in one day. :-) Raise your hand if this is not the first time you've done it. :-)

8:30 -- leave house to ride bus for 30 minutes to new neighborhood

9:00 -- sit and wait 20 minutes for friend to come clean new apartment

9:30 -- go to store to buy cleaning products

9:45 -- get keys from landlady upstairs and make major cultural and language mistakes, fun times!

10:00 -- finally leave new neighborhood in Europe to go to Asian neighborhood to let the moving guys in. HUGE thanks to Steve,
for already being over there since 10 was the appointment time

10:15 -- get off metro to wait 15 more minutes to catch 1 bus to Asia in order to catch another bus that will take me to the right place

11:00 -- FINALLY arrive only an hour late

1:00 -- get back on a bus to meet the movers on the other side, the European side, that is

1:45 -- walk very fast from the bus stop because the movers are already there and waiting

2:00-2:30 -- fight with the moving guys about how I actually want my furniture to be placed. more of a friendly "discussion" you might say. again, thanks to Steve for his mad "discussion" skills.

4:00 -- finished, for the day. more to be moved the next day

Ahh, life in Istanbul.

Olive, anyone?

One of the many reasons Istanbul is so interesting is it's use of merchandise districts. One street sells nothing but lamps. Another sells only rugs. And another will be plumbing supplies or veggies or meat, or in this case, olives. As long as you know where the particular area is that sells what you need, you can check 10 different stores all on one block to find the best one to suit your need.

Cultural tidbit from mymerhaba.com

Today my friends here in Turkey are celebrating Mevlid Kandili. Here is some info on this holiday:

The story of Kandil
The five holy evenings on the Muslim calendar are called Kandil.
During the Ottoman Empire Sultan Selim II of 16th century lit candles
on the minarets of the mosques in order to announce these holy nights
to the public. Since this calendar is calculated with the revolution
of the moon around the earth the dates of the Kandils differ every
year.
Mevlid Kandili - The birth of Prophet Mohammad (March 19, 2008)
Regaip Kandili - The beginning of the pregnancy of Prophet Mohammad's
mother (July 3, 2008)
Miraç Kandili - Prophet Mohammad's rising to sky (July 29, 2008)
Berat Kandili - The forgiveness of the sins (August 16, 2008)
Kadir Gecesi - The Koran's first appearance to Prophet Mohammad
(September 26, 2008)

These nights Muslims usually worship and sing Mevlit, a poem written
for the birth of Prophet Mohammad. Kandils were holy days when young
members visited the older members of the family, however today the
Kandil greetings are made with phone calls. Some restaurants serving
alcoholic beverages may be closed at Kandils. Most of the pastry shops
and bakery sell Kandil Simidi (special small crispy bread ring strewn
with or without sesame seeds). In some apartments the neighbors hand
out helva (a special Turkish dessert made of semolina or flour) or
lokma tatlısı (again a special Turkish dessert made of fried dough
with syrup).

Chicken, Sheep, and M&M's

As I've said before, transporting around the city is never dull here. Today was definitely no exception. I was hanging out in a district of the city that is pretty far away from where I live, so I decided rather than taking a slow bus, I would take a dolmus(dole-moosh): shared taxi, home. Although getting home fast was my desired intent, I soon regretted that desire.

As we sped around curves, jerking this way and then the other, we came to a 4 lane, busy city street. The traffic was backed up pretty bad, so our driver decided he would just use the lane of the oncoming traffic. No big deal, till there was oncoming traffic! After coming to a complete stop while staring down a taxi in a lively game of chicken, we finally nosed our way back into our lane. One would think this would be enough to keep one's dolmus in the proper lane. Wrong. After waiting impatiently for a whole 5 seconds, the driver darted back into the oncoming traffic only to get stuck there at a red light. This is when the very friendly motorbike policeman turned on his siren, shouted something that NO ONE could understand over a loud speaker, and then proceeded to calmly ask the driver to please not do that again. Tamam, the driver said, or ok! Ouch, that was quite a slap on the wrist. Let it be noted that by this time, I'm laughing hysterically on the inside, trying desperately not to make noise as the other passengers probably wouldn't find it quite as humorous as I did.

Moving down the road, we make it to the interstate highway, or I guess you could call it the intercontinent highway here since we would take it across the Bosphorous from Asia to Europe. Anyway, it's a major 6 lane freeway that we were traveling quite freely on. We weren't driving so fast, though, that I didn't have time to do a double-take when I saw a shepherd and his 50 sheep grazing on the side of the highway!

As I continue to giggle to myself, thinking, wow, this has been quite the road trip, we crossed the bridge to my side of the city and prepared to take the first exit. Only, when we came to the exit, there were at least 6 cars coming toward us in reverse! This actually got 1 Turkish passenger to exlaim an "Allah, Allah" under his breath. Roughly translated to "Holy buckets, I don't believe this!!" :-)

At last I made it to my stop and decided I needed a Pepsi Light and a snack to recover from my trip. This is when God blessed me with finding a snack size bag of Peanut M&M's...a perfect, surprise ending to a very surprising trip.

My Favorite Turkish Man...

the POSTMAN!!! The one who delivers the mail in my neighborhood is great. So far he's brought me every single package my wonderful mother has sent me!! That's not always the case here. Here are some pictures from the fun package that came today. Happy early St. Patrick's Day! and THANKS MOM!!

the package and all it's glory! By the way, the card that my MOM sent me played the song, "Whoop, There it Is". haha! Classic! She certainly has eclectic taste in music. The Easter card she sent me played Chris Tomlin's "Indescribeable" Love it!


Dr. Pepper Soda POPS!! Brilliant! Definitely my Lucky Day.






The Peeps were slightly decapitated...but still, umm, fun. Who really eats Peeps for the taste anyway?

Such a mix

Today I was walking around a neighborhood here in the city looking for an apartment to rent. While my friend and I were marveling at the giant skyscrapers that surround this particular neighborhood, we had to jump out of the way of a tractor pulling a cart of potatoes for sale. I'll say it again...in the middle of this incredibly giant, metropolitan city, we were nearly run over by a John Deere tractor selling potatoes. Ok, it might not have been a John Deere, but it was straight off the farm in Texas. And that reminded me that it's also not highly unusual to see carts being pulled by mules, either. Just put it on the list of possible modes of transportation: taxi, car, train, metro, tram, slow boat, fast boat, short boat, trolley, minibus, regular bus, and oh yeah, tractor or mule.

Sites on my walk home from class

If you click on the last picture and look really closely, you'll notice lettuce bigger than they guy's head!

Snow scenes

Did anyone really sleep?

Turkish breakfast

Mmm...black olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, honey, jam, bread, helva (no idea what it is, but it's good!), cheese, and cay.

More slumber party pics

After dessert we had Turkish cay and even did Turkish breakfast around 11:30 the next morning. :-)

Slumber Party

Here are some fun pics from our slumber party a couple of weeks ago. It was such a fun night, reminiscent of junior high days! One of the highlights was making a very special Turkish dessert. One of the girls who came is from Hatay, which is a city here known for this particular dessert, called Kunefe. It's shredded wheat with a special cheese in the middle drowned in syrup. Sounds weird, but it's delicious!! While we were making it, one of the girls and I were supposed to be shredding the homemade cheese and then melting the homemade butter. Well, a kilo of shredded "something" later, we realized that we had just shred the butter instead and had already sprinkled it all over the dessert. It made for a hysterical moment, especially at about 10 o'clock at night with 10 other girls crammed in the small kitchen. Oh well, we all decided an extra kilo of butter could only make it better! :-)

SNOW DAYS

mexican food.dumb and dumber.snowball fight.boston cream pie.pancakes and BACON.peppermint cookies.nap. Mmmm!

Lessons Learned

So I think I finally reached the outcome of my Dr. Pepper shower in the airport last month. Last weekend my hard drive suddenly disappeared. And, all I could figure out was that the Dr. Pepper had finally wreaked its havoc. Of course, who knows, it might have died anyway, but I'm going to blame it on the Dr. Pepper! :-)

Thankfully there is an Apple service store here in the city. It took me 2 hours of walking around in a giant circle to actually find the store, but it's here, and it honors my warranty! So, after 4 trips to the "teknik servis", and after immense frustration as I tried to communicate computer language in Turkish, the ole' Macbook is working again. It was frustrating because I don't speak computer language in English much less Turkish! Yikes! And the really weird thing was that if I called the shop on the phone, there was an English speaker. But when I was actually in the store, no one spoke English. Now that it's all behind me, though, I guess I could say it was actually an encouraging thing to know that with courage only from God, I was able to work through something really hard and get the results I needed...a fixed computer.

One really good lesson in all of this was the reminder that the grass is not always greener in America. Sometimes I find myself comparing things here to the way things are back home, and when I'm really having a pity party day I tend to think everything in America is better. But, in this case, there was an Apple repair store within 30 minutes of my house. Back home, there isn't one single Apple store in the whole state of Arkansas! :-)

The best lesson I learned, though, was to remember that my joy comes from God, not my circumstances. If I keep my gaze on Him, no matter how frustrating life can be, my joy is eternal. Easier said than done, but completely possible with the Him.

A Turkish trip to Sonic

Although some of you may not fully understand the glories of Sonic, many of you absolutely get it. Most of my life a daily or almost daily trip to the Sonic for a cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper or Slush or Cherry Limeade or some other flavorful soda was a foundational part of my friendships. So over here Sonic is one of my American treats that I miss. However, it has occurred to me that the local cay (chai=tea) house is my Turkish Sonic. Most days are not complete without visiting with a friend over several glasses of cay. Here are a couple of pictures of the typical glass of tea and the oh so comfy table it is shared on.

City Travel

One of the beauties of this city is the many modes of transportation available. Of course, to the inexperienced traveler this could also be a not so beautiful part of the city. And, there are also those days when just the prospect of having to take more than 3 types of transportation is enough to keep you locked in the house longing for a one red light town. Last week I needed to travel from the Europe side of Istanbul, where I live, to the Asian side of Istanbul, where my friend works. To get to her I had a 10 minute walk to the bus stop, a bus, a boat, and then a trolley if I wanted to be lazy and not walk to the top of the hill. I thought it would be fun to sit on the outside of the boat so I could take better pictures. I was able to get some pictures. But I froze in the process. So, when I got to the trolley option, I opted to walk so that I might regain the feeling in my legs and feet. So, here are some pictures of my frozen boat ride. It took about 15 minutes to cross the Bosphorous.

The nitty gritty of city life

I was looking back over my blog for the past few weeks, and I realized I tend to write about the good and fun things. Although I guess the airport story wasn't all that good and fun. Well, at any rate, I want to be sure I paint a fair picture of this exciting life the Lord is leading me through. :-)

Nikki, you'll appreciate this, and I'm even going to steal your vocab. So, last week I was meeting a group of friends to go to a museum here in the city. We had just eaten lunch and were headed to the museum when one of my DAILY fears was realized. A sky rat bomb hit the bull's eye. In laymen's terms...a nasty, disgusting pigeon pooped right on my head!! This city is FILLED with sky rats. EVERYWHERE. And people feed the dirty rodent's with wings! They say it's good luck to be pooped on. Who is THEY! And my answer to THEY is that sure it's good luck, you're luck can't get much worse once you get bombed!

Soft Towels!!

Today was a great day. The whole 2 1/2 years that I lived here before, I never had a dryer. So, crusty towels and crisp jeans were just a part of life. BUT today thanks to my great friends, Billy and Liz, I was able to bring home my first dryer in the 'bul! Actually, it's the first dryer I've ever owned. Guess I'm growin up, kids. :-) Now, does anyone know where I can get dryer sheets in Istanbul?