I always feel like a real "Istanbullu" after having run to catch a ferry. There is something so exhilarating about hearing that "last call" fog horn sound, racing across the plaza to the ferry building and swiping your Akbil (transit pass), then making a mad dash for the docks. Some days it's just not your day and you make it to the doors only to have them slammed shut in your face. But then there are those glorious days (I had two last week) when you just barely slide through the doors and leap onto the ferry just as the ropes are being undone and the gangplanks lifted. Out of breath and feeling supremely victorious, you congratulate yourself and then make your way upstairs to find a seat.
No matter how cold it is, I nearly always prefer to sit outside where all the action is. There is nothing like the scent of the sea and the feeling of the wind whipping past, watching century upon century of history glide by as you make our way across to The Other Side. ("The Other Side," you must know, is a real and true place. Whether you are in Asian or European Istanbul, the opposite shore is simply referred to as "The Other Side." It's kind of like how they refer to leaving the country. Whether I’m heading on a quick visa run or clear across the globe to Canada, my friends will always say I'm heading "to the outside of the country" - but it's used more in the sense of an actual destination (interchangeable with, say, Germany) and less in terms of "everything outside Turkey's borders." This little language nuance has always amused me.)
(Is it legal to use parentheses inside of an already parenthetical statement? Cuz I just did.)
Anyways, enough digression. Back to the ferry. A must on these 20 minute "intercontinental crossings" is a hot cup of tea - 50 cents from the man who comes around selling them on his tray. (That's another thing that makes me feel like a local – having the correct change ready when he comes around instead of having to ask the price.) On cold winter days, they offer something even better than tea – sahlep. Sahlep, made from crushed orchids, is a creamy, cinnamony bit of heaven in a glass – the perfect companion on a chilly journey. You wrap your freezing fingers around that little cup of glory and inhale its steamy goodness, sighing a sigh of gratitude for this culture which revolves almost singularly around the presence of hot drinks.
And then there's the on-board entertainment. Sometimes it's a mobile salesman who busts out his lemon juicers or paring knives or whatever he's selling and wows the crowd with his demonstration of their magical powers. But much more faithfully, and far more engaging, are the flocks of seagulls that follow each vessel back and forth across the waters, waiting for the morsels of simit (a sesame seed pastry) that passengers toss up in the air into their hungry mouths. (The birds' mouths, not their own - though that would be entertaining, too!) These seagulls possess an amazing amount of endurance and skill, and rarely do you see a bird turn back from exhaustion or a stray chunk of bread fall into the sea. The art of Simit Tossing is a rite of passage for all Istanbullus, one clumsily attempted in childhood and perfected with age, and it is guaranteed to brighten even the greyest of Istanbul days.
When the boat has left Uskudar's Maiden Tower in its wake and the Yeni Camii and the fishermen on the Galata Bridge have come into view, it is time to make your way downstairs and join the throng waiting to disembark. Another distinguishing mark of a true Istanbullu is the ability to leap from the ferry to the dock before the walkways have been lowered and the ropes tied. Great fun.
I once heard a story of a little girl who, as the ferry was docking, slipped and fell into the space between the boat and the dock. A moment later, a man was beside her in the freezing water, and soon the girl and her rescuer were pulled safely to the shore. The girl’s parents hugged her with relief, and the man was surrounded by an admiring crowd. "Bravo!" they cried. "You were so brave to jump into that icy water and save her!"
He put his hands up to silence them, and someone called out, "Shh, let our hero speak!"
When the crowd grew quiet, the man looked around and said, "What I want to know is, who pushed me?"
I was up in Istanbul this past week spending time with my Turkish family, and on the way up, I flew Turkish Airlines. Now, their prices are often the steepest as far as domestic tickets go, but on the plus side, you are always guaranteed food. And it's free. (A rarity these days.) I was pretty impressed that I got a sandwich, cake and coffee on a 9 AM flight. No little bags of peanuts here, folks.
However, when I looked closely at the cake, I had to laugh. The label described it as "Homemade Cherry Cake." Really? I can just picture little Ayse Teyze pulling a pan out of the oven in her tiny kitchen, wiping the sweat from her brow and yelling, "Fatma, get in here and help me! I have to get these to the airport in time for the red-eye to Frankfurt!"
A few tempting options on a menu I recently perused...
Diet Relish Salad
Chick Sinitzel
Cheedar Cheese
Bake Lamp Cage
Vegetables and Embers.
I could make a killing as a proofreader.
On Boxing Day (the day after Christmas, for all you Americans), after a delightful day of White Elephant gifts and Cranium and many, many cookies, we arrived home to a surprise on our doorstep: a six foot tall pine tree. No card, no note - just a tree. Rather puzzled (and intrigued), and so as not to offend the sender (who may well have been peering out from behind a nearby curtain) we brought it inside. And died laughing. We figured it may have been a gift from a thoughtful friend who knew that "westerners decorate trees" but didn't realize that Christmas was, in fact, already over. Just in case the giver were to pay a visit, we dutifully snagged some decorations from our "real" tree, spruced up the newcomer and gave it a prominent spot in our living room. A few days later, we came to learn that our chop-happy gardener (seriously, the man's idea of pruning is hacking all things green down to the size of a stick) had been cutting down some trees that week and, remembering that last year my roommate had asked him for "a few boughs of greenery to decorate the banister," he decided to go all out and give us what turned out to be an extremely long branch. He may not be the best horticulturist, but he has a heart of gold. :)
Apparently the custom of putting up "New Years trees" has really caught on in Turkey in the last few years. In fact, towards the end of December, you'll see shop windows and shopping malls decked to the hilt much as you would see at home. (See post below for more background.) I even saw on the news just after Christmas that the Department of Forestry was reporting a rise in people stealing trees from government land to take home and decorate. :) It seems that, through films mostly, much of the commercial Christmas hype has made its way into the nation with all the glitz and none of the meaning. (Hmm, however did that happen?) There's no such thing as Jesus' birthday here, so all the festivities centre around the start of the New Year. There is a good bit of confusion over why we foreigners celebrate New Years "a week early," so we are forever explaining that there are, in fact, two holidays that same week, and that the first and more important one is what all the fuss is about.
Sad as the lack of knowledge of "the true meaning of Christmas" is to me (both here and in my home country), I have to admit, it was rather comforting to walk down the street and see Santa hats on the mannequins and fake snow in the windows. :)
Little known fact - St. Nicholas actually lived out his days in Demre, just down the coast from Antalya. He was known for his miracles and his generosity to the poor. Nowadays, Father Christmas is becoming an increasingly well-known figure in Turkey, though not in relation to the holiday you'd first suspect....
I'm reposting this article from CNN - it gives some good insight into what "Christmas" looks like in this predominantly Muslim, but increasingly western-looking nation. Definitely going to check the movie out sometime this week, too. Should be the perfect compliment to "It's a Wonderful Life" and "The Grinch...."
ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) -- It may be the first modern Christmas movie ever made for audiences in Turkey, a mostly Muslim country that does not celebrate Christmas.
"Neseli Hayat" or "A Cheerful Life" is the story of a down-on-his-luck, working class Turk who is hired to work as a mall Santa.
The trouble is he doesn't really know who Santa Claus is, and needs some very basic lessons.
In one scene, a manager drills the main character, Riza and several other hired Santas on how to give Saint Nick's hearty bellow, "ho-ho-ho."
In another segment, a bearded, costumed Riza enters a waiting room and extends the traditional Muslim greeting "A salam aleyekum" to four other mall Santas, who answer back without looking up "aleyekum salam."
Video: Muslim Turks celebrate Christmas
But Riza then spends much of the film, embarrassed and hiding his job and costume at a posh Istanbul mall glittering with holiday decorations, from his wife and family in a shanty neighborhood where one would be hard pressed to find a single piece of tinsel.
The writer, director and actor who played Riza, Yilmaz Erdogan, says his character is a metaphorical bridge between two worlds in Turkey: wealthier, upper class Turks who live a "Western" lifestyle and have adopted the trappings of Christmas to celebrate the new year, and poorer Turks who have emigrated from the Anatolian heartland to the big city and are more familiar with traditionally "Middle Eastern" customs.
"Riza is the man who is in the middle of these two groups," Erdogan said.
He spoke to CNN at the Istanbul premiere of his film, which debuted in a shopping mall cinema decorated with Christmas trees and female hostesses wearing tight black dresses and Santa hats.
Erdogan agreed it was an unusual decision to focus a Turkish film on Santa Claus, which Turks often refer to as "Noel Baba" [Father Christmas].
"It is a symbol that we all love. Any person who sees him will smile," Erdogan said.
"We don't have a religious relationship with [Christmas]. We have a relationship based on a date, based on modern times. A significant group of us love this Western date and we celebrate it with the ones that we love," he added.
This month, one could easily mistake the shopping malls and commercial districts of Istanbul for any Western, Christian city. Stores and hotels are bursting with Christmas trees, lights and ornaments. Only the sound of Christmas carols is perhaps missing.
And the Yuletide pageantry is not only confined to shopping destinations of the wealthy.
Christmas kitsch is also on display in labyrinthine, working class street bazaars built in the shadow of centuries' old Ottoman minarettes. Amid stalls selling everything from middle eastern baklava sweets to hunting rifles, shopkeepers also sell animated, life-size Santa dolls and giant inflated Frosty the Snowman figures.
"Its been busy these days," said shopkeeper Saime Elkatmis, who wore a woman's Muslim headscarf as she sold plastic wreaths and glowing stars to passing customers.
"Within the last two or three years, people are a lot more interested in New Year holiday, from all the sectors of society," she added.
Next door, Tuna Alkan, a member of Istanbul's tiny Jewish community, was helping her husband Joshua sell plastic Christmas trees to mostly Muslim customers.
Alkan said Turks usually refer to the trees as "New Year's trees."
"It's a good symbol, it's a happy symbol," Alkan said. "Why wouldn't we use it?"
Part of the enthusiasm for Western holiday pageantry stems from economics. Turkish merchants have clearly embraced Christmas colors, to generate consumer excitement and help drive up sales.
"A Cheerful Life" creator Yilmaz Erdogan agrees that Santa is a symbol of capitalism.
"This is capitalism and Riza is a victim," Erdogan said. In the film, Riza resorts to working as a mall Santa after an economic crisis drives his restaurant bankrupt, and after he plunges himself and his friends in debt by falling for a pyramid scam.
But in the end, with the help of the Santa suit and some very strong Turkish family values, Riza succeeds in saving the day.
The split identity between east and west is often a source of social and political tension in Turkey. This gentle, Turkish Christmas movie shows Turks they can have a foot in both worlds and still enjoy the holidays.
**NOTE: Several of the photos below are pretty graphic. If you are squeamish about blood, don't scroll down past the text! (And if you are sensitive about the treatment of animals, please understand the cultural context within which these were taken.)
I arrived back to Turkey just in time for a good load of festivities as American Thanksgiving and Kurban Bayrami (The Muslim Sacrifice Festival) were a day apart this year. This prompted some amusing conversations as we explained the traditional Thanksgiving meal - I'm sure many of our neighbours now think we "sacrifice a turkey" in the same way they would sacrifice a cow. :) (Incidentally, some of our neighbours recently decided that a rooster would be a suitable pet for their three-year-old, so now we have a rooster that terrorizes our otherwise quiet complex, crowing at all hours of the night and assaulting dogs and children at will. Seriously, the thing is a beast. We'd been hoping someone would get creative with their sacrifice this year and offer up the offending bird, but alas, it still roams free.)
Kurban Bayrami has its roots in the Quranic story of when God told the Prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael, and then at the last minute provided a ram to die in his place. Every year, Muslims around the world (at least all who are financially able and who consider it their religious duty) sacrifice a cow, sheep or goat to commemorate Hazreti Ibrahim's willingness to give up his son. If you dig down a few layers, you'll find that this tradition is also perpetuated by the underlying belief that in order for Allah to forgive man's sins, their must be the shedding of blood. (This, of course, opens the door for many good conversations with our neighbours.)
In order to present a less barbaric face to the Western World (ie the EU and whatever tourists may happen to be roaming the city's streets) it is illegal to kill the animals in your own garden, so after they've been tied up and moo-ing or baa-ing all night, people drive their animals to the designated sacrifice areas (ie somewhere out of town, the neighbourhood carwash or an empty covered bazaar) where either they themselves or, more often, actual butchers will perform the ritual sacrifice. Sometimes, if they aren't too well off, several families will chip in together to buy an animal. The whole thing has an air of community and festivity about it, even despite all the gore. Prayers are offered, then the animal is tied up and swiftly killed, often with a loud reaction from the other animal-spectators who know their turn is coming. Following the removal of the hide and the draining of the blood, it is usually the women (who must have remarkably strong stomachs) who set to work at cutting up the meat and dividing it into portions - a third to be eaten by the family, a third to be shared with friend and relatives, and a third to be given to the poor.
I was pretty impressed with how the whole operation goes like clockwork. You've got a guy with a clipboard collecting the fees for the butchers, the guys who chant the prayers, the guys with the knives who do the dirty work, the guys with rubber boots and hoses who clean up the blood, and the guys in the "Deri Toplama Ekibi" truck ("Skin/Hide Collection Squad") cleaning up the remains. And by afternoon, the whole place has cleared out and you'd never know anything had gone down.
On the morning of the sacrifice, one of my roommates and I set off in search of the action. We found it a few kilometres up the road where there it seemed every field or open space had become the scene for the slaughter. It seemed that heaps of "city people" had come out to the village to make their sacrifices, cuz what are normally quiet-ish streets turned into a village-wide traffic jam. It was interesting, too, to see how many not-covered women had come out our way, too. It was obvious who was and wasn't from around there!
We made the rounds to observe, talk to people and get some photos. I've only ever experienced the Sacrifice Festival in Istanbul, and I found people down here were much more willing to chat and have their pictures taken. (Meaning no one was really concerned about whether or not I was a reporter or threatened to break my camera if I didn't leave...unlike last year....) We played the good students of culture that we are and asked a lot of questions about the meaning behind the tradition. What really comes across is the pride in carrying out an age-old ritual, and the sense of unity that comes from knowing that people all over the Muslim world are all doing the same, as well as joy in being able to share and celebrate with family and friends.
Following the sacrifice is a four-day holiday where there is much visiting of loved-ones, kissing of elderly hands, and sharing in tasty meals. We got in on some good barbecue action with some of our neighbours, and I must say, I am grateful to the cow who gave his life and became those kebaps!
Seeing it all up close really brings to life the OT requirement of animal sacrifice and the grave reality of the need for blood to cleanse us from sin and shame. It makes the gift of the final sacrifice that much sweeter, and the desire to share that glorious, freeing news with my loved ones here that much more urgent.
Here are some photos from the day:
Death row
Somber spectators
I wish I could've captured this old teyze just a few seconds earlier, lugging that big heavy cow head around and laughing the cutest laugh!
Post-sacrifice grill-out with the neighbours
I recently read a good article, Nurturing the Creative Life by Elisabeth Adams, and was challenged by the idea that, instead of waiting for the perfect combination of miraculous free time and lightning bolt inspiration, I need to get in the habit of sitting down and just writing. I have friends who regularly churn out these incredible, witty blog entries, and I think, "Man, I could do that, but it would take me hours!" A dozen times a day I am struck by an event or an image that causes me to think, "Hey, that would make a great story." But by the time the duties and interruptions of the day have come and gone, the moment has past and the time and energy to write about it has, too. So many good stories gone to waste!
It's true what they say: In order to be a writer, you have to write. Just do it. If I neglect the creative process on a daily basis, chances are I won't come up with anything amazingly impacting when I finally do sit down to compose something. And so, in response to this, I know the thing to do is to stop waiting for the time to write to present itself and to start making time, every day, to record the wonder and the heartache, the magnificent and the mundane, the LIFE that is going on all around me. When I first moved to Turkey and everything was fresh and foreign, I used to carry around a little notebook in my bag. Mostly I used it for writing down new vocab words, but many a "cultural anecdote in the making" found its way onto those pages as well. This would be a habit well worth taking up again.
So, this is me, sitting down and writing. We'll see what it turns into.
I woke up this morning to the most delicious sound - that of an intense rainstorm and some good, hearty thunder. The plan had been that if the weather was nice, we'd head out to the ruins at Perge to make use of the last month left on my roomate's Museum Discount Card. I'm always up for a good tramp through an ancient city, but I have to admit that when I awoke to the rain pelting my window, I was more than relieved. It's been a full week, and the idea of being able to snuggle in my bed a little longer and then have a day of true rest sounded amazing. What followed was a good heart-refueling, daydreaming with my roommate about what our "contextualized Christmas decorations" should look like this year, an amazingly hot shower (with much gratitude for the hot water switch upstairs that allows us to have hot showers even when it's not been sunny for days), making and indulging in a pot of curried pumpkin soup (Pumpkin freshly bought from my pumpkin guy at the pazar...yes, I have a "Pumpkin Guy" - isn't that great? He even chops it all up for you.), and now the act of sitting down and writing. All interspersed, of course with good coffee and conversation. Apart from a cookie baking date with one of my neighbours tonight (she is obsessed with my gingersnaps and wants to take some back to her university dorm when she leaves tomorrow), the only other thing on the agenda is some work (fun work, don't worry!) on photos from my Long Trip Home and some time curled up with a yet-to-be-determined novel.
Rest days for me are a determined act of the will - a conscious choice to set aside til tomorrow all the things pressing for my attention and to do things that are life-giving, all the while actively trusting that the One who carries all our burdens can handle all of mine if I stop to take a breather. My world will not stop spinning. In fact, it will very likely spin more smoothly. :)
Here's to deep breaths of life-giving air.
"Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile."
- William Cullen Bryant
"October's poplars are flaming torches, lighting the way to winter."
- Nora Blair
Autumn is in her dusk now, it seems. The brilliant yellow trees on the hill that announced the season with much fanfare back in September, back when I could still enjoy a book under their shade without a sweater, have long since surrendered their leaves to whipping winds and children's boots. The weeks have paraded by in a riot of colour, with each tree in succession blazing forth for its moment on centre stage and then scattering its beauty to the ground like a thousand gleaming stars. Each day, a new array of delight is strewn across my path, and I can't find enough heavy books in the house to rightfully preserve these delicate treasures.
Fall is said to be a time of melancholy and decay, when the world sheds its glory and settles into the quiet death of winter before coming to life again in the spring. To me it is quite the contrary - it is autumn that makes the world seem most alive. It is both breathtaking and surprising - every day a new landscape, each one more dazzling than the last.
Today, as I crunched my way through maple leaves as big as my head and breathed in the crisp, heavenly air, I found myself wishing those blazing poplars - the last act of the show - could stick around for an encore performance. The way the sun illuminates their shining bronze leaves, they are just too spectacular to lose so soon. And yet I know that just a few short afternoons from now, as the sun begins to set a little earlier and the smoke begins to curl from the chimneys, they, too, will find their way into my collection and their pomp and splendour will be only a delicious memory.
And so, beloved Autumn, even as I savour your most glorious days, I prepare to bid you farewell. I shall be right here where you left me, pumpkin spice latte in hand and pear crisp in the oven, breathlessly awaiting your return.
I've been back in Vancouver for three weeks now, and this is perhaps my smoothest "re-entry" yet. None of the usual tears in the grocery store, dumbfounded stares at the gas pump or general "Idontbelonghere" feelings, as so often is the case. Probably due to the fact that I've been back on the continent twice this year and "home" doesn't feel so foreign.
This is the first time in years that I've been able to enjoy a bit o' BC summer. I'm always here in the winter, and while I love to brag about how Vancouver isn't freezing like the rest of Canada, the weather still isn't exactly conducive to sitting on a park bench with a book. I am loving the freedom to get out and enjoy my gorgeous city! And more than that, with my recent "identity crisis" (some form of delayed culture shock, perhaps) I am loving the chance to simply be....Canadian.
Here are a few of the little things that have brought me great pleasure since being back:
* the library! you can just plunk yourself down on the floor and read books in english to your heart's content... for free!
* frozen mangoes, frozen strawberries, frozen raspberries....a smoothie lover's dream!
* walks on the dyke....complete with seagulls and that wonderful sea smell
* the fact that a uniform of jean shorts, a hoodie and flip-flops is perfectly acceptable
* spinach that comes prewashed and pre-pulled....I love to eat it, but it's a pain to clean after you get it home from the pazar!
* I can carry my coffee around in a tumbler and no one thinks that's strange
* anonymity - I may be the only Caucasian face in the crowd, but I am still "just like everyone else". No one looks at me and thinks, "foreigner." (Plus, with my last name, I belong more than anyone realizes!)
* the ability to pour on the sweet Thai chili sauce without having to ration it
* my mom is in the next room and my best friend is a local phone call away!
* fish n' chips @ Pajo's on the wharf
* no one has yet to shout out, "Hey, lady!" or ask me where I'm from
* an endless variety of curry available in every grocery store
* I can walk around the park alone without anyone harassing me
* the divinity that is Timothy's Frozen Yogurt
* four minute walk to Starbucks!
* being able to park myself on a log, a bench or a patch of grass and read, undisturbed
* Orange Julius hot dogs.
* the freedom that comes with driving a car
* the glorious hints of autumn appearing all around me
* hot, fresh donuts. oh, yeah.
(Have we noticed that most of my joys revolve around food? I make not attempt to disguise my edible passions!)
I've never been a Greyhound rider (too many sketchy people on board, or so I hear) but riding long-distance buses is a pretty regular part of my in-Turkey life. Sometimes it's an adventure to some intriguing corner of the country, but most often I find myself on overnight buses between Istanbul and Antalya, heading up there to see my Turkish family, leaving the country or returning home from who-knows-where. I usually end up opting for the 12 hour overland trip instead of the similarly priced 55 minute flight due to the fact that my inability to pack light means I am always trucking way more weight than the airline baggage allowance permits. But I don't mind the trip - it's become sort of a familiar ritual - one I can, and often do, perform in my sleep.
This is how it goes. I usually buy my ticket in advance from a bus company office in town, and they are always kind enough to make sure to seat women with women and men with men. (This is much appreciated, since the passenger beside me often ends up asleep on my shoulder!) Inter-city buses in Turkey are pretty cushy - you almost feel like you are on an airplane, and, contrary to any "rural images" you may have conjured up in your mind, there are most definitely no chickens roaming the aisles. There's a seat for everyone, usually with headphone jacks for the TV, which you have to hope will be playing something benign like the news or a game show and not the horror films Turks seem to be so fond of. (On my most recent ride, there was a national team soccer game on and I got swept up in the collective cheering every time we scored a goal.) :)
After the bus attendant comes through to check tickets and find out where you are getting off, he comes down the aisle with a little cart and serves coffee, tea and snacks. Kamil Koç, my preferred bus line, has the jumbo sized Tutkus (my favourite chocolate-filled cookie) and ice cream in the summer. It's easy to see how they earned my loyalty... :) I love the fact that when you get coffee, they have special "half-sized" 3-in-1 Nescafes - perfect for those little cups you get on the bus. I always enjoy them going down, and then come to regret them later when they make their way to my bladder and I have to wait for hours til the next potty break!
Smoking is "forbidden", though the driver seems to be exempt from this rule, and happily puff away all night long. The other smokers pile off the bus en masse every time we stop to pick up new passengers in order to hurriedly satisfy their nicotine cravings.
Around eleven o'clock they shut the lights off, and I always seem to be the only one with my reading light on. Once my lids start to get droopy, I contort my body into some semblance of a comfy position and attempt to get some sleep. (Tylenol PM is often added to the mix if I am too wired from the craziness of getting ready for whatever journey I am embarking on.)
Every couple of hours, the lights come one and the little man at the front of the bus and gets on the microphone to announce that we are pulling into a rest stop, usually for half-an-hour. (Back in the day when I didn't know Turkish, these announcements always scared me cuz I didn't know how long we were stopping and was afraid of getting left behind in the bathroom!) Rest stops are kinda like mini-malls - a department store, market, souvenir shop and food court all rolled into one. (Since I almost always travel with the same company and they always stop at the same places, they are pretty familiar, which is good since I am often groggy and my contacts are, by that point, sticking to my eyes. Once, a waiter even recognized me from a previous trip and asked me how my trip home to Canada had been! Talk about being a regular!)
I am usually about to burst from my previously ingested Nescafe and make an immediate beeline for the bathroom. Bus station bathrooms can be pretty ghetto, but the rest stop ones are normally decent and clean, even modern, with automatic flushers and hand dryers. There are usually a couple of western toilets, and then a bunch of "squatty potties" - porcelain holes in the ground. (I have yet to see a squatty with a sensor-flusher, but I think that would be pretty nifty!) At some places, the bathrooms are free, but at most stops you have to pay 50 or 75 kuruş to the guy in the booth on your way out.
Next comes the food. They always have a yummy array of my favourite home cooked foods, like patlıcan (eggplant) and kuru fasulye (white beans), but those tend to be pretty expensive, so as of late, I am more likely to opt for soup. I have to say, there are few things more comforting in life than a hot bowl of yayla corbası (a yogurt, rice and mint soup) in the middle of the night! This little pause is always my most relished part of the trip. A cup of Turkish tea would be the perfect companion, but I have learned by now that my bladder can't handle both soup and çay!
Then comes a browse through the market, where there is always an amusing variety of tacky gifts, cheese and nuts, self-help books, and Turkish delight, just in case you forgot to pick something up for whoever is collecting you at the other end. What always tempts me is the bags of Konya Şekeri - this chalky candy that tastes kinda like those French mints you used to get at weddings. I love the stuff, but I have been accused by my roommates of eating half the bag and then leaving it to rot for months afterward, so I have been forbidden to buy any more. :)
This leaves just enough time for another potty trip (just to be sure) and a stroll outside for some leg-stretching and fresh air (difficult amongst the crowd of smokers.) An announcement over the loud speaker lets you know it is time to get back on the bus. (After accidentally boarding the wrong one once, I have learned to carefully check the signs on the front!) The attendant guy checks to make sure no one is missing and then, as we head off once more into the night, he goes around with a bottle of lemon cologne and splashes it on everyone's hands to freshen up. Sometimes they even spray it into the AC vents for good measure!
Throughout the night, unless it is an express bus, there are stops at otogars (bus stations) in every city along the way to drop off passengers and collect new ones. These are always a chaotic flurry of activity, even in the middle of the night. Tearful relatives bid each other farewell, girlfriends press their faces to the glass to blow one last goodbye kiss, and (my personal favourite) crowds of well-wishers pound drums and wave flags and throw their young men up in the air before sending them off to their askerlik (compulsory military service) to shouts of "En büyük asker bizim asker!" ("The greatest soldier is our soldier!")
By the end of the ride, in the early hours of the morning, either the Antalya seascape or the infinite Istanbul skyline comes into focus through bleary eyes. My knees are sore and my bladder ready to explode. It's off to collect luggage and either head for home or embark on the next leg of the neverending journey....
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