Wednesday, July 6, 2016

My New Favorite City

June 21, 2009
Turkey Tidbits

--I was surprised to see women in traditional Muslim attire sitting in the park smoking cigarettes.  I also saw some younger women, traditionally dressed, cuddlin' and smoochin' with their boyfriends/husbands as they sat on park benches.

--Seems like everybody—at least everybody I encountered over the course of two weeks—could converse in English to a certain extent.  Many are fluent.  Now, since I spent most of my time where tourists typically stay, that could be expected.  But, I also walked in non-tourist neighborhoods and talked to shop keepers.  Most of them spoke English, too.  And since there are myriad English language schools in Istanbul, there has to be a desire for the Turks to learn it.  Someone told me his version of why this is.

“Turkey exports goods to many countries.  Clothes, shoes, carpets, food products.  If the sales person has customers in China, France, Russia and Germany, for example, the odds are low that they will be conversant in all those languages.  So, the language they could all have in common is English, the universal language for business.  I was told that many Turkish companies foot the bill for their employees to take lessons.” 

--We ran into 4 volunteers from Kyrgyzstan.  I also saw many young Americans traveling in groups of 3 or 4.  I have a feeling many of them were PC Volunteers from other Central Asian or Eastern European countries.  Turkey is centrally located and easy to visit.  You buy your 90-day, multiple entry visa at the Istanbul airport for $20.  How much easier can it get?

--Turkey is notorious for credit card fraud.  I had to email Citibank with the dates of my stay so they wouldn't automatically close down my debit card.  Many banks, if they don't know you'll be in Turkey, will do just that if they see a transaction from there.  I had to use an ATM twice and because there are Citibanks in Istanbul, I knew I'd have no problems.

--I don't mind growing old.  Honestly, I don't.  But, I don't need to be reminded of it.  Three times I was asked if X was my son.  Excuse me?!

--I never thought I had a universal look, but perhaps I was mistaken.  Three times I was approached by salesmen with “Habla Espanol?”  Two guys asked me if I spoke English.  I was also taken for Australian and Greek.  The best one though, was the guy who stopped his car to ask me for directions.  He asked in Turkish.  

Istanbul. The city on two continents. Something about the European side reminded me of Manhattan. Maybe it was all the yellow cabs, I don’t know, but something about it, the energy, a cosmopolitan atmosphere, well, I simply fell in love. After three days of soaking up as much of the city as I could, the sights, the food and talking to the people, I had found a new post-Peace Corps “top of the list” city. Of course, I knew more research needed to be done, so I did it.
In the book: why Istanbul was a great city to visit, but not where I wanted to teach.