Citizen of the world

I'm feeling very international today. I've been very tense and stressed out from cramming for this week's Humanities classes, in which I am supposed to teach Pre-Columbian stuff. To relieve the stress, I went out to the stadium across the street and did some tai chi. I was struck by the fact that here I am in Turkey, doing a Chinese martial art, preparing to go teach about the Aztecs. The world has indeed become small.

Boom

This is cool: Meltem and I have just come back from having drinks with a friend, and we're having a much-needed rainstorm complete with nice dramatic lightning and thunder. We're talking the kind of thunder that sets off car alarms for blocks. Yeah baby! All I need now is big amplifiers cranking Wagner out the window and we're set.

Whew

End of another week, and ho boy, am I beat. Gotta say, I am enjoying teaching a lot more this semester – call me an optimist, but my students seem to be a lot better (or maybe just less worse) this time round – but man-oh-man, is preparing for and teaching my classes taking it out of me. Come Friday at 5 pm (when my last class begins) I am so tired I'm shaking. So here I am, celebrating my survival of the week by chilling on the couch with a beer. I need chill time like this; I have to be careful not to do to myself what I did in London, i.e. forget how to turn off the grim engine that makes me want to work every single second I'm awake, and thereby earn myself a cadaverous look and some quality time in a hospital.

And to cheer you all up after that: Meltem will be back tonight! Around 3 am! Looking forward to being awakened by the return of my honey.

Menacing music

I just remembered something I had intended to blog a few weeks ago. Meltem had to go to the local police department to get some stuff done to her passport for her German visa. Naturally I went with her to keep her company. While she was in doing her thing with the cops, I sat in a nice tea-garden-like waiting area and watched their TV screens, which were showing short videos about various types of crime and how to prevent yourself becoming a victim (e.g. don't leave the window next to your computer open overnight!). Much to my amusement, the musical accompaniment to almost every video was Tangerine Dream. Pickpocketing? Yep, got that album. Purse-snatching? Got the CD right over here. Heh! Fun to see how TD is used all over the world.

Portrait of a solitary Barry

Here I am as I look in these dark days of Meltemlessness. Hunched over, staring at the computer as I try to work, my brow knit, my cell phone by my side in case she sends me a message... truly a pathetic sight. (Although you will admit the beard is cool – a student said I looked like Cat Stevens today.)

Ka-CHING

Today had a distinctly happy moment: I went to the bank machine to take out some money, and on the screen I saw that my current balance had leaped dramatically. That's 'cause it's not only payday, but the university finally got around to paying me for the first two months I worked (i.e. before I was on the official full-time payroll). So instead of one month's salary, I got three! Yee ha! Time to go blow it all on something stupid. Maybe a motorcycle. Hey, Meltem's not around to keep watch on me, so now's my chance...

On my own...

Meltem is off to Germany for her conference, so I am here all by my lonesome. Since I've been busting my hump since Saturday for this week's classes, and tomorrow's a long day, I'm seizing the moment to chill in front of the tube and watch some German TV (yes, we get German TV) – Tuesday night they have a good lineup, including CSI: Miami, House M.D., and Monk. Fun way to keep my German in tune, even if the more rapid-fire dialogue (like on House) is too hard to follow. At any rate, it keeps my mind off the fact that this is the first time since last August that Meltem and I have been apart. A lousy reminder of the all-too-recent bad old days.

Talk about your mistaken identity

I found this amusing: Last week a student poked his head into my classroom to see if it was his section (it wasn't); when he saw my beard, instead of saying "Hello" or "Good day" he said "Peace be upon you," as if I were a turban-toting Muslim. Heh! Glad to see the hairy face gets me some respect!

Aiieeee!!

That about sums up how it's going – school has started, and both of us are up to our eyes in work. Poor Meltem has to deal not only with classes, but with a conference she's going to in Germany this coming week; the Hun is determined to make her experience in the Reich as difficult as possible, ranging from visa hassles to jerking her around on her housing for the week. Sheesh. To cap it off, her computer has up and kicked the bucket, quite suddenly. But on a positive note, at least for me, things are going well. I am teaching two classes, and the pressure is a nice change from the languid pace of our 8-week break. Moreover, my students seem to be better this semester (although I probably jinxed it by writing that!). It's nice to see some familiar faces in my Humanities class, especially when they're probably there because they consciously chose me as their second-semester teacher. So all in all things are fine – it's just that we're too busy to keep MelbaBlog as up-to-date as we'd like. Sorry! Will try harder!

Rainbow!

The other day we had a series of rain showers, and to my great delight when they cleared up there was one hell of a rainbow right outside our building. I tried to do it justice with my cell-phone camera.



I was particularly happy because this was the first rainbow I remember ever seeing which formed an actual bow, so that I could see both ends. Here's the middle:



And the other end:



To cap it off, the thing got really bright, so that you could see every "stripe" with amazing clarity – and then a second one appeared!



So as you can see, Istanbul just keeps finding ways to entertain me! (I say "me" because alas, Meltem wasn't home when this happened, and missed the whole thing. Maybe she'll read the blog and see it!)

The truth about cats and dogs

Can't resist posting a couple more pictures I took with my cell phone. This is a sign I saw on someone's front gate on the hill I often walk down and back up again as exercise:



The sign says "Beware, vicious dog," but then the image is worth a thousand translations.

Here, secondly, is a picture of one of the unconscionably spoiled cats who hang around the front of our building. They're taken care of by a lady on the first floor who is a grade-A cat freak. Now supplying them with free cat food is one thing, but this is going a little far, as I'm sure you will agree.



From now on I'm calling this cat "Easy Rider."

Picture catch-up

Well, here I am, sick for the third time since we came back from the States. Just a cruddy cold this time, but jeez, I'd sure like to enjoy some unhampered vitality for more than a few days in a row! (Best to get it out of the way before school starts up again next week, I guess.)

Anyway, to cheer myself (and now you) up, here are a few pictures I had taken with my cell phone and only just recently downloaded onto the computer. (They're not as high-resolution as the ones we take with our digital camera, so any blurriness is not the fault of your computer.) First off, here's a couple of pictures I took off the vapur one day on the way to work last December:



This here is Haydarpasa Station, built in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire as one terminus of the Istanbul-Baghdad railway. It's kind of nice in a grand ancien-régime sort of way. Note the little black choo-choo still parked out front (slightly left of center).



And this is a mosque we pass right before arriving at Kadiköy, where I catch the bus to the university. This mosque gives me a chuckle for its silly disproportionate minarets, from which an out-of-tune call to prayer was sounding as I took this shot.

Now here's a couple from the trip Meltem and I took to the Covered Bazaar:



This is an attempt to capture some of the riches to be found in the innermost part of the bazaar. Lots of cool stuff ranging from necklaces to sextants.



...and old Iraqi medals with Saddam Hussein's picture on them. In fact, I took this the day he did his little dance at the end of a rope, which gave both myself and this shop's proprietor a laugh.

I also caught Meltem shopping for a belly-dancing outfit:



(DISCLAIMER: Meltem was not in fact shopping for a belly-dancing outfit!)

Some weeks later, we had a very nice visit with Elvin and her parents. Here's a picture I took by sticking out my arm and pointing the cell phone at ourselves – a powerful tool in the hands of a master photographer, but with me... well, you be the judge.



Usually Elvin eats by herself, safely ensconced in her own little throne:



... but often her cuteness is such that she simply must come join us, even if it presents a slight inconvenience to her "host" at table.



Elvin, by the way, is learning to talk at a good clip. She calls Meltem "Me-ne," and I think I was once referred to as "Be-be" (she talks to me less, as, let's face it, Meltem is much cooler and more interesting). In fact Sehnaz (Elvin's mom) has an ingenious plan in mind wherein Elvin spends several hours with us each weekend and we speak English to her. The key to language learning: Get 'em while their minds are pliable!

OK, I need to go take a pill or something (hack, cough). More later!

Bureaucratic follies

(part 1,698 of a continuing series)

Well. Remember how I was recently "promoted" to Assistant Professor status? Well, it seems there's yet another test I have to pass in order to prove myself worthy of this stupendous honor, this one a (second) language exam. Fine by me, they're my specialty. [pause to pat self on back]

So today I went to visit my august employer to see about this test. Secretary A, who sent me the original e-mail about it, told me to ask Secretary B. Secretary B sent me to Human Resources. My friendly contact at HR said she wasn't sure I really had to take this test (since I'm not a Turkish citizen), and needed to ask her boss. An HOUR AND A HALF later, after several talks with her boss, a contact in Ankara, some other butthead in Ankara to whom the previous contact referred her, and some Web searching, we determined that ... we still weren't sure whether I had to take the test, and I was just about to miss my shuttle back home. Aiieeeee! But I do owe Beliz Hanim of Human Resources a big thank-you for being so thorough about the whole thing, including insisting on seeing the relevant regulation with her own eyes (and catching the fact that the aforementioned butthead had cited the wrong one!).

Our tale does have a happy ending of sorts: I managed to catch the shuttle, just as it was starting to snow big fat wet flakes; and Beliz Hanim called me to say yes, I do in fact have to take this exam. (The happy part is that it will be administered in Istanbul and not, as Meltem had feared with reason, in Ankara.)

Anyway, that's just life in these parts. Also, I like to gripe. But in all seriousness, it is quite a nice feeling to have a real title, one I feel reflects my accomplishments, even if I have to jump through umpteen occasionally-silly hoops to get it. In Cyprus I was "Visiting Assistant Professor," and in London I was just a project curator. Here, at long last, I'm a real perfesser.

Balloons and Fish

Just a couple of pictures from the first weekend after we got back from the States. Here you see the first bridge built in Istanbul that connects Europe and Asia. We live on the European side. The green area you see in the picture is Asia. I thought the balloons in the water was a very cute touch, so I took a picture. On weekends, these guys come to the waterfront, put the balloons in the water. If you can shoot a certain number of them, you get a small toy as a reward.

What is also a characteristic scene in Istanbul is a large number of fisherman/fisherwomen at the waterfront anytime of the day, either here at Bosphorus or on a bridge in Golden Horn. On that sunny day where we had a walk by the water, the narrow sidewalk next to the water was full of fishermen/women (which makes walking there a bit stressful). Here is a fisherwoman casting her fishing line into the water:

Usually what they seemed to have been catching is really a couple of tiny fish, which Barry thinks won't feed the cat, or an old shoe. Still, I guess they come here for peace and fun, not for dinner.

Don't forget to read about my birthday!

Birthday girl

Yesterday (February 2) was Meltem's birthday. In the evening, we went to her parents' apartment in the neighborhood of Fatih to celebrate. Poor Meltem hadn't been able to celebrate her birthday with them in over 10 years! When we got there, we were surprised by a whole gaggle of relatives, which was of course a gift in itself. Here are a few pictures we shot while there.

First, of course, the birthday girl and her cake!



Followed by a birthday smooch from Yours Truly:



Meltem's favorite color is purple. In fact it's quite well known that she loves purple, a fact reflected in her gift haul. Here she is modelling her new purple turtleneck, purple sweater, and necklace with a piece of amethyst on a silver mount.



Finally, here's a group of us doing what comes naturally to males at a Turkish gathering: watching soccer on TV. Hasan is demonstrating the use of a pair of headphones Meltem's dad got to hear the TV better from afar.



All in all, a lovely birthday gathering! Thanks to all who sent e-cards and greetings.

My just reward

At long last, I have heard from my august employer that I've been "promoted" to Assistant Professor, or Yardimci Doçent ("Yard. Doç.") status. Whee! Now maybe I'll get the respect I deserve! Or maybe not.

Our pearly whites

Remember Elvin? Well, her parents (Durul and Sehnaz) are dentists, and Meltem and I both recently availed ourselves of their services. Neither of us had been to a dentist in many moons, so it was long overdue; plus, we're happy to give them the business. As we had known for some time, Meltem had to have a wisdom tooth out, so we did it last night. Poor thing is a bit swollen and achy, but otherwise OK. If she lets me, I'll post a picture of her holding ice to her jaw or something. (Me, I had all four of mine out years ago, and the rest of my pearly whites – well, yellows – are just fine, thank you very much.)

Here's something cool: In the waiting area of Sehnaz and Durul's office there is a big picture book by some Turkish photographer in which he has pictures of various people along with quotes from them as to what they think the meaning of life is. One of the pictures is Durul seen from the point of view of a patient, holding up his dentist's instruments and grinning; his quote is "To feel happy." Amen!

Gretnablog is born

Forgot to mention in my little travelogue that whilst in Mount Gretna, we showed Susan how to make her own blog (it's ridiculously easy, everyone should do it). Check out Gretnablog for some exceedingly handsome photographs.

In which we break the silence

Hi all, we're still here, sorry for the delay and thanks for your patience! I thought I'd just post a few pictures and comments from our recent trip to the US of A.

We started our sojourn at Mom's secluded manor in West Hartford:



(Note the subtle yet effective placement of the Christmas wreath over the garage doors. Unlike the folks next door, who installed a 15-foot inflatable Santa next to their house!)



Two things were particularly enjoyable for me in West Hartford: Eating and mocking the cat. Here I am combining both activities. Note the palpable frustration radiating from bloodthirsty hooligan Ashton as he searches for crumbs or bits of ham... but neither is forthcoming! Moohoohahaha!



Our West Hartford days were ornamented by visits from several friends, including Barbara and Neil, who came in the company of Dennis and their adorable progeny, Antoinette (better known as Tiny Toni). Tiny Toni was a major cutie, especially since she was just figuring out how to smile. Here she's saying, "Get this balding weirdo offa me!"



In West Hartford we also made a date with my brother Greg, who hosted us at his own stately pleasuredome.



Having bathed West Hartford in our glory, we proceeded to Mount Gretna, Pennsylvania, where we were hosted by Dad and Susan (as well as Jasper) in their little mansion-in-the-woods.



The ever-personable Jasper was a big hit as usual:



One neat thing we did in PA was go to a farmers' market in nearby Lebanon. Meltem was particularly fascinated by the Mennonite farm girls who were working there. Here's a photo she took in which she was pretending to take a picture of Dad and me, but in actual fact was surreptitiously zooming onto the unsuspecting Mennonite chick behind the counter (note her little white bonnet). Fiendishly clever!



(A telling observation: In Turkey, any group of people who cling to a highly conservative form of religion, dress distinctively, and keep to themselves is a group of people you should be very, very wary of. In the States, they're a tourist attraction.)

Anyway, another thing Mount Gretna is great for is walks in the woods. It was cool and misty, which makes such treks even more evocative and enjoyable.



Also, while we were there Meltem leaped at the opportunity to do an afternoon watercolor-painting lesson with the local art teacher. Here are Meltem and Susan posing with their instructor in her studio.



Anyway, that's a brief sampling of the fun we had on our US odyssey. Hopefully it won't be 15 more months until we find a reason to go back!

We're back...

To our legions of loyal fans: We're back in Istanbul, hale and hardy. Well, one of us is hale and hardy. The other one (me) was felled the first day of our return by a vicious bug, which feels suspiciously like the enteritis I had last summer. I'm starting to come out of it, but eeewwwww. Anyway, pictures and commentary (of our travels, not my enteritis) to come soon!