Izmir, Ephesus, Sirinçe, Oh My!

Leaving the heavy chaos of Istanbul and the constant discovery of a new mosquito bite was a relief. We arrived in Izmir and met our host, Ezgi, who promptly sat us down for a home cooked meal and introduced us to her friends.  Incredibly fascinating and intelligent, with ranging English abilities, they welcomed us into their conversations as they would an old friend.  We met another ex-pat who was studying for her Ph.D.

We were taken to a cafe and bar in which all the waitstaff seem to be professional Lindy Hoppers.  They escorted each of us out to the dance floor and patiently repeated, "slow, slow, quick-quick." My partner gave up after a dance and I was happy to sip on a drink and watch the professionals get it.

The next morning, armed with directions from Ezgi and our new friend Ahmet, we took a train to the town Selçuk, near Ephesus.  You know, biblical Ephesus.  We ranged the ancient ruins and witnessed some ongoing excavations.  Being too cheap to hire a guide, we eavesdropped near some tours and caught snippets of their spiels.  It was incredible to walk around a city with so much history.  The ruins are so vibrant, you can almost see the ghosts out of the corner of your eye. 

We negotiated a cab ride (previously unthought of) to a nearby town, Sirinçe.  The "S" is supposed to have a squiggly line underneath it, but apparently my keyboard is not cultured enough. The squiggle is supposed to denote an "h" sound after the consonant.  Therefore, "Sirinçe" is pronounced "shu-rin-cha."  We found this town mentioned in a couple of sentences on a regional map.  It's a quaint town tucked in the hills, known for its 19th century houses and local wine.  Count us in. 

Sirince is a lovely village, with narrow, steep cobblestone streets where everything is in genteel disrepair.  The entire town looks as though it could use a good sweeping, some mortar and a new coat of paint.  But, that would detract from the picturesque, if slightly rotting, feel.  We sniffed our way to a wine store run out of a cellar in the basement of a 600 year old church.  What better place to sell booze? We made friends with a couple of the shopkeepers, who were generously pouring samples of their wines and fruit wines.  The sales strategy of being slightly flirtatious, buying us some tea and coffee at a cafe upstairs, and plying us with lots and lots of wine, works.  Slightly tipsy, we saddled ourselves with 3 bottles of red wine, a bottle of blackberry wine and a bottle of pomegranate champagne (my favorite).  We sloshed our way to a proffered restaurant and stuffed ourselves with the local cuisine.

A slightly harrowing bus ride (sharp turns and steep drops), an hour long train ride and a 45 minute walk with the heaviest wine bottles known to man, and our day came to a close.

Samir.

We met Samir in the Spice Market.  He was slinging spices and was very nice.  He asked if we wanted to grab dinner with him, to which Kristina said we would think about it.  I was skeptical, which I am about everything and everyone.  He only had eyes for Kristina and I worried about the implications of two foreign girls agreeing to go to dinner with a local.  Besides, it's a tad annoying to make a comment and have the recipient answer Kristina as though she had said it and I weren't there. 

In any case, Kristina overrode me, and I'm very happy she did.  Once we met at the agreed location of Galata Tower, Samir was polite, courteous and a perfect gentleman. 

Samir is a refugee from Syria. He told us that he was a lawyer, but had to leave a few years ago.  Syria, like many countries in this corner of the world, has mandatory military service for all men.  Occasionally, one can delay it or skip altogether if they are attending university.  However, with Syria in a civil war, that doesn't exactly apply right now.  Samir told us (some of this could be muddled due to the language barrier, even though his English is pretty solid) that he decided not to serve.  He said that he refused to kill a fellow countryman just because his government told him to.  I guess the government considers him a terrorist for refusing to serve.  So he immigrated to Turkey.

I felt a strong sense of sympathy for this man.  He is one day older than Kristina.  He had a great career that he loved, making great money.  He is intelligent, speaks several languages, and well informed of current events.  He is curious and asks good questions.  He is a good listener.  And now he slings spices to tourists in a foreign country while sending money home to support his aging parents and sister.

Sometimes I forget just how lucky we are.

A Complicated City

Istanbul is a complicated city.  We've heard population estimates everywhere from 14.5 to 20 million people.  For reference, New York's boroughs plus the metropolitan Chicago areas combined fall within that range.  On the low side.  There are so many people packed into this town; it's nuts.  It seems to be divided into three broad areas (this is my very ignorant perception); two sides on the European side, separated by the Bosphorus River, and another portion that is on the Asian side.  We were staying in the Beyoglu area.

When we arrived (finally), we met with Juliet, an ex-pat whom I was put into contact with through her mother.  I met Eve in San Luis Obispo when she hosted me earlier this year on Airbnb. She was fabulous, and I figured anyone as great as that must have a wonderful daughter.  I was right.  Juliet met us outside the Swedish Consulate and immediately took us out for drinks. We met an 80's classic rock cover band singer named Nikki. He was Turkish, but had bleached hair and spoke wonderful English. A group of passing Americans heard us speaking English and stopped to say hello.  We made fast friends with these naive 20 year olds and one older sister (even though I almost slapped on of them for being a Dick American) .  Juliet took us all for dinner at a local place. What a wonderful experience and a great first night.  We didn't get home until 3:30 am, which was maybe not the brightest of all traveling decisions we've ever made.  Because we slept until 3:30 the next afternoon. 

We awoke and made it out to the main pedestrian street in Istanbul that leads to Taksim Square.  Think 16th street mall, but with about 10,000 people.  No joke. Every where we went, there are men standing in front of restaurants, bars, clubs, trying to hand you a menu, get you to come in. We buckled a couple of times.  We ate shish lamb sweetbreads (insanely good), drank Turkish tea and were talked into going into a local bar. A young man was playing acoustic guitar and singing Turkish songs.  It was clearly a local bar because everyone sang along, and we stood out like a tall blonde thumb. 

We were followed twice that night, on that main strip.  Once was by a short, grayed, and bespectacled man.  I looked at him, smiled and nodded and kept walking.  Later we dropped into a book store, where I noticed he was perusing a random book nearby.  We left and continued on our way; we stopped to look at a store and he nearly ran into us, he was so close.  I pulled Kristina aside; he went around the corner to stare at us through a store window, but quickly got bored and walked away.  The second time was on our way home, still on this crowded street.  Kristina had noticed him earlier; we stopped to look at a building and this man got about 3 inches from my face and said something in English before continuing on his way. 

On Sunday we succeeded at waking at a reasonable time.  We made our way to the spice market on the other side of the Bosphorus.  It's an enclosed market with stalls selling open spices in bulk, smaller pre-packaged goods and anything else random or touristy that you could imagine.  The crush of people is incredible.  Here we met Samir, a Syrian refugee who was a lawyer in his homeland, and now hustles spices. He is seeking asylum because he refused to serve his mandatory term of service in the military. 

We got lost and took about an hour to find a Turkish bath; the walk should have taken about 20 minutes or less.  The streets were emptier because it was a Sunday, which was nice.  Cemberlitas Hamami was built in1584.  There are separate mirror entrances for men and women.  The women on our side simply took us by the arm, pointed us in the direction we should go and pushed us off instead of bothering with too many words.  We unrobed and timorously stepped out clad in nothing but a very thin towel. We were once again pushed through a couple of doors and into a large round room not unlike a sauna with an octangular marble slab in the middle, surrounded with small rooms that had fountains with warm water running from the aging taps.  We discovered they included bikini bottoms in the deal, phew.  Otherwise, it was surprisingly liberating to lay on this warm slab, surrounded by relaxed and topless women, topless ourselves.  There existed no feeling of judgment or evaluation, just hot and heavy air forcing us to relax.  At length, a slightly overweight, slightly middle aged Turkish woman waved me to lay on the edge of the slab. She went to her work with verve and determination, scrubbing at my breasts with the same matter-of-factness (and pressure, one might add) that she did my back or my legs.  I was horrified at the amount of dead skin that came off with that first scrub.  A quick rinse, then I was motioned to lay down, where she gave me a soapy "massage."  I can hardly call this a massage, but more of an insistent demand to relax.  She washed my hair for me, which is the first time in probably 25 years that I've had anyone do that.  My newly dyed hair turned the soap and water a startlingly bright purple.  We drank some tea, got a facial, took a shower, and emerged back into the humid, noisy, dirty city.

In a train station, a company uses a spare room to put on performance thrice weekly of Whirling Dervishes.  It's about an hour long and is a religious ceremony.  Five musicians played on various foreign instruments while one man warbled in the most beautiful fashion.  Another five men come out and, for lack of a better descriptor, twirl.  They twirl in very flowy skirts over their pants.  And not a single one fell over.  Between getting only a few hours of sleep the previous night, the rhythmic music and chanting, and the hypnotism of the men spinning, I found myself fighting sleep the entire time.  Luckily, I seemed to not be the only person this happened to.  It was odd, endearing, and fascinating. 

Along the first few days, we discovered that, despite the research I'd done saying that Istanbul was well accustomed to foreigners and the way they dress, it definitely behooved us to cover the fuck up.  If our decolletage was showing, men were pushier, louder and more insistent.  The prices went up and the quality went down. We became targets, in a most uncomfortable way.  By our third day, we were dressing much more conservatively.  There was still no doubt we were foreigners, but our path became inexplicably easier. 

The Grand Bazaar is both Grand and Bizarre.

On Monday, we arrived at the Grand Bazaar with trepidation and excitement.  Armed with minimal research, Spice Market experience, and several hundred lira tucked in our purses, we entered the infamous gates.

Our Googling had informed us that early was a good time to arrive.  The merchants have to walk a fine line; they must reach their daily minimum income, and also earn their own commission.  Therefore, earlier in the day is the best time to haggle, as they are more willing to fluctuate the price in order to meet their daily goals.  But, too early, and you're likely to encounter a gruff Turk who has not had time for his morning tea or to greet his neighbors.

We arrived about 9:30, half an hour after opening.  This afforded us time to get acquainted with the market (it's 60 streets of chaos and cacophony) without too much hassle from the merchants or the crowds. 

I was in the market for a famed Turkish rug.  Long before leaving, I decided I would splurge on something special that I could keep the rest of my life.  I was invited to come into a shop to "just look, miss, you don't have to buy!"  Our research had informed us that we would be invited in, shown the goods, given tea, and begin to haggle.  I had to inform the man that I couldn't buy one of his giant rugs that covered the entire length of the wall (now I shudder to imagine the cost), because I would be flying home with said rug.  He immediately started pulling out the most luscious hand-knotted silk rugs.  When silk is used in both the warp, weft and the knots, it changes colors in the most magical way.  I'm afraid the poker face I'd been cultivating completely evaporated when presented with these creative masterpieces. I attempted to casually ask how much a rug was, as I hadn't come across any hard-and-fast rules about the cost.  It went something like this:

Him: "1500 Turkish Lira."  (approximately $750)

Me: stunned silence.

Him: "How much do you want to spend?"

Me: stunned silence.

Me:  "Oh."  Quick calculation, realization that I can't do math when in sticker shock.  "Um, 200 lira?"

Bad move.  I low-balled him right out of negotiations.  He started to pull shitty wool rugs and start throwing them at me.  Not literally, but literally at the ground at my feet.  I'm sure, in the presence of less remarkable rugs, these would have been pretty.  Beautiful, even.  But, in the given environment, these looked like the sad, ugly, spinster step-sister of the glowing bride. 

I awkwardly excused myself, told him we would think about it and be back, and bodily dragged Kristina out of the shop. 

Out in the light of day, I started to reevaluate what "splurging" meant and how much was too much.  We got a quick bite to eat, I steeled myself, and reentered the market. 

The second shop we went into was much smaller, but felt much better.  The keeper was much more polite, gave us a magnifying glass to look at the knots (shockingly regular and meticulously knotted).  This time, with a better outlook, negotiations went much more smoothly.  I had read to expect somewhere from 30-50% off, but usually closer to 30%.  Which, considering the rug started at 1550, I was more than pleased when we settled for 1100 lira. 

The big purchase out of the way, I relaxed into the cadence and noise of the market.  We wound our way through the winding, ever-more crowded streets.  The market is covered and blissfully cool in the humidity and heat.  Men yell from their shop doors, step in front of you, waving their wares in your face and  imploring you to, "come, look!" "let me help you buy something you don't need!" and, in Kristina's case, "are you angel?  Please, stop!" It's very overwhelming, but easy to get lost in the crush of people and colors and movement.  Around two, we started to feel overwhelmed but the noise and heat and smell of so many people.  Kristina read somewhere that 250,000-400,000 people might visit the Grand Bazaar on any given day.

We exited into the hot Turkish sun, feeling exhausted but happy.  Just how I like to feel.

A Storm Over Ohio

Travel time: 0 hours. 

It all started with a storm over Ohio.  Flight delayed 45 minutes. Which was worrisome, considering our layover in Toronto was merely an hour.  Then we get word: there was an electrical fire in the command center.  Really?  Luckily, Kristina brought vodka shooters.  What a planner. 

Travel time: 5 hours.

Arrived in Toronto and were happy to discover that poutine is delicious.  Good God, I'm so glad that exists. Wayne Gretzky has his own specialty wine, which is absurdly expensive.  Seeing as how we'd missed our flight, we were treated to the horrible customer service that exists at YYZ International.  We were informed that we could fly to Rome and catch a connecting flight to Istanbul, be there some 6 hours later than expected.  We were handed our tickets and hurried off to wait.

Travel time: 8 hours.

Another flight delayed, due to replacing a defective plane with a bigger model.  I won't shake a finger at extra space and free wine.  Honestly, airplane food really isn't that great, so we aren't missing a whole lot there. But, free wine!!  Kristina takes what she thinks is an anti-inflammatory, actually ingests muscle relaxer.  With said free wine.

Travel time: 16 hours.

Rome.  Turkish Airways informs us they don't accept those coupons and won't let us board.  The fuck, Air Canada?!

Travel time: 17 hours.

Go through customs to exit terminal to talk to Air Canada representative. Receive new tickets on a handwritten slip of carbon paper.  Every security official, ever, as to talk to their manager to let us through the next step.  Kristina falls asleep standing up.  I think she's dead a couple of times.

Travel time: 23 hours.

Finally board.  Informed flight is delayed because blah blah blah wasn't paying attention.  Because, 23 goddamn hours.

Travel time: 27 hours.

Istanbul at sunset!

Travel time: 28 hours. 

Arrive in city proper, can't find apartment.  Turns out we walked right by it. Twice.

Hello, Turkey!!  Next up: we meet up with a fabulous ex-pat, who feeds us and gets us extraordinarily drunk.  I almost punch a 21 year old douchewad. 

Edit:  It's late and I don't know how to make my Google phone give my Google tablet pictures so I can upload them.  I'm technologically challenged on the best of days.  I'll Google it tomorrow and hope Google will fix my Google problem. 

Chernobyl, Part... a lot.

Okay, so this has kind of turned into its own monster.  I'll try to be succinct about it and just get to the good stuff.  Pictures!  Lots and lots of pictures.

We next went into a kindergarten.  Remember how I said one of the biggest problems residents had was finding a kindergarten school for their children?  Yeah, keep that in mind.

See?  Soviet Ukraine wasn't so cut off.  They even had Children of the Corn.

The kindergarten was named after some kind of fish or something.

Following this, we went to a Fabrik, a factory where they were "making cassette tapes," e.g., manufacturing war-type stuff for the Soviet Union. 

Then we walked to the police station.  It was pretty small, a couple of barred cells and maybe 10 actual cells.  These were educated people, but they still lived in the Soviet Union.  So public intoxication was sort of a problem.

This was the front of the station.  No, really.

Helen read this, it's an arrest card where some guy got arrested for public drinking.

Well, I'm sick of staring at my computer, so I'll leave you here.  Hopefully we're only one more post away from the end.  But, next up is the amusement park! 

Chernobyl, Part 4

I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning, filled with excitement and anticipation.  Just kidding.  I told Michaela that I was going to sleep half an hour later than I had stated the night before, and required food and caffeine before I was fit for proper company.

Meals were served a short walk from our hotel, by slightly sullen-looking employees forced to wear "traditional" Ukrainian outfits to serve tourists who'd come to gawk at their national tragedy.  Nonetheless, they were delicious.  The meals, not the employees.

First we went to the Chernobyl City church, the only one left standing.  As I understand, Mother Russia wasn't too fond of religion, so they naturally didn't build too many.  This particular church was originally built out of wood approximately 700 years ago.  They kept rebuilding it, repainting it.  As one of the Dutch guys noted, "I love the churches here.  In the Netherlands, the churches are dreary and plain.  Here, they're saying, 'Let's do some religion, baby!!'"  I couldn't have said it better myself. 

Above: religion being done.

We went to another memorial, this one for the robots that they employed to do the dirty work, before the radiation overcame their circuitry and they became just so-much-metal.  I thought the oddest thing about this particular memorial is that they not only cleaned the robots (well, I suppose they had to decontaminate them), but proceeded to repaint them.  In offensively bright colors.

We finally reached the height of our tour... Pripyat!  This city of 49,000 people housed primarily the workers for the plant and their families located a mere 2 km away from the reactors.  This was a model soviet town, filled with all kinds of luxuries not found in many other places this side of the Iron Curtain.  Helen noted that her mother and sister would wait for hours in a line to get bread and meat, while Pripyat residents had access to all kinds of goodies; they could buy more than what was rationed to the rest of the population.  There were stores and malls, a hospital, a police station, a theater, cafes and restaurants, hotels, an Olympic-sized swimming pool.  The rich in Kiev (because no matter how communist you say you are, there are always rich people) would travel to Pripyat to shop.  This was a young, educated city, where the biggest problem average people had were finding a kindergarten that could accommodate your child (the average age was only 26) and the biggest crime was public intoxication.

Since 2005, the buildings have been slowly collapsing. Somewhere around 2007, Ukraine decided to prohibit entry into the buildings of Pripyat, specifically.  However, our guides seemed to be cheerfully disobedient to this rule.  And we cheerfully followed them into the abyss. 

That door that's falling off its hinges?  Yeah, we went in there.

Okay, I'm being melodramatic.  We cheerfully followed Helen into a 13 story apartment, up the stairs, around the 10th (or so) floor and onto the roof. 

So, thirteen floors is kind of a bitch when you don't have an elevator.  Luckily, we took a break on an obscenely high floor to look around.

So, remember how shit started to go down super early morning on April 26?  Well, they told the Pripyat residents sometime during the day to just "stay inside, close your windows, there's a fire at the plant.  But no need to worry."  During the afternoon of April 27, they notified the residents that, due to this fire, they needed to evacuate everyone from the city.  It required so many buses that they had to bring in a bunch from Kiev.  To keep order and prevent panicking (and to keep people from bringing everything they owned onto these crowded buses), they told the residents they'd be returning soon and to only bring enough clothes and essentials to last them three days.  Three days.  So everyone left behind family heirlooms, valuables, etc.  And they were shipped to Kiev, who was also receiving their fair share of radiation. 

None of them ever returned to Pripyat.  Not to live, anyway.

Ukraine's Labor Day is on May 1st.  They have a parade.  Today, the parade that took place in 1986 is called The Parade of Death, because they insisted on carrying forth with the plans and a bunch of people were exposed to dangerous levels of radioactive dust.  The government didn't want mass panic, so they didn't tell the residents of Kiev about the giant cloud of fallout hovering over them, settling on their clothes, getting breathed in, by them and their children. 

The Zone of Exclusion was closely guarded by the military until the fall of the Iron Curtain.  Somewhere around the chaotic aftermath, the borders were not so closely guarded.  Looters came in and took everything that was worth taking.  As a result, there is not a lot left in any given apartment. 

Except nightmares.

That's a totally reasonable place to put a toilet.

Sad wild dog climbed up here to die and will probably stay here for a really long time.

We climbed up, up, up.

To the top.

In the distance you can see the reactors and the new sarcophagus.  On a bright day it's easily seen.

And now I will leave you, because the kindergarten and school is coming up next, and that will take some energy to get through.  And espresso.  But I leave you with this cool shit to look at.