Bir, Iki, Uc, Dort!
September 21, 2008
I always find it hard to write an entire post about a city, even one as amazing as Istanbul; it requires having an opinion on things, and I find they’re treacherous things at the best of times!
I’ve been having a fantastic time in Istanbul, not least because I’ve spent the time being shown round by a lovely Turkish girl by the name of Melahat!
This lovely girl spent endless hours giving me the low down on the best places in Istanbul, all the drinks and meals, not to mention the local slang and some interesting insights into Turkish life!
We did just about everything there is to do in Istanbul (yeah right that’d take a lifetime!).
There’s me in the middle of the Bosphorous, with the main bridge in the background.
This is the Turkish speciality of erm.. something-er-other, it’s quite nice but I’m told the batch we had wasn’t up to its usual spice level!
Kumpir, basically a baked potato (except uhh.. boiled) stuffed to bursting point with everything from gherkins to yoghurt to olives to beetroot (and anything else they can lay their hands on!)
Post haircut a way up Golden Horn.
Istanbul is Purdy!
A street performer on Istiklal.
I swear this guy is the most talented motherfucker I even met; he was singing, playing really fast flamenco guitar and riding a unicycle.
In four months not a single street performer has got a penny from me, this guy got all my change (about 80p).
A film set I ran across near Istiklal, seemed to be doing a protest scene (note the poor guy clinging to the railing on the top right!)
The spice bazaar was absolutely incredible, scents from hundreds of spices (and a number of the more pungent shoppers!) mingled to create a heady mix that verged on overpowering.
Me and Melahat performed an experiment whereby she would go up to the stall and ask the price of something, then I would try a couple of minutes later.
Surprisingly the shop-keepers proved quite honest (or observant) and the prices were pretty much the same.
Unlike my first taxi, which cost me 20YTL when it should have been around 5…
Oh well, I can count up to 50 in Turkish now and ask “Nekidar?” which means “‘ow much is it?” which seemed to do the trick when getting my hair cut (initial price 12 YTL, final price 5! :D)
My cynicism has taken a step up lately, as everyone around is trying to rip me off it seems.
I was walking down a road near the Iranian embassy last Monday after handing in my passport, when a guy walking in front of me (who buffed shoes for a living) dropped his brush.
I found it rather odd that he didn’t notice the loud *clack* that the wooden brush made when it hit the pavement, but nonetheless tapped him on the shoulder and pointed out the fallen brush.
“Thank you very much sir, where are you going?”
“Uh, just to the internet cafe…”
“Oh, that internet cafe is for tourists, come with me! My friend run internet cafe half price!”
Hmm, how convenient, still I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt for the moment and follow along.
We stopped in front of a shop:
“We drink chai or Turkish coffee here! 10 minutes only!”
“Erm.. Thanks but I really have to get to the internet cafe right now!”
“Please! Don’t insult me!”
“Byeeeee!” I yelled over my shoulder as I walked determinedly in the opposite direction.
I thought nothing more of it until two days later I went to pick up my passport (with said Iranian visa) and walked down the same street.
*clonk*
This time I simply stepped over the brush and kept walking.
About half an hour later I was walking down the same street again in the opposite direction.
*clonk*
“Jeez, do these guys never give up?”
I don’t know what the rest of the rouse was but from what I’ve heard they’ll either charge you exorbitant amounts for the supposedly free chai, try and sell you a carpet, or simply spike the tea and strip you of everything you own.
I leave Istanbul on Wednesday, many experiences and one Iranian visa richer, woo!
Reading people
September 23, 2008
I am and always have been, notoriously bad at reading people, I don’t know what it is, if I believed in all this self-diagnosis bullshit people bandy around I’d say it was a mild case of aspergers, but as I don’t, I’ll say it’s probably simply one of those things I’m not good at.
Talking to my mate James (as opposed to my dad James, though he is in many ways my mate… I’m getting sidelined here..) he tells me how he’s constantly observing people, analysing what they say, how they say it.
Of course, I do this as well to a certain extent, but always at a very basic subconscious level (this ties right back into my big theme of conscious/subconscious but anyway), and although I can attempt to observe people like this at a conscious level, I’m very bad at it.
Maybe it’s a lack of practice, but the opportunity to practice is a rare beast to come by.
When engaged in conversation, especially more in depth ones that are likely to give revealing information I’m never thinking about the other person…
Their argument maybe, but usually I’m even more self absorbed than that, thinking about my argument, my responses…
In fact, that makes sense… I’m thinking about how the other person is likely to interpret my responses, and how best to express my opinions/feelings without being misunderstood.
Maybe I simple need to find a balance between reading myself as others see me and trying to read others.
Fine tuning ones mental priorities and thought processes is never an easy business, and my propensity to “unthought” (I love newspeak) makes it all the more difficult to change my patterns in the fleeting moments of clarity.
Take for example Melahat, the girl I spent quite a few days with over the past 10-11 days.
At various points during each day my subconscious would alert me to various actions on her part that could be interpreted as ‘interest’ or generally worthy of deeper analysis.
And, as is normal for me, I would take the sum total of these incidents and weigh them up against their negative counterparts, and try and decide what in fact she was thinking.
But really a logical approach generally fails miserably unless you have quite fantastic insight (which I clearly don’t), and I get the idea I should be ‘feeling’ things more.
A differing culture doesn’t help matters, and I was very interested to engage Melahat in a discussion about the Turkish dating scene.
The conversation stemmed from a discussion me and (I think, again James) were have about how most of the trepidation about ‘making a move’ comes not from fear of your own embarassment, but infact an unwillingness to put the other person in a socially awkward and embassing situation, and also the idea that subsequently the girl will then feel uncomfortable around the guy.
Our conclusion on the last effect was that this stemmed from a misapprehension on the part of most girls that after a guy has asked them out once, he will never cease hounding them, my mate agreed.
I mentioned this to Melahat.
“Oh no, not in Turkey!”
“No?”
“No, the guy will ask again and again, no matter how many times you say no!”
“Wow.. what a pain…”
We went on to discuss the dissimilarities in the subtle nature of the game.
“In Turkey, it’s quite common for a guy to ask a girl out on two or three dates, that are entirely platonic and then on the third or fourth date, say ‘I love you, what do you think about that?”
“Really? Wow, if I guy did that in England the girl would think he was completely mad!”
I got the impression that Turks were generally a lot more up front with their emotions, where further west we’re generally fear our own emotions and in some twisted subconscious way thinking that being in love with someone is a weakness, dependence is a weakness, to be strong you have to be independent, if you’re independent you don’t need anyone, if you don’t need anyone you can’t be in love.
I envy the Turks for that freedom and shall champion it whenever I can…
Still, I never did ‘make a move’ as I didn’t want to spoil the friendship Melahat and I had and from various comments I become convinced of the opinion that she felt the same way.
Excuses, will be the first thing running through your mind I should imagine, retroactively changing my feelings to protect myself, ‘Pfft, I didn’t want that anyway…’.
And that’s what I’ve told myself when I’ve felt that before, as I’ve had it drilled into me (by peers and media) that I should want every single attractive girl that I interact with, but… (even though I certainly wouldn’t be averse to such opportunities should they present themselves) I really don’t see the point most of the time, I’m simply happy to be around nice people.
I do fear that it’ll be something I regret in later life, but… Maybe by that point I’ll have matured enough to fully ignore the ‘notches on the bedpost’ mentality that seems to pervade male society at the moment….