Happy Vday

To all my loved ones back in Turkey.
XOXO Kloe
PS How do you like my new dress?
PPS This is not astroturf.

What I Came Here For

Carne asada taco, fish taco, hot pickled carrots and onions, tamarindo

You Can Never Be Too Thin or Too Blond

Have been shopping for three days straight. Saw my lovely hairdresser today, am highlighted and destressed now. She’s better than a psychiatrist. Plus new clothes! How can it be possible to be so empowered by the way I look?
Plus, while visiting my aunt today at work someone recognized me. From elementary school.

First Impressions of SoCal

Americans are so funny. They joke with friends and complete strangers alike. Turks are probably funny too, but I miss it because of the language barrier.
The food here is greasy and sweet. And we are fat, fat, fat.
The roads are perfect.
We have way too much.
The grass is green and there are lots of birds.
We don’t greet each other formally like Turks do, with a kiss on both cheeks and “How are you?” “Fine, and you?” We should do it, it’s nice.

Traveling like Hell

1. From our Anatolian City, 6 hour bus trip, in which the driver smoked (drivers are exempt from the no-smoking-on-public-transport rule) and a very violent movie was shown despite half a dozen kids on the bus. Stayed overnight in Istanbul.
2. Taxi to airport in plenty of time. Waited on the tarmac for an hour before take-off. 10 ½ hour flight to NYC, waited another hour on the tarmac. Missed connecting flight, along with 20 other Turks.
3. Stayed in airport hotel, had a GREAT hamburger and martini in the bar watching a black debutant event (girls in crowns and dads in fedoras), Persian barkeep, white jocks, too-pretty Asian girls eating peanuts. Made friends with a fellow traveler-in-distress, a Turkish guy from Bursa going to SoCal to study English for a few months. Must take him museum hopping…
4. NYC to Salt Lake City. And you guessed it, mechanical problems, another 2 ½ hour delay.
5. Salt Lake to SoCal.
Istanbul to NYC: 5191 miles/8354 km
NYC to SoCal: 2429 miles/3909 km
Total travel time: 59 hours

All Study and No Play

All over Turkey, in cities big and small, high school students and young adults are studying in dershaneler, or private night schools. This photo was taken in Bursa from our hotel room at 6pm on a Sunday evening. What are they studying? Most probably, English. It is the key to success. In university entrance exams there is an English test. To get ahead in almost every profession, you must have English. Turkish has no future (this is what Turks tell me). How can that be for a national psyche, to believe that your language may die?
However, most Turks who do know English are afraid to speak it with me. They think I will judge them. When of course, coming from SoCal, where almost everyone mangles English, I am the last person to judge.
Tomorrow, in fact, I’m going home to Spanlishland for a week, so I’ll be posting from the other side of the world when next I write. Hasta la vista, baby.
Love, Kloe

I Just Like this Photo

It was taken in Kutahya, a center for porcelain production in Turkey.
Today, in the space of a few hours, two galleries called to offer me shows. Unfortunately, the dates are both for March. I paint fast, but not that fast, to have enough to fill two exhibitions simultaneously. What to do? When it rains, etc...

Want Butter with your Meat?

We also went to Bursa for a few days. Turkey’s fourth biggest city after Istanbul, Ankara and Ismir, Bursa is a big shopping mall, but also an important historic center. Photo above is one of the tombs of a Pasha from the 13th century, surrounded by his wives, etc. Turks were visiting and praying in front of the tomb. The local specialty is Iskender Kebap, which is sliced pressed lamb in tomato sauce over flat bread, then doused in herbed butter, served with grilled green pepper and yogurt. Not exactly low calorie, but quite good.
As a side note, we’ve outgrown budget hotels. Our regular two-star dive in Bursa, which had served us well before kids and with babies, no longer cuts it: no wireless, no comfortable lobby (where one parent can get away), no storage in the room, no kid activities. Plus it’s not that cheap (about $80 per night). Better to spend more for more comfort. Duh!

Friends and Pigs

We’ve been on vacation for a few days with another family, half Turk, half Thai. Their younger child is Kid.02’s best buddy, and they are so cute together, like twins. It’s shy-guy’s first real friendship and we are relieved he has found someone. We went to another thermal resort so kids could swim (what else is there to do in winter here, tell me, please!) The highlight of the trip was taking two hikes in the snow. On the last day we saw a pack of wild boars running in the hills (they were being chased by village dogs). Then it turned toward us! Luckily the 20 or so pigs didn’t get too close, but if we’d been one minute later we would have come face to face with them on our path. How ironic, to almost be attacked by angry pigs in a Muslim country…

Turkish Çay

That’s pronounced “chai,” black tea from the Black Sea region of Turkey. Best in a small tulip glass with one cube sugar. Am seriously addicted.

Eating Thoughts

As someone who has been obsessed with food and her body almost her entire life, I find it very interesting how my kids eat. I have one kid who is a young foodie, who started noticing how food tasted and commenting on it at age 3. Unfortunately, this kid also overeats because he can’t stop himself. He tries everything, and likes almost everything, and isn’t really into physical activity. My other kid could care less about food. I sneak him whole milk and extra butter, but he’s the type that has to wear a belt cause his pants fall off him. He does like dessert, though.
In both my and my husband’s families we have relatives who are thin and others who are pretty overweight. So genetically the kids could go either way.
My own attitude toward food is complicated. As an ex-dancer (who was told by a ballet master at age 12 that developing breasts were fat), I am almost never satisfied with my body. Having gone through two pregnancies in which I gained 45 pounds each time, I have gradually gotten my body back (altered, it’s true), but with lots of work (I do understand why many women just can’t do it). I subscribe to two philosophies:
1. NWC= Not Worth the Calories. If something isn’t really good, I generally don’t eat it.
2. The First Bite is the Best. A neighbor and I realized one day that this is the way we eat: the first bite is really the only bite you taste. The first sip of coffee is the best, the rest is just warm. The first taste of chocolate is divine, the first bite of each thing on your plate is almost enough. The rest is just eating for energy.

Separate

Men and women don’t mix here much. If one man is with women friends, it is fine, but if a few men are added to the group, the sexes drift apart. The other day I came into a group of people on couches, and I sat down next to a man (with whom I wanted to talk), and was politely directed to sit with the women. And these were highly educated people! Parallel conversations then continued within the group. Another example: at a parent meeting at the grammar school, couples came in the door together, but most men dropped their wives off in the front of the classroom and went to sit with the men in the back. Reminded me of when I went to summer biology class at a Catholic school, girls on one side and boys on the other.
For the benefit of my Turkish readers, in America it is common, at a dinner party for example, for guests to sit boy/girl/boy/girl, and many times you don’t sit next to your partner. I like it like that.
BTW, in my next life I’m coming back as a man, but I'm sure you guessed that.

Friends and Foes

From the January 4 Vakit Newspaper:
Results of a survey conducted by the Baskent Research Company: 91.5 percent of the Turkish people see Israel as an enemy state, followed by Armenia (88.7), Denmark (85.2), while 77.1 felt the same way about the United States… (friends include Afghanistan, Palestine, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, and Egypt) … According to the survey, U.S. President George Bush, followed by Israel’s Ehud Olmert, are the most unpopular world leaders for the Turkish nation.

Things That are Cheap in Turkey (Relative to SoCal Prices)

Glass of tea
Bread (and it is really good)
Rent in our City (although I’ve been informed that it’s higher than it should be due to student demand for apartments)
Preschool
Produce in the open markets
Toys from China
Meals at family restaurants (no alcohol served)
Train and bus tickets
Pirated DVDs
Public university education

Can Art Rescue Me?

When people ask me if I am happy we came to Turkey—and let’s be clear, we came here because I got a grant of the kind you just don’t turn down in my world—I could answer both yes and no. For my work it’s been great. Other parts have been hard, and sadness/anger (for me, deeply linked) have been building up in me.
Yesterday I read Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel Lecture and took comfort. If you accuse me of anger, you see I am not alone. I have inserted the words in italics in this excerpt:

The question we writers/artists are asked most often, the favorite question is: Why do you write/make art?
I write/paint because I have an innate need to write/paint.
I write/make art because I can’t do normal work as other people do.
I write/paint because I want to read books/see paintings like the ones I write/paint.
I write/make art because I am angry at everyone.
I write/paint because I love sitting in a room all day writing/painting.
I write/make videos because I can partake of real life only by changing it.
I write/make images because I want others, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live in Istanbul, in Turkey, in SoCal…
I write/make art because it is a habit, a passion.
I write/make art because I am afraid of being forgotten…
I write/paint to be alone.
Perhaps I write/make art because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at everyone…
I write/make art because it is exciting to turn all life’s beauties and riches into words/images…
I write/make art because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go to but—as in a dream—can’t quite get to.
I write/make art because I have never managed to be happy.
I write/paint to be happy.

Translated, from Turkish, by Maureen Freely

International Exchange

These two pretty women are my Erasmus students from Lithuania. Erasmus is an exchange program that allows European university students, including Turks, to study a semester or two in a different country. This semester I also worked with a Norwegian, a Pole, a Slovenian and a Slovak. I also had one American exchange student (a Filipino guy who was a total mystery to the Turks). All good kids.
On the last day of class I asked the yabancis what food from home they missed the most:
“normal soup”
“gruel”
“Hawaiian BBQ”
“carne asada burrito with guacamole” (me)
“pork anything”
“non-Turk beer”
“Mom’s cooking”

When I Need to Slow my Mind and Body Down

I think about the SoCal desert in winter. After it has just rained, how it smells. How the mountains are misty blue. The smoke trees are soft pink and the palo verdes are brilliant lime green. The ocatillo are bursting with red tips and the air is the same temperature as my skin. A coyote runs across the path, fur almost translucent in the early sunlight.
When my grandfather was still alive, he used to come down to the Chocolate Mountains and I’d drive out and stay with him. Those desolate highways. Those lonely, lonely people.

Fish and Cars

Yesterday I finally had the perfect meal I’ve been waiting for in Turkey, in a most surprising place. Parents of friends invited us to “fish night” at the guest house of a government agency here in our Anatolian City. Only employees of this agency are admitted, and by the time we left at 9pm the place was filled with men playing backgammon and smoking, their wives at home.
Here’s what we ate:
Soup and bread (my least favorite part)
Fresh orange juice
Grilled trout on a bed of sweet onions with lemons
Side of arugula and parsley
Halva with lemon (eaten with the fish)
Raki
Citrus, apples and bananas
Cay
Simple, no choices, perfect. Even kid.02 loved the fish.
Today for the first time I drove a car that we have rented for the week. What a revelation. I normally don’t enjoy driving in SoCal, but here I suddenly felt free. For four months I have depended on walking, taxis, trams, services, and friends, but today I was in control. Today I didn’t need to hurry or lug all my bags or freeze my nose/ass off. I know, I’m spoiled brat, but to have a car…

Career Girl

Here’s a friend, she’s in her late twenties, who works 6-7 days a week (private companies seem to own their employees here). She's very smart. She and her boyfriend just got engaged. But I’m a bit worried about her. She comes from a modern family. Her boyfriend’s mother and sisters, whom she met for the first time at the engagement ceremony–talk about stress–wear headscarves. So how strong will his family traditions be? My friend and I talk about relationships and marriage, but I am hardly one to give advice.
She’s read this blog and it inspired her to create her own (sorry, it’s private and in Turkish). I’m complimented. I also trust her. One of the hardest, cruelest parts of being an expat, far from your close friends, is that you have no one to confide in. I have faith in you, S, for both of us.

Things That are Expensive in Turkey (Relative to SoCal Prices):

Cars, even used
Gas ($8 - $10 a gallon!!!)
Meat (including a package of 8 hot dogs from the grocery store for $7!)
Potted plants
Gym membership
Canned corn
Electronics, good and funky brands
Filtered coffee
Apartments (nice one in our city, $250,000)
Paper plates and cups
Laundry detergent
Toys from the USA