Tag: Expat in Turkey

Street Cats

Posted in Culture, Istanbul2 Comments

This one is near and dear to my heart, considering that I brought my own little expat cat to this City of Kitties. No longer a kitten, Moloko is onto her third country at not even 4 years of age. As you can see from the photos below, she has it made in the shade here in Turkey. She’s adjusted very well and, of course, makes for wonderful company.

This past weekend, Mol held down the fort as I spent the night downtown in the Cihangir neighborhood near Taksim Square. Known for its bohemian vibes, Cihangir is where I’ve spent most of my time downtown since arriving. Dotted with antique shops, cute cafes, and street art, Cihangir has a lot of charm and, of course, a lot of cats.

I spent the night at the Hotel Corinne. The hotel is located just down the street from one of the oldest hamams (bathhouses) in Istanbul, the Tarihi Galatasaray Hamamı, which dates back to 1481. Walking the historic and narrow streets of Cihangir, dodging motorbikes and taxis, I was struck by the beauty of the Corinne’s lobby and bar on an earlier trip. Looked like the perfect place to enjoy a G&T and good conversation. Turns out, I was correct!

My good friend Julie met me for that drink. Julie and I arrived in Moscow the same year and we haven’t seen each other since I left in June of 2021. I took her to Hodan, a basement terrace full of modern art, delicious Turkish fare, and pitch perfect ambiance. Cats wandered through the restaurant terrace as we caught up and enjoyed dishes featuring artichoke, eggplant, prawns, and peas. Even with mezze-sized courses, we had no room for dessert.

Back to the cats… Cihangir, like so many neighborhoods of Istanbul, has a robust population of street cats. As I sipped my coffee in the Corinne lobby on Sunday morning, a few padded through the front door and made their breakfast requests known. It is so hard to deny those adorable, pleading eyes! One thing I will say is that, thankfully, the majority of the street cats I encounter appear to be well-fed, healthy, and have evidence of being spayed. Note the triangle missing from the ear on the cat below (top right). Just as street dogs are examined and tagged, local groups work to do the same for the cat population. Even so, it is estimated that up to one million feral cats live within Istanbul city limits. They even have their own documentary on Amazon Prime called Kedi. Check out the trailer here.

While dogs tend to roam on the outskirts of the city, like the fields near my school, cats are more adept at surviving in the tight confines of downtown. In many parts of the city, you will find bowls of food and water set out for the street cats. I’m told there are areas in which the cats are not treated well but, thus far, I’ve only seen locals looking out for them, paying for them to be spayed, and allowing them to mingle freely among the shops and cafes. Thankfully, Cihangir (below) and my neighborhood of Bahçeşehir are two such safe havens.

Back in the ‘burbs, Moloko continues to live her best Istanbul life. This week, she’ll have her first cat sitter while I travel to Dalyan with my Grade 7 students. My colleagues recommended Trusted Housesitters, a membership-based app and website which swaps free petsitting for free housing. Many people make their way around the world in this manner, enjoying new neighborhoods and countries while taking care of the precious pets who live in them. After using the Rover app in the States, this is a bit of a level up as people come with background checks, reviews, and in-depth personal profiles. Mol will have a number of Trusted Housesitters this fall, all of whom come highly recommended and excited to meet her. Should you be interested in joining the site, click this link for 25% off.

Time to pack and prepare to spend four days with 40 wacky and wonderful Grade 7 students. We fly direct to Dalyan and head straight to a sea turtle rescue. Also on the agenda – a visit to a pomegranate farm and an afternoon at the beach. With warmer temps still in effect in southwest Turkey, I’ve got no complaints! Stories from the trip to follow. Wishing you all a wonderful week.

Sanat

Posted in Uncategorized6 Comments

After nearly a month in Turkey, I’ve begun to settle in. I’ve got my little two-wheeled grocery cart, rearranged my apartment, and I’ve finished two successful weeks of classes with my students. The honeymoon period has ended and I am facing the day-to-day challenges of life as an expat in a foreign country. I celebrate every success (water delivery!) and try not to dwell when things don’t well (a wild goose hunt at the Turkish Immigration Office). This week I began coaching middle school tennis – which is incredibly fun – and also hosted friends for drinks on my sun porch. Both are wins.

I shuttled in and out of downtown Istanbul twice this past weekend. On Saturday, Ali and I met a Turkish friend from Moscow, Arzu, at the Pera Museum. We had a lovely lunch, drank in Arzu’s generous advice about Istanbul’s sights and traditions, and enjoyed the museum galleries.

The exhibitions taught me a great deal about the technological and mathematical discoveries that have taken place in the region since the time of Mesopotamia (remember the Fertile Crescent from history class?). Most impressive were tools of measurement such as the compass and the brass aerial balance, both of which had great impact upon Islamic art, geometry, and other engineering domains. I also learned about Osman Hamdi Bey, a 19th Century Turkish statesman who was a pioneer of art education and a revered painter.

Sunday morning dawned bright and early as Moloko and I watched the sunrise against the Bahçeşehir skyline. Wonderful coworkers had organized a brunch boat trip on the Bosphorous Strait. After catching the tried and true city bus from Bahçeşehir to downtown, we walked the last mile to the pier and boarded Le Vapeur Magique for a 2-hour cruise.

There seems to be something especially kind about individuals who end up in Istanbul. Multiple coworkers had offered for me to stay at their apartment the evening before but the commute in was no problem. Sitting atop a double decker bus as the world wakes up, on a ride costing 80 cents, I have zero complaints. Both the company and the Turkish breakfast were wonderful, to say the least.

Finding one’s place in a new country is a bit of an art form. Not everything about this move has been easy and some days are certainly better than others. At this point, I’m striving for acceptance – acceptance of the choice I’ve made to move here, respect for the traditions and trappings of the local culture surrounding me, and the wisdom of knowing how to reset when things get heavy (my current meditation is found swimming laps). I’m open to what Istanbul and Türkiye have to offer and really pleased with what I’ve discovered so far.

Sanat (n., Ottoman-Turkish origin) art, artistry, museum, culture, music, creative. The methods used in the narration of a sensation, design or beauty, or the superior creativity that emerges as a result of this narrative. A narrative created in accordance with the metrics of pleasure of a particular civilization or community.

Superstition

Posted in Istanbul, Turkey5 Comments

*If you’re reading this in an email format, I recommend clicking on turquoisechronicles.com for the best formatting. Enjoy!

The first week of school is done and the year is off to a promising start. I am a Grade 12 advisor, teaching Grades 7 & 8 (MYP Art) and Grades 11 & 12 (IB/DP Visual Arts). The range of ages is nice and the energy is positive from all of my classes so far. Amazingly, I have two of my old students who I taught in Russia in my classes here in Turkey! When the war began in February, schools in the region offered asylum to international students from Moscow. These students hail from Denmark and France originally. It’s wonderful to see them a year later, making it work in this new environment.

On Friday night, the school took us on a boat ride downtown. We caught the sunset and danced the night away as we cruised up and down the Bosphorus Strait. The faculty has been so welcoming and I am really enjoying getting to meet all the teachers. Many have links to schools in Moscow or Bangladesh, as it happens. A robust group of international teachers with very interesting life journeys.

On Saturday, Ali and I took a bus back downtown for a little Moscow reunion with our friend Joseph, who has set up counseling practice here for the next few months. We enjoyed the area around İstiklal Caddesi and watched the tram patiently make it’s way through the crowd, bells ringing. Tuesday was Victory Day in Turkey and national pride runs high here. Many Turkish flags still proudly wave in adoration of Atatürk, founding father of the Republic of Turkey (more on him in a future post). As we walked around downtown, I was struck by the lightness of the mood on the street. The crowds are thick but people are happy, stepping aside to let others pass, and enjoying their time out with family and friends. You are just as likely to see a woman dressed in a full burka as a woman wearing a crop top and short shorts. Everything goes and everyone is welcome.

When moving to a new country, I always enjoy learning about cultural superstitions. They run as strong here in Turkey as they did in Korea (hello, fan death). One of the most well known is, of course, the evil eye.

A gift from my school upon arrival. It hangs next to my front door for protection.

The name is misleading, as an evil eye itself stands for love and protection. Known in Turkey as Nazar Boncuk, you should never purchase an evil eye for yourself – it must be a gift from someone who wishes you well in order to contain protective powers. Should the eye fall or break, this indicates someone had wished you harm and the eye protected you from those ill wishes, absorbing the blow. With the eye representing peace and the infinite, it is speculated that the blue color likely comes from the influence of the Byzantines in which blue, the color of heaven and water, was sacred.

Another interesting Turkish belief is that air conditioning will be make you sick. Instead of air con on our school buses, the rear bus door is often left wide open to provide air flow, even on the highway. I have experienced this superstition first hand in that my landlord refuses to put in air con units (more likely due to cost than tradition). Waking up to 88% humidity with temps the high 80s has felt like wading pea soup. Without screens in my apartment (very much the norm outside the US), it has been incredibly hot and stuffy. Mercifully, I was able to have custom screens made and they were installed just yesterday. The cat and I are today basking in the free flowing air on the 7th floor. Jumping back to cultural superstitions – it is also believed that sweat will make you sick. Children are sent to school with little towels around their necks to prevent illness. That these views on air con and sweat seem to lie in direct opposition to each other is not surprising to me, here in this country of many strong contrasts.

My apartment is starting to shape up and I’m reveling in the early morning glow from the sunroom. Alongside the screens, I’ve also had earthquake proofing completed on my wardrobes and heavy furniture. Having never lived in an earthquake zone before, I was schooled in the necessary preparations (liters of water, a go-back containing first aid supplies, copies of important papers, and non-perishables to last 72 hours, and food for the cat). My school is fully prepared to house our entire population for up to three days, should the need arise – from mattresses to food storage. I’m thankful that I live in a suburb where the buildings are up to earthquake code, unlike downtown with its 150 year old structures. Because of my proximity to the school (roughly 9 miles away), I could also walk there in a matter of hours and find safety among the sunflower fields.

As a new school week approaches, I’m reminded that I’ve only been in country for a mere three weeks. On the one hand, I am shocked at how settled things feel. On the other, I am very aware how much I don’t yet know (probably many layers I’m not remotely aware of). I’m struggling to accept the very loose interpretation of time on the part of the Turks. It’s not easy with an American sensibility, believing that A + B = C and every effort should (generally) lead to a completed outcome. I’ve been sent to Immigration offices for paperwork, taking hours from my day, only to be turned away on small technicalities my school could not have known ahead of time. I still can’t figure out how to tell which direction the 76E bus is going when it hits the roundabout near my house. This resulted in massive detour one Sunday, as you can see in the picture below (left). We are the blue dot. The red route is where we intended to be (lol). All’s well that ends well and we learned a little more about how the buses work (and made the most of our time downtown).

On the other hand, there is a lot available to me here that would never be possible in the States. An hour long bus ride to downtown costs $1 USD. My generous apartment is covered by the stipend I receive from my school. I now have a cleaning person who comes once a week. She stays for 8 hours and I pay her well above market rate at $35/day plus some fruit thrown in for good measure. All of these are gems I would not experience living as a teacher in the US and I greatly appreciate them.

Diving into a new culture can bring great challenge. Armed with respect and an open mind, I’m finding that good things are possible here and there are, of course, many amazing people here very willing to help me with the adjustment. I still have a lot to learn!

Sustenance

Posted in Istanbul, Turkey8 Comments

The Turks do food exceptionally well. A stop on the Silk Road, Istanbul straddles both Asia and Europe. It is therefore no surprise that I am finding widely diverse cuisine within the city’s fortifications. Turkish cuisine is largely the heritage of Ottoman cuisine, which can be described as a fusion and refinement of Mediterranean, Balkan, Middle Eastern, Central Asian, Eastern European, Armenian, and Georgian cuisines. Within a one block radius in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu District, you can find traditional Turkish fare (doner, lahmacun, etc.), a handful of bakeries selling simit, and food from countries around the world – Korean, Russian, and Ethiopian to name a few. On Friday night, we opted for the later.

On a rooftop overlooking the city of rolling hills, we enjoyed a drink (rarely found in my far out district) and celebrated the conclusion of orientation. A lot has happened in the last two weeks! Ripping the tart, spongy bread and dipping it in the lentils, cabbage, corn, spinach is a staple of Ethiopian food the world over, something I’ve enjoyed ever since living in close proximity to Washington, DC’s H Street Corridor. If you haven’t tried Ethiopian before, I can’t suggest it enough. It was wonderful to make new friends, discussing where our work has taken each of us (Malaysia, Shanghai, Korea…) and what we should enjoy here in Istanbul.

Myself, Joanna (from Providence), Gizem (Istanbul), and Ali (Chicago)

Last weekend, our wonderful Uzbek music teacher took Ali and I to our local market. Only a 15 minute walk from my apartment, the market is the heart center of our area, attracting vendors from all over the region to sell on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The downstairs is full of clothing, rugs, and antiques for sale. The upstairs is an explosion of color and taste. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

Check out the tongue on that pup! Even the local park dogs (indicated by his tagged ear) get lucky at the market sometimes 🙂 As much as it breaks my heart to see them striving to survive on the streets, dogs are treated well here on the whole. People build them wooden shelters in the parks and there are stations with water and food set up all around town. Stray, a documentary available on Amazon Prime, follows the daily life of a few Istanbul pups. I highly recommend it. The cats of Istanbul are a breed all their own and I will definitely profile them in an upcoming post. That’s mine (below right) doing her morning yoga 😉

Turkish breakfast is such an amazing experience that I’ve covered it twice in four posts. “A classic Turkish breakfast always features a selection of fruit preserves, jams, and spreads. For example, apricot, cherry, and apricot jams are traditional options at any Turkish breakfast. Likewise, black olive spread, molasses, and tahini are popular spreads.” Mirroring the Mediterranean practice of dolce far niente (Italian for, “the sweetness of doing nothing”), the practice as all about enjoying a leisurely meal with family and friends on a day when no one has to rush. While the mindset is peaceful, the spread is intense! Turkish breakfast encompasses many small plates (hello, banchan), washed down with strongly brewed Turkish coffee and chai. Borek, menemen, and pisi are some of my favorites, along with the delicious cheeses you see included below. Not required but surely adding to the flavor – a view of the Blue Mosque, captured during our new hire breakfast last week (below, left).

Cafe culture is strong in Istanbul. Coffee shops, bars, and clubs stay open until all hours of the morning. Smoking is still a very common past time, though now relegated to outdoors at bars and restaurants. It is common to retire to a cafe after dinner, to enjoy a strong coffee or an apéritif.

Istanbul nights are awash in a warm, golden glow. Ringed in vines, the streets look like something out of a fairy tale. People watching while surrounded by a multitude of languages being spoken, it’s easy to see that Istanbul still retains its Silk Road reputation – it truly feels like the center of our universe.

Sunflowers

Posted in Touching Down, Turkey12 Comments

Istanbul is notorious for its traffic. For this reason, I asked to live outside of downtown and I’m very thankful for the result – a large apartment with an incredible view, a pool to help beat the heat (85F+ daily), and a park to enjoy in the evenings. Teachers who live downtown can face a 1.5 hour bus ride home thanks to the congestion. Instead, I live 25 minutes from school and the bus ride includes fields of sunflowers in full bloom and shepherds tending their flock. In the small village near school, the bakery is occupied with locals having breakfast after morning prayers at the mosque.

My school is made up of two campuses – one close to downtown for Grades K-5 and the Marmara campus (Grades PreK-12) which overlooks Büyükçekmece Lake, which leads into the Sea of Marmara. I work at the latter and my classroom is located in the art cabins, connected to the school by a covered walkway.

While the exterior reminds me of camp (love it), the interior classrooms provide generous space to create and explore. The primary school art teacher has one room, my DP Visual Arts classes have a small room just for Grades 11 and 12, and I also share a large studio with a part-time art teacher. Just yesterday I had to move the full size human model – it was so lifelike that it kept freaking me out.

The school is located on a gated piece of land featuring fig trees and views of the rolling hills beyond. So far, the property gates have only been breached by our school dog, Hope. A stray who has been adopted by the community, Hope sprints the half mile in the woods alongside the driveway to welcome us each morning. Here is Hope, below, with Ali on our first day.

The school hosts students from 62 different countries and the most diverse staff I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Teachers hail from countries such as New Zealand, Ecuador, and South Africa, to name a few. With just over 35 students in last year’s graduating class, it will be an intimate community, but one I look forward to becoming a part of.

Our first week of orientation flew by – from the IKEA trip to a scavenger hunt at the Grand Bazaar and a rooftop Turkish breakfast with the new hires, it was busy but also chill. This dichotomy seems to represent the push and pull of Istanbul that I’m beginning to discover. It’s challenged me to loosen up and also determine what’s really important. A friend of mine has a 5 year rule – when something is frustrating or a decision needs to be made, ask yourself: “Will this matter in 5 years?”. It’s a work in progress. Thankful to have a quiet place to return home to each afternoon.

To celebrate the success of Week 1, Ali and I returned to the rooftop shisha bar, Chapee, on the outskirts of the nearby park. The frozen drink hit almost as smooth as if it included actual booze. As the muezzin call rang out from the mosque next door, the heat of the day gave way to cooler evening temps (a low of 75F). Happy to report that cooler heads have prevailed throughout the stress of making this big move, starting new job, and beginning to carve out this new life. It’s only been seven days but they’ve been well spent. Thank you to all of you who reached out after my last blog. Would love to hear any questions you have about life or school here in Istanbul in the comments below. Have a wonderful weekend!

Supermoon

Posted in Touching Down, Turkey10 Comments

We landed under a glowing supermoon, the last of 2022. Upon our approach into Istanbul, I could see the Bosphorus Bridge glowing neon red, a physical and metaphoric tie between Europe and Asia. My cat sat on my lap as I watched the boats bobbing below, lit up like Christmas lights on the Sea of Marmara.

My last few days in the States were bittersweet, as always. It was a terrible relief when my visa came through but I was also wistful to be leaving family and friends after a year that was nothing short of a gift. Time with my parents, seeing friends in the States and Canada, and exploring northern Massachusetts – I couldn’t have asked for more. Moves like this one take consideration, determination, and a great deal of planning. I don’t enter into these contracts lightly, but I also know what I’m looking for. So when the job opportunity in Istanbul arose, I knew that I had to go for it.

Landing as dawn lit the horizon, I made my way through the brand new Istanbul Airport to Customs. After claiming my luggage (thankful for my direct flight!), I found my hosts – my new principal, an HR representative, and the housing and transportation coordinator. Big smiles all around, the group became quickly smitten with Moloko who took up residence in her first Istanbul cafe like it was her job, reposing on the tile floor. We waited for my good friends from Moscow, Ali and Shalene, who landed only minutes after me on their direct flight from Chicago. Ali is teaching at my school this year and Shalene came for the weekend to help transport Ali’s two cats, also Russian expats 😉

Next stop was Bahçeşehir, our neighborhood in the western suburbs of Istanbul. The name translates to Garden City and it’s apt – from my balcony I can see swaths of green winding between residential buildings as far as the eye can see. Called “B-town” by the expat residents, the park paths are beautiful and I’m so lucky to have an amazing view, day and night. My apartment itself is incredibly lovely and I will share more when it is fully set up. There is a spare bedroom and visitors are very welcome!

Usually the first few days in a new country are a blur of meet ups, dinners, and local tours. Your head can swim with new social norms and the goal of making a positive first impression. It’s helpful to do more observing then concluding during this time, and try to relax any expectations. Here in Turkey, I am beginning to suspect that everything runs on a slightly different timetable. There was nothing on our schedule for the first two days. Thanks to my friends staying just across the park, the three of us began exploring on our own, beginning at my old TASIS staple, Migros. Swiss in origin, Migros is a food market and home goods store, a very welcome one-stop-shop. After purchasing a few essentials, we enjoyed dinner at a local outdoor cafe which specializes in lahmacun, a flatbread with meat, spices, vegetables, and herbs.

There’s no better way to fight jet lag than to make plans you want to keep. Knowing this, we decided on Turkish breakfast for the morning. Turkish breakfast is no joke and we located an adorable spot a little over a mile from our park, replete with a garden setting and a resident cheeky cat (more like kitten). More on the cats of Istanbul to come in a future blog. The meal was as delicious as it looks with the shakshuka as my personal favorite.

Fortified for the day, my friends took off to see the sights of downtown Istanbul, making the most of Shalene’s crazy quick long weekend. I retreated to my own apartment to finish unpacking and take a dip in the pool to beat the heat. Moloko busied herself trying out every possible perch in the apartment. She seems to be adjusting just fine.

Meeting for dinner at a rooftop shisha bar, we enjoyed non-alcoholic frozen drinks (mine was mulberry) alongside halloumi, manti, and, of course that foreign delicacy of corn on pizza (throwback to my SoKo days). Shalene shared some beautiful Turkish delight purchased from the Grand Bazaar and we had a great time playing games at my apartment. No better way to kick off a new country than with good friends trying out amazing local fare.

As has become standard for my overseas postings, a trip to IKEA is scheduled for tomorrow. There is something comforting about walking through the prearranged rooms, seeking an item that might make your life a little easier when assimilating to a new country. With that, I thank you for enjoying this first blog installment from Turkey. Much more to follow in the coming weeks, no doubt!