This past week I had a conversation with a teacher friend about Turkey, and teaching in Turkey, and how it stacks up against other places we have lived and taught. I reminisced about Georgia, and he about Korea, and then he commented that maybe the first place you live abroad is kind of like your first love. Even though it may have been a crummy, even destructive, relationship, part of you is always going to be searching -- in vain -- to find and re-create that magic again.
I agreed, and said: "It's like comparing your old girlfriend to your new girlfriend. You don't want to but of course you can't help doing it constantly."
In that light, I have been thinking about my old girlfriend Georgia quite a lot lately. And I will say -- she had a terrible drinking problem and never brushed her teeth, she had really interesting ideas about sickness. She left piles of shit everywhere and was sometimes really nosy while at time same time getting defensive and passive-aggressive when I asked questions back. Despite her nickname of "Mother Georgia", she often didn't treat women very well. She could not get anywhere on time to save her life, and sometimes she was just an awful cook. But holy hell, she was also unquestionably the most FUN that I have ever had in my whole life, and I miss the hell out of her.
In Georgia, every day was an adventure. And by no means were all of those adventures welcome, or pleasant. Some days I would wake up with my old girlfriend Georgia to find she'd given me yet another undefinable illness, or that I'd be in for yet another awkward misunderstanding with my host family. But some days I would wake up staring at simply the most incredible mountains, and after watching some amorous pigs I would go and climb them.
Fast-forwarding to today, I've been in Turkey now for almost six weeks. In a lot of ways it seems like much longer. In other ways I feel like I just got here, because the sad truth is that I have yet to even see much of Istanbul, let alone the rest of Turkey. Adding up the checklist of Awesome Things Seen and/or Accomplished, I really have to face the fact that it looks awfully like I am not making the most of my time here so far.
I certainly was not expecting this expat experience to perfectly mirror the adventures I had in Georgia. It goes without saying that every country and culture is unique, and just because they share a border is no reason to assume that Turkey and Georgia have anything much in common at all. Granted, there are a few similarities, such as the terrifying driving, strays, and strangers coming up to talk to you on the street as if you weren't just minding your own business, because they happened to hear you speak English. (I really hate that.)
There is quite a bit about Turkey and Istanbul that I like. I like the food, quite a bit. Turkish food is delicious. And in sort of in that same vein but not really, I love that Istanbul is full of Burger Kings. I got a white chocolate mocha latte at a Starbucks the other week. A Starbucks. I absolutely freaking love having my own (clean!) apartment, one where I can come and go, eat and drink, sleep and stay up, pretty much whenever I want. I like being on the Bosphorus, and hope that once it finally warms up there will be many waterside shenanigans to share with you. I love the incredible history of the city, the blending of East and West, of Roman, Byzantine, Muslim, Ottoman, and modern Turkish culture and history all sort of fitting into place like a Blue Mosque mosaic.
It goes without saying at this point that I pretty much hate the teaching part. More like loathe, really. I'm hoping to get in a whole separate post that addresses this particular glittering facet of my Istanbul life in greater detail, but at this juncture I'm just going to say that an average day with the monsters is pretty much guaranteed to fuck my evening. I have spent way too many nights just sort of sitting stunned and demoralized on my couch. The best thing that ever happens on a worknight is one or more of my fellow teachers and I will gather in one of our apartments for alcohol and dinner from Little Ceasar's or Burger King, and several hours of brain-and-soul-dumping, venting, bitching, and possibly crying.
So my job is unquestionably the worst bit. The other main thing that has been coloring this experience a distinctly puce shade of less-than-awesome is my neighborhood. Remember how wretchedly unhappy I was back when TLG landed me in Vashlijvari, my Village on the Edge of the City? Yeah. My apartment, whilst fabulous on the inside, is in the Istanbul suburb of Sirinevler, which seriously seems to be the Turkish version of Vashlijvari. At least here I do have my own apartment, and a roommate, which means I am both warmer and less completely isolated than I was last January. My co-worker Sarah is also only four metrobus stops away which is a blessing. But Sirinevler as an actual neighborhood? Sucks. No lie, there is literally not one single restaurant that Rachel and I can walk to that serves beer. So many nights I've come home and just wanted to go out for an hour and nurse a quiet drink in a quiet cafe. Utterly impossible. Even restaurants that don't serve beer are in short supply, and crappy. Rachel and I tried one with two friends earlier this week, and Rachel was up all night with food poisoning. I don't think we'll be back. This is why there are a lot of evenings spent in apartments.
And no, of course a place does not have to serve beer in order to be labeled a fun spot, although it freaking helps. But here in Sirinevler there is also nary an art gallery, museum, theatre, park, lake, river, or even a decent Western-style coffeehouse. Or... a tree, come to think of it. There are just... apartment blocks, little miniature Turkish Wal-Mart shops selling household goods, and kebap hole-in-the-wall eateries, ad infinitum.
Please do not misunderstand me. Istanbul has loads of incredible and fun nightspots, pubs, cafes, and expat meeting places. But after six or eight hours of depressing monster-wrestling, I simply do not have the energy or desire for an hour-long trip to Sultanahmet or Taksim where all those places are.
Job and neighborhood aside, there is a lot that is good here. A lot that is better than Georgia. But going back and re-uploading all my photos into my old blog posts, and am struck with renewed clarity at just how much crazy, ridiculous, caution-to-the-wind fun I had during those first months in Poti. The unparalleled hospitality of the Georgians. The kindness of my host family. And how stupid freaking lucky I was to be able to get my hands dirty and experience the Georgian culture -- from dance concerts to mid-afternoon impromptu supras, to last-minute invitations to weddings of people I had never met. I went to Georgia and was unceremoniously thrown head-first into the deep end. But even though I sometimes thought I was drowning there was always a Georgian or ten who just couldn't wait to pull me out, give me a towel and invite me to their house for some chacha.
I will never say I took any of it for granted, because nothing could be further from the truth. But being here now, where none of those things have happened and instead I am typing warm and comfy on my red couch, I am forced to admit that the daily comforts offered to me by my new girlfriend do not make up for the fact that it has been six damn weeks and not one supra has been held in my honor. And seriously, what the fuck is up with that, Turkey?
I miss my old girlfriend, with all of her flaws and halitosis and cow-part stew. I miss our adventures. Our fights. And just how unapologetically, insanely FUN she was. Gaumarjos, chemi siqvaruli. There will never be another one like you.
I agreed, and said: "It's like comparing your old girlfriend to your new girlfriend. You don't want to but of course you can't help doing it constantly."
In that light, I have been thinking about my old girlfriend Georgia quite a lot lately. And I will say -- she had a terrible drinking problem and never brushed her teeth, she had really interesting ideas about sickness. She left piles of shit everywhere and was sometimes really nosy while at time same time getting defensive and passive-aggressive when I asked questions back. Despite her nickname of "Mother Georgia", she often didn't treat women very well. She could not get anywhere on time to save her life, and sometimes she was just an awful cook. But holy hell, she was also unquestionably the most FUN that I have ever had in my whole life, and I miss the hell out of her.
In Georgia, every day was an adventure. And by no means were all of those adventures welcome, or pleasant. Some days I would wake up with my old girlfriend Georgia to find she'd given me yet another undefinable illness, or that I'd be in for yet another awkward misunderstanding with my host family. But some days I would wake up staring at simply the most incredible mountains, and after watching some amorous pigs I would go and climb them.
Fast-forwarding to today, I've been in Turkey now for almost six weeks. In a lot of ways it seems like much longer. In other ways I feel like I just got here, because the sad truth is that I have yet to even see much of Istanbul, let alone the rest of Turkey. Adding up the checklist of Awesome Things Seen and/or Accomplished, I really have to face the fact that it looks awfully like I am not making the most of my time here so far.
I certainly was not expecting this expat experience to perfectly mirror the adventures I had in Georgia. It goes without saying that every country and culture is unique, and just because they share a border is no reason to assume that Turkey and Georgia have anything much in common at all. Granted, there are a few similarities, such as the terrifying driving, strays, and strangers coming up to talk to you on the street as if you weren't just minding your own business, because they happened to hear you speak English. (I really hate that.)
There is quite a bit about Turkey and Istanbul that I like. I like the food, quite a bit. Turkish food is delicious. And in sort of in that same vein but not really, I love that Istanbul is full of Burger Kings. I got a white chocolate mocha latte at a Starbucks the other week. A Starbucks. I absolutely freaking love having my own (clean!) apartment, one where I can come and go, eat and drink, sleep and stay up, pretty much whenever I want. I like being on the Bosphorus, and hope that once it finally warms up there will be many waterside shenanigans to share with you. I love the incredible history of the city, the blending of East and West, of Roman, Byzantine, Muslim, Ottoman, and modern Turkish culture and history all sort of fitting into place like a Blue Mosque mosaic.
It goes without saying at this point that I pretty much hate the teaching part. More like loathe, really. I'm hoping to get in a whole separate post that addresses this particular glittering facet of my Istanbul life in greater detail, but at this juncture I'm just going to say that an average day with the monsters is pretty much guaranteed to fuck my evening. I have spent way too many nights just sort of sitting stunned and demoralized on my couch. The best thing that ever happens on a worknight is one or more of my fellow teachers and I will gather in one of our apartments for alcohol and dinner from Little Ceasar's or Burger King, and several hours of brain-and-soul-dumping, venting, bitching, and possibly crying.
So my job is unquestionably the worst bit. The other main thing that has been coloring this experience a distinctly puce shade of less-than-awesome is my neighborhood. Remember how wretchedly unhappy I was back when TLG landed me in Vashlijvari, my Village on the Edge of the City? Yeah. My apartment, whilst fabulous on the inside, is in the Istanbul suburb of Sirinevler, which seriously seems to be the Turkish version of Vashlijvari. At least here I do have my own apartment, and a roommate, which means I am both warmer and less completely isolated than I was last January. My co-worker Sarah is also only four metrobus stops away which is a blessing. But Sirinevler as an actual neighborhood? Sucks. No lie, there is literally not one single restaurant that Rachel and I can walk to that serves beer. So many nights I've come home and just wanted to go out for an hour and nurse a quiet drink in a quiet cafe. Utterly impossible. Even restaurants that don't serve beer are in short supply, and crappy. Rachel and I tried one with two friends earlier this week, and Rachel was up all night with food poisoning. I don't think we'll be back. This is why there are a lot of evenings spent in apartments.
And no, of course a place does not have to serve beer in order to be labeled a fun spot, although it freaking helps. But here in Sirinevler there is also nary an art gallery, museum, theatre, park, lake, river, or even a decent Western-style coffeehouse. Or... a tree, come to think of it. There are just... apartment blocks, little miniature Turkish Wal-Mart shops selling household goods, and kebap hole-in-the-wall eateries, ad infinitum.
Please do not misunderstand me. Istanbul has loads of incredible and fun nightspots, pubs, cafes, and expat meeting places. But after six or eight hours of depressing monster-wrestling, I simply do not have the energy or desire for an hour-long trip to Sultanahmet or Taksim where all those places are.
Job and neighborhood aside, there is a lot that is good here. A lot that is better than Georgia. But going back and re-uploading all my photos into my old blog posts, and am struck with renewed clarity at just how much crazy, ridiculous, caution-to-the-wind fun I had during those first months in Poti. The unparalleled hospitality of the Georgians. The kindness of my host family. And how stupid freaking lucky I was to be able to get my hands dirty and experience the Georgian culture -- from dance concerts to mid-afternoon impromptu supras, to last-minute invitations to weddings of people I had never met. I went to Georgia and was unceremoniously thrown head-first into the deep end. But even though I sometimes thought I was drowning there was always a Georgian or ten who just couldn't wait to pull me out, give me a towel and invite me to their house for some chacha.
I will never say I took any of it for granted, because nothing could be further from the truth. But being here now, where none of those things have happened and instead I am typing warm and comfy on my red couch, I am forced to admit that the daily comforts offered to me by my new girlfriend do not make up for the fact that it has been six damn weeks and not one supra has been held in my honor. And seriously, what the fuck is up with that, Turkey?
I miss my old girlfriend, with all of her flaws and halitosis and cow-part stew. I miss our adventures. Our fights. And just how unapologetically, insanely FUN she was. Gaumarjos, chemi siqvaruli. There will never be another one like you.
Looks like I need to make my way over there and reignite your wandering spirit!
ReplyDeleteNothing would make my day more than hearing a certain hetero-lifemate was coming for a visit. :) But my wandering spirit is being crushed by six-year olds. Maybe you can come to school with me for a day. :)
DeleteAs always, just love to read your stuff! It's human nature to forget the worst parts and miss the others. But, with your telling of the tale, comes the very best part! Just think, some day you will be recounting the classroom antics and horrors of now, and it will be another example of your great work with words. Even the sad, bitter experiences of all the classroom pain may lead to a clear, bright gem of a story! And, touching words are what will last and be remembered for all time. Love ya, my girl,
ReplyDeleteWell, I'd hoped that I emphasized enough that I had definitely NOT forgotten the bad parts, just that the good ended up outweighing them. :)
DeleteLove you too!
It's a shame that you can't get the best of both worlds for having your own place, AND a host family. Seems like much of the stuff you liked in Georgia is because of that, (and not a small amount of the stuff you disliked) knowing people there who had roots down in the area, so you could eat from the fruit of that tree.
ReplyDeleteYep, the irony of this is not lost on me. :) I love being independent (and warm, and not have to carry my toilet paper into the bathroom with me every time), but there is also no better way to experience a culture.
Delete