Family Adventures in Istanbul!

“Did you know that when I was a little girl, I used to have a globe next to my bed?”

I did know, because my mom had already told me this story several times, but I liked hearing it.

“No”, I lied, “how old were you?”

“Oh, young.  Seven or eight.”

My mom is driving me to the airport to move back to Istanbul.  It’s raining and we’re on a bridge somewhere in New Jersey, stuck in traffic.  She’s mirroring my stress over catching my flight and I'm returning her sadness over my departure.

Thanks to her greyscale school portrait, I can clearly picture second-grader Marianna Steele (then Marianna Cook) the embodiment of innocence, curled up in a white nightgown, staring in wonderment at a miniature Earth.

“And?”, I prompted her.

“Every night before I could fall asleep, I had to find Turkey on the globe.”

“Wow, really?”

“I just thought Turkey was such a silly name for a country.”

“Yeah, I think every American kid thinks that. Did you know that the bird was actually named after…”

“And now my baby lives there.  Isn’t that a funny coincidence?”

My mom only refers to me as her  “baby” when she’s feeling particularly sentimental.

“Yeah”, I smiled, “it is.”

Almost exactly one year later, my mom came to visit me in the country with the silly name. To make life extra wonderful, she brought my Aunt Becky with her.

Not pictured: Double Stuf Oreos and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups

They came bearing gifts!  Well, actually they wisely met my demands for unhealthy American junk food and brought a signed copy of “Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls” from my dad.  People say that you can’t quantify love, but they’re wrong.  Love is measured in sugar, saturated fat, and David Sedaris books. 

I was so excited to show my family my favorite places in the city.  So after their first Turkish breakfast, we headed to the Chora Church Museum, which is on my Istanbul top five list.

The original church was built in the 5th century, but the current structure mostly dates from the 12th.  The incredible 14th century Byzantine frescoes and mosaics were covered when the church inevitably became a mosque sometime in the 16th century.  Fortuitously, the plaster used to conceal the Biblical scenes actually preserved the artwork until the building was changed into a museum and opened to the public in 1958.  

For the first few days of their vacation, my mom and Aunt had the ubiquitous tourist fear that if you accidentally touch a stranger, they will immediately start screaming at you in a language you can’t understand and do everything in their power to have you publicly flogged.  Every time I turned around to make sure they were still with me, I’d see them several yards back with a three foot buffer zone around each of them, politely allowing the elderly and pregnant women to move ahead of them.

"Don't be afraid to push people", I yelled over my shoulder as I zigzagged through the crowd like a greased pig.

We spent a lot of time on cramped buses, metros, and trams. Both my mom and aunt were really good sports about being human sardines. I think it’s widely accepted etiquette on Istanbul public transit that if you haven’t felt someone’s moist breath on your neck and returned the favor by resting your perspiring armpit on their freshly pressed shirt, you’re taking up too much space.

Later, we headed to the Valens Aqueduct, which was at the top of my Aunt's list.  The Roman aqueduct was erected in the 4th century and maintained throughout Byzantine and Ottoman times.  Today, it intersects with the busy Atatürk Boulevard.

My Aunt Becky and I have always been close and she was a big part of my childhood.  She doesn’t have any children of her own, so she never really had the patience to do kiddie stuff whenever she watched my brother and me.  Instead, she showed us how to do the things that she enjoyed (like tie-dying) and introduced us to cool 80s movies with swearing and boobs.  After every f-word or flash of nipple, she’d say, “Crap, don’t tell your mother about this”.

April is the perfect month for flower enthusiasts to visit Istanbul.  My mom and Aunt are both avid gardeners, so we packed a picnic lunch and headed to Emirgan Park for the Istanbul Tulip Festival. It was amazing!

It's said that the famous Dutch tulips actually originated in Istanbul. I read that this year there are over three million tulips in the city. Wowee! The flowerbeds were immaculate, but every so often there'd be a yellow or red flower that didn't get the memo that it was supposed to be pink.

"What's with the renegade tulips?", Aunt Becky asked.

"I don't know", I said, "Maybe the gardener who planted them found out he was going to get fired, so he mixed a few red ones in and thought to himself, 'I'll show all of you in six months!'"

"That's the most likely scenario", my mom agreed.

"Laurel, stand over there."

"Why?"

"Just do it. The flowers look really nice."

"Okay."

*Click*

"Did you have to make the peace sign?"

"Yes."

Since getting an iPhone my mom is a picture taking fiend. We were at my cousin's little-league game about a year ago and I thought her finger was going to fall off from tapping the screen so many times.  

I leaned over to my Aunt Lorraine and said, "I think my mom just took more pictures of Jacob than she did during my entire childhood."

"I heard that", my mom called without looking up from her phone.

Sakıp Sabancı Museum

My Aunt Becky (along with my mom) is one of the most creative people I’ve ever met.  Her long list of hobbies includes dyeing, spinning, and knitting wool, bookbinding, printmaking, and beading.  

“Can I help?”, I’d often ask as I hovered over her latest project.

“No”, she’d say, “but you can watch”.

17th century hand-bound, hand-printed, and hand-painted Koran

The “No” had an invisible asterisk which stood for “No, you, an 8-year-old, cannot make a complete mess of the expensive materials I’m using for a hobby that’s taken me years to get good at.”  I think this was a good lesson for me as a child.  It taught me that sometimes fun things are actually really challenging and take time and patience to learn.

So I’d sit and watch as her practiced hands would spin wool, thread a needle with glass beads, or gently press her cat’s inked paw onto cream colored paper.

With her interest in bookbinding, I knew she’d go crazy at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum.

My mom was pretty strict with me growing up and I always had to call the second I arrived at a friend’s house. I’m twenty-seven and I still have to give her the address and phone number of my lodgings whenever I travel.  We even have a code word that if used in any context will result in her alerting Homeland Security that I’m in grave danger, while simultaneously launching her own solo rescue mission.  I’m serious.

BEHOLD: künefe! My roommate Erkin treated us to a great meal at Kasap.

I always rolled my eyes at her seemingly overprotective behavior until it was time for me to send her and Aunt B on their first day alone.  I sat both of them down and ran through my checklist.

“Do you have your IstanbulKart?”

“Yes, Sweetie.”

“Do you have your museum passes?”

“Yes.”

“The telephone?  Does it have enough battery?  Is the volume turned up?”

“Yes.”

“Did you write down my address?”

“Yes, it’s somewhere in my purse.”

“Show it to me.”

My mom and Aunt Becky were only going to be three miles away and I was freaking out. I was starting to appreciate how stressed my mom must get when I go on solo international trips sans telephone.

“Do NOT talk to any rug salesmen, I mean it”, were my parting words as I left them at the ferry station.  

Luckily they survived.

Exploring in my hood!

I’m fascinated by what different peoples’ eyes are naturally drawn to when walking down the street.  For me, it’s floral dresses, fresh zeytinli açma, and the color seafoam green.  For my mom and aunt, it’s fabric, plants, and street cats.  As I showed them around my neighborhood, they would point out shops or charming details that I’d passed hundreds of times without noticing.  They’d frequently stop to pet kitties, admire window displays, and identify flowers.

My favorite street cat in my favorite jewelry store

One of the hardest lessons I’m continually learning in adulthood is that not everyone has the same way of doing things as you...and that’s okay.  When I’m traveling, I couldn’t be more of a cliché tourist, running from attraction to attraction.  I wanted my family to see as much of the city as possible, so I prepared what I believed to be a light itinerary of 5-7 major attractions a day.  I was baffled when one day after seeing a couple of museums, they said they were happy to head back to my place.  

“We just want to spend time with you, honey”, my mom told me.

Not pictured: hot guy in underwear

I mostly travel alone so “quality time with loved ones” is seldom on my itinerary. The fact that my family would rather spend some of their limited vacation just hanging out with me in my living room with no view to speak of (apart from the hot guy across the street who hangs his laundry in his boxer briefs) is pretty touching.

Date night with my Mama at Semolina

While she was here, my mom gave me lots of great life advice. A lot of it was stuff she'd told me before, but I’d been too stupid to listen to. She's such an incredible mother (and friend) and I feel very lucky that she's mine.

The fish market near my house

My mom and Aunt Becky had an early morning flight back to America and had to leave my apartment at 4:30AM.  I wanted to accompany them to the airport, but they both insisted that I didn’t need to come.

“Well, will you at least promise to call me from a payphone when you’re past security?”

“We might not have time, honey”, my mom said.

“I’ll just go with you.  It’s fine.”

“You don’t need to.  What’s the worst that could happen?”, Aunt Becky asked.

A myriad of catastrophic scenarios ran through my head, most of them involving explosions.

What’s the worst that could happen?  

Oh, I don’t know, the taxi driver could go kamikaze and launch the car off the Bosphorus Bridge.

You could drive over the epicenter of a 7.4 magnitude earthquake.

A massive sinkhole could suddenly swallow up the whole of the Atatürk Airport International Terminal.

A coup d'état.

An alien invasion.

WHAT’S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN, YOU ASK?

“I don’t know.  Like, maybe you guys would get stuck in customs at the airport.”

“We’ll be fine, Lizzie”, my mom laughed.

I let out a massive sigh identical to the one my mom has directed at me more often than my own name and led them to the cab stand near my house.

Apart from a couple cop cars and one very drunk woman complaining to someone on the phone, we were the only people on the street.   The steady click-click-click of suitcase wheels on cobblestone echoed off the surrounding buildings.   I’d never seen Kadıköy so still and empty. I thought I would cry when I said goodbye, but 4:30AM is such a weird time. It's stuck in a strange limbo between today and tomorrow, too late/early to process any serious emotions.

I kissed and hugged them both and waved goodbye as the taxi pulled away.  The three of us had such a great week and I can't wait to see them again.

Sisters!

Kiss-Kiss-Hug-Hug: The Definitive Guide

I spent the summer of 2009 in Paris as an intern at an interactive art museum for children.  It sounds glamorous, but it was mostly me cutting out shapes and realizing that my French wasn’t very good.  Constant paper cuts aside, I did my best to blend into Parisian culture. I took the métro, wore black tights under my shorts (très-chic at the time), rolled my eyes at tourists from my homeland, and ate unpasteurized cheese daily.  The pinnacle of sophistication, right?

No?  Okay, let’s go with "aspiring snob".

As you can see, I did an impeccable job of blending in.

One cultural habit I loved about France was la bise, which is when two people kiss each other on the cheeks as a greeting.  I tried to bring it back to America, but it weirded people out and the elegant double kiss eventually faded to a single peck reserved for my close friends and family.

So I was pleased when I moved to Turkey to discover that kissing as a greeting is everywhere.

In France, la bise routines vary slightly by region, but the rules are pretty straightforward.  They even have the polite phrase, “on se fait la bise?”, which means, “shall we give each other a kiss?” and carries the subtext “you don’t have to feel awkward and can totally say no, so don’t worry about it, because it’s not a big deal either way”.

Cheek kissing in Turkey is ANARCHY.

This is me everyday.

It’s not simply a matter of knowing if you should kiss someone, but you have to ask yourself the following questions:

How many kisses and/or hugs?

Do I go right or left?

Is it a kiss or more like a double face bump?

Where do your hands go?

Should hair be moved for easier cheek access?

I'm serious, anything freaking goes in this country.

Sometimes people kiss the air, sometimes it’s lips on face, or sometimes it's just cheek to cheek. Sometimes the kiss is audible and sometimes it’s a silent pucker. Sometimes the embrace is a double chest bump that looks like an indecisive hug. Sometimes men greet each other by simply touching their temples, like they’re exchanging secret information through osmosis. Sometimes it's a handshake-hug hybrid.

A few weeks into my new life in Turkey, I started to miss the formality and simplicity of bowing in Korea.

I have been both people in this scenario numerous times.

Over the past couple of years, I've developed a strategy. When greeting someone I don't know very well, I smile, chuckle awkwardly, lean in slightly, and let the other party take it from there. If you opt for this route, it’s important to keep an open mind and know that anything could happen.

There are also times when there’s a receiving line of people (i.e. at a party) and you kiss the first three because you know them, but the fourth person is someone you’ve never met.  In this situation, you should let out an awkward “haha” that roughly translates to “I don’t know you, but I just kissed the three people before you and everyone ahead of me kissed you, so I guess I’ll kiss you too.” The person will then emit a nearly identical “haha” which means “I get it.  Just go for it”.

It happens all. the. time.

Not long after I first came to Turkey, I went to my friend Cemre’s henna night (a sort of bachelorette party, but infinitely better). I was the only foreigner there and I met at least thirty of her relatives.  Each time I extended my right hand and said, “Merhaba”, the family member would clasp my open palm, pull me to his or her chest like an impatient tango partner, plant two kisses on my flushed cheeks, and say “Hoşgeldin”.  

“Merhaba”, I’d repeat like a dazed moron.

That night and her wedding remain my two favorite days in Turkey. Probably one of the most wonderful weekends of my life.  With each forceful hug, my cold American heart got a little bigger.   I arrived a stranger to everyone except Cemre, but I left feeling like family with these lovely people. It was incredibly touching, you guys.

Me and Aylin (one of the first people I ever gave a Kiss-Kiss-Hug-Hug to) on Xmas
I just really like this picture. (Photo by Maria Korneva)

If a gift is exchanged, someone is leaving for more than a week, someone returns from a vacation longer than five days, or you meet a good friend whom you haven’t seen in a while, you need to do a Kiss-Kiss-Hug-Hug. Just follow these six easy steps to avoid embarrassment:

1. Place your hands on the other person's shoulders

2. Kiss* their right cheek (on your left)

3. Kiss* their left cheek (on your right)

4. Remain on the right side and hug†

5. Switch back to the left side and hug†

6. Release

*The kissing can be replaced with short dialogue, including, but not limited to: "Merhaba", "Nasılsın?","Hoşgeldin", "Hoş bulduk".  Sentences may not exceed three syllables.  

†Back rub with right hand optional

It's simple.

The Kiss-Kiss-Hug-Hug took me months to master. I finally got the hang of it after I had to do five of them in rapid succession, when I brought my co-workers in Yalova Christmas presents from America.  With the combination of a gift exchange, returning from a trip, and a holiday, it was mandatory.

If there were a movie montage of me mastering greeting culture in Turkey, this would be its climax. (The song for the montage would be Gimme Some Lovin' by Spencer Davis Group, in case you were wondering.) When I perfectly executed the final Kiss-Kiss-Hug-Hug with Gülseven Abla, the woman who cooked and cleaned at the school, I expected people to start applauding, confetti to fall from the ceiling, and a big banner to drop down that read, "We knew you could do it, Laurel!" No such luck.

This was taken at the height of the "Gangnam Style" craze.

It's also common in Turkey for young kids to hug and kiss their teachers. My elementary students in Yalova were very affectionate. We had a "Kindergarden Cop" dynamic going on; me, the unfeeling foreigner and them, the crazy yet lovable children.  This class in particular would all shout, “Laurel Teacher!”, whenever I walked into the room and would then maul me with germy hugs and slobbery kisses.  You know, the sort of thing that would be a guaranteed lawsuit in America.

Clive, an Englishman to the core, hated getting physical attention from his students. Whenever a child would wrap him in a warm embrace, Clive Teacher would stand there, rigid as a pole, looking completely miserable.

"I hate when they do that. It makes me look like a paedo!", he'd tell me after one of these encounters.

I love you, Drake and Francis, wherever you are.

Speaking of Clive, I've known my best friend in Turkey for nearly three years.  In the course of our close friendship, we’ve told each other secrets, gone on adventures, and called each other in times of crises.  We even got pet ducks, undoubtedly one of the worst decisions in either of our lives.

In all this time, we have shared exactly three awkward hugs.

When Clive found out that he was accepted to METÜ, one of the most prestigious universities in Turkey, it was probably the best news of his life.   He called me on the phone and was overjoyed.  Upon seeing him an hour later, I gave him a tentative congratulatory double pat on his shoulder.  I could tell that he was genuinely very moved.

Burcu and Clive

Photo by Maria Korneva

Clive and his wonderful girlfriend Burcu came to Istanbul for Christmas. At the end of their visit, I walked them to the bus station.  I’d only met Burcu a few days before, but we got along really well, so I went in for the Kiss-Kiss-Hug-Hug.  I turned to Clive, lightly placed my hand in his shoulder and said, “Take it easy, Clive-O”.

Burcu looked confused and said, “Clive, what are you doing?  Give your friend a kiss.”

Clive visibly recoiled.

We looked at Burcu and then at each other.

“Nah.  That’s okay”, we both said.

Clive is Olivia Pope in this exchange.

But, I digress from the kissing culture at hand.  Here are some day-to-day Turkish situations you might find yourself in.

If two women between the ages of 18-40 are being introduced by a mutual friend, it is acceptable to double kiss.

If the relationship is of a professional nature, but you are Facebook friends and have commented “Afiyet olsun!” on their picture of homemade mantı, which they in turn “liked”, you may kiss on both cheeks.

If you see a friend somewhere you aren’t expecting to see them, pucker up.

If you go to a person's home, even if it's someone you saw earlier that day, you need to give them a double hug or some variation as you cross the threshold. You just do.

This was the nicest wedding that ever was or will be. Trust me.

I was at a coworker’s wedding a few months ago and as the newly married couple was making its way from table to table, I stood up with my friends.  I’d never met my coworker’s wife before. I started getting nervous and talking out loud to no one in particular. 

“I never know if I should kiss someone or not.  It seriously stresses me out”, I whined.

“We don’t know either”, my friend Dilek said behind me.

I spun around to see if she was serious.

“Wait?  Are you serious?”

“Of course”, she said and shrugged.

"[Insert string of expletives here.]"

I was shocked. I was so certain that all Turks were born with a gene that told them when and how to greet other people. They always seem so relaxed and confident about it.

Relief swept over me.  I still felt awkward, but it wasn’t quite so overwhelming knowing that my Turkish friends were just as uncertain as me.

When the beaming couple arrived at our table, without thinking, I gave the groom a double hug and the bride a double kiss.  It was impossible not to mirror the happiness radiating off of these two wonderful people.

In that moment, I felt so lucky to live in a place where a firm handshake or one-armed hug is insufficient for expressing warmth, happiness, or gratitude amongst friends.