New Money

On my first trip to Turkey, I became a millionaire in the instant I first changed a few dollars. In 2002 the exchanges rate was about a million to one. Before my next visit in 2004, the government had changed to the New Turkish Lira (Yeni Türk Lirası, YTL) and the millionaire days were gone. This year, trying to sound knowledgeable, I learned to say ‘YTL’ instead of just ‘lira’ and was doing fine until they changed the currency again.

The value stayed the same, but the appearance is quite different and I like it. Unfortunately, there’s the dilemma of what to call it. The old was ‘new’ and the new is now just Turkish Lira, TL, but I still hear ‘YTL’ frequently.

The old ‘new TL’ was the same size for all denominations. They all had the same picture of Ataturk, of course, which I didn’t find attractive. He seemed to glower.
The current currency is quite different: the size increases with increasing value and the color changes as well. Ataturk is on the front, of course, but he’s smiling. Best of all, there are interesting people on the back, not all political.

On the back of the 10 TL is Dr. Cahit Arf, a physicist, along with the mathematical function named for him. On the back of the 50 TL is the female writer Fatma Aliye, who wrote during the War of Independence. There is no 1 TL note. The coins have changed too. The 50 kuruş is particularly nice with the bridge over the Bosporus connecting Europe and Asia.

All in all, I wish the US would take note of the “new” Turkish notes. I understand that we could save millions by not printing ‘ones’ and I’d like to see scientists and writers as well as founding fathers.

The Last Spring

I’ve discovered an interesting thing about autumn here in Ankara. In Turkish, the spring season is called Ilkbahar and autumn is called Sonbahar. Sonbahar literally translates to "last spring" as “son” means “last” and “bahar” itself means “spring” giving them the two seasons: first spring and last spring.




We arrived in Ankara at the end of summer; it was very hot and dry not unlike Atlanta in the drought. Rather than turning browner and drier as I’m accustomed to in the South, Ankara turned green as sonbahar brought some rain and cooler days as well as cooler nights. Suddenly, everything started growing and blooming for a last hurrah before winter. The grass turned green again. Droopy flowers perked up. The rose bushes produce more, not less. It's quite a lovely time and I begin to understand those who consider autumn their favorite season.


The leaves are turning colors and it's definitely getting colder, but somehow it doesn't seem quite as much of an ending as it seems at home. Of course, I don't know yet what we're in for with an Ankara winter. The leaves are falling. There are lots of Sycamores, Chestnuts, and trees I don’t recognize. Yellows and oranges are the predominant colors. Virginia creepers are common and wonderfully red. Perhaps I’ll be more tolerant of that vine/weed when I return.


I’ve even found honeysuckle which doesn’t run amok in the high desert climate. I do miss the best of the southern smells: magnolia, honeysuckle, gardenias, and even the pines. Getting to know the seasons and plants is one my delights in living for an extended period in another country.

Written in sonbahar, posted in kış, awaiting ilkbahar.
All in all, the seasons change in their own ways; we just have to enjoy.

Pansey Diplomacy

One of the first things that struck me about our apartment building was the planter along the sidewalk leading to the door, devoid of plants. With the early rains of Sonbahar, little green things started springing up. I watched closely in hopes of something interesting, but there was nothing but little green weeds. At least the color was better, but I really wanted flowers. It was time for planting pansies in Atlanta and there were flats of them at the flower shops, but the price per flat was just a multiple of the individual price and much too expensive for filling an area of any size.

One early evening as I was coming home, I met a neighbor looking at the front area plantings. He’d lived in the U.S. for three years as a graduate student so has great English. We talked a bit about the dead tree and how it should come out. He explained that a couple of years before, water supplies in Ankara were becoming critical and watering was banned during the really dry weeks. I sympathized after leaving Atlanta in a drought. I couldn’t resist saying how nice it would be to have flowers in the planter and was delighted that he agreed.

It turned out that he is the apartment representative who is responsible for collecting the monthly fees for central heating and arranging for communal repair work. While interested in having flowers, he had no experience in gardening. I do miss puttering in my garden, so volunteered to plant the flowers if the apartment bought the plants. He gave me a tool – a spackling blade, but better than my best tool, a large spoon. The next day, we went in search of plants. He could at least talk to the flower shop owners but couldn’t get a better deal on the pansies which made me feel better. We did, however, learn of real nurseries on the edge of the city by a large cemetery. He has a car, so off we went. At that time, everything was an adventure for me, and he said that he’d never seen plant nurseries. (Lots of education is missed in engineering schools.) I got to see new parts of Ankara.

The nurseries were great - there was a whole street of them. Several flats of pansies, ornamental cabbages, and bags of soil later, I was back digging up the little green weeds. I was disappointed that they didn’t have tulip bulbs. Tulips deserve their own blog post. The digging and planting took several days over the next week. I was delighted when he bought me a real trowel. Perhaps the best part was that I met all of the apartment neighbors. Everyone was interested, some a bit skeptical about whether it was too late for planting, but all seemed to like having flowers.

Neighbors are normally reserved, not really unfriendly. Now they may still think I’m strange, but we greet each other having met over pansies. I got to plant flowers which are hanging in there. I was happy to see the city planting flowers a couple of weeks after me, so was reassured that it wasn’t too late.

All in all, flowers make a great starting point for getting to know neighbors everywhere.

Çay

If the US runs on coffee, Turkey runs on tea. Tea is the breakfast drink, and if you ask for coffee, you get ‘Nescafe’ instant. The Türk kahve, for which they are famous, is an afternoon drink, is wonderful, and deserves its own post. Tea on the other hand, is drunk at any time, day or night, and is the sign of hospitality, offered to everyone. (The carpet sellers love to give you tea to keep you in their shops longer. Apple tea, a sweet instant drink, is almost synonymous with carpet shops.) Tea production along the Black Sea coast is big business. They grow and process tons of black tea, but it doesn’t add to the export economy as they consume it all in country.

The teapot is a two story affair. Really strong tea is made in the upper level and kept over boiling water. When you’re ready for a cup, some of the very strong tea is poured into the bardak (glass) and boiling water is added diluting it to the desired strength. While our apartment came equipped with the appropriate tea maker, I was delighted to find a little teapot made in China on sale in the market under the Kocatepe mosque.

Drinking tea is a great custom, but the glasses take a little getting used to. Most don’t have handles and a fresh glass of tea is definitely too hot to hold. On the other hand, they cool off quickly, and since most Turks take a cube or two of sugar, the first few seconds spent stirring dissolve the sugar and cool the tea. I may look a little silly stirring when there’s no sugar, but it beats burning my mouth.

Our apartment came well furnished with a variety of çay bardaklar (plural as you’ve probably guessed). I’ve joked with my neighbor (in English, unfortunately) that the really small pretty ones must be for visitors you want to get rid of quickly, but don’t want to offend outright.

One of the first delights at work was having tea brought into my office by this staff person, who’s got the greatest smile. The only problem is that there’s a small window of time when the tea’s not too hot or too cold. 

It didn’t take long to get over any hesitancy of sounding like Goldilocks and ask for a big cup. To my delight, this tourist mug from the coastal town of Ayvalık was available and was assigned to me. I can forgive the misspelling as two vowels together is very rare in Turkish and the ‘o-u-i’ three vowels in a row in ‘Louise’ is tough for Turks to pronounce and harder to spell.

All in all, tea is a lovely tradition of hospitality and friendship.

The Day the Turks Stood Still

Every November 10th at 9:05 in the morning, all of Turkey commemorates the death of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) by stopping whatever they are doing and paying their respects to the father of modern Turkey for one full minute. Normally at this time I am on route to the clinic in a bus or on the metro. This day, I was off the bus before 9 and waited outside the entrance to the metro in Kizilay, the busiest intersection in Ankara. At 9:05 the city siren went off. Loud as it was, it was quickly drowned out by automobile horns as every car and bus stopped and many drivers blew their horns in commemoration of Ataturk's death. If you look carefully at the picture, you can see drivers standing beside their cars in four lanes of traffic. I would liked to have gotten a better shot, but I didn't want to be the only one moving, a foreigner at that.

 Shopkeepers stepped out onto the sidewalk; pedestrians stopped where they were; workers in upper story offices came to the windows and for one minute the whole Turkish world stood still. The car horns began to die down and the city siren was audible again. At the end of the minute, the siren stopped and cars, buses, people all started back to whatever they were doing. The bustle resumed, and I took the escalator down into the metro.

 All in all, it was an incredibly moving moment when all the Turks stood still. 

Apartment in Çankaya, Ankara

We were fortunate to stay temporarily at a guest house when we first arrived. Even more fortunate was the presence of a former Fulbrighter, Lee, who had been in Ankara in 2006 and is back for a shorter stint working on his specialty, Hittite archaelogy. After looking at a few apartments near work and near the main university campus, we ended up renting Lee's former apartment.  I like to describe it as a perfectly nice apartment with a million dollar view. 

The building highlighted by the sun through the clouds is Kojetepe Mosque which is the largest in Ankara. The Russian Embassy is in the block below us. We were so taken with the view that we overlooked several drawbacks, but nothing that several hours of scrubbing, a new mattress, and furniture rearranging (including moving one old sofa to the sidewalk, which the owner did not resist at all) couldn't fix. 

Armed with a small but indespensible dictionary, we managed to purchase extension cords, light bulbs, coat hangers, etc. and of course a few house plants: African violet, airplane plant hanging basket, and some unfamiliar herb which I've already managed to kill. I'm trying to root a few sprigs of ivy liberated on one of our walks and another vine that looks suspiciously like honeysuckle.

We're still looking for a mattress pad (mattresses here look more like box springs to me, and firm means FIRM) and a fitted sheet. Duvets are d'rigeur bedding which simplifies morning chores. 

The apartment is quiet but exciting during thunder storms. There's a kapıcı (translates as doorman, but doesn't man the door) who will get fresh morning bread for us if we can figure out how to ask. 

All in all, a fine home away from home.

First Impressions

Turkish Airlines doesn't have a direct flight from Berlin to Ankara which is surprising given that they're the two capitals, but changing planes in Istanbul went smoothly and customs in Ankara was a snap. The Havas shuttle was easy to find and taxis were in abundance in the city center. The sun was setting and the colors beautiful. An advantage of not being met at the airport was a sense of accomplishment from actually getting to the right place with my own guvergin (pigeon) Turkish.

We left Atlanta in the middle of a drought and felt right at home except that Ankara is high plateau, but dry, dry, dry. Otherwise: 4-5 million people, check; traffic congestion, check; air pollution, check; friendly, helpful people, check; pedestrian friendly, not a chance. Yep, feeling right at home.

We're settling in having found an apartment (details to come), the bus and metro route to work, the local Migros (grocery store), a bank account, local eateries (more about food later), and Wi-Fi access in the bar at the hotel at the end of the block. (hoops to jump through before we can hook up at home). 

What's missing? Not much: friends of course, Nell, auto independence, peanut butter without sugar, puttering in the yard,  the Sunday Times, and a good coffee maker. 

What's new? New friends to make, great new foods, calls to prayer, dodging cars, embassies everywhere in the neighborhood, flower shops on every corner, shops on every corner, wonderful fresh fruit in those shops on every corner. Finding an extension cord was an adventure. With my little dictionary and expertise at charades, we can get just about whatever we need. ("You can't always get what you want, but ...")

All in all, we're delighted to be in Ankara.