Why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks.

Turkey has been near the top of my list of places to go for quite some time now. Because my Fulbright research project centers on the issue of Turkish immigrants in Austria, I had the intellectual justification for such a trip. Probably more importantly (intellectual justification has never been considered for any previous travels of mine), I was attracted by the opportunity, as always, to go somewhere “unlike anywhere I’ve been before.” Istanbul satisfied that craving.

Though Istanbul was my ideal destination for this weeklong break from teaching, I would have gone anywhere that had cheap tickets. The flight from Munich to Istanbul beat out other options (Croatia, Spain, northern Africa) and my decision was made. Fellow adventure lovers Benny and Sefer (both of whom study political science with me at the university) were game for the trip and our stage was set. Sefer, who was born in Turkey, was our translator/food-orderer/decision-maker and Benny and I were along for the ride.

After an overnight in Munich with my friends Markus and Susi, the curtain was drawn on said stage and the scene was a snowy madhouse. We managed to arrive just in time for the biggest winter storm the city has seen in years. Friends of Sefer picked us up at the airport and showed us around town to probably the most notable sights, the Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque, and then we had our first of many cups of Sahlep, a warm, creamy, sweet drink with cinnamon on top, that saved our freezing souls on many occasions.

I didn't know what to expect out of the city, but I was impressed. Even though it's one of the biggest cities in Europe (I think the second biggest?), I, for some reason, didn't anticipate it having all the cool perks of a huge city. Amid sightseeing and lots of walking through the snow-filled (and later, slush-filled) streets, we found some really awesome random neighborhoods that I would have loved to spend more time in. Istanbul had the charm of the old town districts of so many European cities, but it's much more run-down and that just added to its uniqueness. Austria, for example, is full of great old towns, but they are obsessed with keeping them pristine, whereas, be it due to lack of money, lack of interest, or likely both of those things, Istanbul wasn't quite so picture-perfect. I think that's what made it all the more picturesque. Its slight decay was in the heart of the vibrancy and I loved that. There is a great mix of young, old; east, west; rich, poor... I guess it was more western than I expected it to be, but that probably has a lot to do with the image that I get of Turkey in Austria. There is the large immigrant population here, but they almost all come from the eastern part of Turkey, which is not nearly as westernized as Istanbul and the west. The country is so big and of course it makes sense that there would be diversity there, but I just hadn't put much thought into it. It made me want to go back someday, to Istanbul and other parts, and it also made me interested to go somewhere even more foreign. Maybe Morocco, Russia, Tunisia or Egypt would fit that bill...

We went to an art museum one afternoon after sleeping in for a while hoping for the snow to subside, only to find the museum closed. Next door, however, was a hookah cafe and that proved to be just what the doctor ordered. Want to know exactly what the doctor ordered? One water pipe a piece. The agenda also included visits to some great museums including the Topkapi Palace, former home to the Ottoman Empire where we saw, among other things, Moses' rod, John the Baptist's skull and arm (encased in "bejeweled" boxes, of course), the turban of Joseph (of coat fame), and strands of Muhammed's beard.

One night, one of Sefer’s dad’s friends took the three of us out to dinner in this crazy awesome part of town that was more like a movie set or Disneyland than real life, and I think it was the first time I've ever experienced five or six courses. It was seafood and that's generally not my first choice, but I was not complaining one bit. Also, it's about time I make myself like that stuff. I am almost an adult, and what a place like Istanbul to cross such a corner. Calimari, like almost anything, is good when it's fried and has a garlic dipping sauce.

Walking through endless markets and enjoying the aggressive, but friendly, sales pitches, I noticed that there were constantly boys running around with silver trays covered in teacups. They’d drop a cup off with one vendor, then run off to pick up or drop off another somewhere else. I was impressed with this. Not because I love tea, although my British friends here have been influencing me in that way, but just because it seemed like a good reflection of this culture of mixtures. There’s the fast-paced boy running to and fro with his tea tray, but then the old men sipping contemplatively as they enjoy their tea and try to sell you Turkish Delight. I don’t think it’s possible to drink tea in a rush, or if you start in a rush, that quickly dissolves.

Another thing, a cultural difference, I noticed: we were waiting to catch the street car one night about 7:00 and the platform was completely full, as was the train, so we had to wait for the next one, but I looked around and counted literally two women on the whole platform. Out of hundreds of people. During our whole trip, I maybe saw five women working. And, most memorably, one of them was a good-looking young lady who we happened to see just as she had had enough of this bum’s sexual advances, so she ran up to him screaming, picked up the scale he was using as his gimmick (he would charge people to stand there and weigh themselves), threw it into the street where it was immediately run over about five times, and then, while still screaming, some of her co-workers walked her back inside.

Also, I was ripped off twice in two days- one experience more exciting than the other.

Second chronologically, but less impressive, so I’m listing it first: A shoe shiner dropped his brush and I kindly caught up to him to give it back, so he pulled me to the side of the sidewalk and started shining my shoes. I thought it was his way of thanking me. No, it was not. He expected money and I unknowingly gave him more than twice what I should have.

The night before, this guy found us on the street and started talking to Benny in Turkish. When that proved stagnant, he looked to Sefer and began talking to him. He invited us to a bar on a side street and once inside, I ignored any nerves that arose and instead chose to focus on the amusement of how weird this place was. There were no more than two men, beyond the wait staff, inside, and then there were three middle-aged women wearing turtlenecks and unmistakable “mom jeans” dancing on a small stage. Mirrors surrounded the stage, and the ladies were dancing hypnotically with their own reflections. I thought this was just an example of “Thank God I can be sure my mom isn’t doing this,” and was thinking of how I would jokingly describe this adventure to my friends at home. We each ordered a drink (I ordered a Coke because beer in this place seemed somewhat unsettling) and then the girls came and squeezed their way into our booth. They were trying to get a conversation going and we weren't interested, but they each ordered a drink, downed it, and then when they wanted more and we said we wouldn't buy them, they left. Not as funny anymore, but not necessarily sketchy. Yet.

Then we were ready to go so we asked for the bill:

20 YTL for each of our drinks
100 YTL for each of the girls' drinks
40 YTL drink for the guy who brought us there
20 YTL for the chips they set on the table
20 for the peanuts

440 YTL = 250 euro

We told the waiter that we refused to pay that, and then the boss came with some other guys and stood around our table. I tried to balance their attempts at intimidation with a strategy of my own (in case you aren’t aware, thanks to much practice, I can pull out a mean eyebrow furrow when necessary). When we started contesting it, they brought out this menu in a frame. Said menu, though it listed all the insanely high prices, was clearly prepared for the scam, as it was the only menu in the place but they, of course, keep it conveniently under the bar. Sefer argued with them in Turkish for a long time trying to explain that we didn't even have that much money- so the guy demanded we show him how much was in our wallets. That freaked me out. I showed only part of what I had and then was sneakily, behind my back, taking bills from my wallet, which I was still sitting on, and sticking them down the back of my pants. The big boss, trying to sound like it was us ripping him off, said that we could call the authorities if we wanted and even handed us his cell phone but- who would have guessed- there was no signal, as the bar was underground.

Eventually Sefer got him talked down to letting us just pay 140 YTL (85 euro) and we split that three ways. I'd heard of these scams before (my travel bible, Let’s Go, warns that in Budapest, there are bars with ATMs inside and after a similar stunt, they MAKE you pay), so I guess, with more travel, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened to me. In hindsight, there were definitely warning signs. Actually, not even in hindsight; it was sketchy right from the get-go. But really, if a traveler never took people up on random/somewhat sketchy offers, they would never experience all the cool adventures. I think you have to take the occasional bad if you want to reap the benefits of the more frequent good- and like I said, we were lucky it wasn't worse.

The trip, overall, was good. It's nice to be back in Innsbruck, though, and I now have a few days to catch up on random things until the daily grind ("grind" is an overstatement) resumes next week. I do like the city a lot and I looked forward to being back here while I was in Turkey- I guess that's a god sign that it's begun to feel at least somewhat like home. That's not to say that I don't miss Portland and the stateside life on a regular basis. I actually had a frustrating bout with homesickness while in Istanbul. I like to think that I'm "past that" and that just made it all the more frustrating to deal with. I kept thinking, "I should be enjoying this place and not thinking about home," and that way of thinking just made it more frustrating. It was a lot of little things. Benny and Sefer are great and really good to travel with, but it was the longest I've spoken only German in the whole time I've been here- and to top that off, they're both from Tyrol (the state Innsbruck is in) and the Tyrolean dialect is pretty damn hard to understand. My German is getting better and the week was good for it, but there were times when I was too tired to concentrate on a conversation, would then just sort of tune out, and then get frustrated with myself for being anti-social, even though that wasn't my intention. The fact that the city is such a mix of everything, as I mentioned, I think played into the mood too. There was just enough familiar about it that it felt normal, but then little things like food (the breakfast in the hotel consisted of hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, tomatoes and olives, and bread, which by the end, I did not want to eat; there are kebab stands everywhere, which I generally love, but just wanted a break; I tried lots of authentic Turkish foods and didn't really love any of them) that were so different from America, and so different from what I've been adjusting to in Austria, that it threw me off. It almost would have been easier if absolutely everything had been different, like how I found things in Cameroon, like an "all or nothing" deal. I also had a really intense pain in one foot, which I've since diagnosed (thank you, webMD) as Haglund's Deformity. A bump- the bone has grown- has developed on the back of one of my heels due to wearing tight shoes and being on my feet a lot. It is extremely sore to the touch, so not good for jumping over puddles of slush and cobblestone streets of Istanbul/all of Europe. It's also called "pump bump" because it's common among women who wear high heels. I don't like to call it either of these names because 'deformity' freaks me out and 'pump bump' makes it sound like I've been moonlighting as a flight attendant in drag, which, of course, I have. For now, I'm wearing loose shoes and hoping the pain goes away. If not, I will take advantage of the socialized health care and go to the doctor, but the only real way to deal with it is surgery and that's a whole mess I don't want to think about.

Most of all, I think the weird mood on the trip was just timing. I've now been here about six months and mix that with winter weather... I should expect moods like this to come along. Today the sun is shining and it's warm and beautiful in Innsbruck. Spring isn't far off, and that will be wonderful. I have that EU/NATO seminar in a couple weeks in Belgium and Luxembourg and I'm tacking on a weekend in Paris right beforehand. I can't wait for all that. And then immediately after the conference, my family comes to visit and I think the timing will be just right.

I've been lax on everything lately. We're on this month-long break from university (I still have yet to finish the two final papers I've been meaning to do for over a month. One deadline is next week though, and looming deadlines always do me good) and one of my two teachers I work with has been sick for the last three weeks so I've been averaging five hours a week of teaching. It's absolutely one of those situations where you have so much time and don't get anything done. I used to love/hate those days when they would sporadically come every few weeks in college. But now it's like that on an every-day basis. Not quite that extreme, but close. I was so excited to get away from my life in the states where I was constantly busy with so many things to a place where I'd have so much time to relax and just think about things (anything I wanted) at length. Now I have all that and more, and it has its disadvantages too. I've been getting going on my research project a little but really things are so open-ended. It's still strange to think of living without time constraints. For the last eight years of my life, when I did things for fun or for relaxation, it was generally in spare time between to scheduled things. Like, I can take a nap between 4 and 5:30, then I could watch TV later, but only from 10-11. Now when I sleep, read, go running- all these things I like- there is no set ending time in sight.

Yesterday I went to the grocery store, saw plants in the in the window next door and decided that a plant would be a good thing to get and start off this new spring mood I'm feeling since being back in the first warm days of Innsbruck. But then there were these automatic motion-sensor gates as you came in, and I somehow went backwards through it, an alarm went off, and I left. I guess a plant/spring will have to wait.

In other amusing news, I responded to an ad on the university’s page listing jobs for students. They were looking for “Top Male Guides” for the upcoming tourist invasion that will accompany the European Soccer Championship when it comes here in June. I thought I could qualify for such a position. One of the requirements, among being fluent in English and German and knowing how to drive, was being good-looking. And you had to include a picture. I haven’t heard back. I’m not offended; I am amused. Sure the same biases exist in the states, but if an employer were that blunt, there would be lawsuits, and then the Austrians would catch wind of the suit and scoff at the silly Americans and their ridiculous lawsuits. What a circle.

Off to an all-night Oscar party. The ceremony starts at 3 or 4 a.m., but the cinema has the nominated films playing all night and you just go from one to the other before and after watching the ceremony. And you get a breakfast buffet in the morning.

Good night and good luck.