I think I have figured out the right amount of drugs/wine to make it through the exhausting trip from the States to Turkey and even through the next day…for your future reference the recipe is as follows:
2 sleeping pills (in my case I used unisom) and then as much red wine as you can drink on a 10 hour flight. Take the sleeping pills when you get on the plane and then wash them down with whatever box red wine they are serving. Yes, you have to ask for the endless wine from multiple flight attendants or you will start receiving questionable looks. Don’t worry about the guy two seats down with the squirmy kid who kicks in his sleep (naturally seated next to you). You can avoid their judgmental whispers and glances by ordering a final glass of wine…just before you are about to pass out. Take another sleeping pill out and with eyes looking a little crazed, inform the brat and his socially-ignorant-when-it-comes-to-annoying-kids-on-planes caretaker that, “this is my last one! Hope it holds me over on this flight. But psych meds are sooo much cheaper in Turkey!!!” Then slam your red wine and put your earphones in. Goodnight and see you in two days.
When I awoke, I found myself at a Turkish bus stop. If you’ve read the posts in my blog from last year, you know these bus stops are little bustling worlds of döner kebab salesmen and çaycı’s running around so quickly that smoke devils (like dust devils) are created from the toxic exhaled fumes of all the jittery addicted people who have their cigarettes lit on the last steps of the buses while those of us who really just need to pee push them politely out of the way with a loud and sarcastic warning, “PAAARdon!” Turns out that trying to battle the jetlag by staying up the night before didn’t really work so well, but bless that airplane concoction!
Arriving in Izmir was fine. We were picked up at the bus station and taken to our university’s newest dorms. We decided to walk around a little just to get a feel for the area and then had a grand meeting about how we were going to tackle and dominate the apartment hunt. We (mostly Catherine) had already done as much research in the States as we thought we could in regards to apartment hunting. There was really limited access to properties available for rent, but still we had lined up about 10-12 flats that we thought we could look at. Frustrated about the uncertainty in the States, I assured Catherine that it would be ok once we got to Izmir and sat down with a realtor and talked about our options. Only problem is that I forgot to factor “Turkey” into that logic.
We were dressed and ready to set out on our epic journey by 9am the next morning. No more jetlag or bus-lag only excitement and determination. We made a few mistakes from the start and the first was our choice in clothes. Izmir is a warm place. It has been in the mid/upper 90s since we arrived. Both Catherine and I lived in conservative parts of this country last year and are very used to being as modest as possible with dress. I suppose that, combined with the professional look we were going for in apartment hunting, is why we dressed semi formally and in pants. We didn’t have to walk very long to realize our mistake, but again the excitement of our endeavor trumped the uncomfortable heat.
We sat down at a café to have breakfast, something that was a little awkward because it was during Ramazan and the fasting times. We pulled the yabancı (foreigner) card for that one. Neither of us was interested in trying to pull off apartment hunting with low energy and it seemed like not everyone in Izmir was on the Ramazan plan (which struck me as odd because Istanbul definitely did seem like a fully participating population). I opened my computer, tethered it to my iphone internet and pulled up our list of apartments. Then I did the scary, calling the real estate agency about scheduling an appointment to see an apartment.
There’s an interesting phenomenon in Turkey that happens every so often that makes you feel like your efforts in learning the language are in vain and that you, in fact, don’t even speak a word of it. It happens when you say the clearest sentence you can and the receiver in the conversation has no idea what you have just said! What could cause this breakdown in communication? I think it has something to do with the fact that there just aren’t too many foreigners learning Turkish and then using it in Turkey for purposes other than tourism. So you will get the average Turkish person who may never meet a foreigner who speaks Turkish baffled at the slightly off vowel switch between “i” and “ı” or “u” and “ü” . . . maybe the intonation was wrong or accent on the wrong syllable (the French “parDON” vs Turkish “PARdon”). At any rate, you will, as a proud learner of Turkish, venture out to complete perilous tasks such as buying an electric beard trimmer or searching for 600 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets or even finding an apartment- all to have the salesperson standing in front of you with a look like you have just spoken a bad version of pig Latin. Then to completely destroy any pride you have left, the “helpful” salesperson will offer the most insulting: “say in English.” - “HOW DARE YOU!” - It’s enough to break the spirit of even the most confident language enthusiast.
But, that didn’t happen to me in this case. Instead, the realtor and I understood each other enough to know that we were far away from his office. In fact, we had no idea really where we were other than kind of close to one metro station. Again, our enthusiasm for the hunt was overflowing at this point and we just started walking. We kept walking and walking and walking until we finally found the Deniz Bank that we were to meet at. The realtor, a young woman dressed somewhat formally, was accompanied by a semi-sketchy looking man. They took us up to the flat in question and we gave it a looking over.
For the first flat that we had looked at, it was quite nice. It was actually exactly the price we wanted to pay, but because of all the walking we did to find it, we didn’t feel like it was in the location that we wanted. Later we would discover that it was actually a lot closer to the area we ended up living in. We just weren’t convinced that this was the place for us but the realtor and sketch-friend were very quick to insist that this was the only furnished apartment in the area and that we wouldn’t find any others. This is the same thing we would hear from every so-called realtor, or in Turkish “Emlakçı” –a word that has become offensive and synonymous with used car salesman.
We could’ve settled for that apartment though because it did have most the things that we wanted but it felt too much like a Turkish apartment… meaning it was crammed with offensive furniture, had a tiny bathroom and a pretty small kitchen. After having lived in the Bozok university guesthouse in Yozgat, I promised myself that I would have a decent apartment this year and make up for the uncomfortable conditions from last year. Catherine agreed as well, thankfully! So we decided to continue our search. However, we quickly learned that when we went to one of these emlakçı’s offices, they were using the same exact search programs that we had used in the States to find apartments. Not only that, but when you tell the emlakçı that you want a three bedroom, furnished apartment in the Kazım Dirik area they say “OK” and take you to a two bedroom, unfurnished apartment in the Özkanlar area. This was so frustrating because you assume they are taking you somewhere that fits the criteria you have requested when in reality they are taking you to some random apartment they want to get rid of. OH- and when I say “unfurnished” I mean -0- furnishings. Not only did unfurnished mean that there were no appliances (fridge, stove, washer etc) but sometimes it also meant that there were no light fixtures, only dangling wires. The thought of having to spend money on everything down to the light bulbs really got us worrying.
To find out if we ever found a place, read Part II. Suspenseful, right!?
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