Okay, so the boys are maybe a bit aggressive sometimes, and it is damn hard to find a grocery store, and absolutely everybody smokes. But those are really pretty minor issues, all things considered. I'm having a great time. I started off in Kuşadasi, and from the second I stepped foot off the boat, I was inexplicably happy. I really couldn't figure out what I liked so much about the city, but it just felt really fun and happy. I was met at the port by a guy from my hotel, and as we walked through the small town I became more and more enamoured. And even though I was desperately tired (having never, in fact, really caught up on sleep while in Greece, despite there being nothing really to do) I decided I had to spend some time exploring the city, since I only had one day and would be leaving the following morning for the ruins at Ephesus. I needed dinner anyway, so I took the advice of Sezgin, the hotel proprietor, and went to look at the menus of the many local restaurants just down the street. The first restaurant I came to had a sign outside advertising a "full Irish breakfast", and when I walked up to the door, a young guy approached me to start trying to sell me on his family's restaurant's many attributes. I didn't really need to be sold, I was so hungry, and excited by the random Irish reference, so I just told him what I was looking for: "I just want a plate of meat. A big plate of meat. Can I get that here?" Of course I could, it's Turkey, all they eat are big plates of meat. He sat me down at an outdoor table and placed my order with the chef for a mixed kebab plate, with beef, lamb, chicken and meatballs, and then sat down with me and just started talking. He spoke really good English, looked remarkably like Jude Law, and as he was talking I found myself totally hypnotized: something about his voice was simultaneously very familiar and also intriguingly foreign, and had me entranced, grinning like an idiot and laughing at everything he said. Finally I asked him where he learned to speak English so well: "Ireland!" he said, "I'm livin' there every winter, ya know?"Ah ha, mystery solved! That's why I couldn't stop smiling, why I was so enamoured listening to him. He was speaking impeccable English, with a perfect, bright Irish accent. I guess it's not necessarily Irish boys that I love so much, but Irish accents, which just leave me totally mesmerized and giggling like a schoolgirl, unable to stop smiling or take my eyes off the speaker. We sat and talked outside of the restaurants for three hours, interrupted occasionally when he would see a few tourists pass by and try to convince them to come inside and have dinner. He explained that Kusadasi was incredibly popular with Irish tourists, and that in the summertime 90% of the people in the city are actually Irish. Hence the restaurant's inclusion of a full Irish breakfast on the menu, which I discovered later was SOP at every Kusadasi restaurant. No wonder I liked this city so much -- it was practically Irish! I don't know whether it was the ubiquitous presence of the Irish people and culture that drew me to Kusadasi, or whether the same things that attract Irish people there in the first place are things I find innately appealing, but Kusadasi was like paradise for me. Once I started to pay attention, I realized there were Irish pubs on every corner, Irish teas on every menu, Sky Sports playing at every bar, and the accents everywhere. And Omer, my waiter, was not alone in making his annual pilgrimage to Ireland. His older brother actually lives with his Dutch wife in [dear old] Donegal, and Omer thought that probably about half of the residents of Kusadasi spend the winter in Ireland, working while it was the off-season in Turkey, while about as many Irish people spent their summers in small villas in Kusadasi. This was amazing to me. There was no logical explanation why Irish people would come to this particular town, in this particular country, but the connection between the two was so strong you would think Turkey had been some sort of Irish colony.
Finally at around 10pm, my cheeks were hurting so badly from the ear-to-ear grin I get listening to Irish accents that I had to bid goodnight to Omer. I also knew I had an early morning, heading out to Ephesus with the hotel guide, so I had better (finally) get a little bit of sleep or I wasn't going to be able to enjoy anything. The next morning, before my tour was scheduled to depart, I went out to walk around the streets of Kusadasi a bit and see what it was like in the day time. When I passed by the restaurant where I had eaten dinner the night before, I looked inside and saw Omer, who smiled brightly when I walked by and waved frenetically. He insisted that I come in and have some Turkish tea, which I couldn't refuse, so we sat and talked for another hour drinking out of the cutest, daintiest little tea glasses, with an incomprehensible hourglass form and incredibly intricate etching. I commented that I thought the glasses were so beautiful, and he looked sheepish:
"You like the glass?" he asked.
"Yes, I really do!"
"I made it. I make all the glasses for the restaurant."
Oh, I was even more taken with him now! Jude Law, with an Irish accent, who blows glass and waits tables at his family's restaurant. (I have to admit, I was beginning to wonder what Moira Karakan would sound like...) Eventually I really did have to go, or I was going to miss my Ephesus tour, but as I was leaving he told me to wait just a minute, and ran into the back. When he came back it was with a little package wrapped up in tissue paper -- I opened it, and found one of the little dainty tea glasses inside. "It's for you!" he said, "To remember Kusadasi!"
I haven't bought a single souvenir on this trip. Other than photos and occasional, necessary articles of clothing, I was determined not to succumb to the temptation to buy random crap that I would probably never use, and likely not even remember the significance of later on. But this -- it was the best souvenir I could have ever gotten. The most perfect, small token to remember a really great time in Kusadasi.
Because it is the off-season in Kusadasi still, just like everywhere else I have been so far, there were not as many tourists or hotel guests as there might be in, say, a month or two. As such, the "Ephesus tour" I ended up getting was actually just a private escort from the hotel owner, Sezgin, and his friend, who everyone seemed to refer to as just "The Banker", to Ephesus, the Temple of Artemis, and the cathedral of St. John (literally the cathedral that the disciple John set up after Christ's death, how cool is that?). This turned out to be kind of nice, actually, as I got a very personal and local version of the tour, was taken to a small, out-of-the-way but amazing restaurant in Izmir for lunch, and, because Sezgin somehow knows absolutely everybody in Western Turkey, got in for free everywhere and got to walk into the otherwise closed exhibitions. 
Sometimes it's weird being by yourself while traveling, but a lot of times, even though I feel like I'm doing things that are really touristy, being by myself forces me to see the world "through the back door" as they say, with a much more local flavor. I like that a lot. It's worth the awkwardness.
Sometimes it's weird being by yourself while traveling, but a lot of times, even though I feel like I'm doing things that are really touristy, being by myself forces me to see the world "through the back door" as they say, with a much more local flavor. I like that a lot. It's worth the awkwardness.Sezgin then drove me to the airport in Izmir where I caught a short flight to Antalya. (I made this decision at the last minute, because I learned that the bus to Antalya was nine hours long and cost 40 euro, which was both expensive and going to shoot an entire day out of my Turkey visit. The plane, by contrast, was 50 euro, and got me there in 45 minutes. Easy choice.) And Antalya is where my real vacation began: five days at the amazing Sheraton Voyager Hotel and Spa (compliments of Starwood, or, maybe more accurately, of Oliver Wyman) in 80 degree weather right next to the beautiful Mediterranean beaches of Turkey. A dream come true.
Turkey has been full of fun and adventure in a way that delights me to no end. And having five days to enjoy Antalya meant I could take the time to sleep, sightsee, buy and prepare my own food, and just take it all in. It's so nice to not be moving cities every day or two, and to have a reliably quiet, comfortable hotel bed to fall asleep in every night. I spent my first full day wandering around the Old Town and getting my bearings, then went to the nearby supermarket to do some grocery shopping. After a brief incident in which I was accused of shoplifting fruit, nearly tasered by a Turkish security guard, and then rescued through the intercession of two English-speaking Antalyan students, my venture was successful, and I was able to stock my hotel fridge with lots of strawberries, bananas, yogurt, milk, bread, peanut butter and jam. Though I love to spoil myself with room service on occasion here, it's great to be somewhat self-sufficient and be able to prepare at least one meal a day without completely out-spending my budget.
In the evening I went to a Turkish dance performance that I found out about through the hotel's travel agency. Although it turned out to be incredibly touristy, an event staged specifically for members of large tour groups and cruise ships, it was still a really interesting show with great music and a solid dinner of traditional Turkish food. Once again I found that I was the only person from my hotel going to this event, and, since I was alone, the company that organizes it wouldn't come and pick me up. So I was told I would be taken by "hotel Sheraton transport." This turned out to be the blue, four-door Skoda of one of the front desk guys, who not only served as my private chauffeur to this event, but then came inside and waited through the whole show until I was finished so he could take me home.
Walking into the place where this event was held, I immediately got the impression that I was about to attend someone's Bar Mitzvah. A banquet hall filled with round, eight-person tables, cheap satiny table cloths, and a stage that was decorated with gaudy sequined curtains and what looked like butcher paper on the walls. I wondered if I was actually about to witness some sort of eighth grade musical in Turkish. The waiters escorted me to my table -- an eight person spot where I was, awkwardly, the only person sitting. "Wait, isn't there going to be anyone else?" I asked, alarmed. No, they explained, because everyone else was coming with a big tour group, so I would have to sit alone. This seemed utterly ridiculous to me -- why couldn't they just put me at a table with seven of the tour group people? Instead I just had to sit there, conspicuously alone, as table after table filled up with tourists arriving from their bus. They even took away all of the utensils and wine glasses sitting at my table, so it would be even more obvious that I was completely alone. Sigh. Moments as uncomfortable as this are mercifully rare on this trip, but so painful when they happen. I decided there was nothing for it, ordered a bottle of wine, and drained it over the course the night. Did I say that evening was awkward? I think what I meant to say was, holy shit that was a great show!
Actually, after about twenty minutes of watching me eat couscous one-handed and try every possible way to look busy and not so pitiful by playing with my iPhone, the front desk guy from my hotel, Yusef, came and sat with me. As the show began, he leaned over to me and whispered, "I have seen this show two-hundred-and-fifty-two times."
"It's that good?" I asked
He scowled a little. "Haha, yes, it's that good."
I was so glad he came to sit with me -- not just because it made me look less sad and alone, but because he provided a really good running commentary about the show, a somewhat sardonic and cynical but nonetheless informative explanation of the dances, the music, the actors, the food, and the guys who run the whole place (who he knew from school). And since the entire program was actually delivered in German (Antalya, unlike Kusadasi, is a hotbed of German and Russian tourists, interestingly) he was there to translate the explanations of the performance. Again I found that as a solo traveler I was getting the backstage tour, so to speak, and learning much more than I would have even if I'd been with someone else, sitting pleasantly ignorant at a full table. Plus he was really funny (maybe that was the wine?) and shared some great stories about growing up in Turkey and his brother, who is a "cartograph." Another great cultural experience in Turkey, and another night of having very sore cheeks.
In Turkey in particular I have been wondering a lot what it would be like to travel with my Uncle Armen. Armen, I think, is actually the fictionalized version of Marcus Brody: "He knows people in every town and village from here to the Sudan. He speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom. He'll blend in, disappear." I'm not really clear on the status of Armen's grail quest, but I do think that if anyone I know was to ever find the Holy Grail, it would be him. And I often think it would be really fun to travel with someone who speaks so many languages, who knows people in so many places, and who could really provide a "back door" sort of experience in every country in the Eastern hemisphere. (Maybe.) Where are you Armen? You should come hang out with me in Turkey. Just a suggestion.
The next morning I was picked up at 7:30 to go on a Jeep safari in the mountains, a somewhat random, if intriguing, activity that had been suggested to me by the Concierge. None of the tour guides or drivers spoke English, so for most of the trip I found myself struggling to understand what was going on along with the only two other English-speakers, Angela and Peter from England. Angela talked my ear off the entire time, insisting on providing her commentary and opinion on, literally, everything that happened ("Look, there's a petrol station there! That's a petrol station, isn't it? Do you think? Moira, do you think that's a petrol station? Peter, what do you think? I reckon it's a petrol station, I do!") but I was thankful enough to have someone to talk to and commiserate with that I didn't let it bother me. We were collected in a shuttle bus, then after an hour and a half of picking up other safari-goers and driving into the mountains, transferred to old, run-down, open-air Jeeps. (Actually, Suzukis.) My car included me, the Brits, two nauseatingly happy honeymooners from Palestine, and the non-English speaking Turkish guide. 
We drove up narrow, winding, and of course rocky and uenven mountain roads with amazing views of the lush green mountains and valleys that overlook the Turkish coast. After a couple hours of just driving with the top down, getting mildly sunburned and completely jostled ("It's really a bit bumpy, isn't it? Don't you think it's a bit bumpy, Peter? Really, it's quite bumpy!") we stopped at the home of an old Turkish woman who lives up in the mountains in a house that is over a hundred years old. I couldn't quite tell how much of this house was done up just for tourists, but it felt quite genuine, and the woman living there spoke absolutely no English, smelled terrible, and appeared to live in facilities that were barely 18th century. She had thirteen children. The toilet was a hole in the ground. She served us tea (again in dainty glasses), and then put out a little tip jar for us to leave money for having visited her home. It was actually quite bizarre, but very interesting.
We drove up narrow, winding, and of course rocky and uenven mountain roads with amazing views of the lush green mountains and valleys that overlook the Turkish coast. After a couple hours of just driving with the top down, getting mildly sunburned and completely jostled ("It's really a bit bumpy, isn't it? Don't you think it's a bit bumpy, Peter? Really, it's quite bumpy!") we stopped at the home of an old Turkish woman who lives up in the mountains in a house that is over a hundred years old. I couldn't quite tell how much of this house was done up just for tourists, but it felt quite genuine, and the woman living there spoke absolutely no English, smelled terrible, and appeared to live in facilities that were barely 18th century. She had thirteen children. The toilet was a hole in the ground. She served us tea (again in dainty glasses), and then put out a little tip jar for us to leave money for having visited her home. It was actually quite bizarre, but very interesting.
Continuing on, we began to all try to find what ways we could to talk to each other, since we were sitting in such close quarters for so long. The Turkish guide knew only a few words in English, and, after asking the Brits the same question, he turned to me: "Wherru fromm?" he asked. "Alaska," I replied, to a completely quizzical look. "The U.S.," I clarified, "America.""Ahh, America!" he cried. "Obama!"
I laughed, "Yes, Obama."
"Obama, he my friend! I love Obama!"
Then Ahmed, the Palestinian, turned around. "Obama, him my friend too! OBAMA! OBAMA!"
At this point the entire car erupted in chanting: "O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!" It soon caught on with the cars in front of and behind us, and suddenly the entire caravan of Jeeps was chanting along. Turks, Russians, Germans, Saudi Arabians, Brits, Palestinians: "O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!", pumping their fists in the air. I was amazed to see this, and dumbstruck. It made me proud to be American, proud to have voted for Obama, and mostly, made me feel strongly the shared common humanity I had with all of these people, all of whom were struggling in their own ways right now, all of whom had pinned their hopes on the same man. It was really pretty cool.
We stopped and had lunch at a crazy little restaurant nestled high in the mountains, one that must rely entirely on the business of toursits coming in Jeeps, but which served traditional Turkish food cooked on old fashioned grills by women in kerchiefs and mountain clothing with thick eyebrows and pleasantly plump bodies. Whatever their intentions, Turkish tourist activities definitely give the impression of being authentic.
Then, this morning, I finally got my chance to go scuba diving off the Turquoise Coast. (P.S. Thank you, Turkey, for not succumbing to the temptation to go with the word "Riviera" here. Really, Turquoise Coast is so much more appealing.) 
It's actually been twelve years since I've been scuba diving, and I didn't remember it being so uncomfortable and scary before. I guess I was ten at the time, and diving in a pool, so that might make a difference, but it was really different from what I remembered. The sensation of breathing through a machine was startling, as was the feeling of not having use of my nose at all. I forced myself to just relax and get used to it, and after that, definitely had an amazing time. I was once more the only person on the "tour", which meant I got one-on-one access to my diving instructor and a very personalized experience. We went at exactly the pace I wanted, which was tremulous at first until I finally got comfortable with the concept of relying on a single small rubber tube for my sustenance in ten meter deep water; this really doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're down there it seems crazy deep and crazy high pressure.
It's actually been twelve years since I've been scuba diving, and I didn't remember it being so uncomfortable and scary before. I guess I was ten at the time, and diving in a pool, so that might make a difference, but it was really different from what I remembered. The sensation of breathing through a machine was startling, as was the feeling of not having use of my nose at all. I forced myself to just relax and get used to it, and after that, definitely had an amazing time. I was once more the only person on the "tour", which meant I got one-on-one access to my diving instructor and a very personalized experience. We went at exactly the pace I wanted, which was tremulous at first until I finally got comfortable with the concept of relying on a single small rubber tube for my sustenance in ten meter deep water; this really doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're down there it seems crazy deep and crazy high pressure. As we were suiting up, my diving instructor seemed to be oddly dwelling on the fact that I was traveling alone. "But that's so sad! You all alone? You not sad all the time?" I found that really irritating. I'm not, actually, sad all the time, and I'm finding in a lot of ways that traveling alone is incredibly rewarding. But whatever, I didn't feel that I needed to explain myself to the overly sympathetic diving instructor. Otherwise, though, he was very pleasant, a good instructor, and as we were diving took me to a sweet underwater cave that opened up into a cliff face and allowed us to surface and just hang out inside the hidden cave. 
He was helping me take off my tank so I could swim around in the cave when he suddenly became not such a cool diving instructor. "You need some love?" he asked me, trying to be suave. "What?!" I shouted. "You all alone, girl. You need some love? I give you some love." Oh dear God, no. No, no, no. Gross. I told him as much, and he looked crestfallen. "But you all alone. And I think I never see you again. Never. You no want my love?" I shook my head vigorously, shook off my tank and vest, and swam away from him as quickly as I could. So uncomfortable. So very, very uncomfortable.
He was helping me take off my tank so I could swim around in the cave when he suddenly became not such a cool diving instructor. "You need some love?" he asked me, trying to be suave. "What?!" I shouted. "You all alone, girl. You need some love? I give you some love." Oh dear God, no. No, no, no. Gross. I told him as much, and he looked crestfallen. "But you all alone. And I think I never see you again. Never. You no want my love?" I shook my head vigorously, shook off my tank and vest, and swam away from him as quickly as I could. So uncomfortable. So very, very uncomfortable.But that's Turkish men for you. At one point today I was given three different guys' phone numbers in a span of (not kidding you) ten minutes. Ten minutes. One guy actually grabbed me by the elbow to try to get me to sit down and talked with him on a bench by the beach. I had to shout and hit him across the head to get him to stop and figure out that I wasn't interested. As I stormed off, he called after me: "You want my phone number?!" Sigh. Les hommes sont les hommes...
I've been finding it interesting, as I speak to Turkish people, to learn that all Turkish people hate Turkish people. This sounds really illogical, but it's true. They all complain about how Turkish people are rude, ignorant, and stupid. But they all complain about it. Which means that the same people who are creating this self-stereotype are in fact irritated by it. I've never seen this anywhere else, a culture of people that basically despise themselves. They say they can't wait to leave Turkey, not because they don't love the country, they really do, but because they can't stand the people. It's fascinating.
But boy do they love their country. In no other country I have ever visited have I seen so many national flags on display. (This includes the fact that I was in Ireland on Saint Patrick's Day.) Turks are an incredibly proud people, proud of their national history and of their diverse culture; their secular Islam, their Roman connections, their influence on Western civilization. Turkish flags are hanging outside of every building that I pass by, not just public or government buildings, but homes, cafes, stores, apartment buildings, hotels. They hang off bridges, on the sides of buses, and on park benches. Many of the men I have met have Turkish flag tattoos. Only in America have I seen such devotion to a standard, and I think it's really cool to see it here.
The reverie of Attaturk is also something I have found inspirational. His portrait hangs in every restaurant I have been to, and the cult of personality remains shockingly strong. He comes up in every conversation, somehow. On the Jeep safari yesterday, we passed by a number of small children playing near the road in the small mountain villages, and Angela asked our guide if they went to school. "School? Yes, yes, school. She go to school. Attaturk make her go!" Sometimes instead of saying goodbye with a traditional "Go with God" farewell, Turks will say "Go with Attaturk." (Although at local restaurants they always, always say goodbye to you by saying "See you tomorrow!"). I actually saw a guy running on the beach today wearing a t-shirt that just had a picture of Attaturk on it. There was nothing ironic about it, no Che Guevara-esque reference, just complete adoration. And it's ever present here, it permeates everything. As much as they seem to hate each other, the Turks are not lacking in a common, unifying national pride.
It's been here in Turkey that I first found myself really struck by the concept of NATO, and by this country's membership in it. I never really thought about it before, and it certainly never occurred to me in France or England, or when talking to Germans or Swedes, but I'm amazed by it here. That a country so far away, so different from my own, a country that actually shares a border with Russia, made a promise in the most meaningful way to come to our defense if we are ever unilaterally attacked, seems incredible. I don't know why it hit me so hard, being here, but it really made me feel totally flattered. It made me feel like a partner with all of these people. And, indeed, that's how I'm treated here. When Turks learn that I am American, they don't react with a slight sneer like many Western Europeans, and they don't act with obsequious greed, wanting to impress me and take my money, like many Eastern Europeans. They greet me like a partner, or an old friend; much like Irish people treated me when they learned my name. They make me feel incredibly welcome and totally at ease, as though I just walked into a dinner party with relatives I haven't seen in ages. Except there's no sense of outrageous unbridled enthusiasm, just a pleasant mutual awareness of friendship and partnership.
I recently saw this ad that Kevin Costner starred in for Turkish Airlines, and I thought it was both a great ad and a somewhat oblique but accurate description of my time in Turkey. I have been treated with such personal attention, such polite reception, and had such a fun time, it's hard not to feel like I'm somehow much more important than I am. Turkey really is, in a word... delightful.
