This is the last name we saw on our new TVs warranty paperwork. For non Turkish speakers: the first three letters of this last name mean “butt” in Turkish. Well, here is the story of Steve and his acquisition of Turkish citizenship. We applied for Turkish citizenship in April in Washington DC. We were told that it will take anywhere from 6 weeks to 9 months for it to be approved and finalized. So we did it and made a mental note to check on it in October – November time frame.
Middle of September. I had to get some paperwork done for customs people in order to receive our household goods in Istanbul (another major blog entry coming soon) and one of the paperwork is called “vukuatli nufus kagidi” which is like a transaction history of your life. It registers marriage, birth and death. You go to a citizen records office that you are registered and get this print out. I was reviewing it because I was amazed by the fact that all three children who were born in USA were actually recognized by this system. All their information was there, their full names, birthdates and place, their Turkish ID number and when this transaction was registered there etc. All kids were registered within 3 months of their birth in this citizen records office in Istanbul. Then I saw next to Steve’s name a Turkish ID number and a registration date of September 2008. As I was trying to digest why he was registered so late (we got married in 2000) something in my brain put it all together, wow a Turkish ID number means he is Turkish now. So we all started to laugh and congratulate him on his new achievement in life and immediately started to speculate when he would be arrested by the military officers for not serving his mandatory military service term.
The next day I called the citizen records office to understand what we need to bring to get his Turkish ID card. And of course they were soo helpful; first thing they asked was the residence permit (which we don’t have). I explained that we are in the process of relocating from US to Turkey and therefore we do not have one yet. Then they asked for a letter from the Interior Ministery confirming his citizenhip which we did not have of course so I had to hang up the phone. We called Turkish embassy in DC to see if they heard anything about Steve’s citizenship application and they said it did not come through yet. So we were the only ones in this country who was aware of this phenomenon and I wasn’t sure how to proceed from there. So we shrugged our shoulders and decided to just wait.
Fast forward a month. Steve has a business meeting in Russia and he has to get a visa. But he is an American who happens to be in Istanbul - a potential problem. Quickly we were told that he either has to be Turkish or has to have a resident permit to obtain a visa through the Russian Consulate in Istanbul. Or he has to wait 10 business days so Russia can run a background check on him. Of course as seasoned procrastinators we did not have enough time, so we decided to just go to the citizen records office and give it a chance to get Steve’s Turkish ID.
I explained the situation to the manager - I told him how we saw on my transaction record that Steve was awarded the citizenship but we do not have an official letter or anything. I also told him about the urgency of this upcoming Russia trip and somehow that story did the trick. The officer seemed to be rather pleased that as an American Steve has to wait longer than Turkish citizens to get the visa. So within 45 minutes we were holding Steve’s new national ID card!! And they only wanted two passport pictures. (Need to point out one more reason to move to Turkey: 8 passport pictures – done in 10 minutes for ONLY 8 DOLLARS!!!)
And so here is the end of our road to citizenship, we are still taking bets on when Steve will be arrested for not doing his mandatory military service. I am hoping that this will not be a subject for a future blog entry.
Live from Istanbul, this is Serra’s infrequent blog entry :)
Friday, October 17, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Cell phones, Banking and Internet shopping in Turkey (PART 1 of 199)
It’s been a while since my last post, it is not because I have not being doing anything but things have been rather difficult. I am trying to get a cellphone. First people said that I can use my cellphone from USA – it needs to be “adjusted” to the Turkish system and then it will be just fine. Anybody can adjust it which means some sort of code is written for it to overwrite whatever code it has in its memory. Kinda like rebooting your computer. Or at least this is how I understood it. Well, I could not find someone to do this easily because it is illegal, I had to register the cellphone as I was entering Turkey blah blah blah… I could go to some less law abiding neighborhoods but with three kids in tow I did not want to create unnecessary problems. So I decided to get a new cellphone and sign up with a Turkish carrier; my small survey of friends and family told me pretty much the same thing: all of the carriers suck. Nobody was really happy with what they had. So I went to a cellphone shop. There are two type of plans: one that is billed to your address and one is pay as you go. I of course want to get a plan that gets billed to my address… Which turns out impossible at this point of my life in Istanbul. They need a bank statement or some sort of bill that has my name and address on it. I don’t have anything like that. Logic says cell phone companies have no trust in their customers. I decided to hold off to get a cellphone.
Next on my list was to purchase plane tickets for Antalya. THY has a wonderful website where you can purchase tickets online. Great! So I got them and I did not even have to pay right then, they actually give you 3-5 days to finalize the purchase. You have two options: pay with credit card or pay with EFT (money transfer from your bank account). Since I did not have a Turkish credit card yet I chose to use the EFT option. I logged onto my bank account online – this action takes about 10 minutes because you have to enter your user code (which is given to you by the bank and it has 15 digits or something like that – no way to memorize it), then your password #1 and password #2. The last one is also 10 digits long and you enter the letters and numbers on a keyboard that appears on your screen and every time you enter a letter it scrambles the whole keyboard again. All this craziness is to prevent hackers, so logic says the best hackers reside in Turkey. ANYWAY, I did all of this, and found the screen to give directions for my EFT, entered account number of THY, address etc etc and pushed OK. I got a message saying that it cannot be processed because I do not have a GSM (cellphone) number registered with my account. I spent another 20 minutes or so trying to figure out where I can update my account information and concluded finally that I have to call the bank. You cannot update any personal info online unless you have a registered GSM number with the bank so I was definitely in a Catch 22 situation. So I called, I explained the situation and gave the rep my mom’s cell number. She said that it is registered to someone else’s (my mom) name. I said that she is my mom. Then she asked what my father’s name was, but she did not like my answer. Maybe she was asking for my mother’s father’s name, I don’t know. She politely told me that she cannot verify me as the account owner and the best thing I can do is to go to the bank.
Next day after various phone calls and faxes I was able to add the stupid cell phone number to my account and finalized the EFT and spent a peaceful rest of the day away from banks and internet. Friday afternoon, I was informed via e-mail that my reservation got cancelled because I did not pay. THY’s customer service rep quickly pointed out that it was an internet/IT issue and therefore I should call “them”. But of course they only work 9AM to 5PM Mon through Fri and it was past their office hours. So I asked her that I still needed these tickets and what I should do and she said she really cannot help me with it. Frust frust!!
Excerpts from my Monday morning phone call with the THY IT guy:
- I paid for these tickets via EFT, I can send you the proof.
- But you entered an incorrect explanation code
- I copied and pasted the code you gave me
- But some of the digits became stars…Our system does not recognize stars.
- You can now tell your system what the stars are supposed to be, right?
- No. Once a payment is rejected we cannot assign it to a transaction.
- So you are telling me that I need to pay again for these tickets?
- Yes. And do not use EFT. Your bank might screw it again.
- My bank?? (I cannot believe I am defending my bank but…)
This is how it all ended: I did not need those tickets anyway, I had to get new tickets. I had to travel to city center with three kids in tow to get paper tickets. I had to use my Amex to pay for these tickets. And THY returned my initial payment to me after 4 business days. Case closed – lesson learned.
Next on my list was to purchase plane tickets for Antalya. THY has a wonderful website where you can purchase tickets online. Great! So I got them and I did not even have to pay right then, they actually give you 3-5 days to finalize the purchase. You have two options: pay with credit card or pay with EFT (money transfer from your bank account). Since I did not have a Turkish credit card yet I chose to use the EFT option. I logged onto my bank account online – this action takes about 10 minutes because you have to enter your user code (which is given to you by the bank and it has 15 digits or something like that – no way to memorize it), then your password #1 and password #2. The last one is also 10 digits long and you enter the letters and numbers on a keyboard that appears on your screen and every time you enter a letter it scrambles the whole keyboard again. All this craziness is to prevent hackers, so logic says the best hackers reside in Turkey. ANYWAY, I did all of this, and found the screen to give directions for my EFT, entered account number of THY, address etc etc and pushed OK. I got a message saying that it cannot be processed because I do not have a GSM (cellphone) number registered with my account. I spent another 20 minutes or so trying to figure out where I can update my account information and concluded finally that I have to call the bank. You cannot update any personal info online unless you have a registered GSM number with the bank so I was definitely in a Catch 22 situation. So I called, I explained the situation and gave the rep my mom’s cell number. She said that it is registered to someone else’s (my mom) name. I said that she is my mom. Then she asked what my father’s name was, but she did not like my answer. Maybe she was asking for my mother’s father’s name, I don’t know. She politely told me that she cannot verify me as the account owner and the best thing I can do is to go to the bank.
Next day after various phone calls and faxes I was able to add the stupid cell phone number to my account and finalized the EFT and spent a peaceful rest of the day away from banks and internet. Friday afternoon, I was informed via e-mail that my reservation got cancelled because I did not pay. THY’s customer service rep quickly pointed out that it was an internet/IT issue and therefore I should call “them”. But of course they only work 9AM to 5PM Mon through Fri and it was past their office hours. So I asked her that I still needed these tickets and what I should do and she said she really cannot help me with it. Frust frust!!
Excerpts from my Monday morning phone call with the THY IT guy:
- I paid for these tickets via EFT, I can send you the proof.
- But you entered an incorrect explanation code
- I copied and pasted the code you gave me
- But some of the digits became stars…Our system does not recognize stars.
- You can now tell your system what the stars are supposed to be, right?
- No. Once a payment is rejected we cannot assign it to a transaction.
- So you are telling me that I need to pay again for these tickets?
- Yes. And do not use EFT. Your bank might screw it again.
- My bank?? (I cannot believe I am defending my bank but…)
This is how it all ended: I did not need those tickets anyway, I had to get new tickets. I had to travel to city center with three kids in tow to get paper tickets. I had to use my Amex to pay for these tickets. And THY returned my initial payment to me after 4 business days. Case closed – lesson learned.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Pictures!!
I could not figure out how to add pictures to where I want to add them in the body of the e-mail so here are some stand alone pictures...
Kids on their way to Darussafaka - the "mini" summer camp
This one is the infamous Leapster toy invasion of little brains...
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Rent house - CHECK!
August 4th was the first day of work for Steve. I woke up with him early in the morning because I had to escort him to his "service bus". In Istanbul everything can be expensive but if you work for a company that employs more than 50 or 100 people (not sure about the exact number) you get free transportation and free lunch. So that morning I waved him good bye like a mother sending her kindergartner off to school and came back home to the other three children. It was also their first day of summer "mini" camp. The camp that I signed them up is in the afternoon between 2 and 5 PM. There is of course transportation but the first day I had to take them in which I wanted to do anyway. So around 1.15PM we arrived at Darussafaka. It was like an old dusty Mexican town during fiesta. Nobody really wanted to move, wanted to answer questions, wanted to be available. With great effort I first registered the kids with the service bus. Filling out three identical forms, answering questions, listening to directions is so much fun especially when I have all three tired children with me. They have an enormous capacity to get on my nerves by either asking irrelevant questions or by touching things they should not be touching like other people, other people's stuff, loose cables that are sticking out of walls etc. etc. Luckily somehow this all seemed cute to the service bus people and they were very helpful. After leaving their stand I was still not sure how all three children will be led by their teachers from the camp to the same exact bus that afternoon. By then the camp came to life, there were kids in colorful shorts and t-shirts everywhere, and somehow I managed to find the classes that the kids belonged (of course they are all in separate classes). Mert first plays basketball and then swims; Maya and Cem first swim then they do gym. So I decided to stay with Maya and Cem for a while and helped the teachers get the kids into their swimsuits. Then I had to hold Cem's hand all the way to the pool as he was not sure that he wanted to do any of this camp stuff but to my relief as soon as he saw the pool he was happy. So I was wondering what kind of pool the kids would go in as I was certain that it was not a kiddie pool. And it was not - it was an Olympic size indoor swimming pool with 6 lanes. And here comes the genius Turkish mind, in order to make the pool shallow for these youngsters they put tables in the pool. Yes tables as in big rectangular tables that you buy at Sam's Club or Costco for your bake sale or for your party. And they were not even continuous, they were scattered here and there. Somehow the tables were secured to the bottom of the pool and although it induced in me some horrific images of drowned and never found children everybody else seemed to be OK with this arrangement. I watched the swim class a little bit. The class sizes are really small, 4-5 children with one swim teacher but there are also one or two teacher or teachers' aides outside of the pool who are watching the children all the time. So I left the crime scene with some relief and started my journey towards Steve's office.
Steve works in Kucukyali which is in a far away corner on the Asian side and we live on the European side. Luckily his firm gave Steve a company car but of course on his first day he had to drive it home somehow. The only thing I could think of was that I would go to his office and we would drive back together so I could show him the way. I took "deniz otobusu" (very fast boat) from Kabatas to Bostanci, then a cab from Bostanci to his office. The cab driver (this should be and will be a separate post: the cab drivers of Istanbul) was talkative to say the least and during our short drive told me that I should have saved enough money to buy a house. I always admire people who can dispense their opinions so freely.
And there is the company car, it is French made. Very nice car but the whole control panel is completely different than anything I have driven in my life (mostly Japanese cars I have to admit). For example "D" in the shift is now an "A", there is no "P". In order to "P" the car now we have to put it in "N" and push a separate button to activate the breaks. Every time we want to put it in "P" which does not exist as I said we start the windshield wiper and the water... So we were like Mr Bean in one of his endless vaudeville... And of course if you add to this chaos the kids who demand the air to be on, the air to be off, the top to be on, the top to be off, their window to be down and their window to be up... Emotions can get out of control, hearts can be broken. Enough said.
Monday also was the day we met our landlord. We had an appointment with him at 6PM sharp and although the new car pulled all its tricks on us and we came all the way from the Asian side we made it with 10 minutes to spare (somehow in Turkey we are more on time than ever, very odd). The meeting went really well, until we started talking about the rent amount. Our landlord all of a sudden declared that he would like to get 100YTL more than what the apartment was advertised for. I was so stunned and so was the agent. We somehow managed to stick to the original amount and our landlord also agreed to start the rent in middle of August. So we shook hands and called it a deal. Yeey... One less thing to do on the to do list! We have a house!
Tuesday was a fine day - the kids merrily went to their swim camp and I had lunch with Turna and her baby in Kanyon. Kanyon also deserves its own post but I am sure it has been done many many times. We ate lunch at Num Num which is the Turkish version of Cheesecake Factory (similar menu but smaller portions). Then Turna's mother joined us and just before we left we stopped by a baby boutique. Of course it only sells the top of the top, Bugaboo strollers that are close to $1.500; little dresses that start from $100... We oohed and aahed... Turna was so happy to see that she can get this stuff in US for a third of the price tag. I felt a tiny tinge of jealousy mixed with relief that I don't need to get baby stuff anyway :)
Wednesday Cem refused firmly to go to camp. Since I thought he was just really tired I agreed and he took his usual 3.5 hour nap in the afternoon while I was visiting his future preschool. Well at least someone's school is arranged. One down two more to go. Wednesday afternoon I had to exchange money for deposit, August rent and commission which totally broke my heart. It is not an exchange rate, it is change rate... You give dollars and you get change in return. Pitiful... But by Wednesday evening we had a signed contract and keys to our new house.
Thursday I promised Mert, Maya and Cem that I would take them to swim camp but in the morning we decided to visit my brother and Zeynep who were also at home. While me and my brother were having coffee the kids were playing nicely in their room or so we thought. But actually this is what happened: a little devil told them to take aaalll the board games the Usman kids own, open the boxes and dump them on the floor. Then dive in that mess and throw it in the air because it is so much fun. This is the picture you should have in front of you now: monopoly banknotes slowly falling to the floor like bird feathers from a very big pillow... And the kids throwing more of them in the air. All in slow motion. I was speechless. I don't want to remember our futile attempt to clean it out, all we could do was to put everything in one box and let Emre sort it out later. Sorry Emre!! Then I took them to their camp and again I had to hold Cem's hand all the way to the pool. Again as soon as he saw the pool he forgot about me. Maya's teachers asked me whether she really understands Turkish because apparently she does not listen to anything and does her own thing. What a surprise! And Turkey meets Maya.
While the kids were at the camp I decided to tackle this Turkish public elementary school that is close to our house. This school is not my first choice but my first choice did a lottery thing and we were not even qualified to enter the lottery - really long and annoying story I will fill you in later... So this other school was suggested by our first choice and I wanted to check it out myself. My first visit was really short as the assistant principal had just returned from his vacation and did not want to entertain any new registrations that morning. My second visit this Thursday afternoon was not much longer than my first - I did manage to speak to the principal this time who essentially shooed me off by saying that I had to wait one more week. Come back later is the motto here in Istanbul public schools. What's the hurry?
I want to finish this blog with our Sunday morning breakfast experience. We went to Hisar, a beautiful location along Bosphorus, you sit outdoors and it is very very casual. The menu is very simple, eggs, cheese, different breads and lots and lots of Turkish tea. The weather was wonderful, the kids were eating like horses and we really enjoyed the whole thing until we got the bill. With tip, parking and the food it was $100!! We quickly determined that this beautiful experience should be reserved for special occasions like anniversaries and birthdays.
OK I am posting this now and I promise to work on the pictures - they are coming soon!!
Steve works in Kucukyali which is in a far away corner on the Asian side and we live on the European side. Luckily his firm gave Steve a company car but of course on his first day he had to drive it home somehow. The only thing I could think of was that I would go to his office and we would drive back together so I could show him the way. I took "deniz otobusu" (very fast boat) from Kabatas to Bostanci, then a cab from Bostanci to his office. The cab driver (this should be and will be a separate post: the cab drivers of Istanbul) was talkative to say the least and during our short drive told me that I should have saved enough money to buy a house. I always admire people who can dispense their opinions so freely.
And there is the company car, it is French made. Very nice car but the whole control panel is completely different than anything I have driven in my life (mostly Japanese cars I have to admit). For example "D" in the shift is now an "A", there is no "P". In order to "P" the car now we have to put it in "N" and push a separate button to activate the breaks. Every time we want to put it in "P" which does not exist as I said we start the windshield wiper and the water... So we were like Mr Bean in one of his endless vaudeville... And of course if you add to this chaos the kids who demand the air to be on, the air to be off, the top to be on, the top to be off, their window to be down and their window to be up... Emotions can get out of control, hearts can be broken. Enough said.
Monday also was the day we met our landlord. We had an appointment with him at 6PM sharp and although the new car pulled all its tricks on us and we came all the way from the Asian side we made it with 10 minutes to spare (somehow in Turkey we are more on time than ever, very odd). The meeting went really well, until we started talking about the rent amount. Our landlord all of a sudden declared that he would like to get 100YTL more than what the apartment was advertised for. I was so stunned and so was the agent. We somehow managed to stick to the original amount and our landlord also agreed to start the rent in middle of August. So we shook hands and called it a deal. Yeey... One less thing to do on the to do list! We have a house!
Tuesday was a fine day - the kids merrily went to their swim camp and I had lunch with Turna and her baby in Kanyon. Kanyon also deserves its own post but I am sure it has been done many many times. We ate lunch at Num Num which is the Turkish version of Cheesecake Factory (similar menu but smaller portions). Then Turna's mother joined us and just before we left we stopped by a baby boutique. Of course it only sells the top of the top, Bugaboo strollers that are close to $1.500; little dresses that start from $100... We oohed and aahed... Turna was so happy to see that she can get this stuff in US for a third of the price tag. I felt a tiny tinge of jealousy mixed with relief that I don't need to get baby stuff anyway :)
Wednesday Cem refused firmly to go to camp. Since I thought he was just really tired I agreed and he took his usual 3.5 hour nap in the afternoon while I was visiting his future preschool. Well at least someone's school is arranged. One down two more to go. Wednesday afternoon I had to exchange money for deposit, August rent and commission which totally broke my heart. It is not an exchange rate, it is change rate... You give dollars and you get change in return. Pitiful... But by Wednesday evening we had a signed contract and keys to our new house.
Thursday I promised Mert, Maya and Cem that I would take them to swim camp but in the morning we decided to visit my brother and Zeynep who were also at home. While me and my brother were having coffee the kids were playing nicely in their room or so we thought. But actually this is what happened: a little devil told them to take aaalll the board games the Usman kids own, open the boxes and dump them on the floor. Then dive in that mess and throw it in the air because it is so much fun. This is the picture you should have in front of you now: monopoly banknotes slowly falling to the floor like bird feathers from a very big pillow... And the kids throwing more of them in the air. All in slow motion. I was speechless. I don't want to remember our futile attempt to clean it out, all we could do was to put everything in one box and let Emre sort it out later. Sorry Emre!! Then I took them to their camp and again I had to hold Cem's hand all the way to the pool. Again as soon as he saw the pool he forgot about me. Maya's teachers asked me whether she really understands Turkish because apparently she does not listen to anything and does her own thing. What a surprise! And Turkey meets Maya.
While the kids were at the camp I decided to tackle this Turkish public elementary school that is close to our house. This school is not my first choice but my first choice did a lottery thing and we were not even qualified to enter the lottery - really long and annoying story I will fill you in later... So this other school was suggested by our first choice and I wanted to check it out myself. My first visit was really short as the assistant principal had just returned from his vacation and did not want to entertain any new registrations that morning. My second visit this Thursday afternoon was not much longer than my first - I did manage to speak to the principal this time who essentially shooed me off by saying that I had to wait one more week. Come back later is the motto here in Istanbul public schools. What's the hurry?
I want to finish this blog with our Sunday morning breakfast experience. We went to Hisar, a beautiful location along Bosphorus, you sit outdoors and it is very very casual. The menu is very simple, eggs, cheese, different breads and lots and lots of Turkish tea. The weather was wonderful, the kids were eating like horses and we really enjoyed the whole thing until we got the bill. With tip, parking and the food it was $100!! We quickly determined that this beautiful experience should be reserved for special occasions like anniversaries and birthdays.
OK I am posting this now and I promise to work on the pictures - they are coming soon!!
Sunday, August 3, 2008
We are back in Istanbul!!
Hah haa my friends! I am soo excited! This is my first blog, most likely less than 5 people will ever read this but yet I still feel like an aspiring writer waiting to be published :) I have the power to create (worthless material but hey this is my first blog ever...)!
OK OK, I am (as usual) getting ahead of myself... The reason I wanted to create this is simple: make all my friends move to Istanbul heh hee... Seriously. Here you will read about my wonderful (never a dull moment, I swear) experiences and you will, like, feel that you absolutely have to move to Istanbul no matter what your life situation is. You have no kids? Come on, Istanbul is THE party town! You have 10 kids? No problem, we are a city of 12+ million, few more heads won't hurt anyone... You have no job? Join half the population here - they seem to be doing just fine, thank you. You don't speak Turkish? Well OK that might be a problem, next?
So, here I am after spending 12 years in USA; Steve (Optimistic American husband from California) in one arm and three little sidekicks in tow. Everything is still pretty surreal to me. I feel like we are on our typical summer vacation and soon this will end too and we will get back on that plane for our 12 hour return trip torture. But then I am looking for rental apartments here... And then I realize this fact and have an instant small heart attack... OMG, we are here to stay, well at least for a year (duration of possible rent contract).
We arrived last Tuesday (July 29th, 2008 - the day our new life begins in Istanbul). Lost 10% of our luggage. But that did not stop us from enjoying that day (well I was slightly irritated as that specific bag held 90% of my shoes and my feet are size 11 which means I think 41.5 or even 42 in Turkey which also means I will never ever buy shoes off the racks in Nisantasi or any other shoe place in Istanbul for that matter) and we had our usual small lunch at home, rest in the afternoon and have a bigger dinner with family. So Murat, Mujde, Emre and Zeynep were there and also my Hala and Teyze as well as my cousin Rengin. Wednesday morning we started the daunting process of unpacking 10 suitcases and successfully (according to my standards which are not even considered standards by my mother apparently) finished unpacking by noon. Vigorous unpacking was followed by manti at Askana and some play time at Bebek Parki. We also got some coffee from Starbucks which also officially started our search for a coffee grinder. Apparently people use some unknown to us device to grind their coffee (or maybe they don't drink filter coffee at home would be the most likely answer). Anyway, Steve brought about 10 lbs (YEAH I am going to use the American system for a while...) of coffee with us...
We opened our bank account Wed afternoon as well. It is under my name heh hee. So for some reason foreigners can open bank accounts but they cannot invest in stocks, bonds and some other investment tools. We just want their money - we promise it will go nowhere (including its value) Odd...
After the visit to the bank (HSBC if anyone is wondering) we saw two apartments in my parents' neighborhood. We liked on of them because it was big, it had a working fireplace, somewhat newer kitchen and bathrooms, most appliances aaand a lot of storage in the rooms like built in closets with organizers in them. But it was too early to decide on the house we thought and left the place. That same evening it dawned on me that we should really get that apartment because it came with all appliances and storage etc because apparently there are only 3 apartments like that in Istanbul especially if you do not want to pay half your salary as rent. Also that same evening/night I was awake from midnight until 6AM in the morning which made me edgy and panicky about this whole moving to Istanbul deal...
Thursday we decided to go to one of the beaches at Black Sea so my mom joined us and we all went to Dahlia beach. The wind was blowing like 40mph, the water was on the dirty side but the kids had fun. This place has of course a full blown restaurant as well as a smaller "cafe" version where you can get drinks and toasts and such. We of course set at the restaurant and devoured kofte, coban salata and sigara boregi for lunch... That casual lunch with Steve, my mom and the kids completely assured me that this was indeed the right decision... Some fresh air, Efes and good food blows all worries away (including worries induced by Maya)
On the way back we called the agent and told him that we wanted to rent the apartment. Agent tells us to send him an e-mail with some background information about us. And our formal offer. Too funny how something like this would be completely illegal in US but totally normal here. There is no fall back plan in Turkey if you are dealing with non-law abiding people so most people take it to their hands to minimize their exposure to such people - thus the background letter, reference request, etc etc....
Friday morning: I went running :) So I left the house around 6.30AM and started running down to Ortakoy. I don't know if it was my imagination but I felt everyone was watching me as their morning freak show, this overweight and very out of shape again lady running in Esentepe... I ran successfully down to Ortakoy, made a U-turn and started WALKING back up as there was no way in hell I could have ran up... But all in all it felt like a really good exercise. Took me 40 min to this whole thing. Later in the morning I went to Darussafaka to register the kids at their summer camp. It is rather pathetic but I really have no other option. As I was waiting for the lady who is supposed to have all the information I watched these 8-9 yr old girls do their gym class. All they did was somersaults for the entire 15 minute I was watching them. Great! But really who wants to be Nadia here?? So cheerfully I signed the kids up without listening to the suggestions from the registration lady (Pinar Hanim). She thought I should maybe sign the kids up for one week and see how the younger ones (aka Cem and Maya) would fare... I acted like I was considering this option for a second then told her to sign all of them up for the remainder of summer session which is only 3 weeks anyway. 3 kids + 3 weeks * half days = $1,500!! Fact: Istanbul is an EXPENSIVE city now...
Rest of Friday: we looked at yet another apartment which totally confirmed our decision to rent the other place as this new one had also 4 rooms with NO storage whatsoever. The only advantage was a very large terrace but it was in a rather stinky part of Fulya and I just could not picture myself living there. Then we went to Cevahir to grab lunch and continued our search for a coffee grinder. Finally we purchased the last grinder at a BOSCH store. We paid a ridiculous amount of money for it of course do I have to say it??
The kids by the way... Up to this point I did not mention them much and here is the reason: they either whine and bitch at each other or at me or they play with their new Leapster toy. I purchased these toys for them before we left and all three (especially Mert) are glued to the little screens. It works great until I have one of my guilt trips and say heeeyy you guys have been playing electronically all day long stop that and enjoy the fact that you are in Istanbul. Well, that is such a vague recommendation of course and they all just end up unhappy little creatures kinda like fish out of water, gasping for air, with really no tools to get themselves out of that boredom situation. So they flip and flop and mop around the house, annoy each other, whine to me until I suggest maybe they should play with their Leapster toys. Note to self: this is just a phase that will pass (hopefully - don't tell me it is just the beginning)
OK OK, I am (as usual) getting ahead of myself... The reason I wanted to create this is simple: make all my friends move to Istanbul heh hee... Seriously. Here you will read about my wonderful (never a dull moment, I swear) experiences and you will, like, feel that you absolutely have to move to Istanbul no matter what your life situation is. You have no kids? Come on, Istanbul is THE party town! You have 10 kids? No problem, we are a city of 12+ million, few more heads won't hurt anyone... You have no job? Join half the population here - they seem to be doing just fine, thank you. You don't speak Turkish? Well OK that might be a problem, next?
So, here I am after spending 12 years in USA; Steve (Optimistic American husband from California) in one arm and three little sidekicks in tow. Everything is still pretty surreal to me. I feel like we are on our typical summer vacation and soon this will end too and we will get back on that plane for our 12 hour return trip torture. But then I am looking for rental apartments here... And then I realize this fact and have an instant small heart attack... OMG, we are here to stay, well at least for a year (duration of possible rent contract).
We arrived last Tuesday (July 29th, 2008 - the day our new life begins in Istanbul). Lost 10% of our luggage. But that did not stop us from enjoying that day (well I was slightly irritated as that specific bag held 90% of my shoes and my feet are size 11 which means I think 41.5 or even 42 in Turkey which also means I will never ever buy shoes off the racks in Nisantasi or any other shoe place in Istanbul for that matter) and we had our usual small lunch at home, rest in the afternoon and have a bigger dinner with family. So Murat, Mujde, Emre and Zeynep were there and also my Hala and Teyze as well as my cousin Rengin. Wednesday morning we started the daunting process of unpacking 10 suitcases and successfully (according to my standards which are not even considered standards by my mother apparently) finished unpacking by noon. Vigorous unpacking was followed by manti at Askana and some play time at Bebek Parki. We also got some coffee from Starbucks which also officially started our search for a coffee grinder. Apparently people use some unknown to us device to grind their coffee (or maybe they don't drink filter coffee at home would be the most likely answer). Anyway, Steve brought about 10 lbs (YEAH I am going to use the American system for a while...) of coffee with us...
We opened our bank account Wed afternoon as well. It is under my name heh hee. So for some reason foreigners can open bank accounts but they cannot invest in stocks, bonds and some other investment tools. We just want their money - we promise it will go nowhere (including its value) Odd...
After the visit to the bank (HSBC if anyone is wondering) we saw two apartments in my parents' neighborhood. We liked on of them because it was big, it had a working fireplace, somewhat newer kitchen and bathrooms, most appliances aaand a lot of storage in the rooms like built in closets with organizers in them. But it was too early to decide on the house we thought and left the place. That same evening it dawned on me that we should really get that apartment because it came with all appliances and storage etc because apparently there are only 3 apartments like that in Istanbul especially if you do not want to pay half your salary as rent. Also that same evening/night I was awake from midnight until 6AM in the morning which made me edgy and panicky about this whole moving to Istanbul deal...
Thursday we decided to go to one of the beaches at Black Sea so my mom joined us and we all went to Dahlia beach. The wind was blowing like 40mph, the water was on the dirty side but the kids had fun. This place has of course a full blown restaurant as well as a smaller "cafe" version where you can get drinks and toasts and such. We of course set at the restaurant and devoured kofte, coban salata and sigara boregi for lunch... That casual lunch with Steve, my mom and the kids completely assured me that this was indeed the right decision... Some fresh air, Efes and good food blows all worries away (including worries induced by Maya)
On the way back we called the agent and told him that we wanted to rent the apartment. Agent tells us to send him an e-mail with some background information about us. And our formal offer. Too funny how something like this would be completely illegal in US but totally normal here. There is no fall back plan in Turkey if you are dealing with non-law abiding people so most people take it to their hands to minimize their exposure to such people - thus the background letter, reference request, etc etc....
Friday morning: I went running :) So I left the house around 6.30AM and started running down to Ortakoy. I don't know if it was my imagination but I felt everyone was watching me as their morning freak show, this overweight and very out of shape again lady running in Esentepe... I ran successfully down to Ortakoy, made a U-turn and started WALKING back up as there was no way in hell I could have ran up... But all in all it felt like a really good exercise. Took me 40 min to this whole thing. Later in the morning I went to Darussafaka to register the kids at their summer camp. It is rather pathetic but I really have no other option. As I was waiting for the lady who is supposed to have all the information I watched these 8-9 yr old girls do their gym class. All they did was somersaults for the entire 15 minute I was watching them. Great! But really who wants to be Nadia here?? So cheerfully I signed the kids up without listening to the suggestions from the registration lady (Pinar Hanim). She thought I should maybe sign the kids up for one week and see how the younger ones (aka Cem and Maya) would fare... I acted like I was considering this option for a second then told her to sign all of them up for the remainder of summer session which is only 3 weeks anyway. 3 kids + 3 weeks * half days = $1,500!! Fact: Istanbul is an EXPENSIVE city now...
Rest of Friday: we looked at yet another apartment which totally confirmed our decision to rent the other place as this new one had also 4 rooms with NO storage whatsoever. The only advantage was a very large terrace but it was in a rather stinky part of Fulya and I just could not picture myself living there. Then we went to Cevahir to grab lunch and continued our search for a coffee grinder. Finally we purchased the last grinder at a BOSCH store. We paid a ridiculous amount of money for it of course do I have to say it??
The kids by the way... Up to this point I did not mention them much and here is the reason: they either whine and bitch at each other or at me or they play with their new Leapster toy. I purchased these toys for them before we left and all three (especially Mert) are glued to the little screens. It works great until I have one of my guilt trips and say heeeyy you guys have been playing electronically all day long stop that and enjoy the fact that you are in Istanbul. Well, that is such a vague recommendation of course and they all just end up unhappy little creatures kinda like fish out of water, gasping for air, with really no tools to get themselves out of that boredom situation. So they flip and flop and mop around the house, annoy each other, whine to me until I suggest maybe they should play with their Leapster toys. Note to self: this is just a phase that will pass (hopefully - don't tell me it is just the beginning)
But Friday afternoon was the afternoon for public transportation. We took the metro to Taksim, then the finicular thingie from Taksim to Kabatas, then the tram from Kabatas to Eminonu. Kids ride free so it is a rather cheap alternative for transportation as well as entertainment. In Eminonu we walked around and said no at periodical intervals to demands from the children for acquisition of puppies, chicks, pekin ducks, little baby turtles, twirling scary dolls and flipping cars. Cem got bit by a baby bunny and had to walk with his index finger in the air for the rest of the afternoon as if he had something to ask to his teacher. So cute things can hurt other cute things. By the way it did not even break his skin, I think he was just very surprised... We took a boat back to Besiktas and a cab to home and that concluded our day of trains, planes and automobiles... Well I mean trams, boats and subways...
Friday was also the day when my dad and Hala got hurt. So my mom, dad and Hala went to Profilo to shop for some stuff for Hala. After they finished their shopping they decided to have lunch and although Hala profusely refused to use the escalator my parents felt like they could hold her and help her up the escalator. Wrong call, as soon as Hala steps onto the escalator she falls backwards along with my dad (Disclosure: Hala is 84 yrs old, dad 70) and they had to go up in that horizontal position scraping their arms and backs the whole time. So no stitches or anything but my dad especially has a pretty battered arm that is all in bandages now.
This injury of course prevented my dad from joining us at the pool the next day and he merrily (OK he was a little weary) went to his saturday bridge party. The rest of us went to Koc University's pool - it was awesome. There was almost nobody, the kids had a blast and we had yet another lunch in open air. I ate tuna salad which is really a salad! Not a mayo goop... Yum! My brother and his clan, my mom and us were there. I saw a highschool friend of mine - this is again another thing that I have long forgotten: seeing people randomly... In US the number of all the people that I know is less than 100 most likely so I almost never see anyone when I go to places... It kinda started to change in Baltimore in recent years but you know what I mean.
Saturday we also started getting weird signals from our future landlords: they want to meet us in person (great), we need to meet them at 6PM sharp on Monday (really? Sharp like on time sharp? In Turkey?) and most likely they won't agree to start the contract on the 15th of August but we will have to pay the rent for all of August. Pretty much everybody that we talk to agrees with this demand and says we should cough up the money. Steve is irritated to say the least - I am just surprised again about how things are assumed and accepted here. what is normal here is crazy in US and vice versa... Nothing new about this of course.
Aaah Sunday finally... The day started with a run/walk with Steve (7.20AM to 9AM). We ran from our house to Ortakoy through Yildiz Parki, then from Ortakoy to Bebek to Hisar. I was exhausted at the end so peynirli and sucuklu menemen definitely hit the spot. OK we shared one so it did not totally ruined the benefit. Around 10AM we came home to the kids (who were peacefully playing with their Leapster toys of course) and took them to Bebek Parki to meet an elementary school friend of mine. (Thank you Facebook!!) We were there from 10.30 until 1PM. And let me also quickly describe the weather since we arrived in Istanbul: breezy, no humidity and temps around low 80s (high 20s for celcius people). Aaand evenings are cooler. It really feels like San Diego here these days!
Rest of Sunday went by with haircuts, lunch with little Usman family in Akmerkez (cool salad place in food court, forgot the name already), coffee with little Usman family at their Arnavutkoy residence (where the kids destroyed all order established by cleaning ladies - their work will be waiting for them). Then after 4.30PM Steve and Cem went home; Mert, Maya and I went to visit Turna and Clea. So we took a cab to Besiktas, took a boat to Uskudar and another cab to Kuzguncuk all of which took an astonishing 20 minutes. Which brings me to another amazing observation: there is no traffic in Istanbul these days. Maybe they are handing our free money somewhere else in Istanbul and that is where everyone went whatever the reason we are enjoying this lack of chaos, stress and pollution. Turna and Clea are doing very well, I am trying to contain my urge to bite Clea's thighs and squeeze her cheeks. What a cute and calm human being!!
And this was my first week in Istanbul, so what do you think??? Please excuse my writing obviuosly I was not meant to be a writer, and I will organize my thoughts and experiences a little better next time but I just wanted to get this started. Your comments will be much appreciated :)
I miss you all very much, start saving now for future "vaycay" in Istanbul or even better... Start planning for your move. I can help. Love to all!!
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