Football Year Round

Football season starting in March.  Now there’s something I can’t quite figure out.  As per usual, the football season I refer to is not American football (a name that, by the way, I can’t figure out) but soccer.

I arrived back in America in February.  February is about the time we ought to be in the midst of the football season.  Big matches between Galatasaray and Fenerbaçhe have already taken place.  We’re past the Christmas break, looking ahead to the championships.  The beginning of the following season is a long way off.

Football entered my life via a yellow and red mug at the covered bazaar in İstanbul back in 2004.  I chose Galatasaray and I never turned back.  Women’s basketball entered a few years later via a friend who happened to play for a team in Ankara.  I chose whatever team (or teams) my friends happened to play for.  My favorite team(s) change yearly.  In my life football happens in the winter with championship matches taking place in the spring.  Women’s basketball is a year-round event.  Fall, winter and spring are full of Turkish league matches and summer is the WNBA…if I know someone playing.

The world follows the same football schedule.  When the snow is flying in Germany men are running around fields in shorts.  I assumed that the MLS followed the same schedule as the rest of the world.  Then I arrived in Seattle in March.  I turned on the radio only to discover that the Seattle Sounders would be starting preseason matches.  I was surprised and shockingly a bit out of my element.

It’s only a soccer season, you say.  Don’t blow things out of proportion, you say.  I say, why can’t we just be like everyone else?  Play soccer in shorts while it snows in Denver and call the sport football?

Or I could look at it the same way as women’s basketball.  I get to enjoy the sport year round.  Red and yellow from the fall to the spring and green and blue from the spring to the fall.  Yet another perk of living with a foot on either continent.  Go Sounders.

Turklish

Tonight I spoke Turklish.  Yup.  It’s a real language.  I’m pretty sure if you look it up on Google you’ll find it.  Of course there’s only been one time I googled something and found no results.  Yup.  None.  It’s a story for another day involving conspiracy to burn up Moscow, Russia by President Obama.  And no, I was not the one who came up with the conspiracy idea.  I’m the one attempting to humor the one who was convinced that Obama had admitted to some strange act involving weather bombs, forest fires, and Moscow, Russia.

But I digress.

Back to Turklish.  Yes, I spoke it for about three hours tonight over dinner.  It’s a language spoken primarily by those who speak English as their first language and Turkish as their second language.  Its lovely, really.  You pick and choose the words you want in the language you want.  Or you speak in the language that first comes to your mind and tongue.  Its relaxed.  There’s no wondering if the people you’re around have a clue what you’re saying.  You just…speak.

And so I come home to my temporary home away from home.  I’ve had tea.  My tongue and heart are loose.  I’m relaxed.  And I’m homesick.

A little like my first home – and a little like my current home

I was born in Fairbanks, a cold Alaska town with a population of around 22,000 in 1980, or so says Wikipedia.  I can’t say that I remember.  It didn’t leave much of an impression on me.  Even if I could have remembered anything, we didn’t exactly stick around town after I was born.  Or maybe we did?  How am I to remember?

My life basically went south from there…literally.  We headed for the homestead down in Nenana on the Tanana River, 60 miles south of Fairbanks and 60 miles north of the Denali National Park entrance.  I would like to say I remember a lot about Nenana, but that would also be lying.  We left there when I was 4.  I did extensive online research (less than 2 minutes) to track down the 1980 population of Nenana.  The best I could find was a bunch of black and white pictures on census.com.  I’m pretty sure they weren’t taken in Nenana.  Lets just say it was probably smaller than it is today.  In 2000 there were 402 people living in Nenana.  Yes, it’s a small town.

Nenana may be small, but it has a lot going for it.  Rocks.  I think I must have picked up a lot of rocks in my first four years of life.  Then there were the dogs.  Specifically I remember Fred and Grover, two retired sled dogs from my dad’s old team.  And of course there was….nope, that’s all I remember.  I certainly don’t have a clue how many logs were harvested in the vicinity.  I don’t remember how many dogs were in town or how many dog lots housed those dogs or even how many dog sleds were around to harness up said dogs.  Like I said, we moved when I was four.

I drove through Nenana in 2004, the summer after I spent three months in Turkey.  It was….not how I remembered it.  But since my memory was confined to rocks and two dogs who are probably not still alive, that fact probably shouldn’t surprise anyone.  There were people in town who still remembered my parents.  Coghill’s Store was still in the same place and just as my mom had described it to me.  Upon driving into town I realized that the four years I lived in Nenana were greatly overshadowed by over 20 years of life down on the coast in Juneau.  Yes, I was a South East girl.

This week I am spending time in a town not unlike Nenana.  The population is close to double.  There’s no longer much logging going on.  There are absolutely no sled dogs.  So why is it similar?  It’s hard to explain.  It could be the architecture.  I could be the yard work.  It could be its location – about an hour’s drive from the nearest town with its own high school.  I could be the interesting characters.

That’s all that stood out to me the first day, until about 4:30 pm.  I decided to get out of the house, stretch my legs, take a walk.  I stumbled into the town’s local art gallery/frame shop.  Wandered around, looked at the pictures for a while.  Decided to buy a card but there was no one to be seen.  Noises filtered down from upstairs.  Someone was watching a movie, so clearly someone had to be home.  I hollered up a few times, waited patiently.  While I waited I spied a mandolin and guitar sitting on a couch.  This couch happened to be situated near a baby grand piano.  All this in an art gallery in Nenana II.  Interesting.

The owners came downstairs.  We got to chatting.  They asked me the complicated question – where are you from?  I gave the straight forward, yet complicated answer:  Turkey.  Ah, but I don’t look Turkish.  I look, well, like I’m from S.E. Alaska, minus the rubber boots.

Lo and behold, the husband spent the first few years of his life in İzmir.  Yes, I ran into a Navy brat who used to live on the Mediterranean coast while I was wandering the streets of Nenana II.  We chatted more.  Turns out their grandson was staying with them for the week and they would be running him down to Eugene on Sunday, coming back Monday.  So I’m now invited to drop by on Tuesday.  Just like in Turkey.  Home again, home again.

A Proud People

I just arrived back in Seattle from Dallas.  Five days in Texas.  As someone who grew up in Alaska, I’m fairly certain that going to Texas was something I had never planned to do.  No need.  We’re bigger.  Our tidal zone alone is half the size of the state of Texas.  (And please, no wise cracks from Texans on the reality that no one lives in our tidal zone.  I happened to take great joy from living in one of the most empty places in the United States of America…that is, all except the high school years when I wished I had a few more shopping malls to choose from.)

Texans and Alaskans have much in common.  We’re proud of our very large states.  Texas is the second most populous state in the union.  It still only has 94 people per square mile.  California, the most populous state, has 240.  Rhode Island, the state that has an area 2 1/2 times smaller than my home town, has 1,006 people per square mile.  And Alaska takes last place at 1.26.  Exactly how do you get .26 of a person into a square mile.  How much of a person is .26 anyway?  One leg and six toes, but only if the toes are less than an inch long?

I’m quite used to spending time in places where people have an over developed view of their native land.  We Alaskans are proud to boast that, per capita, we eat the most ice cream in the U.S.  We also have the longest coastline in the U.S. and have (again, per capita) the most privately owned planes.  When you have the fewest roads you become resourceful.  And end up buying large quantities of Jet A fuel.

This means I should be quite at home in my adopted country.  Turks are quite proud of Turkey.  Not many days go by where someone doesn’t ask me what I think of Turkey, Turks, Turkish food, etc.  I chose to live there.  I must like it.  Then there’s the  much-loved question – which do you like better, America or Turkey?  I was raised in one and live in the other.  So to the one asking that must mean that I love Turkey best.  To me, that means I can’t choose (I must have worked for a politician once…or maybe a lawyer).

It’s a situation I’ve never learned to handle quite to my satisfaction.  There’s always the next question – how much do fruits and vegetables cost per kilo in America and is it more than in Turkey?  Now my great-aunt may have been a well-known economist in her day, but that gene clearly did not make its way to me.  I struggled through economics and math in school.  Words have always been more my thing.  My simple answer to everything, “I don’t know, I’m from Alaska.”  This answer seems to fuel the idea that 1. Alaskans can’t do math on a global economic scale and 2. Alaska must not be part of American and thus must still be attached to Russia or have been purchased by Canada.

I have the next several months to work on perfecting my answers.  Short of having a t-shirt made that lists all the reasons I love Alaska and wearing it everyday or creating for myself an Alaskan passport to throw everyone off, I have no brilliant ideas.  I’m taking suggestions.

A place to sit

Yesterday I had the oil changed in my car.  I’m currently staying at my mom and step-dad’s place, north of Seattle.  This is N.W. Washington, so my brilliant plan was to find a place to sit and drink a cup of joe while reading the Word after the oil change.  So I drove my shiny red Subaru out of the lot in search of a cozy, slightly retro place to read, write and enjoy a tall Americano with room for a touch of half and half.

And I drove.

And I drove.

And I drove.

Along the way I saw a plethora of road side coffee stands.  These are great if your on your way to…somewhere and need a cup of something.  Not so great if you want to linger over the cup while sitting in a really soft arm-chair.

Turkey has no drive through road side coffee stands.  You can order anything you want for delivery.  That is, except Starbucks.  But you can’t drive up to a shack on the side of the road and order something that you will then drink in your huge truck.  And you probably won’t be driving a truck.  Or maybe even driving.

I did eventually find a coffee shop.  Oddly enough, it was a place owned by an Italian rather than an American.  There were regulars with their regular drinks.  There was a coffee roaster in the back.  I felt quite at home and had no urge to run off to my large truck with my coffee.

Where is the bathroom light?

And why does it not turn on as soon as I walk in the room?

Yes, I too am surprised by the myriad of surprises that have awaited me in the States.  Things you don’t think about.  The first time I went to Turkey I stayed for three months.  I arrived back in the U.S. exhausted and overwhelmed by the English language.  One night at a hotel and on to my dad’s in Denver.  My first shock (outside of everyone speaking English) was the shape of the electric outlets.  Then came the light switches.  I kept trying to smack the switch to turn lights on and off.  I’m surprised I didn’t put a hole in my hand.  American light switches can be dangerous – that little nob protruding from the wall.

Then came the toilette flusher.  It’s a good thing the bathroom is an experience you don’t share with anyone.  I’m sure it would have seemed strange to stumble across a girl with the consistent habit of smacking the top of the tank.  Three months away had created a very strange individual.

Now I find myself searching for bathroom light switches on the outside of the door.  Really, why should we walk into a dark bathroom?  You never know what you’ll find.  You might inadvertently stick your foot into the toilette hole.  What?  No squatty potties in America?  Well then you might find a creepy crawly – or two – waiting to greet you.  Wait,  there aren’t the same cockroach infestations in the pipes here?  Well then….I guess I’ll just have to get used to turning the light on for myself after I have entered the bathroom.  No automatic motion sensors (these really are a great way to save electricity – green Bozeman should take note).  That also means the light won’t go off while I’m still….

So if you’re wandering around the coffee shops of Bozeman, MT and you see a girl slapping the wall outside of the bathroom before she enters, she’s not crazy.  She just can’t remember what country she’s in at the moment.  Give her time, she will adjust.  Several months later she will become the girl wandering the coffee shops of Ankara, walking into dark bathrooms without first turning the light on.  She hopes that at least someone will be slightly entertained by her struggles.

 

Adventures in Driving

I haven’t spent much time behind the wheel in the past four years.  A rental car in Kapadokya, a few times driving my dear friend Mary’s van….and that’s about it.  Somehow I manage to face down Ankara traffic when the need arises.  Istanbul traffic….um….not so much.  If I never driving in Istanbul that might be too soon.

Now I’m in Bozeman, MT and a friend has given me the keys to her Mercedes SUV for three weeks.  The first day behind the wheel I was on alert.  Somehow I seemed to expect that out of nowhere Ankara traffic would leap out from the alleys and fields, invading lanes and running down students on bikes.  Surprisingly, it never happened.

Four days later I’ve relaxed on the roads.  I still get a bit jumpy when I see bikers.  Not the delivery guy on his scooter, driving down sidewalks the opposite direction of traffic so he can get to his destination 5 minutes faster, but people riding mountain bikes in the bike lane.  Somehow they manage to ride bikes here without feeling like they’re taking their lives into their own hands.

(Lest the wrong person read this and think I’m going to swerve on purpose to hit said biker, be not afraid.  They just take me a bit by surprise.)

And then there’s the pedestrian in the parking lot.  They step out in front of moving traffic.  I realize the traffic is moving at less than 5 mph.  Its simply not done where I come from.  The cars rule the day, not the people on foot.  You know that unofficial road rule – the biggest vehicle wins?  The pedestrian is never the biggest vehicle.  So I keep my eyes peeled for people darting out in front of me in front of Target.

I really shouldn’t complain.  If people riding bikes and pedestrians in parking lots are my biggest stresses when I’m driving, I’ve got it made.  So I’ll take a deep breath, relax, hop in the car and drive.  All the while my walking muscles are atrophying.  I would walk, but there’s a severe lack of sidewalks between here and half of my morning errands.

Silence from Chicago, Indiana, Denver and Bozeman

I have to make the confession that I’ve been a bit out of the loop on life lately.  I could blame it on arriving in Chicago last Saturday and going immediately to a conference.  And no, going to a 5 day conference is not the ideal way to tackle jet lag.  I could blame it on a seven hour time difference.  Yawning at 3 pm and ready for bed at 4 pm…bring on the decaf.  I could blame it on finishing up the conference and heading straight to Bozeman for another conference.  Welcome home!  But really, you don’t want to sit here and listen to me write about why I couldn’t write.  That’s a bit like starting a letter with “Sorry its been so long since I’ve written.”  To that I want to , “For heaven’s sake, just write!”

And so I shall.  But not this morning.  I now have another two hour time difference to get over and a conference to attend.  Wait, to speak at.  I’m off again.  But this time with a promise that when Tuesday comes there will be a word about Turkey.  My guess on the topic?  Food…people…soy milk…  You’ll just have to stay tuned.

First Impressions of a Passport Country

Its been almost 4 years since I was last in the States.  Yesterday I made the long journey over the ocean.  Two flights, one lost visa scare in the Istanbul airport, four completed movies and several watched only part-way through, two meals and lots of short naps later I had my first glimpse of North America from 40,000 feet.  I think it must have been somewhere in Canada close to Greenland because it looked pretty flat and cold.

Hours later…too tired to count….I saw Wisconsin.  Or was it Indiana?  Or maybe Illinois?  Then the lights of Chicago.  Straight roads, lights from cars all traveling in straight lines, what look to be large houses on straight streets.  Is it me or has everything gotten straighter since I left the States?

Friends met me at the airport.  We drove away from the airport into traffic that…I’m having difficultly describing.  No one tried to cut anyone off.  People stayed in their lanes.  No one drove 150 km per hour.  No trucks carrying loads tied down by rope and leaning ominously to the side.

I’m already missing my crowded cities, the mazes of people on the sidewalk, the women selling their handmade goods to passers by.  A year from now I’ll be home.

Self Medicating

I come from a country where medication and doctors are highly valued. Well, to a point, anyway. Lets just say they are valued more than in most European countries I’ve had any kind of interaction with.
I appear to have moved to a country with a similar mindset. The major difference – here you can walk into the pharmacy and ask for anything.
What’s the big deal, you ask. You can certainly ask for anything you want in the States. Yes, but you probably won’t get it. Here you will. No need to see the doctor just so you can get a prescription refilled (appointments being often over $100). Just take in the name of the drug and ask for a box or two.
Even better, there have been times where friends have skipped the doctor all together and gone straight to their neighborhood pharmacist for a tentative diagnosis and list of possible beneficial medications. I have to admit to having done the same for the sinus infection that wouldn’t quit.
Then I go over to the same friends’ houses, open the fridge and find all the left overs. Medication. Just in case. I have found a kindred country.
Have a mystery earache? Hop a jet. I’m sure you’ll find something that’ll get rid of it in no time. But I have a feeling the plane ticket is more expensive than a doctors visit. The doctors visit is probably covered by insurance. I would love to find a clause that makes living overseas coverable by insurance.