The cool morning air blew through the windows and startled me awake just as dawn broke. I showered and dressed, heading out to take a seat in the garden. Greeted enthusiastically by the young guest manager, I was offered coffee and breakfast. I sat there watching the village come alive sipping coffee and studying my new map of the town. We would not get lost today!
Nabil wandered out soon after, and the staff began preparing breakfast. We had low expectations, but we're surprised with a delicious spread of eggs, fruit, cheese, bread and olives. There were turtles wandering in the scrubby plants that fringed the stone wall that surrounded the patio and we fed them cucumbers and watermelon, while we sipped coffee and sucked in the quiet of the morning.
After taking pictures with the staff , we checked out and climbed back into our car for a quick ride to the overlook for some pictures. Another mistake. The village roads were clearly not made for luxury sedans and more than once we found ourselves jammed into a passageway with no exit, or trying to navigate a hairpin turn on a steep slope that could barely accommodate our wheel base. After an hour in a panicked cold sweat, we decided to ditch the car and head out on foot.
Our first stop was the tourist office and luckily it was staffed with a well informed, helpful English speaking staffer who was helping two young Korean women on holiday. They, like we, we're interested in touring another set of caves outside of town as well as an old aqueduct. They were scheduled to meet up with a tour operator who had already booked two other Korean tourists for the trip, so there was no room for us in the minivan. We were offered to tag along in our own can for free And gladly did so. As we crisscrossed the mountains heading to the caves we said a prayer of thanks for the escort, as we would have surely gotten lost without it.
The entrance to the cave was perched on the side of an unremarkable slope, but required a 10 minute climb up a seemingly endless stairway. Thus cave was cool and damp, and we spent nearly an hour exploring its passageways and strange rock formations, taking pictures, and trading observations with the young Korean women. Afterwards, we headed to the other side of the valley to view an ancient aqueduct built by the Ottomans, then travelled to another smaller village that was much like Sanfranbolu, though less touched by tourism and in more disrepair. We toured a house museum, wandered the empty streets, chatted with locals and then headed back to Sanfranbolu for lunch.
After a traditional Turkish meal of kofte, salad, yogurt and tea, we felt refreshed and tackled the steep climb to the city museum that stood at the top of a crest overlooking the old town. Another mistake. It was hot, the cobblestoned street uneven, and the climb was steep and long. All made worse when Nabil spotted a parking garage right next to the museum entrance. Of course you can imagine that conversation, too! Exhausted but proud of our tenacity we wandered the grounds, viewed the old jail, the museum and the watchtower, and then slip-slided our way down the hill back to town center.
An ancient Turkish bath still in operation, a converted caravan stop which is now a hotel, refurbished storefronts and bazaars, and three large mosques were all on our list of must-sees. At some point in our wanderings Nabil ducked into an impossibly small antiques store tucked into the elbow of a street corner. He struck up a conversation with the owner in a curious blend of English, Turkish, Arabic , sign language and palm writing, and then traded stories of their youth, sports accomplishments and life journeys. Soon the shop was crowded with locals all jamming about Nabil's remarkable fitness level, his age and his travels through Turkey.
This happens over and over again no matter where we go or how far we travel, and more often than not his "Rambo" persona is our ticket into the unexpected and authentic encounters that so many tourists never have the chance to experience.
Eager to see the blacksmith bazaar, I dragged Nabil to the most remote corner of the village. Again, as I perused a stall of hand crafted metalware, Nabil slipped into a workshop of a metal artist who wanted to know what sport he played and how old he was. The conversation flowed from one thing to another, when Sakim took us into his "man cave"', a dilapidated low ceilinged room at the back of his work shed, wall-papered in yellow tinged newspaper and magazine articles. Sakim, it seems, was world renowned for his craftsmanship and had traveled the globe sharing his skill and his art with universities and artists guilds. And yet here he was working in obscurity, in facilities that were barely habitable, happy and proud of his work, his life and his family. He then took us to another of his shops and shared a secret window with us, a small opening behind the entrance door that looked into a cavernous maw of steel grey rock spilling into a small stream below. Pigeons guarded their posts and bits of plants and vines decorated the step walls as a surreal shaft of light streamed from some hidden break in the rock deep in the ravine. It felt as if this was an entrance into some mystical unknown world and that we could tumble into right from Sakim's shop.
After meeting his family and making a small purchase, we dragged ourselves back to the car, booted up the Tom-Tom and started on our two hour ride back to Ankara. There was little conversation and we barreled down the highway in the fade light. Spent and in awe, we watched the mountains and greenery disappear as we returned to the high dry arid plateau that has become our temporary home.
Thursday, 9 August 2012
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
Sanfranbolu
We arrived in Sanfranbolu spent from the rigors of our backcountry expedition. As we rounded the bend in the highway, Sanfranbolu unfolded. A cluster of 18th century homes jockeyed for position in a maze of small alleys and cobblestone roads that snaked up from the valley floor coiling up the sides of the mountain. Red clay tile roof tops tumbled into one another, as the sun dipped lower in the sky. We had arrived!
But of course, there was the still the challenge of finding our hotel. I had a print out from the internet with the address clearly printed on it, but "clearly" is a misnomer. The address seemed like a jumble of letters and words that blurred into one another. Worse yet, they didn't mesh with any of the roads listed in the Tom-Tom, nor did the name of the hotel. Apparently certain Turkish words and phrasing are optional or have several iterations, so the idea of simply trying to match the name of something written in one place with the same name written somewhere else is an anxiety producing exercise. We maneuvered through the narrow streets, asking directions, fumbling with the computer and the print-out and the map (newly acquired), until finally we stopped at a small hotel unsure but hopeful that we had found our home for the night. Despite the fact that the first word of the hotel name was missing from the sign, we had arrived. We were both elated and wary; happy to have a place to shower and rest, concerned about the quality of our choice of accommodations. Correction: MY choice! (Need I elaborate on the verbal exchange that ensued as we waited for the desk clerk to find our reservation?)
Standing in the small lobby and surveying the front terrace pocked with small pebbles and worn wrought iron patio tables, my heart sank. We asked to see the room, and found ourselves standing in a restored Ottoman period bedroom, with a carved wood ceiling , stone fireplace and a room length window seat upholstered in Turkish carpets. The beds ( there were two!) were clean, fitted with quality bedding and sported the most comfortable mattresses I've slept on since arriving in Turkey. Yeah! Score one for me! We loved this little hotel, which was managed by a young and eager staff of twenty-something's who spoke reasonably good English and couldn't do enough to please us.
After a quick wash, we headed out by foot, glad to be released from the confines of the car, to explore Sanfranbolu, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. The village was once a thriving commercial center on the silk trading route, and we stepped back a few centuries as we meandered through the cobblestone streets past alleys and small doorways. Within minutes we were lost again, this time in a labyrinth that we had to navigate on foot without a computer. With our blood sugar falling and our patience failing we took a seat at a small table in an alleyway,where the the owner stood grilling lamb kebabs on a wood-fired grill outside the entrance to his shop. The table was covered with an old plastic tablecloth (it might have once been a shower curtain) and the silver and glassware were vintage Woolworths. Stray cats circled our legs looking for table scraps and old men sat at the table next to us reveling in the breaking of their daily Ramadan fast. We laughed, realizing that we had forgone any pretensions or expectations. In our other life a little hole in the wall dining spot like this one would never have made the cut. But here we were, sitting under the stars, eager to chow down with the locals. The food was great, and we wolfed it down, and sat for a while watching the parade of international tourists and locals stream by. Tired and full, we decided to head back to the hotel, trying to make sense of the tangle of streets. We turned a corner and came upon a group of musicians wedged between a stone wall and the entrance to a coffee shop. As we watched them
tuning their instruments we decided to take a seat, ordered Turkish coffee and pastry and sat under a canopy of grape leaves and stars listening to their impromptu concert.
When we finally mustered the energy to get back on our feet, we headed straight for the hotel and fell into bed. I lay there overwhelmed with gratitude; fully satiated and in awe that one day could hold so many memorable moments and emotional ups and downs. From Ankara to Amasra through the mountains and onto Safranbolu.....life lived well and fully. Stay tuned
But of course, there was the still the challenge of finding our hotel. I had a print out from the internet with the address clearly printed on it, but "clearly" is a misnomer. The address seemed like a jumble of letters and words that blurred into one another. Worse yet, they didn't mesh with any of the roads listed in the Tom-Tom, nor did the name of the hotel. Apparently certain Turkish words and phrasing are optional or have several iterations, so the idea of simply trying to match the name of something written in one place with the same name written somewhere else is an anxiety producing exercise. We maneuvered through the narrow streets, asking directions, fumbling with the computer and the print-out and the map (newly acquired), until finally we stopped at a small hotel unsure but hopeful that we had found our home for the night. Despite the fact that the first word of the hotel name was missing from the sign, we had arrived. We were both elated and wary; happy to have a place to shower and rest, concerned about the quality of our choice of accommodations. Correction: MY choice! (Need I elaborate on the verbal exchange that ensued as we waited for the desk clerk to find our reservation?)
Standing in the small lobby and surveying the front terrace pocked with small pebbles and worn wrought iron patio tables, my heart sank. We asked to see the room, and found ourselves standing in a restored Ottoman period bedroom, with a carved wood ceiling , stone fireplace and a room length window seat upholstered in Turkish carpets. The beds ( there were two!) were clean, fitted with quality bedding and sported the most comfortable mattresses I've slept on since arriving in Turkey. Yeah! Score one for me! We loved this little hotel, which was managed by a young and eager staff of twenty-something's who spoke reasonably good English and couldn't do enough to please us.
After a quick wash, we headed out by foot, glad to be released from the confines of the car, to explore Sanfranbolu, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. The village was once a thriving commercial center on the silk trading route, and we stepped back a few centuries as we meandered through the cobblestone streets past alleys and small doorways. Within minutes we were lost again, this time in a labyrinth that we had to navigate on foot without a computer. With our blood sugar falling and our patience failing we took a seat at a small table in an alleyway,where the the owner stood grilling lamb kebabs on a wood-fired grill outside the entrance to his shop. The table was covered with an old plastic tablecloth (it might have once been a shower curtain) and the silver and glassware were vintage Woolworths. Stray cats circled our legs looking for table scraps and old men sat at the table next to us reveling in the breaking of their daily Ramadan fast. We laughed, realizing that we had forgone any pretensions or expectations. In our other life a little hole in the wall dining spot like this one would never have made the cut. But here we were, sitting under the stars, eager to chow down with the locals. The food was great, and we wolfed it down, and sat for a while watching the parade of international tourists and locals stream by. Tired and full, we decided to head back to the hotel, trying to make sense of the tangle of streets. We turned a corner and came upon a group of musicians wedged between a stone wall and the entrance to a coffee shop. As we watched them
tuning their instruments we decided to take a seat, ordered Turkish coffee and pastry and sat under a canopy of grape leaves and stars listening to their impromptu concert.
When we finally mustered the energy to get back on our feet, we headed straight for the hotel and fell into bed. I lay there overwhelmed with gratitude; fully satiated and in awe that one day could hold so many memorable moments and emotional ups and downs. From Ankara to Amasra through the mountains and onto Safranbolu.....life lived well and fully. Stay tuned
Monday, 6 August 2012
Black Sea Adventure
In less than 48 hours we travelled 400 miles, experienced 12,000 years of history, drove 120 kilometers an hour as cows grazed on the median, ate in a seaside resort and in a weed filled garden and passed through cities, industrial sites, resorts, villages and a rural no mans land. It was an exhausting marathon of sensory overload.
We left Saturday morning, for Amasra, a Black Sea outpost situated on a spit of land that juts out into a small protected harbor on Turkey's northeast coast. We drove for more than four hours, the first two of which were a straight shot on the highway. Relying solely on our TOM-TOM navigator, once off the exit, we found ourselves deep inside a village, surrounded by geese and at a dead end in from of barn. After u-turning and finding our way back to a paved road, we stopped a Turkish farmer who spoke no English, but who somehow got us back on track. For the next two hours we proceeded on faith, relying on our trusty computer friend who had already let us down and arguing about the usefulness of a Turkish map and whether it could have helped us avert our anxiety. Arguments like these are a common occurrence. Apparently my job is to insure that nothing goes wrong in our foreign adventures and am poorly suited to it. In fact, I expect things to go wrong!
The scenery changed drastically and by the time we neared Amasra, we were surrounded by the majesty of mountains, pines and boulder faced cliffs. The glitz of Ankara and it's dry arid plateau seemed like another country.
Occupied for more than 12000 years dating back to the pre-Hittite, Amasra rests at the foot of seaside cliffs cloaked in fir trees overlooking the endless reach of the Black Sea ( which is actually a brilliant deep blue, and not black at all)! Once a resort destination for Istanbulites, the town was awash in Romanian tourists and locals enjoying the brilliant sun and uncharacteristically warm sea temperatures. The focal point of the town is a decaying castle that has slowly incorporated the village, and now encases more modern dwellings in various states of disrepair. While charming, the whole town could have benefitted from a good scrubbing and some masonry work. And like the rest of Turkey, almost everywhere, buildings were in various states of construction, renovation or demolition. Nothing is done, but everyone is being done!
We walked through the old town and castle remnants, watched the locals dive off an old stone platform into the sea, toured the bazaar and then headed to the waterfront for lunch. We sat on a balcony overlooking the fishermen scooping the catch of the day right out of the water, and then waited for the chef to grill our selection. We sucked the last bit of meat from the bones as we surveyed men cleaning the fish, boys raking the stones and the local feline population feasting on the spoils. The air was salty and smelled of sea and fish. The owner chatted with us about life in Turkey and his experience in the United States. "Everything in the US is about money," he said, " but in Turkey, you don't need much to live...here we have everything and we don't have to work all the time ...we can live with more ease.". At that moment, he seemed to make perfect sense!
Before leaving we toured the museum, walked along the waterfront and then decided to try to find our way to a local site to tour the 4th largest cave in the world. MISTAKE!
We spent the next 45 minutes trying to wind through the mountains looking for the cave entrance. The Turks have a infuriating habit of posting directional signs haphazardly and forgetting that is is important to continue marking the trail until someone has arrived the destination. Despite a helpful tour bus driver who lead us through part of the trail and mapped the rest, we never arrived. In part, we blamed it on highway construction , which we think obscured the turn off. The other blame rested with our navigator who is proving leas reliable than we had hoped. Of course, our failed attempt to reach the cave triggered another round of bickering about maps and their importance, but I insisted that dirt roads would not likely be well marked on a county map overview.
The argument continued, but being prudent, we decided we should head south to Sanfranbolu, our next destination, because we wanted to avoid driving at night. We programmed our trusty TOM-TOM and headed south into the unknown. At first, we were wary as the road seemed like a secondary road at best. The deeper we went, the less dependable our navigator seemed. The pock-marked macadam turned to gravel, then dirt, and finally we found ourselves on a trampled grass path with dirt ruts made by the occasional tractor. Cows would periodically meander across the path, as we wound around the mountains, through farms and small villages propped up by fallen timbers and abandoned cars.
Our navigator kept insisting on the righteousness of the route, but our confidence was leaking and the further away we got from civilization, the more we argued about maps. We spent more than hour on treacherous mountain village roads, easing past barbed wire fields, and hanging onto to our sanity as we rounded hairpin turns overlooking cliff side ravines. The sun as disappearing but we had no choice but to continue through the woods. We has to trust. And then finally , we saw black top and the promise of a main road. We ignored the computer and took a flyer to follow a truck, which eventually steed us to a highway. Thankfully, from there it was a straight shot to our destination.
We spent the balance of the drive revealing the depth of our paranoia and laughing at each signpost that had deepened our anxiety. And of course, we argued about the maps......
With ample daylight left for the two hour drive, we programmed our trusty TOM-TOM and headed off for the next leg of the adventure.
We left Saturday morning, for Amasra, a Black Sea outpost situated on a spit of land that juts out into a small protected harbor on Turkey's northeast coast. We drove for more than four hours, the first two of which were a straight shot on the highway. Relying solely on our TOM-TOM navigator, once off the exit, we found ourselves deep inside a village, surrounded by geese and at a dead end in from of barn. After u-turning and finding our way back to a paved road, we stopped a Turkish farmer who spoke no English, but who somehow got us back on track. For the next two hours we proceeded on faith, relying on our trusty computer friend who had already let us down and arguing about the usefulness of a Turkish map and whether it could have helped us avert our anxiety. Arguments like these are a common occurrence. Apparently my job is to insure that nothing goes wrong in our foreign adventures and am poorly suited to it. In fact, I expect things to go wrong!
The scenery changed drastically and by the time we neared Amasra, we were surrounded by the majesty of mountains, pines and boulder faced cliffs. The glitz of Ankara and it's dry arid plateau seemed like another country.
Occupied for more than 12000 years dating back to the pre-Hittite, Amasra rests at the foot of seaside cliffs cloaked in fir trees overlooking the endless reach of the Black Sea ( which is actually a brilliant deep blue, and not black at all)! Once a resort destination for Istanbulites, the town was awash in Romanian tourists and locals enjoying the brilliant sun and uncharacteristically warm sea temperatures. The focal point of the town is a decaying castle that has slowly incorporated the village, and now encases more modern dwellings in various states of disrepair. While charming, the whole town could have benefitted from a good scrubbing and some masonry work. And like the rest of Turkey, almost everywhere, buildings were in various states of construction, renovation or demolition. Nothing is done, but everyone is being done!
We walked through the old town and castle remnants, watched the locals dive off an old stone platform into the sea, toured the bazaar and then headed to the waterfront for lunch. We sat on a balcony overlooking the fishermen scooping the catch of the day right out of the water, and then waited for the chef to grill our selection. We sucked the last bit of meat from the bones as we surveyed men cleaning the fish, boys raking the stones and the local feline population feasting on the spoils. The air was salty and smelled of sea and fish. The owner chatted with us about life in Turkey and his experience in the United States. "Everything in the US is about money," he said, " but in Turkey, you don't need much to live...here we have everything and we don't have to work all the time ...we can live with more ease.". At that moment, he seemed to make perfect sense!
Before leaving we toured the museum, walked along the waterfront and then decided to try to find our way to a local site to tour the 4th largest cave in the world. MISTAKE!
We spent the next 45 minutes trying to wind through the mountains looking for the cave entrance. The Turks have a infuriating habit of posting directional signs haphazardly and forgetting that is is important to continue marking the trail until someone has arrived the destination. Despite a helpful tour bus driver who lead us through part of the trail and mapped the rest, we never arrived. In part, we blamed it on highway construction , which we think obscured the turn off. The other blame rested with our navigator who is proving leas reliable than we had hoped. Of course, our failed attempt to reach the cave triggered another round of bickering about maps and their importance, but I insisted that dirt roads would not likely be well marked on a county map overview.
The argument continued, but being prudent, we decided we should head south to Sanfranbolu, our next destination, because we wanted to avoid driving at night. We programmed our trusty TOM-TOM and headed south into the unknown. At first, we were wary as the road seemed like a secondary road at best. The deeper we went, the less dependable our navigator seemed. The pock-marked macadam turned to gravel, then dirt, and finally we found ourselves on a trampled grass path with dirt ruts made by the occasional tractor. Cows would periodically meander across the path, as we wound around the mountains, through farms and small villages propped up by fallen timbers and abandoned cars.
Our navigator kept insisting on the righteousness of the route, but our confidence was leaking and the further away we got from civilization, the more we argued about maps. We spent more than hour on treacherous mountain village roads, easing past barbed wire fields, and hanging onto to our sanity as we rounded hairpin turns overlooking cliff side ravines. The sun as disappearing but we had no choice but to continue through the woods. We has to trust. And then finally , we saw black top and the promise of a main road. We ignored the computer and took a flyer to follow a truck, which eventually steed us to a highway. Thankfully, from there it was a straight shot to our destination.
We spent the balance of the drive revealing the depth of our paranoia and laughing at each signpost that had deepened our anxiety. And of course, we argued about the maps......
With ample daylight left for the two hour drive, we programmed our trusty TOM-TOM and headed off for the next leg of the adventure.
Privacy matters
Toilets here, like everything else in Turkey are a study in diversity and contrasts. Modern toilets are available in most hotels, restaraunts and malls, but traditional Turkish toilets still populate many public restrooms. The modern restrooms are impeccable. Each stall is normally outfitted with an automatic plastic seat cover that can be refreshed each time someone needs to use the loo. A toilet brush sitting in a canister of disinfectant is discreetly placed in the corner of each stall, and all units are outfitted with a water jet for cleaning your posterior if you so choose. There are automatic aroma machines to deodorize, individual trash receptacles, and occasionally TV screens in each stall! The rooms are always attended, and I have yet to encounter anything gross or unkempt in my public use of these facilities. However, as I have said before standardization is not high on the list of Turkish priorities. Seldom have I have encountered a toilet that uses the same flushing mechanism. Some flush by pushing a button, some require a pull chain. Some are electric or heat sensitive, but most are manual. The buttons, levers or pull chains can be located in a variety of clever hiding places. I am often found standing awkwardly in a toilet stall trying to solve the mystery of how to flush the toilet, an embarrassing exercise that sometimes takes so long to complete that I fear Nabil will send in the cavalry to see what has happened to me. The challenge is often compounded by trying to figure out how to operate the water faucets on the sinks, which also come in an endless variety of operating styles!
Bathroom anxiety is heightened when we travel off the beaten path, knowing that there is a high probability of encountering the more tradition Turkish squat toilet; a two foot square ceramic platform at ground level that borders a hole in the ground. The expectation is that you will place your feet on the ridged sides of the platform, assume a standing squat position and somehow let go, hopefully with enough accuracy in aim that your effluents are steered directly into the central abyss of this unique invention. Assuming that you have not dribbled on your panties or shoes ( a slim chance, as the challenge of balancing in a squat while holding your clothes askew in not a practiced art for those of us who have crossed the menopause threshold), tissues are provided for posterior clean-up. These tissues are discarded in a plastic trash can., rather than down the rabbit hole. There is usually a small bucket placed under a water faucet (again, have fun figuring out how to turn it off and on), which you fill and then pour over the ceramic platform and down the hole to clean up your droppings. The water from these buckets seldom stream directly into the hole, but instead flood the surrounding floor and usually spatter your shoes. So even if you were lucky enough to avoid peeing on yourself, you will appear to have done so, because of this unique flushing mechanism! A toilet brush is often available should the situation require more of a scrub than a swish, and as you might imagine, these stalls do not meet the sanitary standards of the aforementioned western bathrooms. The possibility of having to use one of theses formidable personal care contraptions is enough to dissuade me from venturing too far afield, especially when my digestive system is on high alert!
Bathroom anxiety is heightened when we travel off the beaten path, knowing that there is a high probability of encountering the more tradition Turkish squat toilet; a two foot square ceramic platform at ground level that borders a hole in the ground. The expectation is that you will place your feet on the ridged sides of the platform, assume a standing squat position and somehow let go, hopefully with enough accuracy in aim that your effluents are steered directly into the central abyss of this unique invention. Assuming that you have not dribbled on your panties or shoes ( a slim chance, as the challenge of balancing in a squat while holding your clothes askew in not a practiced art for those of us who have crossed the menopause threshold), tissues are provided for posterior clean-up. These tissues are discarded in a plastic trash can., rather than down the rabbit hole. There is usually a small bucket placed under a water faucet (again, have fun figuring out how to turn it off and on), which you fill and then pour over the ceramic platform and down the hole to clean up your droppings. The water from these buckets seldom stream directly into the hole, but instead flood the surrounding floor and usually spatter your shoes. So even if you were lucky enough to avoid peeing on yourself, you will appear to have done so, because of this unique flushing mechanism! A toilet brush is often available should the situation require more of a scrub than a swish, and as you might imagine, these stalls do not meet the sanitary standards of the aforementioned western bathrooms. The possibility of having to use one of theses formidable personal care contraptions is enough to dissuade me from venturing too far afield, especially when my digestive system is on high alert!
Thursday, 2 August 2012
Technical Difficulty
I love my iPad, but it is not a replacement for a computer. The learning curve on apps and modifications is driving me crazy. And I didn't realize how many of my tried and true favorites wouldn't operate here. No NETFLIX, no PANDORA. The Wi-Fi network is much more limited than I had planned on. I would have greatly benefitted by having my iPhone...however, despite the wrinkles in our connectivity, I can't imagine life here without computer capability. Love the amount of information available to navigate the world with confidence and ease.
Fame
You get a different perspective on achievement when living in a foreign country. I am here without a network or a community. I am not here to accomplish anything, meet with anyone, promote anything, or do anything. I can just be...and anonymously at that. It as if I am a fly on the Turkish wall of life! It is both freeing and sometimes frightening....it makes you realize how limited our sphere of influence really is and how insignificant we are when stacked up against our 6+ billion global bunk mates.
Last week in Bodrum, our hotel hosted a birthday celebration for a very well-known Turkish movie producer and musician. He was the featured musician of the night and he and his band put together a three hour show featuring many of the acts that he produces. (Again those marathon performances!) Nabil and I watched from the sidelines, enjoying the performances, but we of course didn't recognize any of the music or the performers (even though many of them were very very good)! We watched the crowd go crazy as their favorites took the stage. We watched people enthusiastically sing along, belting out the chorus of Turkish pop songs on cue. (Again, everyone knows the lyrics!) We watched people try to wrangle autographs and make contact with celebrities. This dance of people trying to get close to fame was meaningless for us. The stars could have just as easily been trash collectors, waiters or business owners. Famous in Turkey, unrecognizable to Americans. It made me realize that fame is most often a local phenomenon...and even then only meaningful when there is a shared interest in the vehicle that created the opportunity for stellar performance. If you didn't love or follow Turkish music, would these people be of interest to you, even if you were a Turk?
In seeking recognition, there are so many stages on which to play, so many fields in which you could aspire to greatness. And then you must choose how large that stage will be both in terms of audience and geographical reach. Of course we can choose to be part of the audience rather than a player...and I suppose that suits most of us best, most of the time. Talent must be fueled by desire, and how many of us are gifted with the right combination of both?
And then, if we possess the ingredients for stellar achievement, when superstardom is finally achieved, it often becomes it own prison...furthering a disconnect from authentic relationships and spontaneous participation.
Yet, I think for most of us, there is an inherent desire to be recognized and appreciated, to connect to others and be part of something bigger than ourselves. What drives us to seek this approval? Is it possible to be satisfied with only knowing ourselves, without being reflected in the eyes of others.
Watching that night of revelry also made me appreciate the power of the US marketing machine and it's ability to catapult certain performers and celebrities into the spotlight of the international stage. While we didn't recognize the Turkish musicians, when they belted out American favorites and acknowledged the Turkish and European audience cheered wildly. And it also made me realize the depth and breadth of talent that exists in the world and how few people are recognized for it.
For now, I am enjoying my voyeuristic role...anonymous, free and open to exploring...but deep down hopeful that I will discover my purpose.
Last week in Bodrum, our hotel hosted a birthday celebration for a very well-known Turkish movie producer and musician. He was the featured musician of the night and he and his band put together a three hour show featuring many of the acts that he produces. (Again those marathon performances!) Nabil and I watched from the sidelines, enjoying the performances, but we of course didn't recognize any of the music or the performers (even though many of them were very very good)! We watched the crowd go crazy as their favorites took the stage. We watched people enthusiastically sing along, belting out the chorus of Turkish pop songs on cue. (Again, everyone knows the lyrics!) We watched people try to wrangle autographs and make contact with celebrities. This dance of people trying to get close to fame was meaningless for us. The stars could have just as easily been trash collectors, waiters or business owners. Famous in Turkey, unrecognizable to Americans. It made me realize that fame is most often a local phenomenon...and even then only meaningful when there is a shared interest in the vehicle that created the opportunity for stellar performance. If you didn't love or follow Turkish music, would these people be of interest to you, even if you were a Turk?
In seeking recognition, there are so many stages on which to play, so many fields in which you could aspire to greatness. And then you must choose how large that stage will be both in terms of audience and geographical reach. Of course we can choose to be part of the audience rather than a player...and I suppose that suits most of us best, most of the time. Talent must be fueled by desire, and how many of us are gifted with the right combination of both?
And then, if we possess the ingredients for stellar achievement, when superstardom is finally achieved, it often becomes it own prison...furthering a disconnect from authentic relationships and spontaneous participation.
Yet, I think for most of us, there is an inherent desire to be recognized and appreciated, to connect to others and be part of something bigger than ourselves. What drives us to seek this approval? Is it possible to be satisfied with only knowing ourselves, without being reflected in the eyes of others.
Watching that night of revelry also made me appreciate the power of the US marketing machine and it's ability to catapult certain performers and celebrities into the spotlight of the international stage. While we didn't recognize the Turkish musicians, when they belted out American favorites and acknowledged the Turkish and European audience cheered wildly. And it also made me realize the depth and breadth of talent that exists in the world and how few people are recognized for it.
For now, I am enjoying my voyeuristic role...anonymous, free and open to exploring...but deep down hopeful that I will discover my purpose.
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