Today did not turn out how I planned.
Ipek, a biology teacher and my sponsor, invited me for tea at 10:30. This, she told me, is a typical thing to do on the first day of the bayram, you visit each of your closest friends and family and share sweats with them. We started out with a caramel macchiato liquer, which was very tasty, and quite strong. Then we had bakalava and Turkish coffee followed by a savory bread with cheese and parsley in side. Ipek said that in a traditional town you might visit for an hour or two and then move on to the next family and repeat the process. Children will do the speed dating version of this in a halloween sort of way. They go door to door, ring the bell, say 'iyi bayramlar' and expect to be given a coin or a piece of candy before running off to the next door. I do not doubt that many folks have upset stomachs by the end of the bayram, to go from fasting during the day to glutting on sweets all day would be a shock to anyones system. I had a lovely time, Ipek, her husband Andrew, their daughter Yasmine, new teacher Jack and I chatted on a variety of subjects for almost three hours. We first tried to leave at about noon, but the conversation would suck us in again. So much for trying to get down town before noon.
I returned to my apartment not feeling the greatest, probably too many sweats or maybe the liqueur, so I rested for a little while. At 2:30 I was mustering the energy to get up and go out again, when John called to invite me to dinner at 6. This is so nice, I could hardly refuse, but this now brackets my time for going out. Perhaps it was just dragging my feet, but then I went upstairs to return Felicia's bowl, filled with failed flapjack instead of olive oil, which was in it when she lent it to me the night before. I met her cat, tulip, who is a long haired orange and white beautiful beast who kicked the last walunt out of the fruit bowl last Christmas and has taken up residence ever since. We chatted for a while and by the time I got back down stairs it was after 3.
Ok, what I really wanted to do to day was to find St. Antoine's church, just down the street from Taksim square. One of the two regular busses that leaves my building goes all the way to Taksim, then, looking at the map, I can walk down the main pedestrian way to the tram, get the tram to Kabistash and get the other bus back. Judging from previous bus rides along that route, it should be easily doable in 2 and half hours. This is where I was wrong.
Perhaps my first clue should have been that the first bus to come didn't even stop it was so full of people. The second bus was full, but not quite as full and was going to Kabitash instead of Taksim, no problem, I can do my triangle in reverse. I barely got on since with the new passengers, the bus was really full. We got as far as Ortokoy and I could already see it was going to be trouble. I have now had a glimpse of what people are talking about when they say traffic is awful. Andrew, Ipek's husband mentioned this morning taking the ferry from Arovutkoy to Bebek, two bus stops north. I thought I miss heard, or miss understood, but now I can definately see doing that if the traffic was anything like it was today. I think we went 2 miles in about 40 minutes.
Anyway, I realized my plan needed alteration, so I aborted my mission and got off at Bescitash, where I had been to the Saturday market in my first week here. I wondered around for a few mintues and got back on a bus going the other way. I mistakenly thought that the return would be faster, not only would we be going away from town, but there were also two lanes of traffic. Yeah, no. The walkers were all going faster than us. In the 30 minutes I was on the return bus we had not gotten to the first bus stop. The driver was letting people off, so I got off, walked for 20 minutes until the traffic was more clear and then waited at a bus stop, to get on, you know where this is going, the same bus I got off. Yeah, slick. There were a whole group of people in the front who recognized me and I shared an exasperated look with one young man, which I will take to mean, 'Yes, I know it was futile, and probably a mistake, but how could I know?' Perhaps that is a good thing about not knowing the language, I will never know if his look really meant something else entirely.
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