Back to the grind

I know. It's been a while since I last posted. I'm back into normal life after a fantastic week away. We took a road trip and went to the south of Turkey and drove along the Aegean and Mediterranean coastlines spending nights in Fethiye and Kaş and we also visited some other spots along the way like Kalkan, Antalya and a short stop in Konya on the way back.

It was great to experience summer properly. I forgot what it was like to go to the beach and swim in the sea and really feel the heat. The last time I was at the beach was in 2007 in Greece. It was a long time between dips in the ocean.

We did the trip with another couple, friends of my husband, and their nearly six year old daughter. It was great to have them around and it was nice to go off with another female and look at shops and sunbathe and chat while the men shaded themselves from the afternoon heat playing tavla (backgammon) and drinking tea and smoking endless cigarettes.

The weather in both Fethiye and Kaş was very hot, up around 45 degrees celsius. In Kaş though, there was little fresh air from a breeze unlike in Fethiye, which made jumping into the freezing Mediterranean even more worthwhile.

It's a shame that my camera is not working and therefore I couldn't snap away and share the pictures here.

I did manage to find this picture above care of google of a beach we stopped at for a swim en route to Kaş. I believe the spot is called "Kaputaş plajı" (Kaputash Beach) and it's on the sea side road as you head into Kaş from Kalkan. It was lovely with some small swell and reminded me a little of beaches at home. The sound echoing from the beach was that of the squeals of people as the waves rolled in and people got swept up or dumped in them. It was a perfect spot.

A different form of politics

The Hurriyet.com reported this story today:

One killed, 5 injured in election clash in eastern Turkey

Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP, candidate for the provincial assembly was shot dead in a clash over election results in country's eastern province of Erzurum, Dogan News Agency reported on Monday.

Five others were injured in the incident that took place in the Karacoban district of Erzurum, the agency said.

District administrations have ordered a curfew to prevent further incidents.

These economic times

In these economic times, everyone is trying to win a vote.


The Government recently announced a crisis package that involves the reduction in some taxes for a period of three months. Most people are speculating that these reductions may continue for much longer than 3 months.


The reductions include:

• The 1.5 percent title deed fee charged during the sale of second-hand buildings and offices is reduced to 0.5 percent.


• Value Added Tax (VAT) charged during the sale of buildings is reduced from 18 to 8 percent.


• VAT on home and office furniture is reduced from 18 to 8 percent.


• VAT on computers, IT technology and office technology is also reduced to 8 percent.
  Small and medium-sized businesses can make use of the same VAT reduction (from 18 to 8 percent) when purchasing certain industrial and work machines.

The Government announced recently the reduction in the amount of Special Consumption Tax (ÖTV) for automobile sales which can make up almost half the cost of a car in some cases. ÖTV tax rates start at 37% and go up to 84%.

The media reported last week that most car retailers orders and incoming shipments as well as stocks in storage were all but sold out since the announcement of the ÖTV reduction.

In turn, this had many people questioning how affected people are in Turkey by the economic crisis.

The humour of politics

Turks love politics and elections. I just feel like we recovered from the last elections and now I have to live through another one.

Politics sells loads of newspapers and pushes up television ratings to the likes of many media moguls.

Every news channel and paper is crammed with stories and opportunistic pictures of each candidate giving their speeches to the masses, rallying votes and crowds, and of course, waving a flag.

You wouldn't be in Turkey unless you have a flag of some sort. My neighbourhood is littered with flags from the many parties that hope to gain seats in parliament in this election as well as the front runners. I'm sure no one has bothered to consider the environmental impact all these flags as rubbish will cause. Clearly, care of the environment is not on the top of the list of most of these candidates.

One newspaper even reported the following on the issue:

The Ministry of Environment and Forestry and governors from a number of cities have on various occasions called on political parties to run eco-friendly elections campaigns for the upcoming local elections. These requests, however, seem to fall on deaf ears, given the litter parties leave in the streets from the materials they use to promote their candidates for the elections.

On the weekend as I pottered around home, I experienced another form of pollution; noise. I was surprised to hear loud music blaring from some poor quality loud speakers of one of the many campaign buses that is decked out purely to pollute the air with loud campaign music that most of us can't even understand. Surely they don't think that's really going to make me vote for them? Are they serious?

In recent times especially when my husband has the news on, I have had to leave the room while each leader is shown giving his most recent speech. Speeches here are given more like commands from the military with the candidate usually waving his hands in the air, ranting and raving, and screaming at the crowd. The candidates usually looks more crazed or angry than hopeful or triumphant.

I can never imagine Kevin Rudd or the opposition giving a speech to his voters or the general public waving his hands and shouting in this fashion. Or, as in the picture below, some guy stealing the show at Erdoğan's rally!

Roll on 29 March please. I have had more than enough politics for one year.

Soap operas

I miss my usual television soaps. Neighbours, Home & Away, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives and not to mention the crimes shows I love CSI, Law & Order and Cops.

When I lived in the UK I found it hard to find something I really could get into. Then one lazy Sunday morning I stumbled across Hollyoaks. I really got into the series and would watch it each and every Sunday morning while I feasted on my Sunday breakfast cook up and a cuppa.

When I came to Turkey it was a whole new experience. There are many television channels and everyone has Digiturk, which is much like Foxtel to us Australians. As far as I can tell there are no free to air channels like channels ABC, 2, 7, 9 and 10 in Australia. You have to have the digi box in order to see anything.

It took me a while to get used to the channels and wade through the endless news, current affairs, sports and Turkish soap channels.

Not long after moving into our place I was thrilled to find Hollyoaks on e2 (channel 50) weeknights from 8-9. The series is behind the UK series, but none the less, I have found something that I enjoy watching, that is in English and so trashy and crass but I always get into the story and find myself getting angry and frustrated at particular characters and their behaviour!

I have found that there are so many of my old favourites shows on telly like Desperate Housewives and Sex and the City. Recently we upgraded our Digiturk package and now have all channels which means I can tap into crime shows like CSI Miami/NY/Las Vegas and Without a Trace and not to mention the Crime and Investigation channel. Yes, weird, I know.

Having familiar television, I think, is definitely a comfort thing. It makes me feel connected to a place and reminds me of the place I came from. Crime shows in particular remind me of when I lived at home with mum and dad and we would sit down to a program at 8.30pm with a cuppa and try and work out who the killer was.

Another set of shows I have grown to love are cooking shows. I love Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray, Yemekteyiz (Turkish show), Jamie Oliver, Nigella and Top Chef. Top Chef is a great show, kind of like Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen. I can watch all these and more here in Turkey.

Having familiar things around me has helped me to create my home here and feel "at" home in a foreign country and I guess, in a weird way, television shows are just another one of those things....

Frustration

I've been feeling frustrated this week.

The holiday is more than over and it's time to get back to life. Sometimes I find it hard to get my head around things and to accept them as a natural, normal part of life living in Turkey. And this week has been full of those kinds of thoughts.

I could rant and rave about all the hopeless things like dangerous ankle-breaking footpaths, half made roads and no street drains to drain the last four days of continual rain so that when a car goes past you don't get soaked, but I won't bore you with that.

I went out for dinner last night with a great group of mostly expat girls. It was a last minute hook up and we headed to Banyan in Nişantaşı for a "Thai" dinner. Now, I know Thai food, and I can easily say that this was more of an Asian mix as opposed to straight Thai, but certainly a nice change all the same.

It was six girls, some of whom are working in the same sector as myself, and another as a teacher. We shared the usual stories of the"lost in translation" communications we have with people, the general chaos that we struggle to get used to and the one question we seemed to all get asked: why are you here?

I must say, I get this question more often than not. The girls say they also get the question from people (Turks) who simply cannot understand why anyone would want to come and live here.

I guess my reason is most valid, being married to a Turk and all, along with one other girl, but for the others who are foreigners or Turks who have lived abroad for their whole lives and returned in the last year or two, Turkish people cannot understand why they would want to leave their great lands to come and live here.

We find the question strange. Because people ask us why we are here and not in our own countries, but they themselves who ask the question, ask it like they wish they weren't here either.

Do Turks get as fed up as the foreigners? Do they feel the same frustrations as us about the day-to-day challenges?

If you never lived anywhere else in the world, how would you know that your country is worse than mine if you have nothing to compare your own country to?

One of the girls reported that she was finding it hard to meet a decent man here. She said that every time she met one and they realised she was in fact Turkish, given her very strong American accent, they would ask if she has American and/or dual citizenship. She said that without fail this question was asked by all men.

So, the question is: Is it that Turks want to be elsewhere than here, or is it that they wished that we just stayed in our own countries?