The Glass Closet

Which is the best way I can describe my current situation of being not-quite-out, but on the other hand making absolutely no effort whatsoever to keep myself 'in'.

I'm sorry for the homo post, I normally wouldn't cos you know, in the 21st century here and now who really cares? Well the answer as far as this ramble is concerned is, turks *might* do, but the extent to which they might do I really can't make out, and it's a source of some curiosity on my part.

It is really, really, bizarre, y'all. I remember when starting at Shitwark, spending the first couple of weeks at work tiptoeing around the what are you doing at the weekend conversations with 'housemate' and 'friend', until a little bit in felt ok with the people there to start morphing it to 'girlfriend' and 'missus'.

Here, well I don't know. I don't feel like I've reached that point yet. I do know that they are bloody miles behind the UK in many equality issues, including some really very basic ones like years of educational difference between your average boy and girl, attitudes and language about others and races that would make your eyes pop out, and less a class structure so much as an acceptance of the fact that some people are very, very poor, and that's just how it is.

So my understanding is that gay rights is right down the list of things to worry about. But from what I've read and heard, it seems that gayness is very much not ok. I've read stories about people coming out at work and being completely ostracised, there seems to be this bizarre ambivalence about transsexuals and tranvestites in which they are on one hand completely accepted and even idolised as part of the entertainment spectrum, I'd argue more so than in the UK even, but on the other hand on the street are casually beaten up and even murdered and it's seen as justified because they may have been corrupting, i.e. talking to, their eventual murderers.

So in the context of all this, I don't exactly make a point of rainbow flag waving.

BUT. It's very odd. Like I say I make no pretence whatsoever about my life. Everyone on the island knows me and S come as a 2, everytime one of us bumps into someone they ask how is the other one, it's common knowledge that I'm here because of her. Ditto at work. And in all these situations, there's enough in the way of drunken physical affection, forgetting-self uses of endearments, and general wop-you-in-the-face-we're-clearly-going-out-with-each-other signs that in London at least I wouldn't feel like there's any need for a coming out because I would have thought it would be obvious.

And yet. And yet, people at work are still asking me if I'm married, if I want to get married, have I met any nice turkish boys yet. S's mum is still, hilariously, trying to set her up with blokes. The island folk I think are a bit more clued up, but I can't be sure - there's only really 2 or 3 that definitively know, and the rest I think are bumbling along in some surreal version of don't ask don't tell.

Anyway, it's weird. I know I'm not exactly the best homo advert in the first place, having avoided telling my nearest and dearest for most of my life, but having finally come out in England it is feeling very, very odd, to be somewhat, inadvertantly, back 'in', and for this not-insignificant part of my life to become again a taboo subject.

Hmm.

Travel bingo

Last week was the end of Ramadan, which means a 3 and a ½ day public holiday, and another chance to go skipping off on an extended weekend away. (Honestly, there’s a hell of a lot written about the religious/secular divide in this country, and with good reason, but as far as I’m concerned the 2 sides can keep on with their bickering so long as it guarantees us the current glut of bank holidays – we get time off for all the big religious holidays, plus a nice little secular/republican set...there's Republic Day, Victory Day, Ataturk Has A Particularly Good Poo Day...so it’s all good. Keep at it, insanely divided nation!)

Anyway whatever the excuse, this time as we had a full Wednesday pm to Sunday stretch to play with, we could go a bit further afield, and since S had been missing Greece a lot and I'd never properly been we were headed off there. We ended up going to an island in the north of the Aegean called Samothraki, cos, you know, we don't get enough island experience in our day to day life or anything.

It was a beautiful place, and I may do some facebook based photobragging at some stage, but here I’m just going to set down what was involved in getting to and from there. This is more for me than for you - it is quite tedious, so personally I recommend you skip it. I just wanted to remind myself really, before it gets lost in the rakı haze. See, I keep whinging on about how I could be getting more out this time abroad in terms of personality change/growth (maaaaan), but here at least is a little something I've learnt.

I remember my first trip away with S, which at the time I branded The Isle of Wight Bus Debacle, and pretty much vowed it would never be repeated again. Because you see we didn’t book coach tickets in advance, or have our schedule planned down to the minute on the local bus services, and in general winged it. Which I found intolerable and stressed me out no end...I am actually of the opinion this is probably a valid way of feeling in the UK, with its insane last minute ticket charges and generally overstretched transport system. But whilst a valid feeling, it's not one that makes for particularly enjoyable weekends away.

However in Turkey it is a bit different. Here it really doesn't pay to sort things out in advance, here you really can wing it, and as I maybe mentioned before, here you can ask people for help without them looking at you like you'd asked for a lightly grilled stoat. (RIP, Douglas Adams.) And so after many Turkey travel experiences of this ilk, where we've made not enough of a plan for my liking and yet still reached our destination without anyone's limbs falling off or anything I have, most definitely, mellowed.

And I reckon this trip's travel arrangements, and my mostly* good humoured acquiesence to it, represents something of a graduation from this Turkish/S School of Enforced Flexibility.

* Mostly. There may have been one leeeettle incident of quivering spitting rage ;-)

Anyway, the tedious details are something like this.

Weds – leave work early, off home to pack bag on assumption we are going to Greek city of some sort. Get back to Istanbul, am informed of island plan by beaming S who is with fishing rod, but sans tickets. Pop off to train station, what do you know there are cancellations on the overnight sleeper train going our way which leaves in a couple of hours, just enough time for dinner. A perfect start.

Weds night , Thursday morning – sleeper train to Greece, arrive at coast town 5 in the morning, mooch about til the ferry ticket place opens at 9, happily there are tickets and a ferry in the morning, mooch about til ferry leaves at 11.

Thursday day – arrive to Samothraki, try to hire car, fail (no credit card), mini-sulk then discover the joy that is island hitchhiking. There are only a handful of roads there anyway, and not-unconnectedly about a 1 in 3 chance of getting a lift exactly where you want to go if you can get someone to stop for you. So we manage to do a hatfull of sights on the first afternoon just by flagging down the poor locals.

Friday, Saturday – more of the same, getting lifts around and waving frantically at the knackered municipality bus whenever it deigns to put in an appearance. I try to hire a pushbike from one of the scooter hire places, fail, then talk to someone in a shop who talks to someone in a bar who talks to his mate who wanders off to get his own bike and hires that to me. Aces.

Sunday – Off back home. Which is to say:

- 10.30am leave hotel, fail to get an easy lift for the first time as it is evidently religion o-clock; everyone is off to church in their Sunday finery and spurning the chance to do their good deed for the day by rescuing two helpless holiday makers from the pissing rain. Eventually are successful, in to the port town, mooch about waiting for the ferry.

- 3pm get into port town on the mainland and spend an hour or so trying to find a way of getting to Istanbul or, at the very least, to the Turkish border. We are informed, wrongly, by a succession of cafe punters (understandably) and paid transportation staff (less so) that there are no trains, no local buses, no intercity buses, no nuffink; and whilst they could call a mate of theirs for a taxi to take us to the border , it would set us back 40 Euro. I’m about ready to hop in but S, being more experienced in the ways of mediterranean misinformation than I am, asserts that there must be *something* else, so off we wander in search of it.

- 5pm are successful and find a local bus service going to a border town, for a mere 5 Euro – score.

- 5.30pm bartering for a taxi from border town to actual border. I do my best ‘we could always thumb a lift’ mime and S uses her smatterings of greek, and a not-entirely-faked display of disinterest and disdain, to secure a 2 Euro – count it! – discount.

- 6pm border run taxi from Greek side of border to Turkish side – you can’t walk and normal taxis don’t go through, but our 1st taxi guy spots one of the special ones on the way, overtakes and we flag him down to take us through.

- 6.30 – 7 on the other side of the border, a succession of debates with tour coaches and Ali Bloggs Public, trying to get someone to take us to the next town along. Fail, about to give up and call another taxi, when S manages to get us an offer of a lift from the local police. They were finishing their shift and on their way back home anyway, so said we could come with. Slightly surreal half an hour trip with a bunch of nice smiling young Turk police officers, with their non-metaphorical guns in their pockets and non-metaphorically pleased to see us to boot.

- 8 back in something approaching civilisation, being a recognisable turkish town, and so manage to find a proper coach going our way which will get us into Istanbul that same night. Very debateable about whether we will be able to catch the last ferry, but not really anything faster at this point, so again off we go.

- 11.30-something - finally back in Istanbul, but only in out-of-town bus garage thereof. Bloody miles away from anywhere, wrong continent for getting back to Heybeliada, rapidly running out of night. Plump for another taxi rather than the shuttle bus laid on by the coach company, which turns out to be a good call because, through a combination of the ring road being reasonably clear at that time of night, and insanely fast Istanbul cabbie driving, he manages to whip us round the city to our asian ferry port in time for...

- 12.10 a ferry back home to Heybeliada.

So 1 bike, 1 train, 1 bus, 1 coach, 1 police van, 3 cabs, 5 ferries, and innumerable free rides, not a single arrangement made ahead of time, and nonetheless a successful weekend away. And only one major hissy fit on my part. (Oh, go on then, 2.)

The upshot is, I feel I have now learnt Flakey Transport Tolerance; and am feeling smug about it. Forgive me that.

Upstairs downstairs

Well Trabzonspor lost in the end. Very disappointing match actually - the Monday before they caned Fenerbahce playing attacking skillful confident football. Against Liverpool, they gibbered and stuttered and in fact bore a striking resemblance to England in a major tounament - all hesitancy, schoolboy errors and a lack of any sort of sense of urgency. Pity, it would've been a good one.

And I watched it with the Trabzonspor supporters lot, as well. In a stifling 4th floor bar in central Istanbul with no air conditioning, and, get this, NO DRINKING. This is one of the few things I genuinely am struggling to get used to here - watching football sans pint and pint fuelled fellow viewers. Most of the football watching here goes on at cafes, so it's all tea, quiet sober murmered observation and COMPLETE BLOODY LACK OF ATMOSPHERE. If you ask me, which since it's my blog, I am deciding you are :@)

This is off-topic. I meant to tell you about my new flat. Look at my new flat!



That's this sort of walled in balcony area - we've got a lounge too but this is our current lounging home in nature if not name, what with the pleasing breeze and two full sprawl length sofas and general holiday caravan vibe to it.

Other bonuses about this place, in ascending order of wonderfulness, are:

1) Convenience - we are down the bottom of the island, ie in the town centre such as it is, ie two minutes from everywhere. See that yellow spike sticking up behind the houses in the below shot? That's my commuting boat, that is. All of about 50m distance from my front door.



2) A combi boiler ie running hot water on tap when wanted, allied with a proper shower. Calloo callay!! This is a stormer - much though I was proud of my recently developed ability to wash myself by crouching in the bath using nothing but a kettle full of hot water and a bucket, I am prepared to forsake the sense of pride for the joy of a proper standy-up shower. Which is to say, in happy addition to the hot water, our new bathroom has the shower head holding fixture thingy at the 'proper' head-and-above height. This is in contrast to the almost universal tendency in Turkish bathrooms to have it, if it exists at all, at about thigh level. There's probably some well thought out cultural cleanliness reason for this (have I mentioned the fact the turkish is generally a freakishly clean society? No? Well it is, I am not, relative filth wizardry squared.) but I'm buggered if I can figure out what - you are left either standing with the hot water heating your knees and below whilst the rest of you shivers, or some bizarre one-handed shower contortions, or sitting on the floor of the bath which combines the awkwardness and the cold factors.

But no more! Wiggedy.

3) and it's a doozy, no live in landlady. This is a result the likes of which I can't describe, so I won't.

Only theoretical downside is lack of view, but it's not exactly a riches to rags affair. I mean, a typical view from Upstairs is like this:



Nice, admittedly, but then compare that with one from Downstairs:



I think I might just about cope. ;-)

Go Trabzonspor!

I'm eating a bacon sandwich, and drinking a nice can of beer, on my lovely new balcony. (Bang smack in the middle of Ramadan. If it wasn't for the fact I'm almost certainly booked in for the christian version of hell already, I'm sure this would be enough to send me to the muslim fiery place. By the way, Ramadan turns out to be not as big a deal as I thought it was. Lots of people observe it, lots don't, and as far as I can work out mutual respect seems to abound, so my vague fear that I might be obliged to run off to a toilet to scoff down mars bars to keep myself going turned out to be unfounded.)

Bacon! Mmmmm!!!

And then in a little bit I'm off to watch Trabzonspor play Liverpool in round 9, phase D, iteration XIV of the Ridiculo European Cup. (It is still a cup, isn't it? They haven't replaced it with a 48 piece china set on the grounds that a cup was too straightforward yet, have they?)

Anyway they won't win, but it should be a decent couple of games. And in the freak event that they do, I am looking forward to S trying to replicate the 'kolbastı' - 'armstomp' - folk dance that the supporters, and for that matter the players too, of trabzonspor seem to break into whenever a dose of local pride is being called for. ;-)

Mosquitoes, and other irritants

You know, I'm typing this whilst eating beans out of a can. I'm trying to persuade myself that because it's not Heinz but Fasulye Pilaki it counts as exotic and cool, but well, I suspect beanz meanz sloth whatever way you look at it ;-)

The reason for this wilful behaviour is that 'er indoors is outdoors, staying overnight at a job. So I am having a mini-batchelor night, listening to my obnoxious alt country, drinking beer and as I may have mentioned, eating beans out of a can.

Anyway, mosquitoes. Or gnats. Or, to my immense pleasure, 'pointy flies' in turkish.

We've got a wood behind our house, and from there I imagine, come swarms and swarms of the little bastards. We have been fighting a losing battle with them, plugging in anti-gnat plug thingies and slavering ourselves with insect repellent nightly. To mostly no avail. They seem to delight in dodging the window barrage of anti-bug smell, or at least holding their noses over the threshold, and then moseying on down to find a nice ripe spot to bite on THE UNDERSIDE OF MY TOES.

However, I think I've found a solution. Nearly. I have recently been using a fitted sheet as a cover (faaar too bloody hot for anything more substantial in any case) and its elasticy bits wrap me up from head to toe. I wrap the top end round my head even, with just a twist round one of my ears to anchor a hole for my nose and mouth to poke out, for breathing purposes.

So of course the little bastards now just nip me nightly on the nose. But whatever, it is a vast improvement and I will take achilles-style 98% level of immunity over head to foot bites any day of the week.

Sooo...this incredible dose of inanity is a result of the fact that I have Very Little News. Still. I seem to have moved straight from the "oo it's scary I don't know anything I haven't got a job or any money and I'm too scared/lazy to go anywhere anyway" phase to the "Yeah, whatever, foreignhood, whaaatever, I *live* here yanno I'm not a two-week tourist so what's the hurry to go and do/see stuff" phase, without passing go or collecting 200 new turkish lira inbetween.

So not a lot to blog about. I was vaguely hoping to have some sort of interesting 'finding myself' moment by now, but seem to be lacking. Unless you count finding yourself eating beans out of a can, which, I think, you probably shouldn't. (In fact, I have come to suspect that the sort of person who is capable of 'finding themselves' probably doesn't need much in the way of encouragement, and would probably manage it working in a chip shop in Blidworth for a year. On the other hand the sort of unromantic souless automaton like me, however, probably ain't going to find themself anywhere, historic/holiday islands between two continents and cultures included.)

The only other thing of possible note is that we might be moving. The landlady has come to stay for the summer, which was always part of the deal but predictably has all gone wrong with bill disputes and personal fallings out and I don't know what. Quite literally I don't know what, as the bulk of the more emotional arguing goes on in unintelligible yelling turkish (yes, yes, I know I'm always making excuses for my lack of understanding. It sucks, I suck, I'm depressed about it, NEXT) and teenage style leaving handwritten scrawled notes for each other.

Anyway the whole thing, as well as making me feel a little sad about the possibility of leaving here which has all in all grown on me, crumbling walls and eccentric utilities (and gnats. Er...) and all, is also making me think back. And I'm remembering the horror that is an unsatisfactory houseshare, but also it's making me think back with immense gratefulness and no small amount of nostalgia to the good 'uns. So, after all that - thankyou, bitches who know who they are. Miss you guys!

And now for something completely different

Well the last one was a bit earnest and wordy, so I thought that I probably ought to balance the tone with some frivolous holiday snaps. (I apologise in advance for the blatant showing off of my apparently idyllic life - I could quite happily bitch about the drawbacks but I will save that for private correspondence. You lucky people you.)

These few from a bit of a ferris bueller's day off I had a while ago. I had a shocking cough and been up all night coughing, so by about 5am decided that I was going to call in sick. Went outside to get some fresh air, and it was misty and fuzzy and sunny and slightly unreal in that early morning way - was bootiful. Below is the suburbs opposite us, which on a clear day is all concrete urban sprawl.



Me looking a bit spaced out, breakfasting on garden plums. (Of which we've got gazillions - S has been making plum jam, plum vodka, plum pickle, plum plum plum I just like saying plum.)



Later that day, after finally getting some sleep, decided that I was well enough for some convalescence on the beach. (Another glorious side effect of having a job I don't care about - I probably would've hauled myself into work in council days...) This is our beach of choice...



...and this is S on the way down to it. She has said a couple of times that she thinks she was a mountain goat in a previous life, due to her ease at clambering about on crags.



To be accurate, she actually said that she was a mountain ghost in a previous life - she has a head block about these two words and I derive too much amusement from the situation to correct her ;-)

Anyway, enough of all that. The other big development in my life is the Great Move Upstairs. I may or not have mentioned that our house is very large, but only the basement/ground floor is fit for inhabiting. Well, the landlady has come to stay for the summer - FUN! - so in a bid for some privacy and space we've moved upstairs to the slightly less salubrious floors.

It's actually not bad. Bit scruffy round the edges, but then to be fair so am I.



Actually - very scruffy round the edges.



But no matter. Like I say, it's amazing what a bit of sunshine does. In winter, this would be grim, damp, and drafty. As it's summer however, I feel like some trendy bohemian whilst drinking my wine and looking out the window from my bed to this view:



Duuuuude.

Society, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dolmuş.

I just wrote loads of pretentious stuff on the breakdown of society in England as compared with Turkey, but then realised that it was pretentious, besides as I have neither any sort of social studies qualification nor any rounded experience of anything outside the two major cities of the two countries, I'm not really best placed to be making sweeping statements about such things.

So, let's just cut to anecdote and be done with it.

I was on one of the interweb boards that I pretend I don't frequent the other day and there was a debate going about the announcements you get on London buses - "This is the 298 to wherever, the next stop is, Awkwardly Pronounced." The argument was over was it an unnecessary annoyance to the majority seeing/regular passengers for the benefit of the few blind/newbies, and should the latter just ask; or is unfair that certain sectors of society should be put at a disadvantage and be reliant on the good will of others (if it indeed exists in the first place - 'public transport in London' and 'goodwill of others' not a couple of phrases you'd naturally put together) to conduct their daily existence.

In Turkey, hoo-ah. It's not so much that goodwill extends to the hard-of-whatever here, so much as the fact that everybody helps everybody All The Time in these little ways - and as a result it's just no big deal to anybody.

There are a gazillion examples of this, of people just on a day to day basis being kind and helpful to strangers and generally spreading the love. But to take just this specific detail of transport as an analogy, let me tell you about the turkish institution of the Dolmuş. These are these genius things which are basically taxis except they go along popular routes (think for eg Southend High Street after chucking out time along London Road) and are SHARED. At the start of the route people get in until it's full, and then off you go, dropping people off along the route and picking up others as and when they wave you down.

Many of these are mini-bus sized. So you get in, sit wherever. At no point does anyone actually do anything as formal as *ask* you for money, just at some stage in the journey you sling some cash in the general direction of the driver. If you're behind him you give it to him personally, if not well you give your money to a passenger who is nearer than you, and they pass it on up the bus to the driver, who sorts out the change and passes it back again. If you don't know the price, you ask. When you want to get out, you ask.

It is all very, very simple. And utterly unimaginable back home. For a start, people willing to give up their space to share a taxi. Second, not having a pre-known established fare that is written in nice accessible fashion and with its own fecking twitter feed. The lack of ticketing to give formality to the transaction. Third, oh my god actual human contact in the processing of the exchange - no oyster beep eyes front lets make this as impersonal as possible. Fourthly the imposition of like, having to actually ask to get out. We'd have an individual bell each, no doubt.

Anyway, that's just a very very small example, but really this sort of thing is everywhere. What I'm trying to get at - people here seem to be capable of being in the presence of other people and interacting with them and it's not the end of the world.

And it's *nice*. My british reservedness is probably too engrained for me to fully do as the locals do, but it's a relaxing feeling being in that sort of environment anyway. And I am thawing slighty - I'm more likely to ask directions, or is this the right boat, or make small talk to strangers here, despite the dodgy turkish, than I would in my own backyard.

Anyway all this prompted my beard stroking musings on 'society'. Which, like I say, I am underqualified to write about, and probably really means big things like employment percents, and childcare arrangement statistics, and the effect of disaffectedness on anti-social behaviour, and I don't know what. But on the microscale, what I reckon is, that if there is such a thing as society - it probably ought to include being able to ask the person next to you where to get off the bleedin' bus.