Hoş Geldiniz: Türkiye

Stella, Olivia, and I stood at baggage claim in Turkey. A new language and mass of people swirled around us. It was hot, loud, and we were quite delirious. It felt like stepping out of one world - a 1940s Russia - to a brand new one of mosques, the mediterranean sea, and weather that had recently peaked to 110 degrees.

As we waited for our bags, I realized there was no cell service. We needed new sim cards. None one of us could connect to the airport’s wifi either. We already had no idea who was picking us up, what he looked like, what vehicle he drove, or even a phone number or contact information.

We were given his name, he was given ours, and that was it.

We walked outside, waited at the terminal for arrivals, and hoped for the best.

I don’t remember how long we stood there, but it felt kind of like being in a motion blur photograph of people rushing by, wondering if we were in the correct spot, and pretending not to be rather apprehensive that our phones basically didn’t work, no one spoke English, and we were waiting on a stranger to take us to our new premises.

“I mean, he knows there’s a set of twins, so you guys should make us easy to spot.”

Stella and Olivia were pretty much our clones of hope.

That, and I was probably the only pale American girl.

It’s funny how intimidating things can feel at first, and especially when you feel that sense of adaption kicking in. I think that’s just the nature of unknowns and teaching your brain that newness is not automatically a threat.

Suddenly, a guy with a beard and face mask approached us.

“Hey guys. It’s me.”

We huddled together, kind of startled, and then realized he was our ride. We tossed our bags into a black van and drove off. It was a really quiet ride (the twins later told me that whenever I was quiet, they knew something was off), but we all felt relief, much like I did when my flight finally departed for Moscow a month prior.

Even though all the signs were in Turkish, the view out the window reminded me much of California. It felt really familiar. Although the traffic was less than stellar, I always loved the scenic beauty of L.A. commutes. Antalya was nestled right by the coast, and as it would turn out, only a two mile walk from our apartment.

I always imagined Turkey as two things:

1) The desert 2) Islam

In the USA, people often warned of how dangerous, threatening, and hostile Muslim people were. They were spoken of as though they were an automatic enemy and something to fear.

It was similar in how American people warned me of how cold and aggressive Russians were.

Within a few miles down the road, the scenery itself defied many of my preconceived notions. Antalya was anything but desert, camels, and hijabs.

The first week was still rough though.

One of the twins spent the first night - in our second air conditionless apartment - sick at the porcelain throne. I nursed a migraine for almost three days. All three of us were still processing the fact that we had to make an emergency exit from Russia and said many unexpected “Goodbyes” way too soon.

We were exhausted, disoriented, and knew nothing about Antalya. Nonetheless, we had to do the necessary things and learn a new way of life almost overnight:

Learn public transport and the bus system, the basics of Turkish language and grammar (my goal was to make it through the bazar with my toddler level Turkish, just like my first goal with Russian language was to request water and coffee on flights, instead of English words and extravagant facial expressions and overly dramatic gestures), buy new SIM cards for our phones to work, figure out which places were walkable and/or what warranted the bus or a taxi, find a grocery store to stock up on the necessities.

We also had packed and prepared for sub zero conditions in Russia’s winter, so we needed to find summer clothing for Antalya’s 100+ degree heat.

Culture shock hits everyone differently. It’s not always drastic or a constant state of anxiety. Sometimes you don’t even realize you’re dealing with it, until other mundane situations - like grocery shopping or getting a glass of water - become an entirely new challenge. Turkey was drastically different from Russia, and culture shock hit me in the small inconveniences.

We couldn’t drink the tap water, so we had to order our water (a man was affectionately labeled as “Water Guy” on my WhatsApp) and hope it lasted for the week between cooking and hydrating. Grocery stores were obviously in Turkish, so the first few runs took longer than it would in America. Most items looked completely different, cilantro was a rare delicacy yet again in Turkey (is Cilantro just an American thing?!), and the meat aisle resembled something out of a massacre scene.

And that was just the bare minimum of human survival.

That first week, I really struggled to adapt. Antalya was beautiful, living two miles from the Mediterranean was something out of a dream, but it felt like my mind was in adaption mode longer than Russia. I think it was purely the contrast of the two places, going from one extreme to another, and having zero time to settle in. We had to jumpstart life by the next morning.

We lived in a mediterranean style apartment across from a mosque, where the call to prayer became our accidental alarm at 5AM. It was a bit jarring at first, but we got used to it. I now feel nostalgic when I hear sounds that mimic it. Just like certain whiffs of perfume take me back to the walking streets of Russia, certain sounds take me right back to Antalya.

None of the windows or doors had screens, so finding the occasional cat wandering around was pretty normal.

Oh yeah, the animals had rights.

It was a common practice for the locals to feed them, so I’ll leave the population of cats serenading the city up to your imagination.

I’ll never forget awakening at 2AM to an animal pouncing on my bed and frantically running around the room. Ushering a cat out of the window wasn’t exactly on my agenda, but hey, when in Antalya.

We learned that taxi drivers often got “lost” on purpose with English speakers (mileage is money!), and during one ride - where the driver genuinely was lost (or so we thought) - he kind of gave up, dropped us off in the rural, and we had to walk a little over a mile to reach our final destination. What can I say? Life is full of twists and turns, and sometimes, the optional, adventurous route.

But among the newness, culture shock, call to prayer blaring throughout the city five times a day, Turks were some of the most hospitable, welcoming people you could find yourself doing life with.

They treated us as though we were family.

We were welcomed into homes, invited for tea or dinner or meetups or exploring the city - within one conversation of meeting someone - and one girl, who became one of our closest friends, sweetly expressed she’d love to watch the sunset with us each weekend. Turks weren’t shy. They were warm, honest, and completely open with their questions, beliefs, traditions, and equally as curious about us.

In the USA, there can be such a formulaic mindset in getting to know people - both platonically and romantically - and in doing life. Americans tend to operate on a strict timeline, obsession on the future (five year plans, retirement, the next big thing, etc.), and a very fast paced, checklist way of doing things.

In Turkey, the pace was slow, people told you exactly what they thought, what they liked, and what they disliked. Stores didn’t even open until 10AM, people began the day slowly, played board games as they shot back Turkish coffee (note for the lightweights: that stuff is strong), and even the airports didn’t open on time.

Sorta kinda pro tip: If you’re traveling out of Turkey, book an extra long connecting flight…it’s totally casual for airports to open late, flights to depart an hour late, because aviation also takes their time. It’s a thing.

Turks know how to have a good time though. I’d never visited an Islamic culture, much less lived in one. I expected people in our demographic to be very ritualistic, closed off, wear hijabs, look a certain way, engage a certain way, act a certain way.

After all, that’s what the American story always seemed to depict…just as Russians were supposedly cold, intimidating, and unfriendly.

Then we went to a cultural center to help with English, art projects, and connect with the locals.

We were greeted by the most outgoing personalities, tan skinned, dark haired, dark eyed, beautiful people, who dressed similarly to Americans. Some were intermediate to advanced English speakers, and others knew as much English as we knew Turkish. There was zero awkwardness, small talk, and shallow conversation. They genuinely wanted to know people, their story, beliefs, and their openness and warmth made us feel right at home.

We met one girl, who soon became one of our dearest and closest friends, Ayça. She felt like a God send and angel on Antalya grounds. Our budget was really tight, so we had to drop out of weekly Turkish lessons with our teacher. Out of her own goodness, she showed us the basics of Turkish grammar, introduced us to the culture, hidden gems, traditions, the most efficient bus systems and routes, her friends, her mother and home, the traditional double cheek kiss as a greeting, and literally bussed an hour to us and dropped off a home cooked meal when we were sick.

We loved spending time with her, and she made a foreign place feel like home very quickly.

I was shocked by how open and honest Turks were. I loved it.

Curious about something? They’ll ask it. Have an opinion? They’’ll say it. Attracted? They’ll straight up tell you. Want to be friends? They’re in for the deep dive. There was no Americanized style sugarcoating.

We didn’t have to walk on eggshells around beliefs, politics, religion, any of it. Everything was conversational curiosity. They explained Ramadan. We explained prayer and fasting. We were curious about their traditions and beliefs. They were curious about ours. It was the kind of human connection I always craved. At the cultural center, a circle of us played a card game with advanced English learners that asked really deep, personal questions.

Their answers and depth of conversation were profound. Though we all came from different upbringings, cultures, religions, and stories, we all quickly saw each other in one another. We were different. And yet, we also were not that different at all.

We were introduced to all sorts of things.

We ate goat intestines, tried my hand at Turkish rap for karaoke and did really badly (one girl cringingly smiled and cheered me on, but in a, “Wow, good on you for trying, but you suck,” kinda way), became fans of weekly bazar vendors yelling and shoving produce at us, learned the bare minimum basics of Turkish language - and indeed, met my goal of making it through said bazar in my toddler level of it - but were absolute pros at requesting “Kişniş” (“Cilantro”), met an Instagram famous cat named Babuş, tried actual Turkish Delight (Edmund would have freaked), was still the loudest American in public transport and shushed by my elders (“Soft speak.”), and we also introduced our friends to American traditions:

Tacos, Thanksgiving (newsflash: They don’t eat turkey in Turkey), Christmas, cinnamon rolls they found way too sweet, and “Summer Nights” for late night karaoke in the cultural center’s basement.

My duet was 100% committed and 100% gave John Travolta a run for his money.

Süper!

We spent the day with a stoic Turkish dude, who drove us around in his car, showed us the coolest coffee shop, cuisine and more strange foods to our American palette, and offered to drive us all back to the cultural center.

As we were stuck in traffic, already tired from the day, rubbing out a headache pounding in my face, he informed us he apparently used to be in a heavy metal band.

He inserted a CD, turned the volume up to levels the car was probably shaking (insert Turkish screamo), and I think we all had partial hearing loss a solid ten minutes.

Expressionlessly, he powered it off after a few songs.

“Did you like it?”

“Uhm. Well. It was loud.”

But hey, another day, another cool Turk, another new cultural experience! That time just happened to be screamo edition.

One morning, we joined Ayça and a van full of strangers for a hike. The twins and I prepared for the big, bad wilderness with hydropacks, granola bars, trail food, the typical necessities to grit it up a mountain.

The van’s first stop was a bakery. Our group downed tea, bread, and cigarettes.

Interesting way to fuel for a hike! To each their own?

Then we drove to the actual hike, where our group stopped every half mile to down…tea and cigarettes.

…Including the group leader.

It certainly was longest, shortest 8 hour “hike” of our lives.

I also was the only person in the group, who requested the bathroom approximately twenty times.

Oh yeah, and I met my Instagram crush - in real life. After a year of debating social issues and politics on WhatsApp (“Wow, that accent makes his socialistic arguments so attractive.”), FaceTime, Marco Polo chats, occasional snail mail, digital butterflies, and exaggerated dreams of frolicking around Holland, dual citizenship, and basically naming my children I didn’t even have, the twins and I took a late night taxi to the airport and sort of, kind of made my dreams come true.

It was probably our stealthiest story from Turkey - it was a lot of hoops and hurdles to actually meet this Dutchman - but I’ll leave it at this:

Imagine a 6’4” Dutch guy from the Netherlands and a loud 5’5” American girl - one of them a blunt, rational realist; the other a whimsical conspiracy theorist (I’ll let your imagination run wild with that too) - traipsing around an ancient part of Turkey for four days, falling in love, and just as quickly falling out of love.

Ah; screen versions and reality.

I cherish our memories from Antalya, but especially the beautiful people, who made us feel right at home.

Walk with me in Turkey.