Shared Dreams: Turkey...three weeks deep!

One of the things that makes Turkey different is the number of ATM’s… you rarely see one on it’s own. The picture shows eight ATM’s along one wall and 7 more along another. I’m told in summer there are queues of people lining up to use them, but right now it’s quite… we hear that a lot…

The following day we were invited to a barbeque. We drove with Orkin out into the country side to a friends restaurant. It was a cold night and the locals say it’s never this cold so they don’t have heat to heat the houses and apartments. This was no exception… Even while we were inside we had to ware gloves and hats. As the evening moved along, we got a visit from the local MP police called the Jandarma. These guys act as local police when there are no local police in the area. They deal with all the issue that local police deal with,, and more.. They turned out to be really nice guys and stayed for dinner. They even taught us to play back gammon. We had a great night. So much fun!

The original reason to go was to get a Christmas tree !!! It’s not like the US, you don’t see Christmas tree’s on the side of the road for sale. Turkey decided to make it illegal to cut down certain types of tree’s, oil trees and pine trees being two on the list. Just to be clear, you can own the land, you can plant the tree, but you can’t cut it down !!! With special permission and a large bribe you can make it happen… we were looking for the other option but the local Jandarma police were not going to allow this! So the plan was put on hold.

The next day if was off to the boat again. We are sanding the bottom to allow it to dry out over the winter. Joseph hired two local guys to help him, they are making good progress. Just as a reference, the wages in winter are 1000 TL for a month. This is 6 days a week 8 to 9 hours a day. We pay 300 TL’s a week, or $150, or this works out at a little over $2.5 an hour.The labor here is cheap. We are sure to feed them a nice lunch as well as Anne brings them Cokes and candy bars in the afternoon.

We headed to Kipa again for fish… and once again Joseph cooked it up. As a side note oranges are almost free in Marmaris. They grow everywhere…. People sell them out of the back of their cars for pennies!

Other local fruits are sold at really discounted prices, as the Irish say "it is it good value for money?" At Kipa we saw the solution to the Christmas tree. Although they have fake trees they also had fresh trees in pots, still growing, this gets around the issue of cutting down a tree. $25 buys you a fresh tree.

Some people have been asking what does the boat look like out of the water. Well WENDY and JEB...this photo is for you!!! Zim stands in a cradle and for extra security, the Turkey boat yard adds wooden poles to help stop it from moving in high winds… they have a good record of not loosing too many boats. (Anne gets nervous about this)

The other big question has been about our apartment. We got quite a good deal on the place, two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, and kitchen. All for less than $200 a month !!! We get free water but have to pay for electricity…. Which can be expensive since all the heating is electric.

Master Bedroom

View from living-room

Guest bedroom

Living room ...

In the final days before we leave for the US for Christmas Joseph went for his first Turkish shave. Again Orkin (or as we like to call him Orkin-man as a way to remember the pronunciation) came to the rescue, he brought us to the right place. The guy spoke a little English and did a great job, even if I had to give a little direction, so I got the desired out come. I think Joseph will go back, he really liked the experience. In the morning we were off to Germany, and then to the US …

The morning started early, the bus left at 8am and we had bought our tickets the night before. We were really proud of ourselves as we had managed to get the price of the bus for the listed price. Believe it or not everything is about bargaining. Now when you go to a market, you expect to have to bargain, Turkey is famous for this. But when you go to a bus station and the guys tells you the normal price is 42 TL’s but for you he can do a special price of 39 TL’s you know you are getting had !!! We had been armed with the price from the internet… and knew what we wanted to pay 31 TL’s which is $15 and not a penny more. Later that evening after a visit to the ring store to collect my engagement ring, we collected the tickets for the bus ride from a different bus store, this guy didn’t even try to bargain, he came out with the 31 TL’s price all on his own… Finally we felt like we were starting to fit in.

We boarded the bus and headed off to Izmir some 4 hours away. Now to be honest we couldn’t understand why the car ride only took 2.5 hours and the bus was so much slower. But soon enough it became very obvious, they drive really slowly. The only good thing about the journey was that they made us tea and sandwiches on route. We arrived a head of schedule and then took another bus to the airport. With plenty of time to spare we boarded the flight to Germany to spend the evening with Josephs cousin Rosemary and her lovely family, Christian, Mia and Dominic.

On landing in Germany, for the first time in weeks, it really felt like Christmas. Christmas trees everywhere and Christmas music, something we had almost never heard in Turkey was playing freely… The season had begun for us. The following day we board the second stage of the flight to Boston and now as I write the remainder of this blog I am sitting on the plane with 4 hours to go… see you all soon...can't wait to be home for Christmas!!!