A bit of Turkish music...

I love the sound of the traditional flutes and drums (Mercan Dede) combined with mind-blowingly fast-paced lyrics by one of Turkey's greatest rappers (Ceza).

I heard this song two years ago in my advanced Turkish class, immediately bought it from Amazon.com and spent quite a while learning the lyrics as a challenge for my Turkish pronunciation. I can mostly sing it now but still get hung up in a couple spots.
 
...kaybolan bir kumum...


MERCAN DEDE 800

Aşk geldi..
Aşk geldi..
Damarlardaki kanım gibi oldu..
Varlık boşalıp, her tarafım dost eliyle doldu..
Zapteyledi bütün ensaî vücudumu.. kaldı kâvi bir namı bana..
Şu koskoca alemde yalnız bir kulum..
Aşk olmasa hiç bir işe yaramazdı gün ışığı..
Aşk geldi.. Damarlardaki kanım gibi oldu..
Varlık boşaldı.. her tarafım dost eliyle doldu..
Zapteyledi bütün ensaî vücudumu.. kaldı kâvi bir namı bana..

ya sana varmak ya bana varman..
ya bana gitmeden yanıma kalman..
yasını tutmasam, yaşına varsam..
karanlık doğmadan, ışığa kalsam..
hayal hiç ölçülmez, ne boyu ne de eni..
kaya kürür gönül yakar hep, koru benim..
hayata seninle dayanırım her nefes diken..
diken de derttir gülüm, canın sağ olsun da senin..
aşkın yok nispeti, bir anda bağlanır kısmetin
her düğüm çözülür, çek hasreti..
havadaki kasvet birazcık benden,
karadaki ben değil, havadaki bazen..
uçan bir kuş, bazen kaybolan bir kumum,
koskoca alemde yalnız bir kulum..
kolkola gezmek her can ile suç mu?
tamam o zaman benim bu alemde en suçlu..

baktım göğe masmavi,bastığım yer hâki..
gördüğüm diyar çok, görmediğimse gani gani..
nefes alıp veren bu can da çaresiz kalınca,
özlemim büyük, yolum uzun, bende bir karınca..
yanan gönül akan suda, o yolun en sonunda..
dostum bende solur, eğer dostum benle kalırsa,
dostun senle yaşar, dostun eğer senle ölürse.
bir çiçek olup açar belki tekrardan doğunca..
her açan senin gülün, hergünse benim günüm..
gözyaşı insan külüyse, her yakan insan sözü,
kıvılcım sözün özüyse, ayrılık yakar gözü..
tek gören gönül gözüyse, kelamım gönül sözü..
yalnızlıktan galip çıkmaktır irfan hiç olmadan,
irfan çıktığın her seferden dönmek hasret ekmeden..
ektiysen de ders almaktır hasret filizlenmeden,
ekmediysen gönül almaktır seferin bitmeden..

 Koskoca alemde yalnız bir kulum..
irfan gönül almaktır seferin bitmeden..

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92GPfeQOWRA

 

Thanks to all my faithful readers.

This is me, signing off...

Happy New Year!

Hello everyone,

It's been a busy week with the family in town. We've done a lot of sightseeing and spent fun times together reading, eating and playing games. This weekend is the New Year. We've heard that it gets pretty crazy around here, so we'll probably just stay in tomorrow night. Hopefully there will be a fireworks show somewhere that we can watch though.

The new roommate is moving in tomorrow sometime so Maria is moving back into my room again. Not sure how that will go after the rest of the family leaves. I haven't decided whether to have her sleep in the living room, taking up two thirds of the house, or keep her in my room and get less sleep. The roommate is also allergic to cat. Hopefully she will be OK here with us.

This week we went to the islands again. The kids especially liked the ferry ride and kept begging to feed the expensive snacks to the seagulls. Alex also really loved the 'haunted house'--the old wooden orphanage at the top of the hill.

My old Turkish teacher is in town with a group of students from his university. I'm hoping to catch up with them for a short time tomorrow.

I miss all the special people in my life. Thanks for keeping up with me!

That's all for now...Back to bed, if I can sleep after all the coffee I drank today.

This is me, signing off...

Multi-Language Luau!

For all the multi-language fans, I just ran across this nifty video of the Timon and Pumba luau scene from Lion King. It's in several different languages. I thought it was funny that they changed Pumba's 'Yep, yep, yep' line in only a couple languages and left it the same in all the rest.

Here's the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO94nUP6keI&feature=endscreen

Enjoy!

This is me, signing off...

Cat-on-Shoulder, Tea-in-Hand

Hello wonderful readers!

Here I am, typing away again, trying to keep up with a blog which has sort of gone by the wayside...As I type, Maria's kitty, Carmalitta, is perched on my shoulder, providing a tiny  bit of warmth. Forget Istanbul in the fall, it's winter now, and getting colder. It has been raining most days for a couple weeks now, and the creeping damp has found its way into every pair of socks I own. Yesterday, after trudging through a puddle and collecting dampness up to my knees, I was forced to buy a new pair of socks--which also immediately got soaked. I'm wondering if it will snow anytime soon. Probably not. My fellow Istanbulites are scurrying about with winter parkas, boots, thick scarves and hats, indicating that they don't know what real cold is. When the fish-mongers start wearing mittens, I'll get worried.

Today I picked up my Little Blue Book, meaning I am officially a guidebook-toting, money-spending, sight-seeing tourist for the next several months. Maybe now I will have time to see everything I want to see before I go home! I hope!

I enrolled Maria in school on Monday, and she completed her first week today. Her uniform will require some care. The shirt is yellow, which means after 31 years of never having to remove stains from a yellow shirt, I have discovered a new skill I need to master, unless I want to pay for a new uniform shirt every week.

Maria is happily learning cursive in the other room, and the Friday noise from the neighborhood clubs and nargile houses has started. I think there might be a football match tonight, too. I heard something about Galatasary team and some sort of championship...I'm sure I'll hear the crowds if Galatasaray wins. I've been thinking it might be fun to attend a game at the stadium down the road, but I'm not sure, considering how wild the fans get.

Kitty has moved from my shoulder to inside my sweater. Might it be time to turn on the heater? No, it mightn't--not with the price of natural gas. Yikes! I guess that's what they get for importing all their oil products from another country. I'm starting to be more and more in favor of that decades-long dam project Turkey is working on.

Interesting factoid about Turkey, which I find rather interesting, yet slightly disturbing: All the bills--water, gas, electric, etc.--are delivered in a pile to the main entrance of the apartment building, and the tenants are left to sort through the stack and find their own. I'm not to keen to have everyone in the unit know how much I spend on gas per month, especially since ours was the most expensive bill in the whole apartment building (yes, I invaded all my neighbors' privacy. Does that make me a bad person?). The apartment manager also displays everyone's rent bill in a prominent place in the entry way, so we all know who has and hasn't paid, and who is horribly behind on their rent. It's kind of embarrassing, but great fodder for the gossip chain.

Maria has a new favorite candy. A couple weeks ago I discovered these little chocolate eggs with a surprise inside. Each egg has a little toy or plastic figure in a small egg inside the larger chocolate egg. I have been buying one for her every few days, and she is always thrilled. Her favorite so far has been a Smurf doll. I thought I had escaped from the Smurfs when we exited the 1980's, but they appear to be (back) in full force here in Turkey. I can only hope Gargamel finally gets his grubby hands on them and manages to eat all of them in a gruesome, blue-blood stained night.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

This is me, signing off...

The Islands Again

Hello Everyone,

Earlier this week our roommate moved out, leaving us once again with the house to ourselves. We have enjoyed the extra space, especially considering Jon and Alex will be here in less than three weeks!
I've been super-busy. Maria has a new friend, a little boy who is 5. They have had a blast chasing each other around the coffee table, singing 'Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.' Maria sings, and the little boy tries to copy her. His pronunciation is pretty good, even though he has no idea what he's singing.
Last weekend we went to the islands again. This time, we went to the smaller, less populated, less touristed islands. The first island was almost completely deserted except for the many, many stray dogs and cats. First we went looking for food, and stopped at a half-closed grocery store where we got some bread, cheese, tangerines, dried fruit and nuts, and plenty of chocolate bars. We hiked up the hill to a little bench with a good view of the water and had our snack. The houses on this island seemed old and tired, most had cracks in the walls or peeling paint on at least one side. We found one house with an interesting mosaic on the wall, made from sea shells and rocks. It had a dinosaur shape and we got a picture of it for Alex.
Avoiding the dogs was rather difficult on this island, and we had to turn back several times. At the top of the hill we found an old, possibly abandoned playground, and Maria enjoyed trying not to fall through the gigantic hole in the walkway as she crossed from one slide-tower to the next. A little exploration revealed a high cliff just a few feet from the playground, behind some shrubs. From there we got a good view of the sea, some sail boats and the other islands.
We went back to the docks and took the ferry to the next island, which was a little bigger, less dog-infested and with prettier houses. This island seemed really well-cared for, although also nearly deserted. We tried to eat at a restaurant which had been recommended, only to discover that they weren't actually serving any food, even though the door was open and they had seated us. The only thing on the menu was fish and chips. We went on to another, also closed restaurant, before sliding down the muddy slope to the beach and consuming the remainder of our snack items. The beach was long and empty, with broken red roofing tiles and trash mixed into the black sand. There was a small cave near the water line, but since we were already cold and it had started to drizzle and was getting dark, we didn't try to explore. We walked back to the main part of town where we finally found an open restaurant. We drank some lukewarm soup, then went across the street for dessert, coffee and tea at the pastry shop. A man in the pastry shop was carrying on a Skype conversation in English, in a loud voice, and we were entertained by his little anecdotes about his experiences on the islands. Our ferry finally came, and we made our way back home for a hot cup of tea and some warm blankets.
Thanks to all our faithful readers! Pictures will be added as soon as I can find my camera again.

This is me, signing off...

Rain

Istanbul is getting rainier and rainier as we get closer to winter. Today we went to Taksim, and by the time we got back, there was hardly an inch of dryness on our clothing, even though we had an umbrella. Inflation is at work once again, as the price of chestnuts seems to have risen by a Lira. They are eager to make a sale, though, and will still give you the old price if you complain.

In Taksim, I wanted to get out of the damp, and so we stopped in at a little hole in the wall for dinner, Taksim Durum Evi. I ordered lentil soup for me, and macaroni for Maria and was surprised and suspicious when they started bringing other food items to our table. First a salad, which I decided to accept since I haven't eaten anything green in several days, then rice and beans, which I declined. I later asked about the salad, and the cook said it was a gift. I thanked him, and he immediately brought back the rice and beans. I thanked him, and mentioned that the soup was delicious, then he brought out a spinach dip for the bread. Since we were pretty hungry, I decided to just eat it and pay whatever outrageous price he was going to charge us for the food we hadn't ordered, and just not eat there again. When we finished eating, I got up, but he told us to go sit down again for tea, which he brought. Both the food and the tea were very good, and all the waiters were very nice and respectful. When I went to pay, he only charged me for the food we had ordered, and insisted the rest was on the house. I only paid 6.50 TL for the whole meal, including tea and water! Although I don't expect he normally gives free food, I plan to go there again whenever I have the chance.

This evening I got Maria to bed on time for one, and have had a bit of time to myself to relax before getting to work on my writing.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

This is me, signing off...

New--everything

Hello, faithful readers who are still checking, despite receiving no updates for weeks on end...

We've spent weeks in transition, and are finally settled in our new apartment in Besitas. It's in a great location, near Dolmabahce Palace, the waterfront, bus lines, cheap restaurants, stores, and -best of all- NO HILLS! no more carrying groceries and backpacks up and down hills that were never meant to be walked on by anything less limber than a mountain goat...

The new place was filthy when we moved in, and I have spent many, many hours trying to sort through the stuff that was left here and clean under it. The lady that used to live here was American, and loved clothes. There were four huge garbage bags of nearly-new clothing, most in perfect condition. It took me four hours to try on everything, and now there are three and a half huge garbage bags of clothing for me to donate on National Donate to the Poor People Bazaar Day, and I have enough nice-looking clothing to supplement the three outfits I brought to Turkey for as long as I stay, and longer. Actually, if I were in the States, I would consider I had done my clothes shopping for the next six months...So I guess that offsets the annoyance of having to clean.

Maria and Carmalitta are settling in nicely, too. Maria has been enjoying coloring her new 'Doggy Fashion' coloring book, where dogs wear cute and outrageous little outfits while looking stylishly unconcerned about any discomfort. We also hooked up the TV yesterday, so she'll be able to watch all her favorite cartoons in Turkish again. She's also being helpful with the cleaning, and has organized her room without being told at least once a day since we moved in.

Carmalitta (the cat) has worn out all her energy tearing around the whole house, investigating everything from the drippy hot water heater to the dust bunnies behind the fridge and the built-in cabinets all over the house. She has also decided it is her duty to chew off each individual leaf of the mini-palm tree, one each day--ridding the world of nasty plants, one leaf at a time!

A couple nights ago we went out for a little walk in the neighborhood. The chestnut salesman charges half again what the stands in Taksim charge, but the nuts are fresher and less wormy, so possibly worth the extra. Maria doesn't like the fish market, but we both got a kick out of the sock stand, which is located in the wall of another store. All the socks are hanging in a one-foot deep recess along the length of another store. Turks are so resourceful and interesting.

Today I'm going to try to finish cleaning today so Maria and I can enjoy the rest of our week. Maria wants to go to the islands again this Friday. I'm thinking we might be able to see the other island that we missed last time, which is less populated and touristic. We'll see.

Pictures to come, sometime, maybe, I hope...

Thanks again for reading!

This is me, signing off...