Aegean Pearls: My Life in Izmir

Since arriving in Turkey, I've known I wanted to hike. It's been hard to do: temperatures have been in the mid-30s most days since I arrived at the beginning of August (it is now mid-September). But I really want to see this country and experience it, and hiking is the best way to do both. My third week in country I found the article " The Most Beautiful Hiking Routes in Izmir ," and I've taken it as a personal challenge. Over the Victory Day (August 30) weekend, I chose the trip to the Ionian city of Teos. To get to this ancient city, I hopped on a bus at a stop around the corner from my house. It was a three hour bus ride with two transfers. It was totally worth it. I was in such a hurry to see an ancient city -- I prefer the term, "lost city," because I am an Indiana Jones fan, but the fact is that the site is open to all-comers -- that I got off the bus one stop too soon.  I quickly found a path into the site via the "back way." As I follow...

I attended my first Turkish folk concert this week, a performance by the T epecik Filarmoni Orkestrasi , a group of musicians who play Romany music, among other styles. It was an experience unlike anything I have ever heard, and my mind is honestly still relishing it. Here's a look at some video my friend shot of the concert, held at the Sanathane Theater in Basmane, a historic area with winding, cobble-stone streets close to the center of town. Romany music is, of course, tied to the Balkan gypsy culture, and it is very eastern in orientation and sound. The 10-piece band, led by a percussionist on the doubek drum included 3 violinists, a tambourine, a base drum, a zither, clarinet, trumpet, and a keyboardist playing bass notes.  But to their Romany songs, TFO added some Turkish folk and even some riffs on western standards. They have a really cool arrangement of Mozart's symphony #25 that they meld with Romany style to create a musical experience unlike any other. There was a...

A few weeks ago I went through my monthly book binge. The school secretary, a Turk named Ipek, had asked me if I was teaching any Turkish writers in my literature classes. I have spent the years since my first visit to Turkey reading Turkish writers, most notably Nobel laureate, Orhan Pamuk. But I remain ignorant of the breadth of Turkish literature.  Ipek set me aright. She wrote down ten authors I needed to check out. I immediately went home, hoping to find them translated into English. It took some work--so did finding English titles in a Turkish bookstore. Finally someone mentioned a store with English books on Konak Pier, and I went the next Sunday to check it out. The English titles they had were mostly classics--Frankenstein, Kafka, stuff like that. I found two books by Turkish writers: a history of the Ottomans and Orhan Kemal's My Father's House . Kemal had been one of the writers on Ipek's list. The book begins as a novel--another man telling his story to the writ...

Today i hiked out to Homer's Caves (I'll have a different post on that adventure. But as i walked out I'd the town of Eğridere, İ saw these signs and thought to pass them on to my readers.  Hoşgeldiniz (hawsh-gel-dee-neez) is the way to say, "Welcome." And since Turkish feels like it's arranged backwards to my native language, the sign translates to "welcome to Eğridere  (That smile over the g is unique to Turkish. The g is silent, but it turns the vowel before it into a long vowel EE-rih-der-eh instead of EH-rih-der-eh.) On the other side of the sign, for those leaving town, are the words, "Güle güle." İ love saying this, but i have yet to have a Turk take me seriously when i use it. İt means "bye bye," and anyone who uses it above the age of seven sounds immature.

When Americans and western Europeans think of Turkish food, the first word that comes to mind is Döner, that fast-food delicacy of shaved pieces of roasted lamb or chicken, stuffed into a pita with salad and hot sauce. As they say in Deutschland, " Döner ist schöner ," and the truth is that there are few snacks more beautiful or more delicious. But since I've been in Turkey, I have yet to eat Döner as I know it from England and Germany. İnstead, I have found dürüm, which looks like a chicken burrito 🌯 and tastes delicious. Like the burrito, the dürüm is wrapped in a tortilla. İ have seen tortillas for sale in the bread aisle, too. The meat for the dürüm is cut from the same, rotating spit of roasting meat that goes into a Döner.  Unlike the burrito, the meat is really yummy. As you can see from the photo, it was served with red sauce that wasn't "peppery hot" as one would find in a Mexican restaurant, but was savory hot. There were small peppers...

The first week of school we went over procedures with the kids. One procedure that caught my attention was the Earthquake Drill. We have to be ready for earthquakes here. The ground often shakes. Here's what we do: a siren sounds for 30 seconds. When it sounds, we duck under our desks and protect our heads. When the siren stops, I lead the class out the front door to the edge of campus and follow a wall to a parking lot, where we wait for ... aftershocks, clearance for return, I haven't figured this out yet. I have experienced one earthquake already, the week before school started. It wasn't much. The building shook for about 15 seconds, and my swivel chair kept moving around under me. But I wasn't knocked around or anything. I saw the tweet below this week. For me, it combines fascination and fear. I'm fascinated by the history and art that has shook this landscape for thousands of years. People moving in and out, empires rising and falling, and art that is anc...