Only 28 hours and 140 YTL to revisit a past life and remind you how happy you are to be living your new one

For the Şeker Bayram Hazel and I hopped a bus (a 14 hour bus) down to Alanya to escape rainy cold Istanbul and our hot waterless apartment for a week. Our brilliant plan to drink wine and a beer before the trip and lull ourselves to sleep completely backfired and instead of waking up well rested in Alanya, I probably slept a solid hour and arrived in Alanya cranky, queasy, and maybe even a little hung over. However when we passed Antalya (2 hours away from Alanya) and began to drive along the very familiar road with the Mediterranean to our right and the Taurus Mountains to our left, I knew it was totally worth it. The second we got off the bus we were enveloped by 26°C of beautiful Alanya sun (a vast difference from the 6°C not so lovely Istanbul sun). We were met at the bus stop by Hazel’s old host brothers and driven to their house through the strangely familiar neighborhoods of Alanya. Hazel’s host family is completely lovely basically the only one in the McGhee program who interacts with their allotted student, which meant that thanks to Hazel we not only had a place to stay for a week but we were also feed and carted to the beach for free.

It’s funny because I am so used to being perceived as a foreigner in Turkey but because Alanya is chalk full of, as Hazel so eloquently put it, “some really strange looking” blonde Scandinavian, Russian and German types, people barely gave me a second glance. Dr. Kay (one of my Georgetown professors) had once mentioned that Turks pick up on the way people walk and the longer you spend in Turkey, regardless of what you look like, the less you will be ostracized. I definitely did a fair amount of tourist BAKing (bakmak = to look, BAKing = turklish; looking) and did not withhold my distain for their lack of clothing and overall entirely inappropriate appearance. Although Alanya is in fact a tourist beach town, it has a really interesting conglomeration of tourists, young male seasonal workers (waiters, bar tenders, etc) and locals, who for the most part are relatively socially and religiously conservative. You can walk down the street and see both half naked blonde girls with bikini tops and just barely there shorts and Tesettür (the term used to describe a new wave of Muslim fashion where women where long overcoats and silk scarves) head scarf wearing women.

The waiter/bar tender population of Alanya is really fascinating. All of these young men, probably starting at age 14, travel to Alanya from the East, looking for work and the opportunity to mingle with the hordes of blonde women that frequent the Alanya’s beaches seriously looking for a good time. So Alanya is teeming with these uber-eager and over gelled young men who basically spend all day having fun with their buddies and hitting on beautiful women. I can’t decide if I am jaded because I’m secretly jealous that I’m not an adolescent boy who gets to basically live in a hormonal paradise or if it is really outrageous…I’m thinking it’s probably a combination of the two but a little bit more of the later.

When I lived in Alanya I frequented this bar called SkyBar because we were friends with all the guys who worked there and it was one of the few places in Alanya that I could be 100% sure that what I ordered would be the same thing that was placed in my drink. I kind of left on bad terms with some of the guys there and really did not want to go back but then I saw one of them ride past us on their scooter and decided that the potential for a fantastically awkward situation was just too great to pass up. Hazel and I went with her 2 host brothers and were basically greeted with dropped jaws by all of the guys there. It was totally strange and awesome. It was also one of the first times I actually had a real conversation with these guys in Turkish because goodness knows my Turkish 2 years ago was complete fluff.

Another place we frequented was this Türko (traditional Turkish music) Bar called Çello, which we of course returned to and had a lovely drink there with Dr. Kay. All of the wait staff remembered us and were super excited that we came back. Cello is great because it’s not the strobe light, clothing optional, pounding bass bar typically found in Alanya but rather usually frequented by local young and old Turks alike. There is a band that plays and people sit around sipping on a drink, eating nuts, and jump up and break out into traditional dances when the mood strikes them. The dancing is usually a line of people holding hands dancing around the room and the two people on the end usually hold napkins and flag them up and down as the group makes its moves. I don’t really know how to do it justice but it’s just fantastic, good clean fun. It’s something that all ages of Turks love and have no qualms about doing together and calling it a raging Saturday night.

I think I’m going to add more to this later but I want to cut it short so it doesn’t become too overwhelming…to the 4 people that read this that is…Char and Sammy.