Living a "Domestic" Life: Life at home for an Ex-pat at heart

In a foreign country, when there is something that potentially rubs you, say, construction, healthcare, pollution, marriage practices, you can shrug it off and say, "Well, how peculiar. This country is not like mine." Of course, I can look at them as potential business opportunities or something--like opening a recycling facility in Istanbul or something. However, for the most part, the ex-pat cannot be expected to solve the problem of the foreigner.

Flash to my town of origin in rural Pennsylvania. Route 28 is STILL under construction. One medication that I could have gotten in Turkey for $10 is $42 here. There are shootings at LA Fitness nearby. I see trash on the roads. Public Education nearby has turned into more like a juvenile detention center.

Basically, the problems that the ex-pat may click their tongue to are in their own country. And by I mean that ex-pat, I mean me. I can't shrug it off because this system directly affects me. Regardless of what country I am in, the fact that my state's education system is not doing so hot, or that my healthcare costs are through the roof (and no comment on the Obama plan...)--all of this has some impact on me, the Passport that I hold, the life I lead, and where I go.

So though my life is far from Domestic yet (even though I'm cooking Creme Brulee and Baklava like Julia--great movie), looking at the stagnation (and death?) of the area I came from can fill any ex-pat's conscience with a little bit of sadness, or even guilt!

I can't even vote to change it here. I'm a Connecticut voter.

The Day After Tomorrow: Pittsburgh Edition

Apparently America has an obsession with apocalypse. (Some people I know would throw global warming into this. Other people I know would throw those same other people as perpetrators of another sort of apocalypse...) Yale this term has a class on Apocalypse in the American Imagination, if my memory serves me correctly after Bluebooking 640 pages...

But I can see why. If I look around at coming home to Pittsburgh, or rather Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania, I definitely see why people might be paranoid about imminent destruction and failure. While the downtown area seems to be breathing the fresh, crisp air of the Allegheny Valley and drinking from the blue waters of the Allegheny, the Mon, and the Ohio Rivers, just drive 25 miles up north and you'll see the weed infested gravel plots where buildings stood 8 months ago when I was home for Christmas, or even 5 months ago for those few days in March.

Let me break this down for you:

-At least 3 buildings along Rt. 28 going into the city, that were there when I left, are now gone

-The entire Bouchat car dynasty (i.e. 2 buildings) in Natty Heights are now gone

-The Macy's and just about 40% of the other businesses in the local Heights Plaza are gone.

-Shopping centers that were built at one point last year have been left empty.

YET! I see so much development:

-The WalMarts have taken off 3 miles from my house

-There is a lot of slow Penn Dot construction

-At least 2 New Churches have been built near my home

-The Giant Eagle Grocery Store has expanded

I actually don't know if the development is telling of growth or disaster, but whatever it is, I find the fact that slow construction, Wal-Marts, and Religious establishments (as well as the waist lines of my fellow Natty-Heightsers) have grown in volume as other businesses shrink.

Being home is like being in a different country. Things do seem older and more over grown. The flowers have spread on our bank. The road has aged and gotten sealed. The house has taken on a very "lived in" look that I have been trying to achieve with decoration scheme for the past 10 years of my life (with the exception of last year). The trees have grown and the leaves are big. The grass is not dried out nor dead. New people living outside of the farm have bought old houses. There are old men driving around with their mouths open and the cost of having your nails set has been raised to $30 at a nearby salon.

As things age and as I notice it, perhaps I'm looking for signs of failure in the town that holds my mailing address. Perhaps I'm looking for ways this place is dying and leaving it to gravel and concrete pads, and of course perhaps a greater sort of seclusion on my farm... Perhaps I'm trying to see the Middle Town America that is suffering with cash, cholesterol, and obesity, which is all I hear about but haven't seen in quite some time. Perhaps we crave failure in order to launch ourselves into a new realm or new era in order to escape something.

Americans have always been the greatest escape artists I know (I could argue that Manifest Destiny is merely an excuse for running away). Apocalypse and looming failure is a good reason to escape I suppose. Are we really failing though?

I'm sittin at an Airplane Stations, got a ticket for my destination... mmmm mmmm

Yea, I went there. Go Simon and Garfunkel. Its the truth though. I'm sitting at the Istanbul International Airport after spending a decent amount of time at a D & R Bookstore, a Starbucks, and watching Turkish Customs Officials Drag a shouting man away. Oh Turkey. 

Right now, there is an ad for Reina on the screen (the Night Club I went to on my 19th birthday--thank you Murat). There was a soundtrack for the club at the bookstore. I have about ten YTL in my wallet that I want to spend. I see simit looking croissants in the Starbucks case. Fake blonde dye jobs are everywhere. People are carrying expensive duty free items around, especially the Saudi Tourists ( who probably stayed at my hotel last night, where there were thongs, condoms, and boxers in the Mini Bar to buy--chilling.)

I am sleepy after days without sleep, thanks to my father's snoring in our cave hotel in Cappadocia and our Airport hotel. Last night I ordered a Sutlac out of nostalgia and sleeplessness. It was bad--the sleeplessness and the sutlac.

I could talk about my summer and reflect about my successes, my challenges, my moments.... but the summer isn't done. I still have reports. I still have budgets to complete. I still have meetings in New York that were set up in Istanbul. I choose to remain silent for now. 

I'm surprisingly quiet in the mind. When I do think, I think only of how much I do not want to leave... but not obsessively. It is a quiet longing. I read the newspaper. I read my Turkish Authors I picked up. I listen to Manu Chao as I watch the Turkish Starbucks man take away some plates and mop the leak from the ceiling. 

I have to go and catch my flight to London. 

"All those tours and one night stands, got a suitcase and guitar in hand, and every stop is neatly planned for a poet and a one man band." 

Homeward Bound I guess? (Well, not for another 5 days). Simon and Garfunkel took the words right out of my mouth. 

Turkish Tea and Patience

Tonight at dinner in Cappadocia, my father burnt his tongue on a hot cup of Turkish Cay (pronounced Chai) and proceeded to add cold water to the tiny glass, perhaps out of the frustration of having a sore tongue and the desire to conquer that which was trying to make him wait (waiting is a sin in America land you know). It reminded me of the land which I was away from for some 3 months now and what I will face when I go back to it on Saturday.

The little cups of cay that I have encountered in Turkey have taught me a patience that I don't think I had back in the states. Ask my younger sister--part of my daily routine was burning my tongue on my black coffee and then spilling it on a black shirt (planning ahead you know). I could never wait for something to cool off. I wanted the rich satisfaction of the bitter blackness on my tongue, even if it meant pain. I had to wake up. I had to go to school. I had to do it and I had to do it NOW.

Something has changed here. After burning my tongue on a cup of cay that was not meant to wake me up, that was meant for me to enjoy (out of hospitality, during conversation, after dinner), I realized---why the hurry? Why can I not have the temperance to simply wait and sip my cay, making the small cup last infinitely longer than a large black coffee from Tazza D'Oro? Something about drinking from that little cup made me enjoy stirring the sugar cube just a little longer, waiting in between sips, taking my time, letting the tea cool. The purpose of the tea was not to slug it down. The purpose of the tea was for the time it passed. It taught me patience and temperance--skills to be had that I never thought could be learned from a cup of tea.

Now that I am going back to the land of the 2 minute cheese burger and the 99 cent chicken nugget, where large coffees can be downed in a minute and people get antsy if they have to wait more than 1 minute for their computers to load, I imagine I will go back to burning my tongue on my large Mexican Peaberry in the morning. However, when I sit down at the end of the day with my cup of tea and begin the night of studying, I think I'll have that patience I have been praying to learn.

I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens.

Playing Tour Guide and Being a Daughter: The Many Sides of Danielle

I harbor within me a not-so-secret love for giving tours. Showing people around and bragging about the history, culture, and food of a place while someone pays me sounds great... kind of legitimizes what I like to do in my spare time anyway. 

So when my parents said they wanted to come to Turkey to visit my sister and me, I jumped on the chance of--for the first time ever--being a tour guide to my parents as well. Yet I was not only going to play guide, but live out the role of daughter again.

Saturday, my sister joined me in Istanbul with her host family from Ankara. We toured the Galata Tower--near where my favorite hotel and part of Istanbul is (end of Tunel, in the little Bohemian Art District, where street artists and graffiti rule). Finally, after Gabbi and I had our moments of smug mutual understanding at many a comment around us, we found our parents joking with a cab driver. Oh Dad. We were a family again. 

It was bizarre. It had been the first time we were together in months. It was glorious. We only had good times and good adventures to talk about. After saying goodbye to Gabbi's other family, we stole her for a night to go to a meyhane on the roof of a building for delicious mezze, raki, and tavuk sis (like tapas, uzo, and chicken kebab). My sister and I two-timed Turkish culture with our parents, explaining our various (and widely different) experiences with them. We had so much to talk about and conversation never ended. The night was epic, as was the view. 

The next day, I played guide--with transport, food, and sights, like the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace etc. We later had dinner with her host family and then said a painful goodbye as she went back to Ankara. 

So we were a family again for that night and day. After two months of playing employee, project manager, student, intern, co-chair, "Mama D," single lady, or yabanci "foreigner" (sorry if I misspelled!), I was a daughter and a guide. 

The next day we went to the prince islands, hired a carriage, and climbed to the top to an orthodox monastery. Later, going to Kadikoy to pick up my phone and still later, a glorious dinner on the Bosphorus at a Turkish/Asian fusion restaurant. I loved the feeling of sharing my favorite spots with my parents. Finally, I could share the love I have for this place with someone. I was guide, but more than that, I was a daughter who could finally share one of her adventures with someone. Solitude is nice, but at the end of the day, it is better when you've told someone what you did in solitude. 

Then we saw a couple at the food bar near us (very soulful little place with the best view of the first bridge!). They were covered up in blankets and eating and drinking. They looked like they had known each other for ages. My father made jokes at them for being gushy and they laughed. Of course dad bought them a drink (after an arduous task of translation...). By the end of our meal, we had another round with them. He was a "digested man" who liked "quality, not quantity" in women. He was a worldly fellow, proud of his achievements and very in love with his fiancee--in the most Turkish way possible. He worked in management of different hotels, clubs, and restaurants around the world and was quite charismatic. Quite a well connected man too. His fiancee, a financial analyst darling and calm--what a man like that needs. In short, they were love. And they only knew each other for a month. We are going to the wedding in May, btw. ;) 

You know me. I don't get mushy. I don't like too much direct sentimentality (even if I post it here... I may not say it with much heart anywhere else). But I liked it. I was sitting on the Bosporus with my parents, having a drink and the meal of my life, with a real couple sitting near. Something gave me hope and faith in the past, present, and future. It gave me hope of the many hats I can put on, and not just put on, but WEAR with a sense of ownership. What hat I will wear in 10 years is scary to think of, but to know that I'm not just acting this--that this is my life.... that is refreshing. 

So a sister guiding her sister from Ankara, in Istanbul, with her parents visiting from the US, after being in 5 different country in 2 months, chilling on the Bosporus, guiding them around the city, and experiencing all of that... coming together. Every memory of my time here and with them flooded in. Its the new face of the new sort of global families that are developing (a special story on this later). 

I like guiding people through my life I guess. Call it vain. Yet, why else do people keep blogs like this? wink wink.