Woman in Her (?) Nation, of cars, cigarettes, and cellulite

About 15 miles from my own home, there is the border to a different land. A land of car racing, monster trucks, fatty foods, clay dirt, obesity, and "freedom."

Welcome to my evening at Lernerville Speedway. Accompanying are the L's, our family friends from the city (censored name for their privacy). After having a "box" (or just a roof with some metal chairs) at Lernerville for years and never having actually visited, we decided to go with the Lesoons for some country car romping. We have a car (who we only supply tires to), a driver, a sign with our name on it--none of what I knew we ever even had. My dad prefers movies and the Steelers, to cars and dirt.

As we look for our seats, mom is concerned her espadrilles are getting dirty and she clearly is overdressed. I'm getting glaring looks as I walked up the old wooden bleachers to our box seat. Is my purple dress too purple? Older men with their buttoned shirts have sleeves rolled up to look like old time greasers. I see boys with little hair tails and girls who are 12 smoking cigarettes. An incredibly obese woman in nude colored cotton pants blocks the stairway to my "box" filled with metal chairs.

As Mrs. L is an audiologist, she has us outfitted with proper earwear. Having a conversation is futile when you can't hear and don't know sign language. How is that cute little 17 year old on a date here with his girl? They can't talk!

In between races, we actually bring up conversations: Courtney L. with a boy who is the son of our driver. He knows how to replace transmission and he is like 9. Mom has a man offer her some sausage. Mrs. L chats up with the boy in front of us (the son of the guy who does our towing). He is very polite, telling us in his country pittsburgh accent about how last week a guy caught on fire! He says, "Yea!" after every question mom asks.

Courtney and I leave and pass up the beer hut next to the port-a-potties and dodge cans that fall from the bleachers above us (people throw them under their seats). Little kids have big ear protection on as they watch the big kids (9-10 year olds) play football. A man sticks a wad of chew-tobaccky in his mouth. I'm stared at as if I was a dead woman walking, from a time in the distant future who has died and come back. Is it the ugg sandals (like Birkenstocks of yuppies) or my curly hair (which every other girl straightens and dyes blonde in these parts...)

Later, Courtney and I sit on the roof of her Jeep and look out at the clay dirt in the night sky that has been kicked up by the homemade cars that are going in circles.

Sometimes I forget where I live. Sometimes we all forget what our country is composed of. Regardless, we all need to remember that somewhere in farm town USA, on any given friday in June, there are car races that are keeping these communities from boredom and keeping America a family affair.

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. 

Sisters and Shish--Ankara Means Family

Ankara is not a beautiful place. Anyone from Istanbul will be the first to tell you that. In fact, some call it down right hot, ugly, stately, stuck up, and an inorganic city that sprang out of no where to become capital for Ataturk (hey, each empire had a different capital, Seljuks--Konya, Ottomans--Bursa/Istanbul, Atatruk--Ankara). 

That said, there was definitely something beautiful in going to Ankara for me this weekend. I.E. my sister Gabrielle. I learned a few things about what it meant to live in a family again--and how my life (i.e. me) has changed so much in the past year. 

Friday morning, I got into Ankara. Thankfully, Murat picked me up at the bus terminal. We had a serious breakfast overlooking the Bosphorus of cars on a new highway. Many old or little houses were springing up in between the ugly new apartment buildings--illegal, but then they become legal when they vote for a politician. Welcome to Ankara. 

If you thought party politics were insane in the US, look at Turkey. Military coups have erupted after party conflict (most recently in the early 80s) and even today, people go to Universities or clubs based on party lines. According to Taner--Gabbi's Turkish/Australian host father--these party lines infiltrate the schools. All coming from this all holy structure called the Turkish Grand National Assembly.

I visited the Assembly on Friday with Murat, a Political Advisor friend to one of the MPs. The building looked like something out of 1984--very stately and Ataturk was everywhere, watching. It felt much like a consuming building and the lawn care was wild and lacking (grass up to my ankles...) but that aside, I found the main assembly chamber fascinating. There was so much bustling about--and that is an understatement when it comes to Gossip. Each MP's advisor gave me the low down about lazy tea guys (yes, there are "cay" or tea kitchens--at least two on every floor) or who is dating who. I felt like I was in "The Office," Turkish edition.  I could go on and on about the state of Turkish politics, but somehow, just turn on your favorite political show--add some crazy architecture--and then add Turkish and tea et voila. 

Later, Gabbi and I met up at her Turkish American Cultural Center. Gabbi, my younger 16 year old sister (or 17 according to Turkish people- you count the first year here. So i'm... 20!!!!!!), is studying with the State Department's National Strategic Language Initiative---the thing I did in Cairo last year. She is living with a fabulous host family of 3 sisters, a mum, and a dad--plus a grandmother who went to visit family in Australia. Her host father grew up mostly in Australia, in many ways avoiding the political conflicts that plagued the country during the times he was growing up in Ankara. It was absolutely warming to hear him speak with an Aussie accent. Though the daughters (17, 14, and 7 or so) spoke mainly Turkish, when they did speak in English, it had a fabulous Aussie Accent. They also took milk in their tea--a first for any Turk I have seen here.

But aside from going around and doing some shopping for pants, shoes, and books, I got a taste of family life again. Aside from my faux pax of not taking my shoes off at the threshold of the door or not knowing how to properly kiss the great-grandmother's hand when she came over (or not know where to dispose of my feminine .... ahem), I think I got along alright with typical Turkish culture. That aside, it was the family dynamic itself that threw me off. I guess after living with a bunch of "young" people without older adults or children, I had gotten rusty with what a mixed generation household felt like. It felt warming, comforting, loving. Yet also, slower, more orderly and much more routined. I had forgotten that when I was a kid in a household, I too had duties assigned by my parents. Now, I clean or have "duties" when the duties demand (looking at some dishes right now... meh.) Her host family (and my "adopted family") had a lovely home with a small bird and the Obama Chia Pet Gabbi brought. It was clean and pristine to the max. Everything was orderly. It was a household for people who knew what was important and necessary in life. 

We are great Americans. Gabbi and I went to Ataturk's memorial on the 4th of July. I must say, seeing something like that makes me proud to be the Turk that I am not. The architecture was novel, epic, and "other" on so many planes. It had neither time nor historical reference, yet it was a monument to all of the achievements that lay buried beneath the dirt in Ankara from centuries past. We also went to dinner with Murat in an old citadel, which offered an amazing view--making jokes about food, the view, and life in general. 

People often ask me if I get lonely when I'm traveling abroad or living alone. The answer is a resounding YES. I do. Its only natural. No matter how close of friends I make, they will never know me quite as long as my sister has. Gabbi was such a refresher to me. She put my life into perspective again in a single weekend. No one but family, and particularly a sister can do that for you. I enjoyed and needed the warmth of a family, the hug from my sister, and even the concern from my "adopted" parents for a weekend. I felt incredibly at home and could not have thanked them enough for their hospitality. The sometimes smothering inclusivity of family is something that I miss at times.  Granted, as much as I liked revisiting this lifestyle, I was not terribly upset at going back to my flat. I liked seeing that my sister and I were adaptable and could continue our relationship cross countries, continents, and ages. It made me confident to know that I don't have to be lonely. 

Granted, I am happy to have close friends abroad, like Murat, who is so incredibly kind and hospitable--and an AMAZING chef I need to learn from. We had an excellent BBQ on sunday with Shish, Kofte, chicken, potato salad, beer, and raki. I was, as usual, the youngest in a near 30 crowd, but never fear. I laughed with the best of them and had an excellent time seeing another kind of Turkish house--those of retired diplomats. Their house honestly could have been a museum of global culture. Granted, some of the peanuts where probably many years old... Thanks for the warning Murat. 

So now that I am back home, thanks to some friends making sure I got on the bus, I truly miss that family feeling of homely hospitality. The hospitality Murat and Gabbi's host family showed was amazing and the love and familiarity of my sister (who though the same, is always showing new developments and knowledge--keeping life exciting!) made me recharged. After going so hard for literally... well... since JANUARY with work, planning, study, networking, and programming, this weekend really put my life into perspective and really got me to appreciate family on a level I never really have before. Its a quiet appreciation (though I vocalize it here), and sometimes makes me a little melancholy. Something tightens for something past or future. 

I'm going on and on, but I also realized that some things you cannot post on a blog. I started journaling more again (ergo fewer blog posts), realizing the importance of placing my more sincere, spontaneous, poetic, or secretive feelings on paper. 

Enough of this. Good night. I'll talk to you tomorrow about my refugee visit yesterday and my future plans for Diyarbakir and Kosovo in the upcoming weekends.