Turkish Delight

This piece was originally written for Baedeker Travel Magazine at NYU. It was completed on November 4th, 2015. I refrained from publishing it until I heard back from Baedeker on whether or not they would publish it. However, at this point I don’t really know what is going on with them so I decided to just publish it on my own blog. Enjoy.

 

When I first set out to write this piece I envisioned it going a different way. I wanted to write a story that talked about the Turkish people and how welcoming they are, in an attempt to dispel the notion that it is unsafe to travel to non-white European countries, Muslim countries in particular. I wanted to write about the Istanbul that I experienced, a bright city propelled by its aims at modernism but still holding on to the age old traditions that distinguish its rich culture. I wanted to share my appreciation for architectural wonders like Aya Sophia and the Blue Mosque and my admiration for the thought provoking and well-curated works at Istanbul Modern. I wanted to write about the people I encountered and the small interactions I had that reaffirmed my belief that Turkey and its people were worth getting to know.

And then, someone broke into my Airbnb in the middle of the night and stole my precious phone, camera, and money.

I would be lying if I said getting my stuff stolen didn’t sour my opinion of the country. In fact, for a brief moment it made me hate Turkey and it made me feel guilty for not listening to the many warnings of friends and family who implored me not to go. I felt cheated by this city that I had wanted to love but that left me with little more than a broken heart and several boxes of Turkish delight. But Turkey was not done with me.

On my flight back to Paris almost as if by divine intervention, I sat next to Ilhan, a Turkish man who sensing my sadness, did everything in his power to make cheer me up. He listened to my unfortunate tale with sad understanding eyes, nodding his head along in sympathy and giving me advice on how to get some sort of justice. He pulled out a fragrant bag filled with home made Turkish pastries and gave me half of them, refusing to take no for an answer. When the airhostess came by with a cart of drinks for sale, he insisted on buying me “something to ease my troubles”. Ilhan asked me about my family and told me about his and treated me as if I were of his own flesh and blood. His kindness made me forget about the electronics that were no longer in my possession and focused my attention on the trip itself. My thoughts began to flashback to some of the more pleasantly memorable pieces of our trip and the people that made them important in the simplest ways.

Our days always began with a traditional sesame pretzel from a quaint little red cart in Taksim square. The pretzels themselves were nothing out of this world, but they were cheap, and the man who sold them to us was taken with our politeness and our attempts to communicate with him despite the fact that we didn’t speak Turkish and he didn’t speak a single drop of English. Given that we were continually thanking him in place of having an actual conversation, he attempted to teach us how to say teşekkür ederim, thank you, in Turkish. We continually failed, and he continued patiently teaching us, smirking every time we butchered it and smiling triumphantly when we finally got it right.

Then I remembered the day we attempted to get into Topkapi Palace for a second time using our museum card. We weren’t aware of the fact that you could only use your card once to get in and the guard apologetically said there was nothing he could do. However, upon explaining to him that we hadn’t had the chance to see the Harem, his demeanor instantly became charged with the desire to share with us the treasures of his country. He asked us to stand to one side while he talked to his superiors about what he could do to let us in. His superiors simply said that we were out of luck. But the guard waited until they weren’t looking and asked one of his tour guide buddies to scan his own pass, which deactivates the doors so people on a tour can go through. The guard simply winked at us as he ushered us through, clearly proud that he had helped us out but not making a big show of it or expecting any sort of compensation. He was seemed simply glad to share his patrimony.

Finally, I thought of the day when we were exploring Iztiklal Caddesi, a popular shopping street in the modern part of the city. As we were waiting to cross the street, a group of young guys came up to my friends and I and asked in English if we were from Istanbul because they needed help getting somewhere. We simply responded that we were also dumbfounded tourists and any attempt at helping them with directions would probably end up getting them more lost. Upon hearing our inability to help, a Turkish man who was just standing by quickly turned around and offered his help. He gave the guys some directions and even outlined the path on the map they had. I was astonished at the fact that this random person had no hesitation to help even when they didn’t directly ask him. This however, seems to be very common in Istanbul. I myself had many random people intervene on my behalf while trying to buy something or trying to negotiate cab fare. To me these were great acts of altruism, but all the people who advocated for me simply brushed it off, replying that since they had the ability to help, they should.

As I remembered all of these selfless people, I began to smile widely, attracting the attention of Ilhan who nudged me and said, “I’m glad to see you’re not so sad anymore.”

Ilhan was right, I wasn’t sad anymore. The anger at having lost my personal possessions dissipated with my remembrance of all the good times I had in Turkey. I realized I still loved my trip to Istanbul. I still thought it was worthwhile and I was definitely glad I had gone. Having my things stolen made me take a step back and really analyze my entire trip. But after all I realized that that really terrible moment couldn’t overshadow my whole memory of Istanbul. I couldn’t judge the entire country on the actions of one individual.

This realization really emphasized the idea that I originally wanted to explore in this piece. As westerners, and especially as part of the population affected by 9/11 and its aftermath, it seems we have become hardened to Muslim nations. Sometimes subconsciously, other times more overtly, a lot of us try distance ourselves from Arab nations and people out of fear. As a society we often generalize the acts of this or that radical group to a whole people or a whole body of believers. I myself am guilty of thinking in this way after being personally wronged but after analyzing my reaction I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t being fair.

I was hesitant to go to Istanbul, I was told explicitly not to go by people I trust. I personally had a bad experience there. But I also had a lot of good experiences. The people I met, the food I enjoyed, and the beautiful art I saw made me fall in love with Turkey. I have a good reason to not go back and to dismiss the country as dangerous. But the truth is, I still want to go back. There is danger everywhere, there is crime everywhere, but ultimately, crimes are rare instances committed by bad people.

So forget your hesitations. Go to Istanbul or Bogota, or Mexico City or whatever place you’re missing out on because you’ve been scared away. I for one will not stop recommending Istanbul as a travel destination. The peace that befalls the city after a long prayer call and the succulent baklava on every corner are more than enough incentive for me to make the long trek back to Turkey as soon as possible. Besides, as Ilhan pointed out, I have to go back and recapture all those photos I lost.

Istanbul, Turkey/ Paris, France

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A Girl Defends Her City

Tupac and Biggie might have taken it a little far with their coast-y love but I get it. It’s important to represent your turf. It’s not easy living in a city. Living in a huge metropolis is not as simple and glamorous as Gossip Girl and Friends make it seem-it’s expensive, it’s cramped, it’s dirty and oftentimes, as one of thousands of people, you feel anonymous and unimportant. Still there’s a reason cities are so appealing and people from Sinatra to Kendrick sing their praises. People work hard to get the chance to move to big places like LA, New York, Paris, London, etc. (and they work even harder to stay). So when you do live in a dreamy city and you can still love it despite all the crap that comes with it, you can’t help but develop a certain sense of pride for your city.

I am so proud to live in New York. I am all about that concrete jungle where dreams are made of (or wet dream tomatoes, gotta work on that enunciation Alicia). I would wear those gaudy “I ❤ New York” t-shirts 24/7 if they didn’t make me look like a lame tourist. In short, New York is BAE (I hate myself for using that phrase, but it’s true). Now that I am living in Paris, and especially post-November 13^th attacks, I am also extremely proud to live in this city. I have to hold back from doing the t-shirt equivalent and constantly wear a beret. So when my mom came to visit me in Paris this past week, I was stoked to show her just how cool Paris is.

Of course while I planned a brilliant let-me-get-you-to-fall-in-love-with-Paris itinerary I kind of forgot that my mom isn’t a huge city fanatic like I am. In fact, she’s not a city person at all. She doesn’t like museums, she doesn’t care for architecture, she has no interest in history, she is anti-walking fast, and she most definitely is not down with rats (the nerve!). I planned to cram the 6 days my mom would be here with everything pretty and Parisian and she was having none of it. Notre Dame was meh. The top of the Eiffel Tower was too high for her. And the Louvre, oh the Louvre. She didn’t even want to take a picture with the damn pyramid like a normal tourist. She was more interested by the fact that straight men kiss each other on the cheek here than any of the world-famous pieces at the Louvre. I was frankly offended.

First of all I couldn’t believe how little interest my mom showed in any of the activities and places that are so quintessentially Parisian. As someone who loves to travel and see new cultures it baffled me that she didn’t really care to experience anything that makes Paris and its people unique,The world renowned museums that Paris is home to and the history that is contained in its walls meant absolutely nothing to her. The only thing that captivated her attention was shopping, which we did endlessly. What bothered me the most is how little she valued being in Paris. To a lot of people coming to Paris is a dream and to my mom it seemed more like something she just decided to do because, why not?

This isn’t the first time my mom dissed my city, she showed the same level of disinterest (and disgust) when she went to New York. All she did was complain the entire time she was there. Ay Sammy, why do you like to live in such a small room? Sammy it smells like urine everywhere. Sammy I don’t know why you like to ride the subway-it’s so dirty. Sammy why are you walking so fast? You would think I was living in the middle of a dump, not a large cosmopolitan city, from all the comments she made. I was so angry at how she reduced New York to nothing more than a dirty city. I mean she’s right, it does smell like urine everywhere, but it’s NEW YORK, I’ll take a little pee on the sidewalk over not living there any day.

The truth is, I love the cities that I live in and to me they are amazing so it’s always hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that other people don’t like my cities as much as I do. In fact, I can barely understand the concept of people not wanting to live in a city (where else are you supposed to live? The countryside?) I love big cities because they’re fast paced and exhilarating and there is always something to do. But I forget that those are precisely the reasons why people don’t like them. New York especially is a place that I’ve heard many Texans scoff at and dismiss as “somewhere they would never want to live.” It always takes everything in me because to not make some wise ass remark about how they couldn’t handle it anyway, because how dare they not value NYC as a place to live.

But the thing is, even though I love New York and Paris and all their big city pals, even I sometimes find myself thinking I may not want to be a city girl forever. I see articles about how married couples have to get roommates because their combined income just doesn’t cut it for rent. I watch as moms in the subway struggle to awkwardly get their strollers up the endless steps out onto the street. I work with kindergartners who don’t know the joy of running around in their own back yard and have to walk all the way to a local park to get the feel of some grass under their feet. Even worse, I see old people get bumped and pushed around as busy city dwellers fly off to their next appointment. I see all this and even I think sometimes, why would anyone want to live here? So I guess every once in a while I do have to put aside my tremendous pride of big cities and recognize that they aren’t exactly the warm homey places that some people need to live in and they are definitely not for everyone. I have to think that just like some people could never see themselves living in a big city, there is no way in hell I could ever live in a small town. A place where you actually know your neighbors (and they know everything about you)? Fuggedaboutit.

Who knows, maybe some day I’ll get tired of hopping along from big city to big city. Maybe some day I’ll move to a (slightly) smaller city and be ok with not having great museums and bars all over the place. But that’s not gonna happen for a looooonggg time. In the meantime I’ll keep repping the East side (and Paris) and you can be sure to find me at the Louvre.

Paris, France

The Town Best Organized For A Writer to Write In

Paris is iconic. As an icon it has many smaller icons, petites images that the mind automatically gravitates towards when you think of the famous city. Many people hear Paris and bring to mind the Eiffel tower, berets, croissants and macarons and the Mona Lisa (which I find ironic given that the lady hails from Italy). But for more literary minds, Paris may just conjure up chic little cafés filled with posh wine-drinking-cigarette-smoking people.

To the people who were lucky enough to be exposed to the equally iconic characters of The Lost Generation, Paris is a symbolic space for creation and one of the most important places where this creation takes place is in cafés. No author makes the case for cafés as beacons of creativity as much as Hemingway. His books are packed with vivid scenes of cafés; his memoirs make clear that these are the places where some his most memorable works took their first breath.

It should come as no surprise then that as a lover of words, I expected Paris to become for me that creative space that was so coveted by Hemingway and company. I expected to be driven almost as if by some otherworldly force to the perfect café that would let the pen from my ink flow and deliver line after line of pure, brilliant writing. This of course, is asking too much of a city and its rather mundane cafés but I did at least expect to find a café that would provide an adequate space to work and so far no café has provided what I need. Hemingway set the bar high for cafés and Paris has not backed up his claims. Maybe Paris has stopped catering to creativity and begun catering to tourists instead (seems reasonable given the overpriced menu that no Parisian in their right mind would dare to waste money on). Regardless, cafés and creativity are two things that do not seem to exist in harmony in this city.

If cafés were ever the places for the free flow of ideas, that is no longer the case. Cafés are much too social here. Even if you sit inside to stay away from the temptation of people watching that is so natural on a sidewalk table, you cannot work. Cafés have become meeting points where people get together, have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine accompanied by some mediocre food (which is really the same in just about any café you walk into) and exchange a few words to catch each other up on every day topics. Of course, Hemingway never described his cafés, as being devoid of food and conversation but this all seemed to be more an afterthought in his cafés, secondary to work and drinks. I don’t have a problem with food in cafés-even starving artists have to eat- but it is so hard to actually get any work done when everyone around you is having such an effortless time. Which brings me to my next point, doing work in cafés is the perfect way to ostracize yourself.

People don’t work in Parisian cafés, they just don’t. The person sitting off in a corner scribbling away on a little notebook is the focal point of everyone’s stares. They are not friendly stares either; people watch you contemptuously, they whisper about you, they purse their lips at you, probably in an attempt to hold back some bitter comments. And don’t even think about whipping out a laptop, you might as well just walk yourself to a guillotine because computers in café s are the ultimate act of heresy. Not only that but wifi in a Parisian café is a luxury, not a given. If you need to type anything or research anything, you might as well just stay home. Computers and wifi of course were not concerns for Hemingway but given the way our world works, to writers they are almost on the same level of importance as a pen and paper and barred access to these necessities is really stifling.

At first I thought I was just not finding the right cafés. I thought by some sad tourist intuition I kept wandering into cafés aimed to please passerby whose loftiest goal is to have a croque monsieur to get the full “Parisian experience.” But I have searched far and wide. I’ve toured the 5^th and the 6^th and the 9^th and the 13^th and even the 17^th and every café has been the same, its only distinguishing feature being the color of its awning. I’ve even wandered into Hemingway’s old haunts but of course they’re nothing but commodities now. The Closerie des Lilas is a bourgeois bore and Les Deux Magots is nothing more than an overpriced restaurant where the cheapest dish is 14 €. Now a day you can’t even count on Hemingway’s personal recommendations.

Ironically the only café’s that I’ve found which are conducive to producing actual work have been cafés that seem ripped straight out of a SoHo or Williamsburg street. These cafés are so American that they generally come equipped with a full English speaking staff and even serve such New York delicacies as bagels and gluten free/vegan snacks. Of course, I’ll take whatever I can get as far as a good workspace where I don’t look like a freak with my laptop out. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel cheated. I figured that café culture would exist here just as much as it does in New York but in a more romantic Parisian fashion. I imagined myself sitting on a sidewalk table, the warm sun on my face, beautiful Parisian people passing by with baguettes in their bags, the sound of clinking cups in the background-but the reality does not include sun and baguettes and clinking cups. My reality does include writing, but in a place far less reminiscent of the romantic Parisian café Hemingway created for me.

*Title taken from A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Paris, France

La Joconde, Much Coveted

Today I saw the Mona Lisa. But I didn’t actually see her. What I really mean to say is, today I was in the presence of the Mona Lisa. That’s all you can do really, be in the presence of it. There’s no such thing as actually seeing the Mona Lisa, not when there’s tourists involved-and in this city there always are. Let me describe what a trip to see that famous gal really entails.

I walked into the room where she is housed, by chance really, thank God I didn’t set aside time specifically to see her. It was a stunning room, not as lavish as some of the showstoppers in the Louvre but stunningly dressed with luxurious paintings by this and that famous painter (not that anyone in the room actually cared). I walked slowly around the room, stopping every now and then to admire the works that really caught my eye. I read a few plaques here and there while mentally preparing to dive into the obnoxious glob of tourists crowding Mona. After seeing basically everything else there was to see, I decided to finally play tourist.

One: good thing about going to see the Mona Lisa, you literally cannot miss her. Mona, she’s a petite little beauty, but the huge swarm of buzzing tourists crowding around her like a hoard of famished animals ready to pounce is kinda hard to miss. People are squeezed into this small roped off section, which just exacerbates the whole animalistic feel of the visit and makes you wonder if you’re at a world-renowned museum or a zoo. Tourists push, shove, and fight to make their way to the front as if Lisa could at any point materialize into a real person, grow some legs, and walk off somewhere less hellish. I honestly wouldn’t blame her.

Anyway, after being bumped, bruised and elbowed in the boobs a few times (being 5’3” has many disadvantages), I finally made my way up to the front. And for what?

Once I made my way up to “the front” -the front being the little crevice between the heads of two different Asian tourists taking various peace-signed selfies- I wasn’t anywhere near enough to actually appreciate this thing that everyone calls a masterpiece. Even if I had been at the front there would have been no way to appreciate the painting. Mona was barricaded behind a wooden barrier protecting her from peasant paws by keeping them a safe three feet away. A sad and murky sheet of bulletproof glass veiled the painting itself. This massive protective shield ironically made Mona seem insignificant. To tell you the truth, Mona looked like nothing but a blur, a little hiccup of history overshadowed by camera happy tourists, screaming unamused kids, and general chaos

After about two minutes, I had to get out.

I wondered how long it had actually been since someone had actually looked at the Mona Lisa, not snapped a selfie, not glanced for five seconds, not fought other people to get to the front of the line and claim the empty honor of having seen the Mona Lisa but actually looked at her and appreciated her for what she really is. I wondered when the last time was that someone had stood in front of her and had a thought other than “my friends will be so jealous” or “can’t wait to put this on Instagram.”

This inability to actually look at famous works of art is not new to me; it’s one of the struggles of living in a city with a lot of tourists and really important works. The inability to see the Mona Lisa in Paris is the same as the inability to see Van Gogh’s Starry night in New York. It’s sad that these works have such a celerity status that people who actually value art can’t look at what is considered to be some of the best art. I would like to go to The Louvre and have a good look at the Mona Lisa. I would like to have the ability to scrutinize her and decide for myself if I actually think this is a masterpiece rather than just believe it because people say it is so and because of all her groupies. I’m sure it’s been too long since any one could look at her and wonder about her ambiguous face and what she was thinking. But I think this is the sad fate that these bright stars have been condemned to, a superficial level of admiration. I doubt the barricades and bulletproof glass will ever disappear.

Paris, France

The Burden of Choice

In psychology there’s a field called existential psychology. One of its core beliefs is that our mental experiences are directly affected by our freedom to choose and the choices we do and don’t make. Rollo May, a major researcher in this field, believed our biggest source of anxiety is the fact that there are literally infinite choices we could make and because of this we are afraid that whatever choice we make will be the wrong one, and what’s more, will keep us from making other choices that would have made us happier. In other words, we get freaked out because we are constantly wondering, what if?

As you most likely know, if you are in fact human and not a supercomputer reading my blog, this constant threat of “what if” is very much present in our daily lives. In fact, it is so much a part of being human that my acronym-happy generation has stripped Dr.May’s concept of all dignity and eloquently renamed it FOMO. For those of you not keeping up with the cool kids, this acronym translates to Fear Of Missing Out.

Now I, being human (and a painfully intense over-achiever) have most definitely experienced FOMO. This phenomenon is especially prevalent when you live in big happening cities like New York where there are endless opportunities to experience life and conversely, endless opportunities to miss out. FOMO is such a huge part of my life that it even gives me anxiety attacks when I go grocery shopping. Should I buy the coconut Greek yogurt? But what if it isn’t as good as strawberry? What will my life become if I miss out on that Boston Cream Pie one?!

You see the problem?

But in all seriousness, FOMO is a constant when it comes to me. However, never have I experienced Fear of Missing Out more than now that I am in Europe. This is the most first world problem, (brace yourself) but I have no idea what to do here. I want to travel, but I also want to stay in Paris. I want to know a plethora of different countries but I also want to know every arrondissement in this stinkin’ place. I want to be incessantly aware of how single I am in Cinque Terre, but I also want to party and forget it in Amsterdam. Being here is stressful because I want to do it all, and for once money is not an issue (wow, I’ve never said that before). But of course, I don’t have all the time in the world-especially if I want to do well in my classes and not fail out of my excruciatingly expensive school. So I’m panicking, constantly making travel plans and rearranging them, calling my friends for advice, asking my host parents in my broken French what they would do, etc.

The point is, I feel an enormous amount of pressure to choose the right places and do the most fun things and have the best time. Because who knows when I’ll be in Europe again. Who knows if the euro will increase in value and little poor me will never get the chance to roam the cobbled streets of Italy? It’s daunting to say the least.

There’s comfort in knowing that I’m not the only one who suffers from FOMO. The halls at NYU Paris are teeming with excited whispers of future plans and polite envy conveyed with the usual I wish I had time to do that! Not being alone is good, but of course, pain in numbers does not the pain reduce. It also doesn’t help that Social Media is a thing, quite literally a living-breathing thing that influences our lives wayyyy more than it should (a topic that merits its own blog post). Thanks to Social Media the doubt is always augmented. Will my plans be as fun as theirs? Will I have made the best choice? What if I’m missing out on something?

I could make my FOMO go away. I could just relax, take it day by day and be a little more open to the unknown (this will never happen, I have “no chill”). I could just not care, make a choice and stick with it. But then again, what if?

I’m not gonna end this with some insightful example of how I succeeded at life and overcame my fear of missing out because I have no example to offer. The truth is I’ve committed, I’ve bought tickets and booked hostels and done the whole shebang and I’m still biting my nails over the possibility that I made the wrong choices. But in the end, I’m just a little 5’3” Mexican girl and there’s only so much I can do with my allotted time here-and that’s ok. At least that’s what I tell myself. If anything I’m using my anxiety as inspiration to some day come back and see everything I didn’t see (and surely come up with another FOMO-fueled list of things I have left to do). Let’s face it, the FOMO will never go away, but my time in Europe is fleeting so I may as well cram as much as I can into it and make the most of my time here.

Paris, France