(Ankara as a city isn't that interesting, so it's no loss. After the country was restructured in the 1920's, the capital was moved to this small town and built almost from scratch. It's a pretty standard city.)
Tonight a few friends and I took the metro to Kiliray, the student friendly strip. There's a pedestrian road there, with trees and street vendors selling socks and mix CDs (as in, these men created a playlist and are now selling it on the street. These guys don't even have GEDs, but by golly they're doing what they love). My friends and I stopped at a cafe and hookah lounge, where we happened to be celebrities.
Our waiter's name transliterates to Chari (I can't find the Turkish alphabet online - it may be banned, just like YouTube). Chari looked like a Turkish Robert Downey, Jr., and had a particularly Eurasian haircut that was business in the front, party foul in the back. He spoke less English than I speak Turkish ("thank you," "hello," "goodbye," "give me the weapon"), but when he wasn't serving customers he kept returning to our table to massage my shoulders, and saying, "very handsome, very handsome." He brought others waiters by our table, one by one, and even had the bar's entertainment, a musician on a elaborate guitar, play me a song (I'm not sure what Chari said, but the guitarist stopped his current song, started a new one, and stared at me long enough that I had to leave to use the restroom. When I got back, the guitarist was still looking at my empty chair).
I need to clarify that I wasn't looking too handsome. Since I've left for Turkey, I haven't done much in the way of showering. I don't shave and I even had a Fulbrighter, during one of our business dress seminars, say, "You like to keep it casual, don't you?" You should see my sweatpants, I replied with my mind. He was too freaked out by my telepathy to respond.
Chari's antics attracted the attention of a table of twentysomethings, guys playing backgammon, which is the official old person game here in Turkey. They would occassionally stare at our table; I would try not to look, though we locked eyes once. I waved, though I wasn't brave enough to say anything. The last cafe I was at, when I left I yelled, "Merehaba!" What my then waiter heard was "HELLO!" which could also mean "WHAT A GIANT TOOL I AM!"
Eventually, the table exchanged words with Chari, and after a few mime motions I figured out that they wanted to watch me smoke hookah. Like any well-rounded, confident young man I immediately became self conscious and tried to give away the hookah mouthpiece, but one of the table-sitters got out of his chair and actually put it to my lips. As I drew in a breath, they all watched silently. I began to exhale, and felt an itch in my throat that had been there the whole night. As I began to think, "Exhale slowly and act like an angry action star," my organs replied "NEVER! And stay out of my head" and I began to cough uncontrollably.
A good portion of the patio began to laugh, and I have come to suspect that the word handsome probably means moron in Turkish.
A similar thing happened to me once. However I was in Hungary, and I was in a bar, and instead of people staring at me, they made a point to turn their backs to me. When they brought us our appetizers, (well what should have been an appetizer.) a drink called. (drink name) Everyone turned to see what would happen. My plan was to become invisible, but the longer I sat there the more people lost interest. When everyone had given up on anything exciting happening i deftly poured my drink into our drivers Coke... I later found out it was alcohol.
ReplyDeleteI tell you this story, not because it shares any resemblance to yours, but because I felt that if I was to comment at all it would have to be with a story, and also to tell you that I really like reading your blog.