Thursday, January 12, 2006

International Ataturk!

So, I'm sitting in an airport right now. (I know, I know, it's kind of like a vampire going to mass, but here I am.) I'm waiting for Ron, whose flight has been delayed a couple of hours due to the HORRIBLE PERVERSION OF GRAVITY THAT IS AIR TRAVEL... Or weather...

Emily's beside me, reading about the bird flu. Apparently there are 11 suspected cases in Istanbul right now, but that's probably not correct for 2 reasons: 1) Right now it's Kurban Bayram, which is kind of like Christmas. People are visiting their relatives, and probably more inclined to wait until after Bayram to go to the hospital. 2) Right now it's Kurban Bayram, which is kind of like Rambo. People are slaughtering sheep and cows by the thousands in designated "slaughter zones," which one would think would quickly become breeding grounds of disease, bird flu and otherwise. The WHO assures us that there is still no human to human transmission. As long as you don't play with chicken heads (not uncommon, two children have already died from this), or have sex with chickens (not common, but hey... it happens), you shouldn't be at risk.

On an interesting side note, apparently in one of the eastern villiages, a man had sex with his neighbor's chicken, so the neighbor shot and killed him. Of course, it was a terrible tragedy. The police came, whisked the neighbor off, and... gave him a pat on the back. That's right, the neighbor was heralded as a hero for protecting his village from the bird flu. Go figure.

In any event, I'm not so worried about the bird flu. Of course, I've been shying away from pigeons lately, but my daily life is pretty much not affected. However, if they give the official human to human transmission call, I'm heading north to Siberia a bit early.

In other news, I went to Greece last month. Alexandroupolis. A little port city, 44 km from the Turkish border. Unfortunately, it was St. Something-or-Other's day, so everything was closed, other than the liquor stores. Oh, yeah, it felt good to be back in Europe, where they have their priorities straight! Actually, it was nice to be there for a couple of days. Parks. Clean streets. Quiet. However, it was pretty boring. We sipped horrendously overpriced Cappuccinos with the nouveau riche EU citizens, and gawked at the identity-less little town, which could easily have been a trendy holiday villiage in Northern Michigan. Has capitalist cultural egalitarianism really spread this far? And is the EU nothing more than a willing vessel?

Well, the point is, when I returned to Istanbul, I found out exactly how much I appreciated it. It's dirty, crooked, polluted, and often infurating, but, damnit, it's got character. As our hotel train wound through the suburbs, and I was stuffing the pillows, blankets, and ashtrays into my luggage (Hey, it's everybody for himself in this country), I felt like I was coming home. And that my bed would be a lot more comfortable....

This feeling was intensified after Thomas, my old roomate from Prague, visited last week. He came down for about 12 days, over Christmas and New Years (which the Turks call Christmas. Interestingly enough, they have lights, trees, and all the trappings that come with Christmas, but they celebrate it on December 31st, and it has nothing to do with anything. Many of them don't even know who Christ was, and Santa Claus, who was actually born in Turkey, doesn't even appear on their Coca-Cola products in December!)

During that time, Em and I got to be the hosts and tour guides, and as a result, we had to condense all the pleasant things in Istanbul into 2 weeks, and to keep Thomas away from the discomforts. As a result, we realized that we really do love this city... At least, parts of it. Istanbul just isn't as immediately appreciable as Prague, Paris, or London. It takes time to grow on you, infect you, cover you in a thin, but strikingly visible, layer of grime, then weasel its tentacle-like ovaries inside you and lay its eggs, at which point you become a carrier, showing no symptoms, but capable of infecting others...

Come visit me in Istanbul....

It's wonderful....

We all float down here...