I chose to live slightly dangerously, staying in Turkey all the way through the 90th day of my visa. I counted and counted and recounted until I was sure that January 25th was the 90th day after October 28th, when I arrived. Once I was confident enough in that, I booked my plane ticket to Sofia for January 25th. Had some issue arisen that caused me to miss my flight, I might have been in a very tight spot indeed. But I had paid rent through the 28th, and I wanted to waste as little of it as possible.

I got to the airport without issue a few hours before my flight, checked in, and then proceeded to passport control. I gave the man at the counter my passport and tried to act casual as he flipped through it looking for my visa sticker. He found it and immediately froze, leaned back in his seat, and started counting numbers on his fingers. After a moment he collected himself and looked up before rattling off a sentence in Turkish.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t speak Turkish. Do you speak English?”

He looked at me for a moment. “You do not speak Turkish?” I nodded. “Well, Mr. Schupack, what have you been doing in Turkey?”

“An academic project,” I answered.

He looked at me doubtfully. “Do you have any documentation?” I thought for a moment, and then remembered a Watson Fellowship ID card I had been carrying in my wallet for six months. It was faded and scratched, and hadn’t looked particularly impressive to begin with. I pulled it out and handed it to him, and he looked at it briefly before handing it back. “Do you have any official, TURKISH documentation? A residency permit?”

“No,” I answered, “I don’t.”

“Well isn’t that in-ter-es-ting?” he asked. I didn’t reply but looked very intently at a curiously deep crease midway up his forehead. After an awkward silence he continued. “And what was your project about?”

If ever there was a time when I didn’t want to try to explain and justify that I have been funded to spend a year studying board game cultures, it was then.

“Turkish culture,” I answered.

He sneered. “You’ve been in Turkey for 90 days studying Turkish culture, and you don’t speak Turkish?”

I nodded meekly, recognizing that his condescension might actually have been justified. He continued to look at me.

“Well isn’t that interesting? I hope you have a good flight…Mr. Schupack.”

Trotsky's former home in exile, on the island of Buyukada off the coast of Istanbul.

Boat docks on the Bosphorus at dusk.

Knowing that I would have visitors in January, I have largely restrained myself from visiting Istanbul’s major sites so as to avoid going to, say, the Hagia Sophia three different times. My first visitor, Linda, was in town for the first week of January, which we began with a whirlwind day trip to the ruins of Ephesus and the nearby touristy town, Selçuk. We began by briefly wandering through the narrow pedestrian-only streets of Selçuk. Almost immediately my attention was drawn to a small display of traditional Turkish backgammon boards outside of a shop. After months of resisting buying boards in every country I’ve visited, I had begun to feel tempted by some of the backgammon boards I had seen in Istanbul, and was open to the possibility of buying one. Of the boards on display, however, none caught my eye, and we prepared to leave. Just then an employee came out.

Just outside the gates of Ephesus.

“You’re interested in the backgammon boards?” he asked.
“No thanks–just looking,” I replied, and we kept walking away.
“If you beat me you can have one,” he called after us. As we walked on the weight of his words slowly sank in.
“Jesse,” Linda finally said, “you just turned down the chance to play backgammon with a Turkish man. We have to go back.”

After dodging a few more harassing salesmen we returned to the first store and feigned interest in the wares on display. This time the only worker was the store keeper, who introduced himself as Ali as he ushered us inside the shop.

The Library of Celsus, Ephesus

He insisted that we drink tea with him, using the opportunity to discuss the state of his profession. Other shopkeepers, we were told, sell craftsmanship of the second quality at prices that he, as a salesman of crafts of only the highest quality, cannot compete with.

“They wrote an article about me in the newspaper,” he suddenly said. “This woman, from the government, she came and visited…” he trailed off as he went into the back room to fetch something. He came back with a crinkled newspaper opened to a page in the middle. “She came and she saw my shop and she wrote about it,” he continued, gesturing to the picture of himself at the top of article. “She said she wishes that every shop was like my shop.” He continued to describe the infelicities suffered be a vendor of true craftsmanship. “Other people, they think it’s okay to bargain,” he said, “but you see everything in my shop has a price. I am honest.” We nodded along, dropping empathetic comments at appropriate moments. As he concluded his disquisition he asked if there was anything I might be interested in looking at samples of. I hesitated, unsure of what I might be getting myself into. “Well,” I finally allowed, “I do like backgammon.”

Ali’s eyes lit up. “Of course,” he said, and he began pulling board after board from a shelf and laying them out in a line on the counter. The busy array of multi variegated mosaics was dizzying, and none quite matched my aesthetic tastes. “How much are these?” I asked, stepping further into the dungeon. “Well, my friend, like I said, I am honest. Other people bargain, but in my shop,” he said, repeating his mantra from earlier, “everything has a price on it. These ones–” he pointed to the largest boards, “these are 250 liras.” He indicated the sticker to that effect. “But you are friends, we have had tea together. For you, only 220.” Overwhelmed by the blatant absurdity of what he had just said, we nodded.

Ephesus

“Thank you so much,” I said, “but I’ll have to think about it.”
“Oh but of course,” Ali replied, “take as much time as you need. Please come back. But you do not have to. If you don’t want to buy from me, don’t buy from me. If you want to buy cheaper boards somewhere else, buy somewhere else.” The reverse psychology was simultaneously transparent and compelling. I nodded and looked again at the boards.

“Would you like to play with me?” he asked. I assented.

Ali fetched three stools and a small table upon which he set up a display board. As we laid out the pieces he seemed to be sizing me up. I confidently took my pieces and began arranging them on the board. Seeing that I knew where to put them, he asked “You’ve played backgammon before?” I confirmed that I had. “Have you played very much?” I shrugged. “I’ve played some.” Ali was satisfied.

We began playing. Despite having observed countless games of backgammon on my Watson Fellowship, I had only actually played once in the last several years. Slightly rusty on strategy, I fell a little behind in the opening. My initial fear that Ali would throw the game in order to further entice me soon dissolved as he leaned in intently, playing aggressively and getting a few lucky rolls. “Good for me, bad for you” he would say each time a roll fell in his favor, and “bad for me, good for you” he would sigh each time I was lucky with the dice.

At around the midpoint of the game I began to remember my strategies and simultaneously began getting better rolls. Ali leaned in more closely, and the tension was palpable. The game tightened up somewhat at the end, but I managed to win with a little room to spare. As I moved my last pieces off the board Ali stared blankly for a moment before shaking his head and looking up. “Play again?” he asked. I politely declined, to savor my victory and to hasten our escape. After leaving him with reassurances that we would return, Linda and I were finally able to extract ourselves.

Selcuk

After visiting the Ephesus ruins we had several hours left until we needed to catch our shuttle back to the airport, and we wandered through the area again, pondering whether we wanted to go back to the shop on the chance that we actually would find something we wanted to buy. In the midst of discussing the question we looked up and suddenly realized that we were immediately outside the shop. “Jesse,” Linda began, “I don’t think we’re ready for–”

But it was too late. Having spotted us outside, Ali immediately pounced. “How are you?” he asked. “Did you visit Ephesus? Are you back to look?” We reluctantly followed him back inside, and were soon sipping Turkish tea and desperately hoping to find something small and cheap to buy to assuage our unjustifiably guilty consciences. Most of the touristy trinkets were utterly unappealing, and I decided to give him one last chance. I mentioned that I might not mind looking at some of the boards again, and Ali redoubled his previous efforts, filling the entire counter with boards. I at first despaired as the boards were all either obscenely large and obscenely expensive or simply unappealing. Finally, however, I found exactly what I had been envisioning.

“I like this one,” I said. “How much is it?”
“Well,” Ali answered carefully, “everything in my shop has a price on it–that is how I do business…But you are friends, so for you I do discount.” After settling on an agreeable price we began to make ready to leave the shop with the board.

“Would you like to look at Turkish scarves?” Ali asked, beginning to pull a stack off the shelf. “I have many to choose from. My prices are very good, and because you are friends–”
“Thank you,” Linda and I said simultaneously, “but we are in a hurry and we need to leave.”

As I walked away from the shop, thinking alternately of the game we had played and the board I was now carrying, I began to wonder if perhaps Ali had won after all.

The spoils

NOTE: It took only a few minutes of the process described at the end for me to feel compelled to create a written record of it as I progressed through, so the sequence below is all accurate and unexaggerated.

In mid November I had someone ship me a small package from the U.S. It was sent by express mail, with a 3-5 day estimated delivery. Four days after it was mailed the Turkish online tracking system showed that it had arrived in-country. Six days later (the 10th day from mailing) the tracking system indicated that the package was being held in customs. Another ten days after that (the 20th day from mailing) I finally received a slip in the mail informing me to go to the package center in order to pick it up from customs.

The customs office is housed in a nondescript drab building off of the main highway in Istanbul, about 20 minutes from the city center. Inside is a long, dilapidated hallway lined with numbered counters on both sides. As I stepped inside a man at an unnumbered counter on the left asked me something in Turkish. I mumbled a reply in English and handed him my package slip.

“Number 1,” he said in Turkish. I walked up to the first counter and gave the man my slip and passport. He pulled out a very large crate full of slips of paper and began rummaging through it somewhat at random. At length he sighed, handed me back my slip, and told me to go to counter number 9.

At counter 9 I waited a few minutes in line and then handed the man my slip. He looked at it for a minute and then told me to go to counter 1. “I was just at counter 1,” I told him in English, “and they said to come here.” He stared at me blankly and responded in Turkish. I tried, unsuccessfully, to use motions to convey my meaning. Suddenly a slick-haired young Turkish man in a yellow leather jacket and pointy suede shoes stepped up and began speaking with the man behind the counter. After a minute he turned to me and said, in English, that I was to go to counter 5.

At counter 5 the man looked at my slip and immediately instructed me to go to counter 1. The yellow-jacket-sporting man standing nearby assured me that this was, in fact, what I ought to do, and he kindly led me back down the hall, muttered something to the man at the desk, and then left me. The man at counter 1 pulled out the box of slips again and this time somehow magically came up with a piece of paper for me. He told me to go to counter 5. At counter 5 the man took my new piece of paper, rummaged through shelves of packages, and without finding anything pointed me to counter 6. At counter 6 the man took my two slips of paper, disappeared for a few moments, and came back with my package. He gave me yet another slip of paper and indicated that I was to go to a nearby desk. At the desk another man pulled out a sheet of paper, filled out some figures, and then sent me to counter 1 to pay duty. At counter 1 I presented the man with the new sheet of paper, and he in turn pulled out another sheet of paper, stamped it, and instructed me to proceed to counter 2. At counter 2 I paid my taxes and returned to counter 5, where I was mysteriously charged again (this time a trivial fee of slightly over $1). Too exhausted to protest or question, I paid it. I then returned to counter 6, presented my stack of slips, and was, finally, given my package.

Berlin - The TV tower is crooked because of aspect distortion in the panorama setting.

It turns out Istanbul is pretty nice. It’s good to be back in the land of jaywalking, reckless drivers, cheap (and flavorful) food, $.75 rides on public transport, street vendors, and chain smoking old men playing backgammon on the street corners. I didn’t realize until coming here from Germany that I actually like eastern Europe far more than western. It still has a soul. Having been here for only three full days I don’t yet have organized reflections, but if you’re reading this then your standards are already low enough that I don’t suppose it much matters if all you get are my scattered thoughts.

The food. The food, the food, the food. What to say about the food? Child-sized self-basting spits of lamb roast on every corner. When you’re hungry the smells you experience walking through the city streets are unbearably tantalizing. After you’ve eaten it’s slightly sickening.

Did I mention it’s cheap? Pictured above is an Urfa kebab. When I ordered it I expected the strip of spiced minced meat and a few small garnishes. When I told the waiter what I wanted he asked me something incomprehensible in Turkish and I somewhat foolishly nodded and said yes. When they started bringing out plate after plate of food I groaned in anticipation of yet another experience getting ripped off. When they brought the bill, however, it turned out that everything in the picture, plus a large salad that didn’t fit in the frame, was included. The total for the food: $5.

The intersection of the religious and secular here is fascinating. Only in Pakistan have I ever been somewhere with anywhere near such a high density of mosques. I hear most or all of the calls to prayer. Often I can hear it from several different mosques simultaneously, and all of the mournful-sounding voices blending together creates a kind of enchanting effect.

On the other hand, Turkey is officially a secular society. Alcohol is freely sold and advertised. Women dress more or less as they like. The public is indifferent to PDA. It’s curious. Very curious.

I wouldn’t normally think of the public transportation as something I would really like about a city, but I’m very taken with it in Istanbul. Getting around, in and of itself, is enjoyable. For one thing it is cheap, at least compared to the $3+ metro rides in Germany. For another the payment system is ingenious: for slightly over $3 you buy an akbil – a little piece of plastic with a round magnet on it that you slip on your keychain. You then load it with credit and use it to pay (at discounted rates) for metros, trams, funicular trains, buses, and ferries.

Did I mention there were ferries? The Bosphorus ferries are an essential part of the city’s infrastructure. Huge numbers of people use them to cross between the Asian and European sides of the cities for work, school, shopping, etc. In addition to being a fairly convenient means of transportation, however, they’re also just really enjoyable to use. I can swipe my akbil get on the ferry (~$.70), order a $.50 glass of tea, and read a book and enjoy the sights and sounds for a 25 minute ride across the Bosphorus. The views are gorgeous.

I finally got around to organizing my pictures more on Flickr. They’re now categorized by month and location. The only ones I’m missing are a few pictures from a morning I spent in Cologne. I usually upload in the evenings when I’m too tired to edit, crop, etc., so you’ll notice that mixed in with the good pictures are a number of mediocre ones that I haven’t gotten around to taking out or editing to a respectable standard yet. I ask only for your patience and understanding. And, as always, be sure to check back obsessively for new uploads.

For some reason this struck me as outrageously funny.

Without a doubt the best 10 seconds of my Watson year. This guy was just standing by the ferry docks doing bird calls. I have no idea why. When he turned toward me I expected him to yell or ask for money. It was priceless. (If the video above doesn’t display then you can view it here.)

Recent research has uncovered the fact that, thanks mostly to plots against India by the largely Pakistani terrorist group Lakshar-eTaiba, Indian visas for Pakistani-born applicants (even ones who are US citizens from birth, like myself) usually take at least six weeks for approval, and often months.

Given that I am scheduled to fly Berlin–Istanbul–Mumbai in 7 weeks, this would seem to pose problems, particularly since I need my passport to travel around Germany between now and then. My plans to go to India are thus postponed indefinitely and probably canceled.

I can, at least, take some comfort in the fact that finding this out earlier would not have helped, other than to save about half the cost of my plane ticket to Mumbai. If I had tried to get my Indian visa while still in the US it would have expired before I could use it. There is also consolation in the fact that I had for a while been thinking about adding Turkey to my itinerary. In addition, Egypt, which was on my original itinerary when I was beginning to plan this a year ago, is no longer on the State Department’s travel warning list, which means that I can add it back to my itinerary.

The new plan is to combine the 4 1/2 months I would have spent in India and Greece into a four month comparative study of Mediterranean backgammon cultures in Turkey, Greece, and Egypt (where I would also study Senet and other ancient boardgames), after which I will continue on to Ghana and Hungary as planned.

It is difficult to communicate how excited I was about going to see Bollywood movies in theater. I will have to remain satisfied with youtube clips.