Die Hard Three

After spending over three weeks in a (culturally) foreign land I found myself surprised by how accustomed I’d become to my surroundings. This (mild) shock revealed itself when I left Istanbul after 24 days and arrived in Luxembourg. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this county, it’s a smaller Switzerland minus the mountains and the Italians.

The first thing to hit me was the language. I went from being able to understand nothing to understanding almost everything being said by the people around me. The locals in Luxembourg speak a mixture of German, English, and French. Back in Istanbul (even after three weeks) I remained unable to perform even basic identification of the Turkish language. If a given conversation on which I was eavesdropping did not include their most popular word (tamam; means “good”) I was defeated.

Turks (in general) look like Turks. Brown or black hair, dark complexion. Beards on the men. They don’t look Arab. They don’t look Greek. They just look Turkish. You’ll understand what I mean after about five minutes observation of the hordes of people that are constantly marching up and down Istikal Street. But there are some exceptions. I met one Turk who looked like he was from Norway. Often times the women dye their hair blond – this makes identification more difficult.

I did develop some scene-specific workarounds. In my favourite pub in Istanbul if one of the servers was talking with a customer who did not appear Turkish, by default the customer was probably Turkish. I was able to deduce this from that fact that most of the people who worked at this bar spoke Turkish.

But to be fair they could have been speaking Armenian or Kurdish. Most likely Kurdish (on my last day there my favourite server informed me that she was in fact a Kurd). There are lots of Kurds in Turkey and their situation is not the best. I was doing some research for a project and I discovered that the Kurdish alphabet (the latin one) has a bunch of letters that aren’t in the Turkish one. But the thing is, the “extra” letters were not officially recognized / supported by the Turkish government – effectively limiting parents from naming their children certain ethnic Kurdish names. This situation has since been corrected.

Anyway, after visiting Luxembourg, this got me thinking – how is it that Luxembourg exists and Kurdistan does not? From what I can tell Luxembourg should be part of Germany or France. It’s main industry is banking and tax avoision (i.e. it has no actual industry – basically – all graft, no host). They speak German and French. Plus there are only like 100,000 Luxembergers. There’s more Kurds than there are Canadians yet there is no Kurdistan proper.

The Basque people must be scratching their heads in amazement (or bombing things in anger) that stupid Luxembourg gets to exist as an independent self-governing state and Basque does not. I know my training as an engineer doesn’t really qualify me to comment intelligently on these topics, but I think my position as an empathetic human who has traveled extensively to many countries gives me some leeway.

The other things that surprised me after arriving in LUX were the existence of women’s arms and necklines as well as the physical contact (general touchiness) of people I’d just recently met. When I first got there I stationed myself at the bar of Kafe Konrad for 5 hours while Dan went to “work”. And the server (Sylvia) was wearing a black sleeveless tank top with a… generous(?) neckline. And I thought: “Holy crap. I have not seen a woman dressed like this since I left Canada”*.

Istanbul is a pretty liberal city and the women dress well, but there’s a modesty to their appearance. They always look good (makeup, hair) and they wear tight clothing but they use the layer system. Also, it’s winter so there’s practical reasons why they choose not to show off a lot of skin.

So when Dan came to drag me away (thanks buddy) from my new favourite place in the whole world (by virtue of my awesomeness I got a free, giant cookie, a free glass of Gluhwein, and a free bowl of Thai soup), Sylvia gave me a big hug. Compare that with the pub in Istanbul where I went every day for 24 straight days and the servers were very contact-free with the goodbyes before I left for Paris.

To drive the point home, the next morning when Dan and I were leaving his place, we bumped into Sylvia (by coincidence she lives next door). When I saw her I started to laugh because she’s exactly one of two people I know in the whole, tiny county. So she was laughing too and I went in for the hug but (being Spanish) she went in for the kiss. In my culture the man has to cook a seven-course meal for a girl on the seventh date after seven weeks before he get’s a kiss (it’s called the rule of three sevens). Apparently this rule does not exist in Spanish Luxembourg. Or if it does, it’s not enforced.

Look, you can see her arms and my bewilderment.

I returned to my favourite Istanbul pub to publish this post and say final goodbyes. I was treated to some delicious, spiced potatoes (deep-fried). I love this place.

*What I was actually thinking was, “Holy crap! I have not seen a woman’s boobs or arms since I left Canada.”

when I packed for this trip I was thinking that I would be spending all 32 days in the (relatively) warm, Mediterranean climate of Istanbul. So here I am in Luxembourg City and it’s almost freezing and I have no hat or gloves with me.

You’re probably thinking, “He’s got a scarf. That will help keep him warm.” Well… yes and no. I do have one with me but I’m not going to wear it (I refuse to conform). Also, my jacket has a broken zipper – I can’t even do it up.

And it’s just my light jacket. My proper winter one is back in Ottawa. And it’s Christmas Market season. This means I’m going to be standing outside for hours on end enjoying all the festivities without the proper winter clothing.

I might be able to borrow a hat from Dan, but he tells me he’s only got one. And it’s a fedora. And he tells me he needs it.

I think he lost a bet or something.

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Why yes. Yes I have. Today is my last day in Istanbul before I head over to Luxembourg / Paris and I wanted to be really, really clean for tomorrow’s flight. So this afternoon I headed over to the Beşiktaş Hamami – you know the one, it’s down by the Beşiktaş Vapur İskelesi.

First a little background on the Turkish Baths. There are three types:
1) Private
2) A second type I can’t remember right now
3) Public

I chose to go to the public one because a) they’re the cheapest and b) if they’re run by the city it means that the guy giving the scrub down is a municipal government employee. In my country this would be considered a very unusual job for a city worker and I wanted to find out what they’re like.

I didn’t know what to expect so I messaged Hanna beforehand – she told me they have a room where one can lock up any valuables. And there would be nudity. I’m pretty ok with that. My many trips to Finland have left me numb to the idea of being stuck in a sweaty box with a bunch of guys, naked save for the towel that is meant to go between the bench and your bum.

Things started off really, really badly. How badly? Well they have separate entrances for men and women and when I got there I accidentally walked into the ladies’ bath. This would not have been a big deal in Finland (or maybe it would have) and I have no idea if it’s a bootable offence here in Turkey because when I opened the door and saw a half-dozen naked women sitting around, I immediately yelled “I am a stupid foreigner!” and ran away before they could call the cops.

Can any of you tell which is for the boys and which one is for the girls? I couldn’t. 

I then made my way over to the men’s side where I was greeted by a guy who spoke no english. He gave me a pair of slippers and took my shoes away. I was then shown to a room where I was told to strip down to my towel and lock up my clothes and other things. I was introduced to my… bath guy (I’m sure there’s a technical term in Turkish) and he told me to wait in the sauna for 25 minutes and then we would begin the scrub.

So after my time in the sauna (it was not very hot compared to the Finnish ones) dude told me to lie down for ten minutes on the giant marble platform in the centre of the bath. I lasted about three. It was so hot I’m sure I would have gotten first degree burns had I stayed any longer. He came back and took me to the cleaning station where he performed an exfoliation procedure. If you thought I was white before, now I’m damn near transparent.

After the de-skinening he gave me a good washing and then it was back to the burn platform for the massage. The massage was interesting cause it included a lot of joint cracking. Spine. Neck. Ankles. Fingers. The table was so hot that dude had to keep pouring cold water over me. At one point I used my slippers and small bucket to act as a buffer between me and the surface. It was impossible to relax for any part of this massage.

On the plus side he did stay away from my swimsuit area during all this. Which is understandable – that’s for me to manage. Also, they give you a towel that you’re supposed keep wrapped around your waist.

After it was all done I was pretty bagged. You know when you get a shot at the doctor’s and they make you stay in the waiting room to see if there’s going to be some sort of reaction. Well this is exactly how I felt as I exited the bath. I sat around in the lobby for about twenty minutes while my brain and everything settled down.

Total cost was about $25 CDN and one hour of time. I’d go again: Turkish Bath = recommended.

My guy

Me, the cleanest I’ve ever been.

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