Category: On My Mind

  • Ups and Downs: Crisis And Court

    Dear Readers Who Are Following This Tale:  I apologize for getting a piece out of place in the narrative.  Vicky originally posted her story to a Turkish expat forum, and she was writing cathartically, in a stream of consciousness fashion; as I copied and pasted her posts into this blog, I inadvertently left out, in…

  • Ups and Downs: In Search of Income

    After the roof literally fell in, Vicky and Mr P realized they’d not only been fleeced out of their savings, but they’d also just lost any hope of ever living in their dream house; they’d have to find other ways to make money, another place to live: The first couple of days after that we…

  • Ups and Downs: Fat Cows and Confrontation

    Vicky and Mr P’s story of being conned continues: I have in fact skipped loads of chapters including the winter spent up in the village -22° and 30cm snow, blocked off from the world since our dirt track was snowed up, no money to buy coal or wood so holed up under the blankets in…

  • Ups and Downs: Complications

    Installment #3 of Vicky’s story of Being Taken in Turkey: Frequently people in the village would make comments about Mehmet and our Turkish was not enough to understand “serefsiz” “saytan” but my German was enough to understand “aufpassen, aufpassen, aufpassen” (look out). I did think at the time this was an allusion to the fact…

  • Ups and Downs: Rising Action

    Here is Installment #2 of Vicky and Mr P’s move to Turkey from France–a move that was meant to see their dreams come true… ————————– Finally we arrive in our village where our good friend Mehmet has his hotel and where we now have our new home. It is dark, we are tired, sweaty and…

  • Ups and Downs: Setting Out

    Since coming to Turkey, we’ve heard at least three really awful stories of real estate transactions gone bad.  In each case, these tales of being rooked have involved foreigners (even those married to Turks) attempting to buy property from Turks who see the outsiders as open wallets rather than warm hearts who have fallen in…

  • Closer We Are to Pork

    Mmmmmmm. What I crave more than anything during this year in Turkey is something lusciously fatty, thoroughly smoked, noticeably aged–something that either snaps crisply or wobbles slightly when laid on a platter. Silly poppets:  no matter how many martinis you’ve had already today, do not err and peg the above as self-description.  Because then–oddly–you’d be thinking that I came to…

  • The Village People

    Sitting in an academic conference room, I served on the search committee that hired him as Dean of Liberal Arts & Sciences. His scholarship on the writer Christopher Isherwood impressed me, as did his pragmatism and belief in the transformational power of education. Walking down the narrow, uneven street to our 400-year-old Greek house rental,…

  • You Can Also Tune In To

    …the other blog I’m posting to this year:  http://layingfallow.com/turkeyblog/?p=916 If you don’t click over there, how else will you know what I did last weekend?

  • Bella Donna

    I’ve been asking questions since we got to Turkey. Startlingly often, people have not been able to answer them.  Certainly, some people vamp a bit and try to drum up something that might satisfy; others drop open their yaps and carry on for several minutes before trailing off, looking sheepish at their lack of conclusion;…