Housesit Adventures in Gökçeovacık

This past week, I did my first ever housesit in Gökçeovacık, a tiny Turkish village near the Aegean coast. Jasmin, a very cool English lady, contacted me via the website MindMyHouse.com.  After flying down to meet her a few weeks ago, I agreed to come back again to care for her pets while she was on vacation.

I packed my bags and took the one hour flight from Istanbul to Dalaman.

Complete with S'mores Poptarts (Thanks, Kayla) and Truvia packets (Thanks, Mom)

Jasmin picked me up from the airport and we chatted as we made the half-hour drive to the village. Perilous winding roads intended for car commercials brought us 450 meters into the sky. As we made our ascent, I felt my ears pop a few times.

The following morning, Jasmin left for her vacation and I was on my own.

See, Mom and Dad, I wasn't anywhere near Syria.

It was wonderful to get out of the city for a while and I was very ready for one week of ponytails and no makeup. Okay, so I put on some BB cream in the morning. If my boss requested an impromptu Skype call, I didn’t want him to scream in horror when he saw me. Plus it has 30 SPF. Give me a break.

The view from the upstairs balcony

You couldn't dream of a more charming or lovelier home. Jasmin told me that parts of the house were over 300 years old. As a stereotypical American, I'm impressed by any structure older than half a century.

Jasmin left me some of this heavenly German bread and lots of eggs she bought in the village. As you can see, I'm a highly sought after chef and food photographer.

In the mornings, I’d watch BBC World News, which was a big change from reading the news online. Hearing updates from attractive and racially-diverse people with posh British accents somehow softened the blow of tragic news. I also learned that I’d been pronouncing the names of many world leaders and terrorist groups incorrectly in my head.

My new office

Because about 90% of my job is done online, I'm able to work from anywhere with a decent internet connection. How lucky am I? These three cats (Thomas, Jaidee, and Tiddlywinks) snuggled up to me for most of the working day.

I don't know who's creepier in this picture, me or Thomas?

Don't be fooled by the above photo. I swear, Thomas loved me and was my faithful neck warmer for most of the week. The fourth cat, Boncuk, was a little standoffish and it took her a while to warm up to me. But she is a former Istanbulite, so I’m not sure why I expected anything less.

Callie, Pixie, and Zaza

Growing up, my family always had pets, but since graduating from university I haven't been able to have any four-legged friends of my own.  When people ask me what I miss most about America, my answer is usually Mexican food and my dog, Scout.  I can Skype with my friends and family back home, but I can’t really Skype with my dog...or a seven-layer burrito.  For me, the best part of the housesit was spending time with these affectionate animals.  

A very rustic looking farm implement relating to olive harvesting...I think.

While Gökçeovacık was extremely peaceful, it was far from quiet.  I traded Istanbul’s sounds of car horns, revving engines, simit sellers, and squawking seagulls for the village sounds of cautious tires on gravel, dueling cock-a-doodle-doos (or as Turkish roosters say, “kuk-kurri-ku”), sheep bleating, chattering birds, and an owl that I often heard, but never saw. Now that I think about it, the sheep and simit venders sound nearly identical.  

A purring leg warmer!

I haven’t owned a television for about a year, so I had fun watching Jasmin’s. (To be clear, I download loads of TV shows, I just don’t have the luxury of channel surfing.) One night, I watched an episode of The X-Files, which made me feel really nostalgic. Fox Mulder, I'll love you til the day I die. It wasn’t as scary as I remembered, but it’s spooky enough when you’re staying alone in an isolated mountain village. I may or may not have stacked chairs against the front door before I went to bed.

It was funny to see the cigarettes blurred out in the series; censorship that has had little influence over the Turkish public. If anything, it draws more attention to the fact that the person is smoking. Besides, the tendrils of smoke ascending from the blur are a bit of a giveaway. It’s a good thing it wasn’t an episode with the Smoking Man.

View from Göcek marina

On Saturday, I went to a birthday celebration in Göcek for Sina, Jasmin’s neighbor.  I was anxious about going to a party where I knew no one, but ended up having a complete blast.  The group of people consisted of about half-a-dozen nationalities, who all seemed to be connected through the local animal shelter.  Throughout the afternoon, we shared wine, food, and funny stories.  I was the youngest person there by twenty years and everyone kept calling me a “young girl”, which was sweet.  

Ain't no party like a Gökçeovacık party, because a Gökçeovacık party stops at 10pm.

I enjoy spending time alone, so I wasn’t disappointed at all when this turned out to be my Saturday night. Being lazy in front of the fire I'd built myself (after much turmoil) was great. Also, there was no one around to hear me speaking in my animal voice, which is two octaves higher than my normal timbre.

My first attempt at aesthetically arranging fruit

On Sunday, Sina took me to the market in town. The area is famous for its oranges, so I had to buy a few of those. I went a little overboard with the strawberries, but it was totally worth it. According to the legends (and Wikipedia), Göcek is the area that Icarus landed in the sea after his famous flight. Today, the small town is part of the “Turkish Riviera” and is known for its yacht tourism. It seemed charming enough, but I was glad that I was staying in Gökçeovacık.

The lone mosque in the village

In the whole week I was there, I only ran into about ten people in the village.  One day, as I was taking the garbage to the dumpster, I crossed paths with a woman who looked to be approximately one million years old.  She smiled at me to reveal a set of multicolored teeth that were an amalgam of white, gold, and silver, like a metallic ear of flint corn.

"Do you want to buy some eggs, my dear?", she asked.

“No. Thank you. House in many egg there is”, I responded in my impeccable Turkish.

She said something that I didn’t catch, not because I couldn’t understand her, but because I couldn’t stop looking at her kaleidoscopic teeth.  They must be worth a fortune.  I wondered if she included them in her will and left individual teeth to different people.  

For my sister, Gamze, I leave my golden left canine.  

For Kemal, the one who got away, I leave my silver lower right cuspid.  

For Halil, my ex-husband, I leave my rotted molar. You stole the best years of my life, you a**hole.

I snapped out of my testament fantasy and realized that she was waiting for me to respond.

"No, thank you, auntie.  Good day.  See you later.  Take it easy.  Bye-bye."

She sheathed her teeth and I knew I’d be getting a rotted tooth like Halil.

Wowee!

Not wanting to face the egg seller so soon after our fruitless business encounter, my short trip to the dumpster turned into a long walk. I came across a couple goatherds and decided that if things didn't work out in Istanbul, roaming around with livestock all day in Gökçeovacık wouldn't be the worst backup. Plus, the rain boots and elastic-waist pants the goatherds wore seemed like my kind of uniform.

The lady goatherd definitely saw me take this selfie and definitely judged me.  
Her flock probably did too.

It rained a fair amount during my stay, but there was almost always a dry window when I could take the dogs for a walk. Plus, given my proclivity for sweating, I didn't mind that the weather was on the cool side.

Anyone want a puppy?

One day, I was drafted to help Sina vaccinate her nine rescue puppies.  I was extremely nervous and imagined myself going to bed with several gashes and possibly frothing at the mouth, but it went just fine.  I would lure each puppy into a warm embrace of false security and Sina's deft hands would administer the injection, which they never seemed to feel.  Hanging out with puppies is very cool and very messy.

Goodnight, Gökçeovacık!

My week in Gökçeovacık was so magical. The best part of my stay were the daily walks I went on with the dogs.  They were so wonderful that I'm saving those stories for the next blog entry.  Get excited!

If you fancy doing some housesitting, check out Mind My House  or Trusted Housesitters.  Also, take a look at the Göcek Animal Rescue.  They’re doing really incredible work.

Special thanks to my boss Erol for letting me do this, Aylin for being my emergency contact with ulterior motives, Tarık for loaning me his camera, and most of all Jasmin for sharing her pets and home with me.