Floridian Adventures

In August, I was at the family health center in my neighborhood for some routine blood tests.  As the doctor scanned the small result sheet, his eyes darting back and forth between the ideal chemical levels and mine, he asked what I was doing in Turkey.

I’ve been asked this innumerable times and can give my response (in very broken Turkish) without thinking.  And then the inevitable follow-up question comes, “Where are your parents?”

“They’re in America.”

“America?!  What about your brothers or sisters?”

“I have one older brother.  He lives in California.”

Generally speaking, Turks tend to live in closer proximity to their families than Americans do. Living on different continents seems inconceivable to some people.

“Your whole family is in America?!”

“Yes.”

“You’re alone here?  You have no family?”

“Well...I have friends here.  Great friends.”

He gave me a disapproving, tsk, tsk, tsk.

“Don’t you miss your family?”

“Of course, but there’s email and Skype.”

“Email?  Skype? That’s not the same thing. Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!”

“Yes, yes. I know. I know.”

I left, pleased with my potassium levels and charmed by the doctor’s concern over my absent family.

That night, my dad called to tell me that my mom had just been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

I suddenly understood what the doctor was talking about.

I decided to work from America for a couple of months*, because I wanted to have a front row seat to watch my mom kick cancer’s ass.  I’ll spare everyone the suspense and tell you now that she didn’t disappoint.  Rather than simply kick its ass, she disemboweled it, had it quartered, and maimed its cold dead remains.

What I'm trying to say is that my amazing mother is now 100% cancer free!

* With the support of my infinitely kind bosses.

While I was overjoyed to spend time with my parents, eat S'mores Poptarts everyday, and watch Netflix with my dog, I was pretty unenthusiastic about returning to America. When I made the decision to move abroad five years ago, I naively proclaimed, “Twenty-two years is long enough to spend in one country.”  It's worth mentioning that while I had a decent amount of adventures in my first couple of decades, about 90% of those years were spent in Michigan.

Since then, I’ve spent the majority of my life overseas (with the exception of two prolonged unemployed stints that I’m going to go ahead and gloss over) judging my homeland from afar.  Living in Florida for two months made me see that I may have been selling my country a little short.

Just creeping on my dad from a parking structure. This is in December!

My parents relocated from Pennsylvania to Delray Beach, Florida in July, when my dad was hired as the president and CEO of Old School Square, the local cultural arts center. This coastal city of 65,000 residents is situated in Palm Beach County about 90 minutes north of Miami. During my time there, I constantly compared everything to the Midwest.

Happy sharks!

Some of the most obvious differences were the subtropic plants and animals.  Michigan is home to a remarkable spectrum of wildlife, but it's all largely varying shades of brown which ends up as roadkill.  Seeing a scarlet cardinal or bluejay in winter is cause to summon the entire household to the window.  

In Florida, the technicolor flora and fauna were truly amazing. We have petting zoos with goats and rabbits in the Midwest. In Florida, they have shark feedings. Apparently sharks like to sleep in late on Sunday and have their brunch around 1PM like the rest of us.

I captured this little guy in the bathroom before relocating him to the front yard.   Lizards, big and small, were everywhere.  Whenever I walked our dog Scout around the neighborhood, scores of six-inch reptiles would scurry across our path.  I occasionally saw lizards as long as three-feet, practically dinosaurs! 

Eat your heart out, National Geographic.

One unforeseen benefit to living in America was that I immediately went down an entire size.  In Turkey, all of the clothes I buy are a snug size large. But when I arrived in Florida, I became a husky medium.  There was no change to my weight, but U.S. sizes are labeled to make all of us corn syrup guzzling Americans feel better about our waistline. I love it. How do you like my broad shoulders now, LC Waikiki?  Kiss my moderately sized American butt, DeFacto!

Radioactive avocados!

I was surprised by the myriad of different food available in south Florida.  The local avocados were nearly quadruple the size of the ones in Michigan.  Mangoes, starfruit, and plantains, which are overpriced oddities in the Midwest, were mixed in with the affordable produce in Delray.  

After arriving, I noticed a few conch shell restaurants downtown.  The only time I’d ever heard of a conch shell was when my 10th grade English class read “Lord of the Flies” and we debated whether or not it was pronounced “Konch” or “Konk”. (It's the latter by the way.)

During Kayla’s visit from Colorado, she was happy to try some with me.

As we were leaving the house, I said, “Okay, Mom.  We’re going to eat some conch!”

“YOU’RE EATING WHAT?”, she asked horrified.

I’m not a seafood enthusiast, but I didn’t want to turn my nose up at this cultural experience.  We ordered the fried conch, which seemed like the most palatable option.  It tasted pretty chewy, but was surprisingly good, despite my face in the above photo.

My favorite person!

Kayla and I spent two perfect days at the beach. As we were basking in the sun on the second day, we heard the wails of a ten-year-old boy screaming for his mother, who was standing about 15 feet away chatting with her friends.

“MOOOOOOM!!”

After squinting, we saw that the child, who was crouched in four-inches of water, had been separated from his swim trunks, which were floating a few yards from his completely naked body.

“PLEASE, MOM!”, he begged.

I’m typing this in all caps, because this kid sent sonic waves in a one mile radius.  Beach goers pretended not to notice the shrieking stark naked youth.  The fact that the tide was going out was not to his advantage.  He sat there, immobile, knees pulled to his chest, as his bare bottom was revealed with each receding wave.

“We are seeing the worst moment in this kid’s life”, Kayla said,  “past or future.”

She was right.  Twenty years from now, he’d be reclined on a leather couch saying, “Well, doctor, I suppose my downward spiral really began that day at the beach”.

“MOM, PLEASE!”, he howled.

His mom continued conversing with the other heartless adults.  When the screams reached 150 decibels, they gestured to his red trunks and insisted that he could get them himself.

He refused to even turn his head.

“MOOOOOOOOM!!”

In the adults’ defense, the boy could have crawled on his elbows to his salvation relatively unnoticed. In the kid’s defense, when you’re 10, completely nude on a beach surrounded by dozens of onlookers, logic and survival skills may evade you.

The skimpiest bikini I will ever own

“I HATE LIFE!!”, he bellowed.

After a full 15 minutes of this nightmare, a guy (with a killer bod) took mercy on the child and retrieved the drifting swimsuit Baywatch style.  Or perhaps, like the rest of us, he couldn’t take any more of the agony.  A few people actually clapped.

Despite his restored modesty, the kid was irate.  With his swimsuit pulled up past his belly button, the newly robed boy marched over to the negligent woman who bore him and screamed, “I LOOKED LIKE AN IDIOT!”  

He had looked like a total idiot.  Every onlooker would undoubtedly go home and recount the appalling scene to their friends and family.  But at the same time, every person there had at some point publicly looked like a total idiot.  It’s a rite of passage.

Downtown Delray Beach

Delray Beach is the residence of the one and only Serena Williams.  Well, she has a vacation home there which she visits on occasion.  I fantasized a lot about randomly meeting Serena on the street. I would play it totally cool and say something like, “Can you believe this weather?”  She’d tell me how awesome I am and thank me for not making a big deal about her being a celebrity.  

Then she’d insist on having me over for dinner to meet Drake and they’d tell me Hollywood gossip over champagne.  The three of us would laugh, get matching tattoos, and take selfies cementing our friendship forever.  From that day on, they’d give me shoutouts in their respective acceptance speeches.

It could happen.

Tri-Rail sign explaining how to purchase tickets.

In Michigan, the only signs accommodating non-native English speakers are “Piso Mojado” and “Salida”.  Because, you know, Spanish speakers don’t know to avoid a wet floor or how to exit a building.

In South Florida, many signs and announcements are in three languages!  Delray Beach has 12.37% of the population speaking Haitian Creole and 7.02% speaking Spanish as their first language.

At the grocery store, I always heard people speaking a combination of the three.  And guess what, xenophobic people against multiculturalism?!  IT’S FINE.  It’s wonderful, in fact, that the public is making an effort to build an inclusive high-functioning society.

When an announcement is made over the Tri-Rail intercom in Creole, it’s not like native English speakers on the train collapse on the floor, writhing in pain, screaming, “NOOOOO!  MY FREEDOM!”

My family’s sole purpose is to serve our pets.  We do anything they tell us to.  My cat cries until we sit in the driveway.  We don’t have to pet her, we just need to have our lower halves on the concrete while she rolls around.  Scout, of course, gets jealous and has to join us.

My Raison d’Etre

Last year, my friends Nicole and Kate each sent me a Christmas card from America.  Both cards included a photo with their respective husbands and dogs.  I happily showed the pictures to my Turkish coworkers who were all perplexed by the canine presence in the family portraits.

“Americans are really, really crazy about their dogs”, I said almost apologetically.

And it’s true.  I see more Facebook photos of people's dogs than newborn babies.  From across the Atlantic, this started to seem strange to me.  All that changed when I was reunited with Scout.

Most of my time in Florida was consumed with covering her up so she wouldn’t get too cold in the 80 degree (28 C) weather.  I constantly berated my parents for not giving her enough attention. 

“What’s going to happen when I leave”, I moaned, “Who will give my angel the care she needs?”

My cat, Rummy, was less receptive to my arrival.  Despite me showering her with love and kitty treats for fifteen years, she ignored me for the first month I was in Florida.  I think she was punishing me for being gone for so long.  Eventually, she came around and allowed me to dote on her.

One evening, I went into the darkened guest room to retrieve a book. When I turned on the light, I saw that Rummy was sleeping on the bed, or at least she had been before I so rudely awoke her. The look she gave me was so fowl that I actually held up my hands and said, "Oh. I'm so sorry. I'll come back later. Sorry." Then I turned off the light and tiptoed out of the room with nothing to read that night.

All the way from NYC! - W4L

Chelsey and I spent a windy day at the beach.  We walked up and down the coast poking at a vibrant array of dead jellyfish with a stick Chelsey had found.  Even though their nerve nets had ceased to function, we were still wary of these fearsome beasts. I expected some sort of postmortem zap, if I got too close.

A blueberry condom on a bed of eggplant spaghetti, AKA a Portuguese man o' war

Chelsey spotted a message in a bottle.  We were both absurdly excited and handed the empty Jack Daniels bottle back and forth trying in vain to open it, in the process, smearing our hands with an unidentified grease.  Finally, the cap came off and we fished out the damp piece of paper.

Kitesurfers were loving the weather.

I’m not sure what we hoped for- an SOS note from a castaway, a letter written by a child 50 years ago, or a haiku about the Atlantic.  We would have been happy with anything that resulted in a viral online article featuring a flattering photo of us.  Instead, we found a crumpled up piece of paper with nonsensical scribbles, undoubtedly penned by delinquents the night before.

We swore quite a bit about these miscreants, as we tried to wash our hands in the saltwater.

The night we got the good news AKA the best day of my life!

My mom is a very modest and private person, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk a little bit about her battle with cancer.  Through all this awfulness, my mom has been unfailingly positive and is constantly looking for silver linings to her situation.  

If I had to find a silver lining to this experience, it would be that I realized how exceptionally strong my mom is.  It’s not a case of her rising to the occasion in the face of misfortune, but rather striving to be her usual self while coping with chemotherapy, nasty side-effects, and a terrified family.   She’s been incredibly courageous all my life, but I was too dense to notice it before.

Housesitting Adventures in England

This summer, I spent an incredible nine days housesitting in England. I met Anne, the homeowner, through my friend Jasmin, whom I petsat for earlier this year in Gökçeovacık. We corresponded through email for a couple of months and she asked me to petsit in Bradford-on-Avon while she was on holiday in Turkey.

I hadn't heard of Bradford-on-Avon, but after a quick Google image search, I was in love.  The town is located in Wiltshire county, about 110 miles west of London.  The population is only about 9,500 people. As my hometown has a thousand less people, I felt right at home.  Although Tecumseh, Michigan isn’t quite the premier cultural destination when compared to BoA.

Downtown Bradford-on-Avon

I’d been to London in 2009 for a hurried, but memorable weekend with my friend Nicole.  The trip sealed our lifelong friendship and begot about a dozen inside jokes, but we didn’t have much chance to experience English culture.

This time around, I was certain that my extensive exposure to British television, living with Clive for a year, and hanging out with my Turkish/English hybrid friends would have me prepared for whatever came my way.

The beginning of my adventure!

After arriving at Heathrow Airport, I took a coach to a town called Corsham.  The bus dropped me off in the little village and I went to wait in a random pub for Anne.  A real English pub.  I was exactly like the guy in “Love Actually” who goes to a typical American bar for some Budweiser.

This was my first time in an English speaking country in over a year and as I was drinking my half-pint of Carling, I realized that I could understand every single person in the pub. In Istanbul, with my limited Turkish, I can easily tune out the conversations happening around me.

At first, understanding everyone was really overwhelming.  I felt like I was intruding on private conversations, even though they were all speaking loudly.  I know it seems dramatic, but it almost felt like I was telepathic.  (This is based entirely on how telepathy is presented on TV shows.) I heard men making bawdy jokes.  The barmaid called a regular customer, “my treacle”.  Thanks to Clive and the countless hours we’d spent watching British television, I recognized a lot of the slang. It was weird and amazing.

Selam, Pippin!

I'm always a bit anxious meeting someone in person who previously only existed in my inbox, but Anne and her daughter Alice (and Alice's tiny daughter Erin) are the sort of people that you instantly feel comfortable around. You’d be hard pressed to find a fault with these three generations of women. Their home was gorgeous and I couldn’t have felt more at ease. 

While the ladies were on holiday, my wards included two sweet dogs and half a dozen chickens. The lovely Pippin is a former sokak köpeği from Turkey. So if I got homesick for Istanbul, I could always recite the days of the week, ask if she had an older brother, or comment on the weather in Turkish.

Hiya, Jake!

Jake is an elderly dog with the spirit of a puppy.  I’ve mentioned before that one of the things I miss most about America are my pets.  Any time I spend with domesticated animals is a pleasure.  It was nice sharing my bed with the pint sized Jake, although I had to check a few times that he wasn’t suffocating under the covers.  

My stay in BoA was a weird vacation/working hybrid, with a few chores thrown in. But when the chores are snuggling with dogs and collecting (and eating) freshly laid eggs, there’s not much to complain about.

One of our lovely morning walks

Even though I was working full time, I found small ways to implement English culture into my day without interrupting my work schedule.  Eating beans on toast for breakfast. Having elevenses. Wearing ‘wellies’ for the dogs’ morning walk on a rainy day. I even ate my meals in a conservatory!  The only conservatory I’d ever been in was during a game of Clue when I suspected Colonel Mustard with the candlestick.  

My workday was accompanied by the soundtrack of unfamiliar bird songs and a backdrop of plants and flowers that seemed to be growing by the hour. In the evening, I tried watching the ‘telly’ a few times, but it turns out a lot of British television is reruns of “Teen Mom” and “Hoarders”.

Behold, my lifestyle blog photography skills!

But I think I might have taken elevenses too literally.  I’d watch the clock in the corner of my computer screen, slowly approach snack time.  10:56...10:57...10:58.  I’d tell my grumbling stomach to calm down and wait another two GD minutes.  When those beautiful double ones hit the screen, I’d jump up, startling the dozing dogs, and head for the coffee and biscuits.

Returning from a rainy morning walk (Please note the authentic wellies.)

My inability to communicate with people in Turkey is completely self-inflicted and I don’t deserve any sympathy.  But, I couldn’t get over how much I loved speaking my mother tongue (however bastardized)  to everyone.  And because they were English, they were too polite not to laugh at my bad jokes.

One afternoon, the doorbell rang and I found a guy with a clipboard wearing a Save The Children t-shirt.

Normally, if I’d seen the same thing through my peephole back home, I would have silently tiptoed away and hoped that the person hadn’t seen the shadow of my feet under the door. But this was England.

“Hi!”, I beamed.

“Hello there.  How are you today?”

“I’m fine.  How about you?”

“Wow.  I’m good.  Thank you for asking...No one ever asks me that.”

“Oh. Well that doesn’t seem very nice.”

“Yeah. Um...you smile a lot.  People don’t usually smile at me.”

“It’s probably because I’m American.”

We chatted a bit about American college football teams and he asked me to save the children, but it turns out (much to the relief of my bank account) that needy children only accept British credit cards.

“Can’t I just give you a fiver?”, I asked trying to show off some English slang.

“No, I’m sorry.  We can’t accept cash.”

“That’s too bad. Good luck, then! I hope you find people with British bank accounts who smile at you! Have a great day! Take care!”

I’m less amiable with most of my blood relatives.

Yum!

Before my trip, I knew I had to be careful about spending. At the time, the exchange rate was 1 GBP to 4.21 TL. Because I'm paid in Turkish lira, the price of everything in England was more than quadruple for me. Yikes! As my lodging was free (Thank you, Anne), I knew that my biggest expense would be food. 

I had planned to sustain myself on the Oliver Twist diet of water and stale bread, but ended up eating like Queen Victoria (and gaining her physique). Surprisingly all the foods I wanted to eat were the most affordable. Many of them (baked beans, pork products, Indian food, etc.) were cheaper than in Turkey. Plus, Anne and Alice very generously let me raid the refrigerator. I may have overindulged in their biscuit supply though.

I enjoyed eating in and cooking microwaving meals, but I knew I had to consume some things that didn't come from the Co-Op. One of the few times I ate out, I stopped by the Grumpy Badger in the city center. This amazing latte and enormous slice of hummingbird cake only set me back £5.20, which is around the same amount I’d spend in Istanbul when you convert it to lira.

£14 for admission, but well worth it

On Sunday, I took a twenty minute train journey to Bath.   This city was incredible. Jane Austen spent a lot of time here and used it for the backdrop of “Persuasion” (which I tried to read beforehand as I felt a connection to the protagonist, a 27-year-old spinster). The Roman baths, for which the city is named, were built circa 70 CE and are still pretty cool nearly two millennia later.

Jump, Russell Crowe, and put our ears out of their misery!

Many movies have been filmed in Bath, including “Vanity Fair”, “The Duchess”, and most recently, Javert’s suicide scene in “Les Miserables”.  I’d only ever seen architecture like this in the BBC costume dramas that my parents watch.  It was strange to see 21st century people walking around in jeans and OBEY baseball caps, when I thought the dress code should include bonnets, top hats, and Empire waists.  Where were the carriages, bewigged aristocrats, and peasants with rotted teeth?

The Bath Abbey was founded in the 7th century, and over the next millennium underwent some major changes, getting a serious facelift in the 1860s.  The place was absolutely stunning, inside and out.  My only problem was with the admission fee, or as the sign put it, “suggested donation”. I take serious umbrage at suggested donations.  You should either say “donations welcome” or list a price.  I always end up paying the suggested amount to avoid feeling guilty and then immediately feel like a sucker.  Grievances aside, it was well worth the £2.50 I paid to visit the abbey.

Anne’s niece Helen lived just down the street (and generously watched Toby, Anne’s third dog with a reputation for riling up the other pooches). She stopped by one evening with a bottle of wine and her infectious laugh.  I liked her immediately.  The following day, she offered to take me to the nearby village of Lacock, which is comically pronounced LAY-COCK.

The tiny village is mostly owned by the National Trust, which sets out ‘To Look after Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty permanently for the benefit of the nation across England, Wales and Northern Ireland’.  It has been used as a filming location for “Pride and Prejudice” (the Colin Firth version), two Harry Potter films, and the current season of “Downton Abbey”.  Economy cars aside, the area really did feel like it was from another time.

Imperative cultural experience

With few exceptions, I loathe seafood, but I knew I needed to try fish and chips.  (I’m very committed to assimilating into a foreign culture, you see.)  I only hoped that my love of fried food would outweigh my disgust for scaled creatures.  I figured that the aptly named restaurant FISH N’CHIPS would be the best place to go.  At £8.95 (37 TL), it was one of my most expensive purchases, so I forced myself to eat everything (except the salad, obviously). 

It wasn’t that bad, until I started to head back to the house.  Now weighed down by an entire cod and a kilo of fried potatoes, the typically invigorating walk up to Anne’s home became the worst 15 minutes of my life.  It felt like the fish had miraculously reassembled itself in my bulging belly and was trying to escape.  It’s a miracle that I didn’t vomit.

Wowee!

Early on, I went to the town’s tourist information center, which was run by senior citizens in tailored pantsuits.  After telling them that I was on a budget, I was handed a small booklet titled “Walks in Bradford-on-Avon”.  Never has a brochure been more applicable to me.  Few things give me as much pleasure as exploring places on foot and BoA gave me plenty of opportunities to do exactly that.  Plus, walking is free!

Completed in 1805, the Avoncliff Aqueduct crosses the River Avon.

I stuck with normal Istanbul working hours, so I finished work at 4pm GMT, which allowed me to maximize my walking time. I was most blown away by the flowers everywhere. Every blossom I saw before coming to England was a weed. Many of the homes were fitted with immaculate gardens and roses the size of your face. 

I think I expected Bradford-on-Avon to be more familiar, like a Downton Abbey/American Midwest hybrid. I was way off. I have never felt so good to be wrong. (Apart from that time when I thought that I had a brain tumor, but it turned out I was just hungry.)

I was completely unaware of the river boat lifestyle before my trip.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone who has never been to the US tries to contradict my description of American culture based on an episode of Friends/Big Bang Theory/How I Met Your Mother. This happens way more often than you might think. 

Spending time in England made me realize that I’d been doing the exact same thing. I carry on about all the British shows I watch and demonstrate my vast knowledge of naughty Britishisms. But during my stay in Bradford-on-Avon, I was exposed to so many things I never could have imagined. It was pretty freaking wonderful.

As luck would have it, during my stay, the local actor’s guild was performing ‘Hamlet’ in Bradford-on-Avon's historic 14th century Tithe Barn.  How could I pass on an amateur Shakespeare production in England?  At £12 a ticket, it was within my budget.

Somewhere between Act I, Scene I and Act I, Scene II, I noticed a small insect on the head of a man sitting in front of me.  The bug was slowly weaving its way through his white wispy hair.  I asked myself if it would be weirder to touch a stranger’s head or knowingly let a bug meander around his scalp.  

Did people see me see the bug and do nothing!?  Were my fellow audience members wondering who this sadistic woman was who couldn’t be bothered to gently remove a potential parasite?  I tried to look away and focus on the play.

In 12th grade, my AP English class read “Hamlet” from a book that had the Shakespearean text printed on the left side of the page and a simplified version on the right.  Our teacher, Mr. Klauza, urged all of us to ignore the right-hand column and mumbled something about budgets cuts.  But with lines like “The king doth wake tonight and takes his rouse. Keeps wassail and the swaggering upspring reels”, it was hard to resist reading the dumbed-down, “The king is staying up all night drinking and dancing”.

Back in the Tithe Barn, whenever Hamlet would launch into one of his more verbose monologues, I found my eyes drifting to my right to see how the simple plot of the bug in the stranger’s hair was getting on.  I learned at intermission from the woman in front of me that the head belonged to her husband, Dave. By Act III, the bug had disappeared forever into his follicles. Alas, poor Dave.

The production was excellent, but the open barn got pretty chilly. Halfway through Act IV, I started wishing that everyone would hurry up and die.  By the way, what’s with Shakespearean characters saying, “I am slain” or “I am murdered”?  We would have gathered that from your lifeless body, Polonius.  Just lie still and be quiet, dammit.

I saw people playing cricket!  And they saw me, the classless American, taking pictures of them.  

I spent my final day traipsing around the town, oblivious to the humiliating farmer’s tan burning into my skin. I thought a lot about how great it is to have five senses and mobile legs and was surprised at how much money I saved by utilizing them. My Bradford-on-Avon adventure exceeded every expectation, as you can tell from this loquacious blog post.

I have many people to thank this adventure.  First, Jasmin for introducing me to Anne.  Next, Anne, Alice, and little Erin for sharing their home and pets with me.  Also Helen, for making me laugh and taking me on an adventure. Thank you to my friend Tarık for lending me his camera.  And, last but not least, my boss Erol for letting me do this yet again.