i have mentioned before that taksim should be offlimits to me now. 3 years of tramping in one relatively small neighborhood... lets just say that after coming back from my big north american adventure, i stopped frequenting the old haunts as i stopped other bad habits like cigarettes.

until last night.

suzan and josef havent seen each other in a few weeks. sparks were going to fly last night for their big reunion, and so i was asked to take their visiting german friend, rasmus, out on the town. take him out early and keep him out as late as possible.

it is my mission and i take it seriously. also, rasmus is a wonder of socialist philosophy, rugged german charm, little round glasses, my very own jean-paul sartre.

so, with rasmus-sartre in tow and our respective livers about to take a beating, i throw caution to the wind and head to the bars.

50 ytl later, at about 3am, rasmus and i are discussing socialist forums excitedly, atop a terrasse packed with cool kids. ok, we're slurring, i'm pretty certain i'm not making too much sense, but this guy is nice and i promised the lovebirds that i'd give them as much alone time as i can.

one more beer, waiter dear!

the waiter taps my shoulder and asks to take a chair. but its not the waiter, its emin! the dreaded turkish exboyfriend of 3 years ago who always ends up dragging me into some kind of public drama, no matter how many times we promise he's grown up. i havent seen him in over a year, i should think we're comfortable strangers by now, but no, once engaged in some kind of relationship with a turkish man, always subject to weird sms, phone calls, arm grabs and sizing up the person i'm sitting with.

i panic, yo. with all the 10 beers charm i can muster, i suggestively say, ohh emin, THIS is rassssssssmus.

rasmus cocks his eyebrow in puzzlement, emin gets a hint, i promptly get a wave of nausea at my filthy lies and remember exactly why i've given up leaving my house in the first place. the next hour, i put all efforts to make it look like sartre and i are ambiguously involved, checking from the corner of my eye that emin is in fact staring. i keep up the act until we leave, at which point i breathe 10 sighs of relief and drop rasmus at a taxi stand, after buying him a sandwich to excuse myself for throwing him suggetive looks while he was talking about feminist principles in socialist theory (note: there are none).

surely, the more embarassing part of this whole ordeal is when i make certain phonecalls to certain distant countries, talking nonsense (of course) because out of this whole situation, exboyfriends i care little for anyway, german boys i'm not interested in that way, its to a faraway soft spot that i felt the need to apologize to. i dont think i apologized though, i think i spoke 600 miles a minute instead.

will i one day grow up? je ne crois pas. eh merde-euh.

update on a smoke free wonderful world.

my true nature. a fist shaker.
Originally uploaded by chou a la creme.

quitting smoking makes me:

1. stressed but proud i'm better than it.
2. fat. most likely from all the substitute eating.
3. a hermit. trying not to go mix drinks and the ultimate hand to mouth gesture.
4. ultimately okay. but stressed, fat and a hermit.

and happy of course, as i beat the smokes demon, made my life better, am healthy, and happier intrinsically....
yea yea. its really because i promised my mother.

much stressed out love to you all :)

telephone terrorism.

Cell Phone
Originally uploaded by lunessence.

last night, the phone rang after 11pm. as it was a number i didnt recognise, i argued to myself that the odds were that i did not want to pick up.

a) it's a mysterious telephone number
b) it's after 11pm
c) there are a few people i can think of i dont feel like talking to.
d) telephone harassment is common in turkey.

after ringing consistently for a full minute, the vibrations stop.... and promptly start again. mysterious caller is calling again. one minute later, again. and again. and again and again. at 12:30 pm, psycho caller has left 36 missed calls on my telephone.

i'm relatively angry at this point. this has happened to me before. a scorned boy i stupidly gave my number to calls me 38 times and when i finally pick up, scared shitless by this display of obsession, he simply asks me if i want to go for tea sometime. lesson learned, i am no longer one to give my number to anyone. 'i'll take yours, ok?'

today, while i'm working on this stressful translation that keeps reminding me that my turkish in all actuality borders on pathetically bad, the phone rings again. same number. i'm a vicious mood to begin with and so i answer.

- 'hello!!!!!! roooooaaaarrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!'
- hi, tuba? tuba, is that you?
- NO NO. its not TUBA. there is no TUBA here.
- oh but i want to talk to tuba. you're not tuba?
- listen buddy, you called 36 times last night. there is NO tuba here. what is your problem?
- well if you had picked up, i wouldnt have had to call 36 times.
- hey weirdo, calling someone 36 times in an hour might explain why this Tuba girl gave you the WRONG number, you PSYCHO. dont call here again!!!!!!! raaaaaoooorrrrr!!!!!!!!!
click.

i have a satisfied grin on my face and i remember that after all, my turkish isn't so bad.
in all seriousness my friends, in which other culture is it considered normal, -nay- advisable to act like a derangeously obsessed chemically inbalanced asshole who will do any of the following things in a 24 hr span.
- send you an sms then call 10 min. later asking why you didn't answer them already.
- call your phone repeatedly until you answer and are told you are invited to coffee/tea/drinks/mariage, you know, anytime you want....
- call and hang up. one ring, hang up. also repeatedly. just to remind you they're thinking of you.
- call collect to ask you out for a drink sometime
- call and tell you they're downstairs/at the door/in front of your office building and ask you out for a drink sometime.
- call the wrong number, fall on you then call you back to say that even they were looking for someone else, you really do have a nice voice.

no one is safe with their cell phone here. it's telephone terrorism.

smoke-free and hopping across istanbul.

vapur.
Originally uploaded by chou a la creme.

i'm still yours non-smoker truly. i have developed an allergy to smoke-free air though as my eyes are nose seem to itch and burn. that or this clean air reveals i've always been allergic to the cat. pony mcfangs, we have a problem. of course there's the phlegmy back of the throat, the incapacity to focus and finding myself absent-mindedly smoking the sharpie. it's all good though, it's worth it, really. oh jeezus, my stomach tightens just writing that.
resisting the cigarette is like resisting a hot boy you've just met. the two of you had a great time together, you sent a text message, email or other communicative sign that you're interested and now you wait for a response. however you'd rather die than give in to sending him that second sign. you'll pretend you don't care even though you're dying to drop that extra email or give that missed call. they will not get the satisfaction of knowing just how much you miss them...
the cigarettes and i are battling the upper hand. i scorn it and it just snickers suavely thinking i'll be back. i'll show it just how cool and casual i can be.

to reward myself on this very serious lifestyle change, i partook in my favorite activity in istanbul. i took the vapur. the smell of the bosphorus, the skyline of sultanahmet, the setting sun on the light waves and dark blue waters, oh istanbul, oh istanbul! you're natural poetry. these days, 60 minutes on public transport gets a free transfer. i am rediscovering the city! from tramway, hop to the bus, hop to the funicular, hop to the boat. i make mental cartoons of a little brunette skipping across a map of istanbul, europe to asia, up to down.

i promise, employment is round the corner. and as if i had not travelled enough this year, my next destination is decided, travel partner chosen. dave sommer and i are going to israel. shalom!

i quit the nasty smokes.

meyhane girlfriends
Originally uploaded by chou a la creme.

yes you heard me. in the midst of cheap cigarette land, where hospitality means extending a pack of smokes along with a glass of tea, i have quit it. last night, a big bottle of cheap white wine was gulped and a whole pack of cigarettes were smoked. it was my farewell, i'm now done.
to whoever i spoke to last night, i was mildly imbibed, just so you know.
my head hurts, i feel a little panicked and theres this odd scratchy feeling at the back of my throat. telling my neighbor aydin bey, the old man who hangs out of his window all day, about this change of heart regarding nicotine, his answer is more honest than my thoughts of physical and moral health.
'do sports or you'll get fat'.
thank you, aydin bey for saying the cold hard truth.

bombs and exes.

stairwell.
Originally uploaded by chou a la creme.

in the land of exploding trash cans, the tak proclaims no tourists are welcome or safe in turkey. while i distinctly recall nelson mandela using a form of resistance slightly similar (trying to hurt the economic foundations of apartheid south africa), the fucking tak misses its symbolic spread of fear in tourism influx and instead blows up my favorite cafe in antalya along with a simit seller whose only crime in life was to wear a red ottoman fez.
here here, i am not trivialising the use of violence in conflict, particularly when we all know that civilians suffer the entire brunt of wars of power (and money... try convincing me otherwise, i dare you), i am just saying that while i had compassion for mandela and the struggle, all i want to do is make bad dirty jokes about the tak and should i come across one in the street, clock them in the face. now, how to point one out...

because i fear these bombs and their touristic locations, i found myself waiting in front of the burger king the other night on the most revered bar scene in istanbul. taksim!
taksim, taksim, like a song.
i've been avoiding my beloved bosom neighborhood since i've returned. this odd fear of running into old flings has been haunting me. a 12 hour flight back to turkey had given me the time to assess the last few years and make 'lists' (lotsa lists), and one of these lists was telling me that the odds of running into said old flings had become 5 fold in the last year.

those are not good odds. worse odds than being close to a tak bomb, that is certain. walking down the avenue to get to my favorite hidden bar (see picture for odd stairwell of the venue), my eyes are shifting here and there, haircuts and necks i think i recognise send me flying behind a wall of girls on a night out, i'm navigating pot holes, looking straight ahead, walking swift and fast, never once stopping or hesitating in my direct course. if i do, someone will say my name, i know it! it'll be awkward, i'll want to run away, they wont understand how i can be so rude and keep calling after me. i'll walk faster or stop pretending i just got my selective hearing back. either way, i'll make plans because its impossible for me to be straightforward with people (eg. i NEVER want to see you EVER) and i'll be getting more phonecalls i have to screen.
i was lucky for my first outing in the wild urban jungle that is taksim (oh my lovely taksim) but im not taking too many more chances. between bombs and exes, its a fucking minefield.

i'm mildly angry with istanbul.first it was a general annoyance sparked by the 3 week fabulous vacation in chicago and montreal. i was in a general whiny attitude about traffic, lack of television options, 70% humidity, missing the chicken salad sandwiches and martinis of the western world. one week on however and the cloud isn't lifting, dear 2 readers (hi tamara! hi jana!). what otherwise is known as my stellar good humor at life (oh the comedy!) is being seriously dampened by a child like tantrumy mood of ' i wanna go back! i wanna go back!'. it is so bloody hot, my email inbox seems desperately empty, i refuse to call my buddies, i refuse to leave the house. one week of eating watermelon and white wine, both of which can be delivered to my apartment by a friendly-ish teenager... fucking pathetic.but then a newcomer to the city (laura, hi laura!) forced me to leave the household to accompany her on a short hike to besiktas yesterday. in the heat, we set off to meet her potential new roommate, jumping through traffic jams and glaring male shadows (oh yes because i've also developed an allergy to testosterone in the last week). soon after we entered the apartment she ultimately will rent, the skies turned an opaque and threatening sheath of grey. that grey sky promptly cracked, leaving laura and i scantering in the first downpour istanbul has seen in months. water was billowing down cumhurriyet caddesi, buses struggling to keep on the road, water collecting in large puddles on pedestrian crosswalks, filling up potholes. thank you brilliant city planners and builders. istanbul officially cant make an even sidewalk or a working gutter system. in the mayhem, laura and i decided that we might as well win the wet tshirt contest instead of cowering under an awning we couldnt see. traipseing across the busiest avenue that is taksim square, my flipflop went swimming underneath a taxi, making me backtrack into oncoming traffic. 10 meters down the way, we were forced to remove our shoes entirely to cross a rapid of water that came to our calves. now, my panties were wet. you see the extent of this downfall? but it was so much fun. fun to be soaking wet in hot weather, fun to see people laughing instead of staring menacingly at my obvious nipple display, fun to jump feet first into large puddles on the busiest avenue in the city. in the general mayhem, some asshole underneath an umbrella with a digital SLR took one look at us and snapped a quickfire of shots. because im NOT an idiot, i covered my poor sexily displayed chest, gave him the finger and shouted some nasty beautifully crafted turkish retort.when we got back to the apartment, the sun shone through and the neighbors laughed at me. i was in a pretty sweet mood and felt that this was a great unique welcome to laura, curteousy of our country.but dont go thinking i've lost my cross face. being in this mood is emboldening. i do need to move out of istanbul. im rather determined to do so now.

im sorry. it was a while there.

wedding party!
Originally uploaded by chou a la creme.

that this blog should not be updated is a serious offense on my part and i'm here to redeem myself.
the last 2 months have been about my brother's wedding, my brother's wedding, my big return to canada and my brother's wedding. it was difficult to think of little else and istanbul was in the backdrop.
now that nick got hitched, that i traipsed around ontario and quebec, and have finally made my return sans containers to turkey and the real life, i feel inspired to write a novel.
it'll be a novel about international conflict, fabulous carnal encounters in bathrooms, trying to understand the internal conflict of romantic cynicism while weeping during wedding ceremonies, and how to get on the road with 'the plan' before i'm 30. maybe there'll be an appendix on the philosophical equations regarding said 'plan'.
i welcome myself back to istanbul, back to the heat of late august, back to screening my calls for mad exboyfriends who dont even like me (i mean, they think they do, but they dont), back to the media world of turkish-isms.
now, about living in the present, as opposed to pining about things i want but obviously cant have. just yet.

its the season for parties.

graduation parties continue.
Originally uploaded by chou a la creme.

last saturday was a night of reckoning.
flanked by my 3 very intelligent, very unique and of course by the picture to your left, very hot girlfriends, we set out to celebrate suzan (blond on the left) graduating from turkey's top university and getting peeved enough with her father that she felt a tab of 300+ytl was a worthy graduating present for herself. of course, i agreed that this kind of money should be spent in style and we set out to visit the kinds of haunts i would normally balk from setting foot in.
my own hypocrisy astounds me. drinking 20ytl martinis with a 360 view of istanbul and 3 friends who are excited about the prospect of a bellini... well, fuck, i love it! particularly when i am not paying for it. thank you, mr suzan's dad. hope you read this and know that pissing your daughter off by not attending her graduation leads to her friends getting drunk on quality vodka.
after a few many martinis of assorted flavors, the party continued to another haunt of capitalist piggery, the ever famous bosphorus flanking leila, now called sortie. who cares about the name change. the atmosphere, well, it doesnt change. the drinks are a whopping 25ytl, the men wear suits, the girls are all sporting some kind of gold accessory (i should shut up with my gold ballerinas, now shouldnt i) and surprisingly, no one hits on you. fabulous. by then, the martinis were making me dance happy, it is 3am, the music is terrible, the crowd worse, but without a care in the world, we dance.
when my feet fail me, i beg the girls to go sit at the back of this somptious venue, feet over a ledge that really lets you smell and feel the bosphorus. well of course, leila-sortie-capitalist-piggery catering to the man has its own yacht deck, so that when i say i'm on the water, i mean an unobstructed view of the asian side, the bridge, the guy curing his nose on the oil tanker. if i were stupid, i could jump in.
i am exstatic. 30 min. later, god descends upon us and graces us with the leftover jack daniels bottle a group of snooty girls casually leave behind. the suzans and i proceed to get drunk all over again at 4:30am, feet on the plushy cushions, yelling poetry at the bosphorus, (and the yacht drivers), waving the pelvis in every which direction, dancing shmancing... well you can imagine what a couple girls with poka dot dresses can do when drunk off bosphorus vapor and jack.
the night ends with suzan and i roaming the streets for egg and sausage to soak up other susan's drunkenness as she happens to be working at the news agency on a sunday morning. the next memory is a large hangover and the need for something greasy, giggling to myself that i hadnt had a real martini since montreal. weee.

by the by. tonight, i bus it to my aunt's summer house, where my lovely 14yr old cousin cant wait for us to have the summer holiday of our lives. she even reminded to bring a dress so we could roam the walkway together in the evening. i feel this is my punishment for asking my father to financially support me until september.

i'm special.

5.35 am in Nyon. waiting for the train.
Originally uploaded by chou a la creme.

individuality is inevitable. i mean, we are individuals therefore we have individuality. really though, i think i've been revoked my individuality. i am a victim of my likes, dislikes and taste.

it all started with suzan, then gregg, then someone or other, saying, 'hey, selin, i thought i saw you in the street! and then i got closer, and well it wasnt you. man though did that chick look like you'. well, i guess i live in turkey, i'm one with my brethren, i look like my people. fair enough.

but then it became more specific. 'i saw this girl on the metro this morning. she totally looked like you. same hair, same style. it was incredible'. 'this girl in a bar was so like you'. 'this other girl, yeah, totally like you'.

now now. hold your horses everyone. who are these chicks going around looking like me? but then i noticed it too.
converse. check.
bangs. check.
striped, poka dotted or checkered something. check.
dishevelled and aloof. check.
skirts on leggings? soon to come to check.

aw fuck. and then i turned on mtv. fuck fuck fuck. at 25, i'm trendy in that bad way. suzan calls it the selin uniform. although i'm not sure i pioneered much of it. i can only hope my angry sweet personality sets me apart from these istanbul girls. well after all, i'm angry sweet converse wearing in english.

im artsy. reeeealllly?

travels to paris via thalys.
Originally uploaded by chou a la creme.

there are two newspapers, one french, one english. there are three books, a feminist turkish author, jack lang talking about nelson mandela in french and a story of woe and war in sierra leone in english. there are also some oversized sunglasses and a very unsugared cup of french coffee. oh and a swanky cell phone.

i was going to paris on the train. i was feeling alternative, worldly, hot, educated. maybe academic?

what no one knows is that i spent the first 3 of the 4 hour train ride sleeping with my mouth open, swaying to the train moves, most likely unnerving my neighbor. someone had decided the night before (maybe me?) that i needed to party. and party hard i did. that morning, my mother's boyfriend had driven me to the early train, and i had sported those oversized glasses and a bag, certain i smelled like last night's alcohol. oozing it most likely.

that strong coffee was there to wake me up. the cell phone to call someone for help. the books to rest my head on. and the newspapers to make me look like the above good characteristics about my life.

he.

people. writing for the public is a frightening thing. let me start with a story to ease my uneasiness (ha! appropriate cure indeed).
when i lived in montreal, people asked me where i was from. where are you from? they'd say. well, i would answer casually, i was born in geneva but i come from a small town on the border, however i am french and turkish.
but your accent? its so... american.
well, i'd say casually, i was lucky enough to live in new york when i was young and my father speaks english to me. also, i graduated from an international english speaking school.
but, your mother tongue, what is it?
well, its french of course.
what happened to your french accent then?
well, its gone. i guess.
aww. thats too bad. really. its really too too bad.

years of feeling inadequate for not having my tv sexy french accent have finally come to and end after living in turkey for almost 3 years when a few weeks ago, someone i work with pointedly remarked that i had a sexy french accent in turkish.

back in the fantasy french girl accent fall of fame i have returned.
thank you lord of the incapables of learning new languages after the age of 20.

portrait by gregg

portrait by gregg
Originally uploaded by chou a la creme.

hello hello. merhaba from istanbul. bonjour de ma grande ville. it was about time i unleashed my acidic ranting onto the world wide web.
i'm tired of pretending i dont want to publish my own diatribes for everyone interested or not to read. i can carve a place for myself in these parts!
a l'assaut des ecrits internetiques!

yasasin selin!