Kuafor and other essential Turkish experiences

I am surprised, actually, to realise that I have not yet written about my hairdresser yet, as being able to get a regular duz fön- hair straightening- is one of my favourite things about living here. Most of you know this, so it will come as no surprise that one of the first things I did when I guests left was head down to Serkan Bey and his assistant/makeover girl, whose name shamefully escapes me.

There is, as far as I know, no such thing as a hair appointment in Turkey. Or maybe I just don’t speak enough Turkish to make one. Anyway, the way it works for me is that I turn up and wait for Serkan to finish with whatever other customers he has. This may be none, or I may have to wait for an hour as I did on Tuesday (oops.. know you all know I went twice in one week. First time ever, I promise). So like many things here, it’s not to be done if you are in a rush. But when it is finally my turn, I get a thorough shampooing—Turks don’t use conditioner—and then Serkan rips through my knots with a brush. I think my hair is drying into little shreds of its former self, but when I can get it blow waved once a week, who cares? It sure looks better than it did when it was healthy! Serkan, nor any of the other hairdressers I have been to, thinks much of your pain and blithey tips my head back into place when I am burnt by the brush or wince because he is ripping hair out in knotty chunks. He does do a great end result though, and he charges only 5 YTL (about 5 AUS dollars) for the end result. I also usually get a very sweet cup of nescafe and lots of smiles into the deal. Serkan shows zero interest in learning English or in understanding my Turkish. This is unusual, actually, and I still sometimes ask him how he is or something very simple that I know I say clearly. But as far as Serkan is concerned, I don’t speak Turkish and so he just smiles and keeps brushing. Today, in an unprecedented show of communicativeness, he showed me an article of an Australian getting arrested (I think) in Taksim. But I’m pretty sure he likes me at the end of the day.

On to the eyebrows, also a bargain at 5 YTL a cotton weave. My eyebrows lady, in stark contrast to Serkan, is profusely chatty and bizzarely confident of my grasp of Turkish. She greets me in the street with two kisses and asks me many Turkish questions, to which I usually respond with the Turkish for ‘yes’ or ‘good’. This seems to cover a lot of ground and she also seems to be fairly positive about our relationship. We talk colours, ‘cause we both want to learn them. She approves of a wide variety of possibilities for my hair and is working on getting me to have green or yellow nails (like hers) to go with the blue hair that I once casually admired, and is know firmly on the schedule as far as Serkan s concerned. All of this ‘conversation’ and lack of makes for a fairly surreal experience, frankly, but I suppose it is very memorable and I do get great hair and brows.

Snow in İstanbul

Yes, it has finally arrived, much like the latest blog post. Unfortunately the snow was a couple of hours too late to get me the day off work yesterday but it sure is a pretty way to ruin a weekend. As a Melbourne-ite I am completed bewildered by snow that doesn’t leave when I drive home and have no idea what to do with myself. Do people actually go out in this? I was also perhaps rather late on the wow-check-out-snowflakes bandwagon. They are really intricate! (Where do think they got the picture from? Jackson notes wrily). They are impressive! For anyone else who didn’t notice yet. (Though for all that, kind of... kitsch, don’t you think?) It is a lovely experience.

I have had some visitors of one form or another here for the last two weeks. It has been great to put aside some time to see quite a few of the ‘sites’ of İstanbul after four months here. I even bought a scarf and a lamp at the Grand Bazaar, a ‘traditional’ market filled with English speaking salesmen (‘you will see this lamp in your dreams tonight’ he calls to a sales-wearied Tara) and overpriced goods. Mostly lamps and scarves, actually. Oo and it is the only place where Turkish people have been really really impressed with my Turkish. Also nice.
On to Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque—you all have Wikipedia so I will stick with a fairly cursory personal assessment—both better from the outside than in. Although Hagia Sophia has impressive frescoes, if it’s reverence you’re after you’d better go back to Italy. Tour guides give speeches whilst straddling the monuments and there is rather a lot to buy considering it has been a church for thousands of years. But no more; Hagia Sophia, like most Christian churches in İstanbul, is a museum. The Blue Mosque has an inordinate amount of scaffolding and reams of red carpet, a la Morwell Gospel Chapel 1989 for those of you for whom that rings a bell. Considering this one is functioning as a place of worship, I had to agree with Jackson that it was no doubt better for the knees that way. As a footnote, I also feel obligated to pass on that thick black woolen tights do not constitute coverage for my ever-seductive legs, and so I had to wrap a velcro-ing blue sheet around me as well as donning a head-scarf. Elegant.

Better were the Chora Church and the Cisterns... quiet, beautiful and a freaky idea (cisterns, obviously). But those I will leave to the pictures, because it is time to have breakfast.... and I have to make it myself! Yes, scandal/shock/horror, all my guests have left and I will have to go back to cooking and generally acting like I live here. Christmas is over and Amy Winehouse is back on, a bit of melancholy backdrop for good measure. It was a good one!