White Baboon

Sitting here talking about love life issues. Just ordered a Dominos pizza. Celine Dion’s French voice is in the air.

But first having cigarettes and coffee. Tea will be after the meal. How does anyone sleep here?

When Sez’s couchsurfing profile told me that his motto in life was: “take the blue pill,” I knew he would be a good host. But I had no idea what we were in for. By day, while Sez went to work, we read, wrote, cooked and wandered his neighborhood of apartments, patisseries and dirt soccer fields. When he returned home, we fell into conversation about Bush, the PKK (see video here) and the troubles of his Iranian friend, Sara. He played Arabesque Turkish love songs for us. His friend Erkan improved his English. We taught him the words to They Might Be Giants rendition of the Istanbul-Constantinople song.

One night, we saw live Turkish music, clapping along with immersion beneath the ceiling-wrapped vines of tulip lights, green wavy walls and round tables of testosterone. We drank Tuborg and took pictures. We ate a traditional cig kufte appetizer of spicy raw meat sprinkled with lemon and wrapped in a lettuce leaf. And then, we were forced to sing what words we knew of Hotel California into a microphone. In front of the bar.

Here in Denizli, where he lived, there was nothing to see. He knew that. We knew that. But we didn’t care. We were interested in speaking with the real Turkish people about life. What they ate for breakfast (olives, bread, jam). How much vacation they got (two weeks). How they dated (a lot of very formal set ups).

And even Lonely Planet, the bible of all guidebooks, with its boxed vignettes of anecdotes about regional cuisine and historical legends, has become, shall we say, “quaint” after the cultural exchange which is possible from couchsurfing. . . .

So many experiences, so little time. . . .six months will never be enough.