Since I couldn’t go home for Thanksgiving - I’m about 6,000 miles away -
I decided instead to go to Turkey. And since turkey isn’t exactly a popular
food in Turkey, I had to settle for a chicken kebab. Well, we all know the
proverb that anything (sufficiently manipulated, of course) can be made to taste
like chicken, and so here, I propose a corollary: chicken, with a bit of
imagination, can begin to taste like turkey if you happen to be stuck in Turkey
for Thanksgiving. So I tell myself proudly that I had turkey in Turkey on
Thanksgiving, though I know it’s a lie.
Regardless of whether I, in fact, had chicken or turkey, I most definitely
did have - and this is beyond all doubt (the evidence still exists) - diarrhea.
“Sultan’s revenge,” as it is fondly called in Turkey, struck me
mercilessly. Twenty-three visits to the bathroom (in twenty-four hours) and one
entire roll of toilet paper later I was still - brace yourself, I am afraid
there is no more polite way to say this - pissing out of my butt. Pure liquid,
as if a (muddy) water main had burst within me. The unknowing observer, had he
overheard me in the stall, would naturally have assumed I was standing. The
unbearable stench, however, would have befuddled him and betrayed me. So the
first rule of thumb when visiting Turkey (thank you, Boy Scouts of America) is
to be prepared. No matter how careful or careless you are in selecting food and
beverages, the Sultan will certainly sock you. The best you can do is to arrive
armed with Immodium and extra reserves of toilet paper. Should you choose to
disregard this friendly advice, you will most definitely spend the majority of
your time on the can. No Grand Bazaar or Turkish Bath for you.
I spent three days in Istanbul, a fascinating city which spans two continents
and three millennia of history. You can walk from Europe to Asia in a matter of
minutes, if you’re into that sort of thing. I imagine it’s every bit as
titillating as sauntering from Buda to Pest in the Hungarian capital, perhaps
even on par with lying down at “Four Corners” with one hand and one foot
each in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. That is to say, it’s one of
the tourist traps that appeals chiefly to checklist-oriented types, those who
religiously keep track of the number of states or countries they have visited,
someday hoping to hit all. Count me out.
Despite your best efforts to avoid touristy things, however, you will
constantly be singled out all over town unless you somehow happen to look
convincingly Turkish. People kept approaching me with lines like, “Hey, friend”
or “Are you lost?” (in English, of course), even though I was always walking
briskly, with purpose, precisely to appear not lost. While I never felt
unsafe, I did grow quickly tired of the over-eager boys begging to shine my
shoes and the shifty middle-aged men insisting I buy a Turkish carpet. One
salesman, not much older than myself, spent thirty minutes trying to persuade me
to buy a rug; I told him from the outset I had no interest - I had neither the
money nor the desire - but he persisted, convinced he could sweet-talk me and
eventually wear me down. At one point he caught me off-guard with the question,
“Do you want to kill yourself?” - a worse sales pitch or pick-up line I
couldn’t imagine - but then I realized this was simply his way of asking if I
wanted a cigarette. No thanks, I replied, adding that both my maternal
grandparents had died of lung cancer. We soon parted ways, he disappointed (but
eternally hopeful in that decidedly used-car-salesman way), and I happily
empty-handed. I then rummaged through a few of the more bizarre bazaars - where
everything from chainsaws to pigs’ feet and plastic toilet seats are on sale -
picking out a handful of kitschy Christmas presents for my family. Before I knew
it, the holiday was over and, with little more than diarrhea to show for my
visit, I was on a plane headed back to the world of work and study.
