My friend in the United States of America sent me a link about a ghost town in Turkey that she wanted me to check out because she thought it looked awesome. I agreed.
So I decided to go to this ghost town, Kayaköy, during the Halloween season, the most haunting time of year. I wanted to find out if this town was legit. Everyone knows that I see ghosts in real life, so obviously if there were truly ghosts in this village then I would be the one to see them.
Truth be told, I haven't seen one single ghost since I have lived in Turkey, so my expectations were exceedingly low. But I went anyway because I believe in giving everyone a chance, even ghosts.
Here is my story.
It was a dark and stormy night. Literally, it was raining and lightning and thundering the ENTIRE way for my 6 hour bus ride. I liked it.
Anyway, it was a dark and stormy night. I was feeling bedraggled when I asked in broken Turkish for my bus driver to pull over on a deserted street to let me and my ghost-busting partner, Oscar, out. We scouted around the deserted beach town until we found a meager light at an Inn, a place in which we could rest our weary heads for the night.
Side note: I feel like I accidentally just morphed into telling a story resembling that of the night Jesus Christ was born. It wasn't quite that dramatic. Back to the ghosts.
The next morning, after a good night's rest and our bellies full of kahvaltı (breakfast), we caught the next bus to the village of spirits. When we told the dolmuş driver our specific destination, he looked at us quizzically and then shrugged. After twisting his vehicle skillfully through the mountains, we were once again dropped off in the middle of nowhere to fend for ourselves.
We started down this desolate, muddy road hoping to quickly find our accommodations that we had booked online the week before. I had to watch my step as we were walking due to all of the frog carcasses that littered the ground. It was weird.
Dead frogs after a great storm -- isn't that biblical too?
Fortunately, we found a sign for our lodging! Unfortunately, the sign was terrifying.
This designer should be fired.
In the meantime, I noticed that the dirt path that we were on was lined with barbed wire. I wondered: Was this feature put in place to protect the pedestrians from danger? Or to keep us boxed in so that the murders could happen more smoothly?
The excessive fencing seems unnecessary, but what do I know about country road regulations in rural Turkey?
Then I noticed the sprawling graveyard surrounding the creepy pathway on which we were lost. This made me nervous. Who were in all these graves? People dropped off by the previous dolmuş's? I didn't like what I saw one bit. Negative self talk began. It went like this: "I'm probably going to die. No one will know what happened." I repeated this over and over again.
Here is a view of the graves, just beyond the barbed wire.
Also, there was a sign asking us to pay attention when Satan's horses were passing by.
Does Satan travel this way often? Apparently often enough to elicit the need for a sign.
Additionally, I met several animals along the way that were obviously mocking me for continuing to venture down Bad-Choice Lane.
I know what this sheep was thinking. "This dumb bitch is about to die. And so is her foreign friend. The foreign guy always dies first. Well, maybe second if there is a blonde in the plot line."
After about fifteen minutes of wandering in quiet fear, Oscar suggested that he approach the haunted house on our left to ask for directions. I look at him incredulously and asked, "Have you learned nothing from horror films? You are seriously about to die." He thought about that for a second and then decided that I was correct. He said something along the lines of, "You're right. We should definitely not split up. That's exactly what the director of our film would want us to do and we are not that stupid."
So we continued on until we found our pension. We had a spooky feeling that we were in the right place when we found a dead baby in a tree.
Ok, it was a doll, not a real child. But dolls remind me of dead babies. I don't like them.
Once we checked in the owner of the pension led us to our room. It was not the room we had paid for online so we asked to check out some of the other rooms. After being led to a shed out back with a single mattress on the floor as option number two, we decided to accept the initial room offer. In all honesty, it was quite comfy.
This was our room key. Yes, it was attached to a mutilated teddy bear.
This was a photograph on the wall in our hotel room. It's weird. Am I right?
So after we got settled in, we took off for the ghostly village. The people who worked at our pension were very sweet and helpful -- they pointed us in the right direction and wished us good luck. By the time we got there it had turned into a beautiful day. Oscar and I climbed in, around and through the ruins, as one can only do in Turkey where there are absolutely no enforced regulations.
Sometimes there are signs that try to try -- but as you can see in the background, a large human size hole has been made in the wall protecting the church from intruders. Once you crawl through that hole, you will find a nicely stacked pile of rocks which you can climb upon to jump over another fence where you will land neatly into the church courtyard. Just sayin'.
Nothing terribly exciting happened in the village. I saw one ghost dog -- brown with black spots -- that was cool. But who knows when that dog died -- it could have been last year. And it didn't scare me. I was a bit disappointed because I was hoping for something more thrilling. All I saw were beautiful vistas and dreamy crumbling architecture. Sigh.
Perhaps the ghosts are tired of people (like me) using their yester-homes as backdrops for high-school-senior-like photos.
After a few hours of investigating, Oscar and I had gözleme and çay (deLIGHTful gözleme and çay I might add) at a little cafe and headed back to the Inn. On the trek back is where I got my most frightening, hair-raising scare.
Ostriches are my second greatest fear.
I was trying to overcome my overwhelming fear of ostriches by getting marginally close to this random one that was in a fenced in yard in the middle of nowhere. I thought to myself, "Perhaps I can take some awesome pics -- maybe this gi-normous atrocity can be tastefully artistic." But this guy was aggressively stalking around it's dinosaur sized eggs with it's head lowered and it's beady fist-sized bird eye sizing me up. After fearfully running back to the hotel and researching ostrich behavior I learned that a) I should have been more scared than I was and b) it's a good thing that ostriches can't jump because if they could then this one would have eviscerated me. So there's that.
The only other thing that happened was that I saw ghost hovering in the corner of my bedroom near the ceiling before I turned out the lights to go to sleep.
Overall rating of my Ghost Village experience: 9.5 out of 10 stars
Well well well, if it isn't my old blog. (Terrible way to start, I'm really out of practice)
I know it has been a few months since I have written anything. The truth is, I'm lazy. But I'm getting back into the swing of life again so I'm going to catch you up on some things that happened over the summer.
Today's blog is sponsored by the country of Spain.
Last fall, my friend Megan and I had this really brilliant idea for how we might spend our summer together -- we decided that we should walk El Camino de Santiago. If you've never heard of it, it's a pilgrimage across Spain. We knew we wouldn't have time to do the whole thing, so we chose a 300 mile long section to tackle.
Here is a view from El Camino. It's really long.
I don't know what comes to mind for you when you consider hiking 300 miles with all your supplies strapped to your back. I didn't really think much about it at all. Megan would send me links to blogs about the Camino (for mental preparation) and lists of quick-dry items that she planned to pack (because she's practical like that) and I was all, "Hey, could you buy me one of everything you're getting and I'll pay you back in Spain?" Like I said before, I'm lazy. Furthermore, I tend to plan for failure rather than for success. In my mind, I was thinking about how I would justify backing out of the trail three days in by turning my hiking adventure into a gloriously relaxing beach vacation on the shores of Spain, all by myself if need be. That's just how my brain works.
Anyway. The school year finally finished and I headed to Spain. I was fairly out of shape because I had recently been suffering from stress fractures in my feet, but I was really excited to give the Camino a go. My negative thoughts were at a minimum because our friend Sarah had also decided to join us for our Spanish adventure and she doubled as an on-staff doctor and a positive ray of sunshine. So worry I did not. For the first three days I flew through the miles, practically jogging with my backpack.
Meanwhile, everyone I met had a story to tell. Some of the stories were delightful anecdotes about life in different corners of the world. Some of the stories were about heartache and loss and figuring out how to deal. But most of the talk was about injuries. Specifically, Camino related injuries. It was totally common for every pilgrim on the Camino to rip off their shoes and socks at each and every public bar and restaurant and massage their bloodied and swollen feet. Everyone I met had battle wounds wrapped and covered, bandaids and compeed and thread hanging out of and off from blisters, swollen joints and angry red skin -- and all I could think was, "Man, I am lucky to not be hurting like all these people."
Amidst all the tales of pain and Camino woes came an onslaught of unsolicited advice. As it turns out, I really hate unsolicited advice.
As people would share their precautionary tips to prevent future hardships, I smiled and nodded and then inevitably ignored them. In my mind I sang, "Ain't nobody got time for that."
Fast forward. Here is a passage from my journal on Day 9:
"...both shins have swollen to insane proportions, I got heat rash in three new spots and it's not going away, we walked on a freeway for six hours and I was the slowest so I cried a little, I got on a scale and it said I gained five pounds since yesterday, I accidentally ordered three sandwiches for breakfast which cost 10 euros, made me feel fat and sluggish, and proved to me that my Spanish comprehension is sub-par. There are bedbugs in my albergue..."
I would be lying if I said that the Camino didn't break my spirit. It did. I have many joyous memories of life on the Camino but I also spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself and wondering why the hell I would choose such an atrocious way to spend my summer. Sometimes after long bouts of silence on the trail Megan would ask me what I was thinking. If I responded truthfully by saying that I was "meditating on loneliness and pain" she would inform me that I was not meditating, but rather I was wallowing.
Sometimes I would sit down on a rock and say sullenly, "Just leave me here to die." Typically I followed this up with hysterical and/or irrational laughter.
One day as I was sitting with my swollen legs dangling in an icy cold river, an Irish fellow made an astute observation of me without even asking my name. He said, "It looks like you chose the wrong holiday." This man happened to be the winner of the Irish Voice. (I have included this random piece of information and one of his music videos not because it has any relevance to my story but because I think it's funny.)
Don't judge me Pat. I may have been lame but so is your video.
Take that.
So you might be asking yourself, "If the hike was so terrible, why didn't you just quit and escape to your magical beach vacation that you had elaborately planned in your mind?" Well, judgey reader, I will tell you. I didn't quit because everybody else kept going. And I didn't want to be the loser that couldn't hang. It became a principle of stubborn pride. That was truly the only thing that kept me going for a solid 15 days. That and the fact that I really liked all the people I met along the way and I suffer from a condition called FOMO - fear of missing out. We would do really fun things like drink wine and sing in Italian. Even if I was the weakest link, I wanted to be some link.
Luis posted his advertisements for failure everywhere.
I considered calling him each and every day.
From time to time I would find talismans on the trail.
Typically, I took these types of signs as harbingers for more pain and desolation to come.
Sometimes my friends would lure me through particularly tough spots by waving candy in front of my face. Literally. They would tell me that they would take a break with me and give me candy if I would keep up a human pace for a certain distance. Since I function like a small child, this worked.
Well, I'm happy to say that I made it all the way to Santiago and did not sustain any lasting injuries. In fact, by the last five days or so I felt fabulous. Apparently the old adage, "No pain, no gain," is correct. It felt super awesome to make it to the end despite all the troubles throughout.
My take away from this experience was this: There were times on this trip where my very worst self came out. However, even though I complained a lot, I feel like I laughed more. And at the end of the day I always felt blessed to be surrounded by friends -- new and old. I know that sounds cheesy and contrived, but it's true. It's really hard to ask for help and to slow down. It's even harder to keep on going once you've lost your original pace. But then you do it. And everything always ends up okay.
The children have had their last day. In between teaching and vacationing there is an ambiguous period of time that administrators all around the world call "Teacher Workdays." In my current school, these days span out for about a two week stretch.
Now listen, I've got as many loose ends to tie up as the next teacher. The thing is, I'm one of those people who likes to hurry up and get everything done at the close of school as fast as possible. I'm not really interested in dilly dallying. So after completing all of my tasks a full week earlier than the time I was allotted, I found myself with an exorbitant number of hours for thinkin'.
I tend to write down thoughts on little bits of paper and shove them into my purse as I cruise through life. Usually these small scraps (gum wrappers, ticket stubs, post its) get lost at the bottom of my gargantuan bag and if they resurface it is usually MUCH later and by that point the paper will be so dirty and torn up that the messages are nearly impossible to decipher.
Here are a few of my messages to self, coupled with some highlight photos:
1) Somebody in my office is trying to poison me. I know that this sounds extreme, but it's real. The water in the cooler tastes like poison. I guess, if I were to be completely accurate, I would say that someone is trying to poison the entire English staff.
I am extremely familiar with this kind of poisoning because I've been dealing with it for a lifetime. Between the rotten food in my childhood refrigerator and the sleeping pills my sister would try to drug me with, I'm a goddamn professional. A professional victim of poisoning. I should add that to my friendship resume.
2) I went to an orchestra at Ephesus and it was pretty rad. But I have a few questions:
#1 Why do Turkish people always sit so close? There is an entire amphitheater to spread out and someone is literally sitting on my feet. This person is a stranger. And they are touching me VERY unnecessarily.
#2 What's up with the fanatical clapping? Let me clarify something: I am all about clapping for performers. But there is no one performing right now and people are just randomly clapping in large groups. It's like group-clapping-turrets. Is someone performing a social experiment to see how many people they can get to clap?? I think it's a cultural thing. The other day when I came into class with my hair straightened, my students gave me a round of applause. My girls told me that I look like Katy Perry. They also told me that looking like Katy Perry is a very good thing.
3) Did you know that Katy Perry fans are called Katy Cats? True story.
4) Some of my friends are moving away and they have been selling off their belongings. I've been trying really hard to not be a hoarder but it's in my nature to hoard. (It's lingering "poor person mentality" and I'm afraid I'll never shake it. Buffets are really difficult for me to navigate as well.)
Anyhow, my friend Gina gave me some clothes and check this out: Since I have started wearing her things, random strangers have been approaching me on the street and calling me Gina. But here is the weird thing: The clothes that she gave me were not in her regular rotation -- they weren't "signature Gina clothes" or something like that. Additionally, we look nothing alike aside from the fact that we are both white women. So how are these strangers making this connection?!? The entire experience has been spooky, perhaps even borderline alarming.
5) Here is a picture of her with a picture of her. There is also another small picture of her that I glued into the corner of the picture of her.
Gina and I look nothing alike. But the drawing is really good.
6)
This is me. You probably think I'm at the beach. But I'm actually inside my hotel room posing in front of a photograph of the beach. I counted 14 of these photos (the exact same one mind you) around the hotel and I figured they were there as a backdrop for selfies in case someone who was visiting the beach didn't actually want to go outside.
What would you say if I told you that I had "borrowed" portions of Rocky Horror Picture Show for my 5th grade student production of Grace and the Time Machine this year?
Because I did. And it was very warmly received, thank you very much. I included music and coordinated dance moves. Rocky Horror is totally appropriate for ESL students in Turkey because they don't really know what is going on.
Sure the plot of this film is about a newly engaged couple exploring their sexuality,
but the nuances went unnoticed.
Details, details.
So many details are completely ignored here in my beloved Turkey, day in and day out.
Sometimes people will say ridiculous things to me in such an aloof manner, that I don't even register the extent of the absurdity until reflection on the matter much, much later.
"Oh, nobody told you about how the main streets occasionally flood with sewage? It happens a couple times a year. I mostly can't leave my apartment when it gets all sewage-y like that."
When my friend told me this, I just nodded in agreement. It probably was a bad idea to walk around in a sewage flood. But later I thought to myself, "Regular sewage floods...seems like something I should know about. I'm sure glad someone gave me a heads-up for that potential happening."
Other times I find that Turkish people are detail oriented to the EXTREME. For instance, if you walked into the apartments of many of my expat friends, you would see photographs of uteri on their refrigerators. Why? Because Turkish gynecologists love to photograph the uterus -- whether it is laden with child or not. It's like a little bonus gift at the end of your gynecological exam.
Why should pregnant ladies be the only ones who get photographs of their uteri?
Equal opportunities for non-pregnant women!
Also, doctors text all medical test results directly to your cellphone here in Turkey. Is that weird? I feel like that's weird.
In unrelated news, I've been really psychic lately.
But not psychic in the traditional sense.
What I mean is, I've been channeling Frida Kahlo.
She has been in my mind (and heart) for several hours each day for the last few weeks.
THEN, out of NOWHERE, my sister sent me a Frida print scarf.
Coincidence? I don't believe in those.
I think that Frida is trying to tell me to start a series of portraits that feature wild animals. And I don't plan to let her down. More to come on the self-portrait front soon.
This is what I have been thinking about. All the time.
My mind has been a kaleidoscope of Frida Kahlo portraits.
One last thing. I recently saw this guy.
I was the only person that seemed concerned that he was there. Then I got to thinking, "Hey, maybe I am ACTUALLY looking at the legit Grim Reaper right now and no one else can see him."
Pregnant pause in my mind.
"Perhaps I will die soon," I quietly murmured aloud in a slightly tragic tone.
But he never approached me with an offer for my soul, so I feel like I am in the clear for now.
I went to Amsterdam last month. It was pretty rad. I don't know what I expected from Amsterdam -- well, I guess I expected blatant drug use and rampant prostitution. But it wasn't like that. It was pretty chill actually. Everyone just rode their bikes around on the very flat Dutch streets with children securely attached on back and dogs running obediently beside. The trams were really clean, people stood in lines, nobody pushed me on the sidewalks and store clerks left me alone. It was so civilized.
Everyone had a bike. If they weren't so damn orderly I would have been hit by one.
I stayed in an Airbnb. I like Airbnbs. You never really know what you'll get until you arrive. The owner of this particular flat left presents for my friends and I on the kitchen table. The presents included a variety pack of chocolate sprinkles, some beer, a bag of stroopwafels and a jar of whipped cookies. We consumed everything immediately.
Cookie Butter is like peanut butter, but with no nutritional value.
As far as I can tell, stroopwafels are a socially accepted form of crack in Holland.
I actually asked strangers for some of these on a ferry after we had run out of our own supply.
At first I spread the sprinkles on toast, as was suggested.
But I soon tired of this method and drank them straight from the box.
After eating everything, we decided to take a load off and get our things settled in our bedrooms. That is where I found a possessed stuffed cat. It meowed at me sometimes, but mostly it just watched me in silence from across the room. It was unsettling and I feared it, so I took to being excessively kind to it with both my words and my actions. My friends told me that it wasn't real but I wasn't terribly interested in their theories.
For those of you who have seen this photo,
I hope it makes sense now.
During our days on the town we did everything there was to do. We went to museums, gardens, art exhibits, shows and ethnic restaurants among other things. My Dutch friend, Melissa, was constantly trying to poison us with terrible tasting "treats" like salted licorice. I talked to lots of strangers and it was neat because they spoke English back. I would talk to people just to talk to people and my friends got annoyed because they were afraid that boring people might begin following us around due to my forward behavior. That never happened though.
Then I went to Cappadocia which is in Turkey. It's a pretty fabulous place too. Lots of history, amazing natural formations of the earth, underground cities, hot air balloon rides, etc. But that's not what I really want to talk about. What I want to talk about is this special meal that is prepared in Cappadocia. It's called testes kebab. Doesn't that sound so gross? But it's not really testes or else I wouldn't eat it.
Anyway, I settled into a nice restaurant on the main thoroughfare and ordered my 30tl testes meal. The proprietor of the restaurant himself came out on the patio to break open my sealed clay jar of dinner with regal elegance. He gracefully poured the steaming testes into a tray in front of me and left me to enjoy. Shortly after he went inside, an unwanted visitor appeared.
The visitor was a cat -- which is not at all uncommon in Turkey. Cats and dogs are everywhere on the streets and mostly go unnoticed by me. As a general rule, the street animals are extremely polite and well fed. But this one...this one was a cat to remember.
This cat did not stand out due to behavior. It did not meow loudly or jump upon the table. It did not smell like urine or have matted, dirty fur. Nor did the cat have crusty eyes or a limping gait. No, no - this cat was beautiful and quiet and yet appalling all at once. You see, it was missing half of it's tail. And where the cat's tail had been ripped off there was a raw and infected stump. Even thinking of it now makes me die a little bit inside.
So the cat. The cat walked over to where I was about to begin my meal and then laid down with it's chewed up little stump of a tail in my direct line of vision. I tried to avert my eyes as I began to eat but dammit, it was difficult to do. After a few bites of testes I forcefully dropped my fork on my plate and exclaimed, "I've had enough! My meal is ruined." Then I dramatically pointed at the cat and in an angry and disappointed tone I said, "YOU have wasted me 30tl. I loathe you."
Reflecting on this outburst, I realize I could have handled the situation more gracefully. The cat and I met again, later in the evening, and as I watched the patrons of a different establishment shoo the cat away in disgust my heart went out to it a tiny bit. You see, I'm sure that cat used to get a lot of positive attention from people. It had a nice shiny coat and a resilient spirit. The cat acted as if he didn't notice his deformity -- and if he didn't know about his new fugliness, then how could he possibly understand all of the new prejudice against him?
I'm sure that Snaggle Kitty has been very confused.
I haven't really been that busy. I've mostly just been adjusting to a constant cycle of self-imposed lifestyle changes. I've been watching my body slowly decompose, in horror, and I've been trying to avoid the reality of it.
What I just wrote sounds extremely dramatic and may or may not be accurate. I haven't contracted leprosy yet and I still go to work everyday. All in all, I'm a survivor.
Anyway, since I haven't been able to be as active as I need to be in order to stay sane and socially appropriate I've taken on some new habits. None of which have won me friends.
a) I listen to podcasts all the time now. I binge on 10-12 per day and as a result I am constantly responding in conversation with non sequiturs that make people feel mildly uncomfortable. Coworker: Good Morning Kassandra! Do you need help arranging anything for the 5th grade play today? Me: Actually, I just found out that sociopaths are not without emotions as most people believe, but rather they don't feel fear in particular and therefore need heightened experiences to get their thrills in life. Which is why they murder so much. Coworker: Oh. My. Me: Really. The scientists have done pulse rate tests and what not.
b) I've recently been reading an EXORBITANT amount of YA (Young Adult literature) mostly because I can get it for free on my ipad, but also because I really like it. This leads to me ponder questions like, "Do I have a superhuman equivalent out there in this vast universe?" and "What will my first kiss be like?"
Again, these are conversation topics that my friends get judgy about, but honestly? I think everyone would be a lot happier if could chill the hell out and get a little more involved with their 13 year old selves.
c) I have been exclusively listening to music produced in the 1990's for close to two weeks now. I'm planning a 90's party (everyone I know is welcome to attend) and it's possible that I am losing friends just based on the fact that the party dominates most of my conversation -- if I'm not already in the throes of referencing a TED talk or a 128 page long sci-fi/romance novelette.
You're welcome.
d) In my downtime from the previously listed activities, I am neurotically googling all of my ailments and diagnosing myself with dire prognoses. After I decide upon a frightening disease that I have contracted, I then look up diet changes that I can make to eradicate all problems. Following this, I research a series of recipes and write them all down in my cookbook. This week I plan to make everything with the magic ingredient turmeric. If what I have been reading is correct, I should start feeling better in a month or so.
I recently visited a small seaside town called Foça. You know what I love the most about traveling to new places? You never know who you are going to meet.
On this particular weekend I met two retired gentlemen who were super excited to show off their town. They had both grown up in Foça and knew the area inside and out.
They began by telling my friends and I a list of important facts about Foça:
1) There used to be a Club Med.
2) There is a lot of gossip.
3) There are a lot of cats.
4) There are a lot of crazy people.
5) There are 3 historic windmills -- and would we like to see them?
Of course we wanted to see them.
So we got in their car and took off.
*Side Note: These were not dangerous people. I know that many of you think it might be a really bad idea to get into a stranger's car in a city you know nothing about. But 9 times out of 10, it's COMPLETELY fine. And they had already told us about the important stuff like cats and crazy people so we actually did know quite a bit about the city.
Back to my story. When we got in the car, we KNEW it was going to be an exemplary day because of the song that was playing -- one of the greatest hits from 1991: I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt.Things got wildly out of control for about 120 seconds as we blared the song at top volume with the windows open and our voices yelling.
Our soundtrack for the day continued on in a similar (a.k.a. AWESOME) fashion -- mostly comprised of Monster Ballads from the 80's and one-hit-wonders from the 90's. My two favorite genres.
Look how super funness these guys are!
Other Highlights:
We found street puppies and we were so happy.
Our new best friend who was driving us around admitted that he only liked to watch musicals. Namely Flash Dance, Grease and Saturday Night Fever. See, I told you he was harmless. He also made three costume changes throughout the day, each with a dashing scarf to accessorize. He was fabulous.
We drank cappuccinos which came with chocolate spoons.
I was gifted with three carnations during dinner. Which was neat because I thought that the manufacturing of carnations had ended in 1993. Do carnations grow in the wild somewhere? Perhaps they grow in a field near Foça.
