Wednesday marked my first foray into Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, which is something like Turkey’s version of the Mall of America. Well, Mall of America minus the Baby Gap, Orange Julius, Auntie Annie’s Pretzels, Hockey Minnesota, Old Navy, Wicks ‘n’ Sticks and Rainforest Café. Ok, I take it back; it’s actually nothing like the Mall of America, other than the fact there are approximately 4 billion shops and at least as many ways to suck money out of your pocket. Everywhere you look there is jewelry, leather, hookah pipes, cups, plates, bowls, glasses, boxes, books, manuscripts, T shirts, scarfs, lamps ... you name it.
And yes, carpets. Aisles and aisles and aisles of carpets.
To my knowledge, the Mall of America also doesn’t have shop owners running out of their stores like Celal, who snags me outside of his carpet shop before I can avoid eye contact or pretend that I don’t speak English.
"My friend, do you see this rug! Look!" He gestures up to one of probably 60 carpets hanging in the window of his shop, one of the dozens of carpet shops on this particular side labyrinth of the bazaar. The rug he points to, as far as I can tell, is pretty much identical to every other rug hanging there.
"Um, it’s beautiful?" I answer, not being able to make myself shut up.
"Do you know how much is it!" he shouts at me.
"No, I ..."
"Come! Come into my shop! I will show you!"
"No, really ..."
"Yes, come! Come for one minute!
God, I’m such naturally born Midwestern sucker. I follow him into the shop, still trying to cut him off at the same time.
"Look, I can’t buy a carpet. I have no place to put it."
"How big is your room!" Inexplicably he is still shouting at me.
"How big is my ... what, which room?"
"How big is your girlfriend’s room!"
"My girlfriend’s room?"
"You can buy it for her!"
I look behind me, wondering if there is a woman tailing me that could be mistaken for a girlfriend. Sadly there is not.
"Um ... I’ll ask her and come back." This seems to satisfy him. Celal smiles and gives me his card as I back out of shop.
I wasn’t lying when I said I truly didn't need a rug. The one thing I did need, which I had not expected to find, was a notebook. You know, a simple, spiral notebook, with lined pages. And while much of the Grand Bazaar is aimed at the trinket-buying, camera-swinging tourist with money to burn, not everything is. And sure enough, there is a notebook vendor, at the far end of a passageway, near the exit. Kind of the equivalent to the Mall of America’s Scotch tape store, stuck in a corner down by Spencer’s Gifts.
The notebook shop is maybe eight feet long by three feet wide, stuffed floor to ceiling with nothing but notebooks. Every conceivable shape, size, and color. The notebook man is happy to see me, as it apparently is the slow season for notebook purchases. He starts pulling out a variety of notebooks to show me, none of which has lined pages. Unlike Celal’s carpet shop, English is not spoken here. I try pantomiming the International Symbol for "lined paper." He holds up a finger and climbs up a step stool to reach one of the higher shelves. He comes down with the notebook open, showing that, as requested, its paper is lined.
Great, I say. I’ll take it. He smiles and hands me the notebook, showing me the cover for the first time. It is white and pink, covered with strawberries and a cartooned little girl wearing a red dress, bloomers, and a hat puffed out like Jiffy Pop popcorn. It is a Strawberry Shortcake notebook, the kind a 10-year-old girl might use to do her math homework.
I furrow my brow, the International Symbol for "um, yeah, that’s exactly wrong." "Hayır," I tell him. "That’s for, you know, little girls."
He holds up his finger again and goes back up the stool. He shows me another notebook, this one covered with basketballs. You know: for a 10-year-old boy. Better yes, but ... I re-furrow the brow and shake my head again. He goes back up the stool a third time, bringing down yet another lined-paper notebook selection: Ponies?
I wonder, at this point, if I had a really good English/Turkish phrase book, it would include the entry: "Do you have something a little less pre-pubescent?" Otherwise this could go on a long time.
Taking matters into my own hands, I go up the stool myself to search the lined-paper section. Ten seconds later I come down holding a notebook with a simple, brown, non-adorned cover. The man raises his eyebrows and looks away, as if to say, "that’s the one you're picking? What a freak."
I’m sure he was thinking that he should have been a carpet salesman.
It’s in the Yildizlar
In the interest of science and cross-cultural understanding, I decided to find and translate my Turkish horoscope from the newspaper Sabah. It was one of those monthly roundup kind of horoscopes, giving it 1 in 31 shot to kind of be true at some point in time. Google Translate couldn’t quite handle all the Turkish words (you can almost hear the programmers cursing and throwing up their hands in partial surrender), but here’s an idea of what was supposed to be store for a Tarasi (Libra) like me in the month of Ekim (October):
"Aşk (Love)
Emotional relationships with people you meet while traveling between you begin. On October 8, [you?] will attend the meetings, you’ll attract attention to specific behaviors. Sexual energy is high and because of frequent invitations can join, [you?] must be cautious about relations with sudden onset. Attended invitations önleyemediğiniz elektriksek shots and short-lived adventures occur is always the risk to life will ring your door. This month, you’ll want to intolerable risks. Beraberliklerinizde, while a hard time because of a sudden jealousies, you may feel restricted. A period of good entertainment, but between you, you, working yaşantınızdaki intense pace, while having fun in the show extreme escape."
A couple of things. First I’m pretty sure I spent October 8 sitting with my father in his den in Murphy, Texas, watching college football on television. The only specific behavior I can recall attracting attention was when I got up to make a sandwich in the middle of the 3rd Quarter. If this had translated as "You will spend October 8 watching your college alma mater being humiliated on national television," I would have been a lot more impressed.
On the other hand, I have to agree that is always the risk to life will ring your door, and mine lately has been full of its share of elektriksek shots and short-lived adventures. True enough, I am having fun in the show extreme escape.
So maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this as complete saçmalık.
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