A day with Turks

We flew from Boston to Istanbul last night, on Turkish Airways. It felt like we got an inexperienced crew on a poorly-prepared airplane, a far different experience from our first trips on Turkish Airways. Nevertheless, I slept pretty well and didn’t mind the long trip much.

Alla wanted to stay in a nice hotel this time and minimize her time on the streets because of recommendations by the Russian Government. A nice hotel sounded good to me too, and we agreed on the Hyatt Regency, which we were able to book at a deep discount on Expedia. The hotel got us in the end, though. And we don’t mind.

I read an article a couple of days ago by a hotel employee who explained who gets the best treatment and why. He stated clearly what I had understood to some extent by experience: If the hotel knows you’re a price-conscious shopper (you bought at a discount rate from a service) they don’t expect you to come back if you can’t find such a good deal next time. I tried anyway. Our Expedia deal didn’t include breakfast, but we had paid up for a view room so I tried to sweet-talk the clerk into giving us breakfast coupons. He wouldn’t give in, but assured us that we’d enjoy an excellent buffet for an additional 30 Euros apiece. He also offered an alternative, an upgrade to a “Regency Club” room at a discount rate not much more than the cost of those two breakfasts.

We took the upgrade and got moved up by eight stories, free supper (“snacks”), free breakfasts and a somewhat bigger room. Once we saw the snacks, we knew we’d done the right thing. It was a perfect light dinner for us on the first night of our big change in time zones, and we enjoyed the company of the hotel staff who attended to us, and great views in a beautiful place.

After eating, we went off to the pool and swam for a while, took a sauna, and came back to our delightful room. Alla brought with her a gift of two lemons, a gift from the tea lady in her side of the spa. When you add everything up, we still saved a considerable amount of money by flying Turkish Airways and staying here, and we’re having an excellent time.

Christmas Eve in Boston

This afternoon, Alla and I decided to go out for a walk to see some Christmas decorations around the city. We went down to the financial district after most businesses had already sent their employees home early for Christmas Eve. We didn’t know how many buildings we’d be able to get into, what with general security concerns and the fact that the businesses weren’t generally open. As it turns out, we got in almost everywhere we wanted to go.

I particularly enjoyed visiting an undisclosed location because we weren’t really supposed to take any pictures inside that building. I didn’t know that and I liked their big Christmas tree, so I took a picture through the window and took Alla around to the door by the guard desk to see if they’d let us in. The guards looked furtively around and motioned for us to wait quietly. I don’t know what we waited for, but ultimately he let us in. Another guard asked that we photograph only the tree and not anything that would make it easy to know the building's address.

A guy came running out of the lobby café and told us that he’s a professional photographer and he wanted to take some pictures for us. We posed for a bunch of photos with my phone.

We visited several more buildings, walked along the shore and otherwise enjoyed our city. When we got home, we enjoyed a delightful pot-luck dinner with our neighbors, who brought delicious food and warmed our hearts with their sincere friendship. Christmas is starting out very well.

For more pictures, look here.

Rainy day at the beach

Today we planned to take an excursion to Tulum, but the weather forecast this morning led us to change our plans. It started raining yesterday, and the rain can come down pretty hard here. Fortunately it's still reasonably warm out and it's not raining all the time. But anyway, we didn't want to spend an hour and a half to get to Tulum only to discover that we'd arrived at the time of a deluge. So we made other plans.

It was almost sunny first thing in the morning, so I decided to go for a walk while Alla went to yoga. I put on my "rashguard" shirt (intended to get wet) and my board shorts before setting out barefoot to walk down the shore to Blue Dolphin beach, where the locals hang out south of us. I had almost the entire beachfront to myself as I headed down, the humid wind pushing on my back. As I neared my goal, raindrops began pecking at me and I considered turning around. But why should I? The rain felt good.

By the time I did turn around, the rain fell heavily, blowing into my face. I wished I'd brought my dark glasses, not to protect me from the sun but from the heavy raindrops. I made a visor of my hand and started walking faster. To my right, I noticed that the waves now had texture. The water rippled in the wind, and many shapes and colors tumbled over the waves' basic geometry. "Ooh," I thought. "This is new, and I like it."

I got back to the hotel way too soon, so I continued about the same distance in the other direction, figuring I'd prefer to finish by walking downwind anyway.

As I returned, I passed four intrepid women doing yoga on the beach, and a fisherman trawling his baited hook over and over in the surf. He told me it's possible to catch big fish here, but he had nothing to show today. I came home wet, completely wet, head-to-toe wet as if I'd been swimming. It was great.

Later, we went to have lunch at Pescadillas el Galeón, a fish joint recommended by a local we met at another tiny lunch spot. This place is so basic, it has no electricity and no running water, though we didn't lack for water in general because rain washed down heavily on their thatched roof. I had come dressed for walking in the rain, so I had no camera with me. I felt sorry about my lack of camera when we got there, because the place is totally cute. Cooks worked over open fires while a worker kept the woodpile stocked and the waiter kept the tables. I wasn't terribly impressed by the food, but would love to show you a picture of the place. Here's somebody else's photo, courtesy of Trip Advisor.

We worried that today might be boring, but we're having an excellent last day.

Duayne

We were standing in the elevator lobby at our hotel, talking with some new friends, when a man came crashing into me and careened off toward the dining room. My first thought was that the guy must have been blind, and how thoughtless we were to be standing so close to the elevator doors, but as I watched him walk with no apparent remorse toward the dining room I decided he was simply rude.

I noticed him later in the dining room. As he looked at me, I felt (or imagined I felt) his hatred and contempt. I looked again to be sure. Yep. He hates my guts and I don’t even know why. I asked Alla if she recognized him, if perhaps she had some idea how I might have offended him. She thought I was talking about some other guy, and said that she had tussled with him over seats at the welcome party.

I wanted to make peace, so I went to find him in the lobby after breakfast. I introduced myself to him in Spanish, and asked if he spoke English. He stiffened. “That’s where I’m from. I’m American.” I don’t think he was amused that I started out in Spanish, so now I felt two steps behind.

I pressed ahead with a little small talk, asking him what city he’s from and telling him that I’m from Belarus. He didn’t seem terribly interested, so I went directly to the point, saying “If I’ve offended you in any way, I want to apologize.”

“You scowled at me,” he replied.

I tried to remember when that might have been. Over breakfast, perhaps? Did he even look back at me at the elevator? Or had it started even before that? I replied, “I’m sorry. I don’t remember what was in my thought when I looked at you, but I harbor no ill will. I’m sorry I gave you that impression.”

He softened, accepting my apology. We talked some more. He wanted me to know a little about him. He’s an interesting guy, and his life is very different from mine. I can’t necessarily identify with him, but I enjoyed hearing his story and let him see that on my face and by my questions. We parted peacefully, and he made a point of coming by our table at lunch time to greet me. I’ve made a new friend.

I used to know another guy who routinely made the same mistake I did. He’d go down and sit in one of the front rows at church and then turn around to look intently at the congregation before the service started. I knew him to be a peaceful fellow, but the expression on his face often looked to me like he didn’t like the people he was looking at. I didn’t know him well enough to tell him, but it illustrates the importance of attending to our thought and having enough love in our hearts that it shows on our faces.

Cheap fun in Cancun

Here we are in Mexico, at the usual place because we can’t avoid it after an unfortunate timeshare purchase some years ago. The timeshare company keeps trying to convince us to buy upgrades, their theory being that by throwing good money after bad, we might be able to make our situation somehow less unpleasant.

Honestly, we enjoy their efforts to sell us upgrades because they take us to the fancy new resort, feed us, tell us outlandish stories about what we ought to buy, and then release us to enjoy the beach, the river and other attractive features of the place. Today’s sales guy had already fulfilled his November quota and had enough in the bank that he doesn’t even have to sell a thing inDecember. I suppose the bosses knew that we never say yes, so they sic’d their smarmiest, most effective agent on us. I begged him to let us off the hook early so we could all just go out and play, and he responded by telling us how f***ed we were (he actually used that word) because we’d bought a perpetual timeshare and were obligated to keep paying annual fees to his company for the rest of our lives and the lives of our heirs as well. By paying a bunch more money, he offered that we could get into something with possible resale value.

I maintained that having been duped (actually, I used his other word) by his company once, I had no intention of trusting them in another deal even more complex than the first. Finally, he pointed us toward the door and told us to get onto the van back to our home resort. I checked with the doorman, made other arrangements, and we went to the beach. We had a very nice day at Tres Rios.

We swam in each of the two main swimming pools, floated down the river, sat on the beach, and then floated down the river some more. When we finally went back to check on transportation back to our home resort, we worked out an agreement to go back at 5:00. With the extra time, we went out to lunch, swam in yet another pool and floated down the river a couple more times. I didn’t take a single picture of any of this stuff.

This evening we went to the welcome party at our home resort. Most of the guests forgot to bring their invitations, which turned out to be lottery tickets. I had ours however, and won second prize: a choice between a not-too-bad T-shirt and a garish Mexican-style hat; both made for tourists. I didn’t want either of these prizes, but intended to pick the T-shirt because I could imagine using it. From the audience, however, Alla caught my eye. She really wanted the hat, and now she’s ecstatic. I’m surprised. I couldn’t imagine that anybody would want it, but, well, she did. As she told me when we were dating, “I’m not crazy, but I like hats.”

"Sex body"

The last few times I've checked the emails in my spam folder, I’ve found messages with various titles but the same first line. The messages start out, "I am looking for a sex body." I never click on them, so I don't know how it continues after those first few words, but I’m puzzled about who wants to be thought of as a sex body or a broom-pusher body or a bread-delivery body or any other kind of inanimate object. Don’t we all want to be people? I like being a person. I enjoy the pleasure of looking another person in the eye and recognizing their familiarity, their personhood.

I prefer to think of us as Mary Baker Eddy describes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Man is more than a material form with a mind inside, which must escape from its environments in order to be immortal. Man reflects infinity, and this reflection is the true idea of God.”

Nesligül

To be perfectly honest, I thought the world was in a state of serious decline. I haven’t always felt that way, but that’s the way things looked to me recently and I didn’t see any reason to doubt it. Today, I’m not so sure. My renewed optimism came out of a lunch-time conversation at a little middle-eastern restaurant, and I almost didn’t go inside.

I don’t even know the name of the restaurant, but I go there from time to time for falafel. Today was almost warm enough to eat at a table on the sidewalk and I considered it because a crowd of guests already occupied almost all of the seats at their tiny dining counter and the room had gotten very hot. But I decided I’d get cold before I finished my lunch, so I squeezed into the last seat at the end of the counter, right beside the hot soup pot.

Fortunately, the guy beside me left soon, and I could move away from the soup. There, I found myself beside a hungry music student eating from two platters. We chatted, and I learned that she’s a pianist studying composition. This interested me, particularly the part about learning to compose. She taught me a little bit about how Bach and Mozart’s audiences might have interacted with the music, and how it differs from modern traditions. The conversation made me remember, once again, that I should never assume that my way of doing something is the best way or that somebody else’s approach is necessarily worse.

Finally, the conversation looped around to her native city, Istanbul. I told her how much I like Turkey and asked about whether the recent civil unrest had changed things for her family. Her optimistic reply didn’t surprise me so much as her thinking impressed me. She pointed out how when a person has a headache, the pain is foremost in the person’s thought even though the rest of the body may be entirely healthy. Similarly, we lose track of all the good things going on in the world when we focus on trouble spots. She sees lots of reason for optimism and directed my attention that way.

I like it. I could have recommended optimism to somebody else at another time, but I wasn’t feeling it this week and I’m grateful for today’s redirection.