Çay bahçe

I've been posting quite a bit and I hope you find them as entertaining as I do. I eventually will slow down but right now, everything is so new and exciting (or at least entertaining) that I have a lot to talk about.

While it deserves its own blog, I will dedicate this post to the Çay bahçe or tea garden. This will certainly not be the last time I write on the subject, but let me just speak about my initial reactions. There is so much to say about Çay bahçeler that I hardly know where to start. Its almost like writing about Irish pub culture.

First, çay, or tea, is served nearly constantly and in every conceivable social situation. Waiting on paperwork at the police station? Have some çay. Meeting with the university superiors? Have some çay. Have 15 minutes between classes? That is why God gave us çay. There are people specifically employed by business places (who bear a name that phonetically is Chef) whose sole position it is is to bring around trays of tea. The university has one for the Foreign Language Department. It seems that both the Rector and each of the Vice Rectors have their own çayci (çay-bearers.) The police station had a half dozen. There are even çayci running around the streets bringing tea to different businessmen as they work. I must have 8 cups a day, and that's on the low end of normal.

When you are invited to go out for a drink, don't be fooled. They don't want a beer, they want çay (much to my dismay.) So the Çay bahçe is an outdoor/indoor restaurant/cafe sort of a scene where you sit and just hang. A guy comes by periodically bringing around tea to those who want it. It is a phenomenal place to practice your Turkish. Sherri (the other half of the Tekirdag teaching duo) and I draw a lot of attention babbling away in English, because of this we often find strange new ways to impose our Turkish on unsuspecting strangers.

The other day, one such situation presented itself.

We were sitting drinking tea when we heard beautiful music coming from a table just next to ours. This brilliant sight is what we saw. So, Sherri decides that you know, what the hell, why not chat him up. I mean its not every day you come across someone with this kind of talent who has the looks to match. She starts talking to him and we find that alas, he speaks no English. Somehow we manage to talk for about a half hour and through much dictionary use and pantomime he invites us to his show later that night.

And, like that, thanks to the Çay bahçe we have our first Turkish friend.