Don't you just hate it when that happens?

Yesterday our cleaning lady was due in at 9am like every Monday. I wanted to mention a few things to her so Steph dropped Emma off at kindergarden and I waited and waited and waited. No call. At 9h35 I had to leave for an appointment in town so I left her some post-its around the house hoping that would help us surpass the language barrier.

I got home around 1pm and while I was waiting for my soup to warm up, I checked the little piece of paper where the cleaning lady notes down her hours so we can total them up at the end of the month.

It read 9h00-12h30 = 3h30
Mmmm... Not pleased at all.

I decide to give her a call immediately to sort things out. Speaking slowly and distinctly in my best German I tell her there seems to be a problem. I start saying "you wrote down..." and she finishes my sentence by saying 9am to 12h30. I cough a little and say I was here until 9h30 and she was not.

Immediately she replies that today one of her kids was unwell and that she in fact arrived at 9h30 before asking me to wait while she puts her German speaking friend on. Our cleaning might be fluent in Romanian by I am not.

Her friend explains to me that it was a mistake due to her being so used to arriving at 9am, that she automatically wrote down her usual arrival time.
I must admit I am a bit sceptical since she not only stated having arrived at 9h30 but also totaled up the hours to 3h30. It's kind of like lying twice.

I can hear our cleaning lady G. whispering to her friend in Romanian and her friend repeating that it was a mistake. I tell her that I will correct the times on the paper and explain that G. cannot continue working here if I do not trust her. Her friend says she understands and actually provides me with the German word for "trust" finishing my sentence. We say goodbye.

Uhmmm.

I hate that. The loss of trust. Now I can't help asking myself... G. knows I drop off Emma in the mornings shortly before 9 and often get some groceries and run errands before coming home. She knows what my car looks like. Has she been doing this long?
I don't want to have to be here the whole time she cleans. I don't want to have to ask her to call me from our land-line when she arrives and before she leaves. But don't want to have doubts and feel we are being ripped off either.

UPDATE: I've decided to give G. the benefit of the doubt - she has apologized in what seemed a sincere manner to me and I don't think it will happen again.
Moving on...

Can I whine just a little?

Is it the weather? It's February 5th and I can hardly believe Christmas was only 6 or so weeks ago. Time is craaaawling and I feel, well, not depressed exactly, just a little fed up with the winter and in need of some soft sunshine and coffee on a warm terrace -no gloves, boots or hats to be seen. Ahhh, that would be nice.

It's grey and cold and Spring as well as the baby's arrival seem to be forever away.

Meantime my winter coat no longer zips up (I've found an alternative in a shorter jacket with poppers that will have to do until the temperatures deign to improve), it takes me forever to pull my boots on, Emma's 16kg are playing games with my balance (and my attempts at keeping a stable core and aligned pelvis), and we still don't have a name for our baby boy. Oh and I still have a blocked nose ...

And I feel overwhelmed by the amount of laundry and organizing - yes, I'm nesting! - after going through ALL of Emma's clothes, separating the too girly from more neutral clothes and setting up little baby boys' bedroom; bed, cupboard, sheets, clothes, curtains, carpet, toy trunk, changing station, lighting, chair to breast feed in...
As far as I remember, setting Emma's room up was fun - this is much more work. Maybe because there is Emma to play and take care of too. Maybe because I need to put my feet up for an hour a day if I want to be even mildly efficient and present at dinner time. Maybe it's just trying to get all this done when the weather's only talent is to inspire me to sink into the sofa with a book or a DVD.

Ugh.

And, in all honesty, I have to admit, there are days when I have spent so much energy trying to be patient with Emma's dawdling and testing of our limits that I wonder how we will ever manage when I will have slept less and have another little one to care for.

nasty november

Today -
OK - here's a huge post of stuff that's happened since October 21st to today and the reason it's huge, is it's actually lots of posts that never got posted since we didn't have Internet until very recently. Pheew.
So here's our nasty November and I am throwing it at you all-in-one.

Oh, and Emma is four months old today. And, miraculously and thankfully I'm still able to breastfeed her! Vive mother nature!

Thursday, November 29th - the nap I almost had
For the first time since we were in Belgrade, I actually thought I was going to be able to have a blooming nap. Emma was in bed, I had had lunch, the dog didn't need walking and no workmen were due. I had turned off all mobile phones and spoken to relocation asking them to send me and email about the matter at hand since we now have Internet (thanks to them!). Yay! At 1h40 pm I lay down on the couch in front of the TV and closed my eyes.... just as I was nodding off, our new land line phone rings! Damn, I had forgotten about that phone. Relocation - and wouldn't you know it, they are calling to let me know they sent me an email. I just can't win.

Wednesday, November 28th - it's the small things that make me happy
I not only managed to get out this morning (thanks to the on-call elevator service whereby I bang on the lift door twice and they send it to pick us up) but also to go shopping with Emma. We got her a new S shaped pillow (my maternity one didn't survive the move and zillions of snow white balls of styrofoam where leaking from it!), a new hat (appropriate for the local climate that doesn't itch -as it's fleece inside and wool on the outside- can be tied beneath her chin and has flaps for her ears), a new pair of socks and a fleece "sleeping bag" to be left in the car seat so we can leave the warmer one in the pram for walks.

Tuesday November 27th - warmth, bad luck and everything else is relative

The good news is, they have started repairing the hole in the floor. We can now walk into Emma's room as opposed to jumping into it. But as Murphy's law would have it..... The pressure of the bloomin' boiler has fallen back down again to near zero. This means we might have another leak. I cannot believe this. Luxus Wohnung my foot! The poor family with 4 kids that actually own the biggest flat in the B building has no heating (and they bought the flat). Steph says he saw them through the window doing the dishes wearing their coats.
Thankfully, they have now been moved into another flat since all of the plumbing and electrics are going to be redone in their apartment. They are stripping the floor boards, and tearing down the walls and concrete. Unglaublich!

Monday, November 26th - looking better but let's not kid ourselves here...
Yay! Cause for celebration, Emma and I went out to meet hubs for lunch! We went to Kids Talk Café, a place made for parents and kids where you can eat, breast feed, play, park your pram, change your babe (lovely changing stations with nappies in all sizes and bum wipes galore). Life is looking better.

Oh, and another thing (just to show you that I have not become an utter cynic and that I am still quite an optimist): today all the workmen who came to do stuff in our flat knocked on the door. I was touched, and thought it was sensitive of them to have finally stopped ringing the doorbell so that Emma could get some sleep. (Ok so maybe my answering the door with a scary look on my face contributed to this, but hey, if it works...) Ha! Well, it turns out that the doorbell and inter-phone actually no longer work.

Friday, November 23rd - is the deadline necessarily the day things get done?
Yay! A technician came by – sent by relocation but from the Internet provider – and he actually got them to move their asses (pardon my French so we now have Internet and a landline! Turns out November 28th was the deadline, not the scheduled do-day - I guess the diff' isn't always understood.

Thursday, November 22nd - Internet, Balou and the bloody weather
I got my hopes up yesterday about Internet actually happening. Austria Telecom was here for the third time and there were 3 technicians in our flat past 6pm so it’s not like there wasn’t hope…. Unfortunately, no cigar. Again. Turns out it’s not the building’s fault this time – the provider says they are scheduled to do it on November 28th….Shit.

I am seriously resenting Balou at the moment. Poor thing, it’s not really his fault, just that it’s hopeless having to shower his paws, bum, belly and ears after every walk – due to the mud in front of the building and the melting snow. This entails, carrying him into the bath without getting caked in dirt myself, after having made him wait in front of the door so I can a) remove my mud-caked shoes and b) undress Emma and get her into bed or bouncer first. Thank heavens he obeys – as long as a well intentioned builder doesn’t walk in, in which case Balou follows.
Life was so much easier in a sunny, dry climate.... I miss Turkey.

I am sooo tired. “Nap when baby naps.” Yeah. I shower or talk to technicians/workmen/relocation or walk the dog or cook lunch or unpack more stuff when she sleeps. And just as I am done (or in need of collapsing), Emma wakes and needs feeding.

Wednesday, November 21st - rant, rant, rant and my depressing life / the expert visits our flat and the parqueter who never came
Hubs off to Stockholm again today. Not his favorite destination. Means we’re on our own again.
Horribly interrupted night again. Don’t know why Emma is waking me so often after having been on Baby whisperer’s wonder routine… Am really starting to feel the lack of sleep. Maybe she’s teething? Oh, no, wait, silly me - it's the drilling.

The morning starts with me waking at 6, 6h30, 7h, 7h20, 7h40, 8h00 and finally getting out of bed at 8h30 – my once again short hair all over the place – to the perspective of Rodica (the cleaning lady) and the Building Expert (meant to evaluate exactly how bad our situation is) both means to be arriving at 9h00.
Hubs has walked Balou and is all ready to go, so he makes me coffee… unfortunately it’s cold when it reaches my lips since my mobile rings and it’s B. from relocation: the parqueter will come to finally close the whole in the floor -please will I call her by 10 if he is not here. She also wants to let me know that she is optimistic about the phone line being set up in the building this week. If only….
I pull my jeans over my non-showered butt, (I showered yesterday) but don’t have time to remove my pajama top (pink with white polka dots) when Rodica arrives, shortly followed by Mrs T. from HR and the Expert (but by this time I am breast feeding in the living room).
Status according to the expert? “Frecheit” - which I understand is like “bezobrazlog” or “foutage de gueule” - a scandalous fucking joke basically. It seems, this apartment should not be available for rent. In fact, in Vienna there is some kind of “permit” that allows the owner to rent out his/her flat which, he is pretty sure the owner does not yet have. No kidding. Why, WHY did the real estate agency not check this?!
Anyway, consensus is we should not pay (full) rent until things are up and running, and, unfortunately it looks like bad news, so we might consider moving, and in the meantime, at least until the workmen are out of the building, we should consider staying in a hotel as it’s not place for a baby. No kidding! But we’ve had our share of staying in hotels/with family/ anywhere but in our own home, this year thank you very much.
They all leave, and I prop Emma in her bouncing chair on top of our bed as I hop into the shower (yay!) before the parqueter arrives. ( I can actually see her from the shower when she’s on the bed which is pretty good since I constantly think I can hear her crying….)
The parqueter does not arrive. I call B. She calls me back; he will come this afternoon. But of course. I was not planning on leaving the flat anyway. I am growing roots here. Ugh.
At around three pm, one of the coordinators rings the doorbell as I am wiping poop off Emma’s rosy bum cheeks. I open the door and run back to the changing station while asking him to follow me.
Coordinator: “the man for the floor just called me. He was in a car crash for two hours”
Me, hopeful: “ you mean he is in a traffic jam?”
Coordinator: “no, he is in the hospital. He had an accident”
(Holding up Emma, - now in clean nappy I cannot help thinking that this has to be black magic. This apartment has got serious bad vibes! Bewitched!)
Coordinator: He has someone else (who) can come, I said “please come tomorrow or Friday, I will tell you tomorrow. Lovely baby". He bows in apology and says thank-you and backs out of the flat. Why is he thanking me? For not crying/ yelling/ throwing a dirty nappy at him?! Poor man, I would not like to be in his loafers. Still. This cannot be happening. I call B. from relocation and tell her that the malediction goes on.
I just want to leave. Run away. Ugh.
I have not been out except to walk Balou around the block and quickly to the local SPAR (supermarket) since Sunday.
I dig into ice-cream every evening. Hubs is back on beer.
Did I mention we must undergo a health check & eye check before we can convert our Swiss driver's license to an Austrian one? Forget global, where is Europe?
My life is so depressing at the moment.

November, Tuesday 20th: it's the dog's fault I can't leave
Emma and I are going to the pediatrician’s today to meet him in healthy circumstances and pick up our “Mutter-baby pass” (a kind of baby book which tracks vaccinations, weight, height and any other useful baby development stuff. This document is needed for various administrative things here in Vienna, among which the Mutter’s salary of 14,90 Euros per day to take care of your “kind” if you are not working for a period of up to two years.)
(…)
The lift is still not working. And now when they switch it back on it only goes up to the floor beneath us. I asked the workmen if they could “pick me up” on the floor beneath us at 14h30 with the pram etc. so we could get to the Pediatrician’s in time.
I walked Balou, washed his paws, changed Emma and carried the pram down the stairs, then her, and waited for the lift to pick us up. Workmen say they’ll do their best to make it work for when we get back.

Pediatrician didn’t have any “Mutter-baby pass” – the document we have from Geneva is the same he says, but he can give us one next time.
Emma is 62cm long and over 7kg.
The receptionist of the surgeons office – not the pediatrician’s but another doctor who works next door and has the same name and where I went in first since he is also at number 45 – was smoking! Seriously!!!

Hubs and I discuss Em' and me going back to Geneva until this place is livable (working lift, no more holes in the floor, heating that works, etc.) He's traveling anyway and I am losing it here. Balou makes things a bit more complicated since he doesn’t fly easily (me neither with him & Emma! Although I’ve never done it on my own).
One small hiccup - our pad in France (near by Geneva) doesn't have a couch nor chairs. Thank heavens we set up beds and a fridge and the heating, phone, Internet and water are all running. Beats here.... but not exactly how we had planned things....
Hubs curses Balou stating that our life would be much easier without him, (true) that we should walk him by the highway (Balou doesn’t really see the danger in cars), that it’s like having two kids already, and thank heavens we didn’t have twins. Balou has become the “souffre douleur” and is has become the official scapegoat.

Monday, November 19th - a bad hair day, but it'll grow...
I got my shoulder length post preggie flimsy hair cut short today. I found a hairdresser that isn’t below ground level, has windows and went there early in the morning so that the air woulnd’t yet be full of hairspray in an attempt to preserve Emma’s lungs.
I took a three year old picture of myself with short hair to the hairdresser’s and asked her if she could do this. Of course. I left looking like Maria, our once cleaning lady when we were in Vandoeuvres, Geneva. Not amused. Tried very hard to convince myself it was not a time for vanity, and that the important thing was that my I could now wash my hair every second day, let it dry in 5 minutes – no blow drying required. Practical.
While I was muttering my way into the supermarket, a man from Austria Telecom calls me and says he is there to install the line. – I rush back home to find he is gone. The elevator workmen say he’s around & will be back. Telecom man returns and is appalled at the work so far in the building. I call Beate from relocation and put her on with the Telecom man. No cigar. Still no way they can connect us.

Saturday, November 17th
We decided that there would be no unpacking, tidying, traveling, Ikea-ing this week-end.
Instead, a walk and shop to get our growing Giant Emma some new clothes that she will not grow out of in a week! As we were getting ready to leave the flat I found Emma’s pram – which I parked on the landing since the wheels were muddy – full of muddy crumbs off workmen shoes and God knows where else.
AGhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
In town we stumbled upon a kids café – called Kids Talk I think – a place dedicated to new parents and kids, complete with an indoor playground on the other a restaurant-café entirely non-smoking and equipped with colorful high-chairs, quick easy eating and lots of breast-feeding, yelling, kicking and an impressive number of prams parked in the front. Inspiring. A total nightmare for any non-parent, but so practical for us.

Sunday, November 18th
We drove out to the Wiener Wald - for a walk in the snow with Balou and Emma & had hot chocolate and lunch at the Cobenzl Café – where they have Wireless Internet. Loads of kids on sleighs and parents with woolen & colorful hats. Café Cobenzl – named after the Graff whose property it is located on – it has a gorgeous view of Vienna, the waiter is from Izmir – can you believe it?! – and they brought Balou some ham on a plate asking if he was not a vegetarian – apparently every dog is offered ham in their cafés! We had a delicious goulash and wonderful hot chocolate. Unfortunately as we left the place we could not help noticing that our coats and hair stank of smoke and over-fried oil. After airing out coats for two days, had to wash everything to get rid of the smell. Too bad since the café is nice, the location good and the staff friendly. The week-end has cheered me up a bit. Let’s hope next week will be better and more successful than last-
Friday, November 16th
Just as I was at the end of my rope Sis and Dad called, or rather Skyped me on my Viennese mobile. Bad timing for them, but it gave me the opportunity to off load all of my anger and vent my utter resentment at the bad luck we are having at the moment. So good to talk to someone other than:
Three-month-old Emma
Balou the dog – although my current lack of patience means I’m not sure this would qualify as talking
Beate from the relocation agency – usually bad news
The workmen – also pretty much always bad news as you’ve gathered by now
Hubs – as fed up as me most of the time

Anyway, thanks guys for the talk – it meant that hubs and I probably had a much more relaxed conversation than would otherwise been the case – and the invitations to have us stay.

Thursday, November 15th
It’s going to snow all week-end. We don’t have winter tires. Relocation tells me no insurance will cover me if I drive with summer tires and that Vienna will be crazy in the snow.
Must get some food in today.
Where can we order winter tires? A few phone calls, (size of tires, brand, tires and wheels?) to be told it will take 5 weeks! (!!!! Might as well tell me to wait for freaking spring!) After requesting we call around to other places, finally I’m told that I can get some as of Monday. Phew! Basically, I need for the snow to melt, before I can get drive to the garage to get them. If the lift works. If the car starts.
If I am still sane by then.

November 14th
How can anyone sleep with the drilling going on all day?! Emma is really a star, but seriously! There's no way she can sleep with the walls shaking. I would take her out for a walk, but the damn lift has been turned off since all the electrics need to be fitted into the damn shaft. Today the drilled on our floor right through the walls and into our dressing. A cloud of dust set on the floor after having covered all our clothes. Lovely. This is getting better by the minute.
The lift is going to be "out of order" until the end of the month. Only they will leave it on at night. So I can go to the park with the pram at 3am like one does, right?

Tuesday, November 13th
Telecom guy due today. (…) Telecom man says he can’t “open” our line since the plug in our wall is purely decorative and the whole building needs to be connected first !!!!!!! He requires the building company to order the lines and “boxes” to connect the building, then they can “open” our line. At the moment this are is considered a construction site -my feelings entirely….

Monday, November 12th
I wasn’t wrong – the Telecom man was due Saturday, and apparently someone did come on Saturday, but couldn’t find the entrance. I can’t say I believe this 100% but maybe I am becoming a cynic. Steph was off traveling again this morning but thankfully took the pram down to the car before he left as the blooming lift is not working and we live on the top floor! Can just picture myself trying to carry the wheels, then the actual pram, then Emma downstairs.

Saturday, November 10th
A Telecom techie due today between 9 and 11am to “open” the Austria telecom line so that our provider can then rent it to us. Did he show up???? Maybe I got it wrong and they are coming on Monday?

November 9th
Today I meet a potential babysitter. She’s in her 40s & used to be a nurse. Not that I can quite see myself leaving Emma with a complete stranger quite yet for more than 15 minutes or so, but we might need to leave her with someone soon, and with no family/friends in Vienna, I wanted to start looking without the pressure of needing one right away. Update on the babysitter: I would definitely feel more comfy leaving her at a “kindergarten” with other kids and a couple of trained people, than alone at home with someone we don’t know. How old do you have to be to go to a kindergarten here I wonder?

Thursday, November 8th
Workmen in and out all day every day. Impossible to plan or get out or feed E. and nap at regular times. The sound of the doorbell is driving me mad. DING-DONG. Maybe I can get one of the electricians to disable it? Gaping hole in front of Emma’s room that I need to jump over when I feed her in the middle of the night. Does insurance cover us for living on a freaking construction site!????

Tuesday, November 6th:
We should consider ourselves lucky to have any heating it seems. I can’t believe this is happening. In Vienna. In a new “luxus wohnung”. Ha! I am so eating humble pie. Septic tanks in Turkey at least worked!

Monday, November 5th:
Oh. Oh. The pipes are leaking somewhere under the floor boards. They are knocking down bits of wall and parquet to try and find the leak which is causing the pressure to fall and the heating to falter. Worst of all, this is not the only flat where this is happening. Ugh.
Update: EVERY SINGLE FLAT seems to be having a problem with the pipes/heating.

November 4th:
Back in Vienna to practically no heating. Ok. I am exaggerating. We put the thermostat down before leaving and now it won’t go up again. The pressure on the boiler is down to 0 when it should not go below 1,5 according to the plumber. I have a bad feeling about this.

November November is our least favorite month of the year. Gray, cold and neither here nor there. Let’s hope it goes quickly.

October 28th:
Ok, so the drive down was not the most fun experience. We got stuck as we were entering BG and it took us over an hour to make one kilometer. Luckily K was waiting for us at a petrol station or we wouldn’t have found our way to Dad’s. Despite our experience of driving in Turkey for over a year, Hubs said he was never as scared as on the last bit of semi-highway – just after entering Serbia, the shittiest part but where we had to pay a toll – where the dark, and fog limited visibility, making the narrow and badly marked roads lethal - not to mention the crazy overtaking.
Still, the drive there meant we had time to catch up and really talk about other stuff than moving, unpacking, feeding, nappies, shopping, parenting, etc. Emma was a star and was fed at petrol stations while Balou was walked briefly and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the state of the public toilets along the way, even in Serbia (much cleaner than in Italy!)

Saturday, October 27th
Off to Belgrade for a week. Good bye boxes, Good bye unfinished flat. Good bye Vienna. Hello Daddy, Hello Sarma, Slava, burek, and all yummy food but no-cooking! I am so looking forward to a rest and seeing Bolecanci, Daddy and Nathalie.

October 26th
It's been a tough week and the flat still looks half moved in. Unpacking with a babe in the house, while feeding every three hours is just slow... And to be honest, I have had to put a check on my standards and prioritize. A moderate mess and a few unpacked boxes in the guest room are really not important. At least we can all get to our beds, and Emma's room is practically done.

October 21st
Emma and I leave Geneva and join hubs, Balou and all our furniture in Vienna. One week to make it livable and then we're off to Belgrade for a break and Slava.

Marriage and tomorrow's yesterdays

If you think preparing and planning your wedding together tests a marriage, just wait 'till you have a baby!

And if that isn't trying enough, try 3 months (three months today!!) of living out of a suitcase. Make that suitcases, since you're constantly changing sizes in between week 34 of pregnancy and week 40+8, not to mention the change of temperature and season -unless you live somewhere near the equator-, and then there the small matter of the clothes and gear of a fast growing baby...
Add to that, staying with your Mum and your Mum-in-law, while buying and setting up a pad in France (which is great but is also quite a bit of work), before flying out to a new city and house hunting with your lovely newborn while living in a serviced apartment (thankfully equipped with a washing machine)...

And of course, hubs is very much in demand and engrossed in his new position at work and, hey, even traveling....

In the meantime you're desperately trying to sooth yourself with positive thinking and the belief that inner stability is what counts (so what if you've called 5 different places "home" in half as many months and driven as many cars).

So what?

* I've learned to be less anxious and get less unhinged by the small stuff
* modern technology is more than helpful, it actually often saves the day; you can read the paper of your city of choice, keep in touch (and sight!) with friends and family practically instantaneously, lose yourself in music and enroll into a local yoga class that is being set up by another newcomer and discussed on a local forum
* having said that, you really can get by with a lot less stuff than you are used to living with...
* which in turn gives you the opportunity to look around you more and (re)discover that which is most important to you
* hopefully, all of this will be another bumpy corner your marriage will bounce off, and, in a few days, you’ll tease each other about your bloody mindedness and short-lived irritability
* remember to cuddle and play as often as possible - it makes you feel so much better

Mostly, all these moves and co-habitations, travels and change in plans, irritations and encounters have convinced me that you really need to live life in the present; communicate (and not only the about the bad, irritating, annoying stuff), express yourself (go yell in the park or sing in the shower), breathe and concentrate on what's going on for you now. Make it as good as you can.

Tomorrow is another day... and, take it from me, a billion things can happen before then, making tomorrow very different from what you thought it would be... You might as well be able to look back and remember the happy yesterdays that you did NOT spend worrying about tomorrow.

As hard as it may be for some of us, this is definitely one lesson worth learning.

The most expensive shoes in the world...or Don't mess with Turkish Customs

Who would have thought hey? Simple Birkenstock for my preggie feet going for 29,95 Euros on TobiasMayer.com. They would have cost me less if I had flown to Germany and brought them back to Turkey myself!

Until this incident, I had had no trouble having books from Amazon & Nespresso coffee delivered to my door here in Izmir. At most I had to pay a few Liras for postage.

I had heard stories of people who had ordered vitamins or food supplements from abroad, being asked to explain exactly what the package contained at the post office. No surprise - anything edible is always suspect.

But Birkenstocks? Really.
How are they any different from books? They are lighter & cheaper and they were ordered from Germany as opposed to the UK. And probably my mistake was to have them delivered by DHL - which was free by the way, since my order was for 5 pairs.

What happened? Well, they got stopped in Istanbul. DHL called me and told me they were at customs but that I could clear them.

-Agh, how does one clear customs?
-You must come here.
-Oh. Only I don't live in in Istanbul, but in Izmir....
-You can clear them in Izmir, do you want them sent to Izmir?
-Well, yes, my order was supposed to be delivered to me at my door in Izmir.
-We need you to pay 115ytl for the plane transfer and send us proof of payment and the transfer application form by fax.
-Huh?!?

Anyway, after being assured that all I needed to do was transfer the dosh and send back their application form for the shoes to arrive the next day, I figured that: a) sending them back to Germany was going to cost me at least as much and b) get them to me much later (especially if I had to have them re-sent to Geneva).

I'll spare you the details of:
-10 phone calls to customer services referring me to 5 different phone numbers of which only the last one worked
-as many emails
-no information as to which of the 3 airport terminals I was supposed to go to to claim my stuff
-a mountain of paperwork & "to and fros" from the customs office, the cargo office, the Turkish Airlines office...
-paying more dosh to cover handling fees, tax and photocopies of my passport and resident permit
-being insulted, hung up on and scolded by customs officials ("don't debate with me!") for asking why I had to pay out more money when I had already paid X amount and had been told that was all
-and finally being saved by bureaucratic overdose by a broker who was no doubt afraid I was going to go into labor right there in the customs office if I didn't calm down...

A bloody nightmare.
I can assure you, if ever you are told that your goods have been stopped by Turkish Customs, (which basically seems to have a lot to do with luck, not with the declared value or weight of your parcel) don't hesitate for a second- send them back! Whatever your goods, they are not worth the time, energy, money you will need to recover them.

Better book yourself a plane ticket to go and pick them up yourself and enjoy a weekend trip to somewhere nice as well!

Sleepless

Seriously?
Shouldn't I be stocking up on sleep right now so as be less vulnerable to the things sleepless nights do to a new Mom?

I am pretty sure that whoever said that insomnia during pregnancy is training for later is wrong. It's like dieting to prepare for famine. Seriously. Our body is smarter than that.

Umph!

How long is 40 weeks anyway?

I've never been great at Maths - but 40 weeks... um, isn't that like 10 months?
Ok, so not every month has the same amount of weeks and so if you spread it all out it somehow works out to ...? I'm confused.

Every time someone asks me how pregnant I am I am at a loss.
At 12 weeks you're finishing your first trimester right? So logically at 24 weeks, that would be 6 months? and then 12 weeks later... at week 36 - Wait! but week 36 (3 x 12) is not 40! In fact that's just about a month early.

Keeping in mind that :

• an average pregnancy lasts 40 weeks (or 38 if you discount the 2 weeks where you're not actually pregnant but have not had your period)
• the baby is due end of July (according to most of the measurements and tests)
• July is the 7th month of the year
• I became pregnant mid-november
• so that should be 7 months + 1 1/2 months = 8 1/2 right? (to which you may add the 2 weeks of amenorrhea to make 9)
  
• which would mean the actual pregnancy lasts 8 1/2 months (but that's 32 weeks + 2 = 34!)
  
• so now that it's May 2nd (week 27) and end of July is 3 months away (+12 weeks), does that mean that we're beginning the third trimester now? (=39 weeks)
  
• and by the way, if you look at the little baby ticker/calendar above, you'll see it says there are 86 days to go - ain't that another 12 weeks!? (is that 3 months? 'cause if it is we're back to my initial question!!!!!)
  

Aggghhhh!

I know that you're probably thinking "Who's counting?!" when all that matters is that things are going well - and the answer is I AM !
I need to plan so that I
a) am allowed to fly back to Geneva
b) arrive in time to have the babe there
c) can do some antenatal aquagym classes and meet my mid-wife
d) have the impression that it's not quite as long as it seems...

I realize the babe will "pop out" (ok I'm trying to be positive and play it down - I am fully aware she will not just "pop out") when she's ready, and that only about 5% of newborns actually arrive on Due Date - but...I STILL WANT TO HAVE A ROUGH IDEA OF WHEN SHE WILL ARRIVE!

Not to mention that:

• we already have a niece who was born on July 22nd 2006 and although she lives in Singapore, it would be nice to have individual birthdates
• without wanting to sound totally superficial - I would much prefer a baby Leo (like hubs and a lot of my friends) to a Crab (although that means waiting a tad longer or at least until after July 23rd!)
  

Ok, well whatever - I just am looking forward to meeting her!

pregnancy baby pregnant 40 weeks 9 months EDD

Cold and intoxicated

Since I'm on my own - hubs being on a business trip including most of the week-end - (lucky him) I've decided to share my oh so positive thoughts with, well, whoever is reading...

I am FREEZING!

It's 8° degrees INSIDE since the heating is not working.
Tomorrow, in my best Turkish, I will try to get it to work. I'm a much happier person with a warm tush. But tonight, I'm practically sitting in the fireplace.

Now, I know 8°C isn't that cold, but try sitting at 8°C degrees for hours and then tell me that it's not that cold. And yes, had we moved to Russia, it would be much colder, but when I was last there, the heating worked.

Thankfully, at the moment, the electricity is on, which means I have light, water, and TV! Hurrah! My standards are getting lower by the minute.

On top of that, my dog has once again managed to swipe a whole slab of Swiss chocolate, if you please. He is now having a hard time digesting it, resulting in a farting bout that is truly unfathomable. So not only is the air cold, it is also smelly. His toxicity also means I cannot let him be the warm and wonderful foot-heater he can be. Umph.

That'll do for now.
Tomorrow is another day....

living in Turkey smell rant farting dog

Learning Turkish

Turkish is an agglutinating language, which means it makes the bits in your brain stick together and become something akin to Russian kasha.

This is how it works:
Where English and other languages, need seven or so words to say something like "I will not come to the Cinema", Turkish only needs two ("sinemaya gelmiyorum").

This is because Turkish agglutinates all the bits to the verb or the noun or both:
In the example above, the negative (m) is stuck onto the root of the verb (gel) and before the subject (here first person singular indicated by "um"). The preposition "to" is the "ya" at the end of the word cinema.

This all sounds pretty simple until you start trying to identify words as someone is speaking. You might get one or two words, but they could mean a number of things -or potentially the exact opposite- depending on what is stuck on to them.

To add to the fun, the basic word order is "the woman the book read" which again sounds simple enough, cause the book can't read the woman, but wait until the sentence you are trying to understand involves two people and try to figure out who is doing what to whom!

Unexpected use of prepositions with verbs (for instance "I like *from* my friend", which literally comes out as "friend mine from very like I") combined with no distinction in between masculine and feminine (no gender whatsoever) completes the scrambling of neurones.

On the positive side, most of the endings rhyme with the word you're adding them on to and there are only six letters in the Turkish alphabet which do not exist in the English one (of which three vowels, but Turkish has no Q, W, X) so at least I don't have to learn another alphabet!

Fun, huh?


learning Turkish expat musings living in Turkey

Neon signs aren't always enough!

Have you ever felt that what you are trying to express is as obvious as a HUGE green neon sign, flashing over your head, but that the person you are trying to get the message to, is just not getting it?

It's just so frustrating!

Here's the blurb:
About three weeks ago, the nice Frenchman's wife and kids arrived. Remember, he's nice and smart and fun, and works with my husband. She, on the other hand is really starting to get under my skin.

She's by no means nasty, or wicked, no. She's just pushy, self-centered, totally narcissistic (in a half naïve, half smug, child-like way) and will not take a polite, diplomatic, no-thank-you kind of answer to anything. (And I'm not the world's greatest diplomat, take my word for it! I tend to be rather direct!)

A couple of days after they arrive, via her husband, Hubs and I get asked over for a drink. Nice. Except, we practically have to get ourselves a drink (remember it was 40°C!!!) and end up sitting in the garden looking out for their kids in the pool while She's checking her newly installed Internet connection, checking if Skype works, occasionaly asking us for technical support. He was unfortunately sorting out some other issue with the techie who'd just shown up.
Not the greatest "we're all yabanci (foreigners), let's bond and help each other" moment... but, hey, it can happen.

A few days later, She contacted me by e-mail and wrote: "(She would) gladly accept my offer to help" - nicely put, don't you think? Considering I hadn't offered anything yet! Anyway, this was her way of NOT asking me to take her to town. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and obliged.

She needed to get to a furniture shop in town, but didn't quite know where it was.
My sis-in-law was visiting and we figured we could do a few things in town ourselves, so we drove by hers and She followed in her car with her kids, to learn the way into town.

We all park at the closest parking and meet-up at the elevators. We catch the lift up, walk to the street where her shop is, and I sigh:
Ok, well, see you around...
"Actually, I just want to quickly have the kids pictures taken" She throws over her shoulder as She pushes into a photographer's shop with her kids. (Um, am I missing something? What does that have to do with us?) The door shuts and I catch her motioning for us to wait at the café on the corner. Fine. Whatever. We could use a bite.

Twenty minutes later, sis-in-law and I have had some drinks and a bite, and things are dandy. Here She comes, sprouting their pics and all smiles.

Off we go.... Oh, no! Off She goes; a million questions & comments on everything and anything.
Where does sis-in-law work? What does she do? Must be difficult working with orphans? How come we bought a car instead of importing one? How much did we pay? And She orders lunch for herself and the kids...

OMG, the lunch!
She spent the whole meal yelling at her ten year old son to shut it, competing with her two-year-old for attention, and making sure my sis-in-law (or anyone else in the restaurant charmed by the little one’s cuteness) would repeatedly take her daughter to the toilet so the never-ending flow spurting through her lips could go on uninterrupted. (Forgive me, am I being catty? I'm not usually, She's just toxic, what can I say, some people just get under your skin! And remember I’m writing this with hindsight and perspective!)

I get the bill and we finally manage to get away and out of sight.
No news for a while thankfully, and I believe my sis-in-law when she says I made my point.
Sweet illusion!

She e-mails, She has been trying to get in touch re: our Turkish lessons (yes, She has enrolled via the company in the same beginner's course) but I seem to be out a lot (for the record, I have not stooped to not answering or cutting her calls, so I don't think so lady...) and so, could I call her when it suits me? (How about never?)

I send her the links and all the enrollment details for the language classes as well as their contact details -everything I had, Scout's honor. I even put her in contact with the International Women's Group here, hoping for relief in numbers.

Monday was the first day of my Turkish classes, and for a week now, I've been dreading the call. (See, this type of person only contacts you when you can be of use. And I knew, the princess She is, had probably not found her way to the school nor registered).

Bingo! Last Saturday, an e-mail. About the classes...could I call her? Uh-uh. No way.

I send her the address and list enrollment docs, -again - and tell her I'm off to Istanbul for a few days. (Simultaneously, I find out from the school that there are too many beginner students for one class! Yay! There'll be more than one! And, no She has not registered - they ask me about her since the company has given her name but She has not confirmed attendance yet).

A day after we're back from Istanbul, She calls. Damn!

"Can we go together? It would be fun. The ride, the talk, starting classes together?" Just writing about it is making my skin crawl!

I try to weave my way out; "I have errands to run in town after class, and it would be more convenient to be independent. I wouldn't want to keep you in town, with your kids coming home from their first day in school...." She insists, and insists.... "Look, can we talk later?" Agh!

The day prior to class, She sends a text - we could meet at hers in the morning.
Fine, I'll go to hers. She can follow me the first day, so She can find her way there. Then, I'll somehow get into a different class, and cut the ropes. How hard can it be?!

I show up at hers with my car Monday morning bright and early explaining that She can follow me to the school, but that due to errands, I need my car. She pouts, but agrees. Off we go.
We're stuck in the traffic and I can see her through my windshield reaching for her mobile phone... a fraction of a minute later mine starts ringing- Nooooooo! I turn the music up and sing. I can't believe the woman. She's totally fusional!

We arrive at the parking in front of the school, and as luck would have it - there's a wedding thing on, and the parking is full... (Groan) The valet tells me (and then her) that there's an Otopark further on... I turn the car around, there's another one just behind us, that'll do fine, thank-you! Plus we're not exactly early as it is.

Alarmed, She looks out of her window, and screams: "I can't turn my 4x4 here, can you please wait for me?" - and drives off to the other fxxx otopark.

I park, and wait. And wait. I call her up. She's looking for a parking space. Am I waiting for her? Yes, I am. (How did this happen? She's the one who needs, and I'm the one constantly waiting?!)

Fifteen minutes later, She breezily walks up the street as if She were sight seeing, strolling at the speed of a tortoise. I breathe deeply and attempt a smile. We cut through a toyshop so as not to have to walk around the block and She starts telling me about the toys She bought her kids here. Aghhhh. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

We finally get to class. 30 minutes late. Packed. There are no seats left. The teacher goes out to gets some more chairs and I manage to sit at the other end of the room from She.
After 20 minutes we break and another teacher shows up with the first one. He splits the class right down the middle, explaining there are too many of us.
Yay!
I walk down the hall with my half of the room to another class - No! Wait! "I'd like to go in zee ozer class, wiz my frend?" And within a second She's sitting right beside me.
I am totally despairing.
She is totally eating up my oxygen.

Class starts, and after being given a few basic words and phrase/question structures, we are asked to work in pairs criss-crossing so that everyone gets to ask and answer every question.
The teacher is super encouraging with all of us, even those of us who have the worst accents or swallow the suffixes on occasion - but She will not have it.

After a mere hour of Turkish classes, She is cutting off the teacher and correcting everyone with "no it's not that, it's this" and drowning out every other person's voice.

The teacher diplomatically changes tactic. He calls out a specific name pointing at a word on his board so we can form a question, getting someone else to answer it. She asks and answers every single one of them aloud!!!

Class finishes and I'm down the stairs- She catches up with me asking if I can wait for her while She registers so I can show her where the close-by otopark is. (I know, I seem really dumb and a total masochist by now, but She's wearing me out!) Ok, I tell her, I'll wait in a café outside.

I order a drink, open my book, and withdraw from her and the morning for a few minutes.

She returns and immediately asks where I'm going for my errands and won't I have lunch? But the few minutes of escape in my book have re-energized me!

I manage to pay and make my way out, helped by the noise of traffic and people as we walk to where my car is parked. I hand in my ticket and drown her out, concentrated on paying my parking and getting away from her.

"Will you have errands to run tomorrow? If not could we drive in together...?"

I wave her goodbye in the noise of the street, knowing that tomorrow I will drive myself to class, without stopping by her place, with my music on full blast and my mobile phone deep in my bag.

Looks like for me, Turkish class is going to be more than about learning a new language...

Update: As planned, on Tuesday I leave her to find her own way to class. Driving there, my phone rings, but I don't reply. When I enter the classroom she pouts and greets me through tight lips. Just in case, after class, I run, but she manages to catch up with me by the parking... I stick to my guns, and miraculously escape lunch! Yay! On Wednesday, after two days of sitting next to her, I managed to move to another seat, and by Thursday she is no longer talking to me. Yay! Yay! Yay!
Nasty, huh? but sometimes you have to go to extremes to make a point!

When in Rome...drive Turkish style

Wow! I can see my last post on Turkey and my tribulations here, really moved you guys - judging by the endless amount of comments. ;-( I'm sorry, but today, it's Turkey again - and a bit of an informative rant. If you ever decide to drive here, you'll have been warned!

*For those of you who don't read French, "DUR" means hard or difficult, which is exactly how the Turks relate to "STOP"

After nearly two months of driving on Turkish roads, I can safely say I understand why this country has one of the highest death rates due to traffic accidents.
I had read a lot about the aggressive driving. Well that’s the understatement of the year! Aggressive, can do, but stupid? Lawless? Suicidal?

Signaling before turning is rare. Most drivers signal only after having slammed on the breaks, if they signal at all – perhaps the Turks have secretly invented telepathy and not yet informed the rest of the world?

Ah, and what are those little mirrors on either side of the car for again?

Honking away seems to be a national tradition; Preferably at a driver who has - oh the sin! - stopped at a red traffic light (although, they will also honk if you are at a standstill when it has turned to orange, and if it's already green, then you're in for an actual symphony of honks!)

Speaking of traffic lights; the meaning of RED does not seem to permeate the local psyche. You soon learn to look, especially when your traffic light has turned to green, before moving ahead. Actually, I'd like to hang on to my car and my life, if you don't mind...and I'm sorry that you do not care for the color red.

Monotonous the highways are not! It is not uncommon to see cars stopped in the middle of a lane (and I do mean the middle) for no apparent reason, or to encounter someone walking across the highway followed by a sheep or two.
Crossroad regulations have been simplified; priority goes to the bully, the bigger, the better.

Oh, and the lampposts you see on the highways? They're for show unless you're in a busy area of town or someone from the EU is around!

The worst of it is, after a while, you begin to feel like a fine moron when:
- you’re the only one to stop and wait for the traffic light to turn green; while every other car is rushing by you protesting loudly
- you’re lolling along the left lane behind an ancient looking vehicle (40 km/h at its peak) patiently flashing your headlights at him to move to the slower lane; when everyone else is just overtaking from the right

When in Rome…Right?
But you know what? Who cares who was right, if you're no longer around...

You've got to be kidding!

Yesterday we received our first electricity bill in a little brown envelope. Inside two A5 sheets of paper partially printed (fields corresponding to kw/h/ YTL) and partially handwritten (the amount due).

You've got to be kidding?! 4 times the amount we would have paid in Geneva for a whole quarter in ONE month? And all this from the ONE room we've been using until we gout our furniture. No way!

I run over to the neighbour's who I have briefly met and are German working for NATO.

So sorry to disturb...
They are super welcoming and tell me that whatever questions we may have, we should not hesitate to ask.
Well, that's great, 'cause as it happens... Is this a usual amount for an electricity bill?
They burst out laughing looking at the amount scribbled next to some obscure - to me at least - Turkish words and explain that they had the exact same issue the first month they moved in; the meter does not get turned off in between tenants and the next person/people to move in get to pick up the bill. How nice.

This morning, my German neighbour and I walk over to the Sitesi Manager, Mehmet, to question the amount.
After much-a-do (he pulls out the scrawny register, his ancient looking calculator, some see-through paper documents, and shows us all the numbers that one of his "colleagues" has scribbled down indicating various kw/h per house/per month and giggles a lot). YES! We get him to half the amount of the bill. With the language barrier it is not unlike a victory.

And I'm so not going to let them think that just because we are Expats, and speak no Turkish, and are new to their country, we can be had into forking out cash - it's like, it doesn't grow on our trees any more than it does on yours pal!!!

So what's the next piece of paper?

"Föseptik ödemesi" - YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING?!!! A SEPTIC TANK!
We actually have one?! agh! AGHHH!
It is recommended to empty it twice a month. That is the amount of emptying we're being charged for. Ok, so, um, we didn't know - never suspected, well, that's why the toilet gurgles!!! - and certainly never did anything to empty it!!!

My kind neighbour takes me to the stench hole and opens it up so we can see if it needs attention...
I wish I could convey the smell, really. All part of the experience, this. My German neighbour, looks in first and with tight lips states:
"it iz neeaarly full, you vill need to call thzem"

Needless to say that:
I have no idea who "thzem" is
How to explain in Turkish and on the phone that our septic tank needs tending to
How in the world can we have filled this (just the two of us) in a month if they claim to have emptied it twice since we have been here???

I ask if the tanks are per house or shared. Only our shit in there, apparently -GASP!!
"You need to chzeck if it iz not full, othzervise you vill hav problem" - yes, I gather that. Oh. My. God.

I really want to prove my point here; that we are not fools and will not pay for service that have not been rendered.
But HOW am I going to explain to the Sitesi Manager that we could not POSSIBLY have FILLED the tank (twice!) without actually having to take him there and stand over the stench while he observes the quantity of shit?
Any kw/h for that here?!

A month later...

So it's been a month and one day since Balou - my dog - and I arrived in Izmir. A month since I turned 33. Funny that... My first full day as 33 was here, and my last as 32 was traveling away from Geneva. A definite sign of a new beginning, don't you think?

So it's been a month since we arrived, and we've sort of been camping in our new house.
Steph, Balou and I probably had a grand total of 10 household items - excluding our tooth brushes: an IKEA open-up sofa (Steph had bought us when he arrived and on which we slept, God bless IKEA!); 2 camping chairs; a couple of glasses and plates; Balou's food & water bowls and Oh, yes! A tiny TV so he could follow the World Cup.... There has been a lot of echo in the house....And I'm not a big camping fan, but Steph's animated comments (!!=%**"?'^+§§¨!!!) during football have filled the air.

I say "there was" 'cause on Monday evening, after weeks of "your things will arrive tomorrow" (from the customs mind, not even from abroad) where they have been sitting since the 17th- we were finally told that YES! our stuff was going to arrive on Tuesday morning. HURRAH!!!

Since our Turkish vocab is about as extensive as the content of our house, we stuck numbers on the doors of each room, and learnt to say:
bir - one
iki - two (pronouce "ekee")
üç - three (pronouce "eeuch" as in "euhh gross"
dört - four (sort of sounds like "dirt" spoken by an Irishman)
I can't write the rest as my keyboard does not have Turkish characters.

So here we are with all our stuff and although it's still not all unpacked, it feels funny to see it here. And boy, there are loads of boxes!!!!

After observing that Turkish movers/unpackers don't care much about sketches of a crossed knife indicating that a box is not to be opened with a sharp object (they smile and shake their heads and indicate that they did not scrape the wood of your mirror/ cut open your duvet... yes, they smile: "nah, it's nothing, what are you getting upset about?") we decided to to do most of the unpacking ourselves before major damage was done and so we could put things where we wanted them.

A selection of moments:

When unpacking our kitchen stuff, Steph (to whatever item he was unwrapping from the extensive amount of paper):
"Hello, I'm Steph, welcome to Turkey" then looking at me with a "is-this-new?" look (No, no, don't get me wrong, he does cook and actually use the kitchen, it's just that we were living in a pretty small flat and some things were just not really out there to be easily used.)

Opening a kitchen cupboard to discover that:
-it's not really a cupboard for us to use, but the home to ventilation, wires, you name it
-the wood has swollen (I'm tring to be positive here, and am assuming it wasn't built that way to start with) so that the cupboard door will only open a few centimeters making it a complete waste of space
-not all the above-the-counter cupboards are the same depth, so that, oh no, no, no! our plates fit in one cupboard but not in another!!! how impratical is that?

If you are nice and polite with the movers/unpackers, serving them lemonade and coke for their first "pausa":
-they'll soon be taking "pausa's" every 20 minutes
-then go off to a 2 hour lunch having asked you to keep watch of another family's goods (now on your lawn) but that they have unloaded from the truck
- although that family's stuff is going to Istanbul!!!

We're not all done yet, and tomorrow there are more things to unwrap and put away, but it's worth it 'cause now I'm sitting at MY kitchen table - and munching on some chips out of one of MY bowls, and drinking out of one of MY glasses. Call me materialistic but it's already starting to feel like home....