Goodbye Turkey, Hello Malta! (Post #50)
Hi friends,
Mike and I are both using the computers right now here in one of the few shops open today in Valletta, Malta. Why are we in Malta? Why is this one of the few shops open today (Wednesday, September 21st)? All good questions that I will answer shortly. By the way, this is Michele writing.
We said goodbye to Turkey on Monday, September 19th. We got up at 2:00am to catch a taxi at 2:45 since our plane left at 5:00am (ouch!) A few interesting things we want to share about Turkey….
Backgammon – everyone plays it and you can see people spending hours or all day sitting at cafes playing this game. It is quite a national past time.
Bus/car washing – This is also a national past time in Turkey. Whenever a bus or car pulls up to a rest stop, or gas station, the vehicle is immediately washed in the vehicle washing area. Men come out right away and start this service. I think it is seen as an embarassment if you drive around with a vehicle that has dirt on it – which is funny because there are many dirt roads!
Change problem – There is also clearly a change shortage in the country. Everywhere we went it was difficult to pay for things unless you had exact change. Sometimes you couldn’t get the store owner to accept your money if you didn’t have exact change so you couldn’t buy the product. He/she would rather lose the sale, than have to give out coins. Another example…let’s say you went to a restaurant and your bill was 81 Turkish Lira. Instead of giving you 19 Lira back, you would always get 20 back. The shops and restaurants would rather lose the money than part with their change. Plus, they usually don’t have change and have to run down the street to another store to get it.
Beggers – There are three kinds of beggers in Turkey – cats, dogs, and chickens. These three animals will jump up on the chair next to you (and sometimes on your table) or they will wait impatiently by your feet meowing, clucking, or making some noise until you give them something.
Blackouts – Blackouts are not uncommon in Turkey and we experienced several. This just seems to be the norm and all but the poorest businesses have backup generators so that everyone can keep working.
Sheep, cow, goat crossings – Yes, sheep, cow and goat hearding is common once you get the least bit outside of a city. And so we will be driving 70 mph when all of a sudden the bus driver will slam on his brakes in order to slow down for the heards of animals in the road. Often the traffic makes the animals go crazy and they run all over the place and the hearders have a hard time getting them all back in one clump.
Carpet shops – There must be 5.3 million carpet stores in Turkey and you cannot escape the shop owner trying to rope you in for a sale. You can try to ignore him, or say “No thanks” but they have a response for everything you say (I have no money, I don’t have time, I have no home, etc.) It is very similar to the refusal conversion tactics that survey interviewers employ when trying to get someone to complete an interview, only here they are trying to get you to buy a carpet.
Excuse me sir. – Every restaurant has people standing outside of it. They too try to rope you in. They say, “Excuse me sir…would you like something to eat?” (restuarant) “Excuse me sir…would you like something to drink?” (coffee shop) “Excuse me sir..would you like something to read?” (bookstore) You get the idea. The funniest thing is when they can’t tell if someone is a man or women. In this case they will say, “Excuse me person…would you like….?”
Goodbye Turkish food! As much as we liked Turkish food initially, you can’t help but get sick of something after 3 weeks. There really is a fairly narrow range of food offered throughout the country. Basically, there is only Turkish food and no other type of food. So after 3 weeks of kebabs, tomatos, olives, cucumbers, bread, and plain yogurt (that tastes like sour cream), we are ready to move on to anything (Italian, Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Thai, whatever).
The Evil Eye – The evil eye is a round looking thing with a dark blue spot in the middle and several lighter shades of blue on the outside. It is very important to have this eye on your person, in your car, in your shop, and in your home, in order to ward off evil spirits. Everyone has the eye hanging from their rear view mirror or an eye safety pinned to the driver’s seat so that they won’t get in a car accident. And of course you need one in your shop so no evil enters there (for example, evil = shoplifters).
Call to prayer – It is strange now that we have left Turkey to NOT hear the call to prayer 5 times a day. This is very much a part of the Muslim culture and whether the chant (call to prayer) is live or recorded, it comes out of speakers that are on top of the minerets (tall pointy structures surrounding a mosque). I find it sort of soothing and peaceful sounding and actually miss it (except the one that comes at about 5:00am!)
Two sets of money – Turkey is undergoing a change in currency. The old Lira was in millions. So if I buy a juice using the old money it comes to 2 million lira. Using the new system it comes to 2 lira. However, both currencies are being used until the end of the year and it can be confusing looking at the paper money. You need to count the zeros on the old lira so you know you are not being ripped off (a 500,000 paper note looks a lot like a 5,000,000 paper note. Also, some of the old money used to be in coins that have now been converted to paper and some old paper money is in coins using the new money. It is sort of mind boggling when you consider that every time you go to buy something you need to calculate the exchange rate in your head on top of the old/new currency conversion.
So, those are my notes on Turkey. We are now in Malta. Malta was simply going to be a stopover on the way to Morocco from Turkey. However, it turned out that we could stopover for a couple of days at no extra charge, so we figured why not. Malta is a small country south of Sicily (which is south of Italy). The country has 400,000 people total and is split among 3 islands, with the main island named Malta, just like the country.
We arrived here on Monday morning with no reservations. So, after taking the old rattling bus from the airport to Valletta, the capital, we went to the tourist information office to try to find out about some accomodations. I was feeling better but Mike was still feeling sick so we just wanted to find something fast. Well, turns out we were visiting Malta during a Festa. A Festa is a three day party with food, music, and fireworks. The reason? It was Malta’s Independence Day – which is today, September 21st (which explains why all the shops are closed). We also learned there was some sort of veteran’s convention in town. In order to find accomodations that didn’t cost a fortune, three tourist information employees were calling, calling, calling all over Valletta, and all towns within 10 kms. The tourist information people finally found us a beautiful guest house that, although it has shared bathrooms, is very clean and has a wonderful breakfast included. After this lesson, we decided to book ahead in Morocco. 🙂
See next blog for more on Malta…
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Tags: Category #13 Turkey, Category #14 Malta
Michele Harmon
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