Wu Wei

Life in the North

From today's lunch time menu:

Full menu with music 30YTL
Full menu without music 25 YTL

I just had chicken salad 11 YTL.

The restaurants are great. We have been having the set meals as they are such good value for money. Last night we had 6 cold mezes, 6 hot mezes and a whole fish between us. We were absolutely bloated. Today the mezes filled half the table, so I had to have a photo taken:

And that was only the first course.

This is a real hardship posting. Too bad I never get any time for sightseeing.

Wireless in the bathroom

This post comes to you courtesy of the bathroom in my hotel room.  In Belgrade there were days when I could only connect to the wireless by putting my laptop on the fridge.  Here in Nicosia (or Lefkosia as we seem to call it this side of the Green Line) the internet and wireless work fine in the morning on my desk in the middle of the room, but by the evening to get a good signal, I have to retreat to my bathroom which has the advantage of a basin set in a worktop which makes a fine substitute desk.  Please explain why, some techie reading this.

I also  get an ear on the next door's conversation through the ventilation grille, but since it is in Turkish, I am not really entertained.

While we are on technical subjects could someone explain why an optical mouse won't work on a cream stone worktop?  I can understand why it doesn't work on glass, but stone?

More random facts about life in North Cyprus:

like the rest of Cyprus they have those UK 3 pin plugs, which is really inconvenient for us continental types (even at home I use an adapter and a continental extension lead so I don't forget and leave an essential bit behind);

please don't write about Cyprus, or your blog will be blocked like Megan Case.  Trying to read her blog I got this big notice:

Bu siteye erişim mahkeme kararıyla engellenmiştir.

T.C. Fatih 2.Asliye Hukuk Mahkemesi 2007/195 Nolu Kararı gereği bu siteye erişim engellenmiştir.

Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/195 of T.C. Fatih 2.Civil Court of First Instance.

Somehow I don't think it would be worth appealing, though it is kind of them to quote that it is only the Court of First Instance.

Technorati tags: North Cyprus, blog censorship, wireless

Over the Green Line

So here I am, the other side of the Green Line, in Northern Cyprus.  In Nicosia to be precise.  Not really sure I  know what I am doing here, but no doubt by the end of the week when I leave, I will be wiser.  Not sure I can really call it the other side, since I spent no time at all on the "first" side.

An uneventful journey here.  The usual cattletruck Greek (Cypriot) airline, very full, but at least arriving at a civilised hour, unlike Olympic Airlines.  We had a long wait on the tarmac when we landed, and eventually the pilot gave an explanation.  The English version was much shorter and politer than the Greek one, you could tell by the tone of voice.  So I asked my neighbour what he had really said.  It seemed that someone from a certain airline (name not supplied to me) had parked their plane on our stand and gone off and left it there.  Obviously eventually he would have come back to collect it, before it got wheel-clamped or towed away.  But we had to wait till they found him, which took about 20 minutes.

After that I caught a taxi to Nicosia.  The driver, an aging British/Cypriot ex-engineer, ex-psychotherapist, ex-acupuncturist now taxi-driver told me how he had been cured of candida by changing his diet and which herbs had done the trick. I had a free consultation on how to fix my high blood pressure as well. As a result I missed all the scenery between Larnaca and Nicosia.  Still it makes a change from just trying to find a common language to talk in.

By then we had established that I needed to go "over the other side" and he wasn't willing to take me.  So he dropped me at the border with instructions that there would be a taxi the other side.  An ominous sign saying "Turkish Law and Order" greeted me as I came through the Greek passport control.   Then the first building in no-mans-land was the Goethe Institute and the next some sort of Fulbright Institute.  Sadly there was no British Council.  Then it went downhill in style. I remembered that the last time I had this no man's land taxi change was a rather long walk between Macedonia and Kosovo, where it always rained or snowed.  At least I had sun.

The Turkish formalities required me to fill in a paper (labelled visa) with my name and passport no, which duly stamped, was good enough to let me in, into the waiting taxi.   Five minutes later I was in the Hotel Saray, a fitting name for a hotel, if ever there was one.  So now I am sitting here in comfort.  The air conditioning  in my room was eventually made to work by setting it to heating not cooling (silly me) and the wireless connected first time with the laptop in the bathroom, and has been working fine ever since.  I should get used to these temperamental wireless connections after the Hotel Majestic, where I could only connect on top of the fridge.

Other delights of Hotel Saray I can point are these.  There is a  certificate on the wall in Reception which announces that the hotel is protected by FROG Pest Control.  Haven't seen any so it must be working.   There is also a certificate by USAID (where are you EU?) saying this is an Energy and Water Efficient Hotel, and true enough there are low energy light bulbs in my room. 

This one is specially for Carpetblogger, the toilet had the usual paper strip across it, this time  with the words in Turkish  TEMIZLENDIKTEN SONRA KULLANILMAMISTIR!  For which the English is apparently HAVING DISINFECTED, IT HAD NOT BEEN USED!  This sounds like someone who has spent too much time in their classical education, since ablative absolutes are not in every day use any more.  I hope we will get some more grammar lessons from Carpetblogger on this subject.

I went up onto the roof of the hotel before it went dark.  There is a restaurant with a spectacular view of the town almost 360 degrees.  Unfortunately I wasn't clued up enough to take a map to see where I was, but the mosques gave some clues.  At 6.50 there was a flash from the hills followed by some thunder and smoke in the air.  Then it happened again in a different place and I realised it was some sort of cannon ritual.  Immediately afterwards the muezzins answered but only shortly, not the longer call to prayers that I can hear now in my room.

That's all for now.  It's nice to be back somewhere interesting and new.

Technorati tags: North Cyprus, Nicosia, the Green Line

Stuck in the past

My work in Belgrade has been quite interesting as I managed to get to talk to the parts of the energy sector which the ministry, power company etc don't reach.  Of course this means the really important part: the consumers.

So my last meeting was a lady representing consumers.  She was trying to set up an independent set of consumers' associations which would be more active than the "official" ones.  More power to her elbow! She said that she had worked in the police department in the Ministry of the Interior, but had retired now, but still wanted to work actively.  As a lawyer, she seemed well-qualified and we had several really interesting discussions and I had no problem with trying to help her. 

Then just at the end, she said something to the interpreter, saying not to translate.  Of course, as soon as she was out of earshot, the interpreter told me that she had said she had been some big shot in the equivalent of the CIA.  We both understood that as being in the Yugoslav equivalent of the KGB, which doesn't have quite the same fearsome reputation as the Russian one. But nevertheless, it was clear that she was not as simple as just working for the police, as she had said. 

Why do some people have to boast? Why say anything? How or why does someone in that business decide she wants to represent consumers? 

Lots of stereotypes here.  Are any of them valid?

Technorati tags: police, consumers' association, KGB, belgrade

Dyevushkas alive and well in Belgrade

Well actually there aren't that many around.  So I was a bit surprised that, having checked in online, printed my boarding pass and got to the bag drop, I was greeted by a dyevushka making the best of squeezing herself into a British Airways uniform.  Her eyelashes were a serious hazard even across a checkin counter, and her lips were so glossed up that if the baggage belt had the same level of gloss, the luggage would  have skidded off.  But doing the bag drop must be a really boring job, hardly needing any skills or conversational ability. 

Technorati tags: dyevushka, British Airways, Belgrade airport

Airports and other frustrations

After my enthusiastic post about Belgrade airport last time, or at least about the wireless, I was looking for to a quiet browse before I got on the plane.  But last week, no such luck.  There was wireless, but there were no slips of paper with the password on.  The girl in charge in the post office was embarrassed but she simply hadn't been given any.  So that was that. 

But she did know how to let me on the computers in the internet cafe, so all was not lost.  Afterwards I realised after waiting half an hour to check in, that I could have checked in on line. 

In Belgrade, BA were demonstrating how to check in yourself in their new machine, creating an extra queue.  In Heathrow it's now obligatory to check yourself in, it seems.  Though it saves no time as you still have to queue to check your bags in at the (hastily retitled) Bag Drop.  Only a month or so ago in Heathrow it was called the Fast Bag Drop.  But never was anything so badly named. 

It's not clear why BA have to have a separate queue for them to ask those security questions and stick a label on the bag.  They ask the security questions when you check in anyway, and if we can check in ourselves, we can surely label our bags.  The only reason they only have queues must be so they can weigh the luggage.  But we can do that too. 

How long before they weigh up (sorry) that the cost of preventing a few people cheating on their baggage weight is far more than the saving?  Or did I miss something else?

 

Technorati tags: airport, check in, self check in, Belgrade, wireless

History in exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans by Pamela Ballinger

You can find it here on Amazon.  The image here doesn't do justice to the artwork.  You need to look at the original on Amazon to see the horror.  Here it just looks like an abstract painting.

I'm not very good at reviewing books that make a strong impression on me.  I start the review, often half way through the book, struggling to express my strong feelings.  Then I finish the book, but not the review. 

I have half finished reviews for Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson, and Imagining the Balkans by Maria Todorova.  In the same vein I am in the middle of reading History in Exile by Pamela Ballinger.  They are all by social anthropologists writing about history, memory and identity.  I think if I had my time again this is a field I would have liked to have gone into.  I find this sort of history, where real people struggle to explain what they experienced, in the light of what historians tell them was "really" happening at the time, absolutely fascinating.  As well as the language they use to describe it, often with religious symbolism even for communists.

Ballinger is writing about Italians in the Julian March and Istria between Italy and Yugoslavia, some of whom went into exile in Trieste when the border shifted after the Second World War from Italy to Yugoslavia, and some of those who did not.  The book is a lot of firsts for me:

first for the history of the region
which I knew nothing about, except my sister's hints of dark deeds after the war. Have you heard of the foibe (underground caverns with spiky stalactites into which fascists and others were thrown by partisans) or the Nazi concentration camp in Trieste which finished off Italian Jews and anti fascists alike?

first for a history of exiles
apart from some novels about the Greek exodus from Turkey in the 20s, and Russian Jews leaving for Israel and their recollections of the Soviet Union. Why do some not assimilate but cling to their exile status?  Why did Italy "submerge" the history of the exiles like the people "submerged" in the foibe?  Why do they feel like exiles in their own country?  How long do refugees stay in camps and how do they feel about their life there?

first for a social anthropology study in the Balkans
and how the complex memory is constructed first in the redemption from the Austrians after the First World War, then reconstructed during and after the Second World War (who was Fascist and who anti-fascist) and finally (perhaps) in the 90s, with ethnic cleansing in other parts of the Balkans, was history rewritten (or "unsubmerged") from political lines into nationalist Italian v Slovene/Croatian lines).  Old myths of the good Italian and the savage Balkan are revived, which have nothing to do with today's reality in 2007 in the EU, but seemed more relevant in the 90s. And finally I understand what irredentism is. 

Maybe I will be able to write something more when I finish the book.

I wonder whether anyone will ever do similar studies for the upheavals of Stalin's Russia, eg the Crimean Tartars, before everyone who experienced them  is dead.  And what about the people of the Austro-Hungarian border with Ukraine, where similar border changes have occurred.  How do they decide who they are, and what sort of memories do they have?  How do they keep their nationality intact? And what are their memories of the World Wars when during the fighting borders moved backwards and forwards?  Who are the goodies and the baddies?  Has glasnost and the breakup of the Soviet Union allowed a hidden story (ies) to emerge?

Technorati tags: memory, Balkans, exiles, nationalities, history, social anthropology

The future elite

A rather sad letter here from a Belarus student to his friends who have left for Poland to be students there.  Apparently they are going to be the future elite in Belarus as they have had a foreign education.  He bemoans his fate that no one his age is left in Minsk, and he has only old people to talk to.  Perhaps this is why he points out that it was often the bad and lazy students who left for a better life (sour grapes?) and the good and patriotic ones who stayed behind.

In any case, are there any young people left in Poland?  Haven't they all come to Britain?  Will they go back to Poland and demand to be the elite?  Will the Belarus "future elite" stay to fill the gap in Poland if they don't come back? 

In the late 60s, people worried about the "braindrain" as students left university for a better life in America.  It's funny but several of my classmates at university still seem to be there.  They turn up on Facebook and LinkedIn.  What happened to the gap that they left?

Technorati tags: Belarus, Poland, brain drain, America

Tales of banking and insurance

Yesterday I finally got round to reading my post which has taken some time to get where I am living and even longer for me to open it.  In it was a letter from my home insurance about a pending claim.  Eventually I realised that this was about a telephone call I had made back in late June about Bee's bike.  On one of her many holidays this summer I noticed her bike had disappeared.  Thinking she might have left it at a friends, I didn't do anything until she came back.  Then it seemed it really had been stolen.  Ringing the insurance company was a bit of a farce, since I couldn't find any proof of buying the bike, (put in the proverbial safe place).  In the end they agreed to accept a credit card statement with the word bike on it.  Then I went off somewhere leaving Bee in charge of sending this off with the claim form when it came.  When I came back, I found the usual teenage sloth had neither claimed the insurance nor bought a replacement bike (on the grounds we were moving and we didn't need any more stuff).  Nobody tells you that one of the downsides of all these foreign trips is dealing with this sort of endless paperwork shit when you come home.

Result: the papers were packed in a box somewhere and I resigned myself to resurrecting it in October, if possible.  However, insurance companies need to process their claims, so I got a letter.  Noticing it was signed by a Pole, I thought I would ring up to congratulate her on moving up the career ladder and injecting efficiency into insurance. Needless to say the response was a call centre.  But hardly had I launched into my tale of idleness and lack of documents, when the man said, "Is it OK if we send you a cheque now for £90?".  It was a cheap bike, and that was what I had insured it for.  So how could I refuse?  I am  hoping that the cheque will somehow follow me to my new address.

Dealing with the other cheque in my life at present, the partial (thereby hangs a long tale which I don't have energy for blogging at the moment) return of the deposit from my last flat, is more of a problem.  I don't often get cheques and hardly ever write one.  Citibank doesn't have branches, so I have to post cheques in to cash them, which is fine when I am in the UK, but a bit more problematic when I am not.  While I was packing, I managed to retrieve the paying in book not used for 5 years and decided to use it this time rather than the post.  Remembering there was still a bank left on Cowley Road which had not been turned into a coffee shop, I trotted off.  Waiting in the queue I saw that posters in NatWest are now in Polish, and I can send my money free to their Polish counterpart bank.  They proudly state that they are the only bank offering a free service.  See how good my Polish is getting!

But when I came to pay in my cheque, it was different.  The cheque was from Barclays and Citibank use Lloyds to collect money from them.  I was asked why I was bothering NatWest.  Whatever happened to the British clearinghouse system?  Certainly this is the old NatWest who could never convince me to join them in my student days.  So the cheque went in the post to Citibank, and I will never darken NatWest's door again.

Does anyone use cheques any more with this sort of hassle?  I remember finding it extraordinary that in Lithuania to pay bills in the old days, you had to make a trip round several banks once a month, to pay money directly into the bank it was intended for, as there was no bank clearing system.  Now I'm sure it is all done on the internet.  And why does it take 3 days to clear anyway, when an international transfer can be done the same day?

Technorati tags: banking, insurance, cheques

Fusion culture

 Finally I managed to meet one of my real Serb friends and go to somewhere non-touristy.  We went to a bar/cafe (well how do you tell the difference?) less than 100m from Skadarska but one you would never find unless you knew it was there: through a large ornamental cast iron gate, round a corner down some stairs and there you are. 

Well I was very confused, because it was like being back in Dveri* in Sarajevo, basically a corridor between two buildings with a makeshift roof over it, hung with random decorations.  

  

It is quite cold out, so my friend recommended hot wine, which got me very confused.  OK you can have mulled wine in Britain but usually only in your home or at a party.  You don't normally get it in bars.  So I always think of it as karstas vynas (recipe here) because that's what you have in cafes in Lithuania in December and January when it's really cold outside.  So there we were, knocking back the karstas vynas out of the irish coffee glasses,  having a very nice time in Belgrade.  Actually it wasn't really cold enough to need the gas-fired patio heaters, though I did have two sweaters and a jacket on.  Is it really only September?

*which I wrote about here, but I realise has its own website here.

Technorati tags: Dveri, Belgrade bars, hot wine, culture