The Princess Diary Part 1

I'm finishing my coffee in the restaurant. It's snowing hard and the view of the valleys below is obscured. There is a fire in the coal-burning stove and a little Spaniel named Cipsi (Gypsy) is gently begging for food. Alex, the Uzbeki shepherd dog, is wandering around outside. Sometimes, he walks slowly across the window ledge and looks at the few diners through the window at eye level. Since he's about as big as I am, the sight is both startling and funny.

For the past week, I've been at the Museum Hotel in Uchisar, (Cappadocia) and will stay for another week. Most of the time I've been the only guest. Normally, I wouldn't be able to afford such a posh vacation, however, I am a privileged guest. In exchange for English lessons, I receive room and board as well as a round trip ticket from Istanbul. I think I got the better part of that exchange.

My room, called Castle, is in one of the many caves here. Although the caves can be damp and cold, mine is quite comfortable with rugs and kilims on the floor, antiques tucked here and there, and textiles on the walls. There is a small seating area with low couches in front of a window overlooking "fairy chimneys" below. There's even a jaccuzi in the tub. I'm a princess in my Castle. Inside and outside the hotel are antiques that the owner has collected over several decades. My favorites are weather worn pieces of wood, shaped almost like small doors, in which there are rows of many vertical incisions. Stuck in the incisions are flint stones or thin pieces of metal. I learned that these were used as threshers. They were tied to horses, a man would stand on them, and the horses would walk over the harvested wheat in a circle. There's one outside an antique shop that's always closed, and another lying on top of an old bed spring in a cave full of junk. If I could just figure out how to get it back to Istanbul...

In the morning, I go to breakfast in the restaurant. Afife greets me, "Good morning Hocam" (My teacher). Everyone calls me Hocam and I like it. I stop in the kitchen to say hello to Mustafa, bronze medalist in a major international chef's competition. We flirt exaggeratedly, batting our eyelashes at each other. Sherife Anna (everyone calls her Anne or Mom) lets me poke my nose in the huge pots of simmering soups and desserts. She's short and round and wears printed pants with a low seat that almost hits the floor. One day, I complimented her oya, a complicated kind of crochet/ needlework on her scarf. The next day, she presented me with a very fancy one with blue beads. I kissed her on both cheeks and made her wrap it around my head. Five minutes later, Nesrin from the housekeeping staff presented me with one she made. This too was wrapped around my head after cheek kisses. Yashar, not to be outdone, handed me a glass of orange juice. “A gift for you.” He too got his cheeks kissed. When I met the hotel owner in the restaurant, he asked if I was becoming a Turkish woman.

Today, Sherife Anna made baklava. I got to try the first piece, slightly warm. In fact, the kitchen staff thinks it's funny to keep feeding me. Apparently, Turkish men like their women full-figured. "Try this Hocam, it is a traditional dessert." I really like Koftur, made of flour and grape syrup dried in the sun. Later, it is cut into small pieces and fried with butter and a little egg, then sprinkled with crushed walnuts. I'm going to return to Istanbul fat and spoiled.

After breakfast, I sometimes take a walk, either with the owner and his dogs, or by myself. I might walk up the hill to the village where I made friends with a man who runs a tourist shop. Since it's winter and there are few tourists, he sat with me and drank tea. I'm going to float back to Istanbul if I keep drinking tea at this pace. He's a tour guide as well and explained the plans of the rock cut churches in the books he sells, one of which he wrote with a friend. He told me about how life has changed here since he was a child, before everyone had electricity and television. At night, their "television" was the grandma who told stories about love, mythology, history and legend to the children. The women worked together to weave rugs for the next bride. Everyone lived in a house with at least one cave where they kept animals and stored food. Each family had sheep and a cow. Every day, two shepherds would collect all the sheep, and another the cows, and take them for the day. In the evening, the animals would be brought back to their owners. There are still a few sheep here. Twice I've seen them return up the hill, across from the hotel and up into the village. Today a camel which is available for rides near the roadside tourist shops made the same route. There is an old camel saddle in one of the abandoned caves behind the 1001 Nights restaurant and hotel. I explored some of the caves the other day, some of which were occupied as recently as the 1960's. Some are still occupied, but a bit in secret I think. On Monday, we saw one in the valley with a round metal chimney sticking out the side. Its metal door used to be the cafe sign for the Museum Hotel. The hotel owner was not happy, though it did make a fine looking door.

The other day I took the bus to Göreme, a nearby town, and walked the kilometer to the Göreme Open Air Museum. The site was a monastery in which there are many rock cut churches with frescoes dating from the 11th to 13th centuries. I tried to stay ahead of the few busloads of French, Japanese and Korean tourists to look at paintings of the life of Christ, saints and angels, and to study the architectural forms in peace. A Japanese tour guide said something to me when I entered the church where he was guiding a tour. I have no idea what he said, but it was unfriendly enough that I made a hasty retreat. The French tourists spent their time complaining, "Oh the lights aren't very good, oh this is too small, oh it's too cold." The ticket seller at the Dark Church was making onion salad and invited me to eat with him. It was a very nice invitation that I politely declined. Sorry, I have to give a lesson soon. The man guarding the Buckle Church, which has the oldest paintings in the museum, kindly showed me where the old and "new" parts of the church were. He invited me to tea and let me sit next to the stove in his tiny room the size of an outhouse. He proudly served me instant coffee, prepackaged with creamer and hazelnut flavor, in a plastic cup that I'm sure someone else used before me.

In the afternoons, I give lessons to the reception staff. "I'm sorry, but O -Bey is not here at the moment." Then, the restaurant staff. Never say "Do you want..." but "What would you like..." instead. "May I" instead of "Can I." Later, the housekeeping staff. These are my only students who have specifically asked me to teach them grammar. All of us laugh a lot, and they tell me not to leave. I think they also like me as a diversion, something new and something that isn't another room to clean or a table cloth to iron. It will be difficult to leave.

Later in the evening, I go to reception again for a private lesson with Mehmet. He's 22, has big brown eyes and says "Oh thank you so much" often. He's taught me a few regional expressions that make the others laugh. Mehmet grew up in the buildings that are now the reception and the standard rooms. The restaurant used to be his father's souvenir shop. If there is no one else in the hotel, we move to the office where there is a small stove and a pool table. The dogs come to sleep next to the fire.

It's still snowing. That's good, because if there's no snow now, there's no water in the spring and summer.