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Free Parking · Letter to America

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: We left Chihangir after dropping off my sister, and the last of the items she wanted to move to storage before she left town.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: She lived at the opposite end of the Bosphorus from us, and the trip can be congested, even with three alternative routes, the ring road, the one along the top of the ridge of hills, and the shore road.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I punched in home on Google Maps, and all three routes showed no traffic.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Unheard of, especially in the afternoon or evening on a weekday.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And yet here we were, 3 PM and smooth sailing.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we decided to go the long way, which is actually the shortest distance, but never the fastest.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Unless it's summer in Istanbul.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: The city is stunning.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: The winding waters of the Bosphorus Strait are aptly turquoise colored and shimmer in the warm sun.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: A steady breeze off the Black Sea follows the water and cools the wide pedestrian walkway along its length.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's surprisingly empty.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Only the occasional hardworking fishermen or yuppie exercising between zoom calls.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: The usually packed to the gills parking lots are free and untended, even the valets off for the season.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: We park and take a walk, stopping to watch dozens of people informally lining up at a dock to dive into the cool, clear waters.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: We sit at a table on the water's edge to grab a cup of tea and marvel at the fact that there's a place to sit, let alone a prime one that would normally have been nabbed before lunch and only let go to a friend or acquaintance arriving for drinks sometime after dinner.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Two meals at one table with a rotating guest list is par for the course in the right parts of town.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: But not this time of the year.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: In summer, there are only two kinds of people left in town, those who work hard and those who play smart.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Why would anyone leave Istanbul in summer?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why go south before the off season?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: The expensive coastal summer homes are in hotter climates, have traffic jams and prices peg to euros.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: For most of the summer, the ones working hard put in a full workweek to fly down to their summer homes on the weekends to meet their families.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Those with means now take shorter summer holidays in Greece and try to rent out their holiday homes, preferably to foreigners, to spend less and even make some money to save.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Summer is a great equalizer here.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone has a place on the shore.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Turks often refer to Turkey as Little America.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's said sometimes with pride and sometimes as a pejorative to capture something many don't expect, a deep-seated work ethic and commercial instinct at the heart of the culture.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: America is the only major economy with no guaranteed vacation time.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Almost everyone in finance gets paid vacation, less than half of leisure and hospitality workers do.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: In the US, 11.4% work over 50 hours a week.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: In Turkey, it's 43%, and there is statutory paid leave for all.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: August is the holiest month of the holidays in Europe and all the way around the Mediterranean.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: It has been since the Feria Augusti, the holidays of Augustus, formalized a period of rest after the harvest in the hottest, driest month of the year.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: There are even older traditions in herding and nomadic cultures when summer months bring moves to higher, cooler pastures, with beautiful natural surroundings and slower, more sociable customs.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: The Yudrik Yailas of central Anatolia create tented villages in the mountainous plateau around Ankara, where I lived as a preschooler.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: I have memories of camping and carpets from those villages to this day.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: A cab driver taking me from Munich to Fuschel told me of a very similar tradition in Austria, the Alm, that she and her kids took part in every year.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Each summer they took their three cattle and hiked up to a cottage on an alpine prairie, where they spent the month of August, sometimes longer.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Ignoring our own advice, we leave Istanbul Saturday for Sahel, the north coast of Egypt on the Mediterranean.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's our fourth summer there, and our son will meet us for the second time.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a summer tradition that goes back to similar trips in my high school years to Alexandria along the same shore, a retreat from the stifling desert heat to the cooler coastline.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here the August lifestyle is not only timeless, it feels like you could be anywhere along the Mediterranean coast.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Indistinguishable from Turkey to Tunisia, Gaza to Gibraltar, people have been sitting in folding chairs, snacking on fresh fruit and cold drinks for generations, often three or four generations at a time.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Summers with grandparents, parents, kids, and grandkids together and intertwined in the sand and splashing in the waters.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Even in an age of cell phones, there are few plans, few commitments, just the absolute certainty that everyone will be at the beach tomorrow.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: A beautiful expression of this sense of community is that there is almost universal access to the sea on the Mediterranean.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: The calls of the fresco wafer and cold drink peddlers punctuate the white noise of chit-chat, laughter, splashing, and distant music from the beachside restaurants, synonymous with summers at the beach.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're setting a towel down on the sidewalk next to a ladder on the promenade, or you're flexing at a fancy private beach club, everyone finds a free seat at the table, a chair on the beach.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Even the idea of a beach stretches to fit.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sand, shingle, bluffs, breakwaters, a dock, even pavement.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's about it.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Tight knit groups of friends and families, just hanging out endlessly on the beach.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: There are no Joneses to keep up with, not much in the way of formal nightlife.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: These days start late, with a breakfast and a coffee on the fly.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: We head to the beach, hunt for a free parking space for the golf cart, and stay for hours, snacking on fruit and nuts.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Then everyone wanders home at some point in the late afternoon and meets up in casual groups of families and friends for lunch around six or even later.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: The constant is conversation.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Semi serious, fun, funny, hilarious, hysterical.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: My cheeks hurt from laughter.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nights can go long, very long.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: That late evening lunch is the tell.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Dinners can be well after midnight.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Even children and grandparents are up late into the night.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or really, really early into the morning.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Some go nocturnal and stick to the schedule.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Others just cut off the late night portion and enjoy earlier starts, and quiet time on a chez lounge in the late morning.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, it seems that work gets done, a Zoom call on the fly, some time on a laptop and the brakes in the loosely kept schedule.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: It looks a lot like Northern California on the surface in this regard.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: In New York, I've had to leave a cafe because it feels like a wee work with people loudly taking calls.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: The pacing, the raised voices barking orders.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: It makes you almost feel that people are faking that call to look busy and important.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: San Francisco acts like the opposite.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: There, you can sit next to fellow parents watching a soccer game for years at a time, and never know what anyone does for a living.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: The bay fetishes making it look easy, incidental.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: You wonder what they do, whether they do anything at all.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's no flashy watch or car to signal status.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Status is in not being a tryhard, in having nothing to prove to anyone.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: You learn soon enough that it takes a lot of effort to make living in Northern California look effortless.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: On the beach on the Mediterranean, it's a genuinely carefree experience that makes packing for a trip like this easy.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: I throw in flip-flops, a waterproof pair, a fancier pair for occasions away from the waves, colorful shorts, and a couple of bright swimming trunks, t-shirts and polo shirts, a hat, and a light Turkish towel as a wrap or beach blanket.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone puts a little effort into their appearance, but quality, not quantity.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: A spritz of perfume, a bracelet or earrings, a chain around the neck.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, or maybe not today.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: I toss my laptop into my carry-on, airpods for Zoom calls, a charger and a power strip.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: We've learned over the years it's worth bringing your own.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I pick up my microphone.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's heavy.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Feels like a pound.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: I set it back down on my desk.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really need it.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've recorded with AirPods and a pinch.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: I pack passports and tickets, a book, some cash for visas and airport snacks.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Something about handling the cash makes me feel like I can't afford to let go of everything, completely, for two whole weeks.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I see a space in my bag about the size of a can.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: I decide to throw in the microphone.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: You never know.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is Hondoline from his stumble.