Want to know your future? Reading Turkish coffee can be good fun.
Turkish coffee is made with fine, powdery coffee grains that sink to the the bottom of the cup. You don’t want to drink these grains– trust me, it’s not pleasant. Rather, you want to leave the coffee sludge in the bottom of your cup, along with a bit of liquid. That way, you can use the coffee to tell your fortune. Don’t worry- reading Turkish coffee isn’t that difficult!
How do you do it?
After drinking your coffee, turn your cup upside down on its plate. Again, it’s quite important to leave all the coffee grains and a bit of liquid coffee (but not too much) in your cup so that the sludge will slide down making shapes and patterns.
Next, you have to wait until the cup is completely cold. This allows time for the sludge to drip and take shape.
At this point you can put a metal possession on the back of the cup to help it cool down faster. Or not.
Once it’s cool, you can read your fortune.
This week a Turkish friend of mine who used to read fal explained to me some of the basics.
While looking at the rim of the cup, hold the cup with the handle facing down.
Patterns and shapes you see in the coffee on this siderefer to the future
On this side they refer to the past
After reading the cup, move on to the plate. Pour any liquid on the plate back into the cup and then read it.
The small circle on the plate (the size of the coffee cup) shows information about your family and very close friends
Anything beyond that circle refers to other acquaintances, friends and greater society
While you can feel free to make up fortunes based on what you see in the coffee grains and what you think they may represent (ex. a bird in the future could mean that a person will travel soon), there are also standardized interpretations that you can memorize.
My first experience with kahve falı (coffee fortune telling) was during my first visit to Turkey. Armed with a bilingual Turkish-English friend of a friend, I listened intently as an old man turned my cup around and spoke for nearly an hour about my future and the friend translated. According to him, I should be going to Egypt someday.
I still haven’t been, but I think it’s a great fortune!
When you move to a different country you become immune to many “normal things” that at first you thought were weird. Here are some *prizes* for my favorite normal things from life abroad:
1. Dirty streets, dirty feet [Bolivia]
Yes, you can get used to your feet being constantly caked in dust. In fact, in some places you really don’t have a choice.
In Senegal my host mother always insisted I wash my feet to avoid microbes “getting me,” but after spending 8 hours a day like this, I bet the microbes still “got me.” Bolivia wins the prize on this though, because nobody there ever suggested I wash my feet.
2. Street animals [Turkey] In some places it’s goats and sheep, in others its dogs.
Some have homes, others are wild.
At first you take pictures and ask what’s being done for them, but eventually you get used to their presence.
Turkey takes the prize because of its cats… they are literally everywhere.
3. One potato. Two carrots. [Spain]
I remember being very taken aback the first time I realized that I could buy only the singular fruits and veggies that I needed.
When I lived in Spain I had a fruit store on the corner, a bakery down the street and a small grocery store that saved all the weird-shaped tomatoes, like this one, just for me.
4. No silverware. Just your hand. [Senegal]
I cannot stress how much I LOVE eating with my hand.
It gives you intimacy and connection with your food.
Senegal wins the prize for teaching me to do it right. Even though I only lived in Senegal for 5 months, I still use my hand for rice dishes when I’m home alone.
5. Poor translations. [Czech Republic]
Every non-English speaking country gets credit for this one, but the Czech Republicwins this prize. I’ve seen many botched restaurant menus, but the Czech apparently dared to translate poetry at Gregor Mendel’s garden in Brno.
That said, the “30 Second Dispel Horniness” L’Oréal cream is my all-time favorite find. I found it in Turkey but since there was no Turkish on the packaging, it can’t qualify the country for a win.
6. Explaining Arkansas. [Wikipedia]
No matter where I go I always have to explain something about my state. That’s especially true when I gawk at funny-shaped tomatoes or my roommate comes home and I’m eating dinner with my hand.
What is life like in Arkansas? Thankfully, Wikipedia has always been there to help me find the words:
SCENE 1 I don’t want to go out. I don’t want to drink. But I’m 25 years old, so it only takes about 5 minutes for this German guy in the hostel to convince me otherwise. “Alright,” I say, “one drink.”
6 pints and 4 shots of jäger meister later, I take the following masterpiece of a photograph:
Wow they’re just so awesome! I have to take a photoooooo
SCENE 2 I wake up at 8am to a screeching fire alarm. I roll over in bed, annoyed. The four other people sleeping in the room roll over too. Somebody grunts. The alarm continues.
I sigh loudly and pull myself out of bed. As I peek out the door to see what’s going on, smoke billows in.
Closing the door, I walk back to my bed and lazily pull on my shoes and coat. I’m still not awake and my body moves as though in a dream. As I turn to leave, I think to grab my phone.
Suddenly, a man with a fire extinguisher rushes into the room. He looks around wildly at its sleepy occupants. Most people have pulled pillows over their heads to block out the noise.
Catching on to his sense of urgency, I blurt out the first thing that comes to my mind: “Qu’est-ce qui se passe?”
He cocks his head to the side. He doesn’t speak French.
“Fire?” he responds, unsure if he’s answering my question. He looks around confused and then repeats himself, this time more sure: “Fire,” he says. Then he leaves.
Escaped from the fire
SCENE 3 I’m hungry. I tell the guys on the couch next to me that I’m gonna go get some food soon. I then spend:
15 minutes – talking about food in Istanbul 2 minutes – putting away my laptop and grabbing my coat 45 minutes – walking around the neighborhood looking for food 10 minutes – looking at different restaurant menus 20 minutes – walking back, still looking 30 seconds – deciding to walk into a shady place with no menu 2 minutes – explaining that I’m not lost and I want a sandwich 5 minutes – walking back TOTAL: 1 hour 39 minutes 30 seconds + 1 dürüm chicken wrap
SCENE 4 The firefighters are taking a long time. My money is in the building and I’m hungry.
I tell someone that I’m hungry and he offers me a banana. Another guy, listening in, insists that I take his apple. He tells me it’s an Istanbul apple.
I eat the banana. When the firefighters leave, I’m able to get back in my room, grab my stuff and head to a boat so I can make my way to the European side of the city and use a friend’s shower. On the boat, I order a cup of tea.
Turkish tea and an Istanbul apple
SCENE 5 I’m walking around with this girl who went to the same university as I did, back in Texas. We have nothing to talk about.
“Let’s go to that mosque,” I tell her, pointing up ahead.
“Okay.”
We walk up to the mosque. She puts on a hat and I put a scarf over my head. We take off our shoes and we go inside. I can’t see any women anywhere and in front of us are a bunch of men praying. We stand around awkwardly.
I see a small side door with a sign in Turkish on it. I stare at it for a minute or two, translating. It literally says:
“Women have a space that is available.”
“Come over here!” I tell the girl, “this is the women’s area.”
She comes over to me and I try to open the door, but it’s locked.
See that mosque?
SCENE 6 I get off the boat and start walking back to my hostel. Shoe shiners are lined up beside the sea. As I look at them they call out to me “buyurun, buyurun!”
At first I ignore them, but then I look down at my dirty leather boots. I decide that I’ll stop the next time I see a guy.
How did you get started traveling?
Why do you still travel?
For me, it boils down to this:
Film Studies and Genetics.
Yes, seriously. I’ve never made a film before in my life or taken a course on genetics, but as a high school senior these two areas of study intrigued me. I couldn’t decide between them. The problem? They both require significant university resources for a good program, and no US school has truly excellent programs in both.
My senior year of high school I was accepted to 11 different colleges.
But when my mother sat down with me to ask where I wanted to go, I couldn’t give her a straight answer.
“This school is supposed to be great for student life, but that school is more prestigious. And– this school is offering a great scholarship, but that school is next to the beach.”
That’s when my mother gave me her 2 cents, as mothers do best, and suggested I forgo undergraduate school altogether until I had more thoroughly explored my passions.
“What? Not go to college? What do you mean?” I asked.
“Like, go abroad somewhere.”
With my family, right before I left the US for the first time, 2008
Forty-eight hours later I’d called the right people, secured myself an interview and was reviewing finally drafts of a slew of essays for Rotary International’s youth exchange program.
So, my first trip abroad was thanks to my mom, who accurately identified something important:
My indecision wasn’t a character flaw, but a sign that I needed more time.
Time to explore my passions. Time to develop a clearer future vision. Time to think.
My teachers at the time were horrified.
They couldn’t believe that their — shock! — straight A student might not go to college!
My parents, though, never doubted my trajectory for a second. As ex-college professors themselves, they’d heard of students taking gap years before and they knew that a detour from the traditional path can often tremendously help, not hurt, one’s career. And they were right.
(Note: Actually, just a few years earlier my older sister had spent a successful year abroad in Thailand with Rotary. So, while my mother’s suggestion kickstarted my own travel, she was influenced by my sister’s successful year. Which in turn was influenced by a fellow church-goer’s son who had been to Russia… the line of dominos is long. When I initially called up Rotary, my district deadlines had passed, but the good impressions left behind by my sister led a few key people to help me find a nearby district with later deadlines.)
Rotary picks students based on their desire to go abroad and learn new things.
But they do not necessarily choose students based on a desire to go one specific place. When I explained that I wanted to go forth with learning Spanish in a Spanish-speaking country, Rotary tried briefly to convince me out of it. After researching possibilities for learning Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Malay, French, Czech, Polish, Slovak and German, though, I responded to my Rotary counsellor that:
“I still feel like my heart is set in South America.”
Colorful marketplace in Bolivia, 2008
My heart, as it were, was dreaming not only of improving my high school level 3 Spanish, but also of seeing a colorful city with PALM TREES in a country with indigenous people. Yes, I actually looked up the percentage of indigenous people in Bolivia before deciding to go there — 62%, the highest in Latin America (UNDP 2006).
Seeing Europe was never a priority for me.
I thought life there would be too similar to life in the States.
I wanted something different, something shocking. I wanted something to make me run home full of passion saying “Yes, I have to make a film about this!” or “Yes, I have to discover genetic modifications to improve crop production for these farmers!” … or whatever it is that inspires geneticists.
Chilling with llamas in Bolivia, 2009
But in 2008, Bolivia wasn’t known for inspiring film festivals or GMO research.
Rather, the country was plagued by civil unrest in response to the questionnable actions of Evo Morales— the indigenous president who I figured would be so cool.
Many of my fellow exchange students went home early, but I developed a sense of solidarity for my host country and stayed. I was far from able to understand the complexities of the political situation at the time, but I knew that I wanted to learn more:
Shouldn’t an indigenous, populist president be a good thing? What was land reform, anyways? Why was coca so restricted? What is so wrong with nationalizing resources?
I ended up choosing The University of Texas at Dallas because they offered me a full scholarship (through the Eugene McDermott Scholars Program), in large part because they were impressed by my decision to spend a year in Bolivia.
The Bolivians told me that I would be stupid to pass up free college (and seeing what they went through to afford lesser quality schools made me understand their reasoning). So, the only thing left was to figure out what I’d study.
My first day on campus I asked professor Jennifer Holmes for help.
I wanted to know which program would help me find the answers to my lingering questions about Bolivia… and which program would let me travel the most. She didn’t hesitate a second:
International Political Economy.
And I’m still traveling! Chateau d’If in Southern France, 2015
And just like that, in one year, I found a university, a degree program, and a passion for travel. And now, I’m #BloggingAbroad
Why travel?
Because it can help you discover a passion and a direction in life. At least, it certainly did for me.
How do you do it?
Once it’s cool, you can read your fortune.
#BloggingAbroad
In some places it’s goats and sheep, in others its dogs.
