English Language Turkish TV

In Istanbul, during our nap and walk breaks and after dinner when we settled for the evening, we liked to turn on the tv - mostly for noise.  There is a lot of it; Turkish, French, Japanese (like 5 channels), German, Spanish and then there is the BBC and CNBC.  Being English speakers, we tended to land on BBC and CNBC and the programming and format both cracked us up or made us totally crazy!

The BBC is true to what it's like in America - it repeats itself every 30 minutes with one or two shows in between. There isn't a whole lot of variation from this format and programming.  So, after awhile, it gets repetitive and we turn it off.

CNBC is a WHOLE other story! During the day (sometimes when we napped, we're in the room earlier in the day), it's like real CNBC in the United States - a financial ticker of sorts - except it's in Turkish. About 8pm, programming changes to a more American fare. . . The listing of shows we've seen. . .

• The Secret Circle - from the CW
• The Newsroom -from HBO
• How I Met Your Mother - from CBS (though to be fair, it seems to be syndicated now)
• The Closer- from TNT 
• Game of Thrones - from HBO
• Shameless (US version -though I admit Wikipedia and IMdb taught me that there was a British version first - of course, it's good, where else does good TV come from) - from Showtime
• Leverage - from TNT (which I had to look up because I had never heard of it before and it's been on since 2008!)
• The Simpsons - um yeah, Fox
• Conan - like O'Brien fromTBS

The first thing I'd like to say about this is - WHAT?  Weird that CNBC in Turkey has the rights to all of these shows.  Please, someone, explain to me how licensing works?  This must be a very complicated process and I guess there is enough room for all the lawyers out there.  I want to imagine that being a lawyer that does this type of contract makes it big.  But this is research for another day.  If I ever go ahead and do that, I'll come back and edit this posting and put a link to that post.

The weirdest thing? They put cartoon flowers on all cigarettes (there was a lot of smoking in our first television watching session - an episode of The Simpsons).  Upon further, limited, research, this is newish since 2010.  Here's a pretty interesting blog posting about it - and apparently, this happens only on CNBC... though, I have said my research is limited (btw - CHECK OUT there's a link on the blog where you can buy the censor flowers!).  Again, if I ever get up to doing more research, I"ll let you know.

The most annoying?  The "reklam" noise and interruption.  Reklam, in Turkish, means, advertisement.  They come on any time an advertisement occurs, which is less often than you think, but the noise/graphic is played before and after EVERY individual advertisement. . .I took some video so you could see it.


Most awesome advert for a show I wanna see? Dila Hanim (not on cnbc - on a "sister" channel).  She's beautiful and riding up on a horse to some awesomely cool music.  He's very. . . Dos Equis Man.  He's sliding on his knees and taps his heart and sticks his hands up.  She's pulling out a pistol. . . Gotta wanna watch that.  Just in case my description doesn't get it do it for you, here's that video too!


Most liked? Their advert for a very expensive looking refrigerator. Mikal describes it as a very strange conglomeration of Mexican Telenovela, American and Japanese television.

Most disturbing goes to the random disco like computer dance/techno version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

We've also checked into some of the other channels - there's Turkey's Got Talent and a version of Iron Chef Turkey - no translation required.

However, my most favorite times having the television on is during the Turkish national soccer team's commercial.  No translation is needed for national pride and investment in your home team. It moved me to dance - actually, it moves me to dance EVERY TIME!  It's kind of like watching a Packers commercial except it's soccer.  In fact, when we were there, a game happened to be on and the entire lobby of the hotel was filled with fans dressed in national uniforms.  I loved the commercial and the feeling of community so much that Mikal bought me a jersey!  I love it!

Oh - and here's the advert. . . enjoy. . . and DANCE AWAY!

How to clean your house - or - when things go missing

The house was taken apart, swept, cleaned, vaccuumed, and searched.  Repeatedly searched.  This is NOT a good start.


We were leaving Friday and I was so excited because it was our honeymoon!!!  I BARELY made it through the end of the day and I remember asking the team, as they walked by in a cluster suggesting disaster, what was up.  One of them (or maybe all of them in unison) replied, "just go home, you don't need to know."  (I found out later, and really, I didn't want to know).    I left work with a lifted spirit and excitement over the next few days of our first real vacation together.

I walk through the door, my husband comes out of the bedroom, looks at me and says, “did you hide my wedding ring?” This is a bad sign. 

There are many things one could say to this. .. and the amount of things that went through my head were plenty.  And it’s probably a really good thing that I just said, “why would I do that?” Because, come on, WHY WOULD I DO THAT??

He went on to ignore me and continue (I can only guess he was continuing) to search vigourously for the missing wedding ring.  I joined in, as a good wife must, with no words (it was clear he was upset).  I knelt on the floor by the bed, moved all the things that could swallow up a ring.  I moved on to under the bed stands, in the closet, in the bathroom.  I looked through the garbage and the recycling.  I picked up items and put them down and move them around; things I know Mikal had already picked up and put down and moved around.

Then I made my first mistake. . . I asked a question

“Can you remember the last time you were wearing it?” – the answers were gruff and incredilous – OF COURSE!  IT WAS LAST NIGHT.  Ok, lesson learned, he was wearing last night.

I made my second mistake (because we had been looking for an hour or more and I know he’d been looking for even longer than that).  I said, “It’s ok, we can replace it”. . .Um, yeah, not the best sentence I ever said.  Mostly because I underestimated my husband’s fondness for his wedding ring. It’s first one and he doesn’t want to lose it.  And, well, it cost a lot of money (which is a big deal to him too).  The money part – we spent the money. . . and it’s not coming back, so – eh. . .

The fondness for it was endearing to me, but the looking when we couldn’t find it was futile.  So, he finally started to do something else to try to calm himself or distract himself, or something.  And I think he then accepted it.  I told him I was sorry and we hugged.  He was sad.  It’s important to him.

Then it happened
.

He came around the wall from the kitchen and said, “I don’t understand.  I sat here, and took it off (and with a wildy exaggerated movement of taking his ring off and putting it on the coffee table) and put it here.”  I was watching him do this when I noticed that Roku remote.  It was upside down and was sitting on something.

NEITHER ONE OF US HAD MOVED THAT ROKU REMOTE!!!!!!! It’s about 6 inches by 1.5inches by about a half an inch thick. . . small – sometimes hard to miss – but in the MIDDLE OF THE TABLE! We had moved the couch, the bed, all the computer stuff, all other items on this table – ALL OTHER ITEMS ON THE TABLE (yes, we did).

I picked it up and WAH LAH! Wedding ring found.

I started laughing so hard and the smile on Mikal’s face was like a sunrise that happens very quickly.  I said, “get over here and thank me NOW”! He started laughing and came over to give me a big hug.

The moral of this story is (and is for EVERY time Mikal loses something) – if you are missing something, pick up the remote control.  Or the piece of paper. Or the hat. Or the sock. Or the belt!  

We call this Mikal eyes.  

It’s right there, but Mikal’s eyes can’t see it because he’s covered it with something and as we all know – out of sight, out of mind!

crisis averted