It's funny how paperwork and bureaucracy make one feel like an adult. I'm 34 (yeesh), have been a professional (a professional what though I don't know) for 10+ years, and live abroad but I don't really feel any older or more adult than I did when I was 21, at university, and still living with my parents. Usually anyway. Last week though was one of those moments when I was reminded that I am indeed a fully functional, capable adult.
At my old apartment I just walked down to the management office every month, had a cup of tea, practiced my Turkish, and handed over a wad of cash for my rent. However my new landlord insists on bank transfers. It's more money than it's worth to transfer rent from my US bank account every month so I needed a Turkish account. That required a trip to the tax office to procure a tax id (a requirement here) and then a trip to a Turkish bank to open an account. No one ever speaks English, which, fair enough really. But it meant that I Google translated a lot of words, like bank account (banka hesabı) and money deposit (para yatırmak). These two tasks were actually accomplished with far less difficulty that I was lead to believe. Even in stumbling Turkish.
Now that I live very near a vet I'm also finally getting my Sherlock seen to. Cat vaccinations here are different than they are in the US and require a series of shots over five weeks. Thursday was our second visit to the vet. Sherlock is, understandably, not thrilled with these trips but I imagine it's less being handled by strangers, having a thermometer stuck up her bum, and the needles that she finds traumatizing and more the actual trip to and from. I know I find the trips traumatizing. First I have to carry her veerryy carefully down five flights of circular, marble stairs, then the couple blocks up and down steep hills to the vet...and then back again. I just pray that the day I inevitably fall down the stairs or bite it on a hill is not a day I've got her with me.
And finally this week I visited the foreigner (yabangee) affairs office of the local police station in order to change my address on my residence permit. But that kind of deserves it's own post, so more on that later.
So to go along with all these feelings of adulthood, there was a lot of wine this week. The one we're reviewing though is another Pamukkale. In addition to the Trio I talked about last week, Pamukkale also produces pure varietals. I really like the Pamukkale Kalecik Karasi but my Carrefour doesn't carry it. So I tried the Öküzgözü-Boğazkere which is a really interesting wine. I'll talk about another Öküzgözü-Boğazkere next week probably (I drink more than one bottle a week so there's a bit of a queue) but I want to address this one first.
Öküzgözü-Boğazkere is a actually a blend f the two varietals of those names. The nose on this was really beautiful with hints of fig and I think vanilla. The first half glass, before the wine opened up, were like...wow. I was getting tanins, tanins, and more tanins. A lot of people don't like tanins but I'm kind of a sucker for them. I really like the way they coat the tongue and pucker the mouth. And this wine was giving me a lot of that. So much so that I couldn't determine what it actually tasted like!
On day two it was completely opened and had softened a great deal. I was no longer getting any of the tanin effect. But for the life of me I still could not figure out what it tasted like! I mean, usually I can give at least one or two of the more obvious descriptors: berry, pepper, oak, straw, whatever but this...no idea. Not one single clue what this wine tastes like.
And yet for all that...I enjoyed it rather a lot. It's bound to become one of my go-to reds here.
At my old apartment I just walked down to the management office every month, had a cup of tea, practiced my Turkish, and handed over a wad of cash for my rent. However my new landlord insists on bank transfers. It's more money than it's worth to transfer rent from my US bank account every month so I needed a Turkish account. That required a trip to the tax office to procure a tax id (a requirement here) and then a trip to a Turkish bank to open an account. No one ever speaks English, which, fair enough really. But it meant that I Google translated a lot of words, like bank account (banka hesabı) and money deposit (para yatırmak). These two tasks were actually accomplished with far less difficulty that I was lead to believe. Even in stumbling Turkish.
Now that I live very near a vet I'm also finally getting my Sherlock seen to. Cat vaccinations here are different than they are in the US and require a series of shots over five weeks. Thursday was our second visit to the vet. Sherlock is, understandably, not thrilled with these trips but I imagine it's less being handled by strangers, having a thermometer stuck up her bum, and the needles that she finds traumatizing and more the actual trip to and from. I know I find the trips traumatizing. First I have to carry her veerryy carefully down five flights of circular, marble stairs, then the couple blocks up and down steep hills to the vet...and then back again. I just pray that the day I inevitably fall down the stairs or bite it on a hill is not a day I've got her with me.
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| You can see how excited she is by the vet visits |
And finally this week I visited the foreigner (yabangee) affairs office of the local police station in order to change my address on my residence permit. But that kind of deserves it's own post, so more on that later.
So to go along with all these feelings of adulthood, there was a lot of wine this week. The one we're reviewing though is another Pamukkale. In addition to the Trio I talked about last week, Pamukkale also produces pure varietals. I really like the Pamukkale Kalecik Karasi but my Carrefour doesn't carry it. So I tried the Öküzgözü-Boğazkere which is a really interesting wine. I'll talk about another Öküzgözü-Boğazkere next week probably (I drink more than one bottle a week so there's a bit of a queue) but I want to address this one first.
Öküzgözü-Boğazkere is a actually a blend f the two varietals of those names. The nose on this was really beautiful with hints of fig and I think vanilla. The first half glass, before the wine opened up, were like...wow. I was getting tanins, tanins, and more tanins. A lot of people don't like tanins but I'm kind of a sucker for them. I really like the way they coat the tongue and pucker the mouth. And this wine was giving me a lot of that. So much so that I couldn't determine what it actually tasted like!
On day two it was completely opened and had softened a great deal. I was no longer getting any of the tanin effect. But for the life of me I still could not figure out what it tasted like! I mean, usually I can give at least one or two of the more obvious descriptors: berry, pepper, oak, straw, whatever but this...no idea. Not one single clue what this wine tastes like.
And yet for all that...I enjoyed it rather a lot. It's bound to become one of my go-to reds here.
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