What time is it? I mean what date? I mean.. what month are we in now?? Seriously, is it
just me or did the last couple of months pass by faster than you can name them?
One week you’re getting ready for the new season, the next one we’re already
half way. You’d almost believe that there is some inflation going on with time
as well. Remember when we were kids and a month used to actually mean
something? You would get full value for a six week holiday. You could play
forever and ever and summer would still last. Sweet and endless days filled
with taking trips, visiting your grandparents, celebrating birthdays, swimming,
ice cream, running around bare feet and staying up late. Nowadays I’m glad if I
make it to Dimçayi once or twice before the month is over.
But just when you feel like you need to pull the
brakes, life kindly does so for you. Or actually the heat does. It’s July and
it’s getting hot in Alanya. Very hot. It’s the kind of heat that makes you want
to spend the days either in the pool or somewhere close to an air-conditioner,
to drink 4 liters of cold water throughout the day and eat watermelon for lunch
and ice cream for dinner. And so we see
ourselves being forced to slow down and start to practice my favorite Turkish
verb: Şekerleme yapmak, also known in other
languages as ‘Siesta’ or ‘Il dolce far niente’ or ‘taking a nap’. You get the
idea.. it’s that little hour of ‘sweet doing nothing’ in the afternoon. And I’m
a big fan of that.
The heat lets the air tremble and burns the streets.
Hours go by slowly and it feels like the sun is gonna be stuck high up in the
sky forever. From sunrise till sunset there is the constant noise of crickets
sitting in the trees, vibrating till they drop dead from exhaustion. Pretty
tragic when you think of it. Judging by the sound there must be thousands of
them sitting on the branches but it’s funny how you almost never see any. The
smell in the air varies from sun lotion, sweat and exhaust fumes of traffic
during the day to delicious food, often the smoke of barbeque, perfumes and
cigarettes at night. During the day tourists are mostly to be found on the
beach, defying the stitching sunrays to get that much desired holiday tan. But often
ending up with a sunburn at the end of the day. Thank god the sun sets around
8pm so we get a chance to cool off and breathe more easily again. I used to
love people watching from our restaurant’s terrace in the early evenings. Dressed
up, excited and ready for a dinner and a fun night in town they walked by, on
Alanya’s boulevard, picking a restaurant for dinner. At service hours all
tables are taken, hundreds of steaks are being served and countless of
cocktails are being mixed. Waiters working in full speed, perfectly in sync
with the upbeat rhythms of the music. The guests are enjoying the food, the
attention and the atmosphere. Around midnight the restaurants slowly but surely
somewhat turn into a night club and the water pipes are put on the tables, spreading
a soothing aroma of apple, cherry or mint. ‘All night Happy Hour’ a sign reads
at the bar. And that’s definitely a promise kept, night after night.
Happy hour until
the next morning, when the sun will come up and temperatures rapidly will climb
up to nearly forty again. Slowing down the daily life.. until it almost comes
to a complete stand still for one blissful hour of șekerleme in the afternoon.
Just long enough until the worst heat will decline and the anticipation for the
night rises again. It’s very much like the changing tides of the Mediterranean
Sea this daily rhythm during high season, here at the south coast of Turkey.
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