Pablo Picasso's Best Friend

     In Sierra Norte of Madrid, there is a small town but when it is compared to its neighbours, a big one, called Buitrago Del Lozoya. It is surrounded by a river which makes the look a bit magical from some points outside and still keeps its medieaval castle and walls. This is the town where Picasso's barber Eugenio Arias is from. Even though not many people even from Madrid don't know, there is a museum of Picasso in this little big town which is one of the main attractions. In the museum, a collection of  Picasso is exhibited but the works are the ones that are not known and were given by Picasso's himself as gift to Eugenio Arias. 

Picasso's wife Jacqueline Roque, Picasso and Arias

    The collection consists of some posters, paintings, ceramics and paintings on ceramics,books and some decorations on boxes with the theme of bullfighting, Don Quijote. When compared to Picasso's famous works, these works do not grab much attention and seem rather simple and one can say that these were made with a little care. But one can also say that these works include intimacy. The works invite the viewer to take a look at more personal side of Pablo Picasso. He signed his works by writing ''para mi amigo Arias'' in english ''For my friend, Arias.'' And there is a quotation from Arias that defines their friendship: ''Nothing is more valuable in this world than that which cannot be bought: respect, friendship, trust and loyalty.'' 

    According to the flyer I got from the museum, two friends met first in Toulouse, France in 1945 through a left wing freedom fighter, Dolores Ibarrui who is called as La Pasionari, and they kept their friendship for so many years. They shared the common political ideas, love for Spain. Arias, who was the only person that cut Picasso's hair maybe because of Picasso's supersititous nature, called Picasso as ''his second father.'' Today the gifts that Arias received would cost million dollars yet he preferred them to be exhibited in that little big town. They attract tourists, art lovers and contribute to the town's economy. And the townhall immortalized him by naming the library after him.

Here are  some of his works.

There are of course a lot of more photos in my folder. But maybe not seeing them here is a reason to visit the museum. And to make the post shorter... 

The End.

The Unexpected Guests (The Gambler and the Whores Part 2)

    I was going to write the second part not soon after finishing the first part but i had no motivation to do so. I wrote the intro long ago and after such a long time, feeling like writing and completing the part makes me feel like the words in intro were not my words, as if i changed a lot. I don't feel like i changed though. I am writing these words miles away from where i started to tell the story of the Gambler. When i started it, not many things were going on in my life. I stated that I am just lazy person in the previous intro. But I am not. I am wrong. It is true that I am often unmotivated. I also stated that I am writing this for the record. To some extent, it is true but there is more to that.. I also write about this incident to practise and taking a step for a new challenge in my life which i think that will keep me occupied in the coming years. Now I don't remember the chronology of what happened but i have the voice records which will help me tell this story in a better order and credible way.

    The check-in and stay of that family was a bit different than ordinary times but their check-out was as normal as any guests. I don't remember anything particular about their leaving. All the guests are allowed to check out until 12pm which is more than any other hotel. And they are served a huge breakfasts. People, who return, return for the late check-outs and breakfasts. Breakfast is nothing special. You can eat it once, twice but not three times. Same breakfast for the third time is just too much. It starts to seem not so huge. But about this family who showed up out of blue did not give me the feeling about their return. Because they were living in the same city actually. in a town only one hour away which is also located on beautiful coast which is rich in terms of virgin beaches.

   It was just any other day at the hotel where i was probably trying to pass the time with preparing the menu for the hotel, trying to lower boredom to minimum since the hotel was not even half full but not totally empty either. A co-worker approached and said me:

 ''Look, some people have come and they are using the pool. They are not staying at the hotel.'' 

I reacted this notification with a surprise  ''What a nonsense.'' 

I went to the stairs near the pool and greeted them behind the iron bars of the stairs. There were 6 people and among them i recognized one of the men. The Gambler... Even though he stayed before at the hotel, a proper visit needs a greeting and a request for using the pool. one can not use the pool without accomodating at the hotel. I told this to the Gambler.

''We are going to order food and drinks'' he replied. 

He has a look of a man that is not so auspicious. his two other male companies do not have a better look as well. I did not look at the other people. there are 3 women in Bikinis and you never know what kind of reaction you might receive from men with such look in not so free countries. That's why i avoided looking at them. Especially their women... I made a quick decision. I remembered that this man's family paid cash in the previous time and they are 6 people. My decision included a calculation that they were already going to spend an amount of money that they would pay for renting one room. So it was not much of a problem. I told them that they can use the pool in this case but right at that moment, a question arose from one of the women with a little bit of ironic yet sweet tone.she was right under the stairs. 

''Can we use the bathroom without check-in?'' 

I looked down directly at her face and replied ''Yes.'' 

                                                                                                TO BE CONTINUED...

My Trip to Spain Got Delayed

    I have a supersitition. When i am going to do something that is very crucial for me or can make a great impact on my life, I never tell anyone until i finalize it. I don't tell my friends. I feel like it won't happen somehow if i tell them before make it come true.  And also I believe I am not the only one who has this supersition.  I even didn't tell it to my family at first and waited for a few days to tell them when i got accepted for a project in Spain. I got accepted in December. 

    For a great deal of time, I have been waiting and the arrival date keeps changing. First I thought I would arrive in February then just before i had my visa interview, it was arranged to March. 15th of March to be exact... that's when the program starts for me. Everybody knows how hard it is to wait under the current circumstances.Trying to be patient, I waited and waitied and counted days for this date. I wrote a mail to the organization and i got no reply. But a friend from there called me and i thought it was okay. 10 days before the date, I bought my ticket excitedly and then i thought i am good to go!  Then i started to tell my friends that i would leave soon and won't be able to say goodbye to them. And 5 days before the mail I got a mail that i am supposed to wait until the same day next month due to some arrangements that must be done. So I was disappointed...  They asked me if i can change my flight date and it was flexible, i said yes. But to change it, the airline system charge a good amount of money.And On my new arrival date, there are a looot cheaper flights then my flight. Half price...

     a picture from a small Spanish town where i actually had to spend quarentine after getting covid

                 

    So I had to do something since the cost of my flight would bother me if i got on the plane with that ticket. I bought that  because only that company had flights on 15th of March from Ankara. But luckily i have a friend who works for the help desk of that airline and deals with problems of the passengers.  So he gave me some tips about what to do to get refund. that i should give some proofs about corona restrictions and stuff. And i got my refund submission accepted and would be  getting my money back.

    However, even though they accepted my submission,they were taking their time to resolve the case. what's worse is  they hadn't canceled my ticket yet. My friend told me that there are a few related firms that do the customer service and they don't work properly and he also wants to quit. Anyway, I called maybe 3 times at least  and talked to them about the refund and that they should do it before the flight and before it was reflected to my credit card monthly statement which is also on the flight date.  5 hours  before my flight, which was at 9:50, when i was in bed, wallowing and couldn't sleep, I remembered to check my flight ticket. And it was still active. if i cancel myself from the airline's website myself, i will not get my money. and I didn't wanna seen with ''no show'' status which also will cause a problem. So what i did  was to call the airline customer service.

    So i called and was so sleepy that i could not talk very vivaciously and my voice was kind of cracking. you know how it sounds. I did the talk in such a bad mood. While talking, i said something like ''due to corona, I won't be able to fly bla bla'' even though i didn't intend to manipulate her or make demagogy.  the girl in the customer service  directly canceled my ticket after making me hang on a bit long time on the call. My case was resolved that day.  and while she was hanging up she told me ''by the way, hope you get well soon'' in a very sad tone. she felt sad for me and thought i had corona.

    Today I have gotten my refund and I feel good about it since i will be able to buy a flight that is half price. Now all i have to do is have  patience and stay strong till my new date. So this was a little story about my flight ticket experience and a superstition's coming true. I think i will keep believing in it. Hope you enjoy reading!

My first Youtube video

 In the last few months, I have been learning on how to edit videos on Adobe Premiere Pro and Imovie. I made this video on Imovie on my old friend Ipad mini2. I can't update the latest version of it since it doesn't support the newest updates. I had fun editting and saw what i can do with camera and editting. Enjoy my mini recipe video.

The Gambler and the Whores

     The pandemic killed all the tourism business maybe everywhere in the  world. Maybe some places kept attracting tourists like they did in the past but it did damaged  the business where i worked. People did not prefer to stay at the hotels or eat at the restaurants. They tended to rent houses, apartments to avoid interaction with other people at the hotels. I heard even there were people who rented the whole of boutique hotels. And the people who stayed, acted with extra care and sometimes they did weird things. We as employees, witnessed behaviours without reasons. But even unlogical manners make sense during the pandemic. They have right to do act unlogical.

 We had to open the hotel late and close early during the season. June and July  we were desparate for the guests, customers. We rarely had check-ins. Last year July was full whole month and June was alright. The story that i am gonna tell happened in June. Right after the virus went viral and so did the restrictions became common. We were barely getting reservations and  checked in only a few guests and this family showed up suddenly and wanted to spent a room. They were two adults, one teenager girl and two little boys. I presented them the family room which is the combination of two rooms and has a transition door in it. The room is pretty alright and has a sea view. They liked the room instantly especially the kids. I don't remember the names of them but one of them told me that he liked the hotel so much. And I even charged them 50 liras more than the actual price. I don't know why i did but i just felt like doing so. I wanted the hotel to earn more money. And they paid by cash without negotiating. This is also weird because most of people try to negotiate even if they are rich. I always find this derogatory. Some say that this is why they are rich. Once a woman negotiated with me and i did not let her win but then she wanted a very small discount only for psychologic advantage. Then i gave 10 liras discount to her.

Pandemic style beach which is parted into small areas for around maximum 4 people

    When I was checking them in, they didn't have the kids' id cards with them. So i asked them if they could write it on a paper. Because they need to be entered in police system in case someone who stays at the hotel is a criminal. When you write the identity number on the system, you can see everything that is on the card. The daughter wrote her and one of the boys' number and the other boy's id number was missing. I didn't make it a problem. What first got my attention is that the woman was Georgian. You can tell it from her last name and actually had a pretty beautiful face on her id but in reality she seemed older than her age. The second thing that caught my eye is that they had different surnames. The man and woman were not married. The teenager girl and one boy had the man's surname and the other kid had a different surname but he was the Georgian woman's son. I know who is whose son/daughter because they came again and this time they had their id cards with them. I will talk about it at part  2 of this post. Anyway, I thought how nice it is that they loved each other, got together and decided to bring the kids up together to be stronger. That was really my first thought. How pure and how stupid... I did not have any doubt or theory about them. They were an ordinary family for me at the moment. After they checked in, they went up and a few hours later the woman and the daughter came down and had some beers with chips. She was 15 years old, not old enough to drink alcohol but we needed money. The boys were in the pool and they asked me if the water was chlorinated. Of course it was! I told  them not to swallow it. But one of them had already swallowed a lot. Later the woman and the daughter came to the lobby to order something to eat. I took the order and the woman said ''no problem'' when i told the prices. At the table, The youngest kid cried all the time because he had nausea due to pool water. Therefore  he couldn't eat. They paid in cash and asked and left for the closest pharmacy. The man didn't show up. He never left the room that day.

I never check the guests' social media. I just don't. Even if a super hot girl comes to accomodate, I don't look up her on instagram. It is like a personal principle.I know and saw people doing that as a first thing after check-ins.  Nosy Nellies. I started to feel that something was weird about this family. And I felt the urge to do look the man up. It wasn't hard to find him on instagram. He had pictures in a gambling hall. Not a flamboyant one but a kind of underground, very plain one. He didn't look like one who went there to play but one who owns the gambling saloon. He really looked like the owner in the pictures. He also had pictures with weird people that don't look auspcious. Kind of people that you can easily, at first glance. What he does for living seemed clear after seeing the pictures. But no one can tell how he met with that woman and where. Actually this is nobody's business anyway but i am just telling the story. Turkey used to do better in terms of economy compared to some post-Soviet countries. Many women and men from those countries came to Turkey for work and it is known that not all of them find what they had in their ideals and some do even prostitution. Once I witnessed  a woman who was from a post Soviet country and she thanked god for having a job and that she doesn't have to do prostitiution. But the thing is when you go abroad, you never know whom you are gonna meet. So it is all about luck you have. Mostly men try to abuse women who are in need of help. The world is full of abusers and the cultures are crooked,  People are crooked. But you never know sometimes. Not all prostitues are being forced for the job as well.

TO BE CONTINUED...