Welcome to Abant, where you can drive 6 hours round trip for 45 minutes of fun!!

Ahh the end of January, my how time does fly!!!

The following was written on Sunday night, on the bus ride home….

So for our final day of the month, we ventured 3 hours up to Abant, a “chok guzel” mountainous area with a giant lake in the middle of it. The ride up was fun as many roadtrips on buses are, complete with plastic cups of red wine and ridiculous picture taking.

We stopped for lunch at a place serving kofte and barbecue lamb, twas delish as always. Most importantly, there was a giant chicken statue at the restaurant, with a sign on it saying “2 Turkish lyra” well 2 actually meant 3 lyra but all the same once the money was in, the chicken literally laid an egg. We now have a new mascot…….his name is eggbert.

We finally made it up to Abant, and it was beautiful, albeit it a bit muddy, and by a bit I mean I am currently on the bus ride home writing this covered in mud. We walked along a boardwalk path, then had a seemingly undefined option for a further destination. We were told we had three hours to walk around, yet we found ourselves wondering what we should do after 15 minutes. A snowball fight was attempted, my camera battery was dead, so we figured…well….lets walk around the lake. I later found out the estimated walk is about 2 hours, but when u are trying to dodge mud flying from the car tires of asshole Turkish drivers, you can do it quicker.

Midway through the walk we came upon a clearing, where there were a ton of people sledding, barbecuing, and dancing. Naturally I thought, this is the perfect time to liven up abant and do what I do best…..

Party crash.

So we all jumped in, hand in hand with the drunk dancing people, and proceeded to have dance party 2010. We danced in a circle to the music of a bagpipe like instrument for a good half hour, then everyone randomly stopped, and went in separate directions.

This country never ceases to astound me with its weirdness.

We continued around the lake, at one point I think we were even walking in the lake, but regardless I was able to make it back on the bus safe and sound.

UPDATE:

So I lay my head against a window to take a peaceful nap on the bus ride home………

Only to be jarred awake by the screams of drunk people saying “HELLO WHERE ARE YOU FROM” in broken English. I could have sworn I had only closed my eyes for 5 minutes, but apparently that was all it took for the entire back of the bus to get sloppy and decide to harass me. After telling everyone me and Jamar were an item, dodging a beer being thrown at me and leading the drunks in several rousing 90s songs, I concluded that the bus ride was the 7th layer of hell and this country never stops getting interesting.

I can only imagine what will happen in February...

Welcome to Ankara, where people don't talk about you behind your back...they do it right on stage!

Sometimes I am amazed at how much can happen in a mere 8 days.

It is currently Saturday night, so let me get you up to speed.


So about a week ago today, after partying at North Shield Pub and a particularly sloppy showing at our new favorite "overall" we had realized that Mert was, as they say in the Jersey shore, in full creep mode. After numerous calls, awkward encounters, and random sightings, on text message to Julia particularly stands out....

"Ive been thinking about you all day, i want to be near your eyes always, but you said you had something to do tonight so i cant and was confused about what you have if i have any flaws i am so sorry....my sweat"

I think he meant sweet

hes a creep

It was when Julia and I were doing thigh presses at the gym and Mert decided to stop by and criticize our weight lifting style that we knew he was off our turkish friend list for good...

so it was only natural to make new turkish friends!!

Saturday we had Gokcel, the Polish Kids, and Seyda, Aysenur, Hakan and all of us ridiculous americans, over for dinner. Well rather, we had them over, and they helped us cook dinner. Well rather, we played card games and they cooked dinner because I am a horrible cook (although i did make my first- from scratch dinner on sunday, which i have repeated every night since). They taught us how to make Mante, which is a painstakingly delicious version of what I can compare to a Turkish Ravioli. Three hours later we indulged in the most delicious food I have eaten in Turkey thus far! After that we decided to go to Melih's going away party to Poland- which was like a UN meeting. We represented the US, there were the Polish, and also the Dutch (or Hollanders...according to Mackenzie)

On Tuesday we went out with some people we met at Melih's party who were also friends with Gokcel (our favorite friend, and my caretaker). We went to a restaurant called "Lemenkultur"...or something. The food was really good, but i wasn't focusing on that, because in the middle of the restaurant...

....there was a monkey.


a monkey.

i was pumped.

Every chance I got I went over and looked in the Monkey cage. The monkey did not appreciate me nearly as much as I appreciated him, because every time i started talking to him he just fell asleep. But then i realized, this was a turkish monkey, so i'm sure the language barrier merely exhausted him. In fact, true to form, everyone in the restaurant slowly began to think of me as a crazy person, and one man said something to me while i was with the monkey and laughed and walked away. This comment by said man actually threw me into a existential whirlwind. I started to ponder the aspects of this society. Why was there a monkey in this restaurant? Did it have any monkey friends? How did it feel being caged in a room full of people. I found i could sometimes relate to this monkey, i understood the feeling of being surrounded by people but still feeling very alone. And what the hell did this man say to me? He could have said absolutely anything and I just laughed and smiled. He could have looked at me and said "That monkey is about to throw his own fecal matter at your face you stupid american" and my response would have further shown my ignorance. I guess I will never know what that man said to me....so instead i returned to my table and further stuffed my face.

After saying "Hojakal" to the monkey , we went to the Beer Garden, something that made all of us Americans feel a little more at home. Several Efes later, we looked at each other, Turks at Americans, Americans at Turks, and Jamar at the Hollander, and we knew it was time.

Time for our turkish right of passage.....
Time for our lives to be defined.....
Time to seperate the girls from the Women....

we decided to try Kokorech.

Earlier that week, i had asked my classes about advice in turkey, and asked which foods i should try. Many of them agreed, and told me to try Kokorech, yet when i further asked for the ingredients, they instructed me not to ask...but just to try.

I was worried.

So naturally i turned to my most trustworthy source for all my answers, and it was wikipedia who told me that among the secret ingredients of Kokorech, the main one was....sheep intestines.

Now for those of you who have faithfully followed my blog, you may recall my time in Armenia (or A-town as I refer to it here) when i witnessed the merciless slaughter of little sheeps right before my eyes...and then was later lied to and fed sheep kebab for lunch. All around tragic and scarring. However, since being in Turkey, i found it impossible to uphold my anti-lamb values and had to go back to eating the scrumptiously cute animal....all parts of it that is.

So the prospect of eating the digestive system of this animal seemed to deter some, but after drinking a few Efes, it seemed much more like an adventure. The night was cold, but we were on a mission. Kokorech is a turkish staple, and what was more intriguing was the fact that it is illegal. Being the rebel without a cause that i am, i found that eating illegal sheep intestine made by a man on the side of the street was the most logical decision at the time.

Quick background, so the reason Kokorech is illegal and only sold at night is because The European Union looks down on this food because they think it might be dirty, and would not allow Turkey to be a part of the EU if it continued to serve such a thing. I mean, i don't know where the EU gets off, but to think eating the digestive tract that filters Sheep waste seems perfectly sanitary.

Anyways, we track down the kokorech man, and he starts grilling up some rectum for us. My excitement overtakes me, and Julia throws me a beat as i start freestyle rapping about the experience, much to Kokorech man's delight. He dances along to my beats, and then tells us (in turkish) that he has a facebook and wants us to friend him. Weirdly enough, all of my searches of "kokorech man" came up with no results.....he exists now only in my memory....and on the street right outside the beer garden.

so we get our kokorechs (not correct term btw) and sharifeh (cheers) to each other, and bite in. And....

it was actually really good! it was spicier than i thought it would be , but once you got past the idea that you were eating sheep colon it was not bad!!!

And what is stranger is that i thought that was the only weird sheep part i would eat that week.....

oh how wrong i was.

The next day we promised Kutay we would hang with him. So Mackenzie, Julia and myself, met up with him at 6, he gave us a brief outline of how the night was going to go, and then we went outside, got picked up by his mom (Who may even be the Turkish Debbie!!) and went back to his house where we were greeted by his Aunt and little sister. There we dined on (in this order) squash and hazelnuts, chocolates, pickles, bread, eggplant with beef in it, spinach and yogurt, and mineral water. All of it was delicious, although judges at Top Chef may have an issue with the cohesion and order of these dishes. His little 10 year old sister taught us turkish words, all of which we promptly forgot. Then we went off into the night to go to Kizilay, to meet up with Kutay's friends at a bar.

I think their names were Firat and Jamal, but we refered to them as Lugnut and Flip. It was Lug's bar and he hooked us up. The point of the night was to try "Raiki" or Turkish magic- an alcohol that is popular, and when water is added it turns white. It actually just tastes like licorice. However, there is a term (that I have also forgotten) about the act of drinking raiki and all that goes with it. When you drink raiki, you chase it with water, then you eat a yogurt thing or an eggplant thing...or something called "The black lung". I was afraid we would be dining on the body parts of an old coalminer so i further inquired as to what the black lung is. Apparently, it is popular to chow down on Sheep lungs after drinking raiki. I've been Bear gryls'in this whole trip anyways so I figured, Why not? Like i was Hannibal Lector, I ate the lungs and they werent bad.......but they werent good either. Maybe lungs just arent for me.

After being serenaded by the live turkish band (and a kurdish man who a to us) we decided to return to our house to play Kings (Katie, the coop from last year, had taught Kutay kings and it has become his favorite game). Soon enough flip and lugnut were drunk as a skunk, and lugnut confessed his love to me.

"ANNIE, I like you alot!!!" -Lug
"You are saying that because you are drunk Firat"-Me
"Yes!!" -Lug



On a side note, love confessions are fairly common here, especially for us girls. Several of the students have already told us of their interests- so naturally we have made it into a game- whoever has the most love confessions by the end of the trip wins- im currently losing- im not too upset by this.

So Flip gets wasted and yaks in the bathroom, Lug goes to help him clean up, and Julia gets a few love confessions also. Mackenzie finds me curled up in the fetal position on my bed, crying about who knows what (I'm sure it had to do with slaughtering sheep). I cuddled with Mackenzie all night, and in the morning we all woke up, pasted smiles on our faces, and went to work...

it had snowed outside- so naturally we instigated a schoolwide snowball fight.

I have never wanted a cheeseburger so bad.

Tonight we went out to 7th street and went to a place called brothers. It was awesome and there was a live band, and every once in a while we would all get up and dance. I later found out that the lead singer was saying "Look at this girl, even though shes an American she knows how to dance!" I think I am proud/embarrassed...but i am still trying to figure that out.

this post was unusually long, my apologies.

PEACE
G.

Welcome to Ankara, where even the Cab drivers make you feel at home!

So I was going to go to work, gym and call it an early night….
Emphasis on WAS…

However, in true Annie fashion, I can never pass up a party.

Julia and I returned from getting our swell on, and were told that the Poles had decided to throw a party and invite us! We naturally couldn’t pass up such an offer, and celebrated to the music of beyonce. After getting yelled at by a disturbed neighbor (chill guy, it was only 9:00) we decided to jet set off to the Polish house in the first, of what would be three, confused cab driver rides. For some reason, the language of the cab driver is universal; they will always volunteer to take you where you want to go, even if they don’t know where it is exactly.

So we get to the Poles’ place, and through a haze of cigarette smoke we see turks, poles, a half Turkish/half polish girl, and three bottles of vodka and two bags of chips. It was then I knew we were in for a good night. After taking shots and saying cheers in multiple languages, and also disturbing the neighbors with Turkish jokes (I would repeat them, but I think you had to be there) we decided to embark upon our next mission….


…KAREOKE.

We all went to Overall, a bar/karaoke joint in whothehellevenknowswhere, and proceeded to start the party. When we arrived, no one was dancing, however we decided to change all that. Naturally, I performed my rendition of “I will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor (My token Kareoke Song) and taught the turks how to fist pump to techno and house music.

Then it was time to go- and we managed to convince another taksi to attempt to bring us home.

Mission successful!

I also want to give a shout out to Stephy Thrasher, because she rocks my world and is one of the smartest people i know!!

Welcome to Ankara, the city where gray is the new green!

Well, I guess it all started when two turks knocked on our door…

It was the Thursday of our first week at co-op, and we had not done much because classes were to start the following week. We had been getting our bearings, and staying in most nights working on a cursed Salvador Dali puzzle.

We heard the door ring and assumed it was the downstairs boys, so we opened the door without a thought and were surprised to see two tall dark and handsome men standing before us with equally confused faces. They came looking for Katie and Alex (shoutout!) who were co-op students that lived in our apartment one year ago. After exchanging small talk at the door, we deemed them, who we later found out were named Yigit and Mert, fit to enter our abode for tea. We planned to hang out on Saturday…but we will get to that part of the story soon.

Friday was our last day of the week for work, and we had a half day, so we went to go get our residence permits with Inci , one of our administrators. Of course, this entire excursion was a whirlwind of misunderstood languages, and at one point Inci answered a phone call and instructed me to copy down a number. She hung up and said, “That was Gokcel, they want you to call them because they planned a dinner.” This would have appeared to be a nice welcome, albeit the fact that none of us had any idea who Gokcel was and the details of this engagement were sketchy to say the very least. But, we had nothing better to do so we took the challenge. We called the number and found out that we were to meet at the external affairs office. On our way over, we naturally ran into Yigit and Mert, but as usual there are really only about 20 people in Turkey. There, we were stuffed onto one of the student shuttles and brought to, literally, the middle of the street, where we promptly dodged “taksis” to follow Gokcel and his posse to a restaurant. The restaurant played traditional Turkish music, which almost sounded Spanish, and the food was awesome. We all bonded, and interesting mix of American, Turkish and Polish Exchange students. When the meal was finished, we decided we didn’t want the night to end, so we went next door and had an epic bowling tournament.

Of course, some TOBB students happened to show up at the bowling alley, and offered to give us a ride home. By ride, we mean 5 people were stuffed in the back of a FIAT and I saw my life flash before my eyes as we did donuts in parking lots. We managed to make it home in one piece and decided that was enough excitement for one night.

Saturday I woke up dizzy, and spent most of the day running errands and lying down. We got a hold of Mert, and he said he would come over at 7:30 to go to the pubs. Yigit came to pick us all up and we went to “The Crow” which was the top floor of a 3 floor pub complex, which included Corvus Pub and Tutti’s. We consumed large amounts of Efes, the Turkish beer, and pretty soon we had a massive amount of Turks and Americans exchanging curse words in various languages. It would have been useful to have taken this language exchange opportunity to learn phases such as “How much is this, You’re Welcome, Have a nice day” but that would have made way too much sense.

Sunday morning we woke up, bright and sunny, to board a bus and go around Ankara with our Friday night friends. This was awesome because we wouldn’t have known the places to go otherwise. We began the day at Anikabir, which is Ataturk’s Tomb. If you know one thing about the Turks, they love their founder. I was naturally the most embarrassing person of the day and kept getting in everyone’s way and messing up pictures (like the one I have posted- I didn’t know everyone else was standing inside the stone!!) we then got traditional kebab in Ulus, and climbed Ankara castle. Naturally, there were asian people on one of the towers, and as we were meeting the minister of sport on top of the tower that dropped down a hundred feet, the asian group busted out into the acoustic guitar dance party of the century. I ran over to that tower and joined in on the festivities, but alas we had to go and see the Anatolian civilizations museum, which was really cool! We were going to climb the Ankara Tower, but it was too cloudy to see anything, so instead we all went to kizilay for a beer…or two…and bonded over the music of pink floyd and international politics.

Woo………I hope all weekends are like this!

My first class is in a couple of hours, wish me luck!

peace,
G

Welcome to Ankara, where every day is trash day!!!!

not my photo...by the by, ill upload some soon tho.

So we have completed a week in Ankara and much has happened already!

there have been numerous elevator incidents, confused stares, stray dogs barking, and ignorant american activities, but it has all been very exciting!

we made our way to Kizilay, the downtown area, a few times now. However, because we are silly americans, we just decided to get on a random bus and hope it takes us to somewhere interesting. Apparently you need tickets to ride the bus, but we have taken to the approach of displaying a handful of change and motioning to all of us, in which they usually reply by rolling their eyes and just telling us to get on.

Kizilay is a really cool area, there are a ton of shops, cafes, and who knows what else. We managed to wander our way into a mosque which was also really cool, because I had never been near one before (not for any personal reason, i just have never had the chance).

Periodically throughout every day you can hear the call to prayer broadcasted throughout the city, its then when it always hits me that i'm living in such a different nation, with unique traditions, morals, and a wholly different culture.

we started work this past week. All the americans have recieved much attention. They call us "natives" as in native speakers. Well, by all of us, i mean mostly everyone else. Alot of the students and teachers have not really known what to do with me or approached me because they usually think i am also turkish. Even in the city, they will speak to me in turkish as if i am showing the americans around. I have learned a few turkish phrases, and they say my accent is good, so i'm going to learn just enough to say "these are my american friends, but they are practicing turkish so i can not help them translate." boom, im in. god i love being ethnically ambiguous.

the food here is delicious, and we still have alot to explore and understand (including dubbed french....films..lol) but its been a blast so far!!!!!!

gule gule

Annie G

The Night Julia became an illegal immigrant...

In short, we are alive.

But here is the long version.

After several cry fests, fireworks, and hugs goodbye in Foxboro, I met up with Mackenzie at the airport to begin our sojourn to Turkey. The bags were checked, the milanos packed in my carry-on, and I was already tired. We were off to a good start. The flight to Munich was relatively uneventful, albeit delayed. The flight to Ankara lasted about 2 hours and consisted of about 10 people on the flight. Of course, out of those 10 people, I sat behind the man who was ripping the most foul farts known to humanity. Finally I got off the plane in turkey, breathed, and made the trek to the apartment. This consisted of one person total that understood English, a bus ride, a taxi ride, an embarrassing walk around the entire university, and then a walk from the university to our apartment.

that’s when the fun began.

We entered the apartment that we were assigned to, only to be hit with a smell that can be likened to the scent of a dumpster full of Chinese food on a warm summers day. We will later find out the source of this stench is attributed to all of the rotting food left in the fridge. The smell was exacerbated by the fact that there was no working electricity throughout the entire apartment. We managed to meet up with Warren, and found out that the boys were accidentally given our apartment and vice versa. Because of this, we decided to move our bags from the smelly 4th floor to the 11th floor.

This is the part of the story where Mackenzie got stuck in an elevator, and, in turn, we met all of our neighbors.

We finally get out of the elevator in time to return to the university to meet up with Julia. By the time we get to TOBB, Julia is not there, and we hear that she has lost all her baggage. We exchanged worried expressions, until we finally saw Julia’s smiling face through the door. And by smiling, I mean not smiling. Unfortunately, reeling in the madness that was lost baggage claim, Julia forgot her passport and important documents in the taxi cab that brought her to the university. It was at this point we recognized that Turkey was severely rejecting our presence.

We finally went back to the apartment, and worked on an appropriate Salvador Dali puzzle until our hunger overwhelmed us and we wandered out onto the street in hopes of finding nutrition. Of course, this adventure was in vain, and we ended the night watching the trashmen take away garbage bags as we spun around on the adjacent playground, cursing our existence.

Off to a rockin start.

DESTINATION: Turkey

So for those of you who don’t know, I have decided to embark upon another adventure and blog about the chaos that will inevitably ensue. As many of you know, my last adventure was in the country of Armenia. So what better country to travel to next than Armenia’s arch nemesis….Turkey! Yes I have accepted a position at a University in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. I will be here until July 1st, then I will be internationally homeless until July 5th when I do a dialogue of civilizations in France to complete my college course credit. Basically, I’ll be out of the US of A until mid-august, so try not to be too bored without me!!