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.