Welcome to Ankara, where finding love is just as easy as getting stuck in an elevator!

Hello my devoted followers,

A quick recap of the weekend can be summed up with the following words: wine, dancing, card games, lakes, young engineers, drunken turks, and arrested development. Fill in the blanks.

Of course, now that I have been immersed in Turkish culture for over a month, I have come to realize many things about the country. Turkey, especially Ankara, is particularly throwing us off, because there are many similarities to an industrialized city in America, with the exception of the language, homogeneous group of people, and all the qwerks in between. Because of this, I have compiled an ongoing list that I like to call "The Things That Turks love...."

NOTE: The following list contains actual obsessions by the general population of turks, that being said, this list does not encompass the full spectrum of turkish admirations, and may be argued by the turks that secretly also love these same things.

1) Ataturk- This may well be the biggest and most important obsession of all. For those of you in America who don't know who Ataturk is (a.k.a the entire US population) he was the man who founded the Republic of Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923. He created the modern alphabet, securalism of the country, and strengthened the unity of Turkey. He could very well be called the Jesus of turkey, as he is almost worshipped here in a slightly obsessive way. Every building has a picture of him on the wall, and it is actually illegal to say anything bad about him. He wasn't a bad guy, but picture it like this: If the United States praised every single thing that George Washington did, and absolutely overlooked, nay denied, his flaws, and made it illegal to say anything bad about him....well you get the idea. I wish i could go on, but I don't want to risk deportation.....

2) Creationism- This one came as a particular shock to Mackenzie, an avid Darwinist. Mostly, she was amazed at how a school full of engineers and science/logic minded folk do not recognize that we are an animal species and not just a rib...

3) Securalism- As we have heard from several of our Turkish stalkers "Hey this is a free country"...and it is! When Ataturk came to power he made the country a secular nation, even though the population is 99% Muslim. It's great to see that everyone here is equal, and people have thorough human rights...that is , it is free if you are a Muslim man, who loves Ataturk, from a fully turkish background, who supports the ruling party, and not a Kurd, Jew, Christian, Woman, Foreigner, or (gasp) an Armenian.

4) The Music of Enya- I still don't quite get this one, but I hear her soothing voice everywhere.











5) V for Vendetta- Kids go cookoo for coco puffs over this movie. Maybe it is the light reflecting upon Natalie Portman's bald head that draws them in, or the "Easy to learn for English" title (A is for apple, b is for banana, v for vendetta..." but the students all go wild for this flick.

6) Yogurt- Yogurt is put on everything. Meat, rice, vegetables, sunburns (you wish i was kidding). No meal is complete without this bacteria-licious condiment.

7) Ketchup and Mayonaise-Together. on everything. EVERYTHING.


8) Photos- note the increase of my tagged photos on facebook. These people take pictures of every single thing, and they get really upset if you untag...which leads me to my next point....

9) Facebook- we thought we had a bad obsession in the US, it is NOTHING compared to over here. Turks will friend request you before you even have a chance to breathe your last name, and not only that, they will stalk you till the sun rise, and proceed to inquire as to your high school prom. And sweet sixteenth birthday party. And any other information they found while memorizing you profile.

10) Lady Gaga- Well, I guess being obsessed with her is just worldwide.

11) The question "Where are you from?"- i get it at least 6 times a day.

12) "How I met your Mother"- Whats really odd is that apparently the entire world outside the US is OBSESSED with this sitcom. While I know that some people in America tune in (I myself have never seen an episode) it is nothing compared to the obsession that Turkey has with this laugh-tracked TV Show....I can't wait to be the one to tell them that their favorite character, Barney, is actually a flaming homosexual in real life. (Note that homosexuality does NOT make the list of faves....)

13) Soccer- this one is a no-brainer, because apparently the US is the only one who missed out on this Earth Memo. Basketball comes in a close second here.

14) Techno Music- "HEY TURKEY! YOUR EUROPEAN IS SHOWING! BAHAHAH"

and Finally (for now)

15) Jamar Torres- Maybe it's his polite face or his cool way of talking, but every single turk is obsessed with my dear pal Jamar. It also could be the fact that he may be the first black person to ever talk to them, it may be because I always introduce him as "The Best Dancer in the Entire United States", it may be his love for kokorech or his ability to make all the ladies (and even some of the men) swoon. Or it may be because he rocks....i mean hey, I am kind of obsessed with him also....

so there you have it, the first 15 turkish obsessions....I'll keep a running list as time goes on. (not included in today's list- blonde hair, love confessions, sheep body parts, Lost, and MSN messenger...)

Peace-
The G.

Welcome to Ankara, where everyone wants to learn english...except for the students.

Ahh ....another painfully boring day at TOBB university in Ankara. Let me recap today's thrilling events for you!!!!

8:10- wake up
8:30-get to my office
8:30-10:30- check e-mail and facebook enthusiastically
10:30- record an exam
10:45-12:35- Facebook and farmville- less enthusiastically
12:35- teach a class on fate and destiny to students who would rather talk about anything other than fate and destiny
1:35-2:35- lunch and gossip with friends
2:35-4:45- painstakingly check email, facebook and farmville- and read about the weirdest things ever on the internet.
4:45- Set up a private teaching lesson for the cleaning ladies because they are the only people willing to learn the language
5:45-6:00 email and facebook
6:00 go home.


Today, I spent a good amount of time during my 2:35 block watching videos of Venus Fly Traps eat various insects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRo4rg07_gg&NR=1&feature=fvwp

be sure to also check out the one titled "Owned: Wasp". That wasp never even knew what was coming...

Pieces-
G

Welcome to Ankara, where wedding crashers is not just a popular american movie.

Always something, ya know?

I guess it all started on Thursday. I was sitting around peacefully down in the lobby of the Foreign Language doing absolutely nothing because my job is a joke. I was busy tending to my Farmville Farm and skyping various peeps (yes peeps) online, when all of a sudden I look up to see Duygu (the security guard) escorting a raggedy looking man my way. I look into this man's arms and hes holding a cute little teddy bear. My original thought was "Oh how nice, Duygu's boyfriend got her a teddy bear, but geez, hes a bit old for her." As they proceeded closer to me, I thought "oh god, maybe this man is yet another random turk stalker!" (See: Julia and Cappadocia) but it was then that logic hit, and it dawned on me that this had to be a Valentine from Gil!!!! I was so happy, it was the sweetest thing ever!! The best thing about it, is that people aren't as cynical here as they are in the US about valentines day, and they were all almost more excited than I was...which was almost a bit strange. All around, it was a great surprise :)

And so begins another wild adventure.

Earlier this week, I had asked, nay, instructed Katie to hop on a bus and make her way from Istanbul to Ankara for the weekend. I was in need for a local valentine (seeing as how Gil lives 6,000 miles away) and I asked Katie to "Be Mine" for the weekend. She was to arrive later on friday night, so I told her we would meet up with her because we had been invited to a traditional Turkish pre-wedding bachelorette party. We had been looking forward to this event all week, often bragging to our co-workers about our upcoming weekend.

"You will do what this weekend?"-coworker
"We are going to a Turkish pre-wedding party!"-silly americans
"Ohhhh how do you know the bride?"-coworker
"We Don't!!!"-ignorance

Yeliz, a professor and PhD student at Ankara University is traveling to the US in March, so she wants to help us with her english. She is the nicest girl, and we met all her friends and her fiance (fingers crossed for a wedding invite in may!)

So we are told we are invited with Yeliz to her friends traditional "bachelorette" party. The night before a woman gets married, (mostly) the women in her life get together and bless her with henna, dancing, and their real or fake tears. Personally, I spent the night bonding with the bride's granny, who didn't speak a word of english, but encompassed all that I wish to be as an old person. She was nuts! Granny and the bride's brother told us that we were "not allowed to sit" and we had to continue dancing all night. Oddly enough that would not be our only forced dance-a-thon of the weekend.....

The bride was absolutely gorgeous, like a model, and her name was Gonca (Pronounced Gone-Jah...i think). We somehow quickly became like part of the family, and participated in all of the traditional dances with the bride, henna rituals, songs (we didn't really know the words) and candle ceremonies. Often, while we were standing next to the bride with candles and wishing her the best, i felt like vince vaughn and owen wilson in wedding crashers. It was almost comical how out of place we looked, but at the same time, we fit right in. Unfortunately, Julia's stage 5 clinger wasn't there, but we would hear about him later in the weekend.

We left the wedding party with new friends, new phone numbers, and new turkish phrases, as well as a splotch of henna on our hands. We returned home to find Katie and Kutay working on a couple bottles of wine, and we quickly joined them. The night continued with conversations of crazy turkish men (Kutay is a Turkish guy's body with an American guy's mind...a rarity in these parts) because in a few hours, Julia was to wake up and be whisked away to Cappadocia for the weekend by her night-in-shining sweatervest , Goksel.

Because my boyfriend is back in the commonwealth, I often live vicariously through Julia. Goksel, also known as my turk babysitter, is a quiet guy with a shy demeanor who confessed his love to Julia on their first date. After several attempts to explain that she didn't want a serious boyfriend and 2 weeks later, Goksel thought it ok to plan an entire weekend in Cappadocia, bought her a necklace, and neglected to bring a toothbrush on the weekend getaway...I give it maybe 2 more days....

The night before, we got in with the wedding party, and they told us we should go to the ceremony the next day at noon. So saturday, we all wake up at 12:30 and lounge around the apartment until we decide to meet up with Katie's friend Umur, because we obviously had slept through the wedding festivities. We have lunch on 7th street, go to Nargile, and proceed to display all of our qwerky weirdness for the country to see.

We got back at 8 o clock, met up with the boys, and decided to go to a Spanish party that the Poles had told us about. Wojtek told us he would meet us at the metro, so naturally he wasn't there and we went to happy days for dinner. I figured, even if things went wrong, at least we were sitting in a place called happy days....and it couldn't be that bad....

We finally make it to the spanish party- which happens to be Nacho's birthday. Nacho was a jovial 20 something with a very soft beard and very drunk persona. In fact all of the spaniards were pretty wasted -including my favorite of the night- drunk spanish girl. Drunk spanish girl just stumbled around the party dancing and tackling people all night, she was fantastic. Also represented at this party were:
America (us)
Poland
France
Spain
Germany
Portugal
Turkey
Holland
Italy
and The miscellaneous people who no one could really understand when asked when they were from because they were too drunk to speak ANY language.

Naturally, this United Nations party was the most ridiculous mix of people i have ever spent time with, but it was awesome. People were so chill, and as i looked around at the many different walks of life, i felt i could suggest only one thing....

the olympics.

As I yelled out to the crowded drunken party that we should have a party olympics, there were many nationalistic chants that were yelled back, but no one listened until one particularly booming voice suggested a bar that we should all go to! Now this party was well over 50 people, and needless to say we were rolling deep (a slang term we had taught our classes the previous week) but everyone managed to meet up again in the club basement for the biggest rager i have ever attended. I began getting tired at 3 in the morning on the dance floor, but was told by a dutch boy that i must continue to party until at least 5 in the morning.

Through all of this- we ended up losing Jamar, our apartment keys, and most of our sanity.

It rocked.

The next day, we woke up groggy and ready to exchange stories from the night before. Jamar was still lost somewhere (we later found out he drunkenly wandered off to get Kokorech and then somehow ended up in Tunali- we were just glad he was alive). We got flowers from a secret admirer (Warren) which was so sweet and really brightened our day. Katie and I went to armada to get a happy meal and doner, and spent the rest of the day talking in a cafe called "Kahveli Dunasi" -chocolate world- and had one of the best valentines days I can remember.

Peace
The G.

Welcome to Beypazari, where it is known for...well...almost everything!

Well, I guess this weekend can best be summed up by a pair of purple suede knee-high boots...
...and my inability to make logical decisions.

So Friday Katie was supposed to come visit from Istanbul, and we were to meet the others at a bar in Kizilay that I had gone to before. Everyone left for the bar at 6:10, and at 6:30 I was informed by Katie that she had missed her train and would not be Ankara-bound this particular weekend.

This was the first of my decisions to make for the weekend.

I could either spend a peaceful friday night at home, cleaning the house, listening to music, perhaps indulging in some yoga and spiritual cleansing...

or I could face the Ankaran Demons on my own- and make it my mission to get to the bar.

So I had to act fast-

I pasted a "Kizilay or Bust" sign on my back and made my way to the metro. I had figured A) I had walked through the mean streets of Roxbury numerous times on my own in the dead of night, so walking through Ankara at 7 would be a piece of cake and B) I had walked in a group to the metro stop in the bus terminal so much I couldn't possibly get lost!!

Well, oddly enough, only one of those assumptions was true, and at least my life wasn't in danger.

For some reason, as soon as I entered the bus terminal my mind went blank, and I walked around ASTI for at LEAST a half hour before I just jumped into a taksi.

Luckily I made it to the bar just as Lady Gaga's soothing voice was blasting through the loudspeakers. I saw all the usual suspects and made plans to meet up with Aybuke, Nihal, and new friend Aysha to meet up at the mall tomorrow for some serious girl bonding time and shop therapy.

So Mackenzie skated off with her posse (shes the popular one in Turkey) and Julia and I met up with the ladies at the biggest shopping center in Ankara, Ankamall (I too giggled at the creative genius that was the title). We spent a good 5 hours going into the stores of my dreams, every where I looked I saw faux leather, faux fur, leopard print, sparkles, sequins! It was amazing! And the prices were good too!! I didn't go too crazy, and only got a T-shirt with a giant Lion's face on it (it seemed like a must-have at the time) and a pair of wonderful purple suede knee high boots.

Within the first week of being in Turkey, I quickly realized that I had made a grave mistake in the footwear selection I had packed for the next 6 months. This footwear consists of the following: A pair of glittery blue high heels, a pair of gold strappy high heels, a pair of black and white work heels, a worn down pair of useless red flats, obnoxious rainbow polka-dot rainboots, brown and red lace-ups, and of course, bright white power-sneaks. For some reason I felt that I would need to dress like a soccer mom with a secret stripper life, needless to say, I was in need of some casual kicks.

I spotted them from across a crowded room. I'm not kidding either, Ankamall is consistently packed. The were a ridiculous shade of purple, easily one of a kind, with a small heel to boost me into the hemisphere of a normal human being. Plus they were on indirim!! (sale). With purch in hand, I knew that I would effectively, and stylishly, conquer the activities of Sunday.

Mission Beypazari.

So most of our outings have been organized by the school, but this week there was nothing planned, and this is when I decided to take things into my own hands.

I had heard about a little village that used to be located on the old silk and spice routes. It was known for its silver, kuru (like biscotti), sarma (stuffed grape leaves) and 80 layer baklava (reg baklava is like 40 layers or something)..even though the restaurant we dined at only served 79 layer baklava (amateurs).

So I heard that there were busses that left from Ankamall, and we decided to have a small group of girls only go on Sunday for the day.

So about 15 girls and guys met that morning to venture off to Beypazari.

I had dressed to the nines in a purple shirt, uganda bead necklace, peacock feather in my hair, glittery silver sunglasses, green snakeskin pants, my typical gorilla coat, my red elmo gloves, and of course, the purple boots. Needless to say, I looked as lush as the tropical jungle was emulating.

We got there and ate a ton of delish food, and then decided to hike up to the hill top overlook. You may recall that we purchased a small eggman (now eggbert) from Abant, and we want to take pics of him everywhere.

It was an adorable town, and though the hike uphill proved slightly difficult for me and the boots, we took it over and conquered.
However getting back down was a whole other story.

An hour and near heart attack later, I made it down the slippery cobblestones. The boots were great, but not for rigorous outdoor activity. Another logical decision down the drain...

We went into a store for some delicious baklava, and the woman was so excited to see us that she insisted we try some of her friend's chocolate baklava....or what I like to call...Choklava. Weirdly enough, this marketing combination of words had never previously occurred to the locals, as they giggled at my genius and insisted I tried more of their foods.

It was then that I saw the jewelry store of my dreams. Beypazari is famous for their silver, so it was obvious I was going to need some bling. I had my notepad at the bargaining ready, and scored myself the most bombdiggity ice i've seen in a while.


It was at this time, we all decided we had successfully invaded Beypazari, and boarded the bus to go home. We then taught the Turks our ancient ways of predicting their marital and financial futures....by some epic games of MASH on the back of the bus.

Oh ya, on a side note, we are officially signed up for Turkish lessons!! we are going to be getting them 2-3 times a week in Ulus. Today was our first class. We got epically lost on our way there. Shout outs to Corn Man, Helpful Taxi Guy, and Green Shirt Jewelry Man for pointing us in the right direction....I think!

And there are times I really miss whats happening in the United States. Particularly when I find out about things like Pajamajeans. I would have called the Pajeans....regardless...they will be mine.

That's all folks!

G.

MY CAMERA DIED, SO ALL PICTURES ARE A COPYRIGHT OF JULIA "THE CHOC'KULAH" TEIXEIRA

Welcome to Ankara, where the Sun is always playing hide-and-seek.

So today there were two major events that occurred-

1) Debbie has officially learned how to use skype! She went out and bought a webcam and set it up herself and we skyped for a good 45 minutes!!! I have some great pictures from the event but I promised her I wouldn’t post them. Also, I got a chance to see Vinnie the snake! He’s getting so big and I miss him so much…


2) I ran a bunch of errands today- got a tax number, picked up my residence permit, and opened a bank account. In itself, this does not sound noteworthy, but it was within the errands that I had another eye-opening revelation.

It has come to my attention, today and previously, that as a whole Americans are severely unwelcoming and almost overly space-conscious. There is a distinct lack of love and trust in the majority of Americans lives, something that I too possess, but it is always the thing I notice most when I travel.

Let me expound….

Today, at the bank, a woman sat down next to us and overheard us speaking English. This in itself was embarrassing because I was acting like a child because I was impatient waiting to open an account, so this involved much negative social commentary on the people who were cutting in front of us in line, and also the alternative torture I would rather have received instead of waiting at the bank.

However, this kind woman pretended not to hear my asinine comments and began a conversation with us. She spoke perfect English, and revealed herself as a jewelry designer, with a place in New York where she spends part of her year. After further conversation (we had a lot of time to kill) she also explained her familial relationships to several diplomats and even an ambassador. Being a bunch of international affairs nerds, with a flair for accessories, we were obviously intrigued. We spent probably about a half hour talking to her, and we all could sense her genuine interest in learning why we were here and in turn sharing her life experiences. It was after this short conversation, she presented us with her number and invited us over to her house next Friday, so we could see her jewelry studio and she could cook us Turkish foods.

Now, to back up, in America, this would be considered weird and creepy. Some rando woman giving us her digits and inviting us over for some grub. But here, and in other places I have visited, it is encounters such as this that are the norm. People are willing to accept you into their homes, and not just to make ladies clothing out of your skin. There is a genuine compassion for humankind that rarely exists back home…


…because the most interesting part of making plans with strangers and acquaintances in another land is that these plans are about 90% followed through. I think about all the times I encounter people at home, even people I consider friends, and have the same “Oh my god we should totally do something soon…” conversation, yet both parties know that something will never happen. Always there are busy schedules, emergencies, or episodes of Jersey Shore that get in the way of a theoretical hang out sesh. But in this land, people stay true to their word. All of the fist pumping in the world does not compare to the entertainment gained from hosting company and learning about the lives lived by others.

After I returned from A-town, I tried to emulate this type of attitude. If I told someone we should meet up later, I tried to actually meet up! It worked for a few weeks, but as time wore on the American disposition got the best of me and I sunk back into my old, noncommittal ways.

Sometimes this is a good thing, for we have learned it unwise to trust just anyone. However, this unassuming woman with the Princeton sweatpants, kind eyes, red scarf, and need for a new debit card seemed harmless and genuine. Of course, we will be Americans, we will bring our cell-phones, travel in a pack, and horribly mispronounce Turkish greetings……but I am really looking forward to next Friday!

Love, peace and elbow grease
Annie G.