Sorry I haven't posted since last weekend. I wrote a long post last week but when I went to post it, the computer wouldn't let me do it. Oh well. 

Basically, two Saturdays ago, we went to Beypazari, a little town northish of Ankara. It snowed a lot, and we had a snowball fight. We saw people doing traditional arts - ebru, called marbling, and kilim weaving, and silk scarf weaving. It felt so good to get out of the city for a while. Oh, and they gave us free time, so we followed the sound of music to this guy's going away party - he was starting his military service. The family pulled up chairs for us and invited us to join them! It was fun. Then, Sunday, I woke up to a blizzard. My host sister and I went shopping, but the rest of the day was a nothing day. The rest of the week was full of just random hang outs and stuff, until Thursday. 

Thursday night, we boarded the overnight train to Istanbul. Ugh. I hate overnight trains. I was also not looking forward to Istanbul at all, since my experience of it last summer was horrible. Friday morning we arrived in Istanbul, and after dropping our stuff off at the hostel, we went to this old electric plant-turned-museum and played around for a while. We saw an NGO - really made me want to go work in one, but there isn't really something like that in Ankara. The kids were so sweet. Then we had the night free, so me and some of the guys went to go play tavla and such. 

Saturday, the scheduled tour was of Topkapi, the Hagia Sophia, and the Blue Mosque. Since I'd already been, I went with some of the year-long students out to Buyukada, an island a one and a half hour ferry boat ride away. It was a lot of fun! I hadn't spent much time with the returning students, and I really like hanging out with them. The island was beautiful - I couldn't believe how different it was. The houses were big plantation-looking mansions, with amazing woodwork. The views were incredible, and there were parks everywhere. Trees! Oh my gosh, green! My eyes were so happy! We stopped in this park to get tea, and while we were sitting there, horses came walking up out of nowhere, just grazing. Kristin thought we were in Narnia for a second. We finally made our way home, after stupid-but-hilarious conversations on the ferry, and ended up having a lot of fun wandering the streets of Istanbul until 4 am. 

By some weird coincidence, I ran into the only person I knew that lived in Istanbul at 2:30 in the morning, so the next morning, we got up and played frisbee in Taksim Square and then checked out the Orthodox Greek church. Then our group went to Dolmabahce garden. I have one thing to say about that place: chandeliers. The guy had a huge thing for giant crystal chandeliers. Giant. Chandeliers. 

Then, after a cruise on the Bosphorus, we boarded the train again, and arrived in Ankara yesterday morning. After that, I slept til four and then did nothing. 

So that's the trip in a nutshell. I'm sorry I don't have any real observations, but I'm really tired and I have a paper to write. More later. 

Today, first, I lost my wallet and then found it again. Then, I took the wrong dolmus (little buslike thingy) and ended up on the other side of the hill from my house at 10 pm. So there I was, wandering alone (and female) down dark streets in a (sort of Middle-Eastern) foreign country in a city that goes on as far as the eye can see, knowing that I'm probably, but not certainly, in the same neighborhood as my apartment complex, and that if I can just get to the other side of the hill, I might be able to find something that looked familiar. Then, I slip on a patch of ice, and my phone goes flying down the hill. I search around in the dark for my phone, find it, and then realize it's snowing. Today was not a good day to forget my scarf. I walk for about 10 more minutes and finally decide to admit defeat and call my host sister. She calls a taxi for me and the taxi takes me through the winding streets, about six blocks away to my house.

Grrr.

Favorite quotes so far:

Samantha: "I think Jewish women are way more attractive than Jewish men."
Me: "I utterly disagree with that statement."
Samantha: "I guess you're right. I guess they're about half and half."
John: "So they're statistically normal."

Diana (in Ulus): "Man, these back streets are really well lit."
Me: "Maybe that's because we're surrounded by lamp stores."
Diana: "Yeah... that would be logical."

Pretty much anything Claire says, including, but not limited to: (when trying to order dinner from a buffet and really really wanting the potatoes) "How do I.... um... how do I..... PATATES!"

Pretty much everything Cigdem says, especially: "Are you burning?" and "Craps!" Also, her impression of a vampire is priceless.

Erica: "The tiny Cigdem in my pocket is totally saying 'craps' right now."

Oh man, I'm so glad I'm staying with a family! I met them on Sunday - it's a mom and her daughter, who's 22 and goes to METU and speaks really good English. The mom's really really sweet but doesn't speak any English at all. It's definately not awkward to be living with a family, but it is a little frusterating to be set up in this situation that is supposed to be so close and intimate, but also be unable to even say the simplest things. Imagine not being able to communicate with your own mother, when you're in the same room. There are so many things I want to learn, but I can't say more than I want this or I like that or there is such and such. Meh. I got Gozde (my host sister) to teach me the simple present and the present progressive and the past tense last night, but I still don't know many verbs. I wish Active English didn't have such an aversion to teaching us anything useful!

We went to Ataturk's mausoleum yesterday, and now I understand a little better why the Turks love him so much. He definately did a lot for the country, and he was a pretty classy guy. One of my friends was talking about a speech he made to the Australians after Gallipolli, I think, where he says something like "Our country is blessed to have your sons and daughters buried on our land." I think that's pretty awesome. I still don't know how I feel about his means to Westernize the country (seems like it was mostly through banning symbols of Islam), but my opinion continues to change every day. My brain hurts from all the higher thinking.

We went to this pretty boring lecture today on migration in Turkey, which was held in a stuffy room with tiny, wooden seats. It was still useful information, though, and the teacher was in the process of telling us the different waves of migration and settlement communities when some stupid European dude raised his hand and cockily asked, "Excuse me, what is the point of this lecture?" The (German and female) professor first asked him whether he was provoking her, and when he answered, basically, that he wasn't here to listen to stories, she basically started to ramble off facts, proving that she knew her stuff. At the end she said something like, "So, if you are here to be entertained, I suggest you leave. I guess I am telling you a story. Fairy tales are a different matter."

It was awesome.

Also, we taught our Turkish teacher the word crap today. Only she says craps. Its hilarious.

Tea time!!

Well, since all my family wants me to keep updating, I guess I will.

So, it's officially been a week since I arrived, and already it feels like I've been here months. I've noticed that every time I do something that requires a lot of people to get to know each other fast, like NYLC, Cho-Yeh, and this, by the end of a week it feels like you've known each other forever. We've been going, going, going all week, and now that it's Saturday night, everyone just wanted to go home and get some rest. I think this is one of two times that I've been in a room without someone in my program for the whole time I've been here. Normally, we all go everywhere in a huge group, but lately we've all been getting a little tired of that, so we've been breaking off more. Being in such a big group makes us all feel stupid, partly because we have to get the Turkish students who are with us almost constantly to speak Turkish for us. I can't wait until we start working on grammar, since all I know right now is vocabulary.

Travel plans keep being made, but we obviously haven't had a chance to carry them out yet. Me and some of the girls are talking about going to Konya next weekend, and maybe to Çatalhöyük since its relatively close. Hung out with a guy last night who's taking exams early and traveling all around the neighboring countries - the relatively safe ones, of course. We're going to Istanbul two weeks from now, but that's with the big group.

It's fun going to all the places we visited last summer - Tunalı, the Museum, etc, and remembering that I thought I might never come back. Now I'm back here only six months later.

So I always dismissed southwestern Asia and the Middle East as a bunch of -stans. They never really interested me until I came here. Now that I'm here, and there are riots in the streets almost every day and policemen with riot gear and tear gas and water cannons and my roommates are from all these countries that I always thought of as just a name and not a country and everyone's talking about terrorists and the PKK and the headscarf issue and I can see Atatürk's face everywhere - now I think this might be the most interesting place in the world. You can get in deep conversations with anyone within an hour of meeting them, and you never run out of things to talk about. Oh, did I mention that my new roommate is from Iraq? Yeah, just over the border. She's Kurdish. Talk about interesting conversations. One thing I'm realizing is that I know so little about anything that matters over here.

Anyway, I don't know if I said this in the last post, but if I did it deserves to be said again: the Turkish people are so nice! Aaah! So nice!

Today we went to Kale (the big Seljuk castle - I think it's Seljuk - up on the hill) and Ulus. Kale was awesome, and the area around it reminded me more of how I saw Turkey last summer - more interesting old buildings and kilims and sitting on the floor and cobblestone streets. I can't wait to get out of the city. I like it here, don't get me wrong, but it's a big, relatively new city with homogeneously ugly architecture. Oh, and did I mention the smog? I'm lucky I don't already have respiratory problems. But hey, at least I'm in Turkey!

Anyway, I think it's time to go. I bought Snow by Pamuk and I'm gonna go read it and go to bed early. I'm so worn out from this week. More later!

I'm in Turkey!

I've been here for about five days now, but it's been really hard to fınd an internet connectıon. Also, the keyboards a Turkısh one so Im just gonna type and forget fındıng dotted ı's and apostrophes too often.

Anyway, When I got here, jet lag was bad and the people were tıred and annoyed that we had to be herded around because none of us knew Turkısh. Now, though, I,m more rested and gettıng to know the other Amerıcans has been fun - I lıke mostly all of them so far. Ive met a ton of Turkısh people, and even gone out wıth them and gone to dınner and one of theır houses. Theyre so nıce! I lıke lıvıng ın Ankara so far, although ıt defınately ısnt the most excıtıng place to be - but I feel more normal and less lıke a tourıst here. Especıally sınce we get our resıdence permıts ın a few days!

Last nıght we had a scavenger hunt and my group got sent to tunalı hilmı. We were told to fınd thıs restaurant and fınd out four dıfferent flavors of dondurma. turns out, the restaurant ıs the same one we ate breakfast at last summer when we stayed ın Ankara. So cool!

Learnıng Turkısh ıs hard - I memorıze vocab and phrases and then fıve mınutes later I cant remember anythıng. ıts lıke water that just slıps through my fıngers - not lıke spanısh. Ive realızed my spanısh ıs pretty good actually - a couple of my turkısh frıends are learnıng ıt and I can help them practıce. The lınguıstıcs major ın me ıs just havıng a fıeld day, by the way. It makes ıt so much easıer to learn Turkısh, although ıts stıll hard. They sort of seperated us ınto classes, one hıgher level and one lower level, and they put me ın the hıgher level, even though most of the people ın there know more Turkısh than me, although not much. I seem to be pıckıng ıt up pretty quıck, although, mom, ı stıll couldnt read what you saıd. ı dıdnt really try, actually.

I meet my Turkısh famıly on Sunday. I,m so excıted about that!

I have so much more to say about what Ive learned about Turkey so far, but I dont have tıme! Maybe soon. Lunch tıme!