Ah sorry it's been such a long time

I really don't know if more than one person reads this thing. Oh well! I like writing! 

SO the last couple of weeks have been some of the most fun in my life. 

After the crazy mosquito week, my team and I took a little side trip to the beach. We stopped at Port Townsend, went to a blues festiv

al there (and realized none of us know how to dance to blues), then to Cape Flattery, which is the farthest northwest point in the co

ntinental US. After that, we went to Second Beach, where we hiked our stuff in about a mile and a half and camped on this beautiful beach that was basically constantly shroude

d in fog and mist. The best part (besides the yummy sausages), were these things called sea stacks, which look like parts of the hillside that forgot to wash away. They

 are giant rocks off the coast, some of which have little forests on top. They're gorgeous. 

Then we went back to the MAC, where we had training, for our middle-of-the-summer relax/get-together weekend. We hiked this hill called Sleeping Beauty, where you could see Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, and other stuff. We picked our own huckleberries and made huckleberry jam... The most useful part of the week, though, was "Life After Americorps," when we basically got resum

e tips and job hunting tips and were told about opportunities. We also did a little service project, where my group painted signs at a museum in the Gorge. I got to see their rehabilitated 

raptors, which was sweet. 

Then, on Friday, Lindsay and Wayne (who are on my team), Chris (who works for the Forest Service in Wenatchee) and I climbed Mt. Adams!!! It was the most fun hiking I've had in a looong time. We camped out under the stars at about 9000 feet, and then woke up at 4:30 and hiked the rest of the way. It was hard, but worth it. Then, on the way down, we glisaded,

 which basically means we wore trash bags over our pants and used ice axes and trekking poles as breaks to slow us down as we SLEDDED down the mountain! It was so fun. 

Not to mention that after that, everything else seemed easy. We had a backcountry spike where we hiked about 10 miles a day, and one day gained a few thousand feet of elevation in a couple miles (to get up to this beautiful glacial lake), and it was all much more enjoyable because I'd done Adams. Plus, I've been rock climbing lately, and yesterday I noticed that my legs have WAY more power than they did before. 

Well, it's time for me to go write a few cover letters and work on my resume. I'll write again soon. 

Just back from an 8-day backcountry spike. 

Oh. My. Gosh. I have never seen so many mosquitos in my life. Most of you know, I'm not one to be bothered by bugs, but sometimes on our breaks - the only time we sat still for more than 30 seconds - I would start feeling slightly panicky to see hundreds of mosquitos all swarming around me like zombies waiting to take my blood. I ended up wearing my rain jacket and a head net over my hard hat, but still the number of them was astonishing. You could slap your leg once, miss half of them, and still have five dead mosquitos. And the sound of them! That was enough to drive me crazy. I hope I never have to go through that again. 

If it weren't for the mosquitos (!!!!SO MANY!) it would have been a perfect spike. We hiked in with power movers - basically motorized wheel barrows - 6 miles and got to a sixty-year-old log cabin. That was basically our base for the week. We had a pet mouse. We used the power movers to move around tons of dirt and redo the trails. It was hard, hard work. 

So, a word about the mule deer. It's not hunting season yet, so they basically react to us like we're trees. Only, they're salt starved from the winter, so they hang out around camp to - yes - lick our pee. Once of the guys at our house said one came up and started licking the ground before he was even done. Awkward. 

Well, people are leaving. We're going on a road trip with our six days off, then back to the MAC for a week. Yay! 

Another chill weekend

As this summer goes on, I'm getting progressively more tan, toned, relaxed, and less concerned with taking showers. I also tend not to sleep in my bed. I prefer the couch on the porch of the double-wide trailer. It has a nice view of the front yard, lilac bushes, and our tree swing in the giant tree in the front yard - plus you can hear the Entiat River from there. And it's not so incredibly hot. 

Team dynamics seem to have changed this week - we're getting to know each other better, which is both good and bad. People have just been lethargic this weekend as well. I think it may have something to do with an epic tournament of flip cup we played the other night that entailed 4 games with two cups each per game... nah, that's probably not it. Hello, family. I am of age, in case you've forgotten. :)

Yesterday one of our team leaders (after the epic flip cup game) got up at 5:30 and got second place in a 5k in Chelan up by the lake. So we went to celebrate with him and spend some time playing frisbee in the water and having a sun-drenched picnic. It was a beautiful day, with awesome people, good music, and good food. 

I finally got food stamps (since I quit a job that paid me more than this one - which technically pays me nothing - I got them a month later than everyone else). Which at first made me feel bad until I realized that I can use them to support local, organic farms and businesses. Mmm local chocolate covered cherries. 

Then today four of us went bouldering by the side of the road a few miles away. I can't wait to go again. It's really satisfying to try something over and over and finally figure out how to get up to the top. I really want to get more into climbing. 

Weeellll, I guess that's about all I have to say for now. Here comes another week!

floatin', spelunkin', climbin', cherry-pickin'

The last two weeks have been really fun! We went back to the Mount Adams Center (MAC), where we had training, for part of the six day weekend. It was really fun, but not the same without everyone there. I got to spend quality time with my friend Kate, though, when she forgot her ID and couldn't get into this bar. I stayed out with her, partly because I was tired of the big group thing. It's nice because with so many people around, it's hard to get one-on-one time with people.  

One day while we were there a few of us went and explored the Dead Horse Cave, which is one of the many lava tubes in the area. We went in one entrance because the entrance people normally use is SO small that we were afraid we might not be able to get through. As we were exploring, we started to hear water running, and eventually found the Dead Horse Creek, which runs through the cave. It was so cool to see a creek running through this cave! It had so many littler creeks branching off that there was lots to explore. Then Baxter, the guy who had been there before, realized that he knew where the other entrance was. So we ended up pulling ourselves up onto a ledge so we could "butt-scoot" through a tiny hole that was so small we had to keep one arm pinned down by our sides. Baxter was so excited that we connected the two entrances - he'd been in there nine times and hadn't ever been able to do that. 

This week we did some front-country (car) camping and more brushing. Nothing new there. I like the work weeks. 

This weekend Megan, one of the girls from the MAC, came up to visit. She's from Calallen, and did her graduate studies at UT. We took everyone tubing on the Entiat. Lindsay and Rachael, my girls, had never been and were freeeeaaaked out - they hardly let go of my tube. The first half was really fun, but then the rapids started. It was a really bumpy ride, and we ended up getting out early and walking down the road in our bathing suits to get back home. A couple of the girls hitchhiked back - people around here are really nice. And I'm sure the fact that they were two attractive girls in their bathing suits helped. 

Yesterday we went to Wenatchee and on the way back, we stopped to pick our own cherries from this farm on the side of the road. When we told them we were with Americorps, he said don't worry about the money, pick as many as you like. I ate soooo many - they're so good all warm from the sunshine. 

Speaking of - it's like 100 degrees here. I thought I was running away from the heat. 

So much more. Ugh, I have no time. I wish I could have time to sit and really put thought into what I'm writing but I'm always slightly at the mercy of my team. Today we have to go grocery shopping and do laundry.

I'm in shock that it's already been more than a month. I'm having so much fun - I'm definitely looking into either being a team leader next year or maybe doing another program similar to this. I figure I'm young, I won't always be able to hike 50 miles in a week and do ten hour work days on top of that, might as well take advantage of it. Not to mention the people! And the scholarship money... 

8 days in the backcountry. Woo!

Eight days in the backcountry means six days off. I have a six day weekend, as my reward for backpacking. Can I please do this forever?

Okay, so, those eight days were grueling - possibly the most physically challenging thing I have ever done (I only say possibly because high school volleyball tryouts might have been on the same level). Pot Peak trail climbs over a mile vertically in 10 miles of trail - most of that in the first 5 miles. It's built for Off Highway Vehicles - dirt bikes and horses and other methods of transportation that don't include good old-fashioned hoofing it. What that means is that the trail has fewer switchbacks than a backpacker would like, very steeply banked turns, and that the wheels of dirt bikes have dug out ditches in the middle of the trail and shaped it into a ten mile long miniature half-pipe. Which SUCKS to walk on, because there's no flat ground and your ankles are perpetually at an angle. Oh yeah, and we each had about 7 pounds of 8-inch leather boot on most of the time. We all learned the value of wool socks. Cotton gives you blisters - quickly.

Anyway. We hiked about 3 miles with our packs the first day, until we were stopped by the forest service guys who had gone to find our campsite on dirt bikes. Our leaders, Luke and Wayne, had hiked up to where we were told the campsite would be the day before, but they couldn't find it or the spring that was supposed to be our water source. The forest service guys said they couldn't find it either, which meant we had to hike back down half a mile to another spot, and use the stream that crossed the trail about a half mile even further down. Hauling water for 7 people half a mile up a hill isn't fun. The next day we worked the whole day, then were told that our campsite was actually two miles past where we were told it was. So we hiked up there and set up camp. Luckily, one of the forest service guys saved our butts by biking our packs up the rest of the way. There is no way we could have done that in the shape we were in. We just weren't in the right physical condition yet. 

The rest of the time we worked. 10 hour work days are really long. They start at 5:30 when people wake up to make breakfast. The actual work day starts at 7 and goes until 5:30. We have half an hour for lunch and two fifteen minute breaks. This time we were "brushing," which means clearing about four feet on either site of the trail of plants. Yes, cutting down plants. We got to know those plants really well. We used Silkies, which are extremely sharp little hand knives. One of my leaders described the motion for cutting down the plants pretty well when he said that he felt like he'd know how to slit someone's throat. Gruesome, but pretty accurate.

Anyway, highlights: 

1. Seeing a barred owl.

2. Eating on top of a cliff above two soaring golden eagles.

3. Climbing all ten miles to the top of Devil's Backbone and seeing the view.

4. Finding Old Man's Beard - a really good toilet paper. (We decided not to bring the man-made kind. Bad decision)

5. Seeing people enjoy my dinner. 

6. Massive games of riddles and jokes while working.

7. The spring that supplied our water. Everything else is dry except this pocket of moss and flowers and beauty and clear drinkable water coming right out of the mountain. 

8. The fact that the hiking got easier, and that I didn't even feel my blisters after the first couple of days. 

9. Getting to know my team better. 

10. Getting into the routine of living in a tent. 

11. Being able to say we got the whole trail done. 

12. The shower when we got home. 

All in all, a successful trip. And now I'm off til Sunday. :)

descriptions

So about a week has passed in our new home and I'm getting more settled and used to living here. 

We live at the Steliko work station in the Entiat valley about forty five minutes from Wenatchee, WA. Outside of the valley is dry, dry, dry, and looks a lot like parts of west Texas. Inside the valley is progressively greener the farther west we drive. The road through the valley jumps over the Entiat river multiple times - a river which right now is gushing with the remains of the melting snow caps. There are tons of pear, apple, and cherry trees - so excited for those to get ripe. The hills around used to be forests, but now they're covered in patchy meadows, charred stumps, and patches of forest. It took a little getting used to, but seeing the forest regenerate itself is an interesting process. I'm learning to love it. 

At our station, we have our house plus a few other houses that hold mostly guys. Manly, rock climbing, motor bike riding, bearded guys, who play a lot of beer pong. (They have more going for them than that, but that is the easiest way to describe them). And a little red cow dog named Boo who could probably spend every waking hour fetching a stick. We love Boo. 

We spend most of our time, when we're not felling trees or clearing brush from trails, reading on the porch, talking, cooking, playing games, and hiking.  Yesterday we took a day trip to Leavenworth, a little town about an hour and a half from here, where, in the sixties the community decided life was boring, so they turned their town into a Bavarian tourist destination. Best beer ever.

This morning the other two girls and I took a hike up to the lookout, about two miles up a really steep hill. We're preparing for our 8-day backcountry spike that starts tomorrow. We took my field guide and tried to identify all the plants we found on the way, which gave us excuses to stop and catch our breath. 

So living here is peaceful, but at least the girls and I are a little sad that the countryside is so dry. I'm treating it as a learning experience. First, now I know that this isn't the part of Washington I like the best. Second, I'm hoping that I learn to love it. Because even being in Trout Lake for two weeks, I was starting to get jaded to the beauty of it. Now I'll appreciate it when I go back. 

I also wish the community was a little bigger. I love these people, but anytime you're stuck with the same group for too long, it's a challenge.  Eh, I'll be fine. 

Miss everyone! I'll be back in communication next Tuesday (the 23rd). 

Being in Ardenvoir is kind of like being in a foreign country...

Tried to post this on Thursday but the internet shut down and I didn't want to make people wait for me... here you go!

Hey y'all... so I keep getting calls/messages/emails from people and sadly have only been able to get back to a few of them. Monday I tried to get a hold of about seven people to update them on the drive up to Wenatchee, but nobody answered and then I promptly lost service for the next hour before I could call more... and I still haven't been able to check my phone. Sorry!

First, a couple of things and then maybe a little bit of life stuff if we have time... my house has a landline, but no cell phone service. If you want to call me, call 509-784-0736 and then we'll either have a little chat or if you want to talk for a while, I'll go drive down to the spot on the road that gets coverage and call you back. Also, if you can't get through on that line, please let me know. We're not really that sure it works.

Second, we get internet at the (only) store in Ardenvoir, which is a little over half a mile up the road. So email me, but I'll take a while to get back to you. 

Third, we're going to be in the backcountry (Pot Peak) for 8 days starting on Monday. 

Okay! So, basically, if anyone has ever wondered if they should do Americorps or the Northwest Service Academy, the answer is probably yes. I am having the time of my life up here, the people are amazing, and the place is amazing. Oh, and the food. 

Training was awesome. A little like camp, but awesome none the less. There's around 35 of us, and we stayed in cabins. We had training most days, but went on a little work project (2 nights of camping and one day of work, which included creating habitat for steelhead trout) and had a service project (helping in the community garden) in the town of Trout Lake, where we lived. Weekends we had free, so we would explore the lava tubes and area around Mt. Adams (THE COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE IS PERFECT), went for bike rides, spent a day exploring Portland (and a night singing drunken kareoke), had a couple bonfire parties, camped out a couple times. I could go on and on - especially about the people. These people are amazing. 

On Monday the teams all went our separate ways - some to southern California, some to the OR/CA border, some stayed where we were, and we left for the north - Wenatchee National Forest, and our little home on a "work compound" called Steliko. We're living in a house built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (sort of our forerunners) in the 1930s, two stories with a big living room and kitchen and lots of windows - and doors we haven't even found yet. There's a double wide trailer that houses another guy, and various buildings for botanists and biologists and such. We're pretty in love with it. Me and the other two girls (who are awesome) share one room, the two leaders share a room and the other two boys share a room (sort of - one of them is sleeping in what we call the Boom-Boom Room, a little attic-y thing off the main room). 

For the last two days, we've been helping out at a campground felling trees that have been attacked by pine beetles or rot. A falling tree is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. 

Some stuff:

1. I took Gözde out for sushi. She liked some of it, which is all I was hoping for. Yay!

2. Went to Ankara kalesi (the castle) with her too. Explored Ulus and found out that there are a crapload of bead stores there. Makes me want to be all creative-like. Also made me wonder (like I always have) about the economic effectiveness of having an entire shopping center full of separately owned stores that all sell exactly the same thing. It's so different from what we have in the states. 

2. Went to the hamam today. Why do we not have them in the states? Oh yeah. Cuz you have to get close-to-nakie, and I don't think the market for something like that's all that big. Plus part of the appeal is that it's hundreds of years old. Anyway, I found my way there by myself from memory (I'm proud of that, cuz I kind of suck at directions. A lot. Especially after almost a year has passed). 

3. Hung out with Nesrin and Ceyhun again. Watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - all out of order, which I suppose is fitting to the movie. Oh, funny: Nesrin used the word "kismet", and then stopped and asked if I knew what it meant. I said, yeah, I did, because I named one of my dogs that when I was younger (which she thought was crazy). And then later, Ceyhun and I were watching Benjamin Button and they used the word kismet! Weird! Must be, you know, fate. 

4. Hung out with Carolyn (one of the CIEE people), Ahmet and Yavus (a couple of Turkish friends). Got to hear about a lot of stuff - Ergenekon, Carolyn's research on the PKK, religious marriage... Haha. 

5. Made plans to one day go to Tibet with Gözde. Maybe somewhere else first, but one day Tibet. She came up with the idea. 

6. Did a lot of research, at ODTÜ and other places. I decided that coming was definitely worth it as far as the research is concerned. I learned a ton, and might add another section to my thesis based on all of this, instead of just using it as supplementary info - it might even change the direction I take. I was kind of worried that I would come home having had a lot of fun, but feeling bad because I didn't really get much done for my thesis. But it definitely exceeded my expectations. 

7. Also decided that even though I'll be sad to leave, I'm excited to be home. I'm so excited about this semester! Plus, I've been here three times in less than two years. I'm sure I'll be back soon. Not that I'm taking it for granted - I don't think I could. Oh yeah, I also made a resolution to improve my Turkish. 

Ugh, I swear I've done more than that, but I've forgotten for the moment (or maybe I'm being distracted by delicious smells from the kitchen). 

Well, this is probably the last time I'll write in here until the next time I come to Turkey, so bye! Thanks for reading! Hope it's been fun or interesting or something. Kendinize iyi bakın! 

Ankara thawed out while I was away, which kind of makes me mad because I went south for a reason. Oh well. 

I decided to go to Adana on Sunday, because I wanted to gez around there and see Kızkalesi. I only really spent a couple of hours in Adana besides time spent in my hotel, but what I saw, I liked a lot. The rich part (and there's definitely a poor part) almost seemed more modern than Ankara, and it was filled with beautiful parks and fountains and a river that runs through it. And it's citrus season - there's orange and lemon trees bursting with fruit. I had an orange at breakfast, and when I went outside I saw one of the hotel workers picking them from the tree in the courtyard. That's local. It was warm outside too - I didn't need a scarf anywhere. 

Found out it's so rich because Sakıp Sabancı's SA conglomerate is based out of there. So many factories and businesses down there have that blue SA at the end of the name - TeknoSA, LasSA, etc. Also, he built the biggest mosque between Istanbul and Saudi Arabia, on the bank of the river in Adana. It's gorgeous. I'll probably post pictures when I get home. 

My hotel was kept scorching hot, so I kept the windows open all night, but only after making sure the bars were solid enough to keep men from coming in at three in the morning (I learned the scary way). It rained both nights, and there was a guy playing the ney in a balcony across from mine on the second night. I slept well. :)

Monday I took a series of dolmuşes to Kızkalesi (you'd think they'd make it easier to get there, and Lonely Planet is no help at all), which is a town famous for the Maiden's Castle, a castle built on an underwater island 300 meters out to sea, so it looks like it's floating. The legend goes that the ruler heard from an oracle that his daughter would be killed by the bite of a snake, so he had the castle built where he thought no snakes could go - only to have her bitten by a serpent that rode in on a basket of grapes. Anyway, there's also another castle on the beach built on top of Armenian remains, and across the street there's a necropolis with tombs built into the rock. It's not really publicized, it's just on some guy's lemon grove. I happened to see it on the ride in and went to check it out, then got to have an orange from his tree. It made my mouth numb. 

Then I went to Narlıkuyu for the dumbest part of the day - the Caves of Heaven and Hell. I mean, the caves are pretty cool, but the guys there aren't. Well, the guy who gave me a ride on my motorcycle was cool. He just dropped me off at the gate and went on his merry way. But one of the guys down in the cave, after he took my picture, told me "I've never kissed an American." I wish I knew how to say "and it's going to stay that way" in Turkish. I decided it was time to go when he tried to hold my hand. Luckily, I get more expressive (and fluent) in any language when someone pisses me off, so he left me alone after that - went and bothered some local girl. Ah, being a lone female traveler in Turkey. I'm reminded of Heather (my family knows what I'm talking about). That was the only time I got hassled, though, the whole trip. 

Then I went back to Adana and had the best Adana kebap I've ever had in my life. Oh man. One of those meals that deserves its own paragraph. 

Today I decided I'd seen all I wanted to around Adana and (after being tempted to take the 6 hour bus over to Nemrut Dağı - the east just fascinates me) I hopped a bus to Konya, since it's kind of on the way to Ankara. The bus wound first through citrus and tomato farms, through the Taurus mountains and finally through the snow covered southern Anatolian plains. It was gorgeous. I meant to sleep, but it was too pretty. 

Konya was actually much less conservative and had a much younger population than people make it seem. It was the only place, too, where women would help me find my way - usually only men will approach me. The whole trip, though, Adana included, I did not see another foreigner.

Anyway, I got there in time to see the Mevlana Museum, the Tile Museum, and the Archeological Museum. Plus, Alaaddin's Mosque on Alaaddin's Hill. Alaaddin University is there. I freaking want to go there, just to say I went there. Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures inside the first two, but there was some cool stuff. The Mevlana Museum (think Whirling Dervishes) is actually in their old lodge. "The Prophet Mohammed's Holy Beard" is kept there in a mother-of-pearl inlaid box. I'm skeptical about what's really inside the box, but maybe. And they have a tiny Koran written on gazelle skin. And Rumi's tomb and a bunch of other people's tombs. Oh, and it described the way they lived, which was really interesting. 

I did some other stuff, ate food, came home to Ankara. Blah blah blah. Not interesting to anyone but me, and it's all in my journal anyway. 

I read two books on this trip. I've missed having time to read. One of them was actually useful to my thesis - it's about the history of politics and the emergence of democracy in Turkey in this new century. I learned a ton. The other, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, was amazing! I read it in three hours on the ride back to Ankara. I haven't read something that good in a long time. One of those books you wouldn't call written, but crafted. Now I'm out of books. Crap. This always happens. 

On the bus ride back, I sat next to a student at ODTÜ who was taking a course on Christianity. I found it interesting that she was reading about my culture while I was reading about hers. I learned that when the Korean war started, most Turks had never even heard of Korea. The world's smaller now. 

A couple things you don't see on roadtrips in Turkey - roadkill and stars. Roadkill, because there just aren't many wild animals. I had this thought about the stars when I ran out of book on the ride home, though: it's as if every time someone looks at them, they get a little dimmer, and people have been living in this part of the world so long that their brightness is all used up for Anatolia.  

Also - can you imagine what crazy things we'd find if the Bosphorus dried up? 

Oy, I forgot that coming to Turkey means taking a trip back in time as far as internet's concerned. I wrote half this entry and then the phone rang, somehow deleting most of it. Meh. 

Today, I went out to my university, ODTÜ, and interviewed a few friends-of-friends about the Turkish language reform. Then I just walked around and visited all my favorite places. I like it better in the spring, when there's students everywhere and the trees are all green and everything's flowering and the dandelions take over. Right now everything's bare and covered in a blanket of snow, and it's too cold to lounge around outside like in April and May. The buildings stand out more, and they're not the most attractive feats of architecture. But still, it's nice to see everything. 

I went to Tunalı in a taxi from Kızılay, because it was ridiculously cold and my feet were cold and wet (My host mom forbade me from stepping outside in anything but my boots. That's how I found out my boots are anything but waterproof.). Getting a good taxi driver is kind of like playing Russian roulette. This time I lost. He asked me if I had a boyfriend (when someone asks me that, I always say yes), and then asked if I wanted another one. He said he was an architect. Gözde and I had a good laugh about that later. I guess he just drives taxis for fun. 

Aaanyway, after running an errand in Tunalı I went to Ceyhun and Nesrin's house. I spent a lot of time at their house this spring with Austin, and they became like my second host family. I LOVE THEM. Seriously. They stuffed me full of food, because apparently they thought I was too skinny. We talked forever, and watched TV, and danced, of course. One of my favorite things about Nesrin is that she's very much a free spirit - if she hears a song she likes, she's out of her seat in a second. Then Nesrin went and bought these big... wafer things and we put ice cream on them and generally made a mess of ourselves. We also created a musical instrument out of them, thanks to Ceyhun. I'm going back next week. Apparently they had thought I was spending the night.

Then I went to meet Gözde at Starbucks after she got off work. On the way there I was sliding all over the place, because of the snow and because the stone they make the sidewalks out of is slippery. So I just decided to go with it and slide on purpose, thinking, eh, people are going to stare at the yabancı anyway. Then I looked up and saw that everyone else was doing it too, kids, grownups, businessmen! I got hit by a snowball in the street where there are lined up stalls of books, and then I hit the guy back. Everyone was having fun in the snow.  

Now I'm at home and getting fed again. I'm not complaining. Çay zamanı! Oh, I may or may not be going out of town for a few days. 

Also, I love Gözde. We stay up way too late being ridiculous. Who wants to pitch in to buy us a Lear jet or two so we can see each other more often? Eh, eh? Or possibly just to speed up continental drift. Actually, I wish I could just move all my favorite Americans to Ankara. Yeah, that would go over well. 

I've gotten about five emails saying that I should be updating more often. I'll try - I've been updating as often as possible! 

Yeah, I'm never coming home. Just thought I'd let y'all know. Man, I wish I could stay. I love it here, even if it is -7˚C. My little southern self is just not used to that. This is the first time I've gone somewhere colder for winter break. I'm bundled up in all sorts of layers, and today I was made to wear earmuffs, but my face is still cold, dangit. I'm getting used to it, though. I have a cold, though. I was hoping the stuffy nose was just me getting used to the huge amounts of cigarette smoke I'm around here. But no - it's my first cold since the last time I was in Turkey. Ugh.

I feel like what I got done today made the whole trip worth it as far as research is concerned, though. I went to the Turkish Language Institution. (Institution, not Association - this is important! When I asked why it was changed from Society to Association to Institution, the answer I got was "because Atatürk wanted it that way." Duh.) Anyway, after getting through security and giving up my passport for a fancy swipe-card, I spent about an hour talking to the president of the institution's assistant, who had spent a couple of years studying in Seattle, so she knew pretty good English. And what she didn't know in English, I knew in Turkish, so it worked out. She gave me so much information! 

Then the president came in, and I was told he might have time to talk to me if I waited until after everything else he had to do was done. So I waited about another hour, talking to the assistant and this other girl, who was really really (really really) excited that I was there. She wanted to practice her English. She also wants me to come over and play with her baby and eat food at her house. "As soon as possible - tonight? No? What about tomorrow? You're sick? Well, call as soon as you get better. You are so sweetie." Haha. 

The assistant actually turned out to be pretty cool. She was writing her master's thesis on Japanese language change, and had not only lived in Seattle, but Japan as well. We talked for a long time. 

Anyway, then I got to talk to the president. He was kiiinda intimidating. No smiling for the first half of the half-hour I talked to him. It was interesting to hear his views on what's "dangerous" to a language - using foreign words when there's a perfectly good native word. He ended up laughing at something in the end though. I was so surprised, I almost forgot to laugh too. 

The Turkish Language Institution building was within walking distance of Active English, the language school I spent so much time at in the spring, so I decided to stop by and see if the Turkish teachers, Çiğdem, Görkem and Seçkin, or Kathryn, the director of my study abroad program, were there. I climbed the stairs for old times sake (holy crap I need to get in shape for April's half marathon), and knocked on Kathryn's office door. Of course she wasn't there, but on the walls were pictures of all of us CIEE kids sitting in the hallway, when that weird guy came up and started taking pictures. Our news projects were on the walls, too! 

Then I went to the office, and there were Seçkin and Çiğdem! Çiğdem was so surprised to see me. I sat and talked to them, and then Görkem came in with çay. We all sat and talked for the better part of an hour - Türkçe'de, of course. Çiğdem said it makes her so happy when old students come to visit, and when I said how could I not come visit them, she started tearing up. Man, it was so good to see their faces. I asked how this year's group of CIEE kids were, and they said they were nice, but they missed us. They said that our group had the best students. They asked about Claire, Jon, Yusuf, Dan, and "aww... Astıncım" (guess who that was from). They were happy to hear I'd seen Yusuf, Erica, and Austin in the states. They said they missed us all. 

A good day. Tomorrow I have basically my other host family to visit. So excited. So are they, apparently, based on messages like these: "Come on as soon as possible, Mom said that she can't keep herself to hug you! Tomorrow we will be at home all day, you can come whenever you want!" 

There is so much I can't fit into these posts... like how walking down the big hill to the dolmuş stop felt like I was starting all over, like it was last February and I still had all of those crazy adventures ahead of me. It's nice to know that with the way I live my life, I probably won't ever run out of adventures. So much more to say, though. 

Oh, PS, dolmuşes are 1.75 now. Lame. And awkward for the pocket change. And Yeni Türk Lirası is now just Türk Lirası. So it's TL now, not YTL. 

I wrote in my journal the other night that traveling alone is kind of fun, because I like having only myself to rely on. Sometimes I get lost, but I end up seeing things I wouldn't have otherwise. 

Well.

 

I spent the 30th walking around with my camera and having fun taking pictures. I had started to feel like I really didn't want to be in Istanbul another day, just because it's so big and so touristy, and I've seen most of what I wanted to see that I can in such a short amount of time. Plus, I was so excited to see my host family and Ankara. But having my camera out just lightened my mood a whole lot. I didn't really get many good pictures, but it's funny how different I see the world when I have a camera in my hands. Little things become beautiful. I went to Istanbul Modern, too, which was cool. I like the permanent exhibit, which has basically the progression of Turkish art from the late Ottoman period to today. 

I like the people I meet when I'm traveling alone, too. I stopped and talked with these chestnut sellers between the Aya Sofya (I had to see my love one more time, even if it was night and I couldn't go in) and the Blue Mosque. When they found out I spoke some Turkish, they immediately asked, "Do you know Kurdish?" and then proceeded to teach me a ton of phrases I'd probably already been taught by some ferry crewmembers in the East. It made me think, though, about the fact that they were so open about being Kurdish. Not like they should be ashamed, but because I'm foreign, it's likely that all I've heard about Kurds was the PKK. I'm glad they aren't.

Anyway, I decided not to buy the ticket from the train station the other night because they didn't have any sleeper car tickets available. Instead, I thought since I'd never seen the countryside between Istanbul and Ankara, I'd take a bus during the day. So I got to the bus office near Taksim Square to catch the shuttle to the main station for my 12:00, and before I got on I made sure that it was the right bus. Apparently something got lost in translation. In other words, "Yes, this goes to the otogar" means, "No, this does not go to the otogar." So I got on the bus, and when it was 11:50 and we were seriously in the middle of nowhere, I asked the couple next to me where this was going. "Sabanci University," they said. Well crap. 

Sabanci University is HUGE, by the way. The buildings are ginormous, and they look (like a lot of universities in Turkey) like it was really modern when it was built, which was about 20 years ago.

Anyway, I asked the people at the gate to call me a taxi to the nearest otogar, because I was not going all the way back to Istanbul. I knew I was already a ways southeast of the city, and I figured there would be a stop somewhere close. I got to a town called Gebze a ways east on the Marmara, and had to wait for the next bus. It felt good to get into more of what I think of as Turkey - small towns where nobody really speaks English, and they don't have to add the word "Turkish" on top of "Restaurant," because what other kind of restaurant would there be in a town like this? They definitely were not used to foreigners there - especially not lone foreign girls. They were so nice - and the guys were all hair gel and shiny, pointy shoes. And they didn't even make me pay for a new ticket!

I ate at the restaurant in the otogar to keep out from under the fat, wet snowflakes that had been falling all day. While I was in there one of the guys who worked for my bus company came over to hang out with the staff. They started teasing him about being scared of dogs. While the waiters held him, the cook went to the back door and called ("Koş! Koş!") to a couple of the giant sand-and-silver sheepdogs that run wild in packs in Turkey. The dogs ran up and stood, tentatively, a couple of steps in from the back door, wagging their tales and looking like they didn't know if they were about to get a big piece of chicken or a smack on the nose. All the while the guy struggled to get away - they finally let him go. They were all laughing by the end of it, even the teasee. 

I sat next to this really sweet lady on the bus who showed me pictures of her second grade students making hats that looked like the Pope's, only they had giant cut-outs of vegetables on them. We had fun taking pictures of the countryside, which looked like a fairytale with tall pine trees covered in snow.  

And now, Ankara'dayım! Yay! It felt so weird to be on that bus yesterday, and just know that I was in this city. It just feels different to be here, rather than Istanbul. Plus, I can get off the bus and know exactly where to go, no problem, no second guessing myself, no map checking. There are no words to tell how weird it feels to walk out of my little room into the hallway and see Gözde and Nilgün talking in the kitchen. Or sit here on these white couches with my feet in my pink slippers, talking to my host sister about everything that has happened since we last talked. And the streets outside are covered in snow - just like the last time I moved in with them. I feel like Nilgün told me she felt in July - that I was just away on a trip, and now I'm home again. And even though almost everyone from my program is gone, and yeah, it'll never be the same as it was this spring - despite all that, this place, the way I feel about it, that stuff's mine. I chose to study here because I was already in love with it.

Last night I celebrated New Year's with my host sister and her friends at her boyfriend's new apartment, which is really nice. New Year's here is like Christmas, without the Jesus (so it's like Christmas)- they have decorated trees as celebrations and exchange gifts. They even sing "Jingle Bells". A lot. We cooked dinner (with stocking-shaped cake for dessert) and played the Turkish version of Taboo, which I actually didn't suck at, despite being hardly fluent in Turkish. We were having so much fun we didn't notice the clock had struck 12. We spent today messing around in our PJs and playing Risk, which is still a freaking long game, no matter what language it's played in. We got home home for the first time a couple of hours ago.

Well, I should get to bed so I can get up - tomorrow's my first day of real research time, since things were closed today for New Year's. I'm going down to the Turkish Language Association tomorrow. They said I'd get to talk to somebody, and then maybe I'll go do a couple of interviews with normal people. We'll see. Things on the research side just seem to be figuring themselves out, without much work from me or from Gözde, my handy translator. 

More in a few days.