Wanderings

How to Destroy the World with a Smokey Bear Costume

2010-03-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

Many times, in my job, I do really awesome things. Sometimes, frankly, I do really boring things. And sometimes, I do ridiculous things.

Wearing the Smokey Bear costume is one of those ridiculous things.

Ridiculous, according to Mr. Webster, means "deserving or inviting mockery". Now, let me say this: all Forest Service employees should wear the Smokey suit at least once. It is an experience not to be missed when given the opportunity. Unfortunately, for people sized about 5'5" and 135 pounds, wearing the Smokey suit is not only an unmissable opportunity, it is a ridiculous endeavor, because a "small (read: not huge)" person in a Smokey suit begs for mockery. Let me illustrate with a case study: my own.

For part of my job, I am asked to help the wildfire crews teach first and second graders in local schools about fire safety and the whole "stop, drop, and roll" deal. For part of it, each fire team member takes a group of 3 to 7 kids into a corner and teaches them that Smokey's friends never play with matches and what to do if they find matches. Or, if they're second graders, we go over "stop, drop and roll" with them. Then, if we successfully squash their stories about EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY'VE EVER SEEN FIRE and their questions of "why do you lie to us and tell us Smokey's real when he's just a person in a costume?", Smokey Bear and Sparky Dog come out for a little quality time.

One Friday, Maria, one of my coworkers, decided that I should be Smokey. There were six classes that afternoon, amounting to about two hours of time in the Smokey suit. Sure, I said, I'll try it once.

First, I was led into the teacher's break room. Smokey always uses a secluded back room to dress (preferably guarded by dragons and trolls with angry little knives), because if a child ever saw Smokey with his head off, it would be the end of the world. There, I was zipped into the suit, which comes in five pieces: the two fur-covered shoebox feet, the pants (extra extra large jeans), the upper body, and the head. The jeans and upper body are NOT connected. This was important, because not having a sufficiently glorious gut to hold up the jeans, I found them suddenly around my ankles right before my first class. A lot of cinching of the belt and I was ready to go.

Next, the head. Unfortunately, the mechanism that holds the giant, wire-mesh-plastic-fakefur contraption in the right place on the wearer's head was a little broken. The head sat just barely wrong, so that when I looked straight, the head faced about four degrees to the right. This actually wasn't so bad, since the eye holes to see out of were a little too high and a little too far apart for my relatively small noggin. Because of that, I had to chose an eye and tilt the head so that I could see out of that hole. I chose the left, in keeping with the natural rightward tilt of Smokey's head. This left Smokey with a slightly cynical and perhaps a little creepy sideways look when he greeted children.

The suit does not ventilate well. Because of this and the added weight, I was hot and breathing harder than normal. So hard, sometimes, that I was worried that the kids could hear me wheezing from inside the suit when I stood behind them for class pictures. And if a kid ever hears the person inside the Smokey suit make a sound, once again, the world will end. This thought probably contributed to my wheezing.

The problem with the hands: the arms were just too long for me, and my hands only reached about a third of the way into Smokey's. I kept having to scrunch up the arms like you would an oversize sweater, which just does not help an already skeptical child's belief in the "reality" of Smokey Bear. Not to mention that when I waved, the last two thirds of Smokey's hands flopped side to side lifelessly, resulting in not a few widened eyes and dropped jaws from gullible six year olds.

Like I said, being encased in two inches of fake fur is quite hot. For much of the time between classes, I sat outside the school in a chair so that I could take advantage of the occasional breeze that could snake through the mesh of the eyes and nose. This meant I sat in front of a large, tinted mirror, in which I could see my reflection. So when I waved, a jean-clad brown bear waved back. At one point, I decided that I needed to take the head off or I might suffocate. I went back to the teacher's break room where had I changed, took the head off, decided I was still too hot, and proceeded to stick my head as far into the freezer as possible. Maria saw me and snapped a picture of Smokey with his head in the freezer... I'll upload it later.

Finally, the whole point of having someone in a Smokey suit is so that the kids can give him high fives and hugs. It's the highlight of the whole thing. There is a problem, however, when Smokey can't see whether the child approaching him wants a high five or a hug. The kids get into a rhythm of hugs and high fives, so that if one kid gives a hug, an untold number of kids behind him follow suit. However, when this rhythm changes, and Smokey can't see, we end up with Smokey awkwardly holding his arms wide in preparation for a "bear hug" and a confused child standing there with his hand out for a high five. Or the opposite, and worse, scenario, in which a child comes barreling in for a hug and Smokey sticks out his hand, which then collides with the child's face and leaves her at least a little dazed, if not on the floor.

Add this last thing to the flopping lifeless hands, the cynical sideways look, the wheezing, and the pants falling down, and I think you can sufficiently call my experience in the Smokey suit ridiculous.

But hey, maybe one of these kids will remember the day Smokey came to school, remember the things we taught them, and one day stop a fire and indirectly or directly save a life. Even just the possibility of that makes me not care about looking ridiculous. They can't see me anyway. Not that I am a person who never looks ridiculous. I'm pretty used to it.

Loss of vision does not equal loss of fun.

2010-03-10T16:37:00.000-08:00

Want to get a completely new perspective on life AND a workout at the same time? Want two days to go by so fast you can't believe it's Wednesday already?

Teach a blind kid how to cross-country ski!

That's what I've been doing for the past two days. I was paired with David Hammond, a completely blind student from Washington State School for the Blind. I got to help him ski around Teacup Sno-Park, and then helped lead a lesson on tree growth for him and the rest of the kids at night.

That kid is SO brave. I've tried closing my eyes and skiing before, and I get so anxious that I'm going to run into something that I lose my balance after about ten seconds. But after some practice, he just zipped down hills, singing the fight songs to every university on earth. Including "The Eyes of Texas" (which we decided is certainly creepy beyond belief).

Also, blind kids have good aim with snowballs. Don't make a sound or they will peg you in the face.

It must be a little nerve-wracking, coming into a situation you've never been in before, having contraptions strapped to your feet that you can't see, that make the ground slippery and that stick out to some untold distance in front of and behind you, and being told, "This is Hillary, she's going to help you learn to ski today." He doesn't know what I look like, whether I'm trustworthy or even if I know what I'm doing. Once again, such a brave kid.

And talk about a lesson in communication! Here's a typical few minutes on the track from the last two days:

Me: "Dave, I'm right here. Are you tired?"

Dave: "No, I want to go up again and then get hot chocolate."

Me: "Okay, come over here so we can get you in the tracks. Oh, your right ski is crossed on top of your left ski, so pick up the right ski... and then move the left one a little farther left so that you can keep turning to your left. There you go. Okay come towards me a few more feet... okay stop. Now you're diagonal on top of the tracks, and the fronts of your skis are off of the groomed part and in powder. I want you to turn your skis to your left so you are facing uphill so that we can get you in the track, but it might be hard because your tips are in powder. Keep going, a little more. Stop. Now step your right foot sideways. There you go. Now can you find the other track? You got it! Let's go!"

Dave: "Did I do really good?"

Me: "Definitely. And right now I can't keep up with you, you're going so fast."

Dave: "Are we going uphill now?"

Me: "Yup, we're about 100 yards from the top."

Dave: "What was that?"

Me: "That's Janet and Jackie coming down the hill in the opposite direction."

Dave: "HI JACKIE!!"

Jackie: "Hello, David."

Dave: "Are we at the top?"

Me: "Not yet."

Dave: "What was your mom's name again?"

Me: "She has two first names, Margaret and Jordan, but she goes by Jordan."

We continue talking about family, or music, or TV, or politics (the guy knows a lot) for a few minutes. Then we turn around to get in the track going downhill and then he makes me time him.

So basically, there was never ever down time. Did I mention the first day was 13 hours long and the second one started at 5:30am? I am tired.

Now I just got back from a Master Recycling class (my choice) that I barely stayed awake through and now I'm going to sleep.

Oh, I hiked and climbed and hung out with people this weekend. Same as usual. Oh, and I've been in the paper twice since Sunday. Crazy. That is all.

That's me in the back carrying his jacket, and with the giant glasses (which helped some partially sighted kids recognize me)

2010-02-19T17:19:00.000-08:00

I've been at my job for more than a month now, and I'm starting to like it more than I thought I would. I didn't really think that I would enjoy teaching in a classroom, but I've done it about six times now and I'm starting to get the hang of it. I still wouldn't want to be a full-time, one-class teacher, but it's nice to get the kids about environmental stuff when I get to leave them in their teacher's hands after in 45 minutes. So far I've brought in animal pelts and skulls, planted seeds and talked about soil, and played water-cycle and water conservation games.

Besides that, I'm in the process of planning a fishing day where kids and their parents come out to fish at a stocked lake and there are stations for things like fish painting, a casting contest, and aquatic invertebrate searches (so creepy crawlies in the water). Plus there's free food. It's pretty cool, but it's a huge project and I'm learning a lot while organizing it.

I'm also trying to get a field trip together and a trails project, as well as an invasive species early detection training/group. This is all on top of other things people have me doing.

Oh, and for my personal CAP project, I'm trying to organize a community garden in Dufur. Since I've never had a garden in my life, this is going to be a daunting task! But it's fun.

Anyway, that's all work... on the personal side, I've done a lot of hiking and fun stuff on the weekends. I hiked the rest of the Siouxon with Wayne and Chris, went cross-country skiing for the first time with some people (that was AWESOME!), and then sort of half-assed an attempt up Mt. Saint Helens on the weekend that a dude died in the crater... we turned back, because we weren't really expecting to get up there. Now tomorrow, Astoria and the coast!! Woo!

You can click on the pictures to see them bigger

2010-01-27T17:23:00.000-08:00

Why do I love the Columbia Gorge? Oh, you know...

Because it's freaking gorgeous! And every view is different... Unfortunately, I didn't take these pictures, but these are basically what I see when I drive in the Gorge. Whenever I want to. And that's just part of the reason I came back up here. :)

Anyway, my work is picking up. I've already gotten a bunch of lesson plans prepared and a couple of appointments with teachers to lead classes. I'm really glad I tried student teaching at UT, or I would be totally unprepared. Anyway, I hope this goes well.

I really like my coworkers... it's just too bad my supervisor literally has only been in Dufur for a total of about two hours since I've been here. So I've basically been figuring out everything by myself. Most of the other days it has been office work, getting prepared for the year and organizing events. Today, though, I got a little bit of a break - I went on a scavenger hunt put together by my supervisor. I explored Wasco county, where I work. So, a little bit about Wasco county: it used to include most of Oregon, as well as a couple of other states, all the way over to Montana. Now it's just part of north central Oregon.

This weekend I went to a little retreat put on by the Mt. St. Helens Institute. It was about winter survival skills - staying warm and dry, avalanche beacon training, the like. Chris pretty much fits the description of the person most likely to get in an accident (25-32 year old male who does crazy stuff sometimes), so I kept telling him not to die. The next day, he had to lead a snow-shoe hike for the Institute, so I went to the Siouxon Trailhead and hiked here:

Yeah, those are my pictures.

Anyway, I was soaking wet after 6 easy miles, so I came home thinking Chris would be home soon, so we could eat together before I had to drive home. He never came home, and I finally left hoping his thing ran really late and that he wasn't dead in an avalanche somewhere. Turns out he got in a near head-on car crash with a drunk driver an hour and a half before I even got home, and the police didn't send his cell phone with him in the ambulance. Somehow, he got away with about 17 or 20 stitches in his face, a big red/blue swollen eye, and some soreness, but the police expected from the wreckage that he should have at least a few broken bones... or worse. I brought him back to my place to make sure he was around somebody in case of a concussion, but he seems to be doing fine.

So, that was my/Chris's big exciting story for the weekend. Now I'm probably going to be spending a lot of time around St. Helens, because Chris no longer has his awesome car:

The Blue Dragon. Sad face... But I'm just happy Chris is alive.

Alright, well, I've got cleaning to do after my amazing dinner that I just cooked. :)

2010-01-19T19:24:00.000-08:00

Ask not what Dufur can do for you, but what you can do for Dufur.

My sponsor, David Gross, has been here in Dufur for about 45 years - since his freshman year in college - and he says that saying's been around for a long time. I guess he's right, since it seems like everyone knows it. I've heard it about thirty times since arriving in the Columbia Gorge last Monday.

I get it, I'm here for service. :)

Anyway, all the interns left the MAC today for our individual terms of service. I met my sponsor for the first time today (everyone else met theirs last Friday). I'm relieved to find that he seems like a great man, with lots of knowledge and experience and a steady personality to boot. He even offered to teach me to drive a stick!

Now I'm taking a break from moving into my bunkhouse. This is NOT what I was expecting. Forest Service bunkhouses, to me, are small, linoleum-floored buildings with the living room and kitchen in the same room, a bathroom with four sinks, two toilets and two nasty showers, and a sleeping area attached to the living/kitchen area with no doors and only portable cubicle walls. In my bunkhouse, I have a master suite, with my own bathroom and a closet the size of my first apartment's bedroom. I have not one, but two dining room tables, a fully equipped kitchen (blender! coffee maker! sharp knives! a pot and pan set! two refrigerators!), three couches and a television. I have an exercise machine. I have an ancient pair of snowshoes. oh, yeah... I have two other bedrooms and another bathroom. What the hell am I supposed to do with all this space?

Not to mention the fact that I have never lived alone in my entire life. I have this huge house all to myself when I'm used to sharing a room with two other girls. Seriously, what do people do when they live alone? I feel like my voice will turn all croaky from lack of use.

Okay that's not true. I work with about ten other people in a building about thirty feet away from where I am now. I'll be working with volunteers. So all day, I'll be talkingtalkingtalking.

But when I come home, then what? There were 588 people living in Dufur in the 2000 census, and the median age is 60. Are there people in this town that I can even invite over, or who will invite me over? Will I have friends whose permanent address is in Dufur, OR? Or will I have to go to The Dalles? Will this just be an exercise in independence? Or loneliness?

So many things I've never had to do before or haven't done in a long time... Figure out what to do for recycling. Remember to leave the taps on when it might freeze. Play my music loud and not worry about it annoying my roommates. Shop and cook for one. Leave my house when I want to see another person.

Alright, now I'm just putting off unpacking.

New Year, Same MAC

2010-01-13T22:12:00.000-08:00

It appears my involvement with last year's blog followed basically the same graph as my involvement with my blog in Turkey... first I was excited about telling everyone all the amazing things that happened, and then life happened, and I didn't have time to sit around talking to nobody on the internet.

The rest of the season was great. It got cold in September, and we ended up being snowed on during our last eight-day. By the end of the season, I was climbing all the time and doing big hikes every weekend, and was feeling great. Then, winter started, the program ended, and I spent three months sitting either in a car, on a couch, in a hammock, or on the beach. Now I am ready to get started exploring again!

After the season ended, my boyfriend Chris and I went on what basically turned into a three-month-long road trip that started in Trout Lake, Washington and ended in Trout Lake, Washington. Chris did the same thing I did last summer, but in 2008. Then he got hired on in the same area by the Forest Service, and lived on the other side of the tree swing in my front yard in Ardenvoir last year. We started dating in August and by then had already decided to go to Mexico. So, when the program was over, we packed up my little Chevy Cobalt, made a stop to climb Mt. St. Helens, and then headed south. Our itinerary included Bend, OR, Crater Lake, the Redwoods, my teammate Lindsay's house in Davis, California (where we learned to pick and make oil out of olives), Yosemite, then Palo Alto to see Lindsay Mac right before her job interview with Google, then Danville to see my aunt and uncle and leave my car at their house to fly to Mexico for 2 and a half weeks. My leader Wayne and teammate Lindsay, as well as a couple of Chris's friends from his home in Michigan, came and stayed for different periods of time, and that was great.

After that, we flew back to CA and drove to TX, where I basically sat around and whined about some parasite I'd picked up, and Chris flew back to Michigan for Christmas. I visited some friends in Austin, met my seventeen-year-old half-sister for the first time (long story), and eventually headed to Michigan to pick Chris up. From Michigan, we drove to St. Louis to visit a good friend of Chris's, and then to Denver and Breckenridge to ski and visit more friends, made a short stop in Arches National Park in Utah, and then came up here to start a new year with the Northwest Service Academy.

I breeze through all that because if I tried to describe it all, it would take hours.

Anyway, now I'm starting an 11-month-long Americorps NWSA internship with the Forest Service in a town south of The Dalles, OR. It's just on the dry side of the razor's edge that divides the dry, high-desert of the east side of the Cascades from the wet rainforesty west side. One day, I'd love to live in the rain. For now, I'll spend the year falling in love with Dufur, hopefully. How could you not love a town called Dufur?

Oh, and I'll let you know what I'm actually doing when I find out.

Anyway, now Chris (who also has an internship based out of the NWSA, but with the Mt. St. Helens Institute) and I, as well as my team leader Wayne, are back at the MAC for training. I miss my people with a passion. With this program, the dynamic is way different, since we're all placed individually and really have little incentive to bond as a team. It's also a little more professional, and the people a little older. Wayne, Chris and I also have a little bit more responsibility than the rest of the bunch since we know the MAC, so we have to do things like drive the rigs and lead clean-up crews before and after meals.

I kind of like having people I know here, but at the same time I miss being a completely unknown entity to everyone at first. I kind of wish I had that fresh start. But it's okay, this will work out too.

Anyway, it's late and I'm tired.

Ah sorry it's been such a long time

2009-08-15T16:44:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-07-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-12T17:43:00.000-07:00

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'

2009-07-05T12:27:00.001-07:00

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!

2009-06-24T17:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-14T14:59:00.001-07:00

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...

2009-06-14T14:58:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-01-09T07:16:00.001-08:00

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!

2009-01-06T15:40:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-01-03T11:32:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-02T11:03:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-01T15:26:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-12-29T14:18:00.000-08:00

I made it!

It felt like it took forever to get here. I got bumped up to first class on my flight to Atlanta, which meant talking to the rich girl beside me and the sassy flight attendant for most of the flight - and free booze! I picked champagne. I felt like it was appropriate. That was the best the trip over got, though. The flight from Atlanta got delayed, of course, so I missed my flight out of Manchester and had to wait five hours in what's got to be the most depressing airport in a first-world country - all screaming kids (the British have the most annoying screamers, in my opinion), duty free stores and neon restaurant signs. I set the alarm on my new Ipod, and fell asleep in the waiting area. I woke up an hour and a half later so afraid that I'd missed my flight again because the alarm had been going off for thirty minutes but wasn't loud enough to wake me - I was out so hard I was probably snoring. Luckily, I caught my THY flight and got my first taste of Turkey. Literally. Olives and beyaz peynir and vişne suyu and hazelnuts (which Turkey promotes now with the advertising slogan "THE MIRACLE NUT COMES FROM TURKEY"). I was smiling so big at the back of the seat in front of me that the guy next to me actually asked me what I was smiling about.

I got to the airport and walked out to a sea of mustaches and head scarves and searching eyes. Apparently five people were expected back from Mecca tonight, and their entire families came to greet them at the airport, filling up the whole terminal. I watched them greet their families from the Vodafone store, where I bought minutes and charged my phone and got made fun of by the guys working there for 1) being American, 2) being from Texas, and 3) holding a pen weird. Whatever.

I got to my hostel and went out to get food at about 12:30 a.m. - which I knew was risky, but I was starving! I immediately got harassed by some dude, and then an American came and got me out of the situation and then came with me to dinner - because the Turkish dude was still following us when I got to where I wanted to eat! This guy had been traveling for three months, and was on his way to Egypt after this. He's been all over... so interesting.

I slept late today, and then spent the day buying souvenirs for friends and family and exploring the Bazaar District, getting buyuruned left and right - and then hello'd and bonjoured and hola'd and everything else. I bargained! I was not shy about it either. Those guys don't need to eat, right Mom? Anyway, the shopkeepers were impressed by my Turkish (it comes back so quick). I in turn was impressed by the ten billion other languages they know enough to use to sell.

Then I caught the ferry over to Haydarpaşa to buy my train ticket for tomorrow night. I stopped and sat where my friends and I got tipsy waiting for our train in May. I've been trying not to do things like that - thinking, oh, this is where we... - because I want to make new memories and not be focused on the past. But that was such a nice night, drinking rakı on the steps of Haydarpaşa station, staring at the Golden Horn and the curvy skyline of Istanbul (and that giant weird ball-thing), that it was good to remember.

When I got back to the hostel, a group of Germans was going out to eat, and they invited me with them. They were stopping through in Istanbul for New Year's on their way to Ethiopia. They were tons of fun! We talked about everything, and drank rakı, rakı, rakı. I am continually impressed by the quality of the English of every German I meet. It's funny, though, that whenever foreigners talk to Americans, they want to talk politics.

Now, I'm sitting at the little table in my hostel, where I don't think one surface isn't painted some bright color, and I'm struggling to get it into my head that 1. I'm in Turkey! and 2. I actually did leave for quite a bit of time. Number 1, really, is different from the whole, oh I'm in a new place shock thing. It's something I had a problem with in May. I think it has something to do with how at home I feel here, how I have to remind myself that I'm actually in a foreign country, that I should be soaking in every minute of it. When I called my friend today, I told him I was going home tomorrow night, by which I meant Ankara, but which he took (like any normal person) to mean America. Number 2 is more of that. It feels like the last six or seven months never happened, and I never left. Except that I'm (just a little) older and a lot wiser.

Istiklal is still here, still brought to you by Turkcell, and still crowded and dirty as ever. The same men still sell mussels, or steaming chestnuts, or lottery tickets off spinning wheels, only now they're wearing more clothes, because it's snowing (it was so cold in the Tünel that we could see our breath as strong as if we were puffing on cigarettes). The women's hair is still perfectly coiffed, with a few bottle-blonde and bright reds mixed in. The Bosphorus still shines and men with long fishing poles and buckets of smelly live bait still line its bridges. And I am still in love with it all.

Especially the food! Oh my gosh! So much for no appetite! So far, I've had olives, vişne suyu, ayran, salep, gözleme, kıymalı pide, some meat dish with potatoes and peas, mercimek çorbası, pılaf, ve salata. Even the salads are amazing.

Alright, it's time to sleep. More from Ankara, probably.

2008-12-21T00:32:00.000-08:00

It's 2:36 am and I'm not asleep yet. I could be, but I remembered this blog. I'm sure nobody checks it anymore. I don't care.

I've gone through a lot lately, and now that I finally see where I need to be heading, I've been thinking about Turkey a lot and the person I grew to be there. I don't know if everyone has such a deeply personal experience on study abroad trips - I suppose they do, and that's why they're so popular. But the beauty of personal experiences is that even if everyone has one, they'll always be unique for each person. To me, it felt like more than a study abroad trip.

I'm going back a week from today. Through hard work and a series of fortunate events, I got the opportunity to do research for my thesis over the break, paid for by Plan II.

I've been having very vivid memories of certain times in Turkey for about a month now. Memories of my time there were never really that suppressed, but they had died down when my semester got crazy (and this semester has been the most stressful I have ever had, hands down). But lately, they've been coming unbidden, usually when I get a couple of minutes to myself. They're the kind of daydreams that end with a shock when I realize I'm not actually there. For some reason, the most vivid have been of bus rides in the East, Selçuk, the Kale in Ankara, or my home.

I close my eyes, and the next thing I see is the sun peeking out from behind tall blue curtains, my friends sitting close in the seat in front of me, debating whether this Turkish saying means this or that. I see the young, scrawny and slightly sweaty attendant on the bus passing by with a tray of Nescafe, tea bags and chocolate cake in plastic wrappers, Lake Van out the window glistening bright blue. I see women and their children dressed in mismatched, baggy, flowered layers, their heads covered, beating their carpets in a stream between two bare hills. I see flocks of sheep roaming plains that seem to go on forever. I count the minarets of mosques in villages.

Or I see all of Ankara spread out in front of me, my legs dangling from a centuries-old castle over a narrow cobblestone street, the sun setting in clouds over a city where probably a quarter of the people are drinking tea at that exact moment.

Or I'm laying in a field of flowers under a ridiculously beautiful tree. I can still taste the cheese, coarse bread, olives and fruit wine that was our picnic and I'm laughing, because my friends are eating the carpet of flowers for dessert. I'm tired, because it's the last day of our trip, but I don't want it to end. Snippets of Turkish rise from the village over the hill, and I can understand some of the language that weeks earlier seemed so foreign.

Really, though, what I got out of being there was not so much a file of memories that I can pull out when I need a diversion, but a new sense of myself. It was the first time that I really experienced being me, myself, and being happy with that, not wishing that I was this, or that. Not wishing I could be more... or be less... or be here, or there, or with this person, or away from that person. Not waiting for this, or that. I knew that I was who I was, and that was who I needed to be, and that although I may change over time, I was always going to be myself, and that that was enough.

There were times this semester that I missed Turkey desperately. Partly because it was so fun and there was so little responsibility besides keeping myself alive and not lost, but really because I missed feeling how I felt about myself there. Now I see that I don't need Turkey to feel that way about myself. I'm working on it. But I know that just because I'm a work in progress doesn't mean I'm not a whole, complete person right here and right now.

2008-03-27T09:18:00.001-07:00

Alright, nothing really worth talking about has happened lately, aside from the trip to Kapadokya, but I've already been there and we didn't do much that I didn't do last summer. The salt lake was full on the way, which was different. We walked out a little peninsula thing and I got water on my shoes, and I didn't wash it off fast enough so it ate through the leather - not enough to make them unwearable, but it's definitely not a good thing. We did go to "Turkish night" where we danced and watched traditional dances and stuff. Lots of stuff was in caves, like last summer. I dunno, I don't really want to replay everything. Underground cities, fairy towers, cave churches, pottery, carpets, onyx, Haci Bektash, blah blah, all the touristy things.

This weekend we're going to Ephesus - I'm leaving tonight, and coming back Monday night/Tuesday morning. We kinda made our director mad by planning on skipping a lecture. I don't really care. It's one lecture. I'm excited!

I guess I'll post something I wrote last night while I should have been sleeping. I realized I haven't really written in years, and doing this felt good. Yay. Okay, here you go!

Yesterday I found myself in an almost involuntary search for a bathing suit. I spent an hour and a half looking all over in the small part I know of Ankara, the capitol city of a predominantly Muslim (although progressive) country, for the one thing I am probably least likely to find. The search was productive, although I ended up still swimsuit-less in the end. I realized two things while I was out, digging my hands deep into my pockets to fight the oncoming cold front.

The first - and this is the reason for my search - was that I really miss swimming. Lately, my substitute has been the gym, with my IPod to combat the monotony of the machines. Before that, in Austin, I ran. Running almost satisfies me sometimes, but the jarring of my feet against the pavement, the passing cars, and the ever-present thought of my route never really allow me to think. I miss the rare grace I have when I swim -- the feeling of my hands slicing the surface, the bubbling of water across my ears, my muscles knotting against each other and pulling against the water, the propulsion I get from so little work, it seems. Its not even something I'm really proud of; pride in something implies effort to master it. It's just something that feels right.

When I'm moving through the water, I can think with lucidity. A little burst of adrenaline hits when I replay a conversation in which I misspoke or misunderstood, my arms pull harder against the water, I kick off a little quicker from the wall. I smile at a funny phrase or the memory of a happy moment, and taste cold chlorine through my teeth. In the water, God speaks and I truly listen. Sometimes we fight, but in the water it's the fight of a daughter against her loving father, not of a lonely girl against some invisible idea of a God. Things become as clear as what I'm gliding through.

The second realization was that some of my most meaningful moments in Turkish have been when I was alone. I love my friends and family here, don't misunderstand. We have some funny moments and some awe-inspiring ones, and probably the times when I am happiest are spent with them. But as I stood in the grand courtyard of Kocatepe Mosque, in this country whose language still feels like molasses in my mouth, a few drops of rain began to fall on my face. The setting sun still shone, unobscured by the black rain clouds on the horizon - my favorite kind of weather. I stood, despite the beginning rain, just staring at the two giants - the mosque and the thunderstorm - and was blown away by the world's vastness. When I'm around people, I focus on them, and I miss experiences like this. I guess both ways I'm gaining something. Why worry about how to better spend my time, when I've got all my life to both connect with people and to be alone?

Sometimes while I've been here, I feel like I've been sliding backwards, wiping out the progress I've made in the last year. But I realized that no matter what I'm doing, I'm learning. When I'm walking alone through the streets of Turkey, comforting a hurting soul or being comforted, climbing a mountain, in a cave, on the minibus, in a plane, talking to an old friend, laughing, planning, remembering, I'm still learning, working my way through things. So maybe in order to move forwards, I have to fall back.

2008-03-13T16:02:00.000-07:00

So, second post. I've been wanting to do this one for a while.

Things I miss about America:

Friends/family

Hot water from the tap

Drinkable water from the tap

Sushi

Cajun food

Mexican food

My comfy bed

Bathtubs, although I hardly ever take baths

Effortless communication with people I need things from

It NOT taking an hour to get anywhere

Being able to go see a good movie at the cinema easily

Large bodies of water inside/right next to the city

The abundance of trees

Things I love about Turkey, and will miss when I go home:

EVERYTHING ELSE, especially

My host family

Visne suyu/recel

ekmek

baklava

that sesame dessert my family buys me cuz they know I love it

hearing the language every day

the niceness of the people in general

wearing slippers at home

cay

making/hearing funny language mistakes

the ability to go to the hamam

traveling almost every weekend

my little room

cheap, abundant fruit

...and plenty of other things that I can't think of right now.

2008-03-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

Ahh, sorry it's been a while, it's kinda been busy/I've been lazy.

So, last weekend Dan, Sina, Claire, Austin, and I went to Amasra, which is this little city on the Black Sea. It was sooo beautiful, and so nice to see the sea again after Ankara. I miss large bodies of water! Anyway, we were given a lot of advice of what to do while we were there, but the piece we heard the most was "eat fish!"

We decided to go on Wednesday, got our tickets on Thursday, and left on Friday. We took the bus, and instead of it taking us straight to Amasra like we thought, it dropped us off in this little town thirty minutes away from Amasra, and then we had to take a series of dolmuses to the town itself at 12:30 in the morning. It was interesting. We found one of the pansiyons I had researched and talked the guy down from 25 YTL to 20 a night. The pansiyon was so cute - very brightly colored, and from the girls' room we had a view of the sea. It was also attached to a patisserie - so we had really good baklava both days. Also, it was about 20 feet from a mosque. I remember being woken up by the muezzin before dawn.

The next morning we woke up at 7:30 to go explore. The town is deserted at this time of the year, so we had it all to ourselves, but we also got stared at a lot. We met a woman who spoke no English but almost fluent German, and Sina just happens to be German and so she got us breakfast. We explored the kale area, climbed things we probably shouldn't have climbed, and went into holes we probably shouldn't have gone into. No one got hurt, though, so it's all good. Then, Claire decided she really wanted to climb the island that half of the city is built on. So we climbed to the top of the cliff and played around and relaxed for a while. Then we played around/bouldered/went swimming in the Black Sea, which is actually unpleasantly cold this time of year, and probably always. Then, lunch time! We had mezgit - probably the most amazing fish I've ever had. They were small and fried and we ate them whole, because the crispy outside made you not notice the bones. Then we walked around some more, just basically enjoying the relaxed feel of the place, and the sea, and the baklava. Then, some narghile, manti, gozleme, a beer, some exchanging of life stories and further bonding, and sleep.

We had been told that we would get bored in Amasra and so we should go visit Safranbolu. So, the next morning we hopped on a "bus" - a mini-dolmus, really - for the 1 1/2 hour ride to Safranbolu. This town is known for its well preserved Ottoman architecture, and the saffron which gives the city its name. And that's pretty much all it was. We walked around, visited the pazar, did some shopping, had some cay, and then we were like, okay, not much to do here. It was really cute and I'm glad we went, and I bought some cool stuff at the pazar, but seriously, I think you'd get bored more easily in Safranbolu than in Amasra. So, we got on the bus back home.

So, that was my weekend, and this week has mostly just been school and the gym and relaxing with my family, until last night. We went to If - this music venue - to see this clarinet player that Claire said was amazing and she'd heard in the states. He was amazing, and it was really fun, but the concert started at 12:30 and didn't end til 3:15, so we crashed at Austin's host family's house (they were SO nice), and then today I was really tired for the 7 HOURS OF CLASS that makes up my Thursdays. Then I took a one hour nap that lasted for 5 hours, and now I'm up, and my sleep schedule is probably screwed again for a while.

Tomorrow, we leave for KAPADOKYA! My favorite place ever. We're not staying in a cave hotel, so I'm a little bummed about that. But I really want to go back, so maybe next time. Yay! Okay done!

Alright

2008-03-04T14:53:00.000-08:00

Tonight was fun. The electricity goes off at twelve, while Gozde is in the shower. So the house goes dark and the TV goes off and both me and my host mom start laughing and asking Gozde if she's alright, who comes out all wet with soap still in her hair. We try to flip the breakers, using my computer as a flashlight, since they don't have one and mine's in my suitcase somewhere. Flipping the breakers doesn't do anything, so they decide it's something to do with some device on the wall out in the hall. We call the neighbors, because one of them might know what to do. She brings some copper wire, and fiddles around with the little device, while I dance around in the hallway so the motion detecting lights don't go off. But something doesn't reach, so they ask me if I have any American copper money. I go to my suitcase and take out a penny, the neighbor plops the penny into the device, then screws the device back into the wall, we flip the breakers, and Let There Be Light!

Moral: Always keep your laptop charged, and a penny on hand. Oh, and don't be afraid to dance even when there's no music.

2008-03-02T10:27:00.000-08:00

So, mostly culturally uneventful week, except two things, really.

First, yesterday, Claire, Teresa, John, Austin, Dan and I went to a hamam. We were given directions by our friends who had been there last week, and told to be prepared to get naked. The directions were as good as they could be considering the hamam was on a "shady" back street in Ulus, the old, awesome but confusing part of town. Finally, after being stared at a lot and asking for two or three sets of directions, we found it. It wasn't a touristy hamam, so the boys and girls went our separate ways. We went in to the outer room where we stood around looking confused for a while before they directed us to our changing room, and then gave us these sweet wooden geisha sandals and directed into the inside part. Inside everything was grey marble, with faucets pouring into marble basins for us to do some preliminary washing. The ceiling was vaulted with domes that had maybe eight or ten skylights shaped like six- or seven-pointed stars - so beautiful. At some of the basins were other women, some our age and size but most magnificently large, mostly naked women - they were beautiful in such a natural way. They reminded me of the little mother goddess statues at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.

Then, we hung out in the sauna for a little while before the woman called for us. She scrubbed so much with this exfoliating glove that the top layer of my skin pilled up and formed little rolls. Then, a quick massage and rinsing and soap and I was done. Afterwards, my skin was so smooth that when I sat down and tried to rest my elbows on my knees, they kept sliding off. Afterwards, we were all so relaxed that we all hardly talked while eating lunch - at a kebap place called Kebabistan.

Then, today I went to church with Joseph and John. On the way in, they swiped us with metal detectors - not something I'm used to when going to a church. After that though, everything was so familiar, I almost forgot I was in Turkey - except that we sang some of the songs in Turkish, and some in a mix of Turkish and English. Prayer was in all different languages - Turkish, Persian, English, Korean... So cool! Kids were running around everywhere, and nowhere have I seen so many gorgeous children in one place. I went out to lunch with the lady who runs the child care, and hung out with her four-year-old daughter, who kept asking if I was going to come to her house afterwards :). The woman said if I was going to be here in a few weekends, she'd love to have some help. In the end, I'm going to be helping out with the kids on a substitute basis when I'm in town. So quick!

Anyway, now I'm home and we're gonna go eat pudding at the neighbors in a minute. I was supposed to hang out with Ufuk and Co. tonight, but Ufuk woke up with a cold she caught from little Hande, so that's put off until later. I hope she feels better. Today was a gross day - being sick right now would really suck.

One thing I'm kinda bummed about is that my Turkish hasn't gotten that much better in the last week, partially because we haven't learned anything in class. Most of it's my fault, though. I haven't really been trying.

Well, I think I'm going to Adana this weekend, so more after that probably!

2008-02-26T04:12:00.001-08:00

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.

2008-02-14T14:31:00.000-08:00

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."

2008-02-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

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!!

2008-02-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-02-06T01:56:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-01-28T21:44:00.000-08:00

Corpus is much too small. I decided this today while Mom and I were trying to find a place to sushi and we realized there are only three or four places we trust. I wish I could have spent more of my time in Austin, although I know it was God's timing.

I haven't even started packing yet. Oh lordy.

T-minus two weeks

2008-01-16T09:48:00.000-08:00

If I get into the habit of posting, this will be the way I keep friends and family updated while I'm off in Ankara for the semester.

"Wait, aren't you supposed to be in Turkey?" If I had a nickel... At least they say it with smiles on their faces and not like I'm a disease they could have sworn they got the vaccine for. :)

Coming back to Austin for these two weeks has been comforting. As time goes on and I get to know the people I've chosen to be friends with in the last year, I love them more and more. I'm not sad to be leaving, but I'm definitely happy that I have such love to come back to.

This is the conversation my brain has with itself whenever I think about Turkey:

"Oh my God, I'm leaving to go live with a family I don't know in a Middle-Eastern country where I know three people (one of whom is five) and speak about six words of the language! What was I thinking?!"

"Hillary, shut up. It'll be fun."

"Oh, okay."