Egirdir, Isparta, and Fethiye - Summer Installment #2

The next day, we drove to Turkey's Lake District. Egirdir is Turkey's 2nd largest freshwater lake. We drove out onto a little peninsula to sit at a restaurant and eat fried fish. Each town in Turkey is known for one food item and everyone knows it: Amasya is apples, Isparta is rosewater, and Egirdir is fried fish. Similar-looking to Flathead lake, but not as cozy and welcoming as Big Fork (the pastel-painted high rises kind of kill that cute laketown feel upon first driving in).





After Egirdir, we drove through the most fertile part of Turkey, where most of the produce is grown. We stopped at a local farmer's market along the road to buy fresh apricots, almonds, cherries, and thyme.

We drove through Turkey's most fertile agriculture area, and stopped by a few farmers' stands to by shelled almonds, fresh apricots, cherries, and thyme.

We stayed in Isparta that night, the largest town in the District. It was in Isparta that we got lots of male attention for parallel parking, we drank tea and played backgammon in an alcohol-less "bar," and we heard about Michael Jackson's death from a hotel consierge with bad English and even worse teeth.

That night's stop was Fethiye, a favorite resort town on the Turquoise Coast inhabited by many Brits and ex-pats/



When we reached Fethiye, we followed signs for Koya Koyu: a ghost village from the population exchange followind WWI, in which the Greeks living in Turkey were exchanged for the Turks living in Greece in a preventative measure against further bloodshed. An old church with paths of black and white pebbles and sunlight streaming in were made more beautiful by the fact that no one has tried to renovate this site since its inhabitants left.





Dinner was one of my best Turkish meal experiences yet: squash flowers stuffed with cinnamon and rice, and chicken rolled in almonds and oranges- set to the backdrop of the abandoned village and alpine glow.




That night, we stayed with my friends Annie and Mark, who have relocated from Ankara to Fethiye with their baby girl, Annalisa. We had a yummy English breakfast the next morning (what a treat), and by midafternoon, met up with Stacy and Liam and the Bluecruise gang to board our yacht for the next four days' adventure!

Istanbul and Konya with Rachel- Summer Installment #1

I kicked off my summer with my friend, Rachel, from Montana arriving in Istanbul the day after our last day of school. I hopped an overnight train to Istanbul and headed straight to the airport, where I recognized approximately 34 Rachel-look-alikes before realizing that something was up....Rachel was not coming out of passport control. Turns out her flight arrived 7 hours late, without luggage. We opted to stay an extra day in Istanbul (to wait for the luggage to arrive), which was good because we could see a few more things in the Sultanahmet at a slower pace, but not good because we had to skip Cappadoccia in revising the rest of our time in Turkey.

On our first day in Istanbul, we stayed in the Sultanahmet to see the Blue Mosque and Topakli’s Palace... Wow! The harem situation was out of control! Check out these pics:




We met my former couchsurfer, Cully, for lunch and then went back to her couchsurfer friend, Eda’s house for Turkish coffee. Cully and Eda, who had researched coffeegrind fortunetelling on google, gave a thorough reading of our futures.



Then, we took ferries all over the Bosphorous, sorting out the train ticket situation.

Finally, out to dinner in a cute Taksim alleyway restaurant with some teacher-friends on their way out of Turkey for a new international teaching job elsewhere.


The next morning, we checked out the Roman cistern underneath the Sultanahmet.

That's two football fields in size, and supplied water for the whole city in 500AD.


We wandered around the shops, with a short visit in a kilim shop, listening to the carpetman’s spiel on his carpets. His cat, Sultana, had one green and one blue eye. And of course, we kept track of the best pick-up lines: “My uncle will marry!” “Not as beautiful as you, but, yes, it is beautiful.”


I felt exhausted during this leg of the trip, still decompressing from school (I don't think I have yet slowed down to decompress from school and it's August).


We then took the train back to Ankara, slept a night, and left the next morning for our southern Turkey roadtrip.

First stop, Konya. The Whirling Dervishes Museum. The first place I’ve been to where the tourists are Turks. It's a bit of a Muslim mecca. The room where the sema used to take place (the whirling dance which brings on an altered state of consciousnessness in which Allah spreads his love and joy through the dancers to the earth where it then spreads to humanity) now holds the tombs of Rumi (the Mevlani- main teacher/founder) and his entourage. The wall and ceiling paintings were brightly colored gorgeous designs, and the selcuk turquoise marked the minaret rising above the Sufi school. There was definitely a strong energy to this room. Turks stopped before Rumi’s tomb and closed their eyes to mutter prayers. Rachel asked a round man a question in English and the next thing we knew, we had acquired one of those self-made tourguides our guidebook warned against. Our first instance of getting ripped off.






That night, we stayed in a pension across from the mosque that was hot, loud, and smelly. We ate at a garden terrace restaurant looking down on Rumi’s monastery’s rose garden, which had been a rose garden for hundreds of years.





We walked around the open-aired market, an example of un-touristic life in a conservative town. Next pickup line: "Your Turkish is very good. You have a perfect Anatolian accent. Come to my office so I can show you my watercolors."

Rachel and I got more attention during our travels in towns like Konya than I have experienced my whole year in Turkey. This was the first time I was traveling without a male. And two women driving a car got some attention, too. (You should see the way that girl parallel parks! It's enough to make anyone stare in awe.)
All the stares can get pretty uncomfortable; you start to wonder if we are being disrespectful by not wearing headscarfs.... but definitely very aware at all times that you are a woman. We had this conversation many times on our trip- I’ve come to feel as though we are so different-looking that they are curious. And, culturally, staring is not as rude as it is in the U.S.

End of the Schoolyear

Tomorrow is the last day of school, and tomorrow evening, I hop on an overnight train to Istanbul where I will pick up my friend, Rachel from Montana, at the airport. Thus begins my summer.

Just a quick cliffnotes version of my summer plans: Rachel and I will spend a few days in Istanbul, then train back to Ankara. We will hop in my newly bought car and visit Cappadoccia, then drive down to Fethiye. There, we will stay with my friends, Mark and Annie, then meet up with Stacy, Liam, and their visiting friends for a Blue Cruise. That's 4 days and 3 nights on a small yacht in the Mediterranean.

Afterwards, Rachel and I will drive back to Ankara and fly to Italy. When we arrive in Italy, we will rent a car and drive into the Alps to visit my old friend, the goatfarmer. That's Michele, and I stayed/worked with him 4 summers ago when I toured Italy on my own through an organization called WWOOF (Worldwide Workers on Organic Farms). Afterwards, Rachel and I will visit Cinquaterra. Then she will fly back to the States, and I will train to Brunnenburg, Italy, in the Dolomites where I will embark on a 3 1/2 week graduate poetry course studying the works of Ezra Pound.

When I finish on Aug. 1, I will train to Munich, where my mother will meet me. She and I will tour Munich and Prague together, the focus being on visiting concentration camps (something we both want to do at some point in our lives). Then we will fly to Istanbul, and spend 2 weeks touring Turkey together. She will be here for my 30th birthday on August 21st, then she flies home, and I begin school! I will be in and out of internet touch but will hopefully update my blog here and there throughout the summer.

For now, I want to share some from the last month or so:

Firstly, I signed up with CouchSurfers this spring, and hosted my first surfer last month. For those of you that don't know about Couchsurfing, you MUST check out the website: www.couchsurfing.org. It is such a cool idea. In the meantime, here is a little blurb about it:

* The CouchSurfing community strives to do individual and collective parts to make the world a better place, and believe that the surfing of couches is a means to accomplish this goal. CouchSurfing isn't about the furniture- it's not just about finding free accommodations around the world - it's about participating in creating a better world.

* "CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding."

My first couchsurfer, Cully, was from North Carolina, but had been living/traveling in Istanbul for about a month, and plans on spending the whole summer in Turkey. She came on an awesome weekend, and I dragged her along on all our activities.


We took her to a hammam in Ulus, so right away we broke down walls by hanging out together half-naked. We got the full scrubdown, massage, and eyebrow plucking.


And out to lunch in Ulus. I love Ulus!


The next day, we took her to the Carrot Festival in Beypazarı.

Beypazarı is a quaint little town about an hour outside of Ankara known for its Ottoman architecture and silver jewelry. This was its annual Carrot Festival, celebrating the domestication of the yummy root vegetable. Freshly made carrot juice was only 50 cents a cup. We also ate carrot icecream, carrot Turkish delight, and bought carrot soap. The silver jewelry was all beautiful and reasonably priced, and so I felt too overwhelmed to buy anything. But I will be back with my mother in August, and she will clean out that town.






This time period has also been marked by farewell get-togethers. My friends Annie, Mark and their baby Annalisa, left Ankara for Fethiye, and so moved out of our apartment building. These are my climbing and yoga friends, so the climbing posse had a little BBQ outside our apartment. I will be visiting them in Fethiye this summer before embarking on the Blue Cruise.





Before Cully left Ankara (she was here for a week, but split her stay between me and another host), I hosted a beading party at my flat. I have been collecting beads from cool places I've visited in Turkey, but beads came out of the woodwork; everyone had been hoarding them. It was fun to see all the different styled bracelettes and necklaces people pulled out of their creativity. I couldn't help but notice the flair everyone's jewelry ended up with, probably influenced by Turkish clothing and jewelry. Big, bright, and unsymmetrical.


Lastly, it was Stacy's birthday this month. We celebrated in a few ways, starting with dinner at the Kitchenette in Gaziosmanspaşa...



...ending three days later with a progressive cocktail party in our apartments.

Tonight, we'll attend the end of the year staff BBQ, which includes speeches for all the leaving staff. I have to give one for Stacy. :( And so begins all the goodbyes. Seventeen teachers are leaving the high school this year. Big turnover. It will be so different here when I return in August. I hate that feeling of being left behind; usually I am the leave-behinder. But on the positive side, next year WILL be different, guaranteeing variety/change/spice. I am halfway through this crazy adventure, and I can't believe it. But watching all my friends deal with moving and saying goodbye to this place, I can honestly say I am glad I am not leaving right now. I am not done with Turkey yet. There is still so much to see and do.

Check in on the blog every once in awhile this summer for tales from Europe.

Eurovision

New to me, Eurovision is as popular in Europe as American Idol is in the U.S. Perhaps I didn't know this, because I haven't owned a TV in my adult life??
Well, anyway, for those of you that don't know what Eurovision is, it is a popsong competition between each country in Europe. Turkey won 4th place this year, and they're proud.
It is a BUPS tradition to throw a Eurovision party, in which each attendee picks a country at random, and has to dress like someone from that country and bring a food and drink from that country to share. I picked Portugal, so I dressed in a traditional folksy way, and brought Rose Wine and Grilled Tomato spread. We had the party in the nasty basement laundry room of one of our apartment buildings. The wine and food was spread out over the laundry machines. We borrowed a projector from school, and projected the streamed Eurovision show onto the white wall. When a country's song act began, the person representing that country had to pour their drink in everyone's cup, and you all had to finish it by the end of the song, before the next drink arrives. We drank a medley of wine, beer, G&Ts, raki, rum, etc. And unless you sat by the sink like me and were able to dump some of the drinks out, you got pretty silly and were in bed quite early. But the party started at 3pm, so bedtime was early, like 9pm.

You'll recognize Mother Teresa from Albania, a unibrowed man from Turkey, a dalmation from Croatia, a punk from the UK, a Hasidic Jew from Israel, Vlad (Count Dracula) from Romania, etc. You know, all the politically correct figures you'd naturally expect an international community to be sensitive enough to depict. :)