Greek Easter in Chios

For Greek Easter last year a sizable Fulbright group got together to go to Chios, Greece- an island which is 45 minutes away from Cesme, Turkey by ferry. Cesme is like Bodrum lite. There are beautiful sailboats, a fortress, and a vague insinuation of tourism, but generally speaking not much is going on. There are fairly frequent buses from Izmir to Cesme, although some of them don't stop at the main otogar/buyuk otogar in Izmir, so ask around. Chios is perhaps not the most beautiful of Greek islands, but it does boast windmills and sakiz (a sort of tasty tree resin flavoring which is hard to describe if you haven't tasted it).

What, I haven't convinced you to buy your tickets yet? Well, there is one incredibly important reason to go to Chios: the Greek Easter Rocket Battle. The origins and history of this battle are foggy, but the important thing to know about it is that every year, on Orthodox Easter, thousands upon thousands of homemade rockets are fired between two “warring” churches for hours on end. You, the spectator, stand in the middle of it all and try not to get set aflame by a rogue rocket. As our cab driver explained in an adorable Greek accent, “You go up-a the hill, you see the church on the left...it's gonna be dangerous you a-gonna see.” Once you arrive in the churchyard, rockets begin to ping off the chicken wire which protects the courtyard. Rockets make hail-like tapping sounds on the roof of the bombarded church. Rockets get lodged in trees and shrubs still spurting sparks. Rockets light up the night sky in truly stunning arcs of flying fire hazards. “A good year for this festival,” commented one of my friends, “is when like only 10 people are hurt, and none seriously.” The whole evening is fun, dangerous, and spiritual, all at once. What more can you ask for?

Please enjoy these blurry pictures, or better yet, try using “the Google” to find videos of this.

Looking back, looking forward

Where...where are all the pictures of Ataturk? Why is there blue on these flags? Yes, there is a little bit of reverse culture shock being back in America, but the word "shock" makes it sound so unpleasant. Rather, I'm just reminded that old habits die hard. Case in point: I'm in a cafe drinking a big old 12 ounce mug of coffee right now, not sipping from a dainty porcelain fincan. I'm wearing a tank top, and since I'm sitting down, my just-above-knee-length skirt is exposing my knees ever so lasciviously to the other cafe patrons, who are paying me absolutely no attention whatsoever.

There are benefits to being back in the good ol' US of A.

I feel that amongst the people who bother to pay attention to Turkey these days (that's not an accusation; there are a lot of countries worth paying attention to in the world), there is almost no grey area between love and hate. I am of the loving opinion; I heartily enjoyed Turkey despite all its foibles. Others I have recently sparked conversations with claim to hate Turkey despite all of its finer points. One such person from the latter group told me they don't think Turkey will ever "catch up" to the West, or modernize, or develop, or whatever buzzword is being used to describe going from where Turkey is to where it needs to be in its economic, political, and social realms. From my seat here in America, I can see more clearly that Turkey does have a very long road ahead. Then again, our republic is more than 200 years old, and Turkey's republican centennial is in 2023. So ask me again in another hundred years, I guess.

OK, that's more than enough vague generalizing for now. I still have some Turkish travel yarns I've yet to spin for this blog, so I'm going to keep posting, even though I'm no longer in that bewildering wilderness called Turkey. But while I've got you here- thanks for reading!

Eastern Adventures

The week after I gave my first exams I had another first...I took my first trip towards the east of Turkey. In fact, I ended up going almost as far east as one can possibly go before winding up in Iran (Doğubayazıt, Turkey). I visited not one, but two famous mountains, I went to churches built before America was even discovered, and I saw both sacred fish and a famous breed of cat (not in the same city, however). But I get ahead of myself. Even though this trip was only five days long (the week after midterms, students have what they call a "head vacation", or a week when they just ditch classes to go home and let their mothers do their laundry), it it was so jam-packed that it will take a couple of posts to do it justice. Without further ado...

Kahta and Mt. Nemrut
Mt. Nemrut is a darling of the Turkish tourism bureau. They simply love putting pictures of the ancient stone heads of uncertain origins on various propaganda. As a result, tourists such as myself are drawn to the top of this mountain they would probably otherwise not pay any heed to. One of the starting points for the ascent is the town of Kahta, which, I was later informed, is known as the “rip-off capital of Turkey” or somesuch by the guidebooks. My companions and I did not really get ripped off there, but Kahta, in mild terms, was not a favorable introduction to the East for me. (Happily other cities would prove better.) It is a man-dominated town and with a pervasive aura of utter depression. It wasn't long, though, before we were in a dolmuş speeding towards the base camp of Mt. Nemrut, with several stops to see ancient things in between. The countryside surrounding Mt. Nemrut is absolutely gorgeous (as is the east in general, as I would learn).

Possibly the sketchiest ferry I've ever seen. Possibly. For a few minutes I lived in fear that we were going to try to drive on to it.

This is the approach to Mt. Nemrut. You have to hire a driver to get even close to the mountain because it is so far away from the nearest towns. In any case, right before we got to this hill we were stopped by local gendarmes for a routine roadside ID check. Our driver, however, had no ID, no money, and no registration for the bus. He got out of our bus and slowly approached the gendarmes' van with a wry look in his eye as we all watched anxiously from within. Eventually we saw him laughing, and decided that this was probably not a good sign. He sauntered back to the bus and explained: "I used to be a firefighter in town. I would bring the water to the men. I told them, are you remembering me? I was bringing you the water. Maybe I don't bring you water any more. So they say to me, 'Yes, we remember, you can go.' Ha ha ha. Maybe I not bring them water, ha ha." So...our driver quite literally carried a lot of water in that town. He told us that story triumphantly about four more times during the day.

There they are, all majestic and whatnot. They were really cool but the climb was a bit snowy (i.e. treacherous). Also there is a chain in front of them so you can no longer get right up next to them, unlike what pictures of past tourists might have you believe.


Stay tuned for more Eastern Adventures!

Mevlana Land

Konya, the land of Mevlana (also known as Rumi), the land of a thousand mosques (ok so no one actually calls it that, but there are a lot of old famous mosques), Konya, the Citadel of Islam, the land of myth...and the land of legend. Konya is generally considered famous for two things: being the home of Mevlana, and a little something they like to call etli ekmek (literally, “bread with meat”). Anyone is welcome to continue to try and convince me that "etli ekmek" is not the same thing as lahmacun. In any case, I spent a little time in Konya a few weekends ago, along with a brief but comprehensive visit to the nearby Karaman (where two other Fulbright teachers hosted me).

Mevlana is known as "the Persian mystical poet" (pretty great epithet, right?). It was under his tutelage that the Sufi Order of Whirling Dervishes began, with their iconic ritual spinning dance. He is also incredibly well-known, as almost any Turk will point out to you, for having uttered the following regarding his order and by extension Konya:

Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, idolater, worshiper of fire,
Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.

So, I did has Mevlana commanded and visited the museum and his tomb (under the green dome you can see in the photo below) in Konya. (Aside: dervishes still perform in Konya, and the dance ceremony is called a sama, but they only do it there once a year, in December. There are a few dervish lodges elsewhere in Turkey where they perform more regularly. All dervish lodges are state funded and controlled.) As I was wandering around the museum, taking in various signs that made vaguely informative insinuations about what I was seeing, a Turkish man approached me and asked “English?” My subsequent nod led to two hours of him showing me the highlights of the museum and of Konya, a discussion of President Obama's potential reelection, and, of course, a new Facebook friendship. To top it all off he actually thanked me for the privilege of my English-speaking company. All I had to do to find a friend in Konya was to stand around and be American.

Kahve Falı

I had my coffee-ground fortune (faal, or maybe just fal; it's unclear) read for the first time a few nights ago at a friend's house. It was vague and amazing. The woman who performed this feat cracked me up but I had to be really grave and serious the whole time to avoid offending anyone.

Example:

"There is a man...with....a short neck.... and combed hair....DO YOU KNOW SUCH A MAN?"
"Um...yes, that one guy...."
"He will tell you...NEWS. It will be ok, do not worry about the news."
"Uh...ok."

I don't think there was too much lost in translation...because I don't think too much of note was actually said. She said I had a "bright star" though, which sounds pretty neat, and also that I looked very "natural" (literally- doğal).

Berlin ftw*

FUN FACT: That tower is 30,666 Rittersports high.

Recently I had the privilege of visiting Berlin for a Fulbright conference. How can I even begin to describe Berlin to you, dear readers? Let's try a visualization exercise.

First, imagine a sprawling city where none of the buildings are too high and every so often you encounter a narrow river. Then imagine some medieval architecture and some heavily graffiti-ed Soviet-style concrete blocks. Then, add the look, taste and texture of a beautifully frothy beer. Add a lot of hearty meat dishes but also some crazy-good pastries, some ice cream and edible imports like noodles and döner. Now top that all off with a black bear on its hind legs. That's kind of like Berlin in a nutshell.

As I was taking my leave of that fine city, I figured out what so captivated me about Berlin. First, I find the German language adorable (that's right, adorable. As in cute. Seriously listen to someone say “flughafen” and try not to think “awww”). Second, I like Germans. They're known for being shy and punctual and they love a good beer (and I can relate to at least the first and third parts). Third, Berlin has little pieces of other cultures I enjoy (there is a not insignificant amount of Turks there) added to its own vibrancy. Actually, maybe it could just be that I have a thing for geographical places that are notorious for their past or present east-west divisions. Who knows.

Here is a picture of two German dudes enjoying a sunny Sunday in front of a wall covered with graffiti. I don't think there's a beer in this picture (you can drink it wherever you want! and there's sauce on the döner! Is Berlin just bizzaro-Turkey?!) but otherwise it would really encapsulate a lot of the city.

This was a really cool (and famous?) Sunday flea market in the north-ish part of the city. I had my first currywurst at that flea market (basically a brat in special curry-y sauce, pretty good but I think I prefer regular bratwurst).

At the flea market, there was a throng of Japanese people selling rice balls for earthquake relief, calling themselves "Operation Onigiri". I was delighted to give them some of my euros.

Finally, I had a ton of chocolate in my last few days in Berlin. I met up with a U of C alum and we went to the Rittersport "museum" and a famous Berlin chocolatier, Fassbender & Rausch. We did a comparison study of their hot chocolates (the latter shop's offering pictured above), and while Fassbender and Rausch certainly wins for fanciness and did not lack for taste, the Rittersport hot chocolate was not only spot-on, but also had the cutest lil' Rittersport gracing the saucer. It won by a small margin overall. Also you can make your own Rittersport bar at the shop, which is fun and delicious.

Just your neighborhood palace...

In conclusion, Berlin is awesome. Sure, it was a bit of a downer that Knut died basically the day I got there, but as one of our Fulbright panelists, Ingeborg Junge-Reyer (Berlin's "mayor and senator" for urban development and one of my new favorite people) said in response to a question from the audience which I would basically paraphrase as "KNUT IS DEAD WHY WHY WHY?", "We must remember, he was [only] a bear." I look forward to the day when I can go back to Germany and look more Germans in the eye and say "Prost!" over another brew. Happily I will definitely be back in that fine country in May...for Eurovision!


*I'll save you the trouble: I know I'm a bit of a nerd. (And ftw = for the win, so non-nerds don't have to google it.)

Şirince Fruit Flavor Palooza

Last week I went on a day trip to Şirince, a little tourist town near Selcuk and Izmir. Şirince is famous for şarap, or wine, made of almost every kind of fruit you might want. My two traveling companions and I tasted a dizzying array of fruit wines, listed more or less in order of agreed-upon deliciousness, from most to least:

black mulberry (karadut),
melon (kavun),
cherry (vişne),
quince (ayva),
strawberry (çilek),
peach (şeftali),
raspberry (ahududu),
blackberry (böğürtlen),
apple (elma),
pomegranate (nar),
blueberry (yabanmersini).

We really wanted to like blueberry, but it was just sour and strange. A word to the wise- trying the same wines in different places is a good idea, because we hated the first strawberry wine we tasted but the second one was amazing. We tried a little regular wine of the grape (uzum) variety as well but after the myriad sweet fruit flavors our palates could not really taste "real" wine properly. Fruit wine, at 12TL, or 6Euro, or 8-ish dollars a bottle, is the most economical non-Efes (most "popular" Turkish beer) way to get your drank on in Turkey. (Aside: Turkish beer is pretty terrible. Ask any Fulbrighter.)

Being three Fulbrighters, my traveling companions and I have all been in Turkey almost six months to date. This clearly gives us the know-how to gauge the authenticity of Turkish towns, and we decided that Şirince is one of the most genuinely Turkish-feeling towns we visited. Later we learned it is currently populated mostly by immigrants and that a lot of the village's quaint buildings are leftovers from Greek times. Sounds pretty Turkish to me, actually.


Thanks to my Fulbright companion for these pictures, because goodness knows that as per my normal habits I did not even remember to bring my camera.

Makin' Mantı

This weekend I learned how to make one of my favorite Turkish foods, mantı. (OK, technically it's my favorite "Central Asian" food, but I'll just adopt the Turkish norm of referring to its Turkish origins.) The name is often translated as "Turkish ravioli" in English menus, a name which gives a sense of the dish but does not do justice to the particular deliciousness of these tiny meat-filled dumplings.

So that you may learn, and I may not forget, here is the nub and gist of mantı preparation. First off, the dough consists of flour, eggs, and salt water. How much? Oh, enough. Of course these things are only "measured" by the watchful eye of the senior Turkish housewife present, in this case, my coworker's mother. The dough is kneaded and kneaded and kneaded by rolling your fists on it, kind of like slow-motion punches. Then it is separated into smaller chunks, in our case, four. Then more kneading and more flour to keep it from sticking. There is a special low, round, wooden table and long, thin rolling pin used for mantı, gözleme, börek; basically anything that involves rolling out dough. I would give the Turkish names for the table and rolling pin here but a) I forgot them and b) they differ by region.

The smaller hunks of dough are rolled first in the normal fashion of stroking the pin across the dough's surface. After an appropriately thin dough is achieved the whole thing is rolled around the thin rolling pin and pulled outwards by the motion of your hands from the middle to the outside. (That sounds a lot more complicated then it is, and if I had a picture of myself engaged in this pursuit, it would be much clearer.) In any case you stretch and stretch the dough until it is almost as big as the table, and then you do it a few more times, just in case. Then the dough is cut into the tiny squares you see below and filled with a finely chopped mixture of ground beef, onion, parsley, salt, and "spices", which I believe referred to red pepper in this case. You poke a little morsel of the meat mixture onto each square, and then fold the corners together and then press them into the middle to form a little pocket*. This part takes the longest- filling and folding each of the tiny squares took about 3 hours, with four tireless women working together.



After this, the many many finished products are at long last boiled for about 10 minutes, their size making it extremely easy to cook them quickly. Traditionally there are several sauces for them, and sometimes they are also used as dumplings in soup. In our case we put some lightly spiced tomato paste (salça) in butter and added a small amount of this to salted and slightly watered-down yogurt (ayran) by way of sauce. I have also eaten them with nothing but an entirely ill-advised amount of butter and walnuts on top.

(Aside: this picture was taken from Turkish wikipedia, credited to OsManduRdu, but it is almost identical to the scene in my Turkish coworker's kitchen. The spice in the jar is sumac, to be spooned on later if desired.)

A total of about 5 hours of work makes them taste at LEAST five times as good as in any restaurant. When I first began eating I inhaled those little yogurt-covered meat-packets as though I hadn't eaten for days (and by virtue of my being in Turkey we all know that is utterly impossible), and when I finished my last bite it slowly dawned on me that in polite circles the rapidity of my consumption might have been considered a bit rude. But as I looked up from my plate for the first time since the first taste hit my eager taste buds, I saw that I was behind in finishing by two other girls, and they immediately begged me to let them fill my plate anew, a request which I quickly and grateful obliged.

Afiyet olsun!



*In other words, you reunite the meat, which I'll call Numa, with the mantı's core. Sorry, that joke is for the benefit of only one reader of this blog.

Catholicism, Communism, and [hot] Chocolate[...ism?]

My train trip from Prague to the motherland was a near-fiasco, but all's well that ends well. Just note that if you take the train from Prague and have to change trains in Katowice, most likely no one will speak English, and you ought consult the departure schedules yourself (and know the Polish word for departures) instead of waiting for the quaint flap-board to display your train. It's easy to get a ticket from Katowice to Krakow if you make a mistake, however, so I'd recommend the trip if you have a spare day.

The old town of Krakow has a wonderfully medieval feel. I thought I had reached hot chocolate nirvana in Prague, but that was before I went to Wedel and got a cup of their traditional drinking chocolate—heavenly. Big shout-out to Nowa Prowincja for their amazing drinks and beautiful interior. I went there thrice, I couldn't help myself.

Wawel Castle was as beautiful inside as its smok statue was brutals, but I was a bit disappointed that the “dragon's lair” is closed in the winter months. Entry to Wawel Castle Cathedral entitles you to a trip up and down the bell tower, where each of the huge bells has a name and a history. The Cathedral also has some beautiful tapestries inside, as do the castle staterooms. A word to the wise: admission prices and ticket-buying is a bit confusing, but all of it is cool, so you really can't go wrong. I bought tickets first and then tried to figure out what parts of the castle they were for, rather than trying to find tickets for parts I wanted to see. This worked nicely, but you need to be easy-going about it.
These guys were pretty easy-going, just kind of hanging out and crooning to the accordion on the entry ramp to Wawel Castle.

Krakow had more museums than I knew what to do with (which sounds funny after coming from Prague...). I would highly, highly recommend the Cloth Hall museum in the main square: it's only four rooms, but it has hands-down some of the most intricate and masterful paintings (some on 30-ft canvases) that I have ever seen. Also if you don't think you'll miss the 7 zloty (about 3 dollars), the Archeology Museum feels like a well-done 7th grade social studies project, as it makes ample use of dioramas. The big draw is the only Slavic cult god statue ever found.
I also rekindled a little Catholic feeling by going to Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral (pictured in the background above) and visiting the former apartments of Pope John Paul II (before he was a pope, when he was a professor and cardinal, from 1951-1968 or thereabouts).

Of course, everyone knows that a trip to Eastern Europe is just incomplete without some kind of communist history thrown in. Well, my hunt for remnants of communism in Poland took me nearby the Krakow School of Economics to see Skeletor, a Soviet building that was started but never completed and now stands as a skeleton due to the complexity of zoning laws that prohibit its destruction. But I repeat: it shadows the Krakow School of Economics. Best juxtaposition ever?
And speaking of amazing juxtapositions...
Being unsatisfied with this mere taste of the communist legacy, I continued along the tram line to Nowa Huta, or New Steelworks. This is a completely Stalin-planned community on the outskirts of Krakow (now a part of Krakow), apparently built to countermand how beautiful, medieval, and artistic Krakow was through its industrial, worker-championing layout and amenities. It was not nearly as depressing as I expected, but it sure was a lot of nearly identical dilapidated concrete buildings. I would have tried to adhere more to the route on the map, but I was a bit too cold to stay there too long.

On the way back to Prague I took a bus because the timing was more convenient. Please be aware: when you take a bus across the Czech/Polish border, border patrol will board the bus, take your passport, and then GET OFF THE BUS WITH YOUR PASSPORT. This is absolutely terrifying to someone who does not speak Polish and who consequently thought her passport was gone forever as the bus pulled away, but eventually at the dinner stop (20 agonizing minutes later) the border guards pulled up and returned all of the documents. In any case, one of the movies shown on the bus was called Holy Business (I think). It was about two men who supposedly inherit a car owned by Pope John Paul II. It was adorable, it mercifully had English subtitles, and it was a very fitting end to my time in Krakow.

Czech it out!

Prague is an utterly amazing city architecturally and artistically, but one thing struck me above all else: the sheer willingness of the Czech people to speak English. Even in situations that would in no way require a Czech person to go out of their way to speak English to me (such as reaching above me to get a bag, or just passing me in the grocery store), if they overheard English on my lips they would immediately exchange some pleasantry in English with me. I am sure that this is a result of the insane numbers of tourists that flock to Prague regularly. I never thought I would see the plus-side of relentless tourism, but it turns out that the incredibly welcoming Czech people have extended their hospitality to include language (there is also a goodly amount of French, German, and even Russian, to name just a FEW of the languages that clutter up signage in Prague).
"Are you flirting in English? Oh, do go on..."

Of course, I hit the tourist highlights: Charles Bridge, the Astronomical Clock, Prague Castle, Wenceslas Square, the Municipal Building, eating goulash and honey cake, and sampling some delicious beers. It took a lot to distract me from the ubiquitous hot winter drinks, especially hot wine and rich hot chocolate, but Czech beer is famous, after all. I saw a hilarious amount of malformed babies, either Jesus on his mother's knee or cherubs floating in the periphery of the Christian masterworks that litter Prague's museums. I unexpectedly came across some decaying saints in glass coffins in one of the churches I went to, because Christians are rather macabre.
But sometimes you also unexpectedly find peacocks in public gardens, which is cool.

Like many tourists in Prague, I simply could not spend enough time looking at Alfons Mucha collections. There are two museums dedicated to him (that I knew of), and the one that is simply called “The Mucha Museum” is well laid-out and informative, albeit a bit expensive for its small size. I would recommend if, like me, you are a devotee of his art. Another small, expensive, but worthwhile museum is the Museum of Communism, which somewhat passive-aggressively suggests that tourists are intellectual beings that deserve to know more about the Czech people than what can be seen through the bottom of a beer glass (I paraphrase, but the sentiment was the same). Despite this somewhat off-putting introduction, the museum is like reading a short book about how and why communism affected the Czech nation as it did, and it makes the vibrancy of Prague shine all the more, even from behind tacky tourist shops.
I also visited the Museum of the City of Prague (part of the interior photographed above), which is just adorable. Its “claim to fame” is a 3D model of the city made in the mid-nineteenth century, and every half-hour you can see a 3D film where you “fly” through the Prague of yore...a digitization of the model. There is also a beautiful painting of the city in the stairwell dome and far too much minutiae of how districts were divided for tax and municipal purposes throughout history. The temporary exhibit was about Prague denizens traveling to suburban “garden restaurants” for happy summer picnics and the like, which ended in a FUNCTIONING REPLICA of one such restaurants. They recreated a menu and had the foodstuffs on hand, in the museum, served by people in period waitstaff costume. Brilliant.

What is that in the lower-left corner? A dog? A lion? A lion-dog? A cool building near the Astronomical Clock nonetheless.


The only downside to Prague is that so many of the streets are lined with tourist shops, but in winter there are significantly less tourists, so I only really reaped the benefits. A light blanket of snow suits the Gothic spires anyways; I couldn't imagine Prague without a few big snowflakes falling and a cup of hot wine in a cafe.

The "-miş" tense

The Turkish language is a wonderful thing. It has fairly rigid semantic rules such that even a novice like myself can attempt entirely new constructions and find them to be grammatical. This unfortunately was not the case with my new word "nefretçi", which was my attempt at translating "hater" (nefret is 'hate', -çi is akin to the English "-er", as in builder or worker. A good Turkish example would be saatçi, a 'watch repairman/clock maker', since saat means 'watch').

In any case, one of the best and most wonderful things about Turkish is the "dubitative" or "reportative" tense, the "-miş" tense. This is the tense you use in order to report what someone else has told you, to deliver information second hand.

For example:
[I heard] There are two Americans in Uşak.
İki tane Amerikalı Uşak'ta varmış.

Now, this might not seem all that exciting until one realizes that it can be used in the first person to describe actions that you yourself did in the past but that you have no recollection of doing. The "-miş" tense is ideal for forgetful people, but even moreso, and more hilariously, for drunks. A friend of mine half-jokingly called it "the drunk tense", I prefer "the hangover tense".

For example:
I was drunk.
Sarhoştum.

[I was told that] I kissed every man and woman at the party.
Partide herkesi öpmüşüm.

[Supposedly] I danced on a table.
Masada dans etmişim.

Oh Turkish language, is there anything you can't do? I hope "nefretçi" makes it in to the popular parlance, as it will be my token of appreciation to the Turkish language after I return home.

Amasya: Fact or Fiction?

I think the Black Sea is my favorite region of Turkey so far. I have not been to the East yet, because I generally fear the snow and cold, but something about the hilly, misty, verdant Black Sea coast really appeals to me.

As that intro may have suggested, Amasya is more or less in the Black Sea region of Turkey. It is one of those places that has been inhabited for years and years, so its local ethnography museum has some great artifacts (and TERRIFYING mostly-exposed mummies of sultans in glass cases, shudder). It also has not one but TWO museums filled with historically informative wax mannequins in two Ottoman-style buildings along the river which are only mildly frightening but overall pretty awesome.

This is what Amasya looks like at night.

The below photo was taken from the bus stop outside of the Education Sciences faculty of Amasya University. Can you spot the reason that I took a picture of the side of a hill?

That's right, our favorite statesman's face is hewn into the living rock...of Amasya.

The below photo is of a statue on the side of the Yeşilırmak river. The river basically anchors the downtown area and makes Amasya seem larger than it really is. As an aside, one of the best breakfasts in recent memory was eaten along the banks of the Yeşilırmak river at a restaurant called Strabon, which I think deserves some kind of plaque for feeding as many Fulbright guests as it has, because if a Fulbrighter visits the Amasya ETA duo, they will probably eat at this restaurant. The gözleme (like a Turkish crepe, usually with cheese inside), which is available only on Sundays, is worth the trip.

So, the legend the statue is based on has uncertain origins, and obviously the Turks claimed it as their own. The nearby mountain Ferhat is named for the hero of the legend, who for love of the princess Şirin tried to win her father's favour and permission to marry her by tunneling through the mountain to bring spring water to his palace. While he was doing this, someone informed him that the princess had died and so he threw himself onto the rocks post-haste. It turns out the princess was not dead, but after hearing the news of her lover's death she also died. Turkish authorities put a fence and a sign by a small channel in the side of the mountain which basically reads "This is definitely the channel from that legend, although historians really don't know if the story is true or where it actually happened." That's how Turkey rolls.

Musings

I have been here several months now. It's time for me to start generalizing about Turkey with more authority. There are lots of things to love about Turkey, and happily I have found more to like than dislike. Unfortunately I don't think I can ever truly share my reasons for loving Turkey with a Turkish person, because they will never understand the appeal.

Turkish hospitality does live up to the constant praise it receives in the guidebooks, but it also manifests itself in unexpected ways. Generally I would describe Turkish people as much more communal than Americans. Helping those around you is of the utmost social importance. There are the functional, practical aspects of life that have given rise to this attitude--for example, there are still town bread ovens in use (seriously--soon you will probably be able to get free wifi at the village oven while you wait for your food to cook). But there is also a tacit or explicit resistance to the American style (also known by Turks as the "European" style) of strict, "pulling-oneself-up-by-the-bootstraps" individuality that makes up such an important part of our culture. While individual drive is of course important, it is couched in the idea of putting everyone else before oneself. My interpretation of Turkish ambition is that in order to be able to provide for your friends and family, and in order to be a spectacular host, you need to earn money and have things. One improves one's position in life not just for personal gain, but in order to be that person who grabs the check at the end of the meal and says "It's on me," or to be able to afford a room with an extra bed in case anyone needs to stay the night. Of course, there are greedy, selfish people in Turkey, but just as a reminder I am dealing in generalizations and ideals in this blog post.

There are some other more lighthearted things I love about Turkey. PowerTurk, the Top 40 music channel that one can expect to see on TV's everywhere from the home of a friend to the trendiest restaurant (provided there is not a futbol match happening), is like a good friend who is always around and ready to have a good time. It's not quite as ubiquitous as teacups or likenesses of Atatürk, but it comes close. And I've come to love congregating with friends around coal-burning stoves (soba), the best example of which was that time one of my Turkish friends straight up set fire to an old pair of jeans in his soba, the flames of which we eventually used to roast chestnuts and make tea. ("Pants?!" I exclaimed in Turkish when seeing him do this. "They were old," he replied, matter of factly, with a shrug suggesting I was being some kind of pants-burning prude.) Sobalar are awesome, coal fumes notwithstanding.

Then there a things that I like about Turkey but will definitely never get used to seeing. Turkish men love their man-bags, for one. I think there is an unwritten but important rule that men over 30 must carry a small, square handbag which may or may not contain nothing but a wallet (shoulder strap optional). And speaking of men over 30, I will never be able to take them seriously when they drive around pumping Inna or other hot techno beats, sometimes with their families in tow. I also might not ever grow accustomed to men randomly singing to or at me. They break out a soulful folk tune at the most random times, and I am at a loss for what I should be doing during these impromptu concerts. (As an aside, I have been asked on several occasions to sing a song at a moment's notice, just by way of something to entertain a gathered group. This country really needs to warm up to karaoke, is all.) But what does one do when a man is singing in your direction? My Fulbright cohort posed it thusly: "Should I clap along? Nod? What facial expression should I assume?" You may think we could look to Turkish females for guidance, but they are typically already ignoring the men, and to be fair, they might be jealous that the Americans are receiving these attentions.

Turkish folk health wisdom is also a force to be reckoned with. Earlier today I was with a friend who was readying himself for a soccer game. He had donned an egregious monochrome tracksuit and was waiting for his friend to phone him. He pulled out a packet of cigarettes from his tracksuit pocket and said "It's good to smoke before a match." Another example- if one ever tires of drinking tea whilst in Turkey (I won't, but it's not unheard of), all you have to do is have a piece of fruit nearby. Turks are absolutely dumbfounded by my strange custom of occasionally enjoying a piece of fruit and a cup of tea in rapid succession. This is simply not done here. Turks also fear drafts (and a woman with wet hair is a prime target for EVERY KNOWN DISEASE), bare feet, and any dose of an antibiotic less than three times the amount an American doctor would hesitate before prescribing.

On the bright side, the fear of drafts means I almost never have to worry about being cold here. Quite the opposite in fact- I have been lucky enough to encounter much more warmth than anything else while in Uşak.

Türk Kahvesi

You know what they say...you can take the barista out of the coffee shop, but you can't actually take the coffee out of the barista (for both health-related and legal reasons).

Due to my love for (some might call it an addiction to) coffee, I learned how to make it a la Turka. Here's what you'll need.

The metal pot is called a cezve. There are different sizes to make different amounts, and there are older and newer shapes and styles. Essentially it is a small stove-top pot with a handle and a spout. You also need incredibly finely ground coffee (I got mine fresh from Tuğba, the local kuruyemiş, or dried foods store), water, and sugar. Turkish fincanlar (coffee cups) and a spoon are part of the necessary equipment. The two pictured were a gift from a coworker's mother, who, upon learning that I was only two fincan away from learning this important skill, immediately went to a cupboard and chose those two to gift me. They are thus even more beautiful than they look.

First, measure the amount of water by filling your fincan with cold water and pouring it into the cezve. This means you will get exactly the right amount of coffee when you finish. It's important to use cold water because the longer it takes to boil, the better the coffee will taste. Then, use about one and a half heaping teaspoonfuls of coffee per fincan and just heap the grounds on top of the water (don't stir). Next sugar- there are four ways to order coffee in a cafe- az şekerli (a little sugar), çok şekerli (a lot of sugar), orta (middle), or sade (plain). These definitions of course functionally mean nothing, as every cafe you go to gives you a slightly different interpretation, so I used 3 sugar cubes for two fincan and called it "orta".

Next, the fun part. Put the cezve on a burner with the heat turned up moderately high but not so high as you burn yourself reaching for the handle. Wait until the coffee boils and foams up, taking the cezve off the heat just when the foam is about to overflow. Skim the foam off the top with your spoon and put equal amounts into each fincan. Put the cezve back on the flame until it foams again, take it off the heat and turn off the stove. Carefully pour the remaining coffee slowly into each fincan, trying not to disturb the foam so it rises to the top. And that's all!

The Ottoman way to enjoy this, I was told, is to have water with it, drinking a little first to cleanse and prepare your palette, and a little afterward, probably to clean the bit of grounds out of your teeth from your last sip.

ADDENDUM: Another method dictates that you put the sugar in first, stirring it into the water as it begins to heat up until the sugar dissolves, and then adding the coffee and not stirring anymore so the foam forms. I find this method produces slightly better foam, but if you're lazy or forget, the above-described no-stir method works perfectly fine.

Tiptoeing in the Travertines

This weekend my ev arkadaş and I went to a coworker's family's house in a nearby town, Denizli. It is famous for its textiles and perhaps moreso, for Pamukkale. Pamukkale ("cotton castle/fortress") is a geological formation with natural hot springs and travertines, or terraces of carbonate minerals left by the flowing water. Our English pamphlet (yours for the "low" entry price of 20TL) gave us, helpfully, the chemical formula for the reaction that forms the carbonate travertines. ("The reaction is Ca(HCO3) + O2 --> CaCO+CO2+CO+H20, chemically".) In any case, Pamukkale is also the cite of a sizable ruined Roman city, and the ruins are well-reconstructed and mostly in situ.

There are many tombs like the below surrounding the ruined city, which I believe I read somewhere is due to the supposed healing properties of the mineral hot springs being a last-ditch effort for the near-dead, and thus when they were not cured by the waters they died and were buried outside. So it goes.

These are travertines that you are NOT allowed to walk in. The water is actually pumped in- the hot springs do not produce water continuously, but the travertines look most beautiful with water in them. Solution? Pipes.

However there are other ones that you are allowed to wade in to your heart's content, and most people do. There is also a bath or pool area, but it costs extra.

This is a picture of two of the four pomegranate trees in my host's backyard. Her family gave me many pomegranates during the course of my three day stay and a small sack of them before I went home. I was a happy house guest.

My coworker's family was, predictably, impressed with my roommate's and my Turkish skills (for knowing no Turkish, she has improved greatly, but also it only takes a "Merhaba" to get complimented on your Turkish skills in most situations). They also predictably commented on how I look foreign but she looks Turkish (I have had one family tell me, "I can tell you are foreign from your face. Like Hilary Clinton," which I hope was likening me in foreignness to Hilary Clinton and not in facial resemblance). I bought a jezve, or Turkish coffee pot, and practiced making Türk kahvesi in their mutfak (kitchen). My coworker's mother was quite happy with me after this (even though my coffee was not the best), and would ask me to pour tea and assess my ability (or lack thereof) to carry a tray of beverages without spilling. Clearly she was grooming me to be an excellent Turkish housewife.

Anadolu mola

Look at this beast!

The internet in this bus is faster than the internet in my apartment. Seriously, I cannot describe how much I love Turkish buses. They are five-star hotels on wheels- they give you a snack (sometimes TWO snacks) and a beverage (Turks are the only people I can think of who thought 'Hey, doling out cups of boiling water inside a moving vehicle sounds like a good idea...'), and often will give you a blanket or pillow if you ask, AND the newest and nicest buses have in-bus WCs in addition to 3G internet, MP3s, TV, movies, and video games. What more could you need? Anadolu, the major company which has one of its home otogars in Uşak, is happily one of the best. They ALSO offer magazines and bad novels to read, and little disposable coverlets for your headset.

I'm on my way to Antalya now, by the way. It's Republic Day Weekend, so no afternoon class!

The Call to Prayer

I've come to like hearing the sound of the call to prayer (Turkish ezan) throughout my day here. It marks the passing of time in the day kind of like dog-eared pages of a book. I heard a rumor that the call is played or recited (sometimes it is prerecorded, sometimes sung live) at slightly different times every day in every part of Turkey so that someone is praying everywhere, at every moment of the day, every day (obviously this would be contingent on people praying in other parts of the world, but still). That's a really interesting and cool result of a unified religion, no?

In any case, out of respect, televisions and radio are muted or turned off when the call to prayer is heard. Many people keep talking or eating or whatever it was they were doing, but electronic background noises are muted. Today I caught myself turning off my music when I heard it- I didn't really do it on purpose, and I was alone in my room, but it still seemed somewhat rude to not turn my music down. I know some secular Turks bristle at this auditory symbol of the religious ideology their country is steeped in...but as a secular American with no real Muslim ties to speak of, I just find it a pleasant reminder that I am living in Turkey.

So you're saying it's NOT about ice cream...

Recently my fellow Uşak Fulbrighter and I visited a primary school in a neighboring town. It was here that we happened upon an answer to a question that had been haunting us for days. We had been wondering...what's the deal with those chimes that play the first few bars of Für Elise at somewhat regular intervals throughout the day? Apparently, this is the sound of school bells in primary schools in Uşak. Sadly it did not herald the imminent arrival of the dondurmacı, as we had previously hoped.

Horsin' Around

This past weekend I went on my first real Turkish excursion. Where? To the Aegean, of course! More specifically, Ayvalık, Çanakkale, and Truva, the latter known to the rest of the world as Troy.

In other words, I went from this:


To this:


Ayvalık is a really neat little town. I think it would be an amazing weekend destination in warmer weather (it was incredibly windy and chilly when we were there) and has some of the best beaches in Turkey, so I'm told. Since swimming was not a possibility, my two cohorts (one was a Fulbrighter from Balıkesir) climbed Şeytan Sofrası, or Satan's Table, for some incredible views of the surrounding waters.

After this we headed to Cunda aka Alibey Island, famous for its restaurants with seafood mezes (Turkish small plates you are supposed to eat while draining a bottle of rakı over the course of several hours). My cohorts and I completely forgot to take pictures of this meal because we were so hungry. We had delicious fresh raw fish, grilled octopus, perfect olive oil, a beautiful salad, and a mouthwatering melon (and other fruits) for dessert. The food in Ayvalık and environs was my favorite part of the whole weekend.

The Turkish kahvaltı, a wondrous meal on an average day, was downright swoon-worthy at our "Butik Otel", Antikhan.


The next day we headed north to Çanakkale, famous for...

being close to Troy (it is also near Gallipoli, but that did not interest us so much). That is the horse used in the movie, which was donated to the town after filming.


This is pretty much what the site of Troy looks like. In certain areas you can see Troy I-IX, and the strata are labeled as such. One follows a roped path and reads signs in Turkish, German, or English about what you are seeing- namely, that which early would-be "archeologists" didn't accidentally ruin or purposefully steal when they were excavating.

So, even though Troy was not my favorite part of an all-too-brief coastal jaunt, I still was glad to have seen it. What kind of legendary heroes actually made their lives here? We may never truly know...


Eventually, my time came to an end in Çanakkale and I embarked on a long bus ride to my current home. I hope to visit the Aegean many more times.


ADDENDUM:
They totally let you climb inside the other fake Trojan Horse on the actual site of Troy.