Geçmiş Olsun = Let it pass (Get well soon!)

So, it's Wednesday now, and when this blog last heard from me it was Friday, and not even Friday night yet. Have I done things since then? Oh yeah, you better believe it! For one thing, I learned just how much I appreciate Schweppe's. But, let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Friday night. I've had a lot of killer nights in Turkey, but Friday night isn't usually the height of my weekend. Usually it's a “you just arrived in unfamiliar town. Find place to sleep.” kinda night. But, this Friday was different, primarily due to the fact that Doruk, Brandon, and Doruk's friend Ceyhan were all going to a dance party at ODTU. ODTU, by the way, is Middle Eastern Technical University, one of the top schools in Turkey with a very interesting history of political activism.

The dance party turned out to be hosted by the ballroom dance club/team on the terrace of a university building. The event was designed to recruit new members, by teaching random students how to dance stuff, and being like "you should do more of this." As a result, there were a lot of different dances going on with some instruction. Also, the guy with the microphone was sure to remind us that we could get iced tea for two TL.

After watching some people swing dance to "Cotton Eyed Joe," which I explained to Doruk as strictly middle school music, eventually there was another tutorial. As someone whose sister was ballroom dance team president, I shamefully announce I have no idea what dance I was actually doing. Doruk attempted to find a partner, but only found rejection from random girls who were standing around doing nothing. But, Brandon (my classmate) and I picked up two chicks and went for it.

I will attempt to describe the steps of the dance.

Right, Right, Right, Right

Go left, left, left, left while spinning girl around

Back, Back, Back, Back

Forwards, Forwards, Forwards, Forwards

Back, Back, Back, Back

Do some weird move wherein the girl ends up sideways with you

Forwards, Forwards, Forwards, Forwards

Back, Back, Back, Back

I think I could sort of do that much, but to say my dance partner was unimpressed was probably a bit of an understatement. Course, I can't blame her. She was only learning the stuff for the first time, and burdoned with needing to re-explain to this foreigner about ten times everything she had just figured out how to do. As a result, I wasn't too surprised when she said she was bored and then left.

After this, there were a few songs played for real dancing, and about two people actually dancing. I grabbed Brandon, who can actually do some hip hop moves quite well, and went to the floor, doing some broad parody of whatever the hell we failed at doing earlier. I definitely did some ministry of sillywalks kicks, swooned into brandon's arms, jumped up and down, and we took turns spinning each other around. Definitely good stuff.

Then, there were a few traditional Turkish dances. There was one sort of side to side line dance ish (maybe?) thing in which you kinda went LEFT LEFT LEFT, RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT did some weird back and forth frontal backal shizz and then turned 90 degrees. Since we could do that by ourselves I went all out in the 90 degrees turning and leaping shit. I believe I was called Michael Jordan as a result of that.

After this, there was something else (or maybe it was more of this.) I definitely remember galloping around like a lunatic but I'm not sure why. Probably I didn't need a reason.

The last dance of the party was another traditional dance in which we linked shoulders in a circle and ran to either side kicking. Occasionally at breaks in the music it was bend down and clap your hands time. Strangely, I don't think I was the best at that either.

Fortunately for the ballroom team, they will never see me again.

After the party, we walked around campus a bit, including a stop on the roof of the highest building at ODTU, whose fire escape was conveniently unlocked. From the top of the building, you could see pretty much all of Ankara, and the view at night was super gorgeous. The lights on every building stretching out for miles almost appeared to be twinkling. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me this particular Friday night, but Ceyhan had his cellphone....

Me, Brandon, and Doruk

Me, Ceyhan, and Brandon

We talked for a while, and then eventually climbed the stairs down, and headed back to our neighborhoods. I landed in Baçhelievler, sent a text with enough T9 typos that it made “slipped a building” look good, ate ice cream at 1 am from the place on 7^th st, and then returned home. I was really looking forward to Saturday, the day when I would find the train station, hopefully meet up with Erin, and maybe even play lazer tag!

Things did not go as planned. I found the train station, and gezzed around Gençlik park, but I also had come down with some digestion issues, so I came home early, and eventually decided that I would rather stay home than go to Eskişehir on Sunday. I will not dwell on my period of sickness, except to state that I appreciated the Schweppe's Mandarin Tonic Soda stuff I bought, and also the lemon mint tea my host mom made for me. That was nice stuff.

Not just here, but everywhere there are spraypainted disney characters in the park, the person did a really lousy job. Of course, I'd do no better.

Why stop at 7-D? Why not go to 7,000-D, or maybe infinity-D. After all, once you get past like three, you know the rest is bull.

Clown rides remind me of a good time with Jack and Merima

Here I am standing in front of a monument to Atatürk.

I hope to ride this thing before I leave

This ice cream stand ADVERTISES the fact that you can get fat here. After all, how many pictures of an obese Turkish lad can you spot in front of it?

Oh yeah, here's the train station.

Monday was class time, but my stomach was not fully recovered. We went back to Bağdat Sofrası, and I more or less gave most of my meal away, but I wanted to do that anyway. My beyti is so good, I can't help but really want to share it with people. I think I went home and relaxed for a while after that.

Evan models the shirt that every mustached man needs.

Tuesday I was mostly back to normal, and definitely back to doing completely killer stuff with my day. After an enjoyable class that somehow also included kareoke of Turkish pop songs, I returned to my favorite pide & wrestler restaurant, where I ate the sucuklu pide that had the orange grease I knew would return my stomach to full normalcy.

Gotta pose with the wrestling team

Sucuk is the best stuff ever. If I had to choose between sucuk and bacon....

After that, Eli and I went to Tunalı, where we sat in Kahve Dünyası (Coffee World), and I ordered some slightly overpriced stuff off the menu. Once upon a time in America, when I was in my first year of Turkish class, we had at least one exercise where we ordered things from Kahve Dünyası and I finally got the chance to do it for real. We sat there a while and did our homeworks.

Then, eventually Eli left, and I proceeded into D&R book store, where I looked around for a bit, and then attempted to play one of their extremely shoddy and depressing $20 ukuleles. When I say shoddy, I mean no one bothered to even pretend to put fret markers on them. :( The ukulele couldn't stay in tune for more than two seconds, so I just tuned all the strings to the same note because it would be easier to fix it that way. As I was playing, a younger kid started playing the drumset next to the ukulele selection. I asked him if he wanted to play with me. He said he couldn't, and he asked me what song I was playing. I said it wasn't a song, I was just writing it as I was playing (best I can do for improvising.) He was quite impressed, and I ended up talking to his mother a little bit. I explained who I was and where I was from, and she wanted me to go to Kahve Dünyası with them. So, I returned there and she bought me a lemonade. We had a very nice conversation about a lot of topics. Curiously, her favorite actor was the same man I had just read a paragraph about for class. She gave me her number, and told me that I could come over for dinner whenever I was in Turkey next.

I hung out in Kuğulu Park for a bit after that, and I tried to talk to the socialists, but my political vocabulary is sorely lacking.

What is this new structure for? I don't know.

I think this is the best photo I've taken of ducks.

 Anyway, I wasn't there for too long before Abagail and Jack were around, and we walked to the bus stop in order to venture to wherever the heck Erin lived, for she had invited us over for dinner and a movie. Erin's host roommate was cool for all two minutes we saw of her before she had to leave, and her host cat was adorable. The movie ended up being 21, the film about card counting, which was so extremely mediocre as to warrant none of my attention here. Just avoid it. The food was fantastic. Vegetables cooked in tomato sauce have never been done so well. The mushrooms were great. So was dessert. Jack baked cookies and brought them. In short, Erin's was a fantastic time. Even if I left my bookbag there.

Jack & Biboş

Wednesday morning. Got up. Left. Hit up Tömer. Did some practices for our final exam (tomorrow) in class. They were pretty much awful. Then we had our weekly meeting. Ariel had pide delivered. Kıymalı pide, white cheese pide, spinich and mushroom pide, and egg and meat pide. Absolutely fantastic. Also, never drink spicy turnip juice. Then, our actual meeting consisted pretty much of – you're going back to the united states. Things are boring there. People won't really care about what you did in Turkey. Have fun. –

{BRIEF INTERMISSION. Wandering around Kızılay, there are some really really creepy mannequins. They were probably cut-price. Check them out!

My future wife, god forbid!

 Those eyes...

Also, right nearby someone parked this very interesting looking car:

END INTERMISSION}

After the meeting, I hung out with Brandon for a bit, and also the Turkish students in Hacer's English class. I did a small amount of English teaching, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. Perhaps it's a bit difficult to try to explain when to use “when”, and “after” without any preparation beforehand, but I'd like to think I did a good job. But, the best part of my small amount of teaching was easily the students. When Hacer left the room and told me to ask them for example sentences about emotions (“I feel nervous because I have an exam”) it was absolutely fantastic to just hear what they came up with. The weirdest thing is, I imagine this is what my Turkish class is like for the teacher, and I know exactly which student in Hacer's class I think I was most like (the one whose answer didn't quite make sense to me.)

But, then 4:45 PM arrived. It was the hour of despair. It was time for my Oral Proficiency Interview. I was required to talk on the phone to a native Turkish speaker in New York in order to assess my improvement. My telephone had the worst sound possible, the tester called fifteen minutes late, and after a paltry 19-minute conversation (the OPI I took before I came to Turkey lasted a full hour), I felt completely destroyed inside. I also know that I succeeded in doing worse on this OPI than I did before I came to Turkey. That'll look fantastic to congress. (Except, really I'm going to talk to Ariel, and probably end up redoing it.)

After my OPI, I headed home empty and angry. But my host parents are the best. When I told them I had a bad day (which is probably the only time I didn't say bugün iyi geçti) Özgür pretty much immediately suggested getting some icecream. So, after I started my laundry, we hit up the best ice cream place in Baçhelievler, and then gezzed to Emek and back. It was a very nice walk.

Coming soon: Zach and Rebecca both owe me waffles. :)