Zevkler ve renkler tartışılmaz. (Literally: Tastes and colors are not discussed/questioned. Figuratively: Different strokes for different folks.)

Turkey, oh Turkey! How I love being here.

*Ahem.* Stuff. What have I done since I wrote last?

Well, Salı Günü İki Temmuz  (That's Tuesday, July 2) was pretty cool, because I ate kumpir for the first time. Kumpir is a fast food thing popular in Turkey that is pretty much a baked potato with stuff on it. The potato is baked, split open, and then I guess somehow infused with butter and cheese. I went to the kumpir place for class lunch because our teacher wanted to go there. I ordered the Mexican Kumpir, because I couldn't resist the thought of a Mexican-Turkish baked potato. It had doritos, beans, olives, jalepenos, and meat in it. Not bad, though my stomach was a bit less happy an hour later...

After the backed potato, Eli, Rebecca, and I hit up Kocateppe, the largest mosque in Ankara. (For background info and a nice stock pic, check out wikipedia.) The outside is big and gorgeous, and the inside was even more beautiful. The carpet was comfortable, and the imagery definitely evoked the majesty of god. In an efficient use of space, there was also a shopping mall underneath. You'll have to wait on Eli for more photos for I forgot my memory card.

Stole this from Rebecca's facebook. I have to say I really dig the small spheres orbiting around a huge sphere.

Again, courtesy of Rebecca.

We then hung out briefly at a cafe that is primarily notable because it's name was Guido's Cafe and you had to walk through a bookstore to get there.

Before Guido's, we encountered a small demonstration from the CHP, the main opposition party to Erdoğan's AKP.

Courtesy of Rebecca

What was the protest about? Sherri provided me with an answer. Here it is.

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Wednesday I decided to dress classy for class with my Ataturk tie. Naturally it could not go unphotographed, as it was admired by all who looked upon it.

Wearing his Atatürk tie, staring pensively at Anıtkabir. It doesn't get much better than this.
(Description and Photo Courtesy of Rebecca)

In class, Sherri was talking about how much she enjoyed dried chickpeas, while I claimed they tasted like dirt, causing our teacher to teach us the phrase that is the title of this blogpost. Yay. We then had a pop quiz, which was horrible.

Another favorite silent g.
Also: half of my class.

We got to pick class lunch, and we did a dope job. We went to an Iraqi restaurant and the food was killer. Before the meal proper came we were served two small plates of each the following things: fried onions, some sort of yogurty thing, tomato & cucumber salad, herb salad, hot peppers. And, of course there was plenty of bread. I ordered some lamb sarma that was absolutely delicious. The free tea afterwards was also great because of the mint and lemon from the herb salad. I was laborious in mixing my tea for the perfect taste. Mmmm. Also, there was a nice mural of fish.

Went home after that, watched some Turkish TV, ate dinner, and then went on a lengthy walk. Could Steve successfully walk from home to the Atatürk Kultur Merkezi by virtue of knowing what direction to go? Yes. Would he take strange attempts at arty photographs of intentionally blurry cars along the way? Yes.

  

Click on these if you're in a browser and then you get a fancy gallery view. I don't imagine it works on a phone, but let me know if it does.

The one thing I didn't do though was follow an actual road to the Ankamall. So instead I sorta cut through things awkwardly. I walked through the Gazi University campus, which is the only university campus I've seen with colorchanging LEDs projecting their colors onto plants. Then I came to a dead end and had to go sideways for a bit before crossing underneath a metro line in a weird sketchy passage way. After I emerged, I walked through what I think was the ground for some company. Then I could have hit another dead end. There was a fancy looking park with a couple of guards at the door, but since they weren't paying attention, and since it was a park and not anything important I wandered through it and out the locked gate on the other side. Then I had to walk around the Ankamall so that I was where people went in instead of where trucks went in, across the bridge, and into the festival....
It was a thoroughly excellent walk.

It was also a purposeful walk, since I was going there to meet up with my friends Jack and Merima and go to a concert. It was a bit difficult to do the meeting up part because the place was crowded, and I successfully ran out of money on my phone. But, we did it. The concert itself was great, and Petek Dincöz defınıtely paled in comparison. I have no idea who it was, but they were talented. The place was rightfully completely packed.

Besides the concert, we did a bit of shopping. I should explain that this takes place at the same place I was at on Saturday, with the pictures of the water exhibit, but it was instead packed with people and awesome.

Did I just wander into the set of a (rightfully) critically-panned Michael Bay movie?

I somehow doubt this guy wants hordes of cats following him around.

One tent we wandered into had a boxing ring for some mysterious reason. A boxer appeared out of nowhere to pose in photographs with people. He then disappeared afterwards. I assure you that Jack and Merima had an amazing boxing match. Mermima won.

I then convinced them that it would be an absolutely fantastic idea to climb inside one of the clown tilt-a-whirl things intended for children and spin around. This happened.

If you read the last post and remember the videos being played of people hanging out with people dressed as raindrops, then you'll definitely be excited to know that the raindrops were out and they wanted to partay!

This is a cringeworthy photo.

I also decided to take a picture of the salt exhibit so you could see just how exciting Ankara's road salt really is.

But all good things come to an end, and after drinking some pitiful lemonade (though not A-Treat lemonade bad) we hopped on the metro, and I returned home thankful not to be walking...

Also note that there are about three more pictures added to the cooking section of the last post.