End of Ankara (Hoş Cekal!) >>> Return to Turkey (Döneceğim)

So, I sorta stopped posting at July 31st after saying I felt slightly sick, leaving all the numerous readers of this blog who never met me to conclude that I had died of some horrible disease. Not true. What actually happened will be appended to the end of this post.

To make a long story short, the Critical Language Scholarship is an awesome program, and I loved spending last summer in Ankara! I made a lot of really good friends, and did a lot of cool stuff. In addition to improving my Turkish, I definitely feel that I really grew as a person thanks to my interactions with so many cool people!

As a result of my experiences, I have continued studying Turkish at the University of Pittsburgh through the Less-Commonly-Taught Language Center,. Pitt has a fantastic Turkish program, with a truly passionate instructor, and I am truly grateful that I have been able to continue studying Turkish on an independent study basis over the last year. I recommend anyone to take Turkish (not that I've ever convinced anyone, but I sure have talked people's heads off about how much I love the language.)

So, anyway, having completely loved studying Turkish and being in Turkey, I applied for the 2014 Critical Language Scholarship program, and have been accepted to study Turkish in Bursa! I leave for orientation on Thursday. Yay.

But, before I talk about Bursa, I really should finish up talking about my time in Ankara, which I can do pretty non-briefly here...

Hoş Cekal!

Celebratory But Bittersweet Ending to Ankara

So, I never posted an ending on this blog. If you ever happened to be some random person reading this on the internet, it would just sound like Steve got a stomach ache, and was unable to enjoy a last week of awesomeness in Ankara. That would be a totally wrong assumption, of course. Because everything I did in my last week was a wonderful ending to my first trip I'm writing this on a bus, and I don't remember where my last post (written months earlier) ended, so let's hope there isn't too much overlap...

I guess I talked about my last week, dinner at Ayran's host family's house with Jack's cookies and some wonderful wonderful vegetarian cuisine. (I'm such a sucker for mantarlar.) So I guess what happened next was final exams, final oral proficiency interviews, a going away party, and a lot of waffles!

It somehow took me most of the trip to get around to eating çiğ köfte. That was a mistake. This is some stuff from some famous place in Tunalı Himli which I briefly stopped by with Ariel & Rebecca. The paste stuff is the çiğ köfte, which literally translates to something like “raw meatballs.” I have no idea what's properly in it, although I get the impression that raw meat may or may not be part of the recipe. It was pretty darn good though!

And after that, it was waffle time. I believe this is the last Turkish waffle I have eaten. Waffles I've had since then in the United States have had... less toppings.

Here a kedi dress clad Rebecca poses with her waffle:

And here's my own:

Then we went to some clothes stores, joined by Allison. I don't know if I mentioned this or not, but going clothes shopping in Turkey is the absolute bomb because, you never know what you're going to find and chances are it's something beautiful and terrifying. You wonder why it exists. Take for example, this sequined shirt that I regret not buying.

I still can't sleep at night--almost a year later--because I regret not buying this shirt that much!!!

After that, I guess we sang some kareoke.

The next day we all went to Gençlik park together in the morning, and discovered dinosaurs.

Don't ask me what this sideways selfie is doing here

I am in no way shape or form a teachers' pet. no way. never. ever ever. I just pose as one in pictures.

Group photo!

Evan's boxing skills are unmatched! (No pun intended)

Bonding over ice cream

Either that or Şimple is seriously annoying the Beğats over some dondurma... You decide!

 Walking away from the park, we encountered a statue of Nursultan Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan. This is one example of the weird ties (or rather, attempts at ties) between the Post-Soviet Turkic states and Turkey

I have no idea. I am incapable of fierceness.

 After those escapades, we visited the office of the Fulbright commission in Turkey. It was an interesting trip over there, since their office is in a weird part of town and we took three taxis. Two taxi drivers went down some closed road and then yelled at each other. I was in the cab of the taxi driver who tried to charge Ariel extra for his own mistakes. She haggled him down to the actual amount.

Smoking in front of his own no smoking sign. Love it.

Near the Fulbright commission, a newly built and ridiculously huge mosque.

Then I hung with Doruk for a bit. There was a small, peaceful protest that afternoon. Just in case you thought  protests in Turkey had stopped by August:

There was also a really cool exhibition of protest art in Kızılay near where the socialists hung out near our beloved bookstore cafe.

One of Doruk's favorite, the caption translates to something along the lines of "Those who resist are beautiful."
I could go for a more literal clunky version, but whatevskys.

And then it was party time. Andrew, who had bought a new suit, looked suave.

Dude has since gone on to start writing sickbook reviews on facebook, and elsewhere. 

But not as suave as these sick wheels!

"You wouldn't download a car..."

Evan had truly dressed for the occasion

Fashion.

And so, we went down to some place where Ankara University people have parties, and ate food, talked, danced, and had a really good going away party. As fun as it was, I was also sad because I knew the program was soon ending...

My class!

Class below mine

Me & Eli.

As you can see, it was a party.

 And so the next day, I did my last shopping at the amazing used book store in Kızılay

It goes on and on and on and on and on and on... like this.

 I had my last mint lemonade.

 Played my last Turkish laser tag...

The venue.

The arena

The dream team.

The scores.

 I ate my last sucuk, courtesy of my host mom.

Packed my things, and went to bed.

I'm not going to lie. I had a lot of fun that day, but it also made me sad. I said goodbye to a lot of friends, and a lot of really good people. And, I haven't really talked to my classmates as much as I reasonably should since then. But, they're all an amazing bunch and I'd like to try to mention how awesome they all are.

And with that recalled, I can only conclude by saying that I am super psyched to return to Turkey...

Orientation in a week!