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?

Domates Biber Patlıcan - Tomato, Pepper, Eggplant

In this post, I will attempt to interweave the story of things I have done this week with the story of Turkey's greatest singer.

Dikkat Sulama Var! - Caution: Sprinklers!

What did I do this weekend? I'm not quite so sure myself, because it contained what is easily the single most interesting and surreal day I've had my entire time in Turkey, as well as a mixture of strenuous hiking and relaxing swimming. In short, I went out of town to a place called Eğirdir. The tale of what passed there is about to be told... (It is mad lengthy)

Hammamistan - ("Hamam land")

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Right. What have I been up to lately in Ankara?
Answer: Fantastic things.

İstanbul Konstantinopolis değil.

Istanbul, Istanbul. What an amazing place. To say that I've seen Istanbul would be a massively misleading statement. Istanbul is an absolutely huge place (its population is a little over five million more than New York City), and even though I spent two days and two nights within city limits, I barely saw any of it. What I did see was astoundingly beautiful.
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Kim waffles? - Who is waffles?

How's life in Ankara? Spectacular! Every day living here is just so wonderful. It's hard to put it into words, but I'll try to. And, I'll try by describing the last couple days of my life which are slightly mixed up in my head.

Mistranslation: Please do not prance =/= Lütfen zıplamayınız = Please do not Jump

Day three of the Amasra/Safranbolu trip...

Gül seven dikenine katlanır (One who loves roses should beware thorns.)

Turkey has two major seas. The Akdeniz and the Karadeniz. (White sea [Mediterranean], and Black sea.) From my experience swimming in the Black Sea, it's easy to see (no pun intended.) how they got their names. The Black Sea isn't the clearest body of water. It's not bad, but there is an amount of seaweed, which was used to comic effect. I did not feel bad doing a handstand underwater, or swimming about.

This post is part two of Amasra.

Bu yoğurdu sarımsaklasak da mı saklasak, sarımsaklamasak da mı saklasak? (Should we put the yogurt away after adding garlic to it, or before adding garlic to it?) [A tongue-twister]

This weekend was a three-day program-sponsored trip to the Black Sea including all students, teachers, and conversation partners, as well as CLS staff, and the friendly visitor from the State Dept. Suffice to say, it was phenomenal and the town of Amasra is staggeringly beautiful and also historic.
(Again, if you are on the front page, you are required to click read more. LOTS of pictures.)

Direniyor (He/she/it/they are resisting)

Everyone has the most annoying voice possible in the Turkish dub of Arthur. Just wanted to share the most important piece of information I found from channel surfing.

Right, I'm going to write this quickly, since this post only covers the Fourth of July, which wasn't the most interesting of days. In fact, in some respects, it was a very sad day for me.

July Fourth I had no class, due to the fact that our excellent teacher was at a conference presenting. We made up for the lost time with lengthier classes on the other weekdays. I made use of my time off to get some extra sleep in. Then I headed to Kızılay and had to go to Turkcell to put more minutes on my phone. Ignoring the fact that there are packages available, I just put slightly more money on it than there was at the beginning. Turkcell then immediately began spamming me with messages about their great deals. What a company!

Then, I wandered around town for a bit, found a music store with everything overpriced and in USD, and then eventually went into a "Vitamin cafe" because I wanted lemonade. I had a long conversation with the owner and another patron in which I exclusively used Turkish. They told me about some other Americans they knew, and repeatedly told me how great my Turkish was. At some point I explained my parents' occupations (psychologist and geologist), and they assumed for whatever reason that my parents must have pretty cool cars. Well, they do. The owner showed me a picture of a motorcycle he has from the '40s. It was neat.

I departed from the shop, and met up with my friends for lunch, where I had some more mantı. I unfortunately did not return to the Iraqi restaurant I previously went to, and apparently the waiter was asking about me because I named all the fish on his wall and he really liked that. He apparently said imagination was 90% of life.

After lunch, we had another one of our weekly meetings with our resident director, though this week we had a visitor from the State Department who wanted to see what our program was like on the ground. He was a super cool guy.

With the meeting over, I went with my friends Jack and Erin to an antique shop in Tunalı, a neighborhood of Ankara which I hadn't visited yet. It's a cool place. I still don't like antique stores very much in Turkey, but I liked how the stuff had much greater potential to actually be old. For legal reasons, nothing was purchased.

We rested for a bit in a cafe in Kuğlu Park (Swan Park) which is where a lot of the protest action has taken place. The tea was nice, and I took a lot of pictures of graffiti and the park itself, which is small but nice. Obviously, the title of my blogpost comes from the graffiti.

One walk back to Kızılay  later,  I hopped the metro home, had some dinner, grabbed my  Cümbüş and hit up the CLS July 4th festivities: a Turkey vs US soccer game. Sherri provided wonderful musical accompaniment on the trumpet that I could not match. Eli gave a rousing speech about how if the American team lost the game, then America would lose. Jack valiantly fell over repeatedly during the game. America lost. We then were handed sparklers and they went out after thirty seconds. Happy Birthday, America!

Future careers not in the cards for Steve - Sports Photographer

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.

Çamaşırları ütüleyip fotoğraf çektirdik. (We ironed the laundry and took pictures.)

No laundry photos today, sorry for getting your hopes up with that misleading title. Instead, I promise tables constructed out of waterpipes, 'cooking', and the most interesting honorary doctorate degree in the world.
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So, I forgot to mention that I also went to an art exhibition sponsered by a bank in my last post. The art was nice, and I snagged one of the free booklets, so I successfully have a copy of every painting in my room. The most interesting thing about the exhibition was arguably the music. I don't know about your feelings, but I really don't think the theme songs to Rocky and The Godfather scream art appreciation time!

On Thursday of last weeks, us CLSers had one of our planned cultural activities--a cooking class. This was something I was really looking forward to. Would I learn how to make köfte and sütlaç? Well, sütlaç fo sho. I volunteered to do that one, so I was put in charge of following the recipe, and combining a bardak of sugar with a litre of süt. My kitchen prowess was documented, and although I currently do not have access to these photos, I assure the audience that I am as skilled at cracking eggs and putting on the yolks in, and putting rice into a bowl of milk and sugar.

(EDIT: Photos now exist.)

Just look at that pouring ability.
Photo courtesy of Duygu Hanım (aka my Turkish professor)

What I do have is the end result:

Turkish rice pudding is fantastic!

CLS students are not serious 100% of the time.
CLS students are definitely not serious when cooking.

A slightly nicer group photo.
Courtesy of Duygu Hanım

Other students worked on salad, soup, and the main course, İzmir köfte, which was absolutely fantastic, and which I will definitely attempt to make for myself in Pittsburgh. So that was a great time.

Post-food nap.
Photo courtesy of Duygu Hanım

Speaking of food, on Friday I finally got around to sampling another of Ankara's delicacies.

That's Nartakal Suyu. Pomegranate-Orange Juice. Unfortunately I deemed it not as awesome as its name. I agree with my classmate Eli, who explained that Nartakal sounds like a really cool word because in English it is a combination of Gnarly and Radical. Gnartical, man!

For lunch I had another waffle, this time from a place called Best Waffle's. As you can see, I delight in healthy, vegetarian lunches:

If you can tell, TOO MUCH CHOCOLATE

But enough about food. After lunch, I hit up the Sıhhiye Pazar with some friends of mine and I ended up buying some ties that I really liked. They were 3 for 10 TL, which is a wonderful price. After I bought them, the owner of the stand with ties bought me a bottle of water, my friend a çay bardağı (glass of tea), and offered another friend of mine who didn't buy anything çay if she wanted it. This was entirely because we are foreigners studying Turkish, and because the guy was nice. Yay, Turkey!

After that, I returned home on the single crowded, unpleasant metro experience I've had here.

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Saturday was a day for more pleasant metro rides, and a trip to the Atatürk Cultural Market, where there was much in the way of food availible for purchase, stands with various goods, and a huge (mostly empty when I was there) festival celebrating the city of Ankara and its public works. The festival was full of exhibits on the city's public works. For instance, the first one I looked at was on how Ankara salts its roads. It consisted of a very hot tent with about two inches of rock salt covering the ground for no reason and some posters. Okay, laame.

The ones for metros and busses were better, but the one for the city's water supply was an exhibit that I found genuinely interesting. It combined factual information about where the water comes from and how it is cleaned with displays that were entirely an excuse to waste water or be kooky. Allow me to explain through the magic of fotoğraflar (note that the g is silent.)

Water comes from somewhere and goes through these exciting filters. I think the words for carbon and osmosis were somewhere around here.

Then this machine puts it in cups.

Staff stand behind a glass window ensure that the water is properly packaged into cups.

Table and chairs made from water pipes. How kooky!

Background: a water wheel. Why? Why not!

One of many fountains in the exhibit, showing that water is pretty.

A television reminds visitors that water is fun, by showing people dressed as water droplets partying at the exhibit.

Note the man with a mustache pointing at a reservoir on the poster to the right of the TV. I think he's in charge of something water related. I picked up a free pamphlet with a lot of pictures of him posing like that. I dig his stache.

This exhibit tries to show the viewer what water pipes are like under a street.

You may not be able to see it, but there are bunnies living in here, clearly accountable for any water quality problems that Ankara could have.

A large picture of the whole exhibit. Oooh.

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On Sunday I went on a very long walk. Here are some of the things that I saw:

Dolphin fountain near my home

National library gives Club Hillman a run for its money in the attractive dept.

Aşık Veysel park, named after my favorite Turkish folk singer.

I probably failed to explain this, but Turkish parks have interesting exercise equipment in them. See?

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Today was not the most interesting of days, though it did contain the quote that is the title of this blogpost. It's part of a matching exercise mismatched. I only mismatched quite a few of the answers, since they seemed okay to me in my ignorance as a language learner. Whoops.
We had class lunch in order to make up for time that will be missed when our teacher is gone on 4 Hazıran (July 4th). The restaurant happened to have the most interesting diploma I have ever seen hanging up.

"This is to certify that Mr. Tbik Kis was awarded as 'Honorable Doctor' of 'Wrestler study' Academy by the decision of the Academy presidium adopted on September 15, 2003 evaluating your effort in development of wrestling sport."
(From Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia)
Huh?

After lunch, my friend Sherri and I went to see a movie. We settled on Hızlı ve Öfkeli Altı, or Fast & Furious 6 which was a suitably mindless action movie. Very mindless. Very action. I think it was a bit much action for me. Might have to go watch another arty film one of these days.

And that's my life.