Week Two

Today I went once again to the weekly Rotary Club banquet from my first night! It was just as delicious, and I was a little more selective with my choices, so I was in less pain afterwards (from being too full!). There is a really delicious type of green bean dish that is very common. It is served cold and is basically just green beans cut french style and cooked with garlic, onions, tomato, olive oil, salt, and sugar. I guess the sugar is what really makes the flavor so great. Mmm. My anne is going to teach me how to make them.

It was really pretty cold tonight, and as I had worn only a dress and a cardigan to dinner, my baba ordered a blanket from the waiters for me. Do they ever do this in America? I don't have any idea, but like I said, incredible service.

I found out more about my second host family's home. They live a little bit outside of the family, in a house, not an apartment. It is close to where I will be going to school, and I will be with them for six months. There place was described to me by one of the people at the banquet as "a small palace" and there is a whole separate little house "for the servants to live in." They have drivers. I guess my next father, Korhan, is an engineer, but he also owns some hotel in this extremely lucrative vacation spot in Turkey and invests in things. And my next mom is supposed to be "maybe the nicest woman in the whole world I think." Needless to say, I'm excited. However, while it will be nice not to have to take an elevator up to an apartment, I will really, really miss Fatöş and Elcin. It's only been a week, but I really love them both. They are always going to be my first real family in Turkey, and I hope I feel so at home in my next house as I do here.

We watched Turkey beat Belgium in a really close football match tonight. I have never been so excited about a sports game, especially soccer. I think I am going to start following these games. They play Germany next month. I'm already pumped.

(Interesting fact: in Turkish, Belgium is spelled Belçika, and pronounced "bell-CHICKA", which I thought was pretty cute. Like bell-chicka-chicka-boom-boom. Also, a shower is called düş, which is pronounced "doosh," like düş jeli (shower gel). Do with that what you'd like.)

I found out the true saga of the Russian girl (Lena) and her baby (Asia). So apparently, she took off to Ukraine after her and her husband got in a big fight. But a few months later, she decided she made a mistake, and wanted to move back. But he is still mad, and says he won't take her back. So now she and HER mother (and her baby girl) are living with HIS mother (Gulia) while she waits for him to get back from a business trip so they can talk it out over Bayram (the holiday at the end of Ramazan that is beginning the day after tomorrow). I told Ilke that it was like a giant soap opera. She laughed and agreed.

There is no such thing as a self-service gas pump here. Like having people literally put your shoes on for you at the shoe store, the ONLY kind of petrol service is full service. You just go swipe your card, get back in the car, and the guys fill you up and clean all of your windows. It's amazing. BUT, as I found out, gas is unbelievably expensive. It was listed at 3.64 TL per liter. I did the entire conversion, and that makes it $9.12 PER GALLON. Seriously. Nine dollars and twelve cents per gallon. I am shocked. And unlike Italy or other parts of Europe, the cars aren't that tiny. There aren't any SUVs or anything, and there are a lot of compact cars, but definitely no SmartCars. Most people have at least one car, too. You'd think, with the price of gas, that people would be more interested in fuel efficiency. There are a lot of beat up 1980s Volvos and Volkswagens with really crazy upholstery. A lot of these cars are used as food stalls, in that they pop open the trunk and offer loose hazelnuts or honey or pomegranate syrup or tomatoes. It's wild. There are also a lot of crazy old 1970s Mercedes public transport buses, along with a lot of newer little mini buses. You just flag one down, and they go on their route, to and from Kizilay, usually. You hand the fare to the driver, who, while he's driving, sorts out your change into this little open partitioned wooden box up at the front, makes the correct change, and passes is back for the other passengers to hand to you. While he's shifting gears. It's a little disconcerting, but as they've done it a million times, I guess there's not much to worry about. When you're ready to get off, you just sort of say it to the driver, he pulls over right away, and you quickly step down, and he just drives away. Very quickly. Sometimes I think it's even before my feet are on the pavement. Also, car park everywhere, including the sidewalk.

We went into Kizilay briefly today to pick out an engagement present for Tutku (TOOT-koo), Onur's (Fatöş' younger son's) fiancee. We got her a pretty gold necklace with lots of different stones and a little evil eye embeded in it. Almost all women have a special piece of jewelry with the evil eye that they wear at all times. Some of them get pretty fancy. For instance, I noticed on a younger girl that she just had an evil-eye charm safety-pinned to her. I guess this must be usual for children, as I later spotted a piece of platinum and diamond jewelry that was a gem-encrusted replica of a safety-pin, complete with its own dangling, diamond-covered evil-eye, all on a nice necklace chain. Hmm. Fantastic stuff in the old TK.

I've been skyping with a lot of people, and Fatöş and Elcin have gotten to meet some of them, so that's fun. I miss everyone a lot, but I'm very happy here.

I hope everyone is having a really good time back home.

Love,

Nat