Okey

Today, we went again to the huge and beautiful outdoor food bazaar. Picture this:http://www.theworldeffect.com/.a/6a00e54fa8abf788330120a6562a5b970b-800wi but on a flat table, and over an area of about 100 x 50 yards. Also, imagine a covering of hundreds of huge, ratty umbrella giving the whole thing a shady, ancient-harem-type look. We got a ton of things, including these funny little clementine things. They are bright green on the outside and bright orange on the inside. They sort of look like the cover of Freakonomics (http://dreallday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/freakonomics.jpg). Sorry, strange reference.

In other news, dinner was great. We had mushrooms stuffed with cheese, homemade tomato soup, summer salad, fresh cooked yufka squares filled with cheese and a sort of potato mash. Also, baba brought home fresh squeezed o.j. again! He is so thoughtful.

Oh, I also made a strawberry roll up cake! We got some more çilekler (chee-LEHK-ler, strawberries) at the bazaar, and my anne provided all the ingredients. She even dug out her half-missing set of Western-style measuring cups! I had to measure out the 1/4 Cups using the Tablespoon. I wanted to use the recipe we usually do at home, but I couldn't reach anybody, so I got one off of epicurious.com. It came out looking pretty rough at first, so I was disappointed, but it firmed up and actually ended up being a delicious cake! We had the neighbor ladies over for tea and pasta (PAH-stah, cake) afterwards, and everyone loved it. The desserts here are usually filo-dough and honey/nut related, so the fruit and cake thing was a nice change, I think. The whipped cream I used was very strange. Instead of heavy cream, anne just had a box of individual packets of this funny powder stuff, and you just add milk or water and whip. It tastes fine, but was strange, I thought, in a country so filled with fresh foods. Also, instead of vanilla extract, it was the same packet deal: a box filled with a bunch of teaspoon-sized packets of white, vanilla-flavored powder. Somehow, I think the Turks sort of missed the boat on the cake and sweet-baking craze. Every single other food group is homegrown and homemade, from the meats, cheeses, and yogurt to the yufka, the tea, and the soups and veggies. But when it comes to sweet, Western-style baked goods, it's a lot of margerine and vanilla powder. Very peculiar. Not to say that it isn't delicious; it's just a touch less authentic than the very high standard that I've come to expect in a country so rich in culinary character.

I mentioned before that anne just used a tea glass for measuring. I thought this was maybe her own deal. But, from what I understood of the Turkish on the side of the very modern whipped-cream packets (seen here: http://www.ozpak.com.tr/images/urunler/kremSantiSade.jpg), the instructions indicated that either one "chai bardak" (tea glass) of "su" (water) or one-and-a-half "kahve fincanılar" (coffee cups) of "süt" (milk) could be used. But, my most Westernly-exacting culinary side protested, there are so many different sizes and styles of Turkish drinking implements! what if the proportions were wrong! But, of course, the whipped-cream came out fine. If I find out more about this peculiarity, dear reader, I will let you know.

Like I said, the ladies (Gulia and Nesren, the woman who lives across from her) came over for some snacks this evening, and I learned how to play my very first games of the ever-popular "Okey." It's pronounced just like "okay," and was described on an English website (which I sought out after trying to learn the fairly nuanced rules from a bunch of women who spoke only Turkish) as being very similar to Rummy. It is very well-liked in Turkey, and, I imagine, is just as widely known and revered as backgammon, which is so popular with the cafe crowd. It reminded me of the ubiquitous American game of Bridge, but maybe it was just my playing company. It seems that chatty neighborhood women love a good social game no matter what country they call "yuva."

While we were playing, we had the little kitchen T.V. on, as we seem to do during almost all social gatherings (including dinner). We watched a sort of variety equivalent to the classic MTV, called TRT T.V. (Turkish Radio Something? I know it's based in Ankara, though!). It played a lot of classic (I assume, as anne and the other were often singing along) Turkish ballads, sung by a few very blond women filled with lots of collagen and surrounded by lots of cheesy production elements. This is what I was dealing with: http://www.trt.net.tr/televizyon/sayfa/detay.aspx?pid=19696

It also played a few angsty Turkish rock music videos.

Speaking of angst, my deepest apologies, readers, for the brevity of my last post! I was fatigued and saddened by our fine country's losses. It was a bad time in both courts, so to speak!

Tomorrow night is the Rotary Club's weekly banquet again, but this time, anne is coming, as it's family night! This is going to involve menus, I've been informed, so there will be no beautiful banquet spread. It will, however, be a nice time to test out my ordering skills.

Looking forward,

Natalya

Ugh.

We lost the championship game.

We lost the referendum.

I'm going to bed.

-Natalie

WE WOOONNNNNNNNN

As you may have noted on my Facebook:

" Natalie Weaver JUST WATCHED THE MOST MINDBLOWING BASKETBALL GAME OF HER ENTIRE LIFE!!!!! TURKEY WAS DOWN THE WHOLE ENTIRE TIME AND THEN IN THE LAST FOURRRRR SECONNNNDSSS THEY WOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNN AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 8 FOR 8 BABY WE'RE GOING TO THE FINALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It was incredible. For the WHOLE GAME, we were always down by at least one, usually two shots. We got it tied ONCE, and immediately Serbia scored a three-pointer. But then, RIGHT at the end, in the last five minutes, we were up by two, then one, and THEN, with FOUR SECONDS left to go, SERBIA scored. They basically won. It was horrible. We had been yelling and screaming and then, just when we thought we had pulled off a miracle, it was over. ALL over. BUT IN THE LAST FOUR SECONDS, Kerem Tunceri slammed in a two point shot with one HALF of a second remaining but then they GAVE SERBIA THE BALL but, INCREDIBLY, Semih Erden blocked an amazing last-second three-point shot meaning that TURKEY WON 83-82 OVER SERBIA IN THE SEMI-FINALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This happens to mean that they will be playing the U.S. tomorrow. Sorry, homeland, I'm rooting for TÜRKIYYYYYYYYYYE!!!!

This is the ad that they've been playing the whole tournament. The song is AMAZING and everyone always chants it. They are singing "Oniki Dev Adam," (OHN EEKEE DEV AH DAHM, or TWELVE GIANT MEN!). It is really fantastic:

http://vimeo.com/13203982

This is just the song by itself:

http://www.antu.com/taraftar/mp3/12devadam.mp3

GO TÜRKIYE!

And now:

For all of you darling daily readers, I'm sorry it's been a while--I've had a very busy Bayram!

The first day, Thursday, I woke up late, again. My anne came in and told me that she was going to see some family. I wished her a good trip and went back to loafing around in my PJs. It turns out that she meant that the family were coming here. I rushed to get dressed (in my great navy and white, thin-striped jersey-knit shirt I recently got for fifteen bucks in Kizilay) and crept sheepishly into our sitting room to join the company. Everyone was very friendly and pleased to meet me, and good wishes were shared all around. I can't remember everyone's names, but I met one of our (distant?) cousins, Selen, who is going to be a sophomore. It was great to meet another girl about my age!

When company arrives for Bayram, everyone is offered a little chocolate. This is because "Bayram" is actually short for Şeker Bayram, or sweet holiday. After, we brought out little plates, each with three delicious sarma (stuffed grape leaves), which I have really grown to love, along with two little potato böreği, one plate per person. These börek were more like little potato puff pastries with a few sesame seeds on top My anne made them, and they were flaky and warm and absolutely delicious. We also served the little hazelnut cookies we had made.

After the waves of neighbors and family stopped arriving and everyone departed, Ilke, Kıvanç, baba, anne, and I had dinner. Anne and Ilke and I prepared the meal, which consisted of mixed vegetables, spaghetti and a light red sauce, breaded and fried chicken, summer salad (cucumbers, tomato, and onion), mushrooms stuffed with cheese, delicious oven-fry potatoes, and bread. It was actually a pretty American-type meal, my anne was surprised to hear, and everything was very good. After dinner, Ilke and I discussed grammar and dialects for an hour or two, and then she and Kıvanç took me out to a nice restaurant district for some dessert. It was a very nice evening!

The next day, we again had a bunch of visitor, same deal, and then we went to see Ilke's parents. Her mom served us really delicious homemade pistachio baklava and another great dessert, also made with honey and pistachios. They were very sweet people. Ilke looks just like her dad! I got picked up from their parents house by Kıvanç and Ilke while anne and baba stayed to visit. We went over to have dinner at the same family's house who had come to see us yesterday (Selen's family and other cousins and aunts and uncles). It was great having met them before, as I felt very comfortable and they were very welcoming. We hung out there for the rest of the afternoon and late into the evening. We had homemade sarma again, as well as the same type of salad, but the guys went out to some restaurant and got a bunch of prepared rice, rotisserie chickens, french fries, and soda. I was given a plate with a full half of a chicken on it. And I ate it! Not quite down to the bare bone, but almost all of it. A lot of you would be pretty proud of me. And while I hate to admit it, this chicken was really good. After dinner, I helped clean up, and I went and hung out with Selen (whose English is pretty good) and her little sister and her cousins. It was very relaxed and fun, and everyone was joking and laughing and having a really good time. I was very much included, and my being there felt totally natural. It was great! I could have just as easily been hanging out with the Weavers or the Antenuccis.

Speaking of which, I got to talk briefly to my brother, Sean, at home, and then to my Grandma Bobby and Grandpa Tom! It was so nice to talk to them, but it made me wish I were out on their boat with them, or hanging out at the lake. I was a little upset afterwards--I really miss seeing everyone, family especially.

OH, in a final close to the Russian tale: after seeing him and trying to work it out over Bayram, Lena the Russian girl was finally and unequivocally rejected by her (soon to be former) husband. It was really sad. She was upset and so was her mother and so was Gulia (whose name is actually spelled "Hulya", I discovered; I'll just keep it was Gulia to avoid confusion). It was a horrible Bayram for all of them. I especially feel bad for baby Asia, as she will probably rarely get to see her dad. In fact, this morning, Lena and her mom and the baby got on a plane to Ukrayna (ooo-KRY-nuh, Ukraine) where they will live with the baby, who will probably never be taught Turkish. I don't know what Gulia is going to do without her granddaughter. I am sorry, readers, to have to deliver such a sad ending to this long and confusing saga.

For the last day of Bayram, we visited my baba's aunt, who was absolutely lovely and a little feisty and must have been about 82, although she didn't look it. Her English is actually pretty good, as she used to be a geography teacher (they often use English in the high school courses). She lived in a great, old little apartment, and was very sweet to me. She doesn't have any kids, and I think she must be pretty lonely, as she teared up a little bit and told my anne in half-Turkish, half-English that she wants to have her own lovely exchange girl to stay with with her next year. It was so nice.

After this visit, we inexplicably took a trip to yet another gigantic and very modern mall. We just walked around a bit, and at the very end, I went back to the first store, Gap, and bought a really great mustard yellow sweater. Actually, my baba bought it for me, as this particular store wouldn't accept my debit card! I tried telling him I would pay him back, but, in a typical Turkish show of hospitality, he totally refused, saying that this is my Bayram present. And it was pretty expensive! Gap in Turkey is weirdly expensive, so it was 80 TL, which is a bit more than $50. So generous!

The one single quality of life thing that I really don't like about Turkey is the number of parking garages that you have to deal with. I know it's a city, but it seems much worse than say, New York. Our apartment has a little one, and it is still awful. Usually we just get out of the car and wait, because the spaces are so tight that it takes five minutes and five inches of backing up and creeping forward to get around all of the stupid cement pillars. And every mall has the biggest underground parking lot you've ever seen, and they are all really crowded and loud and filled with exhaust. Today, after shopping for maybe half an hour, we just lost our car. None of us remembered the the lot letter or number, and we wandered around asking security guards and breathing exhaust until I finally remembered that the first shop we saw coming up the escalator was was TurkCell. So we found it, after like twenty starving minutes. I know, I know, I'm being melodramatic, but I am just really not used to, nor enamored of, these Turkish parking garages. I just want a nice grassy bit of gravel to pull up to!

Other than that, Turkey's being good to me so far. Actually, the malls have these really cool escalators, but instead of stairs, it's just a huge flat ramp on a twenty degree incline. It feels like you're on a conveyor-belt to heaven, and, depending on your sense of materialism, maybe you are.

Lots of Love and Basketball Pride,

Natalie

P.S. Congratulations to my cousins, Liza and Jonathan, for the birth of their third baby! His name is Charles Robert and his birthday is Sept. 10 and he is healthy and amazing!

A Nice Day

I overslept, as usual. I had taken the ipod dock I use into the bathroom to shower, but when I took it back into my bedroom, the time was wrong, obviously. I figured I'd reset it later. So this morning, after going back to sleep a few times, I was pleased to see that I had woken up at 7:30 a.m.! If only. It was already something like 1:30 p.m. I've been sleeping so late! Too busy writing my blog, I guess.

Today, my anne and I walked to a few different markets and bought food for Bayram cooking. Bayram, as I've mentioned, is the big celebration at the end of Ramazan, the month of fasting. It is comparable to Easter after Lent, but is probably a bigger deal. It is just three or four days of major eating and visiting and partying. Everyone travels to their home towns and goes around to the houses of all their family members and is given candy and food and has a really good time. Or so I hear, and will soon experience, as tomorrow is the first day of the festivities! Tonight was the last time that my anne and baba had to wait until the cami (JAAH-meh, mosque) called for Iftar, or the end of daily fasting, to finally eat. They were not even allowed to drink water during the day, and it's been HOT!

Stores everywhere are advertising Bayram sales and there are all kinds of wrapped hard candies and chocolates laid out in all the stores for Bayram. The usual greetings I get have gone from mostly good day (iyi günler, EE-yee GOON-lair) to iyi Bayramlar (EE-yee BY-rum-lar, which is like saying "happy Bayram").

My anne and I made tatlı kurabiyesi (TUHT-luh KOOR-ah-bee-yeh-see, sweet cookies) with fındık (FUHN-duk, hazelnuts) pressed into them. As soon as they come out of the oven, you pour a sugar water syrup over them. They absorb the syrup and get really sweet and moist. Delicious. I should note that usually, in Turkey, most kurabiye (cookies) are actually not sweet. They are more like little savory/buttery biscuits. My favorite are the little sesame twists my anne makes so well. But for Bayram, everything is fancier, so we made sweet cookies. The recipe we used called for powdered sugar, so anne broke out her little food processor thing and put a few little cups of granulated sugar into it and made her own powdered sugar! Amazing. Also, she doesn't use standard measuring cups. Instead, she used a regular spoon and one of her nice little Turkish kahve (KAH-vey, coffee) serving cups, approximating almost all of the amounts. They came out great! Our neighbor from across the hall brought us some of the same cookie that she had made, only hers were with almonds on top.

I'm having some apple tea right now, a pretty common Turkish drink. It is really just little bits of dried apple that you steep to make a mild, hot tea. My Latin teacher, Ms. Chabot, had brought back some powdered apple tea from her trip around Turkey this summer. It was delicious, but considerably stronger than the real thing. I should bring back some dried apple bits to make it with at home.

My baba brought home a really cute t-shirt for me. It has a logo on the upper-left chest area that says "Turkey," but the "T" is a little kid in swim trunks spreading his arms and grinning. Adorable.

OH, while we were in one of the little grocery stores, my anne was buying some red peppers. I told her in very poor Turkish that my mom and I like to make roasted red peppers. She went right back and grabbed some more, and I used four of them to make roasted red peppers that we had for dinner tonight! I had to look up the Celsius conversion for the Fahrenheit temperature I usually use, and I had to look up the Turkish word for garlic (sarımsak, SAH-rum-sahk), but they came out just like we make them I home! I used fresh parsley that my anne grows on our balcony and I cut them very long and thin and stringy, like I prefer them. I was very proud of my first solo cooking efforts in Turkey. Incidentally, and not surprisingly (as I think roasted red peppers are Mediterranean), anne had some SHE had made in a jar in the fridge. They were cut into square rather than strips, and instead of parsley, she had them marinated in a light vinegar. Also delicious.

Gulia and her Russian daughter-in-law and her Russian daughter-in-law's mother and her half-Russian granddaughter a came to visit at our house tonight. Gulia always sings this really great lullaby to the baby ("deen-deeny deen-deeny deeny-deeny-deen"). I realized after the ninth or tenth rendition that it was the exact same song I had found months ago back home when I was exploring the Turkish music scene. I had no idea that this cute animated traditional lullaby I found was really so widely known and employed. This is the link I looked at originally: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x95dff_turkish-lullaby_music *. The bit at the very end is also a very popular part to sing. Anne and Gulia knew all the words, easily. It was so cute. Asia (the 13 months old girl, not the whole continent) loves it, and jiggles around like crazy every time Gulia sings it.

*All of my links are from dailymotion or some other site because youtube is blocked in Turkey. Very strange.

Also, Turkey handily beat Serbia in the basketball tournament in Istanbul tonight!

I am going to go to sleep now, as it's late, like usual.

Iyi gece!

Natalie

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

Brief Overview

I woke up late again. My anne had two friends over, sisters, and they were helping her make a huge batch of stuffed grape leaves for bayram. Delicious! I got to help. You have to pluck off the stem of this big floppy leaf, lay it face down, put on a little line of spiced, cooked rice with tomato, and then you just tuck and roll. Later, we walked over to the same friends' house to help them make their stuffed grape leaves. The one sister had a few children, and I got to talk with her daughter, who spoke pretty good English. She is currently working on getting her PhD. in chemical engineering, and she gave me an organization to contact about scholarships for going to college/studying in Turkey. Very good information!

I met Gulia's Russian daughter-in-law and her mother. Very blond, very nice. The mother didn't speak any Turkish or English, and the daughter didn't speak any English, but they were nice company. We had some tea at Gulia's and played with the Russian girl's baby daughter, Asia. She is about one year old and very cute! They had some Russian picture books for her to play with. She is the one who is having all this relationship trouble or something with her husband. I still haven't figured out the exact situation. I find myself often out of the loop or only vaguely in it, but it makes for lots of adventure.

We also went to an open-air food bazaar. Amazing amounts of really good fresh produce, all very cheap. We got a full grocery bag of tiny little delicious strawberries, usually about $5 per pint in the U.S. at farmer's markets, here, 4 1/2 lbs. for about $2! Incredible. Everyone is very willing to let you sample the produce/food you are buying, even in a large grocery store. It's great.

Going to sleep now, as it's late, as usual.

Abbreviated-ly,

Natalie

Progress

I'm starting to be able to form sentences! This is very exciting. I think that at least 1/3 of them are grammatically correct, too!

Today, I woke up late again, about noon. My anne offered me a bunch of food, but I just had some mineral water with fresh-squeezed OJ, which my baba had picked up from a cart on the street because I told him I liked the one my anne had got me the other day. Meyve suyu (may-VEH SOO-yoo, fruit juice) carts are all over the place. Almost as much as the şimit carts.

Remember the yufka I talked about yesterday? The filo-dough circles? Well today, my anne and I made real sigara böreği (seh-GAR-uh boh-RAY-ee, cigar borek), meaning that instead of the big rolled-up one my anne made me for lunch before, these ones are only about 3 inches long and are individually rolled. Like little appetizers. She stacked three huge yufka circles on top of each other, cut them down the middle, then across, then again, to make eighths. She then stacked the piles of paper-thin yufka wedges on top of each other, put two piles next to each other on the table, and got out a little bowl of water. I picked some of her fresh parsley and we put it, along with some black pepper, into some salty white cheese we had mashed up. She showed me how to take a tiny pile of cheese, place it at the thick end of the wedge, tuck in the sides, and roll the dough up into a little "cigar". To seal it, you dip the tip of the pointed end in water and press it against the roll. They look like this: (http://www.kadin-sitesi.com/yemektarifleri/wp-content/uploads/Sigara-Böreği.jpg) ! We used five circles of yufka total, and probably made about sixty little rolls, ten or so of which she briefly fried in some olive oil for me to have for lunch. The rest she put in the freezer. They were a little salty, a little crunchy, and very, very delicious. I ate some with a little cured olive tapenade that anne had in a jar. I told her they were right up there with kaymak. Gulia came over to chat while we cooked, and she shared some of the borek with me, as she is not fasting.

Gulia is very loud and funny and always chides me on my eating habits. There is a Turkish saying that says something about whatever you leave on your plate will haunt you or something. I don't know the full phrase. So Gulia always very wildly tells me to eat every single crumb!!!! Just now, we were out on her balcony having tea and this crumbly şimit, and she told me to quickquickquick, drink all of your tea! in a semi-joking tone of urgency. I always appease her with corresponding alacrity, crazily gulping down the rest of my çay (chai, tea), only half kidding. It is very fun.

I forgot to mention that yesterday, we met Gulia's daughter Dilek (DEE-leck) and grandsons, Efe (EH-feh, age 6, very blue eyes) and Ege (EH-geh, age 4, gorgeous shoulder length hair). They were incredibly hoş (hosh, cute!), and reminded me a lot of my little brother, Cedar, who is also 6. (I just showed my anne a picture of Cedar grinning and looking crazy on the beach, and she said "cin, cin!" which is pronounced like the English word "gin." I looked it up and it means, like, gnome or elf or something. Ahahahahahha. She's so right.) Anyways, they were bouncing all over the sidewalks while all of the women shopped around. Efe would count up in Turkish sort of nonsensically ("alti, yedi, sekiz, dokuz, OM!," six, seven, eight, nine, TEN!) and he and Ege would leap of the steps together. It was just heartbreakingly adorable. They were really sweet kids.

While we were out with the kids yesterday, Dilek bought them a snack, which turned out to be Turkish, Twilight-themed Cheetos. SO weird. I look over and Ege is clutching a little sticker of a guy's face that came in the bag and Dilek leans over and goes, "Jacob." Ahahahah.

Also, it turns out that Frito-Lay makes a chip called A La Turca that is supposedly Turkish-themed corn chips, involving poppy seed and tomato. They were sort of good? Also, very weird.

We went again to a huge super market, that was again underneath a mall. In the meat section, my anne had them cut up a couple of some kind of leg and grind up some meat. There were whole livers and whole stomach linings. Ahhhh. They were totally white and in little piles and looked sort of wooly/furry. Ew. We bought a giant bag of these mild, long little green peppers. A whole grocery bag full was only about fifty cents. Clothing and perfume and things are very expensive here, but food is very cheap and very good.

Back at the house, we picked up a pot full of milk from the doorman's apartment (anne had brought down an empty pot to be filled) along with a bunch of grocery bags of fresh tomatoes and more pepper and some other veggies. I was freaking out. So much produce! All the time! I guess it isn't all ours though? I think anne explained we were picking some of it up for friends.

Bayram is coming up this week. It is the end of Ramazan, the month of fasting, and there is a big, three or four day-long celebration, like a souped-up Halloween. There are all of these TV ads of kids screaming and being showered in candy and lots of print ads to the same effect.

Dinner tonight was a really good red-lentil pureed soup, a white bean and tomato dish, a fresh cucumber/tomato/mint/pepper salad, white rice with little, half inch-long pasta strands, black olives, and helva. Helva is some kind of very finely ground grain, cooked with water, sugar, and nuts, so it makes kind of a less soupy, less creamy Cream of Wheat. Anne made it today. It is very good.

This song (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6s55c_zulfu-livaneli-ozgurluk_music) is the slower song that was sung at the concert last night. Everyone raised their hands into peace signs and held lighters and cell phones and sang and swayed.

I am really beginning to love Ankara. The apartment we are in has a beautiful view and Gulia's is even better. She has almost a complete 180 degree view of the city from her balcony. The lights stretch out for miles and miles. They glitter in the summer-night haze and look as if someone has spilled a huge box of jewelry and loose gems out over a black dip of velvet and hills. There are strands of gold that mark bridges and roads and giant swaths of glittering orange interspersed with flecks of green and red and blue and purple. This night is especially lovely, and the air is cool an fresh and smells of city and Florida. Everywhere there is the sound of cars and humming and a breeze floats in an out of my balcony. Our place is atop a hill plastered with new apartments, and they slide away from us, transforming with little transition from looming blocks to distance sparkle down the steep slope and out into the rest of the city. The light pollution erases the horizon, and it looks as if the last light on the farthest hill is being swallowed in the fog at the end of the world. There are very few stars to be seen, but instead of lessening the sight, it seems as if all of the stars in the whole sky have fallen softly onto our valley and collected into an infinite, glistening pool. I have never seen a place so beautifully transformed by the night.

Just as the sun set, the imams called for evening prayers. The sound of their song is so foreign to me and it seems to emanate from everywhere at once, filling up the hills with a muted warbling of faith. The loudspeakers they use from the minarets distort their voices and the hazy lights over the city seem a liquid, filtering and mutating the prayers so they sound as if they were being delivered to us from above as we float weightlessly beneath a deep and calming sea. It is beautiful and haunting and makes all of the tiny city lights seem to come together as one, an undulating mass of sound and prayer.

In Awe,

Natalie

P.S. This one is from the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, but it sounds similar: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alaskapine/2402178742/

Hayır!

Today, I again woke up at about one p.m., although I thought I had asked anne to wake me at ten?Either way, I got up. Then, as I was eating a breakfast of a mozzarella-type cheese cooked in between some cut open pitte and the usual olives, cheeses, etc. Our neighbor, Gulia (GHYU-lee-uh), came over. She is probably in her late sixties. She was again wearing her t-shirt that says "Love Time," which none of them realized was very suggestive in English. When I explained this, they all thought it was very funny. It took me a while to realize, however, that today, Gulia was not very happy. It turns out (I think?) that Gulia's Russian daughter-in-law is taking her son back to Russia with her. She was very upset. I think Gulia's son and this Russian girl broke up or something. Very bad. She's worried about her grandson. I looked up Turkish phrases of condolence. They were well-received.

Today was the first day that I was very homesick, and I cried a little bit while my anne comforted me in Turkish. I got over it pretty quickly, as I had a very busy day.

After I ate, Gulia and my anne and I went for a walk down Dikkmen street, where the apartment is. Anne had to pick up some pants from the tailor and Gulia was looking for a bathroom set. This street is very busy and is huge and loud and dusty and filled with shops. Most of the shops are on the first floor of apartment buildings, and are either raised up on foot-high stone platforms or sunk down a foot or two. The very modern and commercial mixes very freely with the broken down old buildings and junk on the street. The cars obey few if any laws, and there are technically only two lanes, although people drive like there are six. There are no crosswalks and you sort of just wait for a gap in the traffic. The shops are filled with delicious pastries and meats and dried and fresh fruits, as well as lots of cheap cloth and clothes. The Turks have a preference for very flashy, modern furniture. The set in my family's living room is bright sherbet orange velour with orange and green and white striped pillows, for instance.

We stopped into a bakery-type place to get the yufka (YOOF-kah) used to make the börek (BOO-reyk),the quesadilla-like food I had the other day. It is basically filo dough, although the Turks hate it when I refer to anything by its Greek name. It's really Turkish!, they claim. Anyways, I look down into the second level of the bakery, and I see two women in head-kerchiefs using big wooden rolling pins to hand-roll little balls of dough into HUGE, two foot-diameter circles of filo that had to be less than 1/16 of an inch thick. It is so thin it's translucent. They then peeled them off the marble slabs and briefly cook them on a huge stack over this slightly-domed skillet. And this is normal! The women making the dough really enjoyed how shocked I looked at their work. To sell it, they fold six, two-foot diameter leaves (about 1 kilo) up into a big square, wrap it in some paper, and price it at 5 TL, which is only about $3.30. The amount of work that goes into making these! And they are so cheap! In this big, loud, modern city, the widespread level of authenticity that the food has so easily maintained continues to shock me. It is so impressive.

Right now I am snacking on some fresh peeled fig, pear, and nectarine that my anne cut up for me, along with some Turkish tea.

From talking with Ilke, I learned that Turkey is about to have a referendum regarding whether Turkey will become more pro-Islamic or more secular. My family, as it turns out, is very liberal, and wants Turkey to become more secular. It turns out that Erdoğan (AIR-doh-an), the prime minister, is very pro-Islam, and thinks all women need to have at least three children and should all wear the head-scarf. Things like that. My family hates Erdoğan. So people who are liberal are all voting "hayır" (HAH-yur, meaning "no") and people who are conservative and pro-Erdoğan are all voting "evet" (EH-vet, meaning "yes"). There are big HAYIR and EVET signs all over the city.

Anyways, tonight, my anne and baba and I went to pick up the jacket I had left at the cinema. I thought it was kind of weird we were all going together, but I assumed they just always ran errands together or something. Hah. After we got the jacket, we went downstairs in the mall to this gigantic supermarket. It was like Wal-mart or Sam's Club, but completely in Turkish and with bigger aisles. It was unbelievable. Anne and Baba kept offering to buy me all these American foods, like cereal or frozen pizza. They thought it was very funny when I kept turning them down and telling them I like Turkish food better. We got more figs and more kaymak and some Turkish delight, called "lokum" (LO-koom). We also got TONS of cured olives and a bunch of seltzer and sodas. I got some peach nectar and little bits of dried apples used to make apple tea. Even in this huge, modern supermarket, they still had big open baskets of every kind of spice and tea imaginable, including saffron, which was going for a mere 100 TL per kilogram. Çok pahalı (chalk pah-HAW-luh, very expensive). There were also all different kinds of whole fish on ice. Gah.

After the market, which itself was a surprise, we headed home. But instead of turning down our street, we went straight past it. Using every ounce of my Turkish prowess, I asked "where?" (nerede, NEH-reh-deh). They got across that we were going to listen to some music at some concert. Oh my god. We drive all the way across the city and out of nowhere there are hundreds of cars and, seriously, thousands and thousands of people singing along to this gigantic concert. It was insane. I mean, adults, grown adults, were jumping up and whistling and down and everyone was clapping and yelling. And the clapping was REALLY enthusiastic. People were dancing and jumping all around and singing along. There were televisions broadcasting what was happening on stage and camera crews and banners and police and ambulances. We got there towards the end, so there was all this screaming for an encore after the last song. I realized after a while that none of the women in the crowd were wearing a head-scarf, which is sort of unusual (about 1/4 or 1/3 of the women in the streets wear it). Then I noticed that all around there were HAYIR signs. It was a political rally! A huge, super-Turkish, liberal rally. Ahahah. I was just shellshocked. Incredible. It was very moving, even to me. I think they played the Turkish anthem at the end, and everyone was singing along and was so happy. Wow.

Now I am home, and we are watching all about the referendum on the news.

In the Greatest Surprise,

Natalie

A New Coat!

Today, I woke up at one p.m. (anne told me she was worried I might have been dead) and had a delicious zucchini and white cheese omelette anne made for me. Then, Ilke picked us up and took us shopping at a HUGE mall in Ankara. It was very modern and beautiful. There was a really great Zara and many very trendy and chic international brands. We went to Inci (EEN-JEE, meaning pearl in Turkish), which was a very nice shoe store, similar to Nine West. I found out I'm a size 40 European. I tried on a cute pair of sandals, and when I tried taking them off/putting on new ones myself, an employee came over an took it off/put it on for me! It was wild. Apparently this is a very usual thing in Turkey. The service here is amazing.

I looked around in Zara first and then went back at the end to buy myself a winter coat, as I had stupidly lost both of the ones I had this winter. It is really nice! It is sort of a camel color, which I've never had before, and is a peacoat with a very beautiful, gathered neck. It was 200 TurkLira, which is actually only about $130 (don't worry, Mom!). I found out also that instead of adding on tax at checkout, the price on the tag already includes the tax. Woohoo! Also, as a foreigner, for any purchase over $100, I get a piece of paper showing how much I paid in tax, and in the airport at the end of my trip, they'll give me all of my tax back in cash. Sweet.

Ilke and I are getting very close, as her English is very good and we have very similar taste/personalities. She is very, very nice. She took me to see Going the Distance (an English film, with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long) in the same mall where we shopped. It was incredibly modern and nice. It was built so it wrapped around the interior of the second floor of the mall. It had lots of moving green lights and beautiful dark wooden sculpture. To buy tickets, there was a kiosk, or you could go up and talk to a person. Also, when you buy tickets, you specifically choose the seats you want on this little screen. Amazing. We got 6 & 7 J. They won't let you sit so that there are empty seats besides you, though. Ahh, and I left my cardigan thing on my seat! My baba is going to pick it up for me tomorrow, though. Ilke called.

I also got two of these weird long candy things. They are translucent brown and about ten inches long and are filled with nuts. Mine were pistachio and walnut. There is a central piece of twine it is strung on, and you sort of just chew it. It wasn't nearly as sweet as I thought, but much tougher and chewier, like jerky. I liked the pistachio the best. It might also be a comfort for you all to know that they still have the exact same disgusting nachos and popcorn, both of which we got.

Anne made meatballs, which I tried, and yummy grilled little peppers. There was also good yogurt and rice soup with mint and pepper. It turns out she makes her own yogurt. So amazing. Just now, I had a snack of kaymak with honey, a fig, and a really delicious little savory cookie with sesame that anne made to send to her son, Onur, in the army. I also had some seltzer water, which, like most drinks, came in a tiny little glass bottle I had to open with a bottle opener.

Going the Distance was really good, by the way. Best romantic comedy I've seen in a long time. Hilarious. Go see it. Here, it was in English with Turkish subtitles. The ad for Gulliver's Travels, with Jack Black, was dubbed over, though, and it was really funny and strange.

Oh, hah, and today, Ilke turned to talk to my anne, and we had just been talking in English. I had put my hair up in some ratty bun, but Ilke turned to anne and said "And this way she looks so beautiful as well!" She realized right away that she had spoken in English instead of Turkish, and she was very embarrassed and we all thought it was very funny. See how sweet she is?! Absurd.

I should go to bed now, it's nearly three and already the imams are drumming for people to get up and eat.

Iyi gece (ee-yee geh-jay, good night),

Natalia

My Address

Write me!!

Dikmen Cad.

842. Sokak

Hatça ana sitesi

6/24 Keklik pınarı

ANKARA

TK

Bazaar

Today, I woke up at seven thirty, on my own. I couldn't go back to sleep! So I took a shower and went and used the pitte from yesterday to make myself a sandwich with the salty cheese and some really good fresh tomato. Anne thought this was pretty wild. Then my anne and I took a bus to Kızılay (KUZ-uh-lai), the central, most modern district of Ankara. We went to pick up body wipes at a medical store and t-shirts and boxers at an army supply store to send to anne's son, Onur (oh-NOOR), who is currently serving compulsory military duty. We then took those over to baba's office. He and his sons own and run a technology store, selling to foreign companies looking to start up business in Turkey. I met hs secretary, who was very nice. She commented on how blue my eyes are, as blue eyes are very uncommon in Turkey. Atatürk's eyes were also blue! Speaking of which, in a little gift shop, I got myself a tiny little dark blue evil eye pendent. Ilke explained to me that the evil eye is very important in Turkey, Greece, and many other places, as it wards off evil. It is all over. There is a little rubber on the floor coming into our apartment, one on the little bus into down, and now, one on my neck! It is glass and silver, but was only beş turklira (besh TOORK-leh-rah), or five Turkish Lira, i.e. about three dollars.

Ilke and Kıvanç took me to eat at a nice restaurant called 49. I had some really good chicken kebap and some yummy mushroom cheese bread and a nice salad and some mineral water and a little lamb. All very good. AND honey-soaked sponge cake topped with my favorite, kaymak! Everyone keeps warning me not to eat too much kaymak, as it will make me fat...

Ilke and Kıvanç are a very classy couple. Ilke drives an Audi and Kıvanç drives a BMW. They both were wearing Lacoste shirts and Ilke had on nice pants and pearl earrings. Much less flashy than many young Turks I have seen. Hmm. They are at the basketball game tonight!

The mall was medium sized and was very nice. There were many gaudy dress shops. In Kızılay, there were SO many shops and boutiques. The markets are especially amazing. Everything is very modern, but the markets have still retained the traditional form of just having huge heaps and bins of fresh and dried fruits and grains. There are gigantic piles of dates and apricots and seeds and SO MANY OLIVES. Never in my life have I seen so many olives in one place. A pile in the store was probably two feet deep and six feet long. There are also little stalls or tables selling şimit (shee-MEET), which are like large, thin bagels covered in blackened sesame seeds. Cheap and delicious! Mine was only 50 kürüş (koo-ROOSH), or about thirty cents, and baba says that's expensive for şimit.

We also went to the Ankara bazaar, which was cheap and loud and crazy. Mainly just tons and tons of very inexpensive clothing. I got a very beautiful skirt for about fifteen dollars, and that's where I got the şimit. There was even a man carrying a huge pile of şimit on a board on his head! There were also boys pushing around carts of Turkish coffee, or kahve (KAH-vey). I love the tea here. It is served in these beautiful little hourglass-shaped cups, and is brewed fresh from loose-leaf black tea leaves. Yum.

For dinner, we had much of the usual plus rotini pasta with tomato sauce! My anne (like my other annes!) is a clever cook and uses a grater to crush up her fresh tomatoes. She also chopped an onion by cutting all over down into the whole top, then slicing off a few layers, which would already be diced! She added a few mild little green peppers and some black pepper and olive oil. Mmm.

My Turkish is ever-improving!

I must go and watch the Çin ve Türkiye (cheen ve TOOR-kee-ay, China and Turkey) basketball game! Oh, and yesterday, the US beat Iran in Istanbul! Woo!

Lovelovelove,

Natalie

Second Night

Today was yet another wonderful day! We stayed in the house, and Fatma (who actually goes by Fatüş (fah-TUSH), the same way Margaret is usually Peggy) fed me a combination of dinner and breakfast, because I had woken so late. Breakfast here is typically salty cured and fresh olives, different salty white cheeses, bread, and fresh fruit. At about five, even though we live way up in an apartment, a man came to our door with a little rolling cart of special Ramazan bread, called pitte (PEE-day). It was still warm and was chewy and delicious. I asked my anne later, and she told me it only cost two Turkish lira, or a little more than a dollar. Regular bread, or ekmek (EHK-mek) is half that! We also had the usual çorba (CHOR-buh), or pre-dinner soup. It is served with bread, salt and pepper, and a very delicious, medium-spicy blend of different red pepper flakes. Also, there was patlıcan (pot-luh-JOHN), eggpant, with some sort of calf meat. There was also a really delicious sauteed green been dish, as well as small stuffed peppers, called dolma biber (DOL-mah BEE-bear, biber meaning pepper). We also had kaymak with honey again! I ate alone for most of the time, because the Imam had not yet announced that it was okay for those who are fasting to eat (there is a set time each day). I should point out that only about a third of the people I have encountered are fasting, mainly the older folks. I think this is similar to how not many people in the US fast for Lent anymore. My anne told me that sometimes her and my baba pray, but really, that is more a thing that her mother and her mother's mother did.

Everything here is either freshly made or grown or only shortly packaged. And it is all so delicious!

We watched Turkey beat Puerto Rico in basketball, and our neighbor, Gulia, came over to visit and watch with us. My anne showed me pictures of her younger and older sons' engagement and her older son's wedding, and I showed her all of the albums of pictures I took in Ohio, as well as the different photos of Madison that I have. They all think that my home is çok güzel (chalk GOO-zell, a very, very common phrase, meaning very beautiful, but used for food, people, places, everything).

My anne and baba remind me a lot of my grandpa Tom and grandma Bobbie, actually, and I think that they are about the same age. Such sweet people I know!

Oh, there is this one strange cultural thing here. When I first arrived yesterday, my anne was offering me her shoes. It was very weird. Today, Gulia and she tried to explain that walking around the house barefoot gives you a stomach ache! I tried telling them no, it was fine. I tried using Turkish to say no! we're in the house, not the street! They think I'm a pretty hilarious girl.

We had more tea and a nut mix that was really good. It had hazel nuts, sesame-and-sugar-coated peanuts, AMAZING pistachios, and almonds. I let them try the Boston Baked Beans I had brought, as well as the pineapple upside down cake mom made me for my going away dinner. They liked both, especially the cake. They also really like the zucchini bread mom made for me to take.

I must go to bed now, as it's already one thirty! My anne is waking me up at ten to go grocery shopping with her and her daughter-in-law, Ilke (EEL-keh).

Goodnight!

Nat