Christmas in Turkey!

Two posts in one day, OoooOOoo

Christmas almost sort of exists in Turkey through the magic of globalization and Santa Claus' witchcraft. Turkey actually has a surprising number of Christmas things which have sprung up around Ankara labeled as "Mutlu yıllar" (New Years).

In the past twenty years a New Years tree has become somewhat of a tradition in Turkey. Gotta love globalization and consumerism. Fake trees no taller than four feet can be bought everywhere. Tree decorating consists of putting little tinsel garland on the tree with maybe some little ordainments. Its all mixed with New Years so in stores you can usually buy party hats and funny glasses at the same time.

So I was walking around Kızılay when I realized I needed to spruce up my apartment. Tugba also seemed excited to celebrate Christmas since she's never had a reason to before now. So I bought some red and green garland and we decorated the house. The next day I bought a tiny cheap strand of Christmas lights and Tugba brought me home some mistletoe. Sweetest of all was Monday when Tugba came back from the mall she had bought a box of ornaments, some garland and a TREE! Yay! We put the ornaments and the lights on the tree. So wonderful.

This was all very inspiring so I've decided to host a Christmas party with Jake. We're the only ones who actually celebrate Christmas who aren't going home for Christmas. The Germans are are going home and Dan, the token Brit, will be home as well. So Jake and I are going to have a party and introduce our friends, most of whom have never celebrated Christmas, to a food and wine filled night for baby Jesus's bday.

In honor of this post I thought I'd share some extremely interesting things I've learned through my friends about how Christmas is celebrated by people outside of the US.

--Europeans don't think Santa lives in the North Pole, in Europe its and actually place called Lapland in the northernmost part of Finland.

--Dan told me that in London Christmas decorations go up around late October because Halloween isn't such a big deal in England and Thanksgiving doesn't exist.

--In Armenia, Christmas is celebrated on January 6th and there's no presents because small gifts are given for New Years.

--Germans have the Christmas tradition of gluhwein, basically a mulled hot wine that is sold everywhere, at street stands, at soccer matches, and grocery stores.

--In Germany, Santa doesn't leave you presents, but Christkind (that's right baby Jesus) comes through your window and leaves you little presents on the 24th. Wikipedia just told me the most interesting thing about Christkind which is that Martin Luther made it up during the Reformation to get people from worshiping saints like St. Nick. Today I'd say its still pretty common for both Catholics and Protestants to tell their kids that Christkind is leaving presents.

--Germans also celebrate Christmas exclusively on the 24th. They put up their tree on the 24th and throughout the month of December they have an advent wreath where they light four candles, one for every Sunday leading up to Christmas.

--Another thing Germans do is instead of watching Christmas movies they watch fairy tales! The tales are not necessarily about Christmas and I've never heard of the stories before so there not like Little Red Ridding Hood or Mother Goose. My friend Caro told me her favorites are Väterchen Frost about a nice old man (who looks sussipously like Santa) who controls the forest and Das Kalte Herz, about a poor coal boy from the Back Forest who falls in love with an engaged beautiful rich girl. Apparently most of them are of Russian origin and I'm thinking this is some leftover DDR thing which is great because it sounds like a lot of fun. They're played all December long and of course, on Christmas day. Here's the preview for Das Kalte Herz.


Apparently all the fairy tales were filmed in 1973.

And last but not least, a fun fact about Christmas: The real Saint Nicholas was Turkish! Whoo! Saint Nicholas of Myra was a 4th century Greek Christian living in Lycia which would you know it, is now in Turkey! So all Christmas is actually Turkish Christmas.

So Merry (early) Christmas everyone!

Georgia! Finally!

Georgia was quite the experience. Not many people make it around Georgia because its so hard to get to, even from central Turkey it was a 17 hour bus ride to Batumi which is right over the border. It has the feeling of a place that hasn't yet been touched by the outside world. If I could sum Georgia in one thought it'd be post Soviet.

So my arrival in Georgia was quite the experience, one I wish to never have again. I joined Jake, Dan and Kamila on their trip but they had already bought their tickets and their bus was full so I purchased my bus ticket for the same time and hoped we'd get in around the same time in the bus station. Oh my, how things went wrong.

The bus wasn't bad at all and I sat to nice old Georgian granny who asked me a few questions in Turkish and I tried to tell her I was a student at METU and I was from America. She proceeded to tell anyone who'd listen she was sitting next to a yabani (foreigner) from America. There was literally no one on the bus that spoke English so it was a quiet ride for me and I actually watched the (HORRIBLE) movie with Nicolas Cage that came out about 9/11 in dubbed Turkish. It is interesting to mention there were no toilets on this nice big coach, but we stopped every three hours so people could go to the bathroom. Also we never really pulled into any bus station, the hostess lady would just say the name of the city over the speaker and we'd stop for a second and the people would get out. Huh.

So the trip was fine until we got to the border at hour 15. At the border we had to get off the bus trek all of our things over to the check out station then get one stamp for leaving Turkey and another one for entering Georgia. Everyone was scuttling around and I had no idea what was going on. It was around 1am so it was pitch black and this entrance to Georgia was HUGE. So after lots of scrambling and uncertainty I find a Turkish family and follow them through the border.

At this point I call Dan and ask where they are because I've realized that 1) I have no way of communicating with people and no one seems to be speaking English 2) I don't know where I'm going to get dropped off 3) Its really dark 4) The parts of Georgia we're passing look like the scariest most run down dark places I've ever seen. Oh no.

Here's a photo I took later of Batumi at night so you know I'm not exaggerating...



Here's the street we stayed on during the day.



Seriously imagine being foreign and alone and lost looking at this.

So Dan tells me they're already in Batumi at the guesthouse we're staying at, UM WHAT?! Weren't they going to wait for each other? How are we supposed to meet? What's going on?! Then after about 40 minutes I realized my phone has literally stopped working in Georgia, it won't call out or send texts. I'm officially stranded.

Eventually through the mess someone lets me borrow their Georgian cell phone and I call the owner of the guesthouse who's really nice and tells people in Georgian what's going on. Then after much hassle and stress I get off the bus into a Taxi with this Georgian family with a four year old boy and they call the guesthouse guy who then tells the taxi where to go. So for some reason Batumi was going through major road construction (see photo below) and there were literally HUGE pot holes in the ground. The roads were all dirt and muddy from the rain and what should have taken five minutes took about twenty while I sat next to some small Georgian boy trying to pretend like this was all totally normal.

Potholes and construction, not a joke.




After about twenty minutes I see Dan and I get out of the taxi, pay, try to say thank you to this family because honestly who knows how I would I have found this place without them (seriously, for some reason no taxi drivers in Batumi knew where this major cross street was, we always had to explain it to them). Without the kindness of strangers I don't know where I'd be or what I'd do. So many people helped me get to the guesthouse like the hostess, the guy who spoke English on the bus, the guy who let me borrow his Georgian cell phone, and this family who helped me. The kindness of strangers makes such a difference.

Whew, yeah that was my arrival in Batumi. Lesson of this story: don't travel alone to Georgia unless you speak Georgian or Russian.

Anyways once in Georgia we had a really good time checking out Batumi. The city was built as a vacation spot and was once one of the largest beachfront resorts in the Soviet Union. So much about the city is evidence of the emerging capitalism that has begun to take over the city which clashes strongly with the old Soviet left overs. The buildings are a mix of really old early 1900 buildings, super Soviet apartment blocks, and brand new corporate buildings. Georgia itself is a Caucasus country and has its own very unique culture. It's amazing that Georgia borders Turkey because it is almost nothing like Turkey. The city is trying to transform itself, evidenced by the tons of construction projects going on throughout the city.

The mix of old and new in Batumi.







Our first day in Georgia we went to dinner at a great restaurant for Georgian food and it was there that I realized GEORGIAN FOOD IS AMAZING. Seriously, I'm not a foodie, but the spices and the meat and the cheesyness of Georgian food is amazing.

I remembered to take a photo only after we ate almost all the food.


Georgia is also known for its wine which is also delicious. You can get a liter of house wine for 5 lari (that's about $2.50), amazing. So we ate a ton of food and when we were just finishing up these three guys sitting at the table next to us invited us over for some wine. We didn't really know what to expect, but they spoke English and seemed nice so we went and bought some more wine and hung out with them. Haha these guys were amazing! They told us all about Georgian culture and were really proud of thier country's great history and food. They taught us the proper way to eat Georgian dumplings and also taught us that you almost always cheer's for every sip of wine. There was lots of "To Georgia!" "To traveling!" "To new friends!" "To beautiful people!" "To our country's history!" ect. Naturally lots of fun ensued. These guys took us to another pub where there three girl friends from work were. It was really really fun and such a wonderful surprise to meet such hilarious awesome people.

Our Georgian friends




So after Batumi we took a night train to Tblisi, the capital of Georgia. And my my, Tblisi is one of my new favorite places. The city is cradled in between the Caucus mountains and has this old world feel to it. It feels really European, but so different and uniquely Georgian. The buildings have a real art deco feel to them and they're so colorful. And while our hostel and the people working there were really weird (why are so many of the Americans I meet outside of America so aggressive and eager to show off about how they "know" the city and culture so well??), the city itself was amazing. Jake and I stayed an extra two nights, but it was totally worth it. There were so many beautiful Orthodox churches and the river that goes through the city is breath taking. I want to always visit Tblisi, it is so beautiful.

So here's a round up of some photos of Tblisi so you can see for yourself how beautiful the city really is.

So many buildings were still wooden. Totally cool and totally old.




We hiked up to Mother Georgia.


Mother Georgia through an old church.


The city between the mountains.


Wallpaper still intact.


River through the center of the city.


At the old castle above the city.


The old colorful buildings.


Huge Orthodox church.


Upclose


Yeah so that was Georgia! A crazy arrival, but totally beautiful and so interesting.

It was really great and Dan plans of buying a home in Batumi in 20 years and speaking only Russian so if you want to visit in the future call him up.

Yay!!! I spent my birthday in İstanbul!!!

This week I have three papers due and a Christmas party so even though I have yet to share about Georgia, I won't really have time to blog about all the happenings in Ankara until next week.

The good news is I spent my birthday in İstanbul!!!! Best birthday ever!!

So here I'll leave you with a photo tour of my trip to İstanbul! It's hard to capture the beauty of İstanbul, it's just such a breathtaking city.


Jake and Caro on our lovely night train.


View from the amazing Haydarpaşa train station of the ferrys on Marmara Sea! Haydarpaşa was formerly the train station of the Orient Express. Also so many seagulls!


Caro and Jake on the ferry across the continents! Haydarpaşa station in the background. It's literally on the water.


The Blue Mosque on the left and the Aya Sophia on the right across the Sea of Marmara. Get ready for a lot of mosque photos.


Oh hey look I'm in Turkey, there's the flag! Haha, in the background of the flag is the Bosphorus Bridge which goes from the European side (on left) to the "Asian" side (on the right).


The New Mosque with all the ferrys in front of it.


This is for everyone who's ever taken a ferry in Seattle. See how the boat just bounces up to the dock? Yeah that's how people get off, they just walk straight from the front of the boat onto the dock. No fancy waiting for a passenger bridge, just walking/jumping off the boat.


So many photos of the sun over the New Mosque on Galata Bridge.


Hey there's me on Galata Bridge.


The fishermen of Galata Bridge.


Turkish delight?


Ahh the only place I really wanted to go on my birthday was the Aya Sophia, so much history, so much religion. Very very unfortunately we were too late. NOOOO. Guess that just means I'll be going back to İstanbul soon!


Aya Sophia as seen through the gates to the Blue Mosque.


The inside of the Blue Mosque. Totally doesn't capture it, try googling it to really see what its like. Also side note, if you're not Turkish they make you walk through the side door haha. Oh man.


Beautiful sunset near Galata Tower.


Yay! All my lovely friends who came to İstanbul for my birthday. So so wonderful of them and I'm so grateful I met them! Somehow I managed to not get any good photos of us during the evening so here's us at the hostel looking weird.
(from left to right: Jake leaning over, Martin, Kamila, Caro, and me with my chest seeing daylight for the first time in Turkey)


Sunsetting behind the New Mosque.


Some of the many fishermen on Galata Bridge.


This is not doing justice to the fact that I literally couldn't move my arms in this CROWDED underground sidewalk.


Lantern shop in the famous, very old, very cool Grand Bazar.


A peaceful side street.


Overlooking the Bosphorus.


Caro and I enjoying çay, the swing and the Bosphorus.

It's days like these that make me love being in grad school. Today I had a wonderful Sociological Theory class on Durkheim and his idea of collective consciousness, the idea that a society shares a set of moral beliefs and values which binds them together. (Side note--if you're reading this Professor Carbine, Ways of Understanding Religion was extremely helpful in this!) According to Durkheim there is no right or wrong, it is only when someone, or a group of people, deviate from their society's class consciousness that they are considered immoral or wrong. So our class discussion was about how there can be either two existing sets of class consciousness (see: a white American class consciousness and a simultaneous large American-Hispanic class consciousness) or a class consciousness that is imagined but not a reality. (see: Americans seeing themselves as "real Americans" or living in the frontier when in reality that is a teeny tiny portion of the population)

It was one of the best classes I've had since I've been here and, as always, the cultural differences made it even better. Eventually the class started talking about the Turkish version of Oprah and how even though she claims to know what everyone loves, she is not representative of the whole society, not even a minority of the society. Then we started discussing race in the US which is always fun when you're the token American in the conversation. Mostly it was about how minorities can fit into a class consciousness that doesn't properly represent them.

The whole thing was very very interesting and it continued into my lunch time conversation with my friends Martin and Dan. One of the best things about being here is the constant multicultural interaction I get from my friends. Martin is from Germany and Dan is from England so when we talk about major issues it always seems to fall back into our culture. Another example of this is when we play the game where you put a card with a famous person's name on your head. Literally every time our GeTMA group has played this game we end up with people who are only culturally relevant to one's own country. Example: I was Michael Schumacher a famous German Formula One race car driver... um what?

Anyways back to my intellectual discussion ha. So Martin, Dan, and I start talking about this idea of competing class consciousnesses and eventually our conversation morphed into how one plays their gender role. As a woman living in Turkey, many people have these assumptions that I'm constantly being harassed or discriminated against and interestingly enough its much much more subtle than that. I think of it as "delicate flower syndrome" on one hand I'm treated like a princess--not paying for cabs, getting offered free seats on the bus, waiting for me to go first out a door, avoiding touching me. On the other hand people blatantly stare, ignore me, talk about me in my presence, cat call on occasion, and I get the feeling that only pushy women are taken seriously in classroom settings which means that when I'm not angry about an issue I feel like no one's taking me seriously. Being a delicate flower is a doubled edged sword.

Dan made an astute observation that is so striking and fitting. He said, people here are constantly playing and reinforcing their gender. Ah and its so true! Every time a man lets me walk out of a door first, or gives me a seat on a bus, they're playing the gentlemanly man role and letting me be a delicate woman flower. An interesting part of this is what Dan and Martin were saying that they've never felt so male in their life. Everywhere they go they are reminded that they are male and therefore must represent that clearly. Dan says he feels it all the time when he's sitting on the bus and women would rather stand than to sit next to him because he's a male. But its totally not just a Turkish thing, its just that gender manifests itself in different ways in the US. I mean how do we define our gender in the US (and England and Germany)? I think the West defining gender intertwined with either not acting like the other gender or being in a relationship with the other gender. It's just our Westernized class consciousness of gender that makes Dan, Martin, and I think of this public genderfied of the world as totally weird.

All in all, I just had a really good class and day and it reminded me why I love traveling, meeting foreign people, class discussions, and school.

Thanks Durkheim!

Georgia! I'm going to Georgia!

This coming Monday is Kurban Bayramı, the commemoration of Abraham's devotion and obedience to God for almost sacrificing his son Ishmael (yeah, not Isaac like in Christianity). So there's a big feast and its a really family oriented holiday and I was going to go with Tugba to her hometown of Gaziantep, but Tugba got a call from work on Tuesday that she was going to INDONESIA for work.

So for a while I was going to be stuck in Ankara while other people traveled around Turkey, but I lucked out and joined my friends on their trip to Georgia! Whoo hoo! In Georgia, a Christian country, we plan on eating lots of pork and drinking the excellent wine that Georgia is known for. We're going to Batumi on the Black Sea(!), formerly the largest beachfront resort in the Soviet Union. Then we're heading to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, for lots of old churches and excellent Georgian food.


(click photo to expand, from http://www.map-of-turkey.com/map-of-turkey2.jpg)

Yay! I'm really excited to get out of Turkey for a little bit and see some of the surrounding countries. What's really cool about Turkey is if you look at it on a map it really is the center of the world. It's almost in Europe, Central Asia, Russia, and the Middle East. I'm going to country that speaks Russian, but right next to it is also Armenia, a Caucus country. Then there's Iraq, Iran, and Syria AKA the Middle East, bordering Turkey as well. And you can't forget that Turkey also borders Europe. What's really cool is that Turkey used to own many parts of these surrounding countries when it was the Ottoman Empire.

Before I came to Turkey I heard over and over again about how it's a mix of East and West, but seriously there is no where else that is so clearly located at the crossroads of so many different cultures.

Türkçe, Türkçe, Türkçe!

(Just so everyone knows, I'm usıng a Turkısh keyboard so ınstead of usıng the 'i' I'll be usıng the 'ı' sımply so I don't have to stop every three seconds to fıx my spellıng)

So every language ıs hard to start wıth but Turkısh requıres throwıng away anythıng you ever knew about language. Sınce I fınally learned how to form sentences I thought I'd gıve everyone a lesson ın Turkısh. Whoo.

Fırst there there are sıx new letters ın Turksısh consıstıng of ğ, ü, ö, ş, ç,and ı. The ğ makes basıcally no sound lıke my roommate's name, Tuğba, whıch ıs pronounced "too-baa." The ü and ö are lıke theır German counterparts and sımply make a dıfferent "ooo" sounds. Ş ıs a "shh" noıse and ç ıs a "chh" sound. The ı ıs a lıttle confusıng, ıt ıs a guttural stop so ıts lıke "uhh."

Now knowıng what these sounds make and beıng able to pronounce Turkısh words are quıte dıfferent tasks. Words lıke 'iyiyim' are pronounced "eee-mm" and 'teşekkur ederım' ıs "tay-sheck-ur e-dir-um"

Another ımportant rule ın Turkısh ıs thıs ıdea of vowel harmony ın whıch certaın vowels must go together wıth thıer counterparts. So there are two sets of vowels that are ın any gıven word. If words break thıs rule ıts because they are ımportated from Arabıc or Persıan.

So I've known all thıs for a whıle now and I just fınally learned how to form sentences. Heres an example of how the sentences are formed.

Questıon
Kalsiyum nede?
Lıterally: Dairy whıch has ın ıt?
(Kalsiyum = dairy, nede = whıch has)
Normal transiatıon: Whıch/what has daıry ın ıt?

Answer
Kalsıyum sütte ve peynirde.
Daıry mılk ın and cheese ın.
(süt = mılk, te at the end of süt ıs the possesıve of süt. Sütte ıs the possesıve mılk, ve = and, peynir = cheese, de = the possesıve of cheese. The reason süt ıs sütte and peynir ıs peynirde has to do wıth the vowel harmony thıng)
Normal translatıon: Mılk and cheese have daıry ın them.

More? Okay!

Halam Parıs'te yaşıyor.
Traslatıon: Aunt (Halam) Parıs (Parıs) ın ('te) lıvıng (yaşıyor).
Normal traslatıon: My aunt ıs lıvıng ın Parıs.

Another?? Yes!

Çıçekler sakıda.
Translatıon: Flowers (çıçekler) pot (sakı) ın (da).
Normal translatıon: The flowers are ın the pot.
Thess magıcal two whole words form an entıre sentence ın Englısh. Every word has endıngs and add ons that make the word mean 100 dıfferent thıngs

Confused yet?

Yeah learnıng Turkısh has been quıte the experıence. I don't doubt that I'll eventually get the hang of small words and phrases, but ıt takes sooooo long to get used to formıng senteneces dıfferently. All I can say ıs I greatly apprıcate German, ın all ıts crazıness, now.

A very important list of things unique to Ankara

Or perhaps unique to my experience in Ankara.

NUMBER ONE: Wild dogs/cats

So like many places, Ankara has a lot of wild dogs and cats running around. On campus this is normally pretty adorable because cats are cute and they wander into the dorms and it feels like you have little pets everywhere. People are really loving of these street animals and a friend of mine saw a man buy a sandwich for a cat before. On the other hand, the dogs are HUGE--imagine about 3 inches taller than a normal lab. These dogs can be harmless, but when there's more than two it gets a little worrisome when you're walking alone. I've seen people get big rocks and yell in order to scare them off. Now I live in a really busy area where cars are always driving by at all times of the day and there's never wild dogs because there's so much traffic. So flash forward to Friday afternoon when I was walking home and I turned a corner (of a very busy major street, mind you) and there were 5 (FIVE!) wild dogs looking menacing and blocking the side walk! Ah! Usually there's a bunch of people walking on the street, but at the time there was no one but the dogs and me! I'd already paused and I'm sure they sensed by weakness so needless to say I was bullied by 5 dogs into adding 10 minutes to my walk home in order to avoid them. I have this theory that because its starting to get cold these dogs are banding together in order to share human flesh. Or not, but seriously what are they doing scaring people all the time?!

((interesting/horrifying side note: speaking of animals I saw a spider THE SIZE OF MY FIST the other days))

NUMBER TWO: The magical dolmuş

Dolmuş are independent bus companies that are defined as shared taxis. They're basically the best bet for getting around Ankara, but they are quite the experience. These short buses have a specific route, but no real stops. People wave them down and when you want to get off you just say "Here!" or other people say "Someone wants to get off the bus" for you and then they'll slow down just enough for you to get off. This is extra fun for people who don't speak Turkish who just yell "Blahh help! This place!" until the driver gets the hint. They will literally stop anywhere along their route to let you off. Better yet is the fact that "dolmuş" actually means "stuffed" in Turkish because these buses are always always packed. I sometimes feel like the moment I step on a dolmuş I just feel the need to completely topple over or run into other people. In addition to the squished feeling in the dolmuş, if you're near the front you get caught having to give everyone change from the bus driver who's counting out coins as he's changing gears. Quite the experience. If anyone ever visits me in Ankara the first thing we're doing is getting on the dolmuş.


Ah the dolmuş in all its glory.
(Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmuş)

NUMBER THREE: Efes

A friend told me that Turkey used to have a lot of state monopolies on pretty standard products and beer was no exception. Today Turkey has a competitive economy with little to no state monopolies, but some products that were previously state monopolies are hugely popular to this day. That's where Efes comes in. Efes is the beer of Turkey. It's the best and delicious, but there's really no other options. There's the scary 1.5 liter beer that comes in a huge plastic bottle that even college students don't drink, Efes, or an expensive imported beer (I've seen a lot of corona). Still Efes is really good for how cheap its sold here. It's about roughly $1.20 for half a liter.



(Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efes_Beverage_Group)

NUMBER FOUR: Entering campus

Unlike college campuses in the US, METU has a closed campus and it means literally. METU is one of the best colleges in Turkey (it fluctuates between being number one and number two with Boğaziçi University in Istanbul) so it has an amazing campus that's literally 11,100 acres, 7,500 of those acres are just forest. Enclosing the campus and its huge forest is a fence with only three entrances. Security is a big issue and in order to get on campus one must have a campus ID or be with a student and receive a visitor pass. While usually the security guards are really nice, its just very different from the US where people come and go freely and many people don't even know the real boundries of their schools.

NUMBER FIVE: Midye = NOMS

Midye is the BEST street food in Ankara. Midye are mussells stuffed with rice and fresh lemon juice poured on top. Delicious! They sell them at these little stands at night and there are some midye guys who are so good there's lines to get served. Yet some midye stands are to be avoided because when there's a guy selling seafood on the street outside a popular bar at 4am it's probably not the cleanest midye in town. That being said, I LOVE midye! So delicious!


(Photo from http://aksam.medyator.com/images/2010/01/27/midye_dolma.jpg)