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)
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