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.