11 People in an 8 Seating Van

Cyprus!

Getma takes over Cyprus.

In the bitter coldness of January, Buğra convinced 10 out of the 13 Getma members to go to Cyprus with him. Buğra is from Cyprus and is affectionately referred to as the "father" of Getma. He's not actually in the program, but he's dating Goksu so he's always around. He grew up on the North side of Cyprus, the section that is controlled by the Turkish government. 

For those who don't know here's a short history of Cyprus. Cyprus was part of the Ottoman Empire, but the majority of the population was Greek. The British were given Cyprus by the Ottoman Empire as a gift in return for British military support at the turn of the century and it eventually became part of the British Empire. After WWII the Brits were kicked out, but then there were a series of wars in which Turkey and Greece fought for control over Cyprus. Greece thought it belonged to them because the majority of the population was Greek and Turkey thought it was there's because it had been part of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey invaded Cyprus on behalf of the Turkish Cypriots and war began. Eventually a line was drawn and the Turkish Cypriots were forced to move to Northern Cyprus and the Greeks in the South. Clearly there's still some problems and lots of left over resentment. Cyprus is still divided into two parts based on the 1974 Green Line that the UN patrols. 

Nice picture of the Division. Nicosia is the last divided capital in Europe. 

(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738306000521)

So, we just went on a nice holiday trip because Buğra grew up there and could show us around. He very graciously put together a trip for us which involved renting a van and planning visits all around the island.The Getma domluş has to be the highlight of this trip because we managed to fit 11 people into an 8 seating van for a 5 day trip around an island.

Interestingly enough, in order to fit everyone in we divised a plan to put all the big people in the back seat and the little people in the front seat. The result? Germans and Americans in the back, Turks in the front. Whhhy are such big people??

Here's a nice photo of us crammed in the car. That's Caro sitting on my lap. Actually it was really hilarious. At all times there was one person sitting on all the others laps either laying across or sitting on one of us. In the front seat there was two people sitting on other people's laps. Haha at one point Jake was laying on all of us drinking a beer and commented, "Literally everything were doing right now is illegal in the US." Ah, so true Jake, so true, but so it goes in Turkey where the rules can be bendy. 

So much fun with big people in the back of the van.

We sang lots of songs and listened to lots of Cypriot music while driving around for literally hours sometimes. So much love in the Getma domluş. At one museum, Martin said, "I bet people are wondering how so many homeless people of different nationalities managed to get to Cyprus," because 11 ragged looking people emerging from the Getma domluş must have looked pretty ridiculous. Ah definitely one of the best parts of the trip was Getma bonding in the domluş.

Here's one of the songs on the casette tape we listened to all week haha.

Visting Lefkoşa was another great experience. The divided captial city is really really interesting. It looks and feels like a small old Turkish city on the North side, then on the South side its suddenly very European. All of Germans were so sure that it was more European, while I was more convinced it just looked Mediterranean--then I saw a handicap lift, a super modern bus station, and garbage cans everywhere. Alchoal also happened to be extremely cheap in Lefkoşa which meant I got to try this really great beer called Keo. Its a locally produced Southern Cypriot beer that is really really good. One of my favorite things about Lefkoşa was this old Church which had been converted into a mosque when the Ottoman's invaded. It is so clearly a gothic cathedral that they just slapped on some minarets. I love it.

Getma wandering the streets of Lefkoşa.

Here's the North Turkish side of border. (above)

Here's the same street just across the border in the Southern Greek side.

Great gothic cathedral with some minarets. 

Inside where they've added a mihrab, the corner which faces Mecca, and just covered up all the old Christian art.

Keo, the great Southern Cypriot beer. That's Buğra on the left then Martin, me, and Jake.

We were staying in Girne on the Northern coast of Cyprus and one evening Buğra thought it'd be a good idea to mangal, aka grill some lamb on the beach. So we set up a rectangular looking grill and ate TONS of food. It was so nice to have a real bonfire at the beach and make our own food by the water. It was really lovely.

Mangal on the beach.

We also went to Kormakitis, a Maronite village in Cyprus, which is an interesting place where an ancient Christian group, the Maronites live. They're one of the oldest Christian groups in the world and centuries ago some moved to Cyprus from what is now Lebanon. Its a really interesting village and we were lucky enough to come on St. George's day weekend so we got a really wonderful tour of this calm quaint village that tries to maintain its interesting heritage and culture.

The Maronite village. It was so tiny.

During the trip we visited Buğra's family. His grandmother was a sweet old lady living in Güzelyurt who served us these very soft carmalized walnuts while we looked at her old photos. We also met Buğra's mother and father at their house in Girne which is actually heaven on earth. Their house has a HUGE garden where they grow everything from oversized lemons (seriously look at that photo!) to peas and avocados. Ah, when I get older and have a million dollars I'm moving to Cyprus and into Buğra's parent's house. It was so nice of them to have us over and they were so generous to share their lovely house with us.

Largest lemons I've ever seen. This is Buğra's family's garden and my future home.

Cypriot coffee with Buğra's parents.

Eventually we ended up in Iskele, the long skinny part of the island. There's no big cities in Iskele, just little villages and beautiful beaches. We spent the whole day on Altinkuma (translation: Golden Sands), a beach with almost no one on it in the middle of no where. Ah, talk about heaven.

In the end I'll remember this trip for the Getma domluş, singing along to ridiculous music, cheap beer, missing lunch in order to save money, eating nuts and dried fruit like it's a meal, being so sweaty hot in the car, and reaching a whole new level of comfortably with the Getma group.

Cyprus will definitely go on my list of best trips ever. 

SPRING HAS ARRIVED!

So somewhere baby Jesus is angry at me for not keeping my lent promise, but hmm yeah all I can say is that things got busy. Just to list a few things I got really sick, Duncan came to visit, I went to Cyprus, and classes got super interesting. I should probably address all of these things in separate posts, but right now I'd like to talk about the SPRING! Its so sunny and wonderful here now! As I type I'm sitting barefoot in the grass in the bright sunshine. The library is right behind me haha.

Speaking of the library, I'm really excited to be in one class in particular, "Family, Marriage, and Kinship Dynamics in Turkey". In the course we discuss the different way family is understood in Turkey and the way its similar to worldwide perceptions of family. Actually sometimes its a bit depressing, so goes sociology when you realize we're all doomed to influenced by our social upbringing. One well expressed view on family is from Pierre Bourdieu's article, "On the Family as a Realized Category," in which Bourdieu claims that family structures are a series of obligated affection and affective obligations. Basically family is a circular relationship where you feel emotionally attached to your family and simultaneously are expected to preform certain duties for them and vis versa. I thought it was a very well articulated understanding of the complicated power structures embedded in the family.

As expected, the differences from American family life are most interesting to me. Its really a cool experience being a foreigner taking a class on Turkish family. I'm the only one who doesn't understand the social references, but it does makes it more fun when they ask me about stereotypes of Mexican immigrants in the US and suddenly I'm an expert. Actually that would be false, our professor studied at University of Texas, Austin and worked in Mexico, so I'm pretty sure I'm not the real expert, just the cultural one. Anyways I've learned a lot about Turkish culture such as women in Turkey are extremely shamed after divorce. Divorced women become threats to the monogamous relationships of couples. They are expected to wear modest clothes and devote their lives to their children. Not exactly typical of American where roughly 50% of all marriages end in divorce.

What should be really cool about this class is that I'm finally going to do real research! Hooray! My final project is on the duel lives of gay Turks. In the US, if you're gay its almost socially required that you come out to your family members and friends to be fully accepted in the gay community. In Turkey this is not always a viable option. Many gay Turks never tell their parents about their sexuality, but sometimes a few family members know. My project is on why gay men keep their sexuality from their family and how it affects their relationships with their families. I'm really excited to finally do real interviews, especially because I'm in Turkey and the whole topic is so different from my understanding of gay life.

Yeah so that's it for now. I'll have more to share, especially about Duncan visiting and the amazing Cyprus trip, but I should probably go write a proposal for the project I was just talking about.

Goodbye beautiful grassy outdoors. Ah those purple trees are everywhere!

Show and Tell

When I was in 5th grade, I had to journal my week long vacation to make up for the homework I was missing. I got the journal back with some mediocre grade because, in Ms. Dahl's words, I had "told" but not "shown" what I had done during my vacation. I feel like this blog is verging on only telling what I'm doing which is not only extremely boring, but totally underneath my own expectations and ability. In an effort to curb this problem I think perhaps my lent pledge will be to write at least once a week and not be so boring. Ha. Together we'll see how well this works out and if I can make baby Jesus happy with my Lent 'sacrifice'.

So onto exciting things! I'm back in Ankara (hooray!) and now that I'm looking at the semester from a whole new perspective. I came to Ankara upset about leaving my family, friends, and boyfriend. In retrospect I was totally unprepared to move to a completely different country with totally different norms. In addition, all my other travels were either extremely short (read: Janterm) or they were just so much fun I didn't care about the problems I faced (read: Berlin). Coming to Ankara was neither of those things. I was now living in a very different country for a very long time and there were problems that made me initially hate living here. First off its hard to be the foreigner all the time. People stare, people talk about you while you're standing right there, you wake up and the moment you step out the door people look at your like you're some foreign crazy. You get on the dolmus and again people are staring at the yabani who somehow knows how to ride the dolmus. There is literally no way for me to pretend to be Turkish.

At first this used to really really bother me. I was really upset for constantly being told through social interactions that I was different therefore somehow available to be treated like an alien. In my mind I think about how in US we're all taught not to stare at foreigners, handicapped, or disabled people (granted some people are horrible at this). Its part of our ingrained American identity to try and at least pretend that we don't see differences. This is why to me its rude to be stared at because I've been taught that staring at something that makes people feel uncomfortable and 'different'. While it can be infuriating at times, I think I've just grown accustomed to to being stared at. Also when I went to Istanbul I realized that this is really an Ankara thing. In Istanbul (at least in the touristy places I saw) people could care less if you were foreign. There were so many Germans, Brits, and other Europeans there that no could cared that I was clearly foreign. I don't think I was stared at the whole time I was there. In Ankara, the lovely Ankara, foreigners have no reason visit because there are barely any touristy sites. Ankara has Atatürk's mausoleum, the building in which the first parliament of Turkey was held, and an old ruin of a castle... not exactly enough to make droves of tourists come to Ankara. Even the city itself is relatively new to non-American standards. It sprung up in the 1920's when Ataturk moved the capital of his new nation from Istanbul to Ankara. In sum, getting stared at was seriously hard to cope with at first and like most problems I've encountered, I eventually just realized that its a cultural difference that leads to misunderstandings.

What I've found most amazing about Turkey, and also about traveling in general, is how little people actually need to live and how people just made due with what they have. I live in a nice part of town, but still have had the power go out at least four times and the water has been turned off twice, once for three days. To make the hot water in the shower work you also have to turn on the water in the kitchen so there's enough pressure to heat the water. Then the water drains from the tub into this hole next to the tub and when there's too much water it'll just go all over the bathroom floor. The sidewalks are cracked and there's never enough guard rails. The buses are totally irregular and have no timetable. It's just a sort of 'make-do' attitude and I feel like I've started to accept this mindset because the other day I bought a pair of shoes in two different shoe sizes. They only had the left shoe in my size so to remedy the problem I just got the right shoe one size up. (Okay in my defense it was in European sizes so its not like an American shoe size up, its only an centimeter bigger on the right.) I'm walking around with two different sized shoes. It's hard to explain but silly things like this make Ankara all the more enduring now. I've really grown to live the funny little quirks and even when its frustrating I feel like I still really like living here.

Maybe its the fact that I have friends that I love, a wonderful roommate, and a pretty decent system of interaction with friends from home, but I really like Ankara. Visiting England for such a long time also made me made me miss my friends and home in Ankara. It's really weird when you realized you're getting used to living in a very different place, but that's what's happening and I totally love it. So while living in Ankara can be really hard and in the beginning I had some serious doubts about my happiness here, I can honestly say I really love it and when I have to leave in a few months I am going to be very sad.

Merry Ol' England otherwise known as Culture Shock 101!

So I am currently in England with Amy and Pete and my my has it been one culture shock after another. As I traveled to England there was an interesting moment where I was the outsider, the yabancı, in Istanbul then as we landed suddenly I was seemingly assigned to the majority. Weird. The beginning of a lot of weird experiences.

So Amy lovingly picked me up from the airport and right off we whisked ourselves away to Canterbury. She drove and I soaked in all the GREEN and the fields and PALE people. It was really weird. I caught myself staring at children because they were soo pale. The houses all seemed to be either medieval wooden houses or cute little brick cottages. Everything is so ridiculously cute. I know its an American stereotype to think of England as quaint or adorable, but I can't help it everything is so similar to how I'd imagined the English countryside. Ah I just love it when stereotypes come true.

So one of the first things we did after getting into Canterbury was head over to the ASDA, the Walmart/Target of England. Oh my god, it was almost like being home. Everything I could have wanted was there! So much candy, so many American brands! In Turkey, everything is Turkish or European, almost none of the brands in Turkey are American, and in Turkey it is often hard to find certain types of foods (pasta sauce and oregano for example) that are staples in American supermarkets.

The next day we went to Evensong in the Canterbury Cathedral and saw the sight of Saint Thomas Becket's murder, the reason pilgrims have come to Canterbury for over a thousand years. Never missing minute, we drove from Canterbury to Herne Bay then down to the white cliffs of Dover! Hooray! I've always always wanted to go to the cliffs of Dover mostly because they're super famous and they're in Shakespeare's King Lear. So cool. So we hiked around the cliffs and then we headed back to Derby, where Pete and Amy live.

The next day we did a tour of Derby and I got to meet some of the American ladies that Amy hangs out with. Its a group for women who live abroad, mostly because their husbands got a two or three year assignment abroad. It was SO weird to be around so many Americans. I think I've literally met 5 Americans in 4 months and by met I mean spoken too. Jake is the only American I hang out with on a regular basis. So it was weird to suddenly be surrounded by American women talking about such normal American things. Its also really weird for England to feel so like home for me and for these women it is their daily experience of a very different culture. Its just interesting how we all have different levels of tolerance or perhaps, just current experience. In Germany, I felt like I was in another world, but now, after Ankara, anything really Western feels homey.

The next day Amy and I went on a great hike through the English countryside. Oh it was just great! We took the bus to Bakewell (where this pastry called Bakewells come from) and then we hiked along a former railroad track into the countryside. It was freezing, but sunny and so so beautiful! The oak trees, sheep(!), rolling hills, and little cottages--it was just so beautiful. We hiked to a pub in this small little town on top of a hill. It was really great and exactly what I wanted to do in England.

With no time to slow down, the next day we made a short trip to York. Ah and York is one of my favorite places. Its this really old city that still has its old city wall. We toured the castle, or what's left of it, then checked out the museum. The city has a place called the shambles which has all these jetted old buildings. Ah so great. I loved York. We finished off our trip there with some delicious Indian food! So nice to get some different types of food while I'm here!

The next day Amy and I had an early morning bike ride along the country roads near their house to get to the post office in the other village. (Ha! A village!) It was COLD, but there were sheep! Then we took a quick 25 minute bus to Nottingham to check out the city there. Can you remember who lived around Nottingham?? He wears tights? He shots a bow and arrow? He fought the sheriff of Nottingham? That's right Robin Hood! Ha, so we went to the castle in Nottingham which actually had a really great museum, but the city was weirdly modern. Especially after York with its wonderful old streets and Roman roads, Nottingham felt like the first modern city (other than London) that I've been too.

Finally, yesterday we went to the American military base near Cambridge. Now, that was SUPER weird. In line waiting to get my pass everyone was American. It was really weird. Everyone in line was an American saying little American phrases like "hate that with a passion," "if you don't shut your mouth your'e going in time out," and other normal things to say that I just haven't heard in sooo long. Really really weird. The culture shock just kept on coming too because we went to the stores on base and it was like being in Walmart! It was really weird to be surrounded by people who are all American and then actually knowing the socially acceptable thing to do. It's not like I don't know what to do in England and Turkey, its just that I'm always second guessing if I'm acting properly. So being able to walk around a store and know that should be said to strangers was really weird. The good news is that I stocked up on American food that I can't get in Turkey like oregano, top ramen, easy mac, you know, things I don't even like in the states, but I just can't get them at all in Turkey. So I'm going to head back to Turkey with my bags full.

I have a ton of photos of ALL of these events, but I'm afraid I'll forget everything if I don't write it down now! I'll add the photos later and write more about the adventures I'm having. Tomorrow this mother and daughter plus Amy and I are going to drive down to Windsor Castle and see where the monarchs of England have lived for hundreds of years. Then we're heading to Bath to check out some more Roman ruins.

This trip has been such a whirl wind and the time is flying by super quickly!

Last, but not least, with some reflection over this trip to England I really think its interesting how 'normal' Turkey is for me. I feel like I'm still constantly running into problems in Turkey and seeing things that are so different from home. I didn't feel like I'd become normalized to Turkey until I came to England. Suddenly, England which is so similar to home, was the weird unusual place. Everything felt familiar, but it felt so abnormal. Living in Ankara can be hard and frustrating, but I also had the glorious realization as I got on my bus out of Ankara that I was going to miss it, something that has certainly taken a long time to realize.

Education

There's only one more all nighter between me and a three week break! Hooray!

So my dearest father is always bugging me to write more about school (love you Dad!) so here's a summary of the paper's I've written for finals. See I do work here!

--An 8 page paper on the relationship between civil society and democratic consolidation using Turkey as a case study. (Sounds horrible, right? Political science is lurking around my course work like some horrible zombie that won't die)

--A syllabus for a pretend class on militarization in Modern Turkish history. Seventy pages of reading a night for my pretend students! Sorry pretend class!

--A 16 page paper for sociological theory on Robert E. Park, an urban sociologist part of the Chicago School, and Karl Marx. It's basic thesis is that Park problemitized the city, but failed to see that the capitalist system was the source of many of these problems. Basically it was a big "I love Marx" paper.

--The last one is a 15-20 page paper comparing laïcité in France and Turkey. I haven't finished this one yet, but I will tonight! I chose this topic because both France and Turkey have a strict secular system which would appear to allow for religious freedom because the government separates church and state. In reality both France and Turkey have problems with recognizing and giving equal rights to their religious minorities. My paper examines why laïcité creates problems for religious minorities when it should, on paper, give religious freedom to all. We'll see how this one goes! It's sort of turned into a paper on how laicite becomes part of the national identity of a country. We'll see. I've written a few pages.

Anyway, so there you have it, I do actually go to school and work while I'm here. Actually this whole last month has flown by because I've literally been in the library for the past 2 full weeks.

Well I'm off to the library to get this last paper out! Sorry if this post was boring, but my life has been these papers for the past two weeks. It's almost over! So close!

Finals

So I forgot I hate school.

Just kidding! Ha! I just hate finals. The reason I haven't been posting recently is because I had a 20 minute presentation last week, two 7-8 page papers due tomorrow, a 15-20 page paper due Friday, and a 15-20 page paper due Monday. Lucky me.

So I've moved into the library at METU which is really great if you love working in a sauna or passively aggressively staring at people who squeak their chairs too much. You can tell I'm loving finals here. The real problem is that finals at METU are TWO WEEKS (just to emphasize, TWO WEEKS!!) long. This means instead of one week of hell and papers and stress, at METU there's two weeks of hell and papers and stress. Seeing as I'm only just approaching the beginning of the second week, I'd say I'm managing, but I don't know how long that'll last.

In other news, I'm going to England when all this work is over! Yay!!! I'm visiting Pete and Amy and for those of you unacquainted with my family this is Brian's, my sister's husband, parents. Since Mer and Brian dated for almost a decade (not a joke, 8 years) I'd say I know them pretty well. They've been living in England for the past year because when their kids flew the college coop they decided to travel. Pete works as an engineer for something I'm not quite sure of in Derby and they live in Etwall Village. Guess what that means?! I'm going to a village! Hooray! It just tickles me that villages exist in England, it sounds so medieval. So I'll be visiting them for two weeks and speaking English to everyone and relaxing while enjoying the beautiful English countryside. I can't wait! I believe Amy also has some plans to do a trip to Canterbury (Yeah like that famous ancient book!) and then maybe do some other things in London. Good thing I just watched the entire two seasons of Downtown Abbey to prepare myself. Speaking of which everyone in their right mind should watch that amazing show. Its streaming free on Netflixs people, get on it! Also I'll be meeting up with Dan in London sometime to see him in his natural habitat. All I can hope for is that his regional accent comes out and he shows me things about the city I'd never know since he lived in London for 4 years.

Anyways that's about it for me. The last piece of news from here is that it snowed! It's so beautiful and makes campus look like a fairytale land. It's been snowing all day and its really thick. Apparently it should snow off and on all week. So lovely. Also when I was walking to the library with some friends we saw the campus wide snowball fight in Devrim stadium. AMAZING! There were definitely more than 100 students running around throwing snowballs like it was a real battlefield or something. Talk about the best way to get relieve some tension from all those hours in the library.

Here's a few pictures of the snowball fight below.

Outside my apartment.


A bajillon people.


Sebastian ready for a fight with Sibel and Caro trying to look tough.


Snoooow


The fight moved into the corner of the stadium. Hard to tell here but about 100 snowballs were being thrown here.


Caro's defeat by Sebastian.

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!