Friday, September 24th, 2004

Well, I have arrived in Turkey. The flight was ok, but incredibly long. Cedar Rapids to Denver, to D.C., to Munich, to Ankara. Ugh! Highlights included accidentally eating someone else’s breakfast at McDonald’s in Denver (they gave me the wrong one!) and getting hit on by a German lady all the way to Munich. Could have been worse, I guess!

After arriving in Ankara I was met by Prof. Selahattin Evren from the university. He is an English teacher in their Foreign Relations Dept. (I haven’t figured out quite what that is yet) and is a very open and generous man. We drove straight from the airport to a shop where he purchased me six different chocolate bars, a can of Turka Cola, and three boxes of milk-like liquid with honey, banana, and some other flavor that has escaped me. After heading back on the road, not half an hour later we stopped again! This time is was a restaurant with an outdoor barbeque. We had kebabs of beef and hot peppers, which you eat by filling a chunk of thick, pita-like bread with the beef and pepper, as well as cold tomatoes and onion chunks. Amazingly good. We also had salad of tomato, onion, cucumber, and some sort of spiced oil, and drank copious amounts of Turkish tea called cay (except the bottom of the c is a lot more squiggly, but I can’t reproduce it with my keyboard). For dessert I had a chunk of fresh honeycomb that they had removed from the hives behind the restaurant. Talk about removing supply-chains! Everything was incredibly tasty.

Back on the road, we mostly made small talk on our way to Cankiri. I honestly cannot remember a lot of it. I asked a lot about the school, various facts about Turkey, and whatever else came to mind. Mostly it was just getting to know each other.

The land here is dry and very hilly. Most roads are paved, but some are just the hard earth with a multitude of small rocks strewn about. There is dust everywhere… I’m getting more boogers here than ever as a result!!! Yum. There are a few trees here and there, but the only ones that flourish are the ones that people take care of. Otherwise they end up being little shrubby things. I’m interested in hiking one of the hills, but right now lack of energy is a serious hindrance.

As far as work is concerned, it seems that I will be assisting at a technical branch of Ankara University in Çankiri. This town is an hour or so north of Ankara, with a population of about 70,000. I will be assisting Prof. Evren in his Foreign Relations classes. It seems that I will have plenty of opportunities to explore the university and engage with English students, which is a definite plus. I had forgotten so quickly about what it feels like to have no language skills. It’s so weird to have Selahattin introduce me to people and go on about my intelligence and studies and whatnot, and then not be able to even answer the question how are you. I know it gets better, but it’s hard to convince yourself of that.

It is bed time now… 7:30 p.m. and I’m completely knackered!