Saturday, October 23rd, 2004

Ah, a nice day for my first weekend in Ankara. I began my Saturday with a huge bout of lethargy! After finally dragging myself out of bed at 3 p.m. I stumbled down to the café and managed to motion myself a meal. Following that (and a few cups of çay) I returned to my room where I daydreamed, listened to music, read my book, and played a few rousing rounds of Worms Armageddon on my laptop! If any of you haven’t, please try this game. It’s basically teams of earthworms with funny voices trying to blow each other up with exploding sheep and other silly weapons! Very nice way to avoid the real world I think!

In the evening I met up with Süleyman. We had a nice time and got to know each other quite a bit more. We played pool, tavla, drank tea, smoked ciggies (not too many!) and chatted about all sorts of things. I met some students and discussed all sorts of issues with them. One was a nationalist who was convinced that in 20 years Turkey will be the major world power, have an incredibly prosperous economic alliance with Russia and control the European Union. Wow. He had an answer for everything; unfortunately his answers were all ridiculously idealistic and highly entertaining. One thing of note was that he said Neil Armstrong heard the Muslim call to prayer from the moon and converted on the spot! Heheheh. What a weirdo.

Süleyman is a great guy; he studies English literature and writes tons of poetry. He’s a very soft spoken guy but very passionate, and I think is a fine friend. Tomorrow we will visit some places in Ankara, go to some bookshops, and basically just see the town. I’m so glad to have a friend in him. It makes being here so much easier. I also met his roommate named ________ (I’ll have to ask again) who also knows English, and is a good guy. I hope to spend a lot of time with them over these upcoming months.