Monday, November 29th, 2004

Yesterday was the final day of the conference. We took off in the morning, stopping for a few sights before reaching Ankara in the evening. It’s been a good time, although somewhat funny.

The conference was interesting. Not because of the content, because I couldn’t understand anything! My dad presented in English, the rest was Turkish. But I met a lot of nice people and made some good friendships. I also got to see another great example of Turkish organization. Nothing at the conference seemed to go as planned. Example: the conference began about 50 minutes late, which destroyed the whole timetable for the day. The set aside 1.5 hours for key speakers, and the first one out of five or six took 40 minutes. It’s amazing to compare these things to American ideals. We are sooooo efficient! I have a new appreciation for scheduling and keeping to timetables, since here in Turkey it is almost impossible to do so. But oh well... the food was nice!

I made a nice friend at the conference: Hatice (Ha-tee-jay), a 25 year old English instructor at the Erciyes University technical school in Nevşehir. She was a very friendly person and we had a lot of good talks over the weekend. It’s a shame that distance is such an obstacle, as I would love to continue speaking with her. But that’s life I suppose!

Today we went to Çankiri and toured the technical school there. Old hat for me really, although it was good for my dad to see where I have spent some time. All the teachers there fussed and worried and wanted to make sure they were happy. So we toured some very boring things in the name of entertainment. Fortunately, I broke off and hung out with some of my friends: Elif, Yıldız and Zeynep. So I had fun anyway!

Tomorrow my dad and Tony depart, which will be sad I’m sure. I might get my first real bout of homesickness as a result. But it’s been such a nice time that I can’t really complain too much. It’s been wonderful for my dad to be here and see the life I’ve been living.