Saturday, December 11th, 2004

Today I met up with my new friend Başak, who I met in Baypazarı. Her friend Endam came along as well. And what a fun time it was! They met me at about 1 pm, and we took of for Kızılay to run some errands and basically hang out. We hit up a watch shop, various clothing stores, visited some travel agencies and did whatever else that came to mind. I had a lot of fun getting to know these two girls.

Başak is from Ankara and is a very interesting person. She has the most personality and is the most independent out of all the girls I’ve met here in Turkey. Which is really nice; she’s like a strange hybrid American girl with Turkish cultural influences. I can’t explain it really. We hung out at a café for a long time and chatted about all sorts of things. and then she says, “So what are you doing tonight?” Nothing. “Oh. Well I do a bit of training in Tae-Kwon-Do. Do you want to come with me to the gym tonight?” What the hell, why not?

So we took of for the gym. After getting there, I find out that Başak doesn’t just practice Tae-Kwon-Do. She’s an accomplished black belt, has taken part in numerous tournaments (and won awards), as is currently the 3rd ranking girl in Turkey!!! Holy crap. Not only that, but she can do crazy moves. Like these spinny kick-plant-kick things that would take your head off. She was doing these kicks against someone holding pads and was knocking them backwards a few feet. Amazing. I did Tae-Kwon-Do when I was little, and all the stuff she does now is what my dreams were made of at that time. Simply incredible. She’s now training to attend some World Championship thing in the Czech Republic during March. How on earth do I manage to meet these people???

Anyway, it was wonderful to meet this new friend. She’s really great. Unfortunately, I’m meeting fantastic people right before I head off to England. But oh well, I’m sure the time there will go fast, and it will make coming back to Turkey all the more exciting, because I’ll have new friends to spend time with!