monday the 9th of november

seeing that this day was over a week ago and i have had several ridiculously fun adventures since then, i cant remember much other than the highlight of the day was translating the words on the washing machine from turkish to english- very useful for knowing which cycle to select. i wrote it all down so kristin could have permanent washing machine understanding to sell on the black market to all her other english speaking friends that teach here.

there is no dryer, so air dry on the radiator, errrr i mean back porch is the way its done. and this actually takes planning- you cant wash too much stuff at once, otherwise you wont have room to air dry it all. also, if you want something dry, like your bed sheets, then you need to plan ahead accordingly- cant wash the sheets in the afternoon and expect to sleep on them that same night.

again, having memory lapse issues, but im pretty sure this was the night i went grocery shopping all by myself! and i even spoke turkish! kristin and faruk went to dinner, i stepped out and went and bought food, i wasnt hungry anyways and they needed some couple time. plus that made it an adventure for me!

according to facebook some other highlights from this day were:
~ listening to the call to prayer as i read thru emails n such, but that happens ALL the time, i barely hear it anymore, thats old news. it sounds like a dying animal, i have it on video, but of course it wont load properly onto here
~ figuring out how to get my laptop onto the turkish internet, my compie friends would have been proud, i figured out the ISP turkey info and entered it in and viola, my macbook was online! to quote facebook: desha wood feels like an Fing GENIUS for figuring out how to get her computer to connect to the turkish internet! (and yes, its more involved than just plugging it in)

the zoo!

i love the zoo, if you know me at all you know im a total sucker for the zoo, so when uriah called and asked kristin if we wanted to go to the zoo with him and layla, I got all screechy high pitched voice and squealed yyyeeeeessssss!!!

but. were in turkey. animal rights are basically non existent, in fact the major bayram (holiday) coming up is all about slaughtering many different animals. so i knew to not be too excited about this zoo and that i needed to expect really bad animal conditions.

well, it wasnt as bad as i expected, i expected awful, when in reality only a few of the exhibits wrenched my heart out, as opposed to the every single exhibit i was expecting. i took some pics, some of which i was trying to capture how CLOSE the animals were, or how small the exhibit was.

and when i say close i mean close! as in a huge male tiger a tad further away than an arms reach behind a chain linked fence. close as in most of the animals can eat out of your hand if you let them, close as in the monkeys can take your cigarettes and smoke them, close as in not really any barriers anywhere, close as in how many people die here from being mauled by wild animals?

there were some cool and/or interesting things there.
~ the van cat is all white with short fur and has one blue and one green eye, they are basically worshiped in eastern turkey.
~the ankara cat is white with long fur, and there were kittens. yup pretty sad that a kitten was a highlight at the zoo, im such an old lady. we thought it was funny that they all had litter boxes in their cages, not sure why know we thought that, but we did. weird to see what looks like a house cat in a cage at the zoo.
~ they had a dog section, it was like going to the humane society, dalmatians, golden retrievers, hounds, terriers, german shepard, irish setter, etc. pets to us, apparently attractions to the turks. they had some of the local kengal dogs which look like huge mastifs meet st bernards, they live everywhere in the streets and are VERY big dogs. this was one of the heartbreaking parts, the dogs were not well taken care of, lived in cement pens and had the saddest eyes, a lot of them had puppies. we wondered if maybe the doges were saved from a bad place and brought to the zoo?? maybe? hopefully?
~ the peacocks were penned in. that was just weird.
~ i wanted a penis shaped balloon when we got there, kristin said we could get one on the way out, they were gone when we exited the zoo. dang you kristin!
~ 'Aslan' means 'lion' in turkish. now i know where CS lewis got the name
~ def had to get a picture of the americans in front of the turkey pen, in turkey, yeah were dumb
~ i saw a boy all dressed up as a lil sultan, later found out it means it was his circumcision day, glad i got a pic cuz thats kinda cool
~ feeding the animals is ok here. apples chucked to the bears and whatever else you wanna chuck em at, pretzels to the camels, deers, dogs, whatever else will eat them. people throw stuff to all the animals really (or hand it to them). it was a lil sad, prolly has a lot to do with the animals poor health, but then again i thought at least theyre feeding them apples and bread, it could be worse, it could be cotton candy and chocolate.
~ i wanted to feed the animals!!! when in rome right? but i didnt, i couldnt, id feel too guilty.
~ there was a lot of wasted park space for the humans, A LOT of space, like acres, why couldnt the animals have that space?
~ the chimp was captivity crazy, so sad. i hope hes old so he can die soon and be at peace. heart wrenching.
~ there were some gorgeous birds of prey, huge ones too. and they were close

it wasnt a huge zoo, not a ton of animals, and overall, it wasnt that bad, really, i mean considering all the circumstances, lets be realistic here. most of the animals looked well fed, they were pretty active - one of the lions kept roaring and one of the tigers growled a lot, a lot of them interacted with the human stimulation/disruption to their day, i think had they all been mangy and comatose then that would have been really bad/sad. it was fun to see the excitement from all the lil kids seeing these animals so close, and in reality what an amazing experience to be that close to these animals, at my zoo you need binoculars to see the bears and tigers!

zoo pics!!

the fun, the good, and a lil of the bad, i didnt take pics of the ugly. why document that?

happy berfday marines

on saturday nov 7th we went to the fancy schmazy black tie formal 4 course dinner open bar and dancing marine birthday ball.
pictures 10-106. warning there are lots of ones that need to be deleted, i was 'trying' different camera modes.

here we are with the marines, all of the active duty ones except the one who looked 12, minus their girlfriends/dates:
yeah, there wasnt very many :-( we both assumed there would be more. sigh

we decided that there werent really any stationed here in Ankara cuz
A. there isnt really a need for marines here, and
B. everyone is next door in Iraq or in Afghanistan

i had a hard time finding a wardrobe ensemble and though i ended up pretty casual, lots of people were all decked out to the fancy nines, i felt comfy with those i was there with, they were all more on the casual side too. if i had been in sistys prom dress like i originally intended i would have felt out of place at my table and too dressed up. i felt very jackie O-ish- classy, clean, straight lines, and sophisticated. plus, black and red, you cant go wrong there!

i dont feel up to going into too much detail- it was a fancy dinner, we all know how those go, plus i have all the pics of the food, the table, the 'ceremony', etc. but i will elaborate a lil about the things that stuck out to me.

~i met the US ambassador of turkey and other important dignitaries from other countries
~ceremony - there was a small ceremony and speeches from various marine people, they talked about tradition and what it means to have served in the marines, they paid tribute to the oldest and youngest marine in attendance, the youngest looked 12. serious. the oldest is in this picture.
~tribute video for fallen marines - beautiful- had to hold back the tears. the song was sung live and music was played on a guitar, it was hauntingly touching, a letter from a soldier if youre reading this, im already 'home'
~a special cake cutting tradition with the sword. the cake was kiwi banana. gross.
~the black table - pics 58-65 -to represent all those that have died in service, the purple medal of honor, the nameless dog tags, the candle, a place set for one, it was really pretty and very symbolic, and i love me some symbolic sentiments.

it was really neat to be apart of the celebration, they have a marine ball 'everywhere' there are marines/embassy, so its very cool to say that i experienced it here in turkey! i met a lot of embassy people, i wondered how many of them there were secret CIA peeps, i met a lot of the other teachers at kristins school from america and canada, erin and tim taught in longmont CO my (and kristins) hometown, at silver creek high and westview middle. crazy huh

yes there was an open bar, no i did not get drunk. dinner was pretty good, although nothing scrumptious. dancing was fun, but like all dances, after awhile they start to play the same dumb long song with the same undanceable beat over and over again. i was sad that there was no one to ballroom dance with, cuz that would have been stellar! all n all, it was a very fun night!

hamam... uh, did you really just touch me there?!

oh yes! she really did.

the hamam, turkish bath house, was.... an experience. its pretty much a teenage boys wet dream on steroids. its a bunch of naked women, all ages, all together, in pretty much one room, washing, exfoliating, shampooing, bathing- each other. yup, its an experience all right. dont get me wrong, it was fun!

pictures 1-8 are kristin and i at the hamam, of course i couldnt take any of inside the actual hamam itself, but look at the wikipedia link cuz thats exactly what it looks like. i really wanted to cuz the building inside was gorgeous, we went to a historical one and it was 'more authentic'. apparently there are modern ones that are more private and sanitary and ones where men and women can be in the same vicinity. im guessing that means you cant get naked and thats no fun. if you can then i need a bunch of hot guys to meet me there for some quality loofah time.

this google pic is really similar to what ours looked like inside,
although ours was pretty much all white/gray, no blue tiles.

a hamam is not a place for a germaphobe to go, especially with the mindset that you will leave clean from the bath. sanitation is not really something that is practiced. for example, i was exfoliated from head to foot and everywhere in between with the same loofah used on the girl before and before her and before her and it was used on the girl after me, i wonder when they actually do change out loofahs. then all the dead skin they rubbed off you, and theres tons, like huge worm shaped rolls of dead gray skin, floating around the marble thing you are laying on and they just take a lil cup of water and splash all the dead skin off onto the floor, where it eventually ends up in the 'drain', which is really a river of dead skin and soapy water running along the exterior of the room, kinda like a dead skin canal.

so here's how it worked. we walked into this really cool old looking building and thru some sort of mind reading sigh language powers told the lady we wanted to do whatever it is you do in a hamam, she said something about shampoo and we shrugged out shoulders. we got neked except panties in a lil closet room and walked out with pink clog crocodiles on our feet and a cute lil cloth wrapped around us toga style. then we were lead to a hot room, it was all steamy and there was a modern day looking jacuzzi, there was hesitation cuz werent sure where or what was going on and we got lead the rest of the way into the domed room of the hamam.

another pic from google, our hamam wasnt as elaborate but they all have domed ceilings with holes,

ventilation i suppose.

it was like walking into a sauna and my glasses immediately fogged up, so the lady stole them from me and walked away. i guess she thought i didnt need them but i was like um, i cant see. so somehow thru more mind reading powers she brought them back a few minutes later.

this is what we saw, or what i saw anyways.... white marble surface everywhere, lots of steam, shampoo smells, several women of all ages, some sitting at the lil tubs on the perimeter of the room washing themselves, some wandering around, some getting rubbed down on the marble slab in the center of the room, some doing the rubbing, some getting washed on the marble slab, some doing the washing.

we were unsure what to do, a turkish woman who knew some english asked if she could help. not really, we were just trying to go with the flow. so we sat at our assigned basin on the perimeter of the room, well first we hung up our toga cloths and then we sat, we realized we should have brought dry panties to change into, i assumed we'd be stark neked so bringing a dry pair never crossed my mind. eh well, we'll go home commando.

so we sat there, and chit chatted, and observed and wondered what we were supposed to do. we realized lots of women had brought there own shampoo and body wash, maybe thats what the lady was asking at the begining, if we had brought ours too. we watched them wash and wash and wash, maybe they were really dirty? we splashed ourselves with water from our basin, the room was super warm and steamy and so we got sweaty, and soon my glasses equalized so i could see clearly. yay. i splashed Kristin after she threatened to splash me. and we sat. and we speculated. and we sat. and we giggled. and we watched the women on the marble slab get exfoliatingly loofahed, rinsed, washed/massaged, rinsed. there were saggy turkish boobies everywhere. i wish i could know what they were saying, gossiping, complaining/sharing about their husbands, kids, housework, jobs, etc. and i was thinking what it would have been like way back when in the olden days when this was the time away spa like pamper zone, get away from it all and get clean, cuz really it was the only way they bathed way back when, and how much fun it must have been to be with just the other women.

a lady came and took kristin to the slab and i started picking at my toe cuticles with my finger nails which K has dubbed talons, and i watched K get exfoliated. after i got one foot done a lady came and took me to the slab.

the hamaming of me: the marble slab was really warm, and wet and slippery, she made me scoot forward cuz someone else was going to lay behind me, i mouthed to kristin on the other side of the slab, does it hurt? cuz we saw lots of skin coming off of the other ladies. and she mouthed back nah. it did hurt- my knees! laying on the hard surface totally killed them, i had to roll my legs in so that the pressure was on my leg and not my knees. anywhoo, the loofahing began, it was firm but not torturous and i was enjoying it immensely when she went over my itchy bee sting, when the back side was done i was instructed to roll over onto my back and the front side was done, i figured it'd hurt my nips but nope, they were fine. she did rub some extra skin off of my shins and that burned, and it was really red after the bath was over. after all my skin was gone she had me stand up and rinsed me off then barely rinsed the slab of all my skin and i laid down again for the washing.

they use lots of soap and it makes lots of bubbles. the bubbles got in my hair, up my nose, in my eyes and coated my glasses. i started on my belly again, poor knees, and whoa there was a breeze in the nether regions and, ehem, all those parts got sufficiently cleaned and then whoa a major wedgie and my ass cheeks got a good cleansing and massaging, then she decided it was a good idea to bend my heels back to my bum for a nice stretch, it wasnt a really good idea and K said shes heard of people getting acl damage before, i can certainly see why. onto my belly and my boobies got a nice sudsing, i was thinking, as i was watching the lady bathing me with her boobies hanging and bouncing in my face, that it should be a really hot man doing this. now that would have been an experience.

then i got 'massaged' she rubbed my shoulders for a minute or so, and then a rinse, and then it was time for a shampoo, i asked K f she had got one and she did, so i did too. i was taken back to our basin and she prolly used half the bottle for the amt of suds she conjured up, again, up my nose, in my eyes, down my ear canal etc. and then again, cuz doing it twice makes all the difference. and she gave my scalp a nice rub down as well. then i was done!

i sat there and splash/rinsed myself some more, i had soap still in my ears and plus i was super hot by this point so rinsing with cool water felt good. we commented to each other on being violated and then i remembered i needed to pick all the dead cuticle skin off of my other foot cant have just one pedicured foot, id be off balance. my shin was def rubbed raw and was even red and raw for a few days afterward. i def felt like my skin hadnt been this fresh since birth. but i def did not feel clean. thanks to america and their germaphobiness.

i decided i needed to hose off a lil more in the lil shower area back in the jacuzzi room, ill admit im a rinse-a-phobe, we both peed and then assumed we were supposed to go dry off and get dressed again. thats when we took all the pictures of us in the mirror, cuz were cool like that.

and then we rushed home to get ready for the marine ball later that evening.
id do it again. it wasnt a traumatic experience by any means, the word we've been using to describe it is interesting. cuz it really was.

i really liked the womanly camaraderie, the taking care of each other, the being totally comfortable with each other, being totally comfortable with yourself, it reminded me of The Red Tent, maybe cuz i was reading it on the plane out here, but it was just really nice to be together with a bunch of women and i couldnt help thinking that some of these traditions from ancient times shouldnt be swept away by modern marvels and instant gratification. i bet its safe to say that there was a lot of meaning besides just getting clean in going to the hamam every week.

catching up. anitkabir

i cant decide whether or not to play catch up from a weeks worth of awesome adventures or just start with the latest adventure since its freshest in my mind. sigh

and my shoulder hurts when i type a lot so here goes nothing i guess.

friday november 6 - my first day venturing out alone. starting with picture # 32 ~ AnitKabir.

a few highlights: 'mastering' the subway system all by myself. using turkish words to purchase a ticket, ask for directions and generally being polite. getting to and from where i needed to be successfully without getting lost. and within the general time frame of when i expected to.

so i went to the mausoleum of the great turkish leader, Ataturk. oh youve never heard of him, why am i not surprised, i never had till i came here. he really was an incredibly remarkable man. he completely revamped turkey, the language, the economy, the education system, monetary system, politics - created a democracy, etc the list is very long of what he accomplished in just a lifetime. he is basically worshiped and highly revered over here. the mausoleum is small proof of that. it is a beautiful place, tons of marble granite turquoise gold, etc. its huge too. i took tons of pics of the rock and marble designs and side walks and all that, prolly boring for most but i was having fun playing Japanese tourist. i watched a cheesy 15 min video about Ataturk, i kid you not, they specifically mention his deep blue eyes at least 7 times, and in all his pics and wax statues the blue eyes are def the focus. there was a lot of relics of his in the museum, including a pair of pajamas, and in the memorial towers were his cars, boat, the canon that carried his coffin, cool to see but i blew past most of it, im not a big museum plaque reader. the library was cool though, Ataturk was a very smart guy and very much valued literacy, he read a lot of books about as many topics as he could get his hands on.

there was something special going on there that day, lots of military troops in uniform, and some important looking people. there was some sort of ceremony taking place and the entire place came to a dead halt when the taps-but-not-really-taps song played with all the dignitaries inside the mausoleum, the song was haunting, echoing out over the landscape, beautiful. i have it on video but of course i cant get it to post.

its a miracle that i didnt break an ankle walking down the lion pathway, you are supposed to approach from this path so that you have time to reflect on Ataturk and the semblance of rounding the corner at the end and seeing the mausoleum. they purposefully paved it so that you trip every other step and have to look down while walking, making you 'walk in reverence', slow, deliberate, and head down. pretty genius.

so three big things that stuck with me about Ataturk - he did and changed a lot but three of his top priorities were 1. literacy for everyone, he created the modern day turkish language. 2. an education for everyone 3. empowering women and giving them rights, no more hiding behind a veil. its amazing to look at what has come about from these three changes for this country, in one mans adult lifetime.
4. he adopted his children :-)

it struck me as odd when i was sitting my three local men and they asked me who my favorite US leader was, and before i answered they said, did you learn about Ataturk when you were in school? and i said no. and they said we learned about all of your leaders, and i said i know you did. why dont we teach our children about great leaders like Ataturk? huh.

i enjoyed watching the changing of the guards, every hour on the hour, watching the lil school children, and watching the sunset from the mausoleum steps. and i really did enjoy learning about Ataturk. and of course i was in heaven with so much to take pics of, it was a happy day for me!

i grabbed some food to go in the tune-allee cant spell it correctly without the turkish keyboard shopping and eating district on the way home (some dish with meatballs) and enjoyed a pleasant evening feeling very proud of myself for getting around ankara all by my lonesome! if i did anything else that night i cant remember! lol

pictures!!!

http://deshasturkeypics.shutterfly.com/

here's the scoop- im posting ALL my pics but not taking the time to edit (delete bad ones) or caption them at this time. sorry. if you have any Q's about any of the pics, just leave a comment ON THAT particular pic and i'll answer it for ya, eventually i'll get them all captioned and organized, eventually. sigh

epic journaling fail

i have so much to write about with adventures from friday, sat, sun and today, mon was a low key day, but even then some fun things still happened.... and i have to go to bed now cuz im leaving first thing to catch a bus up to a small coastal town on the black sea, will be there for a couple of days and then am heading off to central anatolia. sigh. when will i find the time to journal it all? i need to though, before i forget.

i have taken hundreds and hundreds of pics. =)

i let three days go by and holy cow (thurs night synopsis)

i let three days go by and holy cow, is there a crap load to blog about!! i have had many adventures! and i have taken TONS of pictures.

thursday evening - after the bee sting drama, kristin and i went to dinner in the city, part of the purpose was for me to see the bus route, get acquainted with the surroundings, and see where the bus stops were so i could start to venture out on my own a bit. we had some traditional kebap for dinner, restaurant was called kebap 49, it was fun, we named the fish in the huge tank that we sat by and had a very pleasant time.

this tidbit wont mean much to anyone but is a huge deal for me - kristin got my attn and directed it towards, and i mostly quote.... look at that cute lil baby girl in her pink snowsuit! yup i about died. and then she continued to make cooing noises and point out specific cutenesses of this child. she was cute, and was super over dressed in a head to toe puffy pink snowsuit, kristin and i were in a light jacket and scarf, it wasnt that cold. kristin? noticing a baby/child under 18? im sure the pink sparkles helped catch her attn, but still.... im def not in 'kansas' anymore!

we window shopped a bit, and met up with faruk for dessert. i had a pistachio chocolate cake that was super yumm. pistachios are huge here, in everything and everywhere, which is fine cuz i love them!

is it awful that now (monday evening) i cant remember much else about thursday night?! ugh! this is why i need to journal regularly. pretty sure i was beyond exhausted by the time we got home, prolly even fell asleep on the bus, from the bee sting adrenaline n all that. i did some prep for my friday adventure, got directions from faruk of where to go and how to get home, he wrote the destinations in turkish and english for me so i could have a cab driver just read it, in case they couldnt understand me. i crawled into bed and slept hard, what a great sleep! and woke up with an insanely itchy bee sting! lol

a few observations for now

transportation -

~the cars are america style with the driver being on the left.
~the roads are american style with the direction the traffic goes.
~drivers typically use the lane they are supposed to be in and ive been impressed with use of signals when merging, i was expecting near death experiences like in the philippines but its been pretty uneventful, it is crazier than in the states, but not all that bad.
~hardly any bikes, no mopeds and a motorcycle here and there, again i think i was expecting more chaos like in asia, maybe in the smaller cities people ride bikes?
~the cars are small, ive been surprised at the number of fords ive seen, and the largest car ive seen is a honda CRV

food -

~pretty blah, must add seasonings like salt, crushed red pepper and oregano, onions, peppers if you want it to taste like much. granted i havent eaten much variety here yet, some meats do have lots of seasonings mixed in them, but everything is really really mild flavored.
~they love their bread in turkey
~if the menu doesnt come with english translations you may as well close your eyes and point to something, cuz theres not really any way of 'figuring out' the description of what it is
~coke light not diet coke, just like in asia

cleanliness -

not as dirty as i expected so far, havent seen a lot yet mind you and i havent been to istanbul yet, but the streets are mostly clean, everyone sets out their trash and it actually gets picked up by a garbage service type arrangement.

here's a biggie - brace yourself - i keep waking up early, on my own.
wth?! early as in btwn 6 and 730 am. gasp

more observations to come FOR SURE later on! ;-)

something just bit me!

on thursday i got stung by a bee! and it hurt! and it didnt die! oh the injustice!

i went to kristins school for lunch, cuz its free, and she gave me a lil tour of the campus, it was so fun to see! we were in her classroom standing by her desk, after lunch, all the kids had just come in from break and suddenly i felt a very painful 'bite' on my left shoulder blade, i jumped and yelled out in surprise and said something just bit me! and kristin was like what? nuh uh and looked down my shirt and a bee flew out! she said you were stung by a bee! and i was like nuh uh, im allergic! she got a wheres-your-epi-pen look of panic/teacher about to save the day and i quickly said not that kind of allergic, but i swelled up real huge last time, i need mud! so we ran outside with a water bottle and i made mud and put it on my back, and she asked a teacher friend/school nurse for some antihistamine or benadryl and then somehow we or i decided i needed an ice pack.

i sat outside for a while reapplying fresh mud every few minutes. it helped a lot and started pulling the sting sensation out, but it def was super painful all day. after i decided i was done with mud, my right arm was starting to ache from holding such a weird posittion, so i held an ice pack on there for awhile fighting the dead arm ache, then sat in a chair 'just so', so that the back of the chair would keep the icepack in place. although that did a number on my back, more pain. i took 1 benadryl cuz i didnt want to knock myself out and i wasnt sure if id swell or what all might happen, so that was the majority of the afternoon.

when i went back in the classroom after being outside mudding myself, i looked all over to make sure there wasnt a bee, i shook the curtains and checked the bookshelves, i did find one, it was on the outside of the window crawling on the glass, it was HUGE, it was yellow jacket lookingish and was prolly about 1 1/2 inches long, and its stinger was massive, i willed it with my awesome mind powers to not fly in thru the other open window and then it disappeared, i was nervous, not gonna lie.

when i decided i was done with the ice i helped Kristin laminate and cut out decimal monkeys and she did some grading. then i watched her be assistant volleyball coach, i knew if i went back to the lojman i would fall asleep and we had dinner plans, so i just hung out watching the high school girls scrimmage and play volleyball in turkish.

this morning i woke up to it itching something fierce, it was starting to itch when i went to bed, but man, all day i have had to fight with myself to not scratch, and sometimes my fingernails win the fight and give a lil scratchety scratch, man oh man does it ever itch, erghhhh!!!

so now ive been stung by a bee 2x in my entire life, the first time being back in my early/mid twenties, ah crap did i really just say that?! im getting old! although that first time i was attacked by yellow jackets and actually got about 6 stings, but i count it as 'one time'.

sorry turkey, not feelin the love from your flying insects.