Ankara and Antalya

For the two-week semester break Dilsad and I had enough time to go on a little trip. Dilsad’s dad lives and works in Ankara, so we took the bus-about six hours-to go visit him. We left early on Saturday the 23^rd and stayed until Sunday the 30^th.

            Ankara became the capital city of Turkey when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk remade, and modernized the city. Though it is lacking some of the charm of many of the older cities in turkey is a nice town full of chic cafes and shopping. We spent a lot of time walking around the city, which was a good way to see it but Ankara was freezing! The weather in Adana is bordering on summer right now. I liked being in the cold though, I feel like I need that difference to appreciate the warmness of Adana and summer. Plus it was all worth it when one night it started snowing! It snowed all through the night and we woke up to a thick blanket on the street. I love the snow, and it was exactly the same feeling as when we get like and inch one the island and everything is white and wonderful. Dilsad, her dad, and I went to the park where we sledded on trash bags, threw snowballs and made snow angles. We warmed up by getting these delicious Belgium waffles topped in chocolate sauce, fruit, and nuts. Yumm!

Dilsad’s dad Selami, is a really pleasant person, though I’m don’t really feel like I really connected with him. He was great about taking us to see the sights like Ataturk's tomb and the museums. One night we went to a play (that I understood very little of) and visited a couple of Dilsad’s potential universities. He is a very jolly man and had me practice my Turkish some nights by explaining what we did that day, leaving out not even the tiniest detail. Overall it was a pretty relaxing stay, I spent a lot of time reading and writing and trying to study Turkish. I think it was good for Dilsad and I to have some one on one time because in Adana we are both super busy, and boy did we have plenty of alone time. Plus it was good to get out of Adana, I was feeling a bit cooped up and though it wasn’t a super exciting trip it was good to get out of my routine.

After Ankara we took another sevenish hour bus ride to Antalya where some of my host mom’s family lives. Remses and his wife are an older couple and their daughter lives with them as well. I met them when I went to the village with my family when my Turkish was terrible but really liked them despite the language barrier. Also visiting was their son who has been living in Azerbaijan for the past three years and his finance that is Azerbaijanis. Though there were a lot of us for the size of the apartment it was fun, and they were very welcoming. I like Remses a lot because he is also talking to me, most of the time I really have no idea what he is saying but I just kind of nod along. Sureya, their daughter, is in her late 20’s, and loves makeup and hair products. She has naturally light hair which I supper uncommon here and spends hours getting it ready. She s really sweet though and invited to me come back whenever. I think I may take her up on that because Antalya is beautiful! We did a sort of professional tour guide thing with one of Sureya’s friends, an annoying guy that kept referring to himself as “your handsome tour guide, Ali,” and took us bowling for some reason. But it was good to see the city. The old part of Antalya is beautiful, tiny streets that lead to the old harbor. The sea is the most beautiful blue green and though it was windy and cold it made me want to go swimming. It was pretty much deserted right not because it is the low season, but there are a ton of youth hostels and cafes so I imagine it gets pretty touristy in the summer.

Antalya also has this really great museum that I went to with Nilia the girl from Azerbaijan. It is packed with Greek and Roman artifacts, and it was super interesting to talk to her. In Azerbaijan they speak like 3 different languages, one is like old Turkish-so maybe later I can study there-Russian, and some Italian. After the museum Ozgre her fiancé picked us up and took us to the main beach in Antalya, so stunningly beautiful. You can see little islands in the distance and white-capped mountains in the other direction. I can’t wait to go back.

            The bus ride home was long to say the least, about twelve hours, though most of it is along the Mediterranean so the view was great. The roads though are way to narrow for the giant bus so we spent about half our time in the other lane and though nobody else seemed that worried I was on the edge of my seat because most of the turns are blind corners and crossing way over into the other lane seemed to leave a lot of potential for disaster. But we made it to Adana eventually, and it was wonderful to get home and see my host mom. I missed her.  I also really missed my AFS friends three of whom are leaving in about a week. They were only on the six-month program and will be flying out of Ankara late next week. So back I go to Ankara Wednesday of next week to see them off. Then the remaining five of us have some sort of camp in Cappadocia for a few days. It will be extremely sad to see those girls off because we have all become a very close group, but it will be nice to be a smaller as well. I really want to buckle down and study my Turkish in the next few months and it should be a bit easier to do so with a smaller group.