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.  

When in Rome!

Sorry again that this blog post is so long after the fact, but at least the memories are still fresh! My trip to Rome for Christmas was fabulous, though it went by much, much too fast. I left for Istanbul on the 19th, a Saturday afternoon and spent the night with a friend from my exchange in Spain. We had time to do some brief site-seeing around Istanbul Sunday morning before I left, and it left me wanting to see more! Istanbul is enormous, around 13 million people, and there is so much history within it. There is so much to see, I hope to be able to spend some time there later this year.


I arrived in Rome on a Sunday night and felt very accomplished and fortunate to have found my way from the airport to the Pantheon square where the our apartment was. I was especially proud because the only directions my mom gave me were “just go to the Pantheon and somebody will be there.” I love my family, but I could easily imagine myself standing in front of the Pantheon for hours with all my bags, in the cold I am very not used to. I was worried needlessly though because I had barely wondered into the square when I heard Steve’s gruff voice, he had been waiting nearly for three hours. We first dropped my stuff on in the beautiful little apartment we were all staying in. With hard wood floors and little windows that look out over the pantheon square it is exactly the kind of place one should stay at when in Rome. After we went to the restaurant where we met up with my Grandma Helen and her husband Howard, my aunt Kate and her husband Stefan, and their three adorable children, Thomas, Peter, Anna and my siblings Michael and Lizzy. It was surreal to see all of my family in such an amazing place.

That was the beginning of a very quick trip, or what felt quick anyway. That night Steve, my mom and I took a walk to the Trevi fountain, and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be in Rome on Christmas and throwing coins in the Trevi Fountain no less. It was beautiful. The next few days we saw the main sights, the Colosseum, the Roman forum, Campidoglio Square and museum, St. Peter’s Square, Sistine Chapel, Borghese Gallery, Pantheon, Spanish Steps and more. Rome is a beautiful city with an incredible amount of well preserved history. Rome has this majestic feel to it, and wandering around the streets was magical. We all had our favorites though Steve’s was the most obvious. Steve can’t get enough of the Colosseum. He could stay in there for hours imagining himself as a gladiator. He was our enthusiastic guide tour guide and almost gleefully explained the battles and different methods that were used to out on a good show. My mom loved every place we went and could barely contain herself from saying at each one “just imagine…” whoever was the key player at that particular spot. One of my favorite sites was the Forum; the remains of what used to be the center of Rome. It is amazing to see these huge stone columns attached to nothing and think about what they had been. Throughout the trip we were able to see if from almost every angle which just added to its awesomeness.

For the most part our trip went very smooth, with just a few minor incidents. One of Lizzy’s flights was canceled on the way over and it was a test to her travel endurance that she was able to make it safely over without breaking down, or to the front door at least. Michael and Lizzy left Grandma Helen’s purse in taxi, though due to grandmas amazing karma Michael and I were able to find the same taxi (one in thousands) and get the purse back. I had to go to the emergency room because for some reason I had terrible stomach cramps that lasted for about three days, but thanks to some sort of painkiller drip (free of charge in Italy) I felt much better. Though the plane ride from Italy to Turkey should only be about two hours it took me about 36 hours with not plane, but airport changing time. I was happy to get back to my other family in Adana.

Italy has just the right amount of Christmas, not to big as tends to be in the states and not non-existent like in Turkey .On Christmas eve only Kate and Stefan’s kids opened presents from Santa, who fortunately was able to find his way to our apartment in Rome. We enjoyed amazing food, mostly from our apartment as Rome is the city is SUPER expensive.. Overall it was a pretty relaxing trip and it was great to see my family if only for a week
Sorry if this is somewhat poorly put together, I am writing from my Ankara where I am visiting my host dad.

Holidays and Such

With the sheer number of students and encouragement from our host families we have been celebrating both Turkish and American holidays. For Halloween, a few of the host mothers rented a bar and organized a party with a surplus of food and Turkish music. We dressed up as if Halloween exists in Turkey and looked like crazy people walking down the streets in our costumes. I finally had a chance to wear the Betsy Johnson jumpsuit my mom and I bought while shopping for conservative Turkish clothing and my host mom and scoured the city to find fairy wings. Dilşad was a hippie and looked super cute in her bangles and sunglasses. She is very outgoing and it in nice that she can dance and have a good time with my AFS friends without me having to worry that she is enjoying herself.

We also had a somewhat last minute Thanksgiving celebration. There was no Turkey on our Turkey day in Turkey but there was plenty of food. We met up early in the day and made a mixture of American and Turkish food. Finding the ingredients was a challenge and we had to substitute a lot but our Pumpkin Pie turned out delicious, as did our stuffing, sweet potatoes, chocolate chip cookies and an array of Turkish food our mothers put together. Keeping up with tradition we all said what we are thank full for and there is a lot. I am thankful to have such and amazing opportunity in such and interesting and unique country. I am thankful that I have such a great family both in the United States and here in Adana. I am thankful that the Turks are hospitable and make delicious food and that I still have six months left of eating it. I am thankful that I have eight best friends that understand completely what I am going through and make up and extraordinary support system. And lastly I am thankful that I have so many caring and wonderful people in my life; you all that are reading this blog.

On the day after Thanksgiving, Kurben Byram began. It is the Turkish sacrificial holiday that is marked by the killing of sheep and though my family did not partake the carnage was hard to miss. I t as pretty disgusting to walk past the head of the poor sheep hanging on hooks in parking lots. We spent a lot of time at my host great aunts and grandmothers apartments because they both have apartments on the same floor of the same building (Liz we are so doing that when we get old.). I didn't really look forward to it because last holiday meant a lot of chatter in Turkish, and I didn't understand anything, but this one was really nice. My favorite host great aunt who calls me Fatma and I talked for a while, and I had fun playing with all of my cute little cousins. Plus I understand a lot more now so I was able to contribute to the conversations. Of course there was also the food, lots of dough things, fried dough, boiled dough, noodles and pastries. I love watching my host family cook, though they make each meal with such skill they put so much time and effort into making a meal that is then eaten so quickly. Food here is such a big part of the culture, and they really take pride in it. They pass their methods down not in writing but from generation to generation, and I hope it never gets lost. Kurben Byram was interesting, and somewhat gory but I enjoyed it, and was not that excited to get back to school!

Now back to another Pagan holiday, Christmas is just a few days away and I can't believe how fast time has gone here! I only have six months left here, and that feels very short! I know that other AFS girls have plans to celebrate the holidays with a big host family- student party but I will be going to Rome to spend Christmas with my family. ROME! I feel so lucky that I have such an opportunity and I really can't wait to see all of my family. I will miss my dad, the Croppers, Bells, and the rest of my family and friends but I am VERY excited, I leave today! My host mom has been so great about my trip, last weekend she took time to old Adana to get presents. We got the traditional Turkish things for good prices, because my mom is the best haggler I have ever seen. I am the most excited about the Turkish coffee pot because my mom and I looked especially hard for the best pot and coffee cup set and she has been teaching me how to make it. Every night I make her Turkish Coffee and then we sit down and drink it together, and sometimes she reads my fortune. I also taught her how to make chocolate chip cookies, American style, which was a challenge without measuring cups, vanilla, or baking soda, but they turned out pretty well and my classmates seemed to like them!

I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and I will try to keep you updated from Rome!

Love, Charlotte

Karataş, Antakya and Cappadocia

Let me start by apologizing for having promised to write soon, and then waited three weeks. I will try to be better!
I know that I am very far behind but I wıll try to briefly get caught up!
This month has gone by extremely fast and I can't believe that I am already three months in! The first week of the month was exam week, and though my host sister studied a lot the students didn't seem too stressed out. I'm not exactly sure how important exams are here because they count for almost nothing in getting into college, (basically the only thing that matters is the big OSS test that they take at the end of their senior) but the week was dedicated to pretty much studying and taking tests so I had very little to do.
This month in general has actually consisted of very little school, and I am starting to really miss my routine.
On the 11th of November we met up at the AFS office-a small room in a deserted shopping mall- to begin our first AFS retreat. We are a small group, the nine of us NSLI-Y scholarship kids and 5 others from the YES program, very similar to ours. Our orientation was made up of only Americans because there has been some disagreement among the volunteers here on whether or not to recognize our programs as part of AFS. Their problem is that they believe that the State Department and the US govt. payed for us to be here in order to extend their reach into the Middle East. About a year ago the volunteers voted to not allow us to be part of any retreats or programs organized by the volunteers. It is disappointing that we are not part of the larger AFS group because one of my favorite parts about AFS Spain was meeting and making friends from all over the world.
Our orientation took place in the not all that nice town of Karataş, or at least what we saw of it was not that nice. The location would have been fine, because only once were we actually allowed to leave the hotel and take a five minute walk to the sea, had our hotel been nice. As it was, they seemd to have gotten rid of their maid in the off season and the result was a bit disgusting. Nonetheless we had a great time lounging around and telling stories. Though the nime of us that live in Adana know a lot about each others families and lives, we still managed to keep it interesting. The volunteers that came are extremely dedicated to AFS and were helpful in talking about our problems or worries here.
On Saturday we got back in the mini bus and instead of heading home we went to Antakya, a small city north west of Adana. We were in the city barely five minutes before we all had plans to move there. Antakya is famous for being the place where the first Christians declared themselves Christians, and it's not surprising, the city feels that old. With cobble stone streets and houses that look like with the slightest breeze they could be blown over, it seems sort of magical. On Sunday morning we did a scavenger hunt and though the maze of streets made everything nearly impossible to find it was wonderful to wander around the city.
I would have like to spend more time in the city, but I plan on coming back at some point later in the year. Though I could have stayed a while longer I was ready to go home also. And I really do feel at home at our place in Adana. Just a few minutes after arriving home and giving the customary kisses on the cheeks my host mom had a tray of dinner prepared, though I insisted on not being hungry, and Dilşad and I curled up to watch our favorite Turkish soap.
Getting up for school on Monday was a challenge but it was nice to be back. My classmates told me they missed me and talked about me all the time. Whether or not that's true it was nice to feel like I contribute to their school days. That didn't last long though because by the time I got home I received an email from AFS excusing us from school for the week. A lot of students got sick on our retreat, something our host moms attributed to that five minute walk to the sea, and AFS worried that we would get worse. The Turks are sort of wierd about illness, for example if a kid gets sick after a six hour bus ride its not because the road was windy, bus cramped, or driver smoking, but because she was wearing flats without socks. I am warned about getting sick from wet hair, bare arms, no socks, drinking cold water, ect. And if I do get sick I must be prepared to take a bunch of pills or vitamins. Some of the other girls actually had to get IVs full of vitamins and stuff for having colds. Fortunatly I didn't get sick and just got to miss a full week of school.
Saturday we were off again on a trip organized by two women in Adana that have hosted students in prior years. We went to Capppadocia, arguably the coolest place ever. There are these amazing natural rock structures and house that have been carved out of cliffs. Since this is the off season there were few other people around and we got to run wild. We explored all through the caves and cliff houses in complete awe. We stayed an extra night because school is canceled for everyone in Adana this week due to fear of Swine Flu. I can't completely understand how many people have actually gotten it but it is always on the news and I have heard the words Domuz Gribi about a thousand times. Fortunately we still have Turkish classes that keep us studying. Some days I feel like my Turkish is good and I understand a lot, other days it feels absolutely hopeless. I know that it is normal but it can still be pretty frustrating.

Well I guess that was not very brief, but it was three weeks coming!

As Life in Turkey Continues

*Side note- this blog was written about a week and a half ago and a new update is on its way!

           I am now more or less a month into school so my routine has become pretty set, though last week we did change Turkish courses. Our new course is in roughly the same area of the city, the busy center of Adana, and our teacher is a very sweet younger woman who’s English is really good. We now have lessons every Tuesday and Thursday from 5-8:00 and on Friday from 5-7:00. The three hour classes feel pretty long since I go there straight after school and don’t get home till about nine but I do feel like I am learning a lot more with her. I still look forward to the lessons just because it is so great to talk to the other NSLI students. As a group of nine girls we are remarkably compatible and count on each other to relate out experiences and what not. Though we probably speak too much English, right now it is necessary for my sanity.

            At school I have begun to get a sense of my teachers, and I know which ones will have me participate by writing on the board or testing my knowledge. My history teacher is a special advocate of for having the exchange students make fools out of them themselves. Almost every class he has me stand in front of my peers and try to decipher what he is saying. It usually take me a long time to understand him and my class laughs at me, but I don’t really mind because honestly it is pretty funny and if I get an answer right I usually receive some sort of praise. At lunch I have been spared from that awkward “where do I sit” thing because a couple of the girls in my class have taken me under their wing. I also spend some time with my sisters friend and this girl I met on the school bus who happens to be a three years younger than me but I can see becoming good friends with. Sometimes I feel a lot older than the kids in my class especially when they are chasing each other around the room and throwing chalk, but I think that is just something I will have to get used to. Breaks are by far the most awkward time of my day because between each class we have about 10-15 minutes, and I am never really sure what I should do in that time. One of my AFS friends pointed out that the reason for the long break is probably so that teachers can have time to smoke between classes. And boy do people smoke here. It seems that there are very few people between the ages of 20-60 that missed the smoking craze. Though recently a law was passed and smoking is banned in closed public areas, which is pretty impressive for Turkey.

            Though I spend some time with my classmates and more time with my NSLI friends I spend most with my family. Dilşad has course Saturday and Sunday so my host mom and I eat breakfast together and usually  run some sort of errands. We eat dinner a couple nights a week as my host mom’s friend’s houses which creates a sort of extended family feel and is pretty fun plus the food is always great! Last week we went to the Turkish baths and I need to download a picture because an explanation will not do it justice, but I will try. The haman we went to is located in Old Adana, an area I have not spent that much time in, but would like to soon because it is beautiful. Lots of little winding streets and shops all crammed together. Drastically different from the apartment-y New Adana that I live in. Even the door to the haman is beautiful. The big, very old looking, arched marble doorway is almost a promise of what you will find inside. The corridor into the bath does not seem long enough for the two separate worlds it connects-the bustling outside streets to the serene quiet of the first chamber. The atmosphere of the baths are almost holy, women quietly talking beneath the big arched ceilings also all made of white marble. The steps that line the wall going to a sort of platform where women chat, drink tea, and change before actually entering the bath. The inner baths are also arched ceilings and are made up of two main chambers with little open arches leading to smaller chambers with big basin sinks for women to bathe in. The second room is hotter than the first and is mostly taken up by a big, round, low table that is heated from underneath for women to lay on. The baths put the heat of Adana to shame and after minutes in them nobody is sure what is water and what is sweat. Some people go to the baths with scrub brushes and scrub themselves and I saw some women getting what looked like a massage, though ours was not that comfortable. Basically a big breasted Turkish woman scrubbed my entire body with a coarse brush. Though it was not particularly enjoyable but I did feel extremely clean afterwards. All in all a cool experience and I can’t wait to go back.

More soon, I promise!

A fifth year of high school..

Today is Wednesday of my third week in school and I am surprised by how quickly it has gone. I am also surprised that I don't dislike it as much as I thought I would. Attending 11th grade for the second time as a high school graduate is no more fun than it sounds but ıt could be worse. My school is very close to my house, about a five minute walk, and the school itself is very pretty. There is a big courtyard with a little cafe type thing where Dilşad and I get coffee every morning. We start the day by lining up beneath the enormous gold Atatürk stature in what feels a little bit like a military formation so they can say good morning over the loud speaker and check to see we are wearing the appropriate uniform. Although on Monday mornings and Friday afternoons they mix it up a little bit and we all sing the national anthem accompanied by the school band a flag ceremony.
Though I have eight classes a day they all feel pretty similar for me because I am with the same seven other kids and rather than changing classes the teachers come to us. I chose to do the Turkish course rather than the math or sciences because I didn't really want to be taking chemistry or physics in Turkish though I still have a bunch of math classes. Besides math  I have Turkish, literature, history, German, English, Religion, sociology, philosophy, and computers. The course doesn't really matter at this point because mostly all I do is study Turkish, read, write, or make lists. My teachers seem to like me and have me participate some but I don't understand most of what they are saying so I have a lot of free time.
At four when I finish school I take the school bus to the city center for my Turkish courses. What could be a relaxing ride is marred by there not being nearly enough seats and blaring techno and bad American music. I look forward to my Turkish lessons because all nine of the NSLI-Y girls go so we have an opportunity to talk after long days of not being about to communicate well. Our Turkish courses are moving more slowly than I had hoped but I feel a bit bad for our well intentioned teacher Mustafa who has to deal with all of us bursting with energy.
I get home at about 8:00 every night because the courses are about a half hour away from my home but my host mom always has dinner ready when I get here. All is still going very well with my host family. Now that we can communicate a bit more my host mom and I are getting closer. Every night she has me read a children's book to practice my Turkish pronounciation and patiently helps me through it. A couple weeks ago she took me to this big outdoor bazaar and it was super nice to spend the afternoon with her. She helped me bargain for clothing, and I came out with some good deals, and bought us this  cheese filled pastry type thing called Börek that you watch these women make over these big outdoor fires. After we walked all the way home which was kind of a long walk but nice because we stopped at various street vendors for nuts and fruits. I am in the same grade as my host sister and I was a little worried that it might be too much time together but so far it is going well, for me at least!

All for now, though I have a lot more to add and will try to do so soon!

The Village

On Thursday we took off again for the holiday (Byram in Turkish.) This holiday is called the sugar holiday or the Ramadan holiday because it marks the end of Ramadan and you eat a lot of sweets, actually just a lot of food in general. Though we left on Thursday we spent one night in Maraş where my host uncle lives with his wife and very cute, very spoiled daughter. Friday we set off for the village, the drive was beautiful, sprawling hills and mountains dotted with little houses and farms. There are times when because parts of Turkey are so modern and western I forget that Turkey has this whole other part to it, and this trip really reminded me of that. The village is exactly what you would expect from a Turkish village complete with dirt roads and donkeys pulling carts. The house is very cute with a little kitchen that produces outstanding food and the 'old style' bathroom which is basically a porcelain hole in the floor.

We were at the village from Friday to Tuesday afternoon and it felt like a very long time to me. My family is very sweet, especially my great aunt who nicknamed me Fatma and is always speaking to me in rapid Turkish. Fatma by the way is supposed to be a very classic Turkish name but literally sounds like Fat-ma, though I didn't really have a choice in the matter it is starting to really grow on me. For Byram younger family are supposed to go from house to house to visit the older people and their families, and to every house you go you are offered this smelly hand stuff, tea and some sort of yummy food. Though I enjoyed the tea and food it felt like a lot of people talking about me a lot and maybe it was just my imagination I felt like I was the butt of a lot of jokes, but hey I guess that comes with the territory. At one house after about twenty minutes of conversation my host sister looked at me and said "ah they are still talking about you!" It was frustrating to not understand what was being said and I felt a little bit like a pet but it was really interesting to be a part of the holiday.

A little bit more on the food!
I fasted the last day of Ramadan and though I was hungry all day it was totally worth it for the feast it came with. Dilşad and I helped make this past that is served on big platters with chicken and beef in the middle that everyone picks off. There is also huge amounts of home grown tomato salad with cucumbers, onions and all kinds of spices. Breakfasts were this kind of fried dough that expanded and looked like little baguettes but were hollow and delicious. These were eaten with jam, yogurt, cheese, nutella, or really anything. Also there was more tomato salad, always fresh bread, Aryan (a drink of yogurt and water that I am pretty fond of) more tea, and Turkish coffee. I could go on and on.

The holiday was nice but I was excited to get back to Adana. It is starting to cool down, and that is very nice especially since my school uniform consists of gray pants and a polo. School started Friday, and I think it is too soon to tell how it is going to be but I am in 11th grade, the same as my sister. I will write more on it after I have had a full week.