To Manisa

This week I had 5 day weekend. It all started on Wendesday, when My host family and I went up to Izmir to visit some relatives. My host fathers grandfather has recently fallen and Okan wanted to go up and see him for a few days. I got to meet Okan's (my host father) grandfather, mother, and sister, as well as his sister's family. His family cooks really good food, and they had a piano. I tried playing it, but it has been about 6 months since I have laid my hands on a keyboard and while my fingers remembered the first half of Pacabel's cannon, I forgot every other song I knew. Thursday I spent wondering the city on my own I found the bazaar and as typically happens, my blonde hair shouts "tourist! come talk to me and I will shop at your store!" and after walking for about half an hour and being bothered by every shop owner I passed, one finally sucked me in. I talked to him for a while in my broken Turkish and told him I wouldn't buy anything but I might take a tour of some of his shops. and this is how I got a free guided tour of the bazaar and met a some of the shop owners. Some of them were really interesting and spoke 3 or 4 languages, while others had great stories about stupid tourists. Later I traveled across Izmir to meet up with my exchange friends and caught up on the latest news, and discussed future plans.
Friday was a lot of fun. I stopped off at my favorite doner (meat and a few other ingredients in a tortilla shell or bread loaf) place and went to meet my friends at a cafe. We all had to run to catch the bus to the Manisa fun weekend. The ride was really fun, and somehow I ended up with people writing messages to me on my shins in pen. But after arriving in Manisa, we were separated into host families, me and my friend Alejandro from Pensalvania were paired up and taken by a really friendly family. Even though only one person in the family actually spoke english we still managed to talk about lots of things at diner. I think I spoke more turkish at that dinner than I have in the last month combined. We left the appartment after diner with our host family and went to their friends house. I completely reminded me of my uncles. A few guys hanging out in living rooms with a really expensive home theator system, a few beers, watching the game. Only here they were watching rugby instead of baseball or football. Despite the familiar setting, we still had to go to our real host house for the night. Once we got there, my temporary host father showed us his impressive sound system and we stayed up until 1 am watching led zepelin and placebo music videos.
It was saturday that was the best day of all. Alejandro and I woke up and went to the local college and learned how to dance. All of us exchange students actually learned how to perform a traditional turkish wedding ceremony. Alejandro ended up getting married to Alexis, while the rest of us were busy screwing up the dance. We were truely terrible at this dance, but we were laughing and having fun all day anyway. We finally broke off at 2 and loaded up onto the bus again. The bus origionally had barely enough seats on it for s exchange students, but we managed to gather 4 more kids from our host families. The bus was packed as we began climbing the mountains to the north of town. Turkey has a weird landscape as it is either completely flat or covered by large hills and mountains. Manisa is on one of the plains and the mountains actually form the northern border of the town. We drove for almost an hour and a half to the top, and the views were amazing. The top of the mountain was so high, there were little pockets where the snow from the last winter had not melted yet. As soon as the bus stopped about 5 of us, mostly northern States and Canadians fought to get out of the crammed bus to be the first to throw a snowball. As a gentleman should, I allowed my friend Madison to throw the first snowball, completely missing her intended target. Thus began the best snowball fight Ive had in years. There were no teams, no lasting alliances, just complete chaos as 15 teenagers thousands of miles from home threw snow at each other. We wrestled eachother into the snow, stuffed eachothers backs full of it, and tried baseball, all the wile just laughing at the relief of finally finding snow after over a year without it.
As fun as it was, it had to end. The driver had parked in a huge mud pit, and we teamed together to push it out, with the wheels spitting mud out on us the whole time. The way down was pretty uneventful, just lots of punches to the shoulder for perceived "wrong doings" during the snowball war. But we did start singing the most random songs. From trying to do the barbie girl song in rounds, to rap songs that we only know half the words to, working down the adrenalin rush and mountain air took a while. At the bottom we came to a cabin like restaurant where delicious food was served. Actually it was a free-for-us Rotary sponsored trip so they brought in fast cooked meatballs with rice in. But that's besides the point and the backgammon games were good, some Turkish teenagers came and we met them, befriended and temporarily adopted them into our exchange group. After dinner was the Turkish marriage ceremony. We didn't really remember much of it, but Rotary really wanted to see it. I had no real important part in it, but it was Alejandro and Alexis who got married, and Andrew and Luana played the part of the brides parents. They were perfect for this as they are always near each other and bickering like and old couple anyway. We were apparently surprisingly good, though I think that it has more to do with pity than pride that we were told that.
That dance concluded our trip for the most part. We all separated into our host families, Alejandro went back to our host family's house where we almost went directly to sleep. We were both invited back to Manisa any weekend we wanted by our host mother as left and after getting back to Izmir, I left the next day to come back home to Bodrum.

My new family

I have officially become a member of another family. They are the Özsoy's, and I already feel like I belong here. But I should probably start with the story of how I moved families...
It all started one dark and not really stormy Thursday night when Vedat (my first host father) came home and I was watching the Discovery Channel. Or maybe national geographic; I’m addicted to both. He sat down and just said "how would you like to go to another host family on Saturday. I was a little shocked about this because Saturday was only 2 days away. I told him sure, but I was a little concerned about why such short notice and he told me that there were personal issues and he had brought up this situation at the last rotary club meeting. The Rotarians here were very supportive and from what I heard about 4 families immediately volunteered that night. By some weird stroke of unfortunate luck I was auctioned off to the family that lives the farthest away. It’s a half hour trip into Bodrum and twice as far as Torba. But despite my doubts, I was surprised when I got here. Vedat drove me here in his car and took the scenic route to my house. The road winds around the gentle curves of the huge hills, staying just a few feet from the sea. There is a dolphin marina between Bodrum and my new town of Güvercenlık (pronounced goo-verge-in-lik) and I can see fishing boats, sailing boats, and rowing boats as we cruise along the Aegean. I’ll take a video of it one of these days and you can see what my daily commute is like. I live on the first road of our town, but Vedat took me to the other side, turned left and went down to the seaside. Riding along I could see the little shops, a few restaurants, and a barber or two on the left and the sea going out to blue mountains in the distance. The seaside winds around for a good half mile before we stopped at my house. My new host father Okan was there waiting for us. I grabbed my bags; I am unfortunately required to use 4 bags to transport my stuff, I’m becoming such a girl, and shook hands with him and exchanged the usual Turkish greetings. He is an average looking man in his 40's, but with a distinct pride that comes from growing up with a soldier father and a past that's full of self reliance and independence. Plus he speaks both English and Turkish perfectly. He guided me through a garden which he told me belongs to the neighbor, but we are fine to walk through it any time we need to. So the answer is no, I don't live next to the sea, but I live within 50 feet of it, and that's good enough for me. The house that we live in together is a 2 story house, but the odd thing is, everybody live upstairs. There are 2 bedrooms, one bathroom, and a kitchen, dining room, living room that just blend into each other. The downstairs is deserted. I met my new host mother that day, her name is Elvan and we have gotten to know each other very well, because the second day I was here Okan was called to Istanbul because his grandfather had a broken hip, and he took my host brother Kemal with him. This gave me time to get to know Elvan very well, and she is a really cool host mother. She insisted that I watch the "Kill Bill" movies back to back, she cooks excellent meat and while making it clear that I am going to pull my weight around the house, she is still willing to help me with anything I need. At this point Kemal, who is about 13, was very quiet, mostly just watching and listening. This is because my Turkish is so bad that we had to all speak in English and while Kemal is learning English at school and at home, his level is still rudimentary. Vedat stayed with me for a while as we got to know my new host family. He has been an excellent host father, and continues to help me even though I have moved out. Any Rotary problems, any school problems, any transportation problems, all I have to do is send him an email, and he is completely willing to help me.
After getting to know my new host family, they showed me my new room. This consists of the entire downstairs. I have my own bedroom, guest bedroom with 2 beds, bathroom, kitchen, dining room, and living room. It’s exactly like upstairs, only the ceiling is higher and I don't have much of a view. It gives me a total sense of independence, and I have my own space. Despite all this freedom, I still of course spend as much of my time upstairs with the family as I can.
The first night I was with my new host family, they took me out to a restaurant near the house. It was fish, and back in the states, I didn't like fish. But the difference between FISH and fishSTICKS is total and absolute. It’s like the difference between McDonalds and The Pier, or the Salvation Army and Macy's. We had some new appetizers which I enjoyed a little, but for the main course was a large foot and a half sea fish, freshly caught. I never really believed people when they told me there was a difference between the body of a fish and the cheek. Okan told me that I had to try the difference and when I did I was totally blown away. The cheek is actually sweet meat, almost sugary tasting to me, and surprisingly juicy, but he could not persuade me to try the fish's eye. I'll work my way up to that. We went through the list of family questions and rules, and while I have to do things like keep my room clean, make my bed every day, take out the trash if it’s full, it’s ok with me. I have more responsibilities, but I feel more like a member of the family, instead of just a person living in the house this way. Besides, it’s probably not good for me to live too long without any responsibilities.
I was afraid that first night that Kemal would get angry or jealous because we were only talking in English, and nobody was paying much attention to him, but he took advantage of the situation and went to talk to the chefs that work there. He has turned out to be a great host brother. Even though I speak very little Turkish and he speaks very little English, we still try to communicate and we both learn a little each time.
Since moving in, I've encountered almost no real problems, besides rain every day, and Okan, Elvan, and Kemal have been really welcoming. Kemal and I continue to try to communicate and we both like video games. Elvan has excellent taste in movies and is really understanding; even when I forget to call, or leave the door open. She also cooks amazing and is trying to hook me up with her niece in Izmir. Okan and his brother in law co-own a 21 foot sailing boat, and has promised to take me out sailing soon. He even wants to go out for a 2 or 3 day trip sometime soon to see some of the islands around Bodrum. I honestly can't wait to experience some of this sea life I've been told exists around here.

Forrest's week in Turkey

Forrest came to Turkey this week. We went to Bodrum, Izmir, and Efes, and had not one boring day the whole time he was here.
Let me start out with the first day, or really the first night. Forrest got into Izmir, the big city 3 hours north of me, at 8 pm, meaning after getting to the bus station and finding the right bus, he got into Bodrum at 1 am. A pretty ridiculous time for anybody to get into a foreign country where only on in about 5 people speak good enough English. To make matters more difficult, to save about 20 dollars on a taxi Forrest had to get off the bus almost 20 minutes walking before Bodrum and walk along a 2 kilometer side street with no houses, buildings or even streetlights with all of his baggage and some Christmas presents for me. But at 1:30 in the morning I was outside waiting for either a desperate cry from far off in English, or the police to show up and tell Vedat about a tourist they found wandering the hills, and here he came walking up the road, laughing with some Turkish guy, even though he spoke no English. That night he met Vedat, my host father, and told us how there were something like 5 people who speak very little English trying to translate to the bus driver where Forrest wanted off, but luckily, one of them were also coming to Torba, the suburb I live in. I had my own little Christmas that night. Thank you all who sent me money to help in my travels, and thank you Alice for the wooden puzzles. I couldn't put them down for 2 days straight. The next day was New Year's Eve, and we explored Bodrum during the day. Forrest saw the bazaar, marina, harbor and the castle, and that night we met up with some of my friends to celebrate the new years. The next day was spent getting to know my host family. The second of January, we headed up to Izmir, the big city for about 6 days. These days all blur together for me because almost all of them follow the same basic plan. Wake up, decide which neighborhood we wanted to hang out in for the day, send out invitations to all the exchange students, meet them, go smoke nargule for a few hours, then wander around Izmir downtown for once it got dark until we all had to go home. I should probably tell you what nargule is, as mom is probably freaking out to hear about me smoking. Nargule is a traditional Turkish form of smoking tobacco. But there is no addictive nicotine in it, and everything is filtered through water or milk and can be ordered in any flavor imaginable. Chocolate, peach, mint, apple, or more. Ive seen entire pages in a menu devoted to nargule flavors. I splurged a little on my self created nargule allowance because Forrest was here.
Only 2 days really deviated from this routine. The first, was the first day. I went to Turkish lessons with all the exchange kids and Forrest came along 3 hours later. Alexis's birthday was just a few days before, so we went to her house for delicious cake and lots of weird Turkish finger food. The next part of our day was the coolest. We went wondering around the Izmir downtown for a hour before Ryan got fed up with the stupid people handing out brochures and randomly grabbed one and said We go here. That showed the stupid brochure people who's boss. But since nobody really new where to go, we did go searching and finally found it. When the first guy who worked there saw first 3 kids show up then 6 kids, then we totaled out at about 9, he lead us upstairs, which is not an uncommon place for people to sit and relax with their nargule. But the weird part was after going upstairs we snaked through a door into the building next to us, then turned down a hallway, went down some stairs and through another hallway into what apparently was the party room as there was another group of people in there celebrating a birthday party. all 9 of us sat down and ordered 3 nargules, and lots of tea and about half a hour later, Adriana from Mexico came and joined us followed by Carrie and a couple of her friends from America. With a group of 13, we were pretty loud, but that was probably why the party room was so far out from the main room. The party next to us was finishing and they actually gave us half of their cake and a bunch of cookies before leaving. It was banana chocolate and ridiculously delicious. We must have stayed in that one place for 4 hours straight, a wonder we didn't get kicked out. Forrest was busy talking Spanish to Adriana and the Brazilians (no, Brazilians don't speak Spanish, but from what Ive gathered its just a little harder for Portuguese speakers to understand Spanish than it is for Americans to understand heavy Jamaican) and I was talking and laugh with the rest of the exchange student. I personally find it a shame that all of us are having difficulty making good and lasting friends that we hang out with alot, but it doesn't stop us from having fun anyway. The rest of the night was spend wandering the town, ducking into shops to look at random scarves, toys, shirts, or things that we just don't have names for. It was a great day with more to follow.
The other day that broke the trend was the day that we went to Efes. Me, Geena, Nathalia and Luana had already been there once on an exchange trip, but Forrest thought it would be a great idea, and he was right. We thought waking up and meeting at 9 30 would be good enough, but somehow we still didn't actually get on the bus until 12. We went through a small town and we started to see a few ruins and then the bus stopped and the steward told us this was our stop. We made sure it was Efes, and got of only to look around and realize that we were in the middle of the country, about 3 miles away from town. We also proceeded to realize that we didn't have a way to the ancient part of Efes. Or a way back into town. or know when the buses left to Izmir, or what exactly where we were going. So we picked a road that seemed to lead towards some ruin and after walking and the 6 ft 4 Forrest exchanging coats with the 5 ft 2 Nathalia for some pictures, we found a taxi driver who told us he would be our shofure (somebody tell me how it is actually spelled) for the day for only 15 lira per person. We saw the Virgin Mary's last home and deathbed, and we also saw the ruins of Efes, all of which are described in another blog, so I wont bore you with the details. Its really hard to describe the fun we had because it all came in quick jokes, quick situations, and attempting to translate. And I do not yet have the writing talent to make them interesting yet. Safe to say we did find our way safely back into town where we met a really interesting waiter who spoke 3 languages and was skilled enough in 4 others to make small conversation. It really is amazing once you get out of the US how common being bilingual is, and I have met many people who know 4, 5, or even 6 different languages. We also easily found the right bus back to Izmir, and everybody was home and tired by 11, all in all a great and full day.
Then on Wendsday, Forrest left, on Thursday, I went home, and everything went back to normal. Well normal until my next trip.

Christmas in a Muslim Country

For Christmas Eve, I went to Izmir to spend it with my foreign exchange friends. Izmir is a 3 to 4 hour bus ride north of Bodrum, but I don’t mind it. I loved my host family because on Wednesday, instead of sending me to school for half a day and then to Izmir, they let me sleep in till 11, then go get on the bus so that I would have an extra few hours to spend with my friends. I almost missed the bus, and the ride was completely uneventful, so I’ll skip to being in Izmir. For the 4th time now, I was able to find my way directly to my destination without taking a single wrong turn. This is a huge miracle for me, as I am terrible at finding my way around new places. Once, I was lost for 2 hours on a short trip that should have only taken 5 minutes. But I found my way directly to my host for the night, Ayhan’s house. I really like her because she is incredibly generous, insisting on buying me breakfast, and even agreeing to host me and my older brother Forrest for 6 nights when he comes to visit. But she was unfortunately not home when I got there, so I instead went to the nearby mall to meet up with the two Brazilians in our group, Luana and Victor. We joked around, talked about how broke we all are, and what we plans we have for the rest of the year. Basically just passed the time laughing and joking until it was time to go to the Rotary Christmas party. At 8 we got to a little tea café where about half the exchange students were already getting together. Keeping in Turkish tradition, kisses on each cheek were given to everybody, guys to guys included, but it’s more of bumping both sides of the head together for us. We waited for everybody to get there, and because there are about 8 students in Izmir and 3 of us out-of-towners, when Chris, Alex, or I arrived, there was a loud “Hazza!” or similar cheer from the group. The party was basically started by the Brazilians. Apparently inhibition and self-consciousness is not heard of in Brazillia because Luana is always the loudest and usually the most fun. Madison had found a really funny Mrs. Claus suit and about 4 santa hats were passed around, everybody got their little time with the hats. Rotary knew we would be loud, so they put us in a small corner, coincidentally the same corner where the servers had to walk through with all of the food for the rest of the customers. It was alright at first, but as we got more comfortable we got in this tea shop, the more we moved around. This was bad news for the servers and customers, because after about an hour, we were up and dancing. It was great fun because while the employees hated us at first, we first won over the DJ and got him to play a few favorites and eventually had him playing whatever song we wanted. Then we began slowly winning over the servers and by the end of the night, the waitresses were showing Carrie and Geena how to dance Turkish style. It was an amazing party. We had pizza, salad, something else I didn’t eat and even a birthday cake because Adriana and Alexis’s birthdays were a few days before and a few days after. Rotary gave out gifts to each one of us and I got slippers; but not just any slippers. These were high-light green fluffy slippers with bright pink tinkerbells on each slipper. I thought about keeping them, until Adriana asked me to trade for her much more manly basketball slippers. I agreed pretty quickly.
We all went home really happy, though a little homesick. It was a fantastic party, and as exchange students we all share a special bond and we are all great friends, but it’s nearly impossible to make up for a lack of snow, a real Chrismas tree, and the whole Christmas attitude. See, Turkey is an Islamic country, and believes in Jesus the way Christians believe In Abraham. Great guy, but not the son of god. So there are no presents, no carols, and a total lack of any difference from any other day. A few exchange students couldn’t even get out of school for Christmas day. Most of us did, and we spent it shivering and walking around from café to café until I went home at 6. All in all, a great time, a great party, and a fair attempt to imitate Christmas.

What have I been doing lately

Hey guys. I know it has been way too long sense I wrote my blog, and its pretty much taken a certain relative mentioning in no uncertain terms that I need to let people know whats going on.
I haven't been writing mostly because of 2 reasons. A friend of mine from Istanbul recently wrote a terrific summery of whats going on with his life and had the central theme of what it means to go out and get the most out of an experience. I was stirred up by this and decided to fix my monotone life here in Bodrum, but the more I looked for things to do, the more I noticed the total lack of anything to do here. Bodrum is honestly a very boring place to live during the winter. I took a walk down to the Bazzar with a friend after working out at the gym and there are only about 1 in 8 shops actually open and almost all are restaurants. Ive traveled through the mall a few times and there is a very big movie theator and a really small bowling alley, but both are rarely visited by anybody. I asked around to see what people do for fun here, and every single time, the answer was go to a cafe and talk. Seeing as there are about 10 people at school whom I can talk to, thats not going to open up many social avenues with anybody. The list of potental activities go on, but despite my best efforts I get a unanomous "wait till summer, thats when Bodrum gets fun!" Thrilling possibilities, but what do I do until then?
So Ive joined the Interact club, I started seriously working out, and chess and soccer have become huge for me at lunch time everyday. Interact is really cool here, every friday night we meet and have tea, coffie, and I guess you could call them... crumpets? Yes, like the english do. Little wierd cookies that seem to be made in varieties for variety's sake. People talk about thinking about doing fundraisers or having fun get togethers. I listen quietly and drink my tea, which is actually really good and free, because I have about as much understanding of the spoken turkish language as when I got here 3 and a half months ago. Afterwards, I find my friend Mert, who along with one other person who's name I always forget, are the only english speakers in the club. Which is great, because it forces me to listen to turkish and try to understand it. They tell me what happened, which isn't much, but afterwards a good 10 people usually head off together and I tag along. By the time we walk from the meeting place to the Bazaar where we find a cafe to hang out at, there are usually just about 5 people. Here they talk about the typical who likes who, what a dork some kids at our school is, who hates who, and I pitch in whenever it gets too quite with a nonsensical turkish phrase which while meaningless, makes sense to me. My one and only ace in the hole whenever I'm tired of feeling left out. And when it gets too cold (around 50 degrees farenhyte) we go our seperate ways home. Thats usually my social expirience for the week.
Working out has been a bigger success than I could have hoped for. It gives me something to do after school. I get out of school at 4 and get home at about 6. I started on september 11, wierd coincedince but the funny part about it is I paid for my membership and then forgot to renew it even though I remembered to keep going. The people who run the place fogot too, so I ended up with 2 and a half months for the price of one. Finally about a week ago, they realized I had been there too long and coincedentally a friend asked me to join his gym, so I got out of there and now I go to a different gym, in my opinion better. The manager is there every day and he looks like he has a beer belly. I wan mentioning to Cem (pronounced John) that its not a good sign to come to a gym run by a potbellied old man and Cem laughed too. As we were leaving he told the guy what I had said, which made me cringe, but I was totally amazed when the guy lifted up his shirt and he actually had a six pack. It was the wierdest six pack I'd ever seen, but the guy was really strong, so now I trust him. Its actually a good thing that I picked this up because I have become completely addicted to comfort food. I can't resist pudding, chocolate, or anything with lots of sugar on it. Its being ballaced out by my gym activity every school day, my mile every school night, and I do push ups and sit ups every night before falling asleep. Oddly enough, its cancelling each other out exactly as I have literally gain absolutly no wieght (I still wiegh 165) and no highth (Im still 6 foot). But before I got here I could only do one pull up, and today at the gym, I did 5. So something good is coming out of it. I decided at my next house I will start watching what I eat, but for now I'll use my comfort food crutch.
Speaking of which comes my second reason for not writing. Call it culture shock, though the culture is not really that different, or call it depression, I have been completely out of it for the last 2 months. The only time I am truly comfortable and happy is when Im up in Izmir with my exchange friends. That's only happend 3 or 4 times. I thought that maybe it came from coming from the complete fall from home to now. Back at home I had a goal, I was accomplishing it, my family was happy with me, I could make friends with whoever I wanted, and I had way more confidence than was good for me. Here I barely have the confidence to put an entire turish sentence together. I am limited by language in almost every way. And the worst part is I came up with the stupid idea that I could learn a bunch of Turkish on my own, and then I could at least comunicate in a basic way to everybody and I would then allow myself to persue friends as a kind of award for learning Turkish. Complete faliure because learning a language is so boring that its almost impossible to consentrate on it for more than 20 minutes. So I haven't put much effort into finding friends. I thought that by putting pressure on myself to learn the language I could learn it faster. I told myself that as soon as I could talk to people, even just a little, I would then go out and actually try to have friends. This left me dependent on my english class friends, who as a group, has completely dissolved. I have litterally accomplished nothing in the last 2 months that I couldn't have accomplished in the first 2 weeks of school. But I've made a bunch of friends in the 11th grade class, and now I talk to them mostly. I'll have to take pictures someday soon so you know who they are. The hardest part so far is mixing languages with them. I can't speak in full sentenses most of the time so the only way I can practice my Turkish is to mix languages. Its hard to understand when somebody is talking to you in 2 different languages and just as hard to speak it because the sentense order is all screwed up. I usually end up saying something like "lets go to the bazzar az sonra okul. I have to pick up some yemek ve benim bir pantalon var to get me through the kiş" That means "lets go to the basar later school. I have to pick up some food and I've only got one pair of pants to get me through the winter." The reason its so hard for me to understand and learn Turkish is its based on suffixes. All of the little words that help the sentense but have no real meaning are cut down to one, two, or three letter suffixes and put onto the end of the noun. Words like with, to, in, on, from, of, and oh so many more. Plus all of the verbs are conjegeted in thirty million different ways. There's the universal past, present, and future tense, but when we add may I, or while I was, or I should have, here there is a different way to conjegate for every one of those. There are even new tenses that Ive never hear of like the you all and respectful that go along with you, me, he, she, it, we, and they. There's a really wierd conjegation that is called story mode. If I asked you where Steven was and Jenny told you where he was an hour ago, you have to use this tense that explains that YOU don't know where Steven is, but somebody told you that he was wherever he is. CRAZY.
But I will survive. As everybody is telling me almost to the point of becoming annoying, "Don't worry Brian, your Turkish will come along. Just be patient. Everything will be better when May comes around." Sorry if this is wierd, but if you leave a comment, PLEASE don't write that. I don't think my second reason was clear, but it was because I was worried about sounding like I was whining, or that I hate it here which is not true. I have enough patience to make it until next summer, especially with the multiple pots of gold that have been promised to me then, but I would be lying if I told you there is nowhere I'd rather be. Thank you for reading this, and I truly hope that this is the first, last, and only negative blog that I write about my exchange expirience.
I hope your life is going well,

Hosçakal

Kapadocia

Last Tuesday, I went to to a magical and amazing place called Kapadocia. The place was so completely and utterly alien from Illinois, that I felt as if I had been thrown into a fantasy book. There were mountains in the distance, valleys and gorges on all sides of us, and little to no vegetation anywhere. To top it off, miles off in the distance was a massive volcano which only reflected the sunlight off of its snow capped peak, so it looked as if it was raised up and presiding over the whole area. But lets tell about this crazy cool place with a time line.
Tuesday I got to skip school so that I could get on the bus at 9 am and take the 4 hour trip up to Izmir. There I took a dolmus (god's gift to public transportation. '$1.50 will get you anywhere you want to go). I took it to Ayhan's house where I was to spend the night. Ayhan is an extremely nice lady and a part of rotary. She fed, housed, and gave me lots of advice and directions to get wherever I wanted to go. I waited for my friends to get out of school and me and all of the exchange students (about 8) met up and wondered the city. We went home early as the next day we marched in the Turkish Independence Day Parade.
The parade was basically exactly like ours, only no candy, no bands and a lot of military involved. There were groups such as Rotary and Lions Club marching in it with the army and the Turkish national guard both leading the parade and bringing up the end of it. It was disappointingly short but I got a ginormous Turkish flag and all of us exchange students got free flags and bought Ataturk scarves. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was the founder of the Turkish republic and basically Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Franklin all rolled into one. He really does deserve the recognition and fame that he has here, his accomplishments are truly stuff that you could only find in books and movies. After the parade we all went home to finish getting ready for the big trip. We got on the train at about 8 o'clock and spent the next 12 hours tossing, turning, fidgeting, and grumbling all the while trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in. Nobody found one. But we still slept and the next day we had lunch in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, with the Ankara exchange group. This basically put all of the exchange students (25) in turkey together, except for the Istanbul kids. We met, talked, laughed and met their satanic supervisor Gulin. She prides herself on being more evil than Hitler himself, and loved to yell at us and constantly threatened us with locking us in our hotel rooms for entire days if we didn't move faster, sit down quicker, or stick to the schedule. She truly was like this, with no exaggerations, though I found that by the end of the trip she has her own strict rules for herself which make her easy to manipulate or appease. We jumped on a tour bus and began our trip down to Kapadocia, about 6 hours away.
About halfway there, a few of us noticed a huge lake running along the road next to us. It was a few kilometers wide and went along the road farther than our eyes could see. After a few minutes when we pointed it out to our friends our really cool tour guide Ali, whom we eventually nicknamed Ali Baba, informed us that it was a salt lake, and was in fact 50 kilometers wide at its biggest and about 80 long. This is the largest salt lake in the world, but that is not the most remarkable fact about it. The entire lake is only about 15 cm deep. As you can see from the pictures, we actually look like we were walking on water. The water is so salty that nobody wanted to wear their pants after this experience because the salt from the splashes as we ran across the water actually coated and soaked into our clothes to make them stiff and white. It was really amazing and Ill have to find some way to post a lot of pictures later. But afterwards, we went to the hotel in Kapadocia.
Immediately I knew it was going to be an awesome trip because I was in the big room at the end of the hall with 4 other cool kids from the Ankara group. After only 10 minutes people started to wander into our room. An Australian kid pulled out his guitar and random people started to play songs while the rest of us talked or just hung out. We did this basically every night afterwards.
The next day, Thursday, we headed out. This place was amazing and just as I described at the beginning. we walked between giant... lets call them thumb shaped landforms sticking up over 80 feet everywhere. We could be walking through a valley, and then instantly be on a precipice without moving up or down. The land flowed around and under us. Because it was made of volcanic ash on top of volcanic rock, it was like walking on compressed sand. A few of us were brave enough to try sand surfing on our shoes. We would run as fast as we could and when we hit a hill going down, we could slid on our shoes over 20 feet! It was a truly awesome place. There was a group of die hard adventurers and explorers that consisted of a girl named Deveney, 2 guys named Steve and John, and me who would see just how far out we could go and who could find the coolest things every time we stopped at a new place. Kapadocia is most famous for its underground cities. That's right, there are many underground cities in Kapadocia. Hundreds of years ago, Christians here were persecuted and the monks needed a place to live. So they went out into the wilderness and found this place and realized that the volcanic ash was incredibly easy to dig through. So they would burrow down and when more people joined they would expand both down and out. The city that we went to was 7 stories deep, completely hand dug. There was a huge well that went directly through the middle of the whole structure, all the way down to the bottom, with holes on each floor to lower buckets to the bottom where the water was. On the third floor, I looked into this shaft and we were already so deep that I could see neither the top nor the bottom of this massive shaft. The pictures of this place are far more descriptive than I could ever be.
Then there was this thing called Turkish night. It took place in this hug cavern that was recently dug out and turned into a restaurant. There was a hall with doors on either side leading into the side of a hill and at the end was the cavern. It had a massive chandelier and musicians playing. then branching off of the cavern were stubby, raised hallways where we sat and ate our diner. After we ate, whirling dervishes came out and did their religious dance. It was stunning and peaceful at the same time to watch these men, dressed all in white spin in circles for over 5 minutes straight as they held their hands aloft and stared up into the air as if looking at their god. For those of you who don't know what whirling dervishes are, they are a religious sect of Islam who believe in complete nonviolence and practice spinning in circles as a form of ecstasy or connection with god. Next came the traditional dancers. They performed an elaborate wedding ceremony that lasted half an hour and then invited everybody to dance in the celebrations. It was incredibly fun to dance with all of these new friends in the Turkish way, which can pretty much only be demonstrated, not explains. then all of the dancers came back out of their room with a chair and grabbed my friend Geena and made her sit in it, putting a veil over her face so she could barely see out. Next they had everybody sit down on the floor in a circle around her and clap to the beat of the music. Next they grabbed this really old Turkish guy with a massive white mustache and he danced around Geena, obviously about to marry her. It turned out to be a joke and they told the guy to sit down and instead, grabbed my friend John. He danced around Geena, and when he lifted the veil she was instantly surprised and they were married with an exchange of bracelets and kisses on the cheeks. After that we were given time to dance with each other and just have fun. We had to sit down after a while while a team of belly dancers came out and performed. They were really good, but the true professional was yet to come. We had another chance at dancing and then came The belly dancer. I was told later that she was brought in from Brazil to perform at our restaurant and she was really good. She danced around the room for 10 minutes and then brought out a saber which she continued to dance with while balancing it on her stomachache and head. It was a truly remarkable example of Turkish customs and tradition. We had another chance to dance for a few minutes and then the traditional dancers came back out. This time, while they were dressed in traditional clothing, they pulled modern moves and did everything from flips to the Russian leg kick. Everybody got up and joined them and we danced together for the next half an hour. It was the best night Ive had since coming to Turkey.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, but fun as we took another day out exploring the lanscape and played volleyball back at the hotel. The bus ride was full of sleeping kids, and the train was just as uncomfortable as the first time, only it was 2 hours longer than the first ride. I relaxed in Izmir, getting to skip out on another day of school, and arrived back in Bodrum the next Tuesday. I went to the rotary club meeting that night where there was another belly dancer. I danced with her, and got tipped by the audience, but that's another story I'll write later

Ephesus

This weekend I went to Ephesus. For those of you who might be lacking knowledge of Ephesus, its an ancient city that was started about 8000 years ago, then repeatedly conquered by just about every civilization, including Greek and Roman civilizations. It's home to the Temple of Artimis, one of the seven wonders of the world. Interesting historical tidbit of turkey. 2 of the wonders of the world are located here and a third on a Greek island just a few miles away from the Turkish mainland. The Mausoleum of Mosolus (I think thats how you spell his name) is here in Bodrum, theres the Temple of Artimis, and The colossus is on the island. and speaking of Rhodes, the rotary club from there has invited the rotary club here in bodrum to visit them, and Vedat told me that I can join him. Afterwards, I get to go to Athens, Greece for another rotary event. We might do some driving around in Greece because Vedat, my host father is thinking of visiting the town where his ancestors lived, which is just north of Athens. Its going to be a fantastic trip.
But back to my exchange trip in Ephesus. I went up on Friday and spent the night wondering the streets of Izmir with my exchange friends up there. It was a lot of fun except we had to wake up early the next day. We took a bus (lots of fun) down to the town near Ephesus and just hung out for the rest of the day. Played a few games, walked along the beach and went to the roof for a little more fun. We stayed up way too late that night and the next day we had Ephesus. There is really no way to describe the vastness of that ancient place. It took us hours to get from one side to another. The pictures really describe it.