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.

Its been too long

Sorry folks, its been a good week or more since my last blog. I haven't done anything lately. I guess it's what is happening to not only me, but all the other exchange students everywhere. We get to our chosen countries, try to learn our new languages, go on vacations, meet new friends, and then... get into a routine. I wake up at 7:30, eat bread with Goulash's orgasmic peach jam. The stuff is more addicting than crack, more delicious than the best pizza imaginable. School is 8-4 and the classes are fun. Ive been in 2 Turkish arguments with non English speaking teachers (those were hilarious) and you know the rest from my blog. After school, its just learn Turkish or play playstation for Emre. I screw around until dinner with my computer, my 400 channels, or find something random to do. dinner, unlike breakfast, is not a family event and I mostly fill the time doing something. Those are the boring days. Other days are hanging out with Haakan, going out with my friends to Bodrum, or just sitting in a Nargile cafe and improving my Tavla (backgammon) skills. I hope to watch some futbol games with friends and Haakan has told me that he might teach me how to sail. Things will keep chugging along, and Ill post next when something cool happens

Friends

I have been here four weeks now. I have made very slow progress with my Turkish, but it is the price I pay for having my great friends. All 0f them speak fluent English and they are fun. Haakan is the only other guy in my class and was the only guy last year. He's really cool, and smart, but a condesinding jerk to almost everybody. I find it greatly amusing to listen to him rant about the other kids, the teachers, the principal, the adults, the government, Bush, Obama, Islam, Christianity, God and his dog. We also have a lot of fun together and he's got a really cool mom who told me that I can use thier house as a second home whenever I want, and I had only talked to her for about 5 minutes. Michelle is the resident psycho of the group and has hilarious antics that are never the same twice. Sometimes she'll jump up from the lunch table and run after the cats that live at our school. Others she'll just start singing a random song, or pet a random gradeschool kid during our lunch hour. She's been reported to play the guitar and Im trying to get her to show me how to play the Bass. Dilara is the mother of the group, with a slight twist of drama queen. She's just as likely to be talking about her exboyfriend as what we are going to do this weekend. She gets thing done and she's really funny. These are my core friends. The other people in my class are really cool too, I just haven't gotten to know them as well. Everythings going really well so far. Im planing a solo trip up to Izmir on this comming bayrom (B i rom) which is a 9 day holiday. Im planing to spend the time with the other exchange students and getting to know Izmir better. It will also be a great chance to see if Im truely as far behind in my Turkish as I think I am.

Muslims in Turkey

Now here is a topic I'm sure all of you people are very interested in. Something that you should know is that I have only talked to people from the West coast which is similar to talking to people in Los Angelas in the fact that its probably different in the East here, as religious views in the South are there. Hopefully that makes sense. But so far I have seen great similarities between religious reverence in America and here in Turkey. My family is not particularly religious. They don't observe Rhamadon, and they never go to a mosque. Rhamadon is a couple of religious days, like lent only they give up all food and drink for the daylight hours. The maid and nanny for Emri observe it along with the gardener and the turkish neighbors. But I've been meeting a lot of kids, and non of them give any thought to religion, at least not the ones I've met. Quick note though. I've been noticing a trend in teenage religious views. I have a tendency to talk religion and philosophy when I meet people and so far every single kid my age who I really like, ends up truely interrested in Buddhism. I got really interested in it back in December when I got dissatisfied with Christianity, and now out of the 8 or so people Ive talked religion with over the last couple of months, about 7 of them have turned out to be, while not fully buddhist, following many of the key philosophies that make it a distinct lifestyle. But back to Islam. something that most people dont know is the difference between Islam and Muslim. Islam is the religion, a Muslim is the follower. The religion is not the extreme head scarves on all women and all guys fulfilling the will of the all powerful Allah. Which by the way is just the arabic translation of God, not a completely different all powerful being. I found out on tuesday that last year in school a bunch of kids got together and put on the play Chicago. short skirts, fishnets and everthing. The biggest difference that the religion makes is seeing a lot less cleavage on the streets. Not counting when girls are walking around in bakini's and flabby guys.

Okul (School)

Sorry its been so long since my last post. I wake up at 7:30, get to class by 8:30, try to stay awake until 4:00, then get home and sleep till dinner time. Afterwards I either talk to Vedat about Turkish, talk to the neighbors who are leaving Friday, or go hang out with my new friends. But first, a little info about my school. Its called Marmara college, but its really a k-12th grade and has classes of about 60. Each class is separated into subjects; there's the math and science department, the history and Turkish department, the English department (which I'm in) and a few other's that I haven't heard of yet. There are about 11 of us in my class and we go from teacher to teacher together for different classes. So far my best friend is a kid named Hakaan. He used to live in New York, East Village with his parents as poor artists. But then they moved over here when the Arab hatred got too bad and now he speaks perfect English, perfect Turkish, and is a fun guy. I might add that its a good thing we get along really well because he is the only other guy in my class. The other two friends I've gotten close to are Dilara and Michelle. Michelle is originally from England, but lived in South Africa for so long, that I can only hear the south African accent. She's lived here for a few years and knows Turkish perfectly. Dilara, I haven't completely figured out yet, but somehow she has excellent English and is always helping me with Turkish. They are great people, but they are more than likely to get me in trouble. That's fine with me, Ive never really been in trouble and the 24/7 bus system always promises me a way out. I already love these guys and after only the first day they adopted my into their tight group. I couldn't have picked better people to be stuck with until I learn enough Turkish to go out on my own. School is boring so far. English is mildly interesting, as the teachers like to use me and Hakaan for walking, talking answer sheets. But non of the other teachers speak much English. Geography, some weird Turkish class about the subtle nuances of the language, Philosophy (which is going to get a lot more lively once I can speak Turkish) and Geometry are all taught by teachers with no English skills. It gives me time to learn my Turkish and work on my notebook I'm turning into a Turkish handbook. maybe Ill give it to the next exchange student or something. There's no recess but every 40 minutes we get a 10 minute break, and the cafeteria serves stuff that makes my old school look like a 5 star restaurant. But when I get hungry enough I can eat anything... even melted practically unmixed chocolate pudding. Nothing worse than mass produced Turkish food. The language is still coming along slower than I'd like, I only average about 2 words a day, but, I'm starting to teach myself verb conjugation. Hopefully Ill be putting full sentences together in 2 or three weeks. And if Mr. Francis Mayfield just happens to read this again, tell Mr. Miller that if any of his kids are complaining about how hard or pointless Spanish is, just threaten to drop them into a foreign country. It take ten minutes to explain to my host brother that I will come play with him in five. Plus even in this middle east part of the world I have been meeting Spanish speakers. Hosca kal

Izmir

Izmir is an amazing city. But let me explain why I was there. This weekend was the first exchange student meeting on Saturday. It’s only a 5 hour meeting, but it was great. I’ll talk about the exchange meeting in the next blog. I got a ride from the President of the Rotary club Tugai, in Bodrum and his family. They were really great, Bert and Berfin are their kids and Ayla is his wife. They dropped me off at the rotary office and went shopping. A member of the Bodrum rotaract club, Feti , picked me up. Feti is about 25 and he showed me around Izmir. It’s a city of about 4 million and is jam packed full of people. The bazaars are amazing. He took me to one of the larger ones and we walked around for hours just talking and him explaining what everything was. There was a street for everything, an electronics street, a jewelry street, a clothes street, a meat street and so many more. It would have been easy to get lost in these streets as all of the shops have a few stories of apartments above them. It was almost impossible to see the sky enough to figure out north and south. Then there was the Aegean, the sea between Greece and Turkey. It was beautiful to look at unless you looked up against the shore, then it looked dirtier than the Mississippi. We stopped by one of the Mosques and it was really interesting. We took our shoes off, a religious requirement, and walked in. There was the guy chanting the Islamic prayers in Arabic and about 40 people just sitting and listening. I was shocked when I found not the annoying droning that you hear in the evening and morning prayers, but a very soothing, peaceful, almost hypnotic sound coming from the prayer leader's mouth. I truly want to go back to a mosque sometime soon and just sit for a while. I found them to be very tolerant of Feti and I as we whispered back and forth, and also took pictures. I will write another blog soon about Islam in Turkey. It’s nothing like anybody back home thinks. We continued to walk around and saw the fisherman's area which reeked, but only because I hate the smell of fish. I got to experience haggling, and even more Turkish food. was amazing because the only thing that he let me spend my own money on the entire weekend was a single shirt. He paid for all the food and drinks that he could persuade me to ingest. We slept at Feti's aunts' house; one was from Holland and the other from France, both speaking Turkish. The next day he dropped me off at the Rotary office for the exchange meeting and left to finish the business he was originally there for. Then I got to meet the exchange students in the Izmir and southwest turkey area, but that is for another Blog