Day in Ankara

Now that it's the second week of the program, I have settled into routine-ish days, such as yesterday:

I get up at 8 am, e-mail, breakfast. After I convinced my host father Mete to stop overfeeding me with eggs and sausage, breakfast is usually syrupy cherry jam and plain yogurt (my host family is still amazed that I eat yogurt for breakfast. To them it is like sour cream to the Russians -- an accompaniment to meat dishes and main meals, but never a meal in itself). And of course, tea in a small glass.

Then I walk to the subway, down a hill, past the mosque, near little stores of fast food kebab and TurkCell SIM cards and shoes. Usually I meet the "simit" seller, who walks through the streets carrying a basket of sesame bread on his head and calling out "simit, simit," like another muezzin. For those curious, the air is clean, even in the city center (or at least, I haven't noticed anything). Ankara still has some catching up to do to European pollution levels.

Ankara is the capital of an ardently secular government, so the population is largely secular as well. The family I live with, for example, considers itself Muslim but never goes to the mosque. Many women -- definitely more than half in Ankara -- do not cover their heads. But it is still a common sight to see women in colorful scarves and long, loose skirts walk back from the grocery store in the morning. Unlike İran and Saudi Arabia, however, none of the local women wear the all-black body covering typical of the ultra-religious.

I ride the subway from the last station, Batikent, all the way into the city center, Kızılay. The language school, ACTIVE Languages, is about a five minute walk from the metro. The commercial city center is wholly modern, complete with Levi's Stores and Zara, expensive pastry shops and water fountains, and a special section of a street devoted entirely to used booksellers. My favorite part. :)

Classes go from 10am to 1pm. Among other things, we learned numbers (for better bartering!) and the special expression used for new purchases and new jobs (hayırlı olsun).

Lunch is the cafeteria upstairs or what we labeled the "kebab" district -- a row of cheap and almost identical kebab and other Turkish "fast food" joints. Stand owners yell out prices and tempt with savory smells, but we usually choose those that have the most shade near their tables. Yesterday I had a tost kaşirlı -- kind of like a cross between a grilled cheese sandwich and a panini.

Then I went on a quest for flash cards. I didn't know the word in Turkish, so I asked for index cards -- which ended up being some kind of cross-hatched papers. After two stores and dozens of blank looks, a guy in a bookstore nearby drew me a map for a paper goods shop. There I asked for post-its that weren't sticky (or actually, what I said was "Post-it. Sticky no.") And that is literally what I got -- a stack of small, square white sheets. Perfect. So I can get around the city now, as you can see. Kind of.

More class till 5 p.m., then some pistachio ice cream (the food here is so hard to resist!) In the evening, I watched Funda, my host mother, try to make Melis, the six year old, finish her food -- rice and baby okra in a tomato sauce. Funda calls her "mızmız," which literally means picky, but sounds so much better when Funda acts it out with a shake of a head and a puckering of the mouth.

Melis plays computer games in the evening in my room, such as Barbie and some kind of warrior princess thing. I asked her to turn the sound down so I could study endless lists of Turkish words. She complied, but instead made her own sound effects -- various high-pitched noises, ha-ya, ha-ya, and rapid babbling to herself.

This post is again ginormous -- each day is full of impressions that I want to share with you, but I think the hardest task of any writer is knowing what to leave in and what to keep out. I definitely haven't mastered that yet, but I am working on it. :)

I am behind on posts, so future topics to look forward to:

1. my breakfast disaster
2. Turkish tea
3. the museum (aka shrine) of Atatürk
4. last weekend's trip to the Southeast
5. my fake Turkish wedding

Gotta go to class now -- I think we're finally learning verbs today...