Please excuse our delay! We've been trying to post this blog entry for some time now, but the vox.com website hasn't been cooperating. So here it is. In a week we will post what we've been doing in the last month, including Ellen and Pat's visit to Istanbul.
Ami:
I've got some catching up to do with all the things we've been up to recently! So I'll just list them off and get it going:
Cocktail Party:
A few weeks ago we had a cocktail party with all the English teachers we know. We had party hats, wooly black mustaches in a variety of styles for those of us that can't grow mustaches and homegrown tacky facial hair for those that can, singalongs to made-up blues songs, and we even tried out some different mustaches on a portrait of Ataturk.
A good time was had by all and some silly pictures were taken by many.
The Post Office:
I prepared a package to send home for Christmas full of gifts for my family and close friends. I wrapped everything up with little tags and puffy bows and packed it carefully in a box to protect the contents.
Step two was to actually mail the box. Armed with a list of the contents and extra packing tape Josh and I braved the post office. (I say braved because I find it incredibly intimidating, while Josh seems more indifferent to it.) Our first step in the door we're met by the security guard waving his metal detecting wand over our box and sending us to a specific line in the back of the building.
We give the clerks the box and the list of contents (which I am dutifully trying to translate to avoid cutting the box open).
They cut the box open and have us spread the contents across the counter. They are pretty annoyed that everything is wrapped and look at us like we're trying to make their day worse maliciously. Piece by piece I tell them what is in every package and periodically the man pokes a hole in the wrapping and warns me (translated by a very helpful godsend of a woman next to us) that if anything breaks the post office is not responsible. He then crams everything back into the box, literally crams it, and then quickly tapes the top shut. The box is now sort of domed shaped and he tests the integrity of his taping by jabbing the box to see if it will pop open.
We're then told (thank you again translating woman) that we can't mail the box unwrapped. She takes us next door to buy brown craft paper which the clerk then haphazardly wraps around the box, mostly covering it, and then wildly tapes it all over to secure the paper (more or less) to the box.
The package now looks like a suspicious, third world, maybe-it's-a-bomb type of package wrapped in many feet of yellow post office brand packing tape.
To top it off, it cost over 100 ytl to ship this 4k box.
As I'm paying the clerks and hoping this ordeal will be over soon, Josh looks up and notices the ceiling tile above us is taped up with same liberal use of yellow packing tape.
Kurban Bayram Road Trip:
As some of you know by now, Kurban Bayram is a religious holiday here in Turkey that translates into something like The Feast of the Sacrifice. Families sacrifice a sheep, goat, or cow and much of the meat is given to less fortunate people. It's a four day holiday which means that five of the ILM english teachers (Josh and myself included) should naturally go on a road trip down the Western coast of Turkey. While we were driving we saw quite a few sheep and cows in the back of flatbed trucks heading to their final destination for the holiday.
Josh, Brian, Tabby, Jonathan, and me rented a car and took a ferry across the Marmara, then drove down through Bursa and Izmir to Selcuk. Selcuk is a smallish town (pop. 25,000) very near Ephesus (Efes). We stayed in a cute hotel and spent the day wandering around the incredible ruins of Ephesus. That evening we drove to Sirince, a town famous for making wine, and walked between various wine shops tasting and buying local wines.
We also went to Sigacik and stayed in a little seaside pension owned by a Turkish couple who spoke German with Josh and were tickled that he spoke so well. We only spent one night there enroute to Mudanya (to prepare for catching the ferry) but they sent us off with a sack of 15 oranges to eat in the car!
The thing you notice the notice the most after living in Istanbul for a few months is that there is very little green space. As soon as we drove off the ferry and got outside the sprawl of Istanbul (and the lesser sprawl of Bursa) we saw horizon spanning fields of olive and orange trees, green pastures dotted with sheep, and a bizarrely enormous number of unfinished apartment blocks and housing developments. But it was the open land that was really shocking. You kind of forget there's so much of it out there when all you see are roads, train tracks, and swarming shoppers. (We live pretty close to some major shopping centers.)
It was nice. A welcome change of pace that may have made it even harder to come back...
Christmas:
It was Josh and my first Christmas together and we managed to make it pretty great with just us, a newspaper tree, and some lovely packages sent from family back home. We spent most of the day eating and hanging out with friends, and while we sure would have liked to be back home for the holidays it was as nice as it could have been.
