Am I Teaching in Turkey, or is Turkey Teaching me?!

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Fethiye

When we arrived to Turkey we received a pleasant surprise:
The school start day had been pushed back one week!

What did that mean to all of us new foreign hires…?  Time to travel!

We took advantage of this extra time by traveling to a town in south-western turkey named Fethiye.  Ironically enough, Fethiye is the setting for Birds Without Wings. This area of the coast is unique.  There are splendid beaches surrounded by towering mountains.  The landscape was unique and breathtaking.

I went along with two other ladies to the seaside town.  There were lots of British tourists in the area celebrating their final summer holidays.  The only other U.S. American I saw was the other lady I was traveling with, and the second lady I was with was the only Canadian.   Up until traveling to Fethiye myself that wouldn’t have been very surprising, but, wow!  Fethiye is a wonder!

We spent our first full day in Fethiye on a boat tour.  We went all around the coast stopping at several beaches.  Between watching paragliders, swimming, laughing, and exploring the land we were a happy bunch.  The three of us shared the tour boat with a Welsh family that was  in Turkey for a big wedding.  They gave us plenty of amusement!

We saw the old ruins of St. Nicholas’ church and enjoyed a Lebanese pancake from a lady that floated along up to us in her small motor boat preparing the treats.

The next day we did some walking on the boardwalk in Fethiye and got a feel for the town itself.  We saw the ruins of an ancient theatre right downtown and watched a giant sea turtle being freed from a net hanging from a boat in the harbor.  We did some shopping in the swanky beachside shops as well as at the bohemian stops.  The most surprising was the shop owned by the man who had made all the elf shoes for the characters in Lord of the Rings.  His shoes were certainly high quality.  We couldn’t help but call the one lady in our group who decided to purchase a pair “Frodo” though!

The next day we went on a long hike through a deserted Greek town about an hour from where we were staying in Fethiye.  This was the town in Birds Without Wings.  The town looks much older than it truly is because of the ruined state it is in from after the Greeks were led out from it.

The final destination of our hike was a beach.  We went through some nice shade covered woods along the way with spectacular views from hill or mountaintop.  The cool water was a much needed reprieve from the hot sun beating down on us along the way.

The following day we traveled from Fethiye to explore another beach, Kabak.  It also required a bit of hiking to reach Kabak, but most of this was downhill.  When we reached Kabak we were surprised to find a bohemian-style campground.  There were places to lounge freely that included cushioned platforms and tables only a foot or two off the ground that must be knelt at.  Campers could pitch their own tent or rent a tree house.  We spent several hours on the rocky beach and then had salads and savory crepes at the restaurant there.  When it came time to go we were all quite tired and opted to take a jeep up the dusty trail rather than hiking straight up for about an hour.  This ended up being a high speed, dusty, winding race to the top.  Let’s just say there was a lot of nervous laughing going on, and all of us held on tightly.  Once we got to the top we realized we had missed the bus back to downtown Fethiye.  In that case we relaxed and read for a couple of hours until the next one came along.  Ah, the luxury of having nowhere and everywhere special to be!

The Fethiye trip was very pleasant.  I found it to be a good introductory trip within the country of Turkey, especially since I don’t speak Turkish and they are used to English tourists in Fethiye.  You can walk, talk, and dress freely in Fethiye and not feel alien.  It was an excellent trip!

Recommended Reading: BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS

Turkish Recipes I Recommend

Mashed Eggplant

2 lb (1 kg) eggplant
2 tomatoes
2 green peppers
2 medium onions
1 Tbs. tomato paste
1 Tbs. olive oil
Parsley (3-4 sprigs)
salt and pepper

Pierce the eggplant in several places with a fork and bake in 350 F oven until soft.  Peel off skin and mash the pulp fine.  In a separate pan fry onion with olive oil, add diced pepper and remaining ingredients and simmer a few minutes.  Add eggplant pulp and simmer 5 minutes more.  Serve hot or cold.

Baked Eggplant

1 large or 2 medium size eggplants
6 Tbs. margerine
1 chopped onion
3 cups soft bread crumbs
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning
Juice of 1 lemon
Minced parsley

Peel and cube eggplant and cook until tender in boiling water, about 10 minutes.  Drain.  Then mix in the rest of the ingredients and bake at 425 F for 15 minutes.

Eggplant with Veggie Filling (Imam Bayildi)

Carrot Soup

Cold Eggplant Salad

2 bell eggplants
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 Tbs vegetable or olive oil
1 large tomato
1/2 cup chopped scallions
1 cucumber chopped
1 clove garlic chopped
12 pitted black olives
Salt and pepper to taste

It says to cook the eggplants immediately on top of the fire, assuming everyone in Turkey has a gas oven, and turning them until they are completely soft.  Then is says to remove them from the fire and immerse in cold water.  Then it says to peel the burned skin off and squeeze the eggplant as dry as possible.

I opted to pierce the eggplant several times, wrap in tinfoil, and bake like baked potatoes.  Then I peeled all of the skin off the next day after they’d cooled off and chilled in the fridge.

Add lemon juice and oil to the eggplant and beat.  Chop the tomato.  Add it with the other ingredients to the eggplant.  Season to taste.  Chill thoroughly.  Serves 4-5.

What is Turkish Cuisine?

You may be asking yourselves after reading a few of my posts: “Just what IS Turkish cuisine?”

You may also be surprised to hear there is an entire website, TurkishCuisine.org, which is directed towards answering that very question.

Turkish cuisine falls right along in with one’s typical idea of a Mediterranean diet.  This means lots of fresh fruits, vegetables, lentils, rice, olives, yogurt, cheese, nuts, fish, and seafood.  They prepare eggplant more ways than I ever thought possible and are very proud of their kebab.  Every meal will most certainly have a variation of an oil and vinegar salad, and you had better get used to drinking salted, thin yogurt mixed with water.  Unleavened bread accompanies thicker country yogurts or hummus, and various soups are interesting to try.

http://weheartit.com/tag/kebap

I have my favorite nut/seed/sweet shop where I buy a selection to snack on weekly.  Almonds, roasted chickpeas, hazelnuts, and pumpkin seeds are my current favorites.  They also sell Turkish delights there, my favorite being the carrot.  This is a carrot flavored gummy candy with chunks of pistachios, and the whole thing is rolled in coconut.  You’ll never believe how delicious this combination can be until you have tried it!

http://www.erguvanim.net/blog/turk-lokumu-turkish-delight/

Fruits and vegetables are cheap here, and it is important to find one vendor and stick to them.  The Turkish people view it as an insult if you switch from vendor to vendor, and in a small town like Tarsus they know if you have been sampling someone else’s goods almost immediately.  Word travels fast!  I’ve got “my guys” here, and I buy my produce from them once or twice a week.  The total for an entire backpack full of fruits and vegetables is rarely more than 10 Turkish Lira, somewhere around $6.00 USD.

That is another important thing to know about food in Turkey.  It is cheap and easy to eat well here, so I can’t see why you wouldn’t want to!  My favorite restaurant in Tarsus is literally in an alleyway a block or so from school.  Eating a meal of hummus, yogurt, salad, and flat bread doesn’t come to more than $2.00 USD.  My other favorite place to eat is the hummus restaurant down the way.  For 5 TL (less than $3.00 USD) you get a generous serving of fresh, warm hummus, 1/2 a loaf of bread, 1/2 a tomato, 1/2 a sliced cucumber, pickled and fresh peppers, and a small orange juice.  That’s what I call “good fastfood”.

I am making weekend cooking of Turkish fare a hobby.  I have been getting all the ingredients for the meals I would like to eat during the week and then preparing them on Sunday evening so they are ready to go for the next 4 or 5 days.  Although most ingredients I need are found close to home, some things need to be purchased at a grocery store like canned items, and the nearest one is about a 20 minute walk away.  It’s nice to strap on a small backpack and head out into the sunny summer weather (so long as the sun isn’t too high), but “thinking ahead” saves me time and energy during the week.  In my next post I will share some of the recipes that I have enjoyed so far!

If you venture to make one, let me know how it turns out!!!

Happy cooking!

Beachside Pampering

Before beginning the school year the school sent us on another trip to Boğsak.  This Mediterranean beach town is simply beautiful, and with all expenses paid who can complain?!

We new foreign teachers spent our time soaking up the sun, eating delicious traditional Turkish cuisine, and getting to know each other a bit better.  It was the perfect cure for our jet lag.  A few of us ladies even decided to take out a paddle boat one day.  Paddle boats and kayak-type lounging boats were provided by the hotel free of charge.  We spotted a rock island on the horizon and just kept peddling until we got there.  There wasn’t too much to see out there, but looking back at the coastline from another view was nice, and it was quiet on our own “personal” rock beach.  We swam around and collected rocks for a bit before deciding to head back to shore.

Getting to Boğsak was easy enough, as the coastline there is only about 1 1/2 hours from Tarsus.  We took school provided van transportation heading towards Adana and continued out along the coast until we came to our final destination.  There are lots of nice beaches out along that way on the Turkish coastline.  Perhaps, we can visit some different ones before the weather gets too cold.  When we first arrived in Turkey, and during the time of this Boğsak trip, the weather was 90-100+ degrees Fahrenheit daily.  Now, the temperature has been somewhere in the 80s.  Never did I think such temperatures would feel like relief, but compared to what I have been experiencing over the past month or so it does feel nice.

It was so nice of the school to think of us and send us on this littler excursion.  It was a good introduction to the Turkish Mediterranean coast line.  I would definately go back for more!

Istanbul Orientation

One of my first experiences in Turkey was to visit the bustling metropolis that is Istanbul.  The school gave an orientation for all new teachers in this magnificent city.  Foreign hires who were to be working at a shared organization of three private schools throughout the country came together to learn about what we might expect with relation to the schools and Turkey itself.

Being in Istanbul was exciting, but we were there more for work than play.  I should have liked to see the nightlife in Istanbul, but, unfortunately I had a pretty nasty ear infection.  I had been ill before flying to Turkey, and the final trip from Michigan to Tarsus, switching from airplane to airplane and pressure to pressure, had set my body haywire and made my head feel like it was going to explode.  It was not my idea to spend my first 10 days in Turkey on antibiotics, but after visiting the doctor upon arrival, it was definitely a must.  It was early to bed and early to rise for me.

The school did, however, take us on a few interesting tours during the day as a nice break from the orientation meetings schedule.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque, was one of them.  This mosque is the largest mosque in Turkey.  Built between 1606 and 1616, it has now become a popular tourist attraction.

Going to this mosque was an incredible experience for a young lady from small town Michigan.  Growing up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan I had never seen a modest mosque in person, let alone one of such grandeur as all this.  The architecture was like none I had ever seen before, and I was fascinated by the beauty of this structure.

The prayer area was full of low hanging chandeliers which gave a celestial glow to the entire interior.  The design was especially awesome from the second floor.

Welcome to Tarsus

Hello everyone, and welcome to Tarsus, Turkey.

I just moved to Tarsus mid-August, and am enjoying this village-like Turkish town.  With a population of approximately 238,000 it has been a change from the bustling pace of Quito, and the tranquil pace of my hometown in Michigan.  It’s somewhere in between you might say, and so far so good on that front.  I invite you to read more about Tarsus here.

Adana is the closest large city to here, about a 45 minute drive away. It is the 4th largest city in Turkey with a population on approximately 4 million. There is another large city to the opposite side of Tarsus as well called Mersin (proper). I will take the train over to either when I feel the need for a bit more excitement. The town here in Tarsus is basically many small neighborhoods pushed together. There are lots of small fruit, vegetable, meat etc. markets, but few large buildings or shopping centers

The things Tarsus is know for include Cleopatra’s Gate, St. Paul’s Well, and the Roman Road.  Cleopatra’s Gate was supposedly the meeting place of Marc Anthony and Cleopatra, and is just that: a stone gate.  It is now located in the center of a roundabout in town and has been majorly restored, but I suppose one can imagine what it was once like.  St. Paul’s Well and tomb are some religious attractions here, but only take a few minutes to see really.  The Roman Road located in town is perhaps one of my favorite sites here.  It is a portion of the true ancient Roman Road that was discovered during a regular construction project in town.  It is fascinating to think that people have been traveling the same route through this region of the world for almost as long as history has been recorded.  Located within the realm of Mesopotamia, I now reside in the hotbed of ancient civilization.  For this reason it is not unusual to see individuals whose front yards share space with Roman columns, or ancient statues being used nonchalantly as planters.

There are lots of small shops and an open air bazaar here.  You can find tourist items and traditional Turkish items.  This is always fun to visit on the weekends.

The people in Tarsus are friendly and know how to show Turkish hospitality as well as anyone.  I am always amazed by the amount of hospitality I recieve here, even if I am a paying customer at a given store location or restaurant.  People here will go above and beyond the call of duty to make you feel as comfortable as possible, and to show you the best of their country, city, or town.

More to come from Tarsus soon…

New Time, New Place

It seems like forever since I have written in my blog, but I promise I have a good excuse!
After Christmas the school year really picked up, and I started to realize my time in Ecuador was growing short.  With a visitor from home coming for the last few months, many tasks to complete on the school-front, and an itch to get in last minute travel, I found my blog falling by the wayside.

Now, I have decided to resurrect my blog as I start out on a new adventure: TURKEY!

Welcome.

Staff Christmas Party

(This is me and one of my fellow co-workers and friends, not the piano lady! )

A few weeks ago the administration at CM threw a fantastic holiday party for all their employees.

Everyone was invited, from the cleaning and lunch staff, to the copy room workers.  There was a delicious, elegant meal for all, and enough merriment to go around several times over.  A live band also attended the event, playing salsa and other Latin dance music until the wee hours of the morning.

The staff were invited to participate in a talent show, for which I sang one of my favorite ballads.

To prepare for the event I started working with one of the instructors in the music department.  She accompanied me on piano, and she and I have made a plan to continue meeting once a week to work on music.

It feels so good to be singing again!  I steal every minute I can to keep up with my practice at home, but it isn’t always easy with no one around to accompany me and offer feedback.  I am exchanging singing tips and techniques with my new-found friend in the music department for her aid in accompanying me as I work on refining old pieces and learning new.

It feels so good to be singing again!