Friends in the Cradle of Civilization

Last summer, a Turkish lady stayed in our home for a few weeks while she was in our city for cancer treatment. Now, you always bond with anyone who you live with for at least a few days. So after spending a few weeks with her, we very much wanted to visit her in her hometown so we could see her again. As a perk, we got to visit some historic places as well.

When we came to her simple home, she put out the spread. For lunch, we had stuffed peppers and eggplant, 2 types of salad, bread, and homemade pastry. After lunch we had tea and (homemade) cake. She and her daughter gave me a birthday present and gave my roommate and I additional presents that she knitted herself. It had been a year, but it was a special time together.

As bonus, on our trip we got to see the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. We also walked on a city wall that was originally built 3000 years ago and "updated" by Constantinople in 300. From the wall to the Tigris was a section of beautiful lush farmland that fit my previous image of the Mesopotamia Valley as rich and fertile. We visited 2 historic churches, one of which was Chaldean, and still in use. The other had been mostly destroyed a century ago. The landscape on our bus trip was equally interesting, rocky in most places (surprising for Mesopotamia) with occasional flushes of green where people had obviously worked very hard to carve out a piece of farmland. It reminded me of how my dad told me that his dad (my grandfather) worked in a factory because as a child he had to help pull out rocks on the family farm and hated the back-breaking labor. I can't imagine what would drive people to attempt farming in the "fertile" Mesopotamia Valley, but I guess people have been making a living that way for millennia because they have no other choice.

Is that so hard to order?

There is a rap song by KJ-52 called "A Coke, A Fry and a Cheeseburger." Now, musically, it doesn't top the charts. But I like to listen to it occasionally because the tune is catchy, and it's funny. The entire song is telling a story of trying to order a coke, a fry, and a cheeseburger at the drive-thru of his favorite fast food chain. When he tries to order, the man over the intercom continually cannot understand him and guesses all sorts of foods in the known American spectrum of fast food cuisine except for what he's ordering. We can all relate to frustrations over being misunderstood, especially when the limiting factor is technology (such as phones or intercoms). The part of the song that captures this frustration for me is when he says to the guy on the intercom, "All I want is a coke, a fry, and a cheeseburger. Is that so hard to order?"

I'm used to the limiting factor of technology in listening comprehension, but I still haven't adjusted to the language barrier. Yesterday in my Turkish class, I talked with my teacher about fortunetelling, demons, prejudice, and civil strife. When I leave class, I feel pretty good about my Turkish skills. Then I went to Burger King. I saw an ad for ice cream, and I was hungry. Now, at this particular Burger King, it's usually pretty noisy, and they have a hard time understanding me. I know my accent isn't perfect, either. So I've worked hard to perfect my ability to ask for cheese on my burger, and the last two times, with some repetition, I've managed to successfully get cheese on my burger. Yesterday, all I wanted was a blackberry sundae, and fries. It was pretty empty at Burger King, so I was confident that they would understand me this time. I walk up to the register and ask for "böğürtlenli sundae ve cips." That's what it's called at Burger King, a sundae is a sundae. His reply? "Whopper Junior meal." Does Whopper Jr sound like a sundae to you? I repeat my order, and then he calls over the English-speaking manager (who I see about every other time I go there). I repeat my order, in Turkish, and the manager replies, "böğürtlenli sundae and fries. which fries-medium? large?" See, was that so hard to order?

It was a happy birthday!

Yesterday was my second birthday in Turkey, and it was an interesting blend of Turkish and American.

In the morning my roommate made me banana pancakes for breakfast. Then I went to the lab and after lunch and my friends "surprised" me with a birthday cake (they order a cake every time someone in the lab has a birthday.) It was chocolate, but with pistachios (for the Turkish twist). Above you can see me blowing out the candles on my cake, and with all my friends at the lab.

Last night I went out to dinner at a nice restaurant downtown with my roommate and my old Turkish teacher (now just good friend). We hadn't been there previously, and I enjoyed the excuse to dress up. The restaurant was air-conditioned, but it had trees inside! I had a thin, half-decent steak smothered in creamed spinach. If you look in the background of the picture, you can see the little ice bucket they brought to the table! And don't worry, with dinner I had another chocolate cake with pistachios :)

The gifts this year were also interesting. My old Turkish teacher gave me a beautiful Turkish doll to remember Turkey by. My current Turkish teacher gave me a decorative Turkish tea glass set. So when I get back to America and have a Turkish tea party, I'll have fun tea glasses, and I can show them the doll that represents traditional Turkish village life, and explain this crazy, fascinating country that I have fallen in love with.

Melons, Memories, and Mumbar

If you read my blog last year, you might recall that there was a guy who drove a horse and cart through our neighborhood selling melons (click on "last year" to see the previous post). Well, apparently the demand for watermelons at your doorstep is high in our neighborhood because this year he's driving a tractor! And he has some help this year.

Last month there was a new project going on in the lab that I actually got to help out with for once! They had to take apart 300 melons, remove, clean, and count the seeds, and then cut the seeds open in the hope of finding an embryo. There was about 1 embryo for every 100 seeds. In a grocery store-size melon there were anywhere from 300 to 1000 seeds. I mostly got to help remove, clean, and count seeds, but they did let me cut a few seeds open one day. Sterilization procedures are very important in plant biotechnology research. So for every melon I opened, I got to set it on fire first (with alcohol) to kill all the microorganisms, as in the picture above.

For the 4th of July, we went to the beach with the castle. We went to a beach near there for the 4th of July last year, but I also went there on a separate trip with some girlfriends last year. This time we stayed at a really nice hotel on the beach w/ a garden. There was watermelon at the buffet, since no 4th of July is complete without watermelon. We took the trip to the castle again, but this time with 2 other families that included 4 children under the age of 7. We rode up to the usual gate, and the guy who watches the paddle boats informed us that we had to walk a narrow rocky ledge around the turrets to the 2nd gate where a man would collect our fee. Well, we did that for a while, holding both hands of the little 4-year-old girl until we got to a part that was so narrow (and nothing to hold onto) that WE could barely pass without having the children in tow. Sooo...we all went back to the boats and my roommate nicely informed the boat-guard that there was no way we were going to get to that gate w/ the children, and that we needed him to find a way to open the first gate (that was open last summer AND didn't require rocky ledges). A few min later, the fee collector came and unlocked our gate. So the children got to see the castle :)

I was going to post a picture of mumbar, but I decided it wouldn't be appropriate for all viewers of this blog. On Sunday I finally got talked into trying mumbar. Mumbar is stuffed sheep intestines. It's just like stuffed grape leaves, but with intestines. My roommate was wrong. The intestines were slimy. Other than that the taste was fine. But I don't do slimy. I can check it off my list, but I won't be ordering it any time soon. Yes, it really looks like intestines.