Week in Review: Ankara

Hello, friends!

Well, as of today, a week has passed since I first began my journey into the unknown, and it's been quite a week! My colleagues from the Washington Semester Program would find that orientation feels a lot like the time we spent abroad together in Cyprus, Athens, and Istanbul; as a group, the sixty of us ETAs do a lot of sitting in the hotel ballroom, listening to lectures and asking questions on everything from Turkey's Agenda in Foreign Policy to  the Dos and Don'ts of Turkish Culture. We've had a number of presentations on our host country's history and politics, probably 15-20 hours of Turkish language instruction, visits from US Embassy officials to lend us wisdom on security and health and so on, and met our university representatives. (More on that soon, just not right now.)

Some of you might know (or have rather, perhaps, inferred) that I am not, in daily life, a huge picture taker. Perhaps this is because I know that I will always find something else to do rather than load pictures onto my computer, so it's all a big hassle. Or I can't ever find the camera when I need it. Or maybe I don't make the same memory connections with photographs as a lot of other people. Whatever the reason, I have made a commitment--most uncharacteristically, but I expect I will do a lot of uncharacteristic things as I personally grow--to actually document this experience not only in terms of the things I find beautiful and memorable, but also in terms of the things that are mundane or unsettling--things that you guys might find necessary to be able to picture where I am and what I'm doing. So in the spirit of the mundane, I give you the following orientation photos. This is where I've spent most of the past week:

 These are to give you an idea of the ballroom where all of our sessions have taken place. Tables are spread around the room, and, as you can see in the second photo, there's a small lobby outside through those doors. All of this is on the -1st floor, below ground. The Niza Park Otel, where all of this is happening, is a very nice, four star place located in Cankaya (put a tail on the C, because it makes a "ch" sound), a relatively nice part of Ankara.

 Here's me, laughing at something. One of my fellow ETAs so generously documented me in this space. That's what orientation looks like: lots of notes, never-ending water bottles, and looooots of tea/sometimes coffee.

 Speaking of notes, here's an example of some. I've filled up most of my pages like this (you all know how thorough I like to be), but this particular page is dear to me because the lecture was given by a female professor from a local university...all about how Turkish domestic politics influence its foreign policy. That's kind of EXACTLY what I want to go to grad school to study, so I thanked her profusely and generally got really excited. These notes are gold.

Ah, yes, and speaking of tea, some of you might believe that Turkish Coffee is the national beverage of Turkey. Nope. It's tea. And it's delicious tea, by the way. We've been given very generous tea/coffee breaks, and there are always little treats for us to snack on, too! Seriously, even though our days have been packed, the Turkish Fulbright Commission has taken such good care of us. We get three square meals a day in the hotel buffet, coffee/tea breaks, nice rooms, magical water bottles that almost seem to replace themselves, great information that really eases my mind... Definitely have to make a concerted effort to not get too used to all of this, though, because things are guaranteed to change a great deal once we disperse to our host cities. Oh, by the way, this is actually not a traditional Turkish teacup, but they gave us these for coffee and for tea. This is a traditional cup, in which they will serve you cay--the Turkish word for tea, also with a tail on the C for a "ch" sound--almost wherever you order it:

So, anyway, moving on. Orientation is intense but incredibly useful and nice. Next week (as in, beginning tomorrow) we're going to receive some serious Teaching English as a Second Language training, and then on Thursday the 15th, we all shuffle into the great big deck of playing cards that is Turkey.

While we've been here, we've also been treated to a couple of outings. We first visited Anitkabir (no dot on that first I), the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of the Turkish nation. Without speaking to a Turkish person, it's difficult to comprehend the level of devotion and adoration that Ataturk continues to receive, even after his death in 1938. Please take this as my homework for you: look up Ataturk, and learn about his accomplishments. Understanding Turkey without understanding the magnitude of the person of Ataturk is truly impossible, and he was quite a guy. Here's even the link to Wikipedia to get you started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk .

The mausoleum itself is also quite striking and impressive. In addition to the actual chamber where Ataturk rests, there's a sizable museum dedicated to him and his accomplishments as both a military and political leader. I naturally forgot my camera when we visited, but fortunately many people have been to Anikabir before me...

Our other major outing was to the old city in Ankara (Eskisehir, tail on the S for "sh"), where we went to the Anatolian Civilizations Museum (very interesting stuff! Anatolia--basically the area of modern Turkey--has always been a crossroads, and lots of civilizations have been through, leaving goodies along the way.) and generally toodled around, going to Ankara Citadel (laid by the Galatians, completed by the Romans, and added onto/restored by the Byzantines and Seljuqs) before catching a cab back to the hotel. There are many pictures of this outing because I made a concerted effort to remember my camera, but this is the one you can't find anywhere else on the internet:

Yeah, that's a dog up there. Made me miss Luca the wonder dog, who sometimes likes to get up on Aunt Anne and Uncle Chris's roof.

And that's really the story up to yesterday. More to come soon, but today's our free day and it's time to figure out what that's going to mean! Cheers for now!