Beer 'n Nachoooozz

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Starbucks Dirty Chai, yaaa!

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Eight Hours in İstanbul

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The Last Antep Çay

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Hasankeyf (and also Batman)

Remember my shameless shot under the Batman bus company sign a while back? 

Two hours notice and no Sunday plans is apparently all it takes to get me on an overnight bus to a place with a story-worthy name. A couple of Fulbighters blazed though Antep and my apartment a couple weekends ago and I jumped in on their far east venture. It was quite a ride (especially the three hours of inexplicable standstill on the side of the road on the way back, but I’m not complaining about the opportunity to finish my book and pee out under the stars for the first time in Turkey) and I really appreciated the opportunity to spend some time in a Kurdish majority area for the first time.

Sunrise ruin wandering amid many birds was pleasantly pastoral and made for some spectacular photo opps.

Turns out Batman sort of sucks. It really just cropped up in the mid '50s because somebody struck some oil ('bat-'=some form of the verb for 'to sink'--roughly). So, I took these (still gratifying) photos and peaced.

Took off here, to Hasankeyf for some khavaltı by the Tigris (missions to the cradle, complete). By the way, breakfast at 7 am in the town of Hasankeyf in January pretty much means simit (a sort of bready ring covered in sesame seeds) that rode into town on our bus under the care of some preteen kid. And a little çay--tabiki.

Note the nest. What a BA bird, eh? The town has named him.
Apparently the crane has been presiding over the minaret for ten years and counting.

"Lavabo var mı?"    "Camii"

"Is there a bathroom?"    "[at the]Mosque"

Like Cappadocia but less commercialized and a few caves are still inhabited.
Satellites have been precariously attached.

Overnight bus rides mean chilly early morning arrivals amı friggin' glorious morning wandering too.

Hasankeyf is an endangered site. Plans to flood the Tigris and the ancient Persian/Kurdish/Turkish town into underwater oblivion are in the works. I've seen it before in Halfeti nearer to Gaziantep. It's all part of a complicated Eastern Anatolia Project to bring more water and energy to the rural underdeveloped areas of far east Turkey.
And the battle between historical heritage and modern enfranchisement rages complexly on.
In any case, Yeni Hasankeyf (new Hasankeyf) is under construction up yonder hill. Relocation is scheduled for about fifteen years from now. Or so our three 14-year-old buddies told us.

Friggin' badass, right?!

Just fishin' in the Cradle. The colors of the river get me every time. Far out.

Our strapping guides. Speakers of Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic, and a bit of English. Impressive 14-year-olds, I'll tell you. We quickly made buddies and they talked our ears off on this place and showed us the best views. Çok tatlı ve helpful, ya!

The little meringue dollop of a building in the distance is a cool Persian tomb the likes of which is rare in Turkey but sometimes found in the far eastern parts of the country.

Turkish
Kurdish
English
Arabic.
(That's cool, man.)
P.S. This is officially my best ever photo from a bus window.

Here are the ABCs of ME.

Yep, one of those annoying mega distractions veiled as self reflection. I went for it because, meh, it's travel themed and therefore fun and perhaps justifiably relevant to...something. (By the way, I found it at CandiceDoestheWorld. I think she's quite funny.)
A: Age in which you first internationally travelled.

AT (stinkin’ Brits) age 13

B: Best (foreign) beer and where.
Tough call--at this point I’d say anything but Efes--but probably Madagascar THB just for all the memories. (I celebrated my 21st with plenty and more.)

C: Cuisine (favorite)
Ceviche on the beach in Peru; Alinazik and dolma/sarma in southern Turkey; 

D: Destinations (favorite) and why? Least favorite and why?
FavOrites (stinkin’ Brits): Italy. They say there's a magic in your "first." I believe it, but it might also be because it. is. Italy. Fort Dauphin on the southeastern coast of Madagascar and the Lycian coastline of southwestern Turkey also get a gold stars.

Leasts: New York City. Fun for about half a day. After that it's mostly just crowded.

E: Event you experienced that made you say “wow”
Madagascar--all of it. To name a couple: Mandrare river bathing and clothes washing; seeing lemurs and hissing cockroaches and ground boas and chameleons IN REAL LIFE!; drunkenly skinny dipping in the furious surf of the Indian Ocean by moonlight.

F: Favorite mode of transport
Buses are growing on me--especially when there is cake.

G: Greatest feeling while travelling?
Feelin’ alive, man. Noticing details and feeling like I'm learning new things all the time.

H: Hottest place you’ve ever travelled to?
Pompeii, Italy; Gaziantep, Turkey; Mahajanga, Madagscar. I’ve been pretty darn uncomfortable in a lot of places. Perhaps one of the times I’ve stopped to see the world’s tallest thermometer in Baker, California takes the cake.

I: Incredible service you’ve experienced and where?
Cab ride through the Cappadocia countryside and Kayseri. After discovering us distraughtly stranded, the cabbie promised he’d get us to Kayseri in time to catch our bus back to Antep. If we had crashed, we definitely would have died. BUT we didn’t. And we did make that bus (even if we had to meet up with it on a random highway interchange.)

J: Journey that took you the longest?
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA-->Antananarivo, Madagascar (By way of Chicago, London, Amsterdam, AND Nairobi. 40 hours and I. am. a. giant. cheapass.)

K: Keepsake from your travels?
Fabric. It’s cheap, pretty, and packable. My future abode will be decked out with cool wall hangings--I have a vision.

L: Let down sight? Where and why?
Umm...I’m kind of a gigantic cornball so I typically convince myself to “appreciate” wherever I am, but I might have to say Pamukkale in SW Turkey. It WAS surreal but sort of overwhelmed by touristy kitsch and bleh weather. I’m definitely glad I went, but I’m REALLY glad I did it as a day trip.

M: Moment where you fell in love with travel?
European art in Italy did me in forever.

N: Nicest hotel you’ve stayed in?

The Niza Park in Ankara where I had a private room and a giantass bed? There were a couple really nice places in Peru where my travel pal Hailey and I each had the luck of getting sick... BLOODY HELL WHAT AM I THINKING?! Good Karma in Ubud, Bali. Hands freakin’ down. Ahh...excuse me while I drift into a hibiscus daydream...

O: Obsession. What are you obsessed with taking pictures of?
Too easy. Chaco should probs be paying me.

P: Passport stamps. How many and from where?

The ol’ book’s actually in Ankara right now gettin’ itself a brand new INDIA visa! (Please join me in praying it gets back within the week.) I can’t verify but maybe 10? If doubles count: Italy, UK, France, Switzerland, Italy again, Indonesia, Madagascar, UK again, Peru, Turkey. (Not including the I’m-a-nut-and-I-will-never-be-able-to-navigate-Heathrow stamps from getting lost in the airport on London stopovers.)

Q: Quirkiest Attraction you’ve visited?
Most everything visited on road trips with Kylie Kingsbury. 

(Dear LORD, it does indeed appear to be all that we do.)

R: Recommended Sight, Event or Experience?

Go in alone. Learn the local language. Take the tea (melon, weed, etc.) when it's offered and make friends.

S: Splurge! Something you don’t mind forking over for while travelling?
Food and art

T: Touristy thing you’ve done
I’ve been some cheesy places, most of which have been worth it. I guess I did pay 8 lira recently to enter a particular cave church in Cappadocia. But the sign was so alluring and I toats stole a single gloriously illegal photo (no flash of course). So, once again, worth it.

Forbidden photo from inside The Dark Church at the Goreme Open-Air Museum.

U: Unforgettable travel Memory.
Corny-and-glorious-as-heck sunrise over the Indian Ocean. I was like a friggin’ mermaid out there on the rocks alone.

     

V: Visas. How many of them and for where?
3: Indonesia, Madagascar, Turkey

W: Wine. Best glass of wine had while travelling and where?
There was that one time in Peru when Hannah and I drank a whole bottle before our meal arrived (service was slow and we hadn’t yet realized that Hailey wasn’t drinking with us). I shared a good Cappadocia one on a freezing December night in Urgup, Turkey. Nothing like drowning the hoca sorrows and gender expectation woes with some gal pals by the fire.

X: eXcellent views and from where?
Waking up at dawn in my sleeping bag dangerously close to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon at a completely deserted Cape Royal viewpoint.

Y: Years spent travelling?
In the nearly 10 years since my first international foray, I’ve spent about 11 total months abroad. I guess right now at this moment, 4 and a half months into this year in Turkey, just qualifies as the longest single period I’ve been out of the country. Big moment!

Z: Zealous sports fan and where?
I suppose I have chosen my İstanbul “team.” (Mostly because you must. I’m pretty sure to express disinterest in football is to insult Turkishness--and they send bitches to jail fo that.) But I am completely open about the fact that I chose GALATASARAY strictly for the wordsound of the name and the nice colors.

Holiday! Part Four: The Christmas Baklava

Expat Christmas in G’Antep

A few more folks trickled in from nearby Osmaniye and our Christmas crew swelled to fifteen Americans. After a late night in Antakya (after which my houseguest ladies and I consumed tons of tea and cookies and had a glorious gab sesh under my single string of twinkle lights) we reconvened late in the morning for a cafe khavaltı spread. Groups fractioned off to hit up some key Gaziantep tour sites, the Zeugma Mosaic Museum, old town and the copper bazaar, and of course the Gaziantep Zoo. I jumped on that last bandwagon. Christmas at the zoo was definitely a first for me but such a great choice! Antep has the largest zoo (according to quantity and variety of animals) in Turkey with an incredibly impressive aquarium--a classic favorite of mine. (Upon entering said aquarium, Abby of Osmaniye turned to me and asked, “Is that normal for you?” I had no idea what she meant. Apparently when we walked in a group of dudes just stopped talking and stared at me. “Yes, it’s the hair. The blatant transfixion only lasts a minute or two.” And indeed it did, thankfully.) Christmas Day eve in Gaziantep involved baklava in old town and some ol’ fashioned merry making at my place with leftover party beverages. To all a good night.

Lahmacun, minced meat, peppers, and spices on super thin flat bread. A Gaziantep specialty of Arab origin.

Best (read: only appealing) super hot with lots of lemon. The Christmas colors were too good to pass up!

Le Baklava et la Çay
Yes, there are multiple kinds. It has a lot to do with the pistachio-phyllo dough ratio. That green guy? Pretty much pure pistachio. By the way, that walnut baklava junk? What a joke.

Christmas Day dinner at a popular tourist restaurant, İmam Çağdaş. Not an establishment we indulge in frequendly, and definitely not as delightfully funky as Çulcuoğlu, but the baklava is dang good and everyone needs a nice treat on Christmas! Well, everyone except Carla (to my left). Poor woman's allergic to nuts...and a vegetarian. Welcome to Antep, where you can eat...nothing. What a sweetie to spend the holiday down south anyways!

Holiday! Part Three: The Church Service

Mass at Saint Peter of Antioch’s

Antakya, formerly known as the biblical city of Antioch, is the historical center of the now sizable urban area of Hatay. Twoish hours south of Gaziantep, Antakya/Hatay makes up the southern panhandle that juts between Syria and the Mediterranean. The area changed hands a few times around the turn of the century as the Turks fought the Allies (particularly the Syria-occupying French) for sovereignty and territory.

We ended up in Antakya this Christmas Eve for mass in the cave church of Saint Peter, est. AD 40-50. Some biblical scholarship credits the ancient grotto in a mountainside outside modern-day Antakya as the oldest Christian church ever, as Antioch was an important Christian missionary organizing place where Saints Peter and Paul began preaching around AD 50. The local Catholic diocese has services at Saint Peter’s cave church only twice a year--once in June for the Feast of Saint Peter and on Christmas Eve. Sort of a once in a lifetime kind of thing for most of us. So after an afternoon of food touring the south of Turkey, our crew ended up in attendance at an exquisitely quaint service with the local congregation, a handful of Germans, and a quirky Korean bunch who seemed to be affiliated with a local Protestant group. Mustn’t forget the adorable Italian priest who gave a beautiful talk on the importance of love and compassion for all beliefs. A pleasantly surprising peek into the lives of a Christian minority in this diversely sacred place.

Antep Eats! Christmas Eve (the real one) luncheon at the excellent local's favorite Çulcuoğlu Et Lokantası. I'm, like, ninety-nine percent sure Çulcuoğlu is in an old mechanic's garage, but it's a fitting location for the absurd amount of people that pile in on the weekends for the best meat Gaziantep has to offer. Meat is kind of what we do in here--seriously, the cardiovascular disease rates for Gaziantep are impressive--so we made sure our guests got their mouths' worth of our town.

Künefe=cheesy shredded wheat goodness. Served here with creamy kaymak.

Specialty of Antakya/Hatay.

Sütlu Nescafe, instant coffee with milk is startin' to grow on me.

Drank the aforepictured Nescafe at this mountainside cafe overlooking Antakya. We made a pitstop for some warm beverages before church. 

Children's pageant. Some things are the same everywhere.

   

Guitars at Christmas. An excellent choice.

Whadda holiday gang!
BACK l-r: me; Utah; Rebecca, Kentucky; Mali, Kilis TR; Taylor, Texas; Ryan, Iowa; Julia, Virginia; Max, Chicago
FRONT l-r: Carla, Texas; Devon, Louisiana/Texas; Didem, New York; Celeste, Chicago; Kathleen, Kansas; Wally, Vermont; Jaime, Ohio; Kelsey, Cincinnati ("I've never even been anywhere else in Ohio.")

A rainy Antakya eve. Someday I might even see it in the daylight.

A Weekend Whirlwind

“I told myself I was gonna stay in town until semester break,”

she thought to herself  aboard an overnight bus to batman.

(stay tuned.)

Teaching in Turkey AKA the stuff that keeps me sentient through 8 hours worth of 200 individual speaking assessments

Some gems I couldn't help scribbling down during this week’s “describe a ceremony” task:

"First we send out invasion cards.”

“[At graduation] each student is given a diplomat.”

“We cut the cake. The bride and groom eat each other.”

The day before a wedding: “Generally men are drinking a lot and women cry.” (So much to that one.)

Then there was the kid who came to class halfway through and gave me a confidently articulated speech on the principles of Islam. (Come. To. The. First. Hour. Ya. Bum.)

I promise I'm getting to the rest of the holiday junk. Workin' on some sweet vids for y'all.
Let's just say church hymns and dancing raccoons, guys.

A Yabancı Yarn

Hey Statesiders! Ever wondered what Turkish really sounds like? Well, wonder no more! Resident GAntep music man Ryan wrote a little ditty that I filmed real professional-like a while back. Tonight I subtitled just for y’all. This is as authentic as it gets, folks! Kind of. Well...it's whatever. G'on now, buyrun ve enjoy!

Yes, making this ^ was my idea of a good use of my free evening.

I’m recovering from a debilitating epidermal illness, remember? Yeesh.

Why it pays to have medical professionals as your students.

Last night I left my office with the intention of teaching some medical faculty how to speak English (like I do every Tuesday) and ended up receiving a steroid shot in the "Cassidy, what is it called?" *points to rear end* Me: "Um, bum?". All in the back room--door ajar--of a pharmacy. And all free of charge! Ahh...now this is Turkish hospitality!

Some context: I developed another freaky skin condition over the past month accompanied by an unsightly rash all over my throat. However, with the help of the six topical and oral medicines prescribed to me by a zealous dermatologist friend, I shall be frightening no more hazirlik students with my (not-Utah-induced) red neck. Inşallah.

#admittedlyconvenientstudentcontactwhohasnowwitnessedmyexposedbackside

Thank you for participating in this brief interruption of holiday joy posts. normal programming to resume soon!

Holiday! Part Two: The Party

Christmas “Eve” At Cassidy’s

A few of you lucky ducks know the kind of Christmas Eve celebration my mama throws, and I’ve gotta say, it just didn’t seem like Christmas to me without coordinating some sort of night-before-Christmas get together. So, four Fulbright out-of-towners...and 17 more guests later...we had ourselves a PARTY! Fabulous food, drinks, a white elephant exchange, even more carols, and one supremely overcrowded one-bedroom apartment made me feel pretty darn at home this night before night before Christmas.

Putting my house guests to work gutting pomegranates and choppin' apples.
(I like Rebecca's look of disgusted protest. Aww...) 

Aaand Max. Sittin' on my couch.
Refusing to help because I made him hold all the
pinecones I picked up while walking on campus with him.
Bitch please, someone's got an aesthetic vision here. Hellooo. 

The table. Most of the food (not pictured: super potato soup simmering on my stove and ALL the desserts) arrived from the blessed kitchen of Kelsey, The Chef's Daughter (no joke--and she's good too). But those little bread discs on the right there? Definitely put an order in at my corner pide place for those special soup bread babies, just like a true-blue Turkish mama! Proud moment.

A bunch of people not sitting in any of the chairs I gathered for the purpose of hosting a party...

More love for my musician buddies!

We also celebrated our speaking coordinator/homegirl Ceyla's birthday at the Christmas shindig!
Here she is receiving a too-perfect-to-have-planned piece of literature during the white elephant exchange.
(She's newly engaged--it's funny.)

So many shoes! Plus Wally Bey and Kathleen (leaving early--boo). Fun story about all those shoes: though it's the cultural norm in Turkey to leave your shoes outside your apartment, it's not okay in our apartment complex. But our guests didn't know that. So, next morning, we're gettin' ready to head downstairs and my house guests' shoes have been stolen--by Veyli the handyman. I had to run down five flights of stairs and out into the courtyard to plead for their return. Though Veyli just about gave me a heart attack when he simply said "çöp" (trash) in response to my panicked miming of shoes disappearing, he did end up revealing the secret stolen shoe hiding place in a storage closet.