Meyhane

Last night I went to a student's birthday party which was held at a meyhane. A meyhane is a place in Turkey and maybe nearby regions that serves a lot of alcohol and mezes, or appetizers. At the place I went to, there was a 3 person band and a singer, and later a bellydancer came. It was a lot more fun than I was expecting, and the students really wanted Sinan to come so I brought him along, and he admits he had more fun than he was expecting as well. You can't be in a rush at a meyhane. We probably started eating the plate of mezes at 9ish, as well as some salad. They keep bringing alcohol and people are dancing. Then the waiter slowly makes rounds around the table leaving a piece of hot food, like a sausage, or a fish stick. And you drink more and dance more. Then the real food arrives, at probably 11ish. While the appetizers were good, the real food was nothing to brag about, but it doesn't matter. Then we waited for the cake so we didn't leave until probably 12:30ish. Because you are drinking the alcohol while eating food, you don't get too carried away but unfortunately my body wasn't very used to it, and at the early morning things were exploding from both ends of my body. But it was worth it. It was fun to be with the students in this setting, they really enjoyed meeting Sinan, they liked trying to teach me to dance (it's like teaching a robot or statue to dance), and to have such a Turkish experience. It's certainly not something one (or at least I) could do every weekend, that's for sure!



The plate of mezes, or appetizers. Starting at the top there is kisir, which is a delicious cold bulgur salad with green onions, then a thick garlicy and dill yogurt sauce, then stuffed pepper, cucumber, tomato, nice sharp white cheese, black eyed peas (I didn't know they were common here!), a lentil meatball (no meat though), a potato salad, and "American salad" which is like carrots, peas, pickles with a mayonnaise (and maybe yogurt?) sauce. In the middle was an excellent eggplant and tomato garlicy sauce. Ahh everything was so good!



A pretty AND delicious salad.



Me with the birthday girl in the middle, and Aylin, who (whom?) you might recognize from other outings I've been on.



Here's a video of the singer. I really didn't expect his voice to sound like it did. The music isn't really favored by our generation but in this setting and atmosphere it was okay.



Here are some people at our table.



Oh man here we go



They know what they are doing



Another video of dancing



And one more fun one



I think this is one of my favorite photos of me

Back to Eskisehir

A few days ago, in the middle of a nap, I got a call from my big boss asking if I wanted to go back to Eskisehir for two days. Of course I accepted the offer. So here I am! Let me back up a week or two ago. I left Eskisehir on a really good note, hoping to go back soon, but I was also excited to see my co-workers, students, and friends back in Istanbul. I arrive at my school in Istanbul the day after I got back, on my off day, to attend a mandatory meeting. Wow had things changed. My boss was no longer my boss. She's now just working as a full time teacher. So I have no boss. And three of the four Personal Tutors (the Turkish teachers that do SOO much) are quitting at the end of the month (the other is in the hospital). So that was a nice way to come home. If you know me, I don't like change. I like change when I can expect it, like moving to Turkey, working in a new center, etc. But this, no. So when I got the phone call to go back to Eskisehir, I was relieved to go back to somewhere...stable.

Unfortunately/fortunately, those in the Eskisehir center want me to stay. They are short a teacher (the one teacher is not only teaching, but also the boss and the director) and I don't know when he's last had a day off. All of the workers and students are throwing out the pros of me working in Eskisehir: it's easy to walk around, it's so much cheaper than Istanbul (and my salary is the same), the WSI center is much more intimate and has a feeling of community, there are sunsets at the center, sometimes they have classes outside, and my pro, the boss is awesome, as are the teachers and students. Now the cons (my list): my life is in Istanbul (aka that guy I date) - how would it affect us if I moved? It's 6 hours door to door pretty much, and I'd be working full time, and this is his last semester (fingers crossed) so he needs to put a lot of time into studying. Also, I love the people in Sisli - the students, my colleagues, the people who work in the restaurants around me, etc.

Anyway, I'm quite sure what I'll do and that means stay where I've been, but it's certainly nice to be wanted! I just need to be careful I don't get kidnapped today, as the boss here in Eskisehir has threatened...Readers, if you have any suggestions, advice, or perspectives, please leave a comment or shoot an email!

Rewards

I don't know how many of you have tried teaching, but I bet it's more than I realize. Those that haven't, you've probably heard from friends in their first year about how hard it is. Luckily my job isn't as difficult as other teaching jobs as I don't have to lesson plan (for the most part), grade homework, or create tests, but trying to explain how and when to use the present perfect, the difference in "achievement" and "success", bored and boring, the passive tense, or the word "ridiculous", it can be quite challenging and you're always concerned what the students think of you and if they are wasting their money (and they are paying A LOT I've been told) to take classes with you. Surprisingly there haven't really been any complaints about me, but you can never be sure or feel adequate enough. But these last couple of days at Eskisehir though have really made me feel special. Some students are so sad that I'm leaving! They get little puppy dog faces (and these are university students and older) or when practicing the phrasal verb "come back", they write a sentence directed towards me - "when are you coming back?". When saying good bye they mention how they hope to see me soon. Another girl is dying to hang out and show me around next time I come, and another guy who won a chocolate bar during a game said "I'm keeping this all my life" (and in perfect English too!). I'm still not great at explaining the grammar and I don't always present the information clearly or concisely, but I know one of my skills is being able to establish a rapport with the students, and at least give them ample opportunities to practice speaking, as I want to learn about them, and they want to learn about me. Anyway, I'm actually sad to leave this center tomorrow because the staff is so friendly, I can walk to work (and not get run over!), the students rarely speak Turkish, and they really do seem to learn and have fun. Of course I'm looking forward to seeing my students in Istanbul as well as my co workers, but I've been so glad to have this experience in another center. I do hope to return soon!

Eskisehir

Here are some pictures from the train ride here:







At first glance this picture is meaningless, but if you look carefully on the right, about halfway down, you'll see something pretty special to me. Maybe the quality is bad so I'll tell you what it is - a rower! Somewhere along the way to Eskisehir we went past a very flat lake and there were lots of rowers - mostly doubles but also some singles and some 4s. Pretty cool!



Here's the river going through the city with the pedestrian streets alongside it. The first couple of days here were quite nice - sunny and not too cool at all. But then...



Snow! There's an older part of Eskisehir - Odunpazari - where there are old Ottoman houses and I love how they are painted - so bright and colorful! There is a lot of history that predates these houses, which I'm guessing were built no more than a couple of hundred years ago (??). The little brochure that I have describes the technique in which they were built. From what I can understand, wooden catwalks (scaffolding??) are filled with bricks or adobes and that is covered with plaster and lath. This picture kind of shows it:







The Turks really reuse things a lot, maybe we should take a lesson from them. The most popular things they use are olive oil cans, yogurt containers, and tomato paste containers (that really reflects their cuisine!), mostly for flower pots, and also they fill them with cement and a tall stick and use it to reserve parking spaces in front of their houses.





There is also a big complex in Odunpazari where there is a mosque and school and fountain and kitchen and other such things. It was built in the mid 16th century. It was hard to get an overall picture - sorry!



The place to perform ablutions - to wash your feet, arms, face etc before entering the mosque. I certainly didn't see anyone there this morning! Brrr

The joys of an oven

Sinan got an oven about two weeks ago and I've really enjoyed getting to bake things, and not always frying everything. One thing I'd been craving was coffee cake. Unfortunately I found that two important ingredients for baking, vanilla and brown sugar, are just not the same here. The vanilla is in a powder form and it just doesn't do as good as a job as the liquid kind we can get in the US. Also the brown sugar is much more granulated, and it tastes different. It looks like normal sugar, just brown. Anyway, the coffee cake (or crumb cake?) still tasted delicious and it hit the spot.



I also wanted to bake borek using something similar to phyllo dough. I'd been buying yufka (the incredibly thin dough already rolled out, at room temperature) but when you fry it is gets kind of tough and you have to rip bites off with your teeth, and it goes bad quickly. The frozen kind gets nice and fluffy and flaky. I didn't have any meat but I put feta cheese, parsley, and egg yolk into a piece of the defrosted dough, sealed it, covered it with egg yolk and milk, put those black (carroway? I don't remember) seeds on it, and baked them. Much better than what I'd been doing before!



Finally for dinner one night I just baked some chicken that had soaked in oil, garlic, salt, pepper and red pepper and surrounded it with all kinds of vegetables. Quite good! Three of us ate this whole pan!



When I went to Antalya, I decided to make some cookies to bring to them, instead of buying them like I usually do (ohhh great, here comes Sally with those same, boring cookies again). I love cinnamon/sugar combinations but they don't really make and sell pastries with it here, so I'll just make them myself. I make sugar cookie dough and then rolled out a square, sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar, rolled it into a log, then cut little cookies off of it, then baked them. For another type of cookie I used a cookie cutter to make star shapes, baked them, let them cool, then made a sandwich with chocolate spread in between. They really enjoyed them! I thought they were a little tasteless due to too much butter and bad vanilla but they were edible.



I do do more than just eat, I promise I am still working. I'll catch you up on work stuff in a couple of days, not that much has changed. This week is interesting and I'm actually in Eskisehir, a city about 4 hours outside of Istanbul. There is a Wall Street center there and they are short a teacher, and the Sisli school where I am, we have too many hours, so I was sent (being asked first of course) there for a week. The transportation and hotel are being paid for - awesome! It seems like a nice city but I just don't quite get the layout yet but there is a pretty little river (or some type of water) running through part of the city with pedestrianized streets alongside it. I'll write about it more when I get some more photos. I have my first day at the new center now - wish me luck!