Five Lessons We've Learned so Far

It’s been a crazy week, and I think we’ve spent most of it just getting oriented here. We should be posting more regularly soon. In the meantime, here are a few lessons (and a few photos) that we’ve gotten from our time here.

1). Carry correct change for the taximan.

J and I are still figuring out the bus system here, so we took a taxi to church this morning. After taking a route that took twice as long as needed (and making us late to church), our driver claimed he didn’t have any change. This was bad news for us, as the only bill we had was worth forty dollars more than the (already inflated) fare. If you find yourself in this situation, it’s worth it to have the driver find an ATM.

2) Be close to places you will go to regularly.

Since we haven’t adjusted to the water here yet (taking a slow approach has meant that neither J nor I have gotten sick in either Turkey or back in Morocco, while a bit of German water from our day in their airport messed J up for a few days), one of us makes trips to the grocery store daily for more bottled water (and usually fresh bread). We also want to go to church while we’re here. The shopping center, we knew before we got here, is a mere ten or fifteen minute walk down hill from us, which works well. On the other hand, we got up for church this morning at eight, and didn’t return to our apartment until two in the afternoon. We thought we had more options for church, but we were wrong, and that is not good.

3) Wear good shoes.

Remember the six hours of our day that going to church absorbed? Well, two of those were spent walking, which is actually the least amount of time we’ve spent walking in a few days. We’ve probably covered about thirty-five miles in the past three days between us. I don’t really want to think about what that would have done to us if we didn’t have good shoes.

4)Enjoy the scenery.

For whatever reason (probably the insurance), Americans don’t really seem to do balconies much. This is tragic, as they afford fantastic views. But even if you’re abroad and not on a balcony, you should pay more attention to the scenery than you would in the states. Foreign countries, oddly enough, do things differently, and the contrast can be fantastic. And sometimes the things that are the same, or almost the same, are the very best. Today we saw a delivery motorcycle for Ninja Turtles Pizza. That’s right, there is a place in this universe called Ninja Turtles Pizza. And they deliver.

5) Be somewhere with baklava.

J and I have often talked about how the food in America just doesn’t seem to be as good as the food anywhere else. This proved true in Morocco. It’s proving true in Turkey. It even proved true at an airport in Spain. Nowhere has it proved truer, though, than in the existence of baklava. We have found some here that quite literally drips honey. It’s fantastic. If you go abroad, go somewhere with baklava.

Our First Few Days Here



This view is just down the hall from

our apartment.

J and I have been recuperating these last few days, as you may have noticed. Surprisingly enough, getting married, meeting a new addition to the family, flying to Turkey, and settling into our first apartment takes a bit out of a person. 

We haven't been completely inactive, however, as we started out with no food. Living off of granola bars and health shakes for a few days of travelling motivates a person to do things when he'd rather stay in bed all day.

Fortunately for us, there happens to be what can only be described as a small mall with a grocery store attached just a fifteen minute walk away.

We haven't explored the mall too much. So far, we've had plenty to do just exploring the supermarket that's attached to the mall. Basically, the setup is like a Walmart with fewer

This road cuts through the evergreen

forest that our apartment looks out

over. Off in the distance: Ankara.

electronics, clothes, and other miscellaneous supplies, and more food.



Seriously. I walked into this place and was blown away by the size of it. There might be fewer random bits and pieces, but they have half an aisle devoted to jellies, jams, and preserves. There's a bakery in the back that churns out many different kinds of fresh bread (as in, it's still warm when we grab it fresh). It really drives home what a number supermarkets in the states have done to American consumers. We have just about every variety of food imaginable in the states... as long as the main ingredients are corn, wheat, or sugar, and as long as it can be mass produced and shipped easily.

Meanwhile, this store has items with Turkish, English, French, German, and Italian labels. There's variety and variation here. That variety might be less broad, but it's definately deeper.

And if J or I get homesick, there's a Burger King and a KFC in the same building. If we don't want to go out to get our comfort food, Burger King and Dominoes have delivery mopeds zipping around campus. We already miss our families and friends, but it's hard to see that we're going to be missing much else.

If you look over to the right, you'll find that we've already met a few old friends here. And on a bottle of ketchup, too.

Anyway, we really like the shopping here. And we've only been to their version of a Walmart.

We also spent last night wandering campus a bit while we practiced our Turkish. We're definately going to be getting our exercise here.You can probably tell from the pictures, but I'd like to reemphasize that this is a hilly area.

We only ended up seeing a small portion of campus. There seems to be a lot of construction going on, so many areas are blocked off and many buildings are surrounded by scaffolding. There was one rather green looking area that seems like a good bet for where students congregate. On a road nearby we found what might be my favorite street sign ever.

Hopefully we'll have more to write about soon. I think tomorrow we may try to take a bus back to downtown Ankara. Or we might not. At this point, I think we can be excused for resting a bit.

A last note. I'm still trying to figure out how to get good distance and night shots with my camera. I haven't gotten it quite yet, but in the meantime, here's a picture of Ankara when it's just starting to light up. Taken from the same path I showed earlier in this post:

I (sort of) Speak Turkish!

I figured I should finally start contributing to this blog, although (as A said) I doubt I will ever be able to post as regularly as he does.

I'm still a little shocked by how smoothly everything has gone so far. Both of our flights were on time, security and customs were a breeze, both our taxis took us straight to our destinations, and (despite the fact that the person working at security barely spoke any English) we were able to get our apartment key and move in with no problems. We even had four fellow exchange students help us move in! By the way, I completely agree with A - this place is breathtaking. I absolutely love living somewhere with real hills.

The only real negative so far is that the water in Germany seems to have made me sick. I'm getting better, but it's made for a draining (no pun intended) 24 hours and it's kept me from doing much exploring so far. Luckily, we have 10 months, so I'm willing to be patient for a few more days! I do find it amusing, though, that nothing I ate or drank during my two months in Morocco bothered me nearly as much as the German water. Guess I picked the right part of the world to concentrate on...

Speaking of Morocco, it's been interesting to compare our time there with what we've experienced here in Turkey so far. One thing I can say for sure is that Morocco made us both much braver, calmer travelers.

Take taxis, for example. In Morocco, it is essential to negotiate the fare BEFORE getting in the taxi and/or to insist that the driver uses the meter (often, drivers would insist that theirs were broken.) You must pay the driver BEFORE getting out of the car and insist on your change, and the driver would often try to claim that we owed him a much higher fare than what was initially agreed. Once we learned to hold our ground, we never had a problem paying and receiving the correct amount in the end, but it was definitely intimidating at first. Here, both taxi drivers used their meters and gave us exact change without our having to ask - it was amazing!

In Morocco, if you ride in a taxi with luggage, they will typically put it on the top of the car (WITHOUT strapping it down.) During the taxi ride to our apartment, the driver put all our luggage in the trunk, but then he couldn't close it. Before last summer that would have been very stressful. Now, we were delighted with how secure our belongings were!

In Morocco, the driving was terrifying at first(we quickly adjusted.) Traffic signs and signals, lane markers, and other such minutiae were routinely ignored. Turkish drivers definitely move more quickly and switch lanes more freely than U.S. drivers, but honestly I barely even noticed.

Most cabs in Morocco had seat belts, but they were typically completely unusable. It was much more common to see the seat belts used to hold up decorations or wooden boards (I never could figure out what those were for) than to actually see them as functional safety devices. In Turkey, I was actually able to use my seat belt! Twice!

Oddly enough, I'm even finding it easier to communicate in Turkey with my limited Turkish than I was able to communicate in Morocco with my multiple years spent studying Arabic. Briefly, that's because the Arabic we learned in school is essentially an artificial language that is written but rarely spoken outside of academic contexts. "Moroccan Arabic" is as different from "Modern Standard Arabic" (what we learned in school) as Latin is from French. So, even though I know very little Turkish, what I do know is actually useful. As soon as we left the airport, I was able to find a taxi, ask (in Turkish) whether the driver knew English (he didn't), apologize for how little Turkish I knew, give him our address, ask and learn how much the fare would be, and head out.

When I first begin learning a language, I always feel as though I'm just repeating nonsense noises. It's hard to remember that they actually have real meaning to millions of people, and it's always a huge rush to realize that I can actually communicate with those people by using those noises. I can't wait to see what we can do by the end of our year here, and for now it's certainly exciting to realize that we can at least successfully manage the basics.

The good and bad news is that, at least based on our current, limited experience, English and French were much more widely understood and spoken in Meknes (our city in Morocco) than they are here in Ankara. Obviously that makes things more challenging, but it will also force us to use Turkish more, which is definitely good thing.

You might think that, given everything I just discussed, that I like Ankara better than Morocco. You'd be wrong. I am very excited to be here and expect it to be a fantastic year but, well...it feels a bit too western for me. That's not exactly right, though. I love the modernity and the innovations, but in Morocco we lived in the ville nouvelle ("new city") which felt very much like any big city in Europe or the U.S., while still being only about a 15 or 20 minute walk from the medina ("old city.") The medina was the stereotypically "Middle Eastern" part, complete with narrow, winding streets, a large marketplace where you could haggle to your heart's content, and a large open square that filled up every night with musicians, story tellers, and snake charmers. While I was glad to live in the ville nouvelle, I adored spending my free time in the medina. Ankara seems to be all ville nouvelle and, while wonderful in its own way, it just feels lacking. I guess I'm greedy that way.

And I'll freely admit that it's greediness. Ankara is wonderful for what it offers, and I feel like we could explore just this one city for our entire 10-month stay and only begin to experience it all.

Ankara and Our Apartment: First Impressions.

So J and I are in our apartment in Turkey.

All I can say at this is: WOOO-HOOO!!!

We didn't have much of a view in our

hotel in Ankara, but we didn't stay

 there long anyway.

 We've been bouncing from place to place for a little while, and we're quite ready to be done with it. Since the beginning of August, I have slept on nine beds, one floor, and two airline seats. I have moved all my junk from last year from Oklahoma to Kansas. I moved all the junk I plan to have for the coming year from Kansas to Illinois, from Illinois to Munich, and from Munich to Ankara. I've unpacked about half of that junk, and I don't think I can convey how good that feels.

I would be happy about it even if I had just moved from my dorm in Norman to an apartment in Norman. I did not, however, move to an apartment in Norman. I moved to Turkey, and I'm pretty happy about that all by itself. 



This was taken from the corner of the

street our hotel was on.

I don't know why, but the air just seems to smell better in other countries. I stepped outside our hotel in downtown Ankara this morning to get some money from an ATM, and just breathed in. The smell was intoxicating. Morocco had a smell too, but I think it's even stronger here in Ankara. I practically ran up the street to the ATM. Everything just felt so good and clean and right.

The taxi ride from the hotel to the apartment confirmed what the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel had led me to believe: Ankara is a beautiful city. At night everything was lit up with lights of all different colors. The street lights are the standard orangish yellow. But then the trees along the highway are lit up in a bright green color. Walkways over the highway are lit up in neon blues and purples. Add to that the standard billboards and roadway signs, and Ankara at night is mesmerizing.

Taken from the taxi ride between our hotel and our apartment.

 Ankara in the day is just as good. There are trees everywhere (which probably has something to do with fantastic smell). They seem to mostly be evergreens and pines, so I can't wait until we get our first snow. Ankara is a modern city with lots of parks, lots of tallish buildings, and lots of traffic. It's settled among a bunch of hills, which I hadn't realized though it makes sense. Being from Kansas and living in Oklahoma, I love hills. They give the landscape so much more personality, and Ankara has plenty of personality.

That brings us to the apartment. It is small, but fully equipped. We have a bathroom and the bedroom/kitchen/dining room. On the bright side, It'll be nice to be able to get out of bed, walk eight feet over to the fridge, grab a snack, and walk back.

J lying on the bed in the not

bathroom part of our apartment.

To be honest, I really don't mind the size. It should help keep the amount of stuff we have to bring back at the end of the year manageable, and it's more than enough for what we have now.

The thing we're really excited about how well equipped it is. We have a dishwasher, microwave, oven, silverware, pots and pans. We've got a few towels, sheets, pillows, plates, a cutting board, two tea pots, a few hangers, some lamps, and furniture. We even have salt and pepper, a corkscrew, and dish soap. We had been a little concerned 

This is part of the view from our

apartment.

that we'd end up having to spend hundreds of dollars equipping the apartment, and now it looks like all we really need is some food.



One last thing. The view from our apartment is fantastic. We look right up a hillside filled with evergreens. Again, the first snow will be gorgeous. Admittedly, it isn't as good as the view from my apartment in Morocco, and the apartment here doesn't have a balcony, but it's still fantastic.

We're so grateful to be here, I can't even tell you.



This is part of the view from our apartment. If you look at the building on the

left, you'll see that one of our neighbors has a beach umbrella on his patio.



It has been a week

So most people know what's been going on in J and I's lives, but for those of our readers who don't, here's what's happened:

1) We got married last Saturday. That was cool.
2) We spent a few days recuperating. This may surprise some of you, but J and I are not generally big party people. While we had a blast at the wedding, we got worn out.
3) On Wednesday, we packed up all could into five bags and a few backpacks, expecting to see none of our other possessions for ten months.

This is the view from our Turkish hotel room. You can't see
much, but the minarets are fun. Below a few newish looking
cars are parked.

4) At around five in the morning on Thursday, J and I met our new niece, Gwyneth Ann. I have never held a newborn before, but it's one of the most peaceful experiences I ever hope to have.

5) At two in the afternoon, we drove off by car with J's dad to head up to Chicago to catch our flight.
6) We took a German airline to Munich, Germany, where our plane arrived on time.
7) We took the same airline to Ankara, Turkey, where our plane landed five minutes ahead of schedule.

8) Last night, J and I got to our hotel room about 12:30 A.M. (local time).

So, I went from being unmarried in Illinois with no nieces or nephews, to being married in Ankara (via Munich) with a nephew, two nieces (one very new), and a couple more on the way.

J and I both are ready for a nap.

Thank You For Coming!

To all of the people who made it to the wedding (and to those who didn't make it but wanted to), we just wanted to thank you for participating in our big day. It was wonderful to be able to see so many people we love and care about taking part in such a big part of our lives!

We love you!

Our Trip to Turkey

Our wedding program (which you got today!) mentioned that we would be going to Turkey soon. Most of you probably know a little about that, but we thought a little more information might be helpful.

J and I are going to studying at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey for the next nine months. If you look at Turkey on a map, you’ll find it right in the middle of the country. It’s also the capital.

J and I are incredibly excited to be able to study at Bilkent. First, it is an excellent school (it is actually ranked better than OU). Second, we both really want more of a non-Western perspective on the Middle East. When we took “Politics of Islam” in Morocco, we somehow managed to wind up with a Spanish and non-Muslim professor. The most common source he provided us was the Washington post. After getting that (IN Morocco!), we’re really looking forward to having Turkish professors teaching about Turkish topics.

Third, Turkey is a beautiful country with just about some of the richest history you can find. Troy, the Ephesians, the Hittites, the Galatians, the Byzantines, and the Ottomans all left their mark in this land. Just this past year, archeologists found a probable site for the tomb of St. Phillip the Apostle. So we’ll probably be able to find something to do there.

Of course, those reasons are all secondary to primary objective and attraction of Bilkent: language. J and I have both been studying Arabic (which most of you know), and while we’re in Turkey, we’re also planning on learning Turkish. Turkish is good for J because Turkey is a rising star in the Middle East. It has the 15^th largest economy in the world. It has strong diplomatic and economic ties with most of the major players in the region. Basically it will be a major player in Middle Eastern politics, and its ties with Europe have already made it an economic powerhouse.

So learning Turkish will give J an advantage in whatever she wants to do in the region. For me, Turkish will be a good first step to learning Ottoman. Ottoman is like Turkish, except that it’s a dead language which used Arabic characters like these هذه instead of Roman numerals like those used by modern Turkish.

I’m interested in studying North Africa, and since a good chunk of North Africa was ruled by Ottoman speaking soldiers for several hundred years, I figured it would be a good idea to get a base in Turkish.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on with Turkey. We’re leaving for Ankara this coming Thursday, and we won’t be coming back until next June (Unless we fly home for winter break sometime at the end of January). We hope you’ll follow along on our blog to see how it goes.

How This Will Work

So, this blog exists for a few reasons. First, we wanted to do a better job of keeping family and friends up to date about what's going on in our lives. Second, alot of people don't know both of us, and we'd like this to be a window into our relationship. Finally, we like to think we're living unusual lives and we would like to share our experiences with the world. 

Anyway, we hope to get lots of readers, and we to spread lots of information about our lives, the Middle East, and other random facts we pick up along the way.

I, A, will probably post more than J, as she's usually busy doing things far more lucrative or important than running a blog. But, In sha Allah (which basically just means "God willing," though that is not a direct translation), she will post on a regular basis to relieve you from my constant blabbering and correct the misinformation I provide.

We intend to write about our experiences in Turkey, our studies, our life as a new married couple, and whatever other random bits of information we find interesting or entertaining on any given day. If you're lucky (and if J can figure out how to upload pictures), we might even share some of the beautiful photos we take while we're climbing every mountain and crossing every stream.

That's the plan, anyway. We'll see if it actually comes off. Three days to the wedding!

This is Our Story

This blog is shared between myself and my fiancee. In a few days, she will become my wife. We both study Arabic and Turkish. We spent six weeks last summer in Morocco. We're going to spend the next ten months in Turkey.



This is the view from the Sacre Couer Church in Casablanca.
We took this picture on one of our first days in Morocco.
This was just one of the many fantastic views we saw there.

 So we figured we'd make a blog.

'Cause our story has a few unique elements, right? We hope so. Anyway, we ARE going to write this blog, so I guess everyone should hope it's got some worthwhile content.

Our story. That's what this is. Our story and the crazy, wonderful, and scary (for our parents) things that happen in it.

Qissatna. Our story. قصتنا

 

That's what this is. We write the word in Arabic because we can (and it tickles us to do so) and in English because we must.