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.