It’s that time of the season
where someone is coming down with a cold and the germs are rapidly replicating.
Almost everyone at school is sniffling…even Alex and I have runny noses. While
Alex is sicker than I am, we are both exhausted from a long week of work.
This week was eventful. We
got our scores back for our Turkish exam (I did well, 85%) and continued to
work with our graduate students during speaking clubs. They are all nervous
about taking their IELTS exam because their score (from a scale of 1-9) will
determine which universities they qualify to study at. We help them by giving
them practice speaking exercises and encouraging them to stay calm. Our “MEB”
(graduate) students are scheduled to take the IETLS on different days.
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| With Seval at her Kaleiçi office. |
On Wednesday, a friend we
had met in Ankara at the Ambassador’s Reception invited us to her office.
Seval, who is the head of the Antalya Municipality and works closely with the
U.S. Embassy in Ankara, was upset that we did not contact her once we arrived
to Antalya. She graciously welcomed us and told us about her work. She even
took us to her mother’s house for dinner that evening. It turns out she and her
mother live very close to us in Meltem—one block away!
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| With our beautiful landlord, Sanay. |
On Friday, we really wanted
to go home and take a long nap but instead, we met our landlord, Sanay, at Mark
Antalya mall to buy Internet. She has kindly offered to open the account in her
name. Yasir accompanied us on this errand and served as our translator. Before
making the transaction, Sanay treated us to Turkish khave as ikram (a treat
out of respect). She also read our fortunes.
There is a tradition in
Turkey, enjoyed mainly by women, that after drink Turkish coffee, you place the
saucer on top of your tiny cup, flip it towards you (so that the cup is upside
down), rotate the cup and saucer in circular motion three times in front of
you, and wait for the mud-like coffee beans to drain out on the saucer. You can
place a coin or a ring on top of the cup to expedite the process of cooling
down (since metals absorb heat). After the ‘mud’ has fully drained out on the
saucer, you flip your cup in the rightful position, and ask someone to read
your fortune based on the remnants of the coffee stains inside the cup. The
fortune teller examines the animals and shapes created by the coffee stains, and extrapolates fortunes based on them. On Friday, Sanay speculated the following things
about my fortune—I think some of them are quite true!
·
I’ve read a lot
of books, but I appear calm
·
I am competitive
·
I will go to
Egypt in the near future
·
I learn from
other’s lessons and try not to repeat their mistakes
After buying the
Internet—finally!—we decided to have dinner together at Ataturk Park. Alex was
still feeling sick, but the coffee had completely energized me. We sat at a
table overlooking the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, all of Kaleiçi, and
beautiful sunset over the Toros Mountains. Yasir and I ordered chicken wings,
while Sanay and Alex ordered pasta. I was not very hungry so I fed most of my
dinner to the hungry cats.
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| Breathtaking sunset over the Toros Mountains. |
Later, at about 9pm, we met
some school friends and Konak Kafe friends at the Raven Pub, one of the many
nightly hang out spots in Kaleiçi. There were about 10 of us in total, friends
of friends. I was really excited to practice my Spanish with the band singer
before he performed at 10:30pm. He sang English songs and the pub became very
lively. I didn’t realize that Old City was where the night scene was for
Antalya. It almost looked like a college town, squirming with students in every
corner, town people smoking in the streets, foreigners chattering away, music
booming from every restaurant. Not that Alex and I are much of partiers, but
now we know where to go. J
Anyhow, at about midnight, we taxied home with Azim (Indian) and Milad
(Afghan), our two friends from Konak Kafe.
