börek

The Kramers had me over for dinner last night. I didn't know what was going on until I actually went into their kitchen and saw the food being prepared. This is basically what my life is like here - someone tells me something in Turkish and I don't understand until ages later. They taught me how to make börek, a sinful combination of cheese, lamb pastrami (delicious!) and tomatoes, all wrapped up in a thin pastry and deep fried. The ingredients vary but the result is always amazing. I was the deep fryer, so of course we're all lucky I didn't set the place on fire. We also ate more cheese, fresh spinach with just lemon juice squirted on top (soooooo wonderful), olives, pickles, and afterwards bread with honey and cream (a popular simple dessert) and tea. Türkiye seviyorum! Another discovery I've made is fresh squeezed orange & pomegranate juice (both fruits are in season right now), which I can get at school. It tastes like sunshine.

One of my fellow teachers is married to a Turkish woman and today he was describing some of the colorful swear words/phrases that are common here. Many of them involved donkeys, midwives and cement. I'll leave this to your imagination until I get a list of the exact phrases and their translations (stay tuned). I wish I'd had these at my disposal for the would-be purse snatcher.

Sean will be here tomorrow and I can't wait. I bought another set of sheets today, in the typically Turkish combination of bright orange and lime green. Excellent! I also can't wait to explain 800 more times that in North America it is not so scandalous to have men and women live together during university. This subject has earned a lot of raised eyebrows around these parts.

Finally, unfortunately I did not get a chance to see the funeral procession or protest for Hrant Dink. I live far away from where that was happening and the city literally shut down that day. I haven't brought it up with any Turks, either, because it is a very contentious issue. The fact that Armenia is blacked out with a marker on one of the maps at school tells me all I really need to know. Everything you've read in the newspapers or seen on TV is as much as I know, too.

Oh yeah, also, the cat is out of the bag about a certain person being on the Ali G Show.

more later!