UPDATES: fun running and salsa dancing— free time in Turkey

In the interest of not falling tooooo behind with blogging, here are a few odds and ends from my life these days:

"Ellerine sağlık"

 Turkish saying literally meaning ‘health for your hands’ said to the cook after a shared meal or gift of food.

After jealously drooling over the billions of pumpkin/fall/spiced baked goods posted by friends to Facebook and Pinterest, I was overjoyed to find that pumpkins had indeed popped up at our local farmer’s market one weekend. They were massive and rock hard, but they were pumpkins nonetheless. So I bought a kilo (they just busted out a saw and handed me a massive chunk), and then spent the next few days contemplating how exactly I was going to make pumpkin bread from an actual, raw chunk of pumpkin in the tiny toaster box posing as our oven.

It turned out better than I expected, and I brought some to share with my Turkish colleagues. Who were confused by the idea of “pumpkin bread.”

This exchange:

“If it is bread, in Turkey, it is not sweet.”

“…I’m not sure why it is called bread, come to think of it. We have banana bread too.”

“Banana?! In bread??”

Turned into this exchange:

“Ah, it is not bread. It is more like cake…”

“Mmm, it is like carrot cake!”

 

Fulbrighters Are Fit

A few weekends ago, a big group of Fulbright teachers from across Turkey all went to Istanbul for the Istanbul Marathon. Several ran various lengths of the race— most either the 10k or the 8k “Fun Run.” The Turkish Fulbright commission even jumped in and helped organize, giving us all blue “Fulbright” t-shirts, and Fun Run registration for those of us (like me) who missed initial sign-up.

Advertised as a “trans-continental marathon,” all three distance courses involved running from Asia to Europe via the Bosphorus Bridge. The Fun Run ended up being more of a Fun Walk/crowded-shuffle at times, but it was amazing nonetheless. Everyone was packed together, waving Turkish flags, chanting and cheering, eating simit and drinking tea, and stopping for numerous selfies over the strait. The energy was crazy, and it was a great way to spend the weekend catching up with Fulbright friends from all over.

"BIR IKI ÜÇ DÖRT, BIR IKI ÜÇ DÖRT"

So one day Sophia and Lisa went to get their hair trimmed, and the stylist who cut their hair happened to speak great English. Friendship was born. We later found out that this same friend’s secondary job is teaching Latin dance class at the “American Culture Center” in Balıkesir. Thus last Friday night, we found ourselves in a small room packed with other young Turks learning to tango and salsa, tripping over our feet, and counting out the beats in Turkish.

"Öğretmenler Günü" 

 

photo credit: the instagram queen herself, Lisa Hoca.

Today (Sunday) was Teacher’s Day in Turkey, and our department organized a group meal at a nice restaurant outside the city. The menu was fixed and included: ayran, soup, bread, köfte (lamb meatballs), chicken, rice, salad, and dessert (höşmerim and some sort of peynirli tatlı or cheese dessert).  (Note that “nice meal” in Turkey is synonymous with meat and that french fries are served with almost everything.)