look for me on tv.

to convey the pleasant & self-indulgent nature of most of my weekends here in ankara, here's a recap of this week's:

after finishing friday's 7 hours of teaching duties i took the bus downtown to go out with the 3 aforementioned american speaking skills instructors (also known as SSIs - abbreviations are a way of life here) from my teaching unit (TU): paul, anna, and erik - along with laura and a few other SSIs - to meet up with azra and bedra (from our TU) and a few of their friends. we met in the landmark known as BURGER KING and headed on to a bar with a texas/western theme (complete with a giant texas flag + a COVERED WAGON inside) to hear a live band playing the 80's english-language pop music that is so incredibly popular here (featuring billie jean and englishman in new york.) azra chose shots of sex on the beach as our drink which ensured a night of dancing and singing. at 1:30 laura + most others took the last bus back to bilkent while paul, azra, bedra, and i drove to another bar/club to dance to the same songs played by a different (actually, much worse) cover band but in a really cool atmosphere - there were blue christmas lights strung all over, stained glass lanterns, and outdoor space heaters hanging from trees in a shaded garden. afterwards paul and i went to bedra's apartment to eat pasta and sleep for a few hours before waking up on saturday and driving to atatürk's mausoleum for the annual remembrance of his death.

atatürk died in 1938; since then, every november 10th at 9:05 am the entire country stops for a moment of silence as deafening sirens blare. everything stops. we were actually next to a large outdoor running track/exercise playground on our way to the mausoleum when it happened and it was such an eerie scene to see all the runners standing erect and motionless as only tree branches rustled near my face. cars stop (although some blare on their horns the whole time to enhance the effect of the sirens, i guess) and time freezes. it was an incredible minute.

afterwards the three of us walked to the cafe-ish middle-class neighborhood of bahçelievler to drink turkish coffee and buy some produce; the sun filtered through the trees and buildings in the beautiful, relaxing way only saturday-morning-sun can. paul and i took the bus home where i relaxed in my room for only an hour or two before laura invited me to the lower-class & more religious neighborhood of ulus for my first-ever trip to a hamam.

inside, we were instructed to undress and wash ourselves off in a steamy white marble room while naked women of all shapes and sizes did the same, older women sang, and a purple sunset hovered over the star-of-david-shaped skylights in the domed ceiling. after a bit a large kindly woman beckoned me to lay down for an intense scrubbing massage where layers of black dirt i didn't even know existed peeled off on large quantities. she then dumped buckets of warm water all over me and completely soaped me up. i rinsed off as laura went through the same process; afterwards we were totally pink-skinned, clean, and relaxed.

we walked from ulus to a nearby metro station to get back to bahçelievler for some silly fun on these ubiquitous outdoor exercise machines in a park, went to a restaurant for amazing pide, kebabs, and ayran while goofing around with two rambunctious little boys, and took a cab to a bilkent bus stop. unfortunately it started RAINING & we were forced to take cover in a nearby sweet shop & subsequently buy some fancy chocolate. our plan to watch a movie in my apartment was quickly foiled after we had to run for 20 minutes through the rain & i promptly fell asleep - exhausted - at 11pm.

this afternoon i went for coffee with my friend michelle and attended a ceremony awarding shimon peres with an honorary doctorate from bilkent university. although i would have gone anyway, bilkent - perhaps fearing low attendance? - required all BUSEL teachers to attend. he was an eloquent, charismatic speaker & answered the expected questions re: the wall separating israel and palestine, his views on iran (or, rather, his views on mahmous ahmadinejad, since peres was quick to separate the president from the iranian people), the connection between israel and the US in regard to their middle east involvement, etc, in a somewhat evasive yet wise-grandfather-like-way. afterwards i was interviewed by either the turkish or israeli news (not sure which, although most bystanders claimed to see israeli on the video camera) whose eyes lit up when i said i was from the united states. it was actually pretty stressful since it was obvious they were asking me purposefully provocative questions like "no one here is wearing head scarves. is turkey a muslim country or what?" and "what do you think of the claim that the US and israel are involved in a conspiracy together?" and "why do you think most turkish students are against america and israel?" i tried to be as honest as possible, but after working at npr where selecting seconds of clips is key, it was hard to be candid knowing any given phrase could be chopped out and spread across national television.

i just finished eating michelle's eggplant parmigiana & now i'm planning to read for the rest of the night. this week is our last week with our first set of students - next week they'll find out if they pass on to upper-intermediate or will stay to repeat intermediate. apparently repeating is more common than it should be, which for me isn't totally bad - i love my students!