Tropical Heat Wave

According to the newspapers, a heat wave from North Africa has decending upon Turkey covering us in a cloak of burning temperatures and heat advisories. Today in Adana "pregnants, the handicapped, and the elderly" are all excused from work. While it's hard to know exactly what the temperature is, we have heard the words "50 degrees" mentioned several times. (50 Celsius = 122 Farenheit) While we don't think it has gotten quite that hot, we seem to be hovering around the 110 mark. We can't move a muscle without breaking a sweat. Until the heat wave subsides, we will be hunkering down and running the A/C full blast.

Lost in Translation

We feel that due to the humor we often create with our mispronounciations and poor grammar in Turkish, we are allowed to enjoy some of the common English mistranslations used by Turks. Since the top 5 worked well before, we'll try it again.

5. We will wait you. (We will wait for you.)

4. It comes strange to my ear. (It sounds funny.)

3. It must be. (I think so. or Yes.)

2. Horning the honk. (Honking the horn.)

1. I am thinking I want to say you this. (Let me tell you...)

You Know You are in Culture Shock When....

We have been here for almost 6 months and inevitably a little culture shock and homesickness have set in. What has been most unexpected are the results of these feelings...

You know you are homesick when:

1. You live an hour from the Mediterranean and yet long for Gulf Shores.

2. You can no longer tell the difference between a lamb-burger and a hamburger :)

3. You start to think this swimsuit look might not be so bad...

4. You start craving Kebab over Fajitas!

5. You start to sing All-American favorites (You're a Grand Ole Flag, This Land is Your Land and the all time favorite - I'm Proud to be an American) to pass the time.

Going to the chapel....

Well Jared and I went to our first Turkish wedding tonight. My friend Esra got married tonight in what was very similar to a scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, seriously! Jared and I definitely stood out as the only foreigners at the party. Everyone wanted to know what we were doing there. We were told the wedding was at eight. We arrived promptly at 7:56 but kept driving around as we realized we were a bit on the early side. We finally went in a little after 8 only to realize that the bride and groom were not going to show up for at least an hour. Truly they did not show up until after 9 pm. Esra's father assigned us a "guide" for the event. One of Esra's friends who is currently studying to be a doctor was assigned to be our friend. We were very glad to have her although she did not speak any English either. Several people came up to us and wanted to meet the foreigners. The bride and groom arrived in fantastic fashion with fireworkes and confetti bombs inside the hall! They made a tour around the room nodding at everyone and then took their places at the front of the hall on a large stage, seated on a throne seat, underneath gold hearts and doves hanging above them. It was lovely! Everyone then went up to them to greet them and give them their gift of a gold piece of jewelry. We bought a small gold coin and then pinned it on her wedding dress along with everyone else. Usually Turkish weddings include a lot of dancing, however we did not dance at this wedding. Esra is very devout in her faith and did not want dancing. So we just looked at the bride and groom and that was really about all the wedding consisted of, we visited a bit longer and then made our goodbyes. Everyone was so glad that we had come and we were as well. A good time was had by all.

Sometimes you just have to laugh

In my 5 months in Turkey I've experienced several frustrations, some that I thought would make me go crazy. But I am learning that the best way to deal with these is, if at all possible, to laugh it off. The most recent experience came in the form of a check from the states. Jayme and I cancelled a credit card before we left and they owed us $45.34, so they mailed it to my parents address. My dad realizing that he was about to send us a goody bag, including the check in with it, expecting we wouldn't have any trouble cashing it here.

Having never seen a check in Turkey, I asked my stock broker buddy if I would be able to cash it. He assured me that there wouldn't be any problem. So I took it to my bank and got my other buddy, Celal, to help me cash it. However, due to the fact that Citibank was written in large letters on the top left corner, they instructed me to take it to the Citibank branch downtown and assured me they would cash it. I thought this was little odd, but since I was headed that way, I didn't question him. When I arrived at Citibank, a friendly, English-speaking lady helped me and after examining the check for a few minutes acted if she would be able to cash it. Great, I thought. However, I don't have an account at Citibank and was told that I would need to open an account there in order to cash it; but my bank should be able to cash it as well. Since it takes a couple of hours to open an account, I opted to go with door #2 and go back to my bank with this new information. I realized that my bank might have only seen the Citibank name and not my name in small print at the bottom.

Fortunately, there was a branch of my bank close to the Citibank so I walked there and asked them to cash it for me. This lead to a 10 minute "dialogue" with the teller, where he continued to instruct me that I needed to go to Citibank and I continued to tell him that I had just come from Citibank and they wouldn't take it. I also tried to explain that it didn't matter that it was from Citibank, it was made out to me. After several attempts to uneffectively communicate with each other, he went and got one of the managers. She graciously told me that they could cash it, however, I would have to go to my branch to do it. I kindly told her that I had made several transactions at her branch in the past without any problems, why was this different. I didn't get much of an answer before realizing I would have to go back where I started and see if Celal could pull through for me and get my measly $45 check cashed.

So yesterday Garrett and I headed to the bank for my last attempt at cashing the check. I told him on the way that "I had a good feeling." As I confidently stepped up to the teller, I told him that I needed to cash this check. He studied it for a few seconds and then went to the back to hopefully get permission from the bank manager. I looked at Garrett and said, "I think this is the winner." While they continued to discuss we made our way over to Celal's desk and visited with him. I told him about our frustrations with trying to get the check cashed and how I had been all over the city and back again. A few minutes later they brought the check over to Celal with the instructions for him to translate. He said, "I've got some good news. We can cash the check!" I breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that the ordeal was over. Then he says, "However, it's going to cost $40." Garrett and I literally fell out on the floor laughing.

So despite my persistence and optimism, the check is going back home with Garrett to where it will hopefully make its way to a bank that will gladly cash it. Unfortunately I don't even want the money anymore, I just want to be reassured that there are places in this world where normal things like cashing a check can be done in one trip to one bank.

Antakya

On Tuesday we went with a group of college students that are here for a few weeks to Antakya,(previously known as Antioch.) There were 22 of us in all and we obviously stuck out more than a little, but Antakya is more touristy than Adana so you don't get quite as many funny looks. The most interesting and funny thing is that we had an agenda all planned out, but we were meeting up with a husband and wife who had some connections with one of the students with us. And as is common in Turkey, they took it upon themselves to be our tour guides for the day and our plans were thrown out the window, which isn't necessarily that bad as they have all the insider info on all the good spots. First we got to see St. Peter's Church where Christians were first called Christians. And while we were there we got to do a little mountain climbing as the church is built into the side of a mountain so there is lots of exploring opportunities. From there we went to a huge (wedding reception type) restaurant. It probably seated 1000 people and we were the only ones there, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the incredible food that they continued to set in front of our faces. From there we checked out some waterfalls that ran by the restaurant and then our tour guides took us to the museum, as well as the Catholic and Orthodox churches. They were members of the Orthodox church so they laid lots of good historical info on us. We had a great time with them and they were wonderful guides and hosts. From there we stopped at Liverburger and picked up "the world's best döner" (chicken or meat in a pita wrap) for dinner and headed back home. I think a good time was had by all.

Senior Trip

My cousin Garrett just graduated high school last week and his travels brought him to Turkey for the next three weeks. He arrived on Thursday and either we have already worn him out or he is dealing with jet lag, but all he wants to do is sleep. Yesterday I took him around town and showed him a few of our favorite places as well as introducing him to public transportation and our favorite game of tavla. He is a fast learner and has already beat some of our seasoned players, myself included. This morning we went to the university and played basketball with our regular group of guys. They wanted to play national teams (Turks vs. Americans) and even though they have two former professional ballers, we took the challenge. Thanks to Garrett's contributions we were able to not only beat them, but whip them; twice. So as you can see in the pic above, he is recuperating from his LeBron-like performance. He was also gracious enough to bring us a suitcase filled with clothing items and other goodies. Thanks to all who helped in putting it together. Unfortunaly, Garrett's arrival also managed to bring about a virus that latched on to Jayme and rendered her useless for the past 24 hours. She is disappointed as hosting is one of her gifts and favorite treats and her skills have been put on hold. Thankfully she is on the mend and hopes to show off some of her cooking skills over the next few weeks.