Sanliurfa: A Family Visit to the Prophet's City

This past weekend we took a quick weekend family trip down to the Southeastern part of Turkey not far from the Syrian border.  For the past few years I had been hearing so much about this exotic place and it was on our list of cities to visit while we are in Turkey. We were not disappointed.

As described on the Internet: Şanlıurfa is also called "The Prophets' City".   Abraham, who is known well by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, was born in the city. The cave in which he was born, the hill from where he was thrown down into the fire, and Lake Aynzeliha and Lake Halil-ürrahman which are believed to be the spot where Abraham fell when he was castled into the fire, are visited by believers of the three religions.  This also reported to be the place where the Prophet Job was healed.

From the moment we landed at the airport we knew we were in a part of Turkey that was not like anything we had never seen before.  We were in the land of what in history is known as the Fertile Crescent.
The hotel we stayed at El Ruha was really nice and overlooked the castle and "Balikigol" fish lake.  What was really cool about it was that they had a swimming pool that was in a cave and a hamam (turkish bath).  The people at the hamam were very nice and since we were the only ones there they let us have a hamam family style. I call it a hamam lite experience. At first he boys were scared but then they started to really like the bubbles :-)

For me one of the best parts of Urfa was the hospitality and the people.  Practically no one spoke English which meant I had to speak Turkish.  Within five minutes of arriving at the hotel I threw away all of my fears about being grammatically correct. The Turks loved it. In fact most people thought I was a Turk and that Tom and the boys were yabancis (foreigners).  Of course I stood out amongst all the other women in the city. I was the only one with short hair, wearing pants and not headscarved.  I actually thought the way i dressed would help me blend in but not in this part of Turkey.

We had a lot of fun walking through the ancient streets and especially the bazaar. As we were walking we were attracted to one of the spice stalls. The owners invited us in for cay (tea) and of course it would have been rude to say no so we sat down for a few moments and chatted. I figured that since they were so nice to us we better at least buy something small.  Slowly they were convincing us to buy almost one kilo's worth of hot spices.  I asked them how much (holding my breath expecting them to say some really high amount) but they said it was free and a thank you or taking the ime to chat with them.  We love the spice guys! If anyone needs hot pepper spice I have a ton of it!
 Pictured here: Cay, bottle and iced tea with the spice guys.

As we walked through the historic area I was really suprised by the amount of street children that seemed to be loitering around the park. Most were harmless. We witnessed one or two being chased away by shopkeepers for stealing..but most of all they were harmless. If anything we were the novelty and they all loved coming up to us and saying "hello.how you?"

For Brandon and Tyler their favorite part of the trip was feeding the fish in the lake.

That night we went to a "Sira night" where they played local Turkish music. It was a warm night with a beautiful breeze and we enjoyed lounging "low" and listening to the music.

On Sunday we took a day trip approximately 50km outside of Urfa to Harran.  Harran is said to be home to the oldest and first university in the world. Here is a picture of it.
As we approached the excavation site a group of local children approached us.  They spoke a little bit of English and one little boy said to us that for one lira he would explain the site to us.  I was skeptical and shooed him away. Feeling guilty, I told Tom to call him back and give him one lira to explain the site to us.  Tom gave him a lira and guess what? He said "bye" and ran off with the money.  Ok lesson learned.. don't give in to street kids. 

To complete our morning in Harran along with visiting their own castle,  we went to their very unique and historic homes in the shape of beehives. The houses were absolutely amazing. Being in Harran you really felt lost in time. We were convinced that these people were living the real simple life and had no idea about the social media world we live in. Maybe that is actually a good thing?

As you can see we had a little too much fun getting into the local dress.

Our trip to Sanliurfa and Harran was so much fun. We highly recommend you take the time and visit it!

Celebrating the 25th University Olympics in Erzurum

Brrr. last week I went to Erzurum for the 25 Winter Olympics Universiade. The Universiade is the university olympic version of the real olympics. It is held every four years and this year more then 100 athletes from the US and over 55 countries were represented.  I was supposed to accompany the Ambassador on the visit to Erzurum but at the last minute he couldn't attend because he had not officially presented his credentials to the President of Turkey and therefore could not attend such a big official event.  So off we went, me and colleague to be the face of the US Embassy. 


Erzurum is known for it's harsh winters and it was definetly cold. Now for a little bit of history:Excavations in and around the city indicate that the area has been inhabited since 4000 BC. After the Byzantines lost the city, it became the capital of eastern Anatolia under the Seljuks in the 12^th century.   Among its most famous historical sites are the Double Minaret Medrese (or Cifte Minare Medrese) dating back to the 13^th century and the Yakutiye Medrese, which was built in the 14^th century and served as a theological school in the Ottoman period.  There is also a castle, built in the 5^th century by the Byzantines.  The city’s present-day population is approximately 775,000.  It’s a popular tourist destination for skiing, which is possible until mid-April on Palandoken Mountain, on the edge of the city.  The mountain has one of the longest natural ski slopes in the world. And just in case you missed it, Erzurum was listed in the NY times as #17 in the top 20 places to go around the world this year.


I kept calling this the on again off again trip because we seriously must have changed our flight schedule a dozen times.  What is quite amazing to me is the fact that no matter how cold or icy, Turkish airlines can land in just about everything.  When we arrived on Wednesday night... 30 minutes later we were met by our rented driver who turned out to be not the sharpest tool in the shed.  His car smelled of smoke and for someone living in Erzurum he had aboslutely no idea where he was going.


Case in point.. thursday morning when we asked him to take us to the Ice Arena he couldn't even find it. So much for knowing where you live especially during one of the most important weeks in your city.  Despite all of the decorations for the olympics, I found Erzurum to be quite bland and it definetly had that "wow I really am a city in the middle of no where."


We started out the day by going to see the US Women's Hockey Team play against Slovakia.  It was great to meet the parents of the athletes and we took two of our English Teaching Assistants along to the event.  Unfortunately the women lost..but it was still fun to see.


Then we went to lunch with the English Teaching Assistants to Erzurum Evleri one of the oldest and most probably the nicest looking restaurants in Erzurum.  It was set up like a caravansaray and you ate on the floor.  We got there at 12pm and there was a menu on the table but everytime we went to order something the waiter would say "no we don't have that".  Seriosuly people with thousands of tourists you can't actually put out a menu that actually had things on it you could make?
But in the end we ended up having really good soup  (kesme asi ersite) and an amazing dessert (kadayif dolmasi) specially made in Erzurum. Later in the afternoon we went to see our American Corner at the University and then got ready for the opening ceremony.
Even though we asked our driver what time we should leave to make it to the opening ceremony he couldnt get us there in time and dropped us off far away. We were supposed to greet the entire American Delegation before they entered the arena but it was a mess. We were told to go to the hockey rink but then they said to go to opening ceremony arena and then back again to the hockey rink.  Talk about poor organization.  We were running around in snow and cold and i really thought my butt was going to fall off it was so frozen (but I guess that wouldn't have necessarily been a bad thing!).
We got to the opening ceremony just as people were entering the stadium by country... luckily we had special passes for the VIP area but by the time we got there someone took our seats... would you believe that average turks were able to "buy" protocol seats?!!!
So we ended up sitting next to the minister of education and first lady of turkey's bodyguards.  It wasn't until the President and Prime Minister got up to speak that I realized they were three rows in front of us... duh that explains the big man in the black coat with ear piece and big bag standing next to us.
Finally the best part of the opening started. The show produced by a famous choreagrapher here in turkey.  It was amazing and even included horses racing on ice and shotting fire into a huge torch in the middle with hundreds of dancers.  It was a sight to be seen.

Right before the show ended we got our way over to the American athletes and wished them luck.  It was a fun and adventurous time!

 Outside the ski slopes with my team USA gear compliments of the US Delegation.

A Visit with the Marines to LOSEV

As everyone knows, during the holiday season the Marines collect toys for the "Toys for Tots" program.  The Marines at our Embassies throughout the world continue this project and the toys are donated to the countries we serve.  Yesterday we took the Marines to LOSEV "Leukemia House"  It is a place where children treated with leukemia are treated free of charge.  All of their equipment and money for treatment is donated and they serve the poorest of the poor in Turkey.  On the positive side 91 percent of the children who go there are cured from Leukemia.  Having the chance to meet these kids and the doctors was very rewarding.  It makes you appreciate how precious life is. It broke my heart seeing kids the same age as Brandon and Tyler who were struggling with the disease. It is not something you would wish on your worse enemy.  It was so great and rewarding to see the smile on their faces when they received new toys.  It was an opportunity to also show Turks the "human side" of our marines and the humanitarian efforts that they do.  Yesterday made me realize once again how lucky i am.  I wish all of them "gecmis olsun" get well soon.

Promises Promises

Ok well does it count that I did my first posting on November 15th and said I was going to update regularly? Well alas it is January 3 and I haven't kept my promise. Many people have told me that they are disappointed that I haven't kept an online journal like I did in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Poland. What can I say? With two kids life has become increasingly busy and by the time I finish up with working and taking the care of the kids I am too exhausted to write. Its not like I haven't been thinking about how I need really get cracking on fulling writing about our experiences.  I can't capture the full story on facebook right? So I am going to double promise to blog some more this year so if you want you can follow all of the adventures of our family.

So what will 2011 bring? Really not sure yet but we have lots of plans to see Turkey.  Work has gotten increasingly busy and the next few months I will be traveling a lot which will make for some hopefully very entertaining stories.

One of my best trips so far was last month when I went to Trabzon with a visiting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State to look at one of our youth programs.  Each year in a select group of countries, the State Department sends high school students to study in the host country and learn the language. The goal is to teach kids hard languages like Russian, Turkish, Tajik, Arabic, etc. We have kids studying in Trabzon and Samsun.  I was amazed at how great these kids were doing.  In three months they could speak Turkish better then I can after 10 months of Turkish! They are living with host families and attending high school classes completely in Turkish.  I wish such a program existed when I was in high school. 

Yummy hazelnuts!

 Vice Mayor and me with Silver shoes :-)

 Cay field in Rize outside of Trabzon

As with any visit we of course did all of our "protocol" meetings including meetings with the Governor and Mayor of Trabzon.  We received gifts of hazelnuts, cay (tea) and for me I received silver shoes from the Vice Mayor.  I also gave a presentation at Karazeniz Technical University.


What probably was the best experience was the dinner hosted by one of the father's who owns 5 restaurants in Trabzon.  We got a true taste of black sea hospitality.  The food was absolutely amazing..unfortunately I think our experience shocked our guests from washington.
Half way through the dinner they brought out hamsi..a traditional dish from the region. The city is obessed with hamsi and even have a festival in their honor plus statues...

Basically it is anchovies either grilled or fried in batter (they chose to serve us the grilled). When the dishes came out I was a little worried.. i don't like anchovies but i was also smiling because I reminisced about my grandpa who used to eat pizza with no cheese and just anchovies on top.  The various host parents proceeded to show us the proper way to eat hamsi.  They would just rip the little fishes apart and hold it up and drop it into their mouth like it was a worm.  One father even proceeded to feed it by hand into our washington visitor's mouth she graciously decided not to open her mouth.  I on the other hand just smiled and swallowed :-)

Tales from Turkey Part 1

Hello everyone and welcome to our blog about our travels in Turkey. As many of you know this August we moved to Ankara Turkey.  I am currently serving at the US Embassy as the Deputy Cultural Attache (Public Diplomacy Officer). 
We haven't been sending emails since our time in Poland and we decided that this time around we would start a blog so we can post pictures more easily and update our adventures more quickly. I realize I am about 3 months behind in telling you about our adventures but my hope is that over the next few weeks and in the future we can share some of our great experiences.
In September we took our first trip outside of Ankara to Capadoccia which was absolutely beautiful. We hiked a lot, stayed in a cave hotel and Brandon even got to ride a camel.  As a family we also traveled to Istanbul.  For work I have already been to Izmir, Istanbul, and Alanya.

This past week Tom and myself on seperate occasions had our first Hamam (Turkish bath experience).  This week Turkey is celebrating Kurban Bayrami (Sacrifice Holiday) and we will be going to Antalya for the time we have off.