The Lull

It has arrived. I have established a fairly consistent routine that involves waking up at 6:30 a.m. to get ready for school, busing to Bursa (an hour's ride) while listening to my iPod or reviewing vocab (more often the former than the latter), sitting in class for six-odd hours, perusing the mall across the street, then busing home.

I will point out one delightful caveat of life in Turkiye that I hadn't expected - breaks. Lots of them. Every hour, on the dot, we take a 10-20 minute break from class. One might think this would irk the teacher, who would rather we full steam ahead and learn as much as possible, but my öğretmen is out the door faster than any of the öğrengilar are. Clearly, the Turks cherish their down-time. I've grown very accustomed to these breaks, and even though I now only do classwork in small spurts, I get an insatiable itch for çay every 40-50 minutes.

OK, breaks during class. That's not so unusual, right? I mean, we're cramming a year's worth of language learning into our brains in less than two months, we don't want to overload and blow a circuit or something. My real shock came when I attended my first movie in Turkey. It was a film in Turkish, which means that the entirety of the plot (to my understanding) was about a number of people introducing themselves to other people (because introductions are all I can confidently understand right now...hello, how are you? nice to meet you!). About an hour into the film, the reel stopped suddenly and the lights came up. My instinct was that the projector broke. My instinct was, as has so often happened in this country, very wrong.

"Intermission," someone behind me said. Intermission? This film isn't even two hours long! And so I stood up, stretched, went pee, and to my surprise felt reinvigorated and ready for another bout of movie watching once intermission was over. I shall add film intermissions to the list of things Turkey has taught me I need that I didn't know I needed before. (Currently on the list, three cups of çay a day, rice pudding, clothes shopping.) It is both a pleasure and a source of bewilderment to see just how good the Turks are at being laid back. The familiar clink clinkity clink of teacups fills the air, small-framed men with trays of eight or nine teacups dangling from their hands sprint across the streets, paying no attention at all to the traffic that I am now convinced will eventually kill me. I don't know where these men with tea trays are coming from, or where they're going, but I know they're delivering tea and that's very important.

As I drag myself up the six flights of stairs from my classroom floor to the roof of the building, each person I pass politely says Merhaba, and asks, Nasilsin? I answer with a wide grin, because it's one of the few things I really know the answer to: İyiyim! Sen nasilsin? They mutter the requisite Ben de iyiyim as they pass me on the stairs. I may not look Turkish, I may not SOUND Turkish, but damnit at least I can convey the notion that I am, indeed, good, and ask how you are in return. What more do you really need?

Üç tane çay, lütfen, my Turkish-speaking American friend Matthew says once or twice a day, ordering teas on behalf of himself, Abby, and me. I'm still hesitant about speaking Turkish out loud to strangers (which is exactly the wrong attitude I'm supposed to have about it) and today Matthew threatened to make me order my own tea soon. He'd do it, too. I may not have the confidence to order myself tea at a strange restaurant, but I do have the confidence to convey a number of other equally important sentiments, including but not limited to: I'm hungry, I'm full, I want to watch TV, and I want some watermelon, please.

I also have tanned arms. Ostensibly an uninteresting tidbit of information, but those of you who know me know what an accomplishment this is. I currently have an abundance of freckles on my arms like a field of çiçekler on a güzel ılkbahar day. Now if only I could tan my legs...

Please enjoy my photos from Bursa and surrounding areas, via facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2299710&id=17204221&l=ede0bdf82c

We spend our breaks on the roof of TÖMER, enjoying a view of the city.

These two lovely people have the honor of my frequent company. Matthew happily (perhaps not happily, maybe begrudgingly) translates Turkish for Abby and me. It's why we keep him around. That, and his dapper fashion sense. Abby is eating one of four hundred and ninety seven thousand berries we consumed between the three of us that day - Cumalıkazık has such amazing fruit it should be illegal.