Today my friends here in Turkey are celebrating Mevlid Kandili. Here is some info on this holiday:
The story of Kandil
The five holy evenings on the Muslim calendar are called Kandil.
During the Ottoman Empire Sultan Selim II of 16th century lit candles
on the minarets of the mosques in order to announce these holy nights
to the public. Since this calendar is calculated with the revolution
of the moon around the earth the dates of the Kandils differ every
year.
Mevlid Kandili - The birth of Prophet Mohammad (March 19, 2008)
Regaip Kandili - The beginning of the pregnancy of Prophet Mohammad's
mother (July 3, 2008)
Miraç Kandili - Prophet Mohammad's rising to sky (July 29, 2008)
Berat Kandili - The forgiveness of the sins (August 16, 2008)
Kadir Gecesi - The Koran's first appearance to Prophet Mohammad
(September 26, 2008)
These nights Muslims usually worship and sing Mevlit, a poem written
for the birth of Prophet Mohammad. Kandils were holy days when young
members visited the older members of the family, however today the
Kandil greetings are made with phone calls. Some restaurants serving
alcoholic beverages may be closed at Kandils. Most of the pastry shops
and bakery sell Kandil Simidi (special small crispy bread ring strewn
with or without sesame seeds). In some apartments the neighbors hand
out helva (a special Turkish dessert made of semolina or flour) or
lokma tatlısı (again a special Turkish dessert made of fried dough
with syrup).
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Chicken, Sheep, and M&M's
As I've said before, transporting around the city is never dull here. Today was definitely no exception. I was hanging out in a district of the city that is pretty far away from where I live, so I decided rather than taking a slow bus, I would take a dolmus(dole-moosh): shared taxi, home. Although getting home fast was my desired intent, I soon regretted that desire.
As we sped around curves, jerking this way and then the other, we came to a 4 lane, busy city street. The traffic was backed up pretty bad, so our driver decided he would just use the lane of the oncoming traffic. No big deal, till there was oncoming traffic! After coming to a complete stop while staring down a taxi in a lively game of chicken, we finally nosed our way back into our lane. One would think this would be enough to keep one's dolmus in the proper lane. Wrong. After waiting impatiently for a whole 5 seconds, the driver darted back into the oncoming traffic only to get stuck there at a red light. This is when the very friendly motorbike policeman turned on his siren, shouted something that NO ONE could understand over a loud speaker, and then proceeded to calmly ask the driver to please not do that again. Tamam, the driver said, or ok! Ouch, that was quite a slap on the wrist. Let it be noted that by this time, I'm laughing hysterically on the inside, trying desperately not to make noise as the other passengers probably wouldn't find it quite as humorous as I did.
Moving down the road, we make it to the interstate highway, or I guess you could call it the intercontinent highway here since we would take it across the Bosphorous from Asia to Europe. Anyway, it's a major 6 lane freeway that we were traveling quite freely on. We weren't driving so fast, though, that I didn't have time to do a double-take when I saw a shepherd and his 50 sheep grazing on the side of the highway!
As I continue to giggle to myself, thinking, wow, this has been quite the road trip, we crossed the bridge to my side of the city and prepared to take the first exit. Only, when we came to the exit, there were at least 6 cars coming toward us in reverse! This actually got 1 Turkish passenger to exlaim an "Allah, Allah" under his breath. Roughly translated to "Holy buckets, I don't believe this!!" :-)
At last I made it to my stop and decided I needed a Pepsi Light and a snack to recover from my trip. This is when God blessed me with finding a snack size bag of Peanut M&M's...a perfect, surprise ending to a very surprising trip.
As we sped around curves, jerking this way and then the other, we came to a 4 lane, busy city street. The traffic was backed up pretty bad, so our driver decided he would just use the lane of the oncoming traffic. No big deal, till there was oncoming traffic! After coming to a complete stop while staring down a taxi in a lively game of chicken, we finally nosed our way back into our lane. One would think this would be enough to keep one's dolmus in the proper lane. Wrong. After waiting impatiently for a whole 5 seconds, the driver darted back into the oncoming traffic only to get stuck there at a red light. This is when the very friendly motorbike policeman turned on his siren, shouted something that NO ONE could understand over a loud speaker, and then proceeded to calmly ask the driver to please not do that again. Tamam, the driver said, or ok! Ouch, that was quite a slap on the wrist. Let it be noted that by this time, I'm laughing hysterically on the inside, trying desperately not to make noise as the other passengers probably wouldn't find it quite as humorous as I did.
Moving down the road, we make it to the interstate highway, or I guess you could call it the intercontinent highway here since we would take it across the Bosphorous from Asia to Europe. Anyway, it's a major 6 lane freeway that we were traveling quite freely on. We weren't driving so fast, though, that I didn't have time to do a double-take when I saw a shepherd and his 50 sheep grazing on the side of the highway!
As I continue to giggle to myself, thinking, wow, this has been quite the road trip, we crossed the bridge to my side of the city and prepared to take the first exit. Only, when we came to the exit, there were at least 6 cars coming toward us in reverse! This actually got 1 Turkish passenger to exlaim an "Allah, Allah" under his breath. Roughly translated to "Holy buckets, I don't believe this!!" :-)
At last I made it to my stop and decided I needed a Pepsi Light and a snack to recover from my trip. This is when God blessed me with finding a snack size bag of Peanut M&M's...a perfect, surprise ending to a very surprising trip.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
My Favorite Turkish Man...
the POSTMAN!!! The one who delivers the mail in my neighborhood is great. So far he's brought me every single package my wonderful mother has sent me!! That's not always the case here. Here are some pictures from the fun package that came today. Happy early St. Patrick's Day! and THANKS MOM!!
the package and all it's glory! By the way, the card that my MOM sent me played the song, "Whoop, There it Is". haha! Classic! She certainly has eclectic taste in music. The Easter card she sent me played Chris Tomlin's "Indescribeable" Love it!
Dr. Pepper Soda POPS!! Brilliant! Definitely my Lucky Day.
The Peeps were slightly decapitated...but still, umm, fun. Who really eats Peeps for the taste anyway?
the package and all it's glory! By the way, the card that my MOM sent me played the song, "Whoop, There it Is". haha! Classic! She certainly has eclectic taste in music. The Easter card she sent me played Chris Tomlin's "Indescribeable" Love it!
Dr. Pepper Soda POPS!! Brilliant! Definitely my Lucky Day.The Peeps were slightly decapitated...but still, umm, fun. Who really eats Peeps for the taste anyway?
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Such a mix
Today I was walking around a neighborhood here in the city looking for an apartment to rent. While my friend and I were marveling at the giant skyscrapers that surround this particular neighborhood, we had to jump out of the way of a tractor pulling a cart of potatoes for sale. I'll say it again...in the middle of this incredibly giant, metropolitan city, we were nearly run over by a John Deere tractor selling potatoes. Ok, it might not have been a John Deere, but it was straight off the farm in Texas. And that reminded me that it's also not highly unusual to see carts being pulled by mules, either. Just put it on the list of possible modes of transportation: taxi, car, train, metro, tram, slow boat, fast boat, short boat, trolley, minibus, regular bus, and oh yeah, tractor or mule.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sites on my walk home from class
If you click on the last picture and look really closely, you'll notice lettuce bigger than they guy's head!
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Turkish breakfast
Mmm...black olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, honey, jam, bread, helva (no idea what it is, but it's good!), cheese, and cay.
More slumber party pics
After dessert we had Turkish cay and even did Turkish breakfast around 11:30 the next morning. :-)
Slumber Party
Here are some fun pics from our slumber party a couple of weeks ago. It was such a fun night, reminiscent of junior high days! One of the highlights was making a very special Turkish dessert. One of the girls who came is from Hatay, which is a city here known for this particular dessert, called Kunefe. It's shredded wheat with a special cheese in the middle drowned in syrup. Sounds weird, but it's delicious!! While we were making it, one of the girls and I were supposed to be shredding the homemade cheese and then melting the homemade butter. Well, a kilo of shredded "something" later, we realized that we had just shred the butter instead and had already sprinkled it all over the dessert. It made for a hysterical moment, especially at about 10 o'clock at night with 10 other girls crammed in the small kitchen. Oh well, we all decided an extra kilo of butter could only make it better! :-)
Monday, February 18, 2008
SNOW DAYS
mexican food.dumb and dumber.snowball fight.boston cream pie.pancakes and BACON.peppermint cookies.nap. Mmmm!
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Lessons Learned
So I think I finally reached the outcome of my Dr. Pepper shower in the airport last month. Last weekend my hard drive suddenly disappeared. And, all I could figure out was that the Dr. Pepper had finally wreaked its havoc. Of course, who knows, it might have died anyway, but I'm going to blame it on the Dr. Pepper! :-)
Thankfully there is an Apple service store here in the city. It took me 2 hours of walking around in a giant circle to actually find the store, but it's here, and it honors my warranty! So, after 4 trips to the "teknik servis", and after immense frustration as I tried to communicate computer language in Turkish, the ole' Macbook is working again. It was frustrating because I don't speak computer language in English much less Turkish! Yikes! And the really weird thing was that if I called the shop on the phone, there was an English speaker. But when I was actually in the store, no one spoke English. Now that it's all behind me, though, I guess I could say it was actually an encouraging thing to know that with courage only from God, I was able to work through something really hard and get the results I needed...a fixed computer.
One really good lesson in all of this was the reminder that the grass is not always greener in America. Sometimes I find myself comparing things here to the way things are back home, and when I'm really having a pity party day I tend to think everything in America is better. But, in this case, there was an Apple repair store within 30 minutes of my house. Back home, there isn't one single Apple store in the whole state of Arkansas! :-)
The best lesson I learned, though, was to remember that my joy comes from God, not my circumstances. If I keep my gaze on Him, no matter how frustrating life can be, my joy is eternal. Easier said than done, but completely possible with the Him.
Thankfully there is an Apple service store here in the city. It took me 2 hours of walking around in a giant circle to actually find the store, but it's here, and it honors my warranty! So, after 4 trips to the "teknik servis", and after immense frustration as I tried to communicate computer language in Turkish, the ole' Macbook is working again. It was frustrating because I don't speak computer language in English much less Turkish! Yikes! And the really weird thing was that if I called the shop on the phone, there was an English speaker. But when I was actually in the store, no one spoke English. Now that it's all behind me, though, I guess I could say it was actually an encouraging thing to know that with courage only from God, I was able to work through something really hard and get the results I needed...a fixed computer.
One really good lesson in all of this was the reminder that the grass is not always greener in America. Sometimes I find myself comparing things here to the way things are back home, and when I'm really having a pity party day I tend to think everything in America is better. But, in this case, there was an Apple repair store within 30 minutes of my house. Back home, there isn't one single Apple store in the whole state of Arkansas! :-)
The best lesson I learned, though, was to remember that my joy comes from God, not my circumstances. If I keep my gaze on Him, no matter how frustrating life can be, my joy is eternal. Easier said than done, but completely possible with the Him.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
A Turkish trip to Sonic
Although some of you may not fully understand the glories of Sonic, many of you absolutely get it. Most of my life a daily or almost daily trip to the Sonic for a cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper or Slush or Cherry Limeade or some other flavorful soda was a foundational part of my friendships. So over here Sonic is one of my American treats that I miss. However, it has occurred to me that the local cay (chai=tea) house is my Turkish Sonic. Most days are not complete without visiting with a friend over several glasses of cay. Here are a couple of pictures of the typical glass of tea and the oh so comfy table it is shared on.
City Travel
One of the beauties of this city is the many modes of transportation available. Of course, to the inexperienced traveler this could also be a not so beautiful part of the city. And, there are also those days when just the prospect of having to take more than 3 types of transportation is enough to keep you locked in the house longing for a one red light town. Last week I needed to travel from the Europe side of Istanbul, where I live, to the Asian side of Istanbul, where my friend works. To get to her I had a 10 minute walk to the bus stop, a bus, a boat, and then a trolley if I wanted to be lazy and not walk to the top of the hill. I thought it would be fun to sit on the outside of the boat so I could take better pictures. I was able to get some pictures. But I froze in the process. So, when I got to the trolley option, I opted to walk so that I might regain the feeling in my legs and feet. So, here are some pictures of my frozen boat ride. It took about 15 minutes to cross the Bosphorous.
Monday, January 21, 2008
The nitty gritty of city life
I was looking back over my blog for the past few weeks, and I realized I tend to write about the good and fun things. Although I guess the airport story wasn't all that good and fun. Well, at any rate, I want to be sure I paint a fair picture of this exciting life the Lord is leading me through. :-)
Nikki, you'll appreciate this, and I'm even going to steal your vocab. So, last week I was meeting a group of friends to go to a museum here in the city. We had just eaten lunch and were headed to the museum when one of my DAILY fears was realized. A sky rat bomb hit the bull's eye. In laymen's terms...a nasty, disgusting pigeon pooped right on my head!! This city is FILLED with sky rats. EVERYWHERE. And people feed the dirty rodent's with wings! They say it's good luck to be pooped on. Who is THEY! And my answer to THEY is that sure it's good luck, you're luck can't get much worse once you get bombed!
Nikki, you'll appreciate this, and I'm even going to steal your vocab. So, last week I was meeting a group of friends to go to a museum here in the city. We had just eaten lunch and were headed to the museum when one of my DAILY fears was realized. A sky rat bomb hit the bull's eye. In laymen's terms...a nasty, disgusting pigeon pooped right on my head!! This city is FILLED with sky rats. EVERYWHERE. And people feed the dirty rodent's with wings! They say it's good luck to be pooped on. Who is THEY! And my answer to THEY is that sure it's good luck, you're luck can't get much worse once you get bombed!
Soft Towels!!
Today was a great day. The whole 2 1/2 years that I lived here before, I never had a dryer. So, crusty towels and crisp jeans were just a part of life. BUT today thanks to my great friends, Billy and Liz, I was able to bring home my first dryer in the 'bul! Actually, it's the first dryer I've ever owned. Guess I'm growin up, kids. :-) Now, does anyone know where I can get dryer sheets in Istanbul?
Friday, January 18, 2008
Pictures coming later
I've taken lots of great photos this week! Unfortunately I'm not being able to upload them to the blog for some reason. Hopefully this will be resolved soon.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Travel Tales #1
Picture this:
A 2 lane highway merging with a 4 lane highway
5:00 rush hour
City of 12 - 16 million people, depending on who you talk to
Now picture this:
A city bus traveling down the 4 lane highway starts to exit but decides it is going the wrong way. So it stops, BACKS UP and merges with the other 6 lanes of traffic
No one honks or even seems bothered by this
Picture ME watching from a nearby bus stop, laughing out loud, wishing I had a camera
A 2 lane highway merging with a 4 lane highway
5:00 rush hour
City of 12 - 16 million people, depending on who you talk to
Now picture this:
A city bus traveling down the 4 lane highway starts to exit but decides it is going the wrong way. So it stops, BACKS UP and merges with the other 6 lanes of traffic
No one honks or even seems bothered by this
Picture ME watching from a nearby bus stop, laughing out loud, wishing I had a camera
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The cure for Dr. Pepper
I hoped to have "fun" airport stories, and, wow, do I ever have a "fun" story. So, I knew things were going to be interesting when my very first flight was delayed 3 hours. This set off a chain reaction that sent me to a whole different country on the way over here. But, you know, that's fairly normal for airlines these days, so I was ok with that. Having a longer wait in the Little Rock airport now, I decided to sit and watch the Giants game while enjoying my last Dr. Pepper for a while. Mmm, happiness, right??
So I sit down and get cozy with my laptop, ready to send out a few last minute emails to pass the time. Grab my Dr. Pepper, twist the cap and get sprayed from head to toe. Seriously, it felt like the whole terminal had a Dr. Pepper shower. I didn't know the bottle could hold that much Dr. Pepper and spray with such force! I wasn't excited about being showered with Dr. Pepper to begin my 24 hour trip, but I could deal with that. It was the Dr. Pepper that was soaking into the keyboard of my Mac that I was less than thrilled about. In fact, the emotions of just having said goodbye to my family, learning that my flight was drastically changed, and having paid twice what I was once told for my excess luggage began to shower over me much like my Dr. Pepper had just done. The poor guy sitting next to me...when he jokingly said "wow, you can't catch a break today, huh", had a look of terror on his face as I crumpled in my Dr. Pepper pool in response to his comment. Ok, ok, so I get everything cleaned up, and so far the computer is working fine, just a little sticky...I can do this.
About an hour goes by and I'm much more composed and decide, hey, I still haven't had any of my Dr. Pepper, because amazingly there was still some left after the explosion early. So, I twist the cap again, and Dr. Pepper fountain all over again. Yes, again! Same bottle. This time my computer was safely tucked away, but my clothes were not as lucky. This time there were no tears only laughter and disbelief. The guy from the first shower was still sitting near me, only not right beside me anymore, and I had to think he thought I was the biggest moron in the world! OH well. By now I was litterally soaked with Dr. Pepper and because of restrictions on the size and number of my carry on bag, I had nothing to change into. I considered buying a souvenir sweatshirt from the airport shop, but just couldn't bring myself to pay $50 for a shirt that said Little Rock in huge letters across the front. So I head to the bathroom and stand awkwardly near the hand dryer to try and dry some of the giant wet spots.
Moral of the story...an addiction will always bite you on the rear at some point! The good news, though, is that I don't think I'll be missing Dr. Pepper quite as much now.
The day continued with gum on my shoe at one point, a seat on the 46th row in the very middle of my overseas flight, the speaker for the call bell on the plane directly over my seat (yes, that means that every time anyone on the entire plane called for an attendent the *ding* rang out over my seat), bathrooms on either side of my row on the plane, a screaming 5 year old behind me for 8 hours, and to top it off not one piece of my 5 pieces of luggage arrived in Istanbul with me. My prayer life definitely grew on this trip. And, I can joyfully say that all of my luggage was delivered to my doorstep by 6 the morning after I arrived. In fact, it was as I was sitting in the living room praying about my attitude over lost luggage that the doorbell rang to deliver all the pieces!!
So, fun stories from the airport! :-)
So I sit down and get cozy with my laptop, ready to send out a few last minute emails to pass the time. Grab my Dr. Pepper, twist the cap and get sprayed from head to toe. Seriously, it felt like the whole terminal had a Dr. Pepper shower. I didn't know the bottle could hold that much Dr. Pepper and spray with such force! I wasn't excited about being showered with Dr. Pepper to begin my 24 hour trip, but I could deal with that. It was the Dr. Pepper that was soaking into the keyboard of my Mac that I was less than thrilled about. In fact, the emotions of just having said goodbye to my family, learning that my flight was drastically changed, and having paid twice what I was once told for my excess luggage began to shower over me much like my Dr. Pepper had just done. The poor guy sitting next to me...when he jokingly said "wow, you can't catch a break today, huh", had a look of terror on his face as I crumpled in my Dr. Pepper pool in response to his comment. Ok, ok, so I get everything cleaned up, and so far the computer is working fine, just a little sticky...I can do this.
About an hour goes by and I'm much more composed and decide, hey, I still haven't had any of my Dr. Pepper, because amazingly there was still some left after the explosion early. So, I twist the cap again, and Dr. Pepper fountain all over again. Yes, again! Same bottle. This time my computer was safely tucked away, but my clothes were not as lucky. This time there were no tears only laughter and disbelief. The guy from the first shower was still sitting near me, only not right beside me anymore, and I had to think he thought I was the biggest moron in the world! OH well. By now I was litterally soaked with Dr. Pepper and because of restrictions on the size and number of my carry on bag, I had nothing to change into. I considered buying a souvenir sweatshirt from the airport shop, but just couldn't bring myself to pay $50 for a shirt that said Little Rock in huge letters across the front. So I head to the bathroom and stand awkwardly near the hand dryer to try and dry some of the giant wet spots.
Moral of the story...an addiction will always bite you on the rear at some point! The good news, though, is that I don't think I'll be missing Dr. Pepper quite as much now.
The day continued with gum on my shoe at one point, a seat on the 46th row in the very middle of my overseas flight, the speaker for the call bell on the plane directly over my seat (yes, that means that every time anyone on the entire plane called for an attendent the *ding* rang out over my seat), bathrooms on either side of my row on the plane, a screaming 5 year old behind me for 8 hours, and to top it off not one piece of my 5 pieces of luggage arrived in Istanbul with me. My prayer life definitely grew on this trip. And, I can joyfully say that all of my luggage was delivered to my doorstep by 6 the morning after I arrived. In fact, it was as I was sitting in the living room praying about my attitude over lost luggage that the doorbell rang to deliver all the pieces!!
So, fun stories from the airport! :-)
Geldim!
I'm here!! I'm here!! It was quite a trip getting over here. I even found the cure for Dr. Pepper addiction. I've already seen lots of friends and can't believe how "normal" it feels to be back. My apartment has an INCREDIBLE view, however it's been pretty foggy everyday so the pictures don't do the view justice. 
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