I'm not sure if this blogging thing is going to work out for me.

I don’t know why I’m having so much trouble blogging. I mean, part of the problem is that we’ve been pretty crazy busy- first the non-stop programming during orientation Ankara, then coming to Burdur and getting settled here—but I can tell that I also have some sort of block. It’s like I’m so overwhelmed by the experience being here that the idea of trying to describe it is just too overwhelming.  Where do you start? Almost every facet of my existence is now radically different then it was three weeks ago. How do I sum that up in a few paragraphs? It’s impossible. So then I try to write about everything, and it’s just too much, I feel like I can never remember everything… So then I just give up. Which is stupid. Better to write about a few things and leave some things out then not write at all. So I apologize, dear friends, for being so neurotic. Welcome to “Things you probably never wanted to know about Liz 101.” I promise I am going to overcome my neuroses regarding blogging though and do a better job of communicating about what’s going on here.

So! Burdur. The good news is that even without blogging, you’re not very far behind in the Turkish Adventures of E. Wolfson. Basically we left Ankara Saturday morning and rode the nicest bus I’ve even been on 5 hours southwest to the small town of Burdur. (By the way, if anyone is looking for an investment opportunity, put your dollars into getting a Turkish bus line to start a line in the States. These buses take out all the bad things about buses—sketchy, dirty conditions, discomfort, unrealiability, inefficency—and add all the good things there used to be about flying—free, delicious snacks, in-flight movies—plus affordability and the internet. It’s basically the best way to travel, ever. I would rather take a Turkish bus than either an American bus or airplane. Just saying. (Okay, admittedly this after only one ride—let’s see how my 10 hour overnight ride from Burdur to Istanbul goes next month.)

ANYWAY, so we took the bus from Ankara to Burdur (see my MobileMe sight for pics of the Turkish landscape we passed through) where we were met by Dr. Mehmet Ozcan, the head of the English language teaching program at MAKU, and a car from the university. Because Rachel and I had over 100 lbs. of luggage each, an extra car had to be called to carry it all to the 4 star hotel they put us up in for two nights while our apartment was being prepared for us. After depositing our bags in our rooms, we sat in the lobby and had tea with Dr. Ozcan, his charming daughter who had just returned from buying Spongebob Squarepants posters, the vice-roy of the university, and two teachers from our department, Gonca and Demet. Afterwards, Gonca and Demet took us out for pide and gave us a tour of town and the campus. They’re both super helpful and sweet and speak excellent English. Also, Gonca is a vegetarian as well- major plus for me, as being a vegetarian in Turkey is difficult if you want to eat out at all.

About Burdur: to start, this is an old city. As the fabulous collection of artifacts at the Burdur Museum demonstrates, people have been living in this area for thousands of years- since before the Roman era. Not sure when the present city was founded, but from the narrow, winding streets you can tell it’s pretty old. Burdur is small- about 75,000 people. Everyone knows each other—walking with Gonca and Demet, we ran into several profs from the university, as well as many of our future students! It seemed on every block there was someone to say hello to. Very small town vibe, but I like it. Also, we seem to be in a very agricultural area. Every Tuesday there is a GIANT farmer’s market (more about that at some point), every weekend there’s a sale of what seems to be milking equipment, and there are several tractors dealerships on the main street of town. So yes, as I suspected, I’ve moved from the Midwest to the “Midwest” of Turkey, if you will. The upside is that everyone here is very kind, very curious about us, and very anxious to introduce themselves and make sure we’re okay—including the neighborhood ladies in their headscarves who sweep in front of their houses every morning. Because it’s a small(ish) town we can walk everywhere. There’s basically one main street in town lined with shops, bakeries, small eateries, etc. We’re living on the “outskirts” of town (meaning a 15 walk up main street to the town center), near the new, very modern looking hospital and the bus station (very convenient for weekend trips). It’s about a 30 minute walk to campus, or a 10 minute bus ride (costing 1 TL, or about 65 cents).

One of the things we quickly learned about Burdur is that its school system is one of the highest performing in the country, and both students in the high schools and at the university score very high marks on the various standardized exams Turkish students have to take at different points in their careers. All the professors at the university that we’ve met not only work very hard as teachers, often working very demanding course loads, but are also very committed to their individual research projects. It’s pretty evident that part of the reason they’re so intent on improving their English is they want to further their research and participate in the wider academic community, which of course is primarily English-speaking. So, besides teaching, I think we'll probably also be assisting with a fair amount of research as well.

Anyway, Dr. Ozcan specifically but seemingly the entire administration of MAKU generally has clearly been working hard for many months to ensure that upon our arrival we could just slide into our teaching duties with no hassles. We’ve been given a huge, sunny, brand new office with a window onto the quad, complete with brand new computers and printers. We will be teaching two, three hour courses a week in speaking skills to the first and second year students in the English teacher training program. Additionally, we will have a class with the faculty once a week, and some kind of conversational class with the level 3 and 4 students.

Oh, and MAKU has both a music and an art school, so walking to our office in the morning, we hear the vocal students doing warm-ups. I have to pinch myself to make sure it’s real

So that’s Burdur and our work situation in a nutshell… Next time: the farmer’s market (or “bazaar,” as the locals call it), the beginning of classes, and new Turkish friends!

Welcome to Ankara

So here's the deal. As most of you reading this will know, I had originally planned to build a website to host this blog as well as a second one about contemporary art in Turkey (and of course all my photos). Here's the thing. It's probably going to be a little while before I'm settled enough and have the free time to undertake such a project. Should I have done this before leaving? Totally. So, in the meantime, I'm going to do it early 2000s style and rock this blogspot blog, until lizwolfson.com is up and running. Whenever that happens I'll just transfer all these posts to my blog there. Or something. I'll figure it out.

Anyway, hey look, I'm in Turkey! Ankara, specifically, which is the captial of Turkey. I know everyone's really excited to hear about the trip so far, but honestly, there's not a ton to say. Basically we're just in orientation programs all day long, until almost 6:00. Tonight's really the first night that I've gone out an explored. My roommate, Amy, who I'm rooming with here at our hotel, Baskant Ogretmenivi (which roughly translates to "Teacher's House") and I took a taxi to "Old Ankara" to meet up with some other Fulbrighters. Let me just say that two Americans who speak zero Turkish trying to direct a Turkish taxi driver who speaks zero English is a hilarious thing. But I've got a nifty Turkish-English dictionary on my iPod touch, and we just did a lot of pointing and gesturing, and we got where we wanted to go (sort of). I wish I could describe Ankara. A lot of Fulbrighters have commented that the architecture looks a little like Florida... There are definitely lots of pastels. And palm trees. But it's like if a city in Florida were built by an Ottoman sultan with a limited budget. There are also lots of buildings that look a little Art Deco-ish/WPA era, probably because Ankara became the capital sometime in the 1920s or 1930s, after the establishment of the Republic- before that it was just a sleepy backwater.

Anyway, I wish I could comment more on "what Turkey is like," but I've spent about 92% of my time here inside the hotel. So I can tell you what our hotel is like, but no one cares about that... I will say that my flight experience getting over here was a bit harried- we ended up being delayed in New York for 2 hours due to a faulty fuel pump, so our 3 hour layover in Istanbul which we needed to go through passport control, customs, and to get from the international terminal to the domestic terminal turned into about 45 minutes. So imagine a group of about 30 Americans lugging over 100 lbs. of luggage each while they sprint through the Istanbul airport... Ridiculous. We were awarded once we got on to our Turkish Airlines flight to Ankara by the company of Turkey's basketball team [who had just come in second (to the US) in the World Cup of basketball], and the most delicious airplane food I've eaten in ages. Turkey (or Ankara at least) seems to be obsessed with their basketball team- on lightpoles all over the city, there are these giant life like... models? statues? of basketball players dunking basketballs from 10 feet in the air, on a lightpole. It's simultaneously creepy and awesome. Don't worry, there will be pictures...

Oh yeah, and we walked to a mall yesterday near the hotel- AnkaMall! AnkaMall rules. I am pleased to report that Turks are pros at mall culture. I bought a cellphone at the Turkcell store in the AnkaMall, which is functional and teeny tiny and keeps sending me text messages in turkish. I'm going to go back to AnkaMall before we leave next Sunday, so maybe I'll do a separate post about AnkaMall then...

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I'm here, I'm safe, and I'm sleeping decently, but that's about all there is to say. Fortunately the hotel has great (occasionally not terrible) internet, so I can listen to KDHX, NPR, and WWOZ just like I'm at home (though right now I'm listening to "Let It Be"- Replacements, not Beatles)... Ah, the miracles of modern technology!