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Published: July 24th 2010
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Utility Bill Paying
The Tram ticket seller also doubles as the place to pay your Utility Bills.....One stop shopping......a loooong stop (h2)(b)Welcome to Bill and Carol's Senior Trip Abroad: Month 2!(b)(h2) (i)Yevash, Yevash(i) (slowly, gradually) has been the theme for this month as we continue to take baby steps toward acculturation in Turkey. Each day is packed full of surprises, minor setbacks, and tiny triumphs. This week, for example, Bill found a good berber (turns out that "barber" means "barbarian") and got a spiffy haircut (which comes with a THOROUGH head massage). And only this morning I purchased two tubes of glue by speaking Turkish. (Okay, it required only one short sentence and I rehearsed beforehand, but still...!) And since we are in our second month in the flat, our utility bills are arriving. Bill thought he had arranged to have them paid automatically by our Turkish bank, but nothing seems to work out as we expect. In the meantime, the lines in the post office and at the tram ticket booth have become endless. Why? It turns out (i)that's(i) where people pay their utility bills!
Our weeks have begun to assume a routine. Bill goes a few blocks to swim in the Mediterranean every morning. At first, he hiked down a path in the side of the cliff, paid a
The Med. Swimming Hole
This is right below our flat below the football stadium light standard. The white path leads to the sea.(about 150 feet down) fee, and entered the Sea from a platform owned by a small outdoor cafe. But recently, he has taken a cheaper--though less colorful-- option by swimming in the Sea from a nearby hotel.
When not splashing in saltwater, our time is dominated by Turkish lessons (now three times a week), studying Turkish together and separately, and coping with the inevitable discouragement when one or both of us starts to drown among indistinguishable lumps of Turkish soup! One place where we get to practice all that slippery vocabulary and grammar is on the Wednesday trip to the huge bustling "pazar", where Bill purchases most of the week's produce--peaches, watermelon, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, eggplant, figs, lemons, basil, cucumber, cheese, yogurt, parsley, and nuts--all produced/grown nearby. (We are eating a mostly vegetarian/Mediterranean diet.)
In another event that has become a weekly outing, a new friend, Emel Dalga, has introduced us to wonderful free Friday evening concerts in the large park by us. A small crowd gathers on a marble plaza overlooking the sea as we listen to live Turkish music and watch the sun go down. Two of the concerts have included old Turkish ballads and folk songs that the audience
knows. It's fun to be among beaming folks who are singing along (even though the lyrics are still Turkish soup to us). The concerts are on the edge of Kalieci (the old city), and twice we've gone there for drinks under the stars with friends afterward.
Among our new friends is a huge, athletic canine of mysterious parentage whom Bill has dubbed "Bully Dog" for his ferocious bark at certain passing men. Bully Dog is one of Antalya's official street dogs--ownerless but immunized and neutered by the municipality and allowed to roam freely. Bully Dog lives on our block and is fed regularly by one of our neighbors. He is joyful to see his friends--nearly knocks himself over with his own powerfully wagging tail--yet quite intimidating to strangers he perceives as threatening his friends.
Our most impressive accomplishment in recent weeks has been completing all the exacting paperwork to become full legal (though temporary) residents of Turkey. This process is dreaded among foreigners in Turkey, but our tireless friend Gloria walked us through it. When we presented everything at the window, there was just one hitch: where was our marriage license? Marriage license? To Gloria's knowledge, no one
Friday Night Concert
At the park near our house with the Mediterranean and the city in the background has ever been required to produce a marriage license for this process. We did have it at home--some 20 km away. We returned home, found the license, got it translated into Turkish and notarized, then Bill made the long trip back to the specialized office to present it. So there it is, another eventful triumph...yevash, yevash.
A few day trips have helped us manage the heat and very high humidity that July (and August) always bring to Antalya. On one seething day, we cooled off by a gorgeous waterfall outside the main part of town. Our friend Gloria lives nearby, so she served as our guide and took us to an outdoor fish restaurant at the base of the falls. The restaurant owner also owns the adjacent fishery, and Gloria says that they don't catch the fish until they customers arrive--now that's fresh! It was an unforgettable meal with the spray of the falls cooling us as we ate.
We celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary with a six-hour boat trip in a beautiful wooden yacht that held about thirty passengers--roughly half Turks and half (i)yabancis(i). We stopped several times for passengers to swim in interesting spots, and Bill
Bully Dog
Like all official Antalya street dogs, Bully dog wears a blue plastic ID tag in his ear swam into some caves along the coast. We got quite well acquainted with a family from Norway and chatted with them as we bobbed along. It was a wonderfully cool, mellow day--but as we approached Antalya at the end, the loud Turkish music began and suddenly the Turks (and Bill!) were on their feet dancing.
Just a few days ago, we sought refuge in the high Taurus Mountains above Antalya. On the map, we saw a town called Elmali that was at a much higher elevation than Antalya--so we knew it would be much cooler there. We learned that the inter-city bus goes to Elmali from Antalya in just two hours, so we went just to cool off. It was a wonderful day! We loved the pace of a smaller town and found it quite beautiful. Best of all, perhaps, there was almost no humidity. Also, we learned a staggering fact about Elmali: it's been continuously inhabited since the Bronze Age, about 2500 B.C.! We visited a very old handsome mosque, had lunch of sumptuous lamb kebaps, and spent most of the day studying Turkish in a tranquil chai garden with fountains and ponds. We'll definitely go back.
Behind Duden Falls
This view is taken from a cave underneath and behind the falls A few of you have asked about our plans for work. At first, working seemed out of the question because we were buried in the tasks of getting settled. Even now that our flat is up and running and the paperwork is behind us, the language issue seems daunting. Some days we think it was completely naive to have thought we could teach English here without knowing ANY Turkish. I did have one interview at a fancy private high school (not exactly the kind of place I want to teach). It went well--until they learned I was 66. Apparently public and private K-12 schools require teachers to retire at 65. I have another interview in a few days. We'll see...
We are eager for a new develop here: our first guests. Alex Reid and his fiancee Kari are coming for a few days in early August. Then Karen Van Genderen will arrive in late August for more than two weeks. We're thrilled!
Some of you have asked for more photos, so we have included at the end a photo section we call Faces and Places. Their captions will explain them.We are so very grateful to you for following
Duden Waterfall
This area is 10 degrees cooler than the surrounding area along with us on this adventure and cheering us on with your responses to our blog. It means a lot to us! We hope to continue to hear from you as the months go on and our tales take new directions...yevash, yevash.
With affection,
Carol and Bill Roach
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Denise
non-member comment
2nd month
Great photos! I love the twins wo came by your Turkish lesson! Everything sounds so great: the boat rides, the swimming, the bus to the village up higher, a place inhabited since 2500 BC! I am so glad Karen can visit this year. It is nice that you can take your time getting eased into things and the paperwork! Good thing you knew to bring your marriage license. Today I am making plum jam and rhubard chutney to can. Summer has finally arrived and with it the garden fruit and vegetables that are usually hear weeks sooner! There is an abundance at the p-patch! Dahlias are as vivid and gorgeous as ever! Regards, Denise