Greetings from Turkiye!
Hello Friends and Family!

As many of you know, I am in the glorious land of sun and heat, otherwise known as Turkey (Turkiye to most of us here, and supposedly to y'all as well, if the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and External Promotions is to be believed). The internet connection at my parents' sucks, but it is servicable and hopefully this will arrive in your inboxes in one piece.

I have arrived here last Thursday and things have been pretty low key so far. I was separated from my one and only bag for about two hours in Ankara as I arrived somewhat late at Ataturk International Airport for my last connection due to the runway delays at O'Hare and had to collect it from a later flight. While I would recommend Turkish Airlines to one and all, I would suggest that you stay away from O'Hare; I was late in both taking off from SEA and landing and taking off from ORD due to the excessive number of planes waiting for clearance. I was seated behind the Olympic gold-winning Turkish weightlifting team on the plane from IST to ESB, it was quite an experience as the pilot came on the P.A. and thanked the team for their efforts and everyone in the plane clapped and hollered. One of the members of the team was busy taking out and rearranging all the duty-free booze he had purchased in Greece throughtout the flight; when we landed he went straight to the duty-free shop at the Ankara airport and proceeded to buy more. It must be a tough training regimen.

So far, I have walked quite a bit around Ankara, where I am originally from and took random pictures, some of which are enclosed for your gawking pleasure. Ankara is the capital of Turkey and has an official population of about 4 million people. However, in reality it seems a bit more than that, in the last two years it seems to have grown by leaps and bounds. Parts of Ankara that I used to fly kites in when I was about 6-7 years old are now full of condos and houses. When we were landing at ESB, the outer perimeters of the city started from about 15 minutes from the airport. Where my parents now live, which used to be considered "a bit out of town" is now securely in town, most of my college friends now live 20-30 minutes away by car. The suburban lifestyle, complete with its malls, is now starting to dominate Ankara. Not surprisingly most of my friends are now married and some even have kids, so this kind of lifestyle must suit them well.

Ankara itself is somewhat uninteresting for the tourist from Seattle, not much greenery, a lot of new, ugly condo buildings and some sights here and there. However, I happened to arrive on the eve of one of the four major Turkish national holidays, the Victory Holiday. It commemorates the victory of the Turkish armies against the invading Allies (British, French, Italian and Greek) during the Independence War between 1918 and 1922, soon after which the Republic of Turkey was founded. The celebrations always involve a lot of firepower, both in terms of the tanks and the panzers and the planes that are paraded and big fireworks. My parents' condo is directly in front of the staging area for most of these festivities, and you can see pretty much everything from their balcony. It is quite interesting and admittedly a bit strange.

As for the sights, I have enclosed pictures of some of them, the major missing one is Ataturk's Mauseleum but Kocatepe Mosque (the largest mosque in Ankara, possibly Turkey, completed in 24 years in the 1990's), Atakule (Ankara's answer to the Space Needle, with rotating restaurant complete) and many government buildings are in the pictures. Let me know if you would like more info about them. For a picture of Ataturk's Mauseleum (for those of you who were under a rock during Turkish History 101 in college, Ataturk is the founder of the Republic of Turkey and is a very revered figure in Turkey, his face is everywhere), check out:

http://www.tourismturkey.org/regions/central/central2.html

Next up for me will be a visit to Istanbul, a possible visit to Antalya (a tourism center down south by the Mediterrenean) and to Bodrum (another touristic spot by the Aegean) for some R&R. I will most certainly keep y'all updated.

Next up is some commentary for people with certain interests, if you don't care about that particular topic, feel free to skip it!

With warmest regards,

Görkem

Comments for the photos: Most of the photos are self explanatory, only three require a few comments. The one titled "Anisko ve Babisko" is one of my parents, "Cubuk Kopus 2" is a picture of the doggies that my uncle's dog just gave birth to a month ago and is of a special breed only indigenous to Turkey. "Gorkem at Turunc" is a picture of me in one of these now ubitiquous cafes that are peppered all over Ankara, I am enclosing it just in case you forgot what I look like.

PERSONAL

Things are going very well so far for all concerned, I have been eating like I came out of a drought as everyone wants me to go and have dinner at their homes and cook me "the foods that you love" as they say. I have gained about 1 kilo (2 pounds and change) but will soon lose it if this little intestinal difficulty I am having continues (cha cha cha!).

POLITICS

Turkish politics have always been quite volatile and there always seems to be some scandal or another. When I arrived, the biggest talk of the day was the "scandal triangle" between the judiciary, the intelligence agency and the mafia. It turns out that the intelligence agency had used a Turkish don in its intelligence gathering and other activities pretty extensively, and the same don was also used by the Chief Judicial of Turkey to contract for and build a summer house for himself, and these conversations were taped clandestinely by the intelligence people. Lots of intrigue and fun. These days the big deal is the approval of the new Turkish Penal Code, and the most heated point of contention is whether adultery should be recodified as a crime, it was in before but was taken out in the interests of accession to the European Union (EU). The right wing moralists want it in, the moderate left wing opposition doesn't, and guess who will win?

CULTURE

There seems to be quite a glut of first run American movies here, in one of the many multiplexes here in Ankara they were showing Spiderman 2 and Catwoman in adjoining theaters. Shrek 2 is also very popular, I may actually go and see it in a bit, reading is getting a bit boring, I have become a "a book a day" kind of guy again. There are also a lot of new Turkish pop and folk music artists, I am having great difficulty in telling them apart, there are so many of them. Even my friends, who are supposed to be into this stuff are at a loss. Tarkan is still around from what I hear.
Starbucks is now in Turkey! They have opened up three stores in Istanbul and two in Ankara. I have actually gone to the newest one in Ankara, and no surprise, it has the same interior, same drinks and the same average quality. The baristi even yell each other the drinks in English (well, Turklish is a better word for it, I heard something like "dikef, sekerli, grande moka, vipped kremasiz" i.e. "decaf, grande mocha with sugar (?) but no whipped cream"). Ankara has undergone a cafe transformation, almost every local coffeehouse has become a trendy cafe or "simit palace" or "nargile house." (Simit is a torus shaped dough, cooked, has the taste of a bagel, nargile is an instrument through which one smokes tobacco, also known as a hookah) The interesting transformation here is that the old coffeehouses used to be places where only men went (usually the retired and the unemployed) and now they have become co-ed and hip. They also cost a bit.
The biggest media stories are always about models here for some reason, everyone and anyone seems to be a model and seems to sing. I don't know why they bothered to hold auditions for "Turkish Idol", everyone seems to get their 15 mins. of fame and then some here without much difficulty. The "Turkish Idol" here was a slavish copy of the American one from what I understand, they even had a Turkish "Simon" on hand to pass scathing commentary.