Antakya R & R

Reading a mystery novel on the bus to Antakya -- ah, such luxury

The last week of our Spring I term was stressful, to say the least. It was the regular final exam week. Then, in its infinite wisdom, the university decided to use that same time to select the 27 Zirve students whom the will send to the University of North Texas for a term. Zirve used this offer to recruit its first class of students. The teachers began fielding questions about the program early in the school year. By the end of the the second term -- approaching the end of December, the teachers and Texas administrators formed a committee to draw up procedures for selecting students. It took a while but we finally came up with something that appeared sensible. Of course, it languished "upstairs" and it was not until term three that students were invited to apply -- nearly 400 of them applied for 27 slots. Since it takes a while for the students to get passports, be issued I-20 forms and get visas, we were really coming down to the wire. It was decided to select something like 52 students for an interview. The students to be interviewed were given a letter as they exited their last final exam. Of course, the other students figured it out and couldn't concentrate on their exams. What a mess. And then we had to interview them all that afternoon, a process that was expertly organized by one of the Texas staff.

As if that weren't enough, there was a parallel process going on for the Turkish teachers. Zirve had promised to send 5 of them to Texas for a term for advanced teacher training. You can imagine. The place was so tense that air almost crackled. My colleague Judy and I decided to get away from it all and go to Antakya -- the third time for both of us. It was also her last weekend in Turkey before leaving to take a job in the Cayman Islands.

Since we had both been there a couple of times and seen the standard tourist sights, this was just to be a trip for relaxing. We alternated between lazing in coffee houses with views to walking the neighborhoods. However, our first stop was the little shop that serves nothing but hummous and bakla. (See the last entry on Antakya) Bakla is made from fava beans, cooked and mashed with olive oil, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, red pepper, salt and pepper. It's served with a flat bread and assorted pickles, olives, etc. We've actually had some luck making it at home, but always have questions for the cook. This time we found out he cooks the beans for 12 hours. Sounds like a candidate for crockpot cooking to me. Anyhow, we then went to the bazaar and bought the kind of pestle you need to mash the beans properly.


After lunch we started the hunt for a hotel room. We'd assumed we stay in the standard place, but they were booked -- as were the next two we tried. We ended up in a large hotel on the river. It's new and pretty ugly on the outside but we were delighted with our room. After that we settled into a nice second-floor coffee shop for Turkish coffee and a banana-chocolate pastry we split.

Cafe Ozsut

Having lingered long over our dessert and coffee, we ventured forth into the city, wandering back street to find our favorite soap place. We stocked up and then walked back to the hotel though the bazaar. We found that someone had left a fruit basket in our room -- which, by the way, was on the fifth floor overlooking the river and with a great view of the mountains. Since no one knew where we were staying, we assumed it must have been the management. We rested a bit and then went to a movie. There was a movie -- Shutter Island -- playing in English at a theater around the corner. We looked it up on the internet and it sounded like a who-done-it.Actually, it ended up being a rather disturbing movie, although very well acted by Leonardi diCaprio. When we returned to the hotel we thanked the young man at the desk for the fruit basket. He knew nothing about it. Who knows. Perhaps it was delivered to the wrong room. But we enjoyed it!

THe next morning after breakfast we decided to walk the neighborhoods on our side of the river, the new part of town. After that little jaunt, we stopped at Mado -- famous for its ice cream, for some wonderful freshly-squeezed juice and a latte. We sat in overstuffed chairs next to an open window and gazed up at the mountains. Wonderful.

Fresh juice of mixed fruits and a latte at MADO

Suitably refreshed, we decided to tackle the neighborhood that runs up the mountain on the old side of two. For some reason, I had thought that once you got a bit up the mountain and had a great view, the rents and quality of housing would rise. Not so. It is definitely not an affluent part of town, although they do have fabulous views. After winding though many small streets that we basically walls with doors that led to an inner courtyard of some sort, we came to a normal street that ran across the mountain. There was even bus traffic. However, we decided against climbing further, as we would be going up stairs that appeared to be too close to actual living quarters. It would have felt like we were intruding. So back down we went -- to our final bowl of bakla and bus ride home. Such a great weekend.