Closing Down the Apartment

When I first wrote about my apartment on this blog, I didn't own a camera. Before I started to dismantle the couple of rooms which have been home the last eight months, I thought I'd take some photos. So here we go.

This is my desk, in the northwest corner of the apartment. I have a bit of a view out this window into the hills on the other side of town. It's a view I enjoy. And on warm days I can open both windows and get a good breeze going through the apartment.

This shot was taken standing in the northwest corner of the apartment, back to the windows. You can see the front door and the little drop-leaf table with the colorful tablecloth. The apartment also came equipped with a couch that makes into a double bed and a little coffee table of sorts.

This is my "kitchen." It consists of two electric burners (on the left side), a small refrigerator, and a sink (on the right side). The only work space is between the burners and the sink. Needless to say, I don't do any fancy cooking. In winter I would make soup or some other one-pot meal. Ted also brought me a bag of Snoqualmie Falls oatmeal! But mostly I eat my hot meal at school and have something light at night. That seems to work out fine.

This is the bedroom. I have two twin beds, a wardrobe, and small chest of drawers.

Here is a great photo of my foot -- and in the background the wardrobe and dresser. We found the dresser in a Walmart-type place, and Ted assembled it for me when he was here. It's been a great blessing.

Of course, I do have a bathroom. Not very exciting. The walls and floor are all covered by the same tiles.

That means that the whole bathroom becomes, in essence, the shower. There is a space about three feet wide to the right of the toilet. There is a drain in the floor and a water tap with shower head on the wall opposite. There is a shower curtain, but that doesn't contain the water so when you take a shower, the bathroom floods. I have a kind of sponge mop (see the handle against the wall) that I use to get the water near the drain. Then Ted brought a shamee that's normally used for detailing cars. It works great for getting the rest of the water up off the floor. Makes taking my morning shower a bit of a task, but at least the bathroom floor stays clean.


Not having to go to work today -- it's National Youth and Sport Day -- I actually fixed myself a good, local-style breakfast: boiled egg, tomatoes, olives, cheese, and pita bread, hot from the oven at the bakery down the street. I added the apricot -- fruit is not a normal part of a Turkish breakfast. The one thing missing is cucumber. The jam is pumpkin preserves. That's not common either but I found it in the jam section of the supermarket.

And finally, my upstairs neighbor Zeus. He belongs to a young couple (see the Thanksgiving blog; Joe was the chef and his wife Laressa is standing next to him) who teach in our program. Every once in a while I get to "Zeus-sit." He's such a loving little creature and so patient with everyone one in the neighborhood who knows him and wants to pet him.

Green to Gold

Within the space of a week or two the lush green hills around us are turning shades of gold and brown. Partly that's because the weather has turned hot and dry. Also local farmers have started taking cuttings off some of the fields -- some kind of grain, I think. Of course, those grasses had already matured and turned gold, but the mown fields look even darker, almost brown.

The fields had been full of wild red poppies, sort of like the California poppies but bright red. There are some photos of them in my brunch blog. Now we have purple thistles. I went out yesterday to take some pictures of them. The wind was very strong. It was amusing to watch the birds try to fly. If they flew into the wind, it pushed back after every beat of the birds wings, making it appear that they were doing the bird equivalent of treading water. When they turned away from the wind, they were blow quite quickly in the other direction. I tried to capture the blowing grasses and bending trees in the photo above.

This is a close-up of the thistles. The color really is striking.

This photo looks back at one of the two campus buildings. Zirve continues to plant more and more trees and shrubs; in a few years it will be a veritable oasis. They've put in a drip irrigation system; without it I don't see how all this would be sustainable. They also hire village women to weed the grass by hand -- yes, the grass. Actually, I like the idea. It's a job for the women, who can sit around and chat with each other while they pull weeds, and Zirve isn't putting all sorts of poisons into the soil and the air.

One of several flocks of sheep and goats that graze in the hills around Zirve. They are enjoying the last of the green grass before moving on to drier feed.

Weekend Get-Away

Compare this picture of the Blue Mosque with the one I took when Ted and I visited Istanbul in January. There is one obvious difference -- no snowman! This was my next to last weekend in Turkey, and I decided on the spur of the moment to make a trip to Istanbul. I had some very specific items I wanted to bring home and hadn't been able to find in Gaziantep. Also I wanted to check in with my friend and UW classmate Seçil. She teaches in the English Prep program at Bogazici (g is silent and the c is pronounced "ch") University.

I began my journey at 2 AM when our taxi driver picked me up at Askon Residence. On the way to the airport he stopped at an all night bakery and bought me not only a Poacha (a light, eggy roll) still hot from the oven and a small bag of cookies for the journey. Only in Turkey! The plane landed in Istanbul just as the sun came up. I got the shuttle to Taxim Square and found my way from there to my hotel on the other side of the Golden Horn. Ted and I made that trip several times during our stay so I knew where to buy tokens and how to navigate the system. It was nice to be out at that time -- you sort of felt like you had the city to yourself.

However, that didn't last long. I dropped my bags at the hotel and went for breakfast. By time I left the restaurant, the scene had changed dramatically -- the sidewalks and streets were crowded. That's the other major difference between the two Blue Mosque photos -- the big white tour bus. They were everywhere, clogging the streets and disgorging mobs of visitors.

After I finished my shopping I trudged up the the Suleiman the Magnificent mosque. It had been closed for renovation in January, but I thought I remembered reading it would be open in April. On the way there I remembered I wasn't wearing my jacket with a hood and also wasn't carrying the white scarf I usually have with me when I travel. I bought a scarf on the street for 5 TL and proceeded to the mosque -- where I saw other tourists getting out of a taxi. Guess what -- it was still closed. At least I like the scarf I had purchased.

The rest of the afternoon I kind of played tourist myself, visiting the Turkish and Islamic Art Museum, known for its fabulous rug collection, and sauntering up and down Istaklal Street. That evening I met Seçil at a falafal restaurant, and then we bussed down to the waterfront along the Bosporus north of the Golden Horn. We strolled along, nosing around in some shopping streets, looking at boats moored here and there, and generally enjoying the warm evening. We even drank smoothies in a waterfront Starbucks. We then took buses in opposite directions at about 9:30 PM. The road that runs along the water was choked with cars, and I didn't get home until after 11 PM.

The next morning I began my journey by Metro and bus to Seçil's house in Tarabya. It was at the metro stop at 9:30 AM. They trains were so crowded that I couldn't even get on the first one. The second was much better. It, but I squeezed in. It turned out that people were going down to the water, presumably to catch Bosporus tours. I made the switch to the bus at Kabatas very easily and road to the end of the line -- 40 minutes. My friend has a small apartment on the top floor of a five-story building. The reis a big deck with peak-a-boo views of the Bosporus -- quite a hilly spot and lots of trees. Far below her -- directly on the water -- is the little village center of Tarabya. It's an affluent area, as are all the neighborhoods on the Bosporus.

From Tarabya we took the bus back to Bebek, another exclusive Bosporus neighborhood. There we visited Rumeli castle, built by Sultan Mehmet II (the Conqueror) in 1452. It was built on the narrowest part of the Bosporus, and there is a companion castle on the Asian side. Mehmet II is the sultan who finally conquered Constantinople, capital of what remained of the Byzantine Empire.

This is a photo of a hooded crow. They are actually quite common in Turkey, but I still like to look at them. This one actually stood still long enough for me to get a photo.










This is one of the bridges across the Bosporus taken from the Rumeli castle. On the left is the "European" side and on the right the "Asian" side of Turkey.

The castle really is in good repair. I'm certain that reflects a certain amount of restoration work but I'm certain they didn't rebuild it entirely.

After visiting the castle we went to visit the campus of Bogazici (that's Turkish for Bosporus) University campus. It's actually on the top of the hill just behind the castle, but you can't get there directly from the castle.

Bogazici was originally an American college, Roberts College. It's now part of the public university system and the best university in Turkey. Standing in the quad and looking at the buildings makes you think you might be at Middlebury or Williams. It looks so much like a liberal arts college in the northeastern US.

This is Kennedy House. It's a faculty guest house. Apparently I could stay there if I wanted. They also hold small scholarly meetings there.




This is a view of the Bosporus looking southwest, back toward Istanbul, from the Kennedy House lawn. Apparently the lawn is a favorite place for weddings and other special celebrations.

After touring the campus we went to the street that runs along the end, Bogazici's equivalent of the AVE. We had great ice cream sundaes. Then it was time for me to head back to Taxim Square to catch the shuttle to Sabiha Goekcen airport. On the airplane I sat next to a young man who works for Philips Medical in Turkey. He lives quite close to me so gave me a ride home. I was so grateful, as it had been a long weekend and I wasn't feeling like a transportation hassle.
So now I'm into my last week at Zirve -- mostly exams and grading.

Börek Making Lesson

This is börek, a wonderful savory pastry often eaten for breakfast. It comes either rolled, as in the photo above, or layered. I often get börek for breakfast in a pastry shop around the corner. The choice of fillings there are cheese with herbs, ground beef, chicken, potato with red pepper and spinach. The husband of one of my colleagues in international relations offered to teach me how to make his family's recipe. They use cheese and zucchini as a filling. It's fabulous.

You start with yufka, which is essentially a very thin white flour tortilla. Of course it's about a yard in diameter. You buy it in sheets at the open market.

Before starting to make the filling, you unfold the layers of dough and spread them out. If you leave them folded, the moisture will make them stick together and they will tear when you try to handle them. You cover them with paper while they rest.


For the filling you grate peeled zucchini and salt it liberally. The salt will draw out water. You squeeze the water out of the grated zucchini by the handful and place it into a bowl.

To the drained zucchini you add lots and lots of chopped dill and some chopped parsley. The dill is for flavor, the parsley more for color.

Next you crumble on dry white cheese like feta and mix it into the zucchini.

To the zucchini-cheese mixture add eggs, black pepper and dried mint and mix. You then pile the mixture to one side of the bowl so more water can drain out.


Returning to the dough, you slice it in half. What you see here are 9 layers of pastry. It will make a double batch of börek.

You then place one half of the pastry on top of the other, giving you 18 layers.

Now you make the "glue" that will hold the rolled pastry together. You mix olive oil and yogurt together 1-1, that is one cup yogurt to one cup olive oil. To that you add 3 eggs and mix.

Next you spoon some of the "glue" around the edges of the semi-circle of dough and spread with a wide pastry brush. That is chef Altug (silent "g").

Next you fold the rounded edge about one third of the way to the top.

You then spread the zucchini mixture across the folded part of the pastry.

Next you fold the outer edges toward the center, forming a rectangular piece of pastry.

You then roll the pastry from bottom to top.

There you have it -- one roll, and seventeen more to go.

The rolls are placed in a heavily oiled pan.

You brush the tops liberally with the yogurt-oil mixture and bake for nearly 30 minutes in a hot oven.

Are they done yet?!

Ah, yes. And I get hungry just looking at this fabulous pan of börek.

Actually, you should let the börek sit for about 15 minutes before cutting, covered with newspaper or a cloth to keep it from drying out.

And here is the beautiful table set by my colleague Bezen. The börek is in the upper left corner. There was also a wonderful bulgur salad that you eat wrapped in a leaf of romaine lettuce and crepes for dessert. There is no sour cream here so we had to use yogurt instead. We also had strawberry preserves, pumpkin preserves, and nutella as toppings. It was quite a feast. Hope I can do this at home. You're invited, of course!

Lord's Prayer in Aramaic

This young man makes silver jewelry. He's from Midyat but now lives in Gaziantep. We first met him when he was doing jewelry making demonstrations in the Glass Museum. He then opened his own shop in a newly renovated Bedestan across from Gaziantp's most famous kebab restaurant. He is a member of the Syriac Christian church whose liturgical language is Aramaic. He was kind enough to recite the Lord's Prayer for us in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke.

Northern Cyprus: Girne/Kyrenia Under Construction

Northern Cyprus: Lefkosa/Nicosia Under Construction

Somehow I don't think we're in Gaziantep any more. Nope. We're in Northern Cyprus.

This was our hotel. One window in our room was just to the left of the Turkish flag -- the white one is the flag of Northern Cyprus. At one point we had the window open and half the flag blew into our room. Northern Cyprus is a country to itself, but Turkey is the only country in the world that recognizes it. Turks go there to gamble -- lots of casinos -- and there are lots of expats living in towns along the northern coast. I was told that non-natives now outnumber natives.

We actually arrived after midnight. One evening in the damp cold month of February we learned that there were direct cheap flights from Gaziantep to Northern Cyprus. Three of the American teachers had made a visa run there in early December and reported good things. So my friend Judy, another colleague Jeremy and I booked a flight for the three-day weekend we had in April. Judy subsequently took a job as a newspaper editor in the Cayman Islands, so by the time travel day arrived it was just Jeremy and I.

This was the view from our window looking south. The Mediterranean is on the other side of those mountains. If you blow up this photo, you might see the Northern Cyprus flag on the mountains.

This is the other thing you saw from our window, and it really dominates the skyline of Lefkosa, at least on the Turkish side. It is Selimiye mosque, formerly St. Sophia's cathedral. It was built between 1209 and 1226. Human occupation of Cyprus goes back to 8500 BC and just about every major empire took turns occupying at least part of it. In more recent history Richard the Lionhearted obtained possession of Cyprus in 1189 during the Crusades . He sold it to the Knights Templar, who held it for a while and then sold it back to him. He then gave it to Guy de Lusignan who had lost his throne in Jerusalem, thus beginning the Frankish dynasty that lasted until 1489 when the Venetians took control. The last colonial rulers were the British, so everyone drives on the left side of the road, the sockets don't accept EU standard plugs, and you drink tea out of cups and not glasses.


The church, a classic gothic cathedral complete with flying buttresses and gothic arches, was damaged by several earthquakes, but what is really disturbing to the eye are the two minarets that take the place of the traditional gothic towers.

Not far from the cathedral/mosque is a recently renovated Han ( Büyük Han) that has largely been given over to local artisans. One traditional Cypriot craft was quite interesting. Woman raise silkworms on the island. However, instead of unwinding their cocoons for the silk thread, the cut the cocoons in pieces and use them to construct beautiful pictures. It has the feel of pictures made from shells. Quite lovely.

From the Han we went to the tourist information center which is in an old town gate in the city wall built by the Venetians. From this office we embarked on a walking tour. The center city of Lekosa really got run down. Now there is a lot of renovation going on and attempt to create sites of interest for tourists. There is a blue line walking tour; an eight-inch blue line has been painted through the city. It takes you to most of the points of interest -- some are more interesting than others.

The first stop was the dervish museum. At one time the Sufi order was wide spread, and almost every city had a Sufi lodge. Konya was the center of Sufism, but now it's all but disappeared except for Konya and Istanbul. However, there are dervish museums everywhere.

One of the most interesting sights was the our stroll through the Samanbahçe
neighborhood. It was built in the early 1900s as a "social housing" project. The buildings are all single story with red tile roofs. At the intersections there are water fountains, probably once the source of water for the area. Above is a man pushing a cart of lemons through the neighborhood. People did come out of their houses and buy from him. Frankly, it looked like a very nice place to live.

Actually the map of the tour was posted periodically along the way. It took a while for us to realize that the dividing like between the Greek and Turkish sides of the island ran right through the center of town. We kept trying to find a church we could see from our window but kept running into roadblocks. Then we got to the actual crossing point and we figured it out.


Of course the tour took us back to Selimiye Mosque and the Grand Han, as well as to the former St. Luke's church which has been turned into a workshop for artisans and the former St. Catherine's which was all locked up. The Armenian church and monastery is under renovation. And, in fact, it did look like there were actually people working there. However, there was a sign in front of the project listing the support fro the project. It wasn't local. It all comes from NGOs outside Northern Cyprus. We also walked past another church which had been converted into a workshop space for artisans. Toward the end of our day following the Blue Line tour, we we spent a bit of time in a so-called lapidary museum. It was mostly fragments of columns, friezes or steles, which are in abundance throughout Turkey -- not too interesting.

That evening we decided to try a restaurant from a guidebook we had on Northern Cyprus. It was located outside the central city, that is the part of the city inside the old city walls. The old city is quite dilapidated. It's clear that the are involved in many restoration projects and activities to make it more appealing to tourists. However, once you leave the old city, the picture changes completely. There are some nice residential streets, and the street on which the restaurant was located the were many chic stores, lots of foot traffic and unbelievable car traffic. Things were really hopping.

We eventually found the restaurant. There was one family eating on a covered porch at the back. Otherwise no one was there. We mentioned that we wanted some dinner. He said they didn't have dinner, just mezes, a collection of hors d'oeuvres --something like Spanish tapas.

While we wondered where all the other people were, we knew you could easily make a meal off mezes, so we said okay. He then started bringing plate after plate, at least a dozen appetizers with a big bowl of the traditional tomato, cucumber and parsley salad and pita bread. It was clear we'd have more than enough to eat. However, after a few moments, more food appeared. There were the little meatballs that we dipped in a batter and then fried. Then kebaps and grilled meat. There seemed to be no end. I just couldn't keep eating. And by the time they brought the grilled chicken breast, which I couldn't even touch, the restaurant had filled up. We certainly needed the long walk home.

We had planned to bus over to the coast the next morning. However, we decided we'd try to take a look at the Greek side of Lefkosa/Nicosia. We'd seen the border crossing the day before only a few minutes from our hotel. After we were assured that it would be no problem returning, we took the plunge and crossed over. It was like going through some sort of time warp. You were instantly in what felt like a modern European city.