Level 2 Turkish

I am now in my Beginner Level 2 Turkish. It's getting more confusing and complicated but I am trying to stick to it. It would be a shame after all that trouble to have nothing to show for it! In case you're interested (hahhaha!!!) Level 1 was basically learning  greetings, numbers, telling time, days of the week, months :Yes - they have their own names for the months not like in Malay! Kasim is November and Aralik - December ... and then we learnt the Present Continuous Tense.

Level 2 has LOTs more grammar .So far we've covered Past Tense, Past Continuous. Imperative, Formal Tense (????) and also some prepositions and conjunctions (very confusing!). I can't begin to imagine what Level 3 is like.

Cafe on the 4th Floor where we hang out during breaks

The students in Level 2 are nice. The students from my last class in Level 1: the Polish (gone traipsing in Iran) and the Koreans (gave up -too much work!) have left. So now there's only me, and Farouk and Hamzah from Level 1. Then we have 3 new additions - Iceese (US) Reiny (Venezuela) and Mahmut (Guinea). They're all very nice kids and during break we chat etc. One time Reiny tried to teach us to dance the salsa during break....

Anyway, a few days ago it was my Turkish teacher's birthday so we all ganged up and had a birthday surprise for her. Here she is - her name's Hacer (pronounced Hajer) I think she's really pretty by the way...she's also lots of fun and very sweet and kind.

Bought her a cake with candles etc..
Then we took a class pic but Hamzah is missing here - he was the camera man, and Mahmut was absent

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It was kinda an impromptou thing because we just found out that morning. Farouk was good enough to run out to a bakery somewhere and get the cake!!! So that's Farouk in the pic


I have a Turkish exam next week BTW -getting really nervous, I don't know when I would have the time to squeeze in some studying but I will...Yo! Wish me LUCK!!!

It's SNOWING?

Right before dinner last night noticed white flakes drifting by the window. Ran to the balcony-  and sure enough - it was SNOWING!! Kids got really excited and everyone ran out to the balcony (only in our sweatshirt!) and stretched out our hands out to catch the snowflakes....It was already dark then and by the light of the streetlamps the snowflakes look almost magical...

Next morning all of us came down, the kids were going off off to school, J to work and me to my Turkish class - we saw Park Oran blanketed in snow.....

The children loved it - Syireen sempat  main snowball before catching her school bus, and then made a mini snowman when she came back from school...

Didn't last long though...just a few inches of snow and by evening there was hardly any snow on the ground. Expecting more snow soon though....

Considering a visit to a ski resort probably next month. There are two ski places close to Ankara -  Kartalkaya about two hours fron Ankara and another smaller ski slope at Elmsdag in Ankara itself - only about 40km away.

Trip to Antalya

The Hari Raya Haji holidays ( 5 days!) gave us the perfect opportunity to go visit places a little further from Ankara - so deecided to go see Antalya!

It's down south by the coast about a 7 hour drive from Ankara. Antalya has a wonderful climate - mmmm nice and toasty-warmy at 20C!!! - very mediterranean weather (Ankara is now already into the single digiits - about 3C!).

It's actually Turkey's largest international sea resort. It's also rich in history and dates back to something like the 2nd century BC and was a major city in the Byzantine Empire (Im no history buff -  info compliments of our Tour Guide hahahha..!)

Stayed at a 2 bedroom apartment with kichenette so we can fix our own breakfast & dinner (more money saved for shopping!)

Just arrived and taking a rest before unpacking

Toured Side (really beautiful old harbour town), Perge, Alanya, Aspendos and then Antalya. First stop was Perge,  a famous ancient Greek and Roman town - lots of impressive ruins.

Side - was particularly picturesque since it is right by the sea ( old harbour town)

Quaint little shops all the way to the harbour

Sqeezed in a visit to the National Park (can't remember the name!) waterfall - it had a great hiking trail.

Had lunch at Alanya - the restaurant was by the river and they had this deck built right over the water - really pretty especially with the ducks swimming around - gave it a nice touch. So, anyway- lunch was choice of kebab or grilled fish...with plenty of salad and Turkish bread.The bread would definitely be one of the things I would miss most when we return

My friend Sal and her family who was also with us

Yup! That's our lunch..

I like Aspendos best - the stadium was intact and one of the most well preserved;  you can get the aura of  a bygone era by just being there - sends chills up your spine!

Siddiq way up at he highest point of the stadium

Quite happy to enjoy the scenery from below

I could only go halfway up the stadium - my knees were shaking - it felt way high up! only Siddiq made it all the way up!

The final day we were given three hours to do explore downtown Antalya - which is a happening place

- by the time we had our lunch and prayed - there was only an hour to browse and shop - so tak puas hati sangatlah...kinda dissapointed. We didnt' get anything from Antalya and did not have time to explore Old town which was one of THE things to go ...sigh!

Oh yeah -went to a Leather factory/store in Antalya and tried on some jackets. Siddiq tried this on but at USD800 - NO THANK YOU!!!

Ummm - maybe I'll come back for this later...say in another 5 years?

Stopped at Konya (3 hour drive from Ankara) on the way back to break the journey and also for lunch and prayers. It's one of the oldest cities in Ankara, city of the whirling dervishes, the Sufi mystic Rumi, the Mevlani museum etc.. 

Had an interesting lunch - look at the Loooooong 'lamahcun' ( sthing like pizza )

A visit to quaint Beypaziri

Hi'yall -this page is all about BEYPAZIRI!!!!!!

The road to Beypazari

Had nothing to do one weekend  and we all decided to go to Beyppaziri  - it's only about 100 km from Oran and an easy one-and-half hour's drive. So you guys visiting me next year - this would probably one of the spots we can easily go to.

Actually  about the first week of June would be a good time to visit because they have some sort of  cultural festival - and they have all the handicrafts and foodstuffs out etc - yes, it should be good to visit Beypaziri then....

Carrots anyone?

Beypaziri is in Ankara - it's a small, rural town famous for it's carrots and carrot juice, of course - hahahaha they even have a carrot 'monument' right in the centre of town,,,,

Beypaziri guvec

 and then also for their stew ( guvec), tho we forgot to try that when we ordered our lunch!
I also noticed they sold lots of of the natural healthy organic stuff, dried vegetables, local spices...

and get this - there's lots and lots of accessories - especially silver - very nice designs! But we just went for the cheap touristy stuff, for now ...Syireen got a pretty necklace with a handpainted pendant.

-  after all, there's still plenty of time ans I'm sure I'd be back again when you all come down anad visit us....eh...bila ya?

I enjoyed walking around town - the place has lots of period buildings from the Ottoman era, and the town looks really quaint with it's cobbled streets and everything ...the whole atmosphere itself is rather tranquil and relaxing..



I especially love browsing through the little shops.

Since we left Oran early at about 9nish and got were there just before 11:00 am - so it was nice and cool - great day for strolling around and window shopping

J munching on the local steamed nuts - yummy!

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Turkish Classes

Hardly anyone speaks English here in Ankara so communicating can be a real headache. So decided to enroll in a language school here for Turkish Language classes Beginner Level 1 - TOMER run by the Ankara University:

 So every morning I catch the bus at 7:30 to Kizilay. Yup! I'm in the bus with the rest of the Turkish people rushing to work. Lucky for me Oran is an early stop so when I board the bus there's still plenty of seats

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It's a 45  minute ride from Oran to downtown Kizilay , and then a 10 minute brisk walk to TOMER. It's the waiting for the bus in the cold that really gets you....it's fall going into winter and it can get pretty chilly

So anyway, my class is really international -  there are two young Palestinians guys,

and then, seven Polish (five of the seven in this pic),

and two Koreans girls - and they are all like 18-20 years old....Aaaaarrrggghhh!!! I feel positively ANCIENT!

I like the Korean girls - very friendly, helpful, smart as a whip - I usually check my homework with theirs - cos they always get it right!

Classes are from 9:00 -1:00 but I like to be there early (abt an hour early) & do a little review & check thru  my homework! The first week was fun and eazy-peazy, lemon squeezy. Then came week two when the teacher introduces the grammar....the STRESS!!!!!

There's also LOTS of homework every single day -  takes about 2-3 hours to complete. So I'm kept pretty much busy everyday... With the cleaning and the laundry and the cooking - by the time I settle down to do my homework its already quite late. One time I slept at 2:30 am - NO KIDDING!

At this point I think it's easy to get de-motivated by the amount of work you need to put in. In fact think Turkish iis more difficult than French or Farsi. I don't know maybe it's still early days yet..

So now I''m done with Beginning 1-  and I've just started my Begining Turkish Level 2 ... WISH ME LUCK!