Finally more on our Xmas!

Photos:

1. Trying to make Latvian gingerbread cookies

2. Cengiz, Ange, Murat at the dinner table

3. Me and Emrah out in the snow

 I finally have found a bit of time to myself to sit and write up the recent happenings.  Aside from the first snowfall, and the second and third, we had a great Christmas party at my place on the 26th of December.  

About a month ago, the foreigners who are here were talking about Xmas plans, and we decided that we should have a dinner with our closest friends, and no Turkish food.  Everywhere you go, all you can find is Turkish food, and albeit it is tasty, it was time to change it up and put together a USA/New Zealand style Christmas dinner.  

Me and Angelique planned most of it, planning out food and decorations and gifts.  We wanted to enjoy a non-Turkish evening while also showing our Turkish friends the foods and traditions of our countries.  We decided to do the dinner at my new place, since I live alone and it is big enough for many guests.  We bought many lights, candles and other kitchy Christmas stuff to decorate my scrubby apartment, and the day before our dinner went to work decorating my tree (Emrah added a hockey glove as topper), putting up lights, setting out candles and scrounging together enough plates for 12 people.  

The day of the 26th was a whirlwind of cleaning, going to the salon for a haircut, more cleaning, and cooking of course.  I tried to make Latvian gingerbread cookies, but my little toaster oven (noone has real ovens here!!) quit on me halfway during first batch.  So i finished up the cookies on a makeshift oven that i made on the stove top by stacking a few pans together, and baking them on a pie tin.  But it worked out, and everyone got to have a taste.  After cookies, I made creamed carrots, stuffing, and gravy.  Then Ange came over with more food.... pasta salad, lettuce salad, roasted potatoes, onions, and pumpkin.  SInce there are no real oven available for our use we had to resort to ordering chickens from the local chicken shop.  A bit embarrassing, but with no oven, getting four spit-roasted delicious chickens delivered to our door for about $15 was a good deal.  

While me and Ange were busy in my tiny kitchen trying to get all the food warm and ready all at once, the beer and wine were flowing in my living room.  As soon as the chickens arrived, dinner was on the table and all of us sat down to eat.  Funny thing though, since we are used to sitting down and then passing the food around so everyone gets everything.  Here, our Turkish friends are not used to that, and so they pretty much just ate whatever was in front of them, and missed some of the things that may have been on the far end of the table.  But, really, we got good reviews, especially the roasted veggies, creamed carrots, and gravy.  It was nice to sit with so many friends from all over the world and especially to give our Turkish friends a different dinner experience.  We were 12 people in all... Me, Emrah, Angelique, Cengiz, Jim, Leen, Burc, Nazli, Teksin, Ozan, Irem, and Murat.

After dinner, we took a break, and just had a good time until it was time for gift opening.  We told everyone to bring two cheap gifts, and so the first round of gifts was just everyone picked one and opened it.  Second round, we taught them the white elephant gift game, where gifts can be stolen or traded.  They really enjoyed it, and many of the gifts were quite funny.  More hanging out, more drinks, and then dessert, which was cheesecake, sweat chestnuts, and fruit salad.  More drinks and good company followed, and people slowly headed home, with everyone gone by 4am.  

It was a great evening, of good food, good friends, good times.  We succeeded in bringing in the Christmas spirit to Turkey at least for a day, and we were lucky that it has snowed a bit each day over the past week, to give us a white Xmas.  The day after Xmas, Emrah and Leen helped with clean up, then we went out for a nice dinner.  That evening, it snowed again, so me and Emrah headed out for a late walk to play in the snow and throw some snowballs.  

Today it was back to normal life, with waking up late, going to the gym, and later I have hockey practice.  But tomorrow night (4:30am) we are heading out of town for some more holiday festivities!  Me, Emrah, Angelique, Cengiz, Jim, and Leen are going to Cappadocia, a three hour drive south.  It is a region with bizarre limestone formations, caves, etc.. Maybe a little bit similar to the badlands of South Dakota.  We will spend a few days there at a nice hotel, having good times and company and sightseeing and ring in the New Year!  It will be nice to get out of town and experience something new with good poeple. 

Xmas

A few photos from Xmas dinner night..notice hockey glove as tree topper..  more to come...as soon as i get some time to sit and write..

Photos:

1.Our Xmas tree.

2.Me and Emrah

3. Burc, me, Emrah

4. Cengiz, Angelique, Me at dinner table

5.Jim, Murat, Me, Cengiz, Ange, Leen, Nazli, Burc Teksin.. on my couch

SNOW!!!

Last night it snowed for the first time! After putting up the fake tree last night, it began to snow.. this is the view this morning from my apartment. Half of it has already melted..

To be continued soon...

Shopping

This week has pretty much been more of the same.  Stay up late, sleep in late, go to the gym, hang out, go to practice, go out for a beer or food, and repeat.  Last night, we played about three hours of hockey and so it was another late, but fun, night and late wake-up time today.  

And thus today, which was a day off of hockey, I decided to stay away from the ice rink and go shopping instead.  I met up with Angelique, the New Zealander, and we took the metro to the center of the city, called Kizilay.  From there, we walked about 10 minutes until we got to an open bazaar, which can be seen in the photo.  As you can see, its packed full of people and has items for sale from floor to ceiling.  If you are looking for Adidas track pants, you can come here and choose from hundreds, all at an unbeatable price of less than $20.  And no, of course they aren't real.  Just like all the Abercrombie & Fitch clothes, or the Nike hats and bags.  Along with fake brand name clothes for cheap, you can find anything from window curtains to kids' toys to pots and pans to underwear.  I bought socks, a cutting board, a hat and 4 DVDs for about $20.  DVDs also surely illegally made, but hey, they are cheap and they play on my turkish DVD player.

  

The sales people are very kind and they yell out their prices to any passerby, hoping to make a sale.  When you do pick out an item, they quickly take it, put it in a plastic bag and stick out their hand for the couple of Lira the item costs, then, on to the next costumer.  

After shopping through every aisle and feeling frozen through to the bone (it was hovering right around freezing for the first time this winter) we headed to a cafe to have a sandwich and coffee.  Instant coffee, that is, called 'Nescafe' and pretty much the only kind of coffee available here.  After warming up a bit, we were back out on the street stopping in here and there to shop a bit more.  The Kizilay area is laden with small shop and street vendors, most of which sell the same or very similar items, most of which are hats, shoes and handbags.  Almost everyone i know comes to Kizilay for cheap shopping, as the malls are nice, but much more expensive.  

After an afternoon of shopping out in the cold, we took the metro back to our neighborhood, and I plan to spend the rest of my evening watching one of my new movies and making an attempt to fall asleep before 3am for a change.  

More to celebrate. Kind of..

Photos:  1.) Big group is our team 'owners' and the team, at a post-game dinner.  2.) Me and teammates at post-game dinner.  From the left: Nazli, Yasmina, me, Mine, Ilkim, Elif.  3.) Team celebrating on ice after winning.


Well, its been a week again, and aside from the day to day, the only thing of somewhat interest that has happened is that my hockey team won a big game.  Without me.

As with most things in Turkey, I've learned, rarely is anything done on time or correctly.  And so in the week leading up to the biggest game of the season, rumors started that my playing license had not been done on time, and that i would not be able to play.  This game had been scheduled back in October, a few days after I arrived, but postponed until now because our opponent was out of town during original game.  Long story short, my team owner didn't get my license before that game, and thus, even though the game happened this weekend, since I didn't have my license before the original date, I could not play.  Of course everyone thinks this is a stupid rule, but the opposing teams manager made sure to look into it to make sure that I would not play, since he knows that with me on the ice, his team wouldn't stand a chance.  My problem with the whole thing is that my owner should have taken care of my license, especially since this was really the game i came here for in October the reason I HAD to come when i did.  Its over now, but still, not a good situation.  Even though, as usual, people here just say 'well, that's Turkey'.

So instead of playing, I was on the bench and coached, and the team pulled out a dramatic 3-1 win!  Very sweet, especially after all the trouble the opposing manager went to to make sure I couldn't play.  We saw him quickly leave the rink after the game, going on vacation a day early.

This week, the whole country is on Bayram vacation, but more about that later.

After the game, the 'owner' (its actually just a family, with a kid on the team, who has enough money to sponsor our team, and pay my salary...) took us all out to dinner.  It was fun, and all of the girls were extremely happy, as this was the first win against this team (Polis Akademi), and it almost guarantees that we will be champions.  We play another game against them, but if we squeaked out a win without me playing, its almost a for sure win with me playing.

After dinner, we went back to the rink to watch the men's game, and then the festivities continued at the local bar, which we kept open much later than the proprieter wanted to!  But, as usual, we had a large group of good friends, our team and a bunch of men's team players, and so it was a nice night all together.  

The next day, yesterday, I met up with the three other foreigners, and we went to the mall to look for Christmas decorations!  One Target-like store in the mall had one small pathetic aisle with very cheesy over-priced Xmas decorations.  But hey, what can we really ask for in a muslim country?  So, we sticked up on pretty much one of each small ugly trinket, had some lunch, strolled around some more, and headed home.  I plan to move into my 'new' apartment this week, and also plan to have a Xmas dinner there, so decorations are a must.  

To be continued.. off to practice...

Life

Photos: 1.) Group L-R, Emrah, Jim, Cengiz, Ange, Murat, me.  2.) Ange and Cengiz 3.) Me and Leen 4.) Emrah and Galip 



Since it has been a week, I thought it may be time to write another update and post some photos of my friends.  The problem is that life here is pretty simple, and everyday is similar.  It's like living the the movie Groundhog's Day, where Bill Murray wakes up every morning to the same day all over again.  Since i went to Abant last weekend, I have had many hockey practices, two games, and a birthday celebration.  

First, practices.   My girls team has ice three times a week, and two weeks ago I coached two of those practices, yet this last week, I only got to do one practice.  Too bad, since the girls like my practices better, as they at least learn something and skate a lot.  But one is better than none, and we played better in the game the day after my practice, as they are slowly understanding a bit more about hockey.  Last week I also practiced twice with my men's team, which even though it's horrible hockey, allows me to skate fast and work hard.  Then, last Friday night, I went to another men's team ice time, but it was at 1:30am, so it was just me and a bunch of the best men's players, who are my buddies, and we just played pick up hockey til 3:30am!  Its hard to get a nights sleep here anyways, so why not just play hockey all night?!

Last weekend we had a game against a weak team, and won 18-1.  This Saturday, we played another weak team, and won 12-0.  So far this season, our team has played 7 games, and we have scored an obscene 100 goals!  The people here still don't understand that good hockey is not just about how may goals are scored.  Our next game night be this next weekend, but that is not for sure as it is a make-up game, and still needs to be approved.  If we play, it will be against the next best team in our league, the team that won the championship last season.  There has been ton of talk about who will win, even bets made, etc..  I am pretty confident that my team will win, but who knows. 

So on to life outside of hockey... Well, kind of life outside of hockey, since all of my friends are hockey players.  We often hang out at the ice rink, if someone has practice or a game.  Saturday night, my team had a game, and then there was a men's league game, and so we all went out afterwards.  It's always fun and the guys are really good company.  Most of them speak a lot of english, and the guys that don't speak much try, or else they are good to try to talk to for me to practice my Turkish.  Sunday night, we went out after a game to celebrate Angelique's birthday.  It was the same old group of friends.  Me, Leen the Estonian, Angelique the Kiwi, her Turkish boyfriend Cengiz, Jim the Canadian, and Emrah, Burc, Galip, Baris, and Murat, the Turkish guys.  We went to the bar called 'Last Stop', where we have been regulars lately, to have some beers and stayed until they kicked us out at 3am.  It was a fun but long weekend, as going to bed at 6am leads to sleeping until 3pm, as i did today!

This week will be more of the same, but i will try to get back into more of a regular schedule.  I have to sleep more and feel good, in case we have to play the big game on Saturday.  Also, I hope to move to a different apartment at the end of this week!  The one bedroom apartment I currently live in is just too small for two people...