Two Turkeys get married

(Me teaching)

Life here is going very well these days. I am really enjoying my time here and I feel like I know my way around the city well. It is good to finally feel confident when I am going somewhere, even somewhere new! I understand how to get mostly anywhere in the city and what bus to take, even without knowing the exact number every time. I am lucky that my work is only two blocks away from Kordon (the area by the sea). Many days when I have extra time before or after work I walk to the park that goes along the sea and take a stroll. It is one of my new favorite things to do! As I have mentioned before I am working for a place called British Culture as an English teacher. I have been working there now, just over a month! As with the city, I feel more comfortable teaching English and knowing what the students may have trouble or not with. One of the biggest perks of the job is my relationship with my students. My students have reacted very very well to me, which is great and makes me happy to come to work every day, minus the waking up early part. One thing that I have found to be very difficult is that each lesson is for four hours. The lessons are strongly focused on conversation so that means four hours of conversation. Four hours of conversation is hard even with a friend, so with an intermediate English speaker, it can be very very difficult. I have to really encourage them to talk and try to come up with new things to talk about that they really will enjoy. Luckily my classes are happy and confident and are comfortable with me, so they are always talking and have new things to tell me all the time. One of my classes is really like a family; they all know each other and all about each other’s lives, hobbies, interests, and like to hang out with each other outside class.

On Monday I went to a city called Denizli with British Culture to speak with a company about signing a contract, it was not a very beautiful city but I really enjoyed the drive there and back, this part of Turkey has mountains everywhere so we were driving along the mountain ranges the whole time.  It was a good time hanging out with Johnny, one of the other Americans at British Culture; and my director, Elvan.


So talk about this being a small world, I was taking a walk in Kordon one day because I had some time before I was going to meet Ebru, and I saw a few young guys who were wearing sunglasses with Croakies and T-shirts. I immediately thought, these guys must be from North Carolina, and my suspicion was confirmed when I saw he was wearing a T-shirt with all the pirate flags from NC. Those of you from NC have seen them sold at the coast I am sure. I stopped them and said, "Hey, are you all from NC???" I addressed the question to one of the girls with them and she looked shocked! She said "no but I went to UNC!". The guys chimed in now and said, "hey! we are from NC!" I couldn’t believe it! I told them, "me too, I am from Raleigh". And yes folks, it gets even more amazing. One of the guys then said, "hey me to! what high school did you graduate from". I proudly said, "Broughton". Guess where he graduated,! Broughton!. So that’s right, I ran into another Broughton High School graduate in Izmir, Turkey! Can you believe it? I was really excited. I have to follow this story up with yet another story of coincidence because this one is just as crazy.

A few years ago Ebru and I spent Christmas in Budapest, Hungary while we were studying abroad. We met some Americans at our hostel and spent some time with them just hanging out and kind of were all each other’s family for Christmas, a really nice experience. After Christmas had come and gone we all parted ways and extended our final goodbyes (when you stay in hostels you meet people that are like your family for a week, and you know that you probably won’t ever see them again; it is a very strange yet amazing experience). So back to the story, over a year later, I was on a trip to visit a friend from Singapore who was working in NJ, with my good friend John Williams. We were at Six Flags in NJ riding roller coasters one day and I saw one of the American guys we met in Budapest! We couldn’t believe that we saw each other again. Even wilder is that he was also not from NJ but just visiting as I was, so both times we met we were a long way from home, but twice in the same part of the world together. So that is the other story of amazing coincidence!

(Donkey cart on my street, haha)

Well I guess I should get back to life here in Izmir. I have a second roommate now and he lives in our living room. It is cool because it makes the rent cheaper for all of us of course, and he just got a 3 month old Red Doberman. The dog is sweet and playful, but not trained, his name is Buz. In English it means ice. Unfortunately he had a bit of an accident in my room which I came to find last night... Luckily I love dogs and have enjoyed helping to train him. He is a very smart dog and is beginning to understand commands after just two days! He has been a bit wild though, chewing up one pair of slippers, and my roommate’s camera chord. He even got a bit of my roommates hand by accident, when you are holding food you have to watch out for a hungry puppy or they will try to get to the food through your hand!



As some of you know I went to a Turkish wedding this past weekend. Ebru's sister, Oznur got married on Saturday here in Izmir to a very nice guy named Arda. Oznur is a Math teacher at the same school that Ebru teaches English and Arda works for the beer company Tuborg/Carlsberg.



Hello! I'm Ebru. As the bride who was getting married was my sister we thought it would be better if I told you the rest of this blog. I'd like to apologize for the mistakes I might make in advance:)

                                               (Baha and Derin, Ebrus' neice and nephew)

Now I'll try to talk about wedding traditions in Turkey although they change according to the part you live in. In some parts a wedding lasts for a week with different celebrations. In some parts you can see a bride riding a horse. I think it would be quite challenging to ride a horse with that huge dress. But there is one tradition that never changes: henna night. It's a night when all the women come together, eat, drink, dance, sing some traditional songs and paint henna on their palms. Of course it depends how much henna you want. If any of you has smelled henna before I'm sure you would just want none.

Now, It's time to talk about my sister's wedding. As you might know I live in the west part of Turkey, in a city called Izmir. Apart from henna night we don't really have any other tradition.

First of course my sister got engaged. That did not technically happen when the guy proposed, it was when the two families came together and had an engagement party. Close friends and family came to this.
       
 (oznur in her traditional dress)

Since my sister decided to get married she kept saying she did not want anything extravagant; not a dinner after the ceremony, henna night, not even a huge, shining dress. Who believes that? Well, I don't anymore since most of the brides I have talked to say the same. Somehow my sister decided to have a henna night, something small in my house. She invited some of her friends. We had some delicious food my and groom's mum cooked, we sang songs and danced. Before we got some henna my sister changed her dress and put on a very traditional dress. And we started singing the henna song which talks about how the bride feels before she leaves her house and how much she misses her family. It's kind of a sad song and as a bride my sister was supposed to cry.. But she was not in the mood and we tried hard to make her cry. Eventually she started crying after she saw groom's mum cry. We made a circle and my sister sat in the front so the groom's mum could paint the palm of one of her hands. But as a result of tradition she did not open her hand. Groom's mum gave a piece of gold then my sister opened her hand. We kept eating, drinking, singing and dancing for the rest of the night. It was a fun night.
                                                                              
                                                                               (Oznur in traditional dress, her mom, and her grandma)

Next comes the wedding day. Usually it happens the next day but as we did not have any days off we gave a day break. We spent the wedding morning at the hairdresser. When we came back to our house outside of the house we had loud music played by some musicians on a drum and a type of recorder type instrument. The neighbours were all out in the street along with family, friends and anyone else who wanted to join. There was dancing, singing, and lots of smiles. Inside the house were many more people including the bride (Oznur) and the groom (Arda). That day Austin got to meet most of my relatives. They were really curious about him and even though there was no communication going on they loved him. Everyone got ready to go to the wedding place. Before we left the house my father tied a red ribbon around my sister which meant purity.


                                                                                                               (Wedding room)

After this we all headed out to the wedding in a bunch of cars with a small towel tied to the car to show the wedding party. On the way, small kids, mostly gypsy kids, will stand in front of your car until you give them money, it’s a tradition that does not seem to be loved by the people, but it’s a tradition all the same. We were lucky and very few kids stopped the car. Unfortunately, the traffic that day was very bad and after a bit of driving, my sister realized she did not bring her bouquet of flowers! This caused a bit of a panic through the family as you would imagine. Our car turned around and got it for her but after a few minutes we realized we could not get it and get to the wedding in time, so we turned back. Oznur bought a new bouquet at a wedding store near the place of the wedding.

                       (Ebru's family)

The place the wedding held was a nice place by the sea, really, it just looked like a small auditorium from the inside. The ceremony was very short. They went to the front and sat at a table with the witness, usually an older man from their family (my older sister's husband), and the person who legal married them. This person was not a religious figure. They said they wanted to marry, the witnesses said they approved, and they signed. All in all it took only ten minutes for the actual ceremony, if even that. After that the bride and groom waited in the next room and everyone came to put either gold or money on the bride and groom. They put them with pins on a piece of fabric they were both put on for this. After some pictures, lots of hellos, and hopefully lots of gold and money, everyone stood out in the area outside for the bride to throw her bouquet and to give their final congrats.

I was also ready there to get the bouquet but then I realized that there were some other girls who were older than me and let one of them get it.

                                                                              (the lovely Bozkurt women)

Between the ceremony and dinner we had a few hours so we went to my sister's house to spend some time till the dinner. We had some drinks and relaxed. Finally we were on the boat where we were going to have dinner. It was a cool boat which stayed near the port for two hours and then it went around the bay. The dinner was a three course meal, with the main course being chicken. It was a very tasty meal which included a few drinks. The dinner took approximately 3 hours, which is not abnormal for a big Turkish dinner. After eating there was live music and everyone was dancing. We carried on for a few hours, just dancing, talking, and celebrating. There was another bridal party sharing 'the boat with us that night and they pretty much sat in their seats looking scared of our group. The bride was maybe 35 and the groom looked to be around 65, kind of funny! After a long night of dancing, eating, and mingling, we left the boat. As we were leaving the bride informed us that we were going to go to a bar, just the young people. It was already midnight at this point and I had to drag Austin there because he had work the next day, but still, the party went on. At the bar we stood around and talked and did a little dancing. By the time we finally left it was 2:00am and we were ready to get some sleep.

(Arda and I)

                                                        

Back to Austin! The whole day was a great experience. I got to see a wedding in another country, which I have never seen before. I enjoyed seeing what all was similar, and what was different. I really enjoyed the experience and hope I will get to do more things like this in the future. Sorry again for not posting in so long, I will have another ready soon! I miss everyone!

(Ebru, Oznur, and Me)