I know I am in Turkey when...

At the grocery store, there is cherry-apple juice, the produce is fantastic and fresh, there are twenty kinds of nutella-like spreads but only two kinds of peanut butter spread (and Nutella is 1.65 YTL not 4.50 USD! which makes sense since Turkey is famous for its hazlenuts) and there is no ground coffee of the latin american variety to be had.

Cherries were plentiful and cheap so we bought butchuk or yarim (?) kilo. Which is supposed to be half of a kilo but ended up being more like 2/3 kilo.

We start hour long Turkish lessons 4 days a week next week. This will be useful as I only know about 10 words right now (including the word for beer which is biere) and cannot understand anything spoken to me except the simplest greetings.

As can be seen above, we have a lovely balcony that Peter has been lovingly tending and it is our favorite part of the apartment.

Below is a view of the Odeon theater on campus and some of the faculty housing on campus.

As I said, there isn't any latin american coffee readily available in either Real (the local big supermarket) or the Mertaksen (the local grocery on campus that stocks foreign favorites like lays potato chips, Heinze kethchup, mayonnaise, soy sauce, sesame oil and cheerios) so I had to do something very very bad... I had to go into the Starbucks! I know! The hypocrisy of it all! But I did try to adapt to the situation here by just filtering the Turkish coffee through a very fine sieve but it just wasn't quite right. And while I am willing to forego bacon and ham and the like (it is available here but VERY expensive), I need coffee. Coffee, that tastes like coffee to me.

So we went to the Starbucks. And yes, it looks JUST like any other Starbucks. The decor, the drinks, are all the same. Even the barista spoke perfect English. So I bought a french press and some beans and had them ground on site. And I felt better just carrying the familiar smell around with me for the rest of our time at the shops. There was an omen though. A reminder of my hypocrsiy and what it means - in Real (supermarket), a guy was wearing a tshirt that said "Starsucks: We'll break your legs if you don't drink our coffee." I am going to find out if there is somewhere in Ankara where I can get Latin American beans that are NOT from Starbucks. I just needed a supply ASAP. Oh addictions.

Below is the reservoir on campus which is about a 5 minute walk from our apartment. It's really lovely although there is quite a bit of litter around its shores on one side. But even that cannot detract from all of the wildflowers and the frogs singing their swan songs.

The long and short of it is, we are here and settling in and the adventures have begun! Check back to hear more about how I succumb to all western temptations but only after eating Peter's take on a mint salad he had in Amasra and drinking the local red wine! (The mint salad is really good - just make a salad as usual but use mint as the greens instead of lettuce). Goodnyden! (Phonetically for a North American, that is goodmorning in Turkish :)