Bahçelievler

Graduate school applications, playing darts, knitting, bathroom repairs and general day-to-day activities gobbled the last month up. The last week in particular has been a flurry of activity with dinners at friends’ (one dinner was t-bone steak brought over from Canada!), finishing a knitting project, going out a bit too much and enjoying the first snow of the season.

There is too much for one post so there will be a few installments as I try to catch up with blogging.

Last Friday night a few of us took the service bus to a neighborhood in Ankara, Bahçelievler (translates to houses [evler] with [li] gardens [bahçe]), to celebrate the successful defense of a Ph.D. It is a lovely area that I had never visited even though I pass it all of the time on the bus. The streets are lined with shops, tea salons, a few bakeries and pastry shops, restaurants and lovely apartments. Plus of course some markets like these pictured. And at this time of year men roasting chestnuts. The first time I had ever had roasted chestnuts was last year in Antalya – both Peter and I really enjoy them so we have been roasting them at home over the BBQ. I digress. Anyway, the pictures of the shops below were taken at about 8 p.m. on a Friday night. The area is lovely, colorful and lively.

But of course, since we were out to celebrate, we wanted to find a pub. And find one we did. The pub pictured here is unlike anything I have ever been in before.

The name of the pub translated is "Peanut." Inside the floors were covered with piles and piles of peanut shells (we are talking 2 feet deep) and tables in the shape of peanuts. I know, you might say, Big Bad John’s in Victoria has peanut shells all over the floor, too. Yes, I know, and Big Bad John’s is a watering hole beyond compare in its own right with women’s underclothes hanging from the ceiling and colorful local characters. But the Peanut was something else. At the Peanut, you can drink beer or vodka. Nothing else. No mixers for the vodka, no water, no juice, no wine, nothing. You may have beer or vodka. And there is only one kind of beer and one kind of vodka. Efes or Absolut. Pick you poison. Never in my life had I heard of such a thing. We opted not to stay there as some of us wanted to drink wine that evening but I had to take a picture in case anyone reading this is in Ankara and wants to sit in piles of peanuts flipping coins for drinks. Heads for Efes and tails for Absolut.