I ran across this famous Turkish photographer, Ara Güler, and he has some beautiful photographs of Istanbul and Anatolia. His nickname is The Eye of Istanbul. You can see more of his photographs here.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
The Song of Sparrows
The film The Song of Sparrows is wonderful. We watched it the other night and I got so much insight into what life is like in Eastern Turkey. This film is set in Iran, but Enes says the village where he lived as a child was just like this. It was quite a nostalgic film for him and a learning experience for me.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Persimmons - Havanin Meyvesi
There are so many lovely fruits in Turkey that I have never eaten. Sometimes I'll walk through the street pazar and notice fruits or vegetables that I've never even seen before. Maybe I'm just not savvy on my fruits and vegetables, but I'm always seeing new things and it makes me so excited.
I tried a persimmons for the first time last year and I fell in love. Its really sweet and we always eat it for dessert when its in season. In Turkish they are called Havanin Meyvesi (Eve's Fruit, as in from the Garden of Eden). Persimmons are in season right now and I noticed this one the other day and it was huge and I had to try it. So good!
Saturday, December 04, 2010
Bread
I don't fully understand the obsession with bread in this country. If you don't have bread, you can't have breakfast, lunch or dinner. Its like trying to eat an Oreo cookie without the cream in the middle. You just can't.
Tonight Enes cooked dinner. It was a kind of chicken and rice soup. We didn't have any bread and Enes complained a little about it, but we were both starving so he let it go...or so I thought.
About 2 minutes into the meal, Enes stops eating and looks at me. "I can't do it. I can't do it." he says. "You can't do what?" I say totally confused. He gets up in a hurry and I hear him mumbling something about bread. I tell him we have Lavas (like tortillas) and he snuffs at me and shakes his head. He wants REAL bread...
He takes off to the kitchen. He comes back and you know what he has?
Cornflakes! Yes, he puts them in his chicken soup, because he can't find any bread. I'm disgusted at the thought. He asks me why it is so weird, because I eat cereal with milk. He then tells me I should try it because maybe in fact I have been taught wrong and this is the perfect combination for the perfect meal. I shake my head and continue eating as he crunches away eating all his cornflake chicken soup.
Just a normal evening in the Demirci household...
Saturday, November 20, 2010
A Perfect Day
It's November and it is still abnormally warm in Antalya. I'm not complaining, if the weather was like this all year round, I would be in heaven.
With the sun shining bright and the sky clear this morning, we wanted to make sure and get outside and enjoy it. Sometime soon the rainy season will arrive and we won't have these pleasant Saturday afternoons. We decided to find a beach so we could sit and relax. We drove about 20 minutes outside of Antalya on the Konyaalti Road, found this little spot, and set up our chairs and our fishing poles.
We didn't realize how warm it actually was. We could have swam today! We were both burning up in our pants and t-shirts and Enes was wishing he could have jumped in to do some spear fishing.
To be in such a quiet place, reading a wonderful book with a few fishing lines thrown out and listening to the water of the Mediterranean washing up to the shore was a perfect day.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Happy Birthday!!
Today was Enes' birthday! We celebrated by having dinner and cake with friends. A friend of ours made a birthday cake that looked like a fish and I really think it was the best cake I have ever tasted.
The next day, Enes and I celebrated at home. I wanted to cook him dinner, but instead he cooked me dinner! I'm a lucky girl!
Monday, November 01, 2010
1 Year
Enes and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary in October. Our civil ceremony was October 16th and our wedding ceremony was October 17th, so I guess we get to celebrate both days?!
A friend of ours who is a photographer took some photos for our anniversary as our wedding gift because she wasn't able to be here when were married. We had a fun morning with her exploring the streets of Old Town Antalya and the harbor and needless to say after viewing the photos, we laughed alot!
Here are a few of our favorites:
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
I Be Chineeesseee if You Please....
Here’s a first. I’ve never been yelled at for being Chinese, but today, it happened. I should’ve know after all those years of getting letters and scholarship offers from the Chinese Student Association of America and having the MOST common last name in the whole entire world(because of the Chinese) that one day, it WOULD happen.
Here is how it went down. After making a whirl wind trip to Ankara to get permission from the American Embassy to get permission to get married Enes and I returned to Antalya to do the list of things we had to do here to get approval from the govt. here in the city. One thing on my list of things to do was have my birth certificate and passport translated and notarized. Enes and I headed out to get everything taken care of. We went to the translation and notarization office, Enes explained everything and they said to come back at 2:00pm to pick up the translation and they would notarize it. So at about 1:36pm in the afternoon, I had a little fender bender due to being cornered by about 3 cars and trying to protect the car I was in (no huge damage, just a little scratch), but in the process, I did lose Enes because he had to go with the people whose car I scratched to have it looked at so I had to go back to get my birth certificate and passport translations alone. No problem, or so I thought.
I figured, we were there earlier in the day, they all know who I am, if I have problems talking, they’ll figure it out because I’ve already been here once today. I get to the office and go pick up the translated documents. They tell me to go in this other room to get it notarized. I talk to a girl that I saw early that morning and she tells me who to talk to, but I realized it’s a man that wasn’t there that morning. But the label on his desk says “NOTAR” (notary), so I figure it’s a no brainer. I’ll just hand him the documents and he knows what to do. :)
So I walk up and hand him the pieces of paper. He looks straight down at my birth certificate and then for all I understood, all “H-E-double hockey sticks” broke loose. He starts yelling at me. I have NO idea what he is saying, he’s talking super fast and I’m catching maybe 3 words in the 2 minute tirade. After he’s done, I ask him in Turkish if there is a problem and if he needed something else? (what else was I supposed to do) :) He threw my papers to the side and then stared straight through me like I wasn’t there. Hmm… what to do? I stood there for like 2 minutes waiting for something to happen, staring at my translated documents that he just threw down. Everybody in the office including the girl that had just directed me to him, acted like he didn’t just yell at me and nothing happened. Everyone just went about their business as usual.
So, eventually I went and sat down. I’ll just wait. I was trying to think of someone to call that could help me because Enes had left his phone at home that day and I couldn’t get ahold of him since he was with the people who’s car I scratched. Ahh…don’t cry Dania. Don’t cry. I sat there for a second with my head in my hands and then the same guy that just yelled at me comes into the waiting area where I was sitting.. “Dania Lee” “Dania Lee” Dania Lee”he says… But this time, he is super happy and all smiley. I’m thinking “great, I have the manic depressive Notar”…. So I raise my hand, “that’s me”.. he says, Gel! Gel! (Come! Come!) and takes me back to his desk… then he points at my last name and asks if I’m Chinese..(side note, I’m thinking do I look Chinese?) I tell him no, I’m an American and he says..oh, I looked at your last name and thought you were Chinese….then he starts laughing really loud, stamps all my papers and sends me on my way…
To celebrate the completion of our list of things to do.... I made Chinese food too. :)
(another side note)
The car that I scratched, Enes went to the car dealership and they said it would be 600 TL to fix it and by the time Enes was done, it was 28 TL because the repairman found out that Enes was from his city… all goes to show..its WHO you know here or rather MEET along the way….:)
Here is how it went down. After making a whirl wind trip to Ankara to get permission from the American Embassy to get permission to get married Enes and I returned to Antalya to do the list of things we had to do here to get approval from the govt. here in the city. One thing on my list of things to do was have my birth certificate and passport translated and notarized. Enes and I headed out to get everything taken care of. We went to the translation and notarization office, Enes explained everything and they said to come back at 2:00pm to pick up the translation and they would notarize it. So at about 1:36pm in the afternoon, I had a little fender bender due to being cornered by about 3 cars and trying to protect the car I was in (no huge damage, just a little scratch), but in the process, I did lose Enes because he had to go with the people whose car I scratched to have it looked at so I had to go back to get my birth certificate and passport translations alone. No problem, or so I thought.
I figured, we were there earlier in the day, they all know who I am, if I have problems talking, they’ll figure it out because I’ve already been here once today. I get to the office and go pick up the translated documents. They tell me to go in this other room to get it notarized. I talk to a girl that I saw early that morning and she tells me who to talk to, but I realized it’s a man that wasn’t there that morning. But the label on his desk says “NOTAR” (notary), so I figure it’s a no brainer. I’ll just hand him the documents and he knows what to do. :)
So I walk up and hand him the pieces of paper. He looks straight down at my birth certificate and then for all I understood, all “H-E-double hockey sticks” broke loose. He starts yelling at me. I have NO idea what he is saying, he’s talking super fast and I’m catching maybe 3 words in the 2 minute tirade. After he’s done, I ask him in Turkish if there is a problem and if he needed something else? (what else was I supposed to do) :) He threw my papers to the side and then stared straight through me like I wasn’t there. Hmm… what to do? I stood there for like 2 minutes waiting for something to happen, staring at my translated documents that he just threw down. Everybody in the office including the girl that had just directed me to him, acted like he didn’t just yell at me and nothing happened. Everyone just went about their business as usual.
So, eventually I went and sat down. I’ll just wait. I was trying to think of someone to call that could help me because Enes had left his phone at home that day and I couldn’t get ahold of him since he was with the people who’s car I scratched. Ahh…don’t cry Dania. Don’t cry. I sat there for a second with my head in my hands and then the same guy that just yelled at me comes into the waiting area where I was sitting.. “Dania Lee” “Dania Lee” Dania Lee”he says… But this time, he is super happy and all smiley. I’m thinking “great, I have the manic depressive Notar”…. So I raise my hand, “that’s me”.. he says, Gel! Gel! (Come! Come!) and takes me back to his desk… then he points at my last name and asks if I’m Chinese..(side note, I’m thinking do I look Chinese?) I tell him no, I’m an American and he says..oh, I looked at your last name and thought you were Chinese….then he starts laughing really loud, stamps all my papers and sends me on my way…
To celebrate the completion of our list of things to do.... I made Chinese food too. :)
(another side note)
The car that I scratched, Enes went to the car dealership and they said it would be 600 TL to fix it and by the time Enes was done, it was 28 TL because the repairman found out that Enes was from his city… all goes to show..its WHO you know here or rather MEET along the way….:)
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