Man, another busy day. The attached picture is of a typical traffic snarl in the area where we're staying. Turks are nutty drivers.
We had two dynamite speakers today, plus a masterfully conducted Turkish lesson. When a teacher is really good, he or she makes the lesson design/implementation seem so effortless. Umut Ata has been our teacher and he's great. Sadly, no more Turkish lessons, not in the classroom anyway. Out in the real world. I'm a little bummed at the huge gulf between my brain in the classroom and my brain/mouth conjunction on the street. Coming up with the right Turkish phrase out of my 150 word exposure so far is tough! Food continues to be a happy experience--great dinner tonight with the girls: Sue, Kerry and Sarah. I took pictures of it, will post tomorrow. Today's pics are of the ebru lesson at the Museum of Folkloric Arts (my name for it, not theirs). Ebru is a type of painting in which paint is laid out/sprinkled/splattered by the artist into a large tray of water. The paint lies on the surface, holding the shape the artist constructs. Then a piece of silk, cut to the size of the tray, is gently laid on top of the paint pattern. It immediately absorbs the paint, so when the artist pushes the cloth to the bottom of the pan, then gathers and squeezes the cloth in her hands, the pattern remains intact, undisturbed. The cloth is squeezed into a long, thin shape, then rinsed in a pan of treated water, then hung to dry. I bought one today for 10 TL (about $6.50). 2 of our colleagues--one an artist and one an ebru enthusiast--made their own models today, so beautiful.
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