29 July Back in Antalya

Mom and I flew yesterday from Istanbul to Antalya aboard the very pleasant Turkish Airlines. I'd read skiddish reports about their service, on-time percentages, etc. We got fairly reasonable rates for our flights, given that they were just booked in the past week ($215 each, R/T) and despite our 45 minute departure delay, we enjoyed the flight. The food was not spectacular, but it was fresh and wholesome and gave us leave to skip lunch. A fluffy white bread roll with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and the white cheese (beyas peynir) that Mom is so nuts over. Plus a cup of the Turkish yogurt that has fruit but is still not too sweet--we give that a big thumbs up too. What's the deal with sickeningly sweet American yogurt? Ick. So phony and plastic-y tasting. Yuck. (Liv and Ruby heartily disagree, mind you.) We got picked up by 2 guys who occupy different polar ends of the Turkish male continuum. Emre was young, slightly effeminate, a bit apologetic in aspect, trying to be in charge (well, -ish). The driver was a bald, swarthy, gruff but kind guy who popped in a Turkish CD when he heard that I was looking for the music of a certain Turkish percussionist, Burcan Ocal (Bur-chan Er-chal). Then our van got sideswiped by another driver and we saw the anger management capabilities of the driver kick in. He looked scary. I think he grew 6" side-to-side holding in his annoyance with the other driver. Anyway, to the hotel and the full sea view from the 16th floor. This hotel is kind of gross, as in "you wish you were here" gross. We have a full view of the Mediterranean extending out to the horizon, a deep beckoning blue, turquoise-y in the sun. Antalya is curved, an important harbor in Roman times, and we are at one end of the curve, about 4-5 kms. outside the old town. We can see the other side of the "U" the harbor makes off to the West, a full 3 (?) kms. of whitish-grayish mountains (in the glare and haze of the sun), speckled with evergreens and...well, other vegetation, sloping into the sea. They're probably 1000+ feet or so. Hard to tell from far away.

We're heading down there now, taking a dolmus (dole-moosh), a city van/bus. That will be its own adventure. I've done it once before, but now I labor under the notion that I ought to ask for things in Turkish to validate the time I've put in studying. I went over chapter 4 again at breakfast in my Teach Yourself Turkish book. I love it. It's just ridiculous that I have to leave in 4-5 days. 6 months??? I feel confident my Turkish would be strong if I stayed. I have thrown myself into it in a much more effective way than with Russian or Japanese. I am trying to overcome the "wait until you can say it perfectly before speaking" hangup. That's what has stymied my progress in the past. I keep preaching to students that mistakes are not necessarily to be avoided. On the contrary, that's how the brain learns. As such, they should be viewed as key opportunities for learning, for improving. Failure Avoidance is no way to go through life. How can you grow? Makes sense when I tell it to students. Now I'm trying to live in in practice. And it's working.

I hope we can get to the museum here. It's amazing. And a walk around the old city will do us good. We're off to a late start and it's going to hit 100 today, I think.

I'll upload a few pictures from Istanbul and from our flight over. Mom wants me to take more flattering pictures of her. I told her she should stop giving me so many instructions while I'm shooting. Ha.

And I'm finding that decelerating from our month's intense program is really hard for me. I wrote to Chris that it's funny: who else do we know who has trouble relaxing?? I'm so used to staying uberbusy, I feel unsettled if I'm not fully scheduled. Maybe that's what raki is for. (just kidding.)

This is a beautiful place. I need to let it wash over me and take the kinks out of my muscles and mind. Mom is able to. I will take a page out of her book, so to speak. And keep plugging with the Turkish!

Happy day, all.