Turkey
Jan 7 06 Saturday
I accomplished a lot today! I like being busy - it keeps me from thinking depressing thoughts, like how alone I am at this base and other miserable stuff. The second I woke up I made a list of things my room needs. It was difficult thinking about the things I needed and the things I already had that TMO (the people who packed all my stuff from my dorm at Travis) was going to bring. I didn’t want to end up buying a whole lotta crap.
Before I could go on my little shopping trip, I made a detour to the Bowling Alley. If you’re thinking I needed to have a quick ‘fix’ by an early game of bowling YOU’RE DEAD WRONG! So wrong! Very wrong! The Bowling Alley is the ONLY public place with wireless internet - so that’s where I needed to go to check my e-mail, live journal, myspace, and see if I could catch anybody on an online messenger. Unfortunately for me the Bowling Alley has VERY BAD food. But at least I was able to catch Shkurygin on - and for an hour and some extra minutes (about the life of my laptop battery) we had a deep talk. It was nice catching up with him. It was too bad I couldn’t find anybody else like my sisters or whatever. Here in Turkey we’re 10 hours ahead in time, so 8 am for me was like almost 11 pm at night for ya’ll on the west coast.
After my battery died I dropped my laptop back in my dorm and went to the BX. Oh by the way - let me tell you a little about Incirlik Air base (that’s right, it’s NOT an AIR FORCE base, just a Turkish air base). The location of my dorm is perfect - it’s close to everything. It’s straight across the street from the gym, the commissary, and the BX. And the hospital/clinic is only a 5 minute walk away. And when you stand at the front entrance of the clinic and look over to the right you can see The Alley - the local Turkish market. Since the first day I saw the buildings that were off base I’ve longed to go and explore, but I knew I couldn’t go out alone. It’s not recommended. And let’s see, there’s also a Turkish BX, and Turkish Café on base.
OKAY - back to my day - at the BX bought bed sheets, pillows, hangers, Brita water pitcher and filter (for FRESH tasting water - not because water on base is dirty), and best of all DISHES and UTENSILS!!!! I know that statement alone is making you think I need to get a life, but I couldn’t help it. I felt like a kid playing house, except it was for real, and for some reason it made me feel happy SO GET OFF MY BACK!!!!! I also found a MONK box set, for those of you who haven’t seen my myspace site, I LOVE MONK!!!! But I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to afford it with everything, but it was the LAST ONE. So I put it in my cart anyway, just in case - by some miracle, I’d be able to afford it. God must’ve heard my prayer, because the price for everything wasn’t TOO bad, and I was able to buy it, but not only that - TODAY I would get my FIRST chance to go off base into The Alley!
When I got back to my room I knocked over to my suite mate’s room because I wanted to use her internet to see if I still had some more money in my bank account. She was there, and when I was using her computer she asked me if I wanted to go off base to get a manicure & pedicure. Even though I’ve never had a manicure or pedicure because I really have no care for it, I really really REALLY wanted to get the heck off this base. And after a fast run over to the commissary and back, me, my suite mate, and her friend, WENT OFF BASE.
The Alley is just a whole street full of stores, restaurants and bars. Our first stop was to Pretty’s Salon. I asked to have my eye brows shaped and for a hair cut. The lady asked me if I wanted my eye brows waxed or threaded (for those of you who are curious about what THREADING is read the paragraph below and for those of you who don’t care skip the paragraph)
Threading: it’s a lot like tweezing - but the person uses a string to pull the hairs out. Sounds impossible - that’s what I thought back in Cali. But the way it works is that the person uses a long piece of ordinary thread and winds it up, and puts it against the skin, and then they pull one end of the string so that the twisted part of the string moves and catches hair. When the string gets caught by the twist it RIPS it out. This is a very painful procedure, but in my opinion the result is a lot more attractive and cleaner then with waxing.
When the lady was done with my eye brows she also did my upper lip (OUCH). Afterwards she washed my hair and trimmed it then blow dried it. Back in the USA for a hair cut it’s about $13.00, but guess how much I paid for having my eye brows shaped, upper lip de-haired, and a hair cut . . . . I only paid SEVEN DOLLARS!!! After the quick trip to the salon (hey there’s also a DIDI salon too J maybe the origin of the name DIDI is Turkish) we browsed all around the shops, rug store, dish store, and other general stores. I know those sound boring, but they weren’t, not in the least. The rug store had the most BEAUTIFUL rugs and the softest. The rugs that were especially beautiful were the traditional Turkish rugs. What was even more appealing was the price of the rugs, for a rug that could fit in my parent’s master bedroom (It was pretty freakin GIGANTIC) was only $250.00. The rug in my living room wasn’t as HALF as good looking and only the quarter of the size and probably costed more than the Turkish rug. . Basically everything the Turkish people make is beautiful and CHEAP.
Another amazing thing that the Turkish people make are their beverages (not the alcoholic ones, but I’m sure if I had the taste for wines and alcohols that I’d find them to be really good too). The apple tea EVERY Turkish restaurant and store offers you tastes EXACTLEY like a ripe apple. Most apple juices in the states don’t even taste like apples! And the cherry juice - tastes EXACTLEY like cherries! The drink reminded me of those cherries farmers sell in baskets for a dollar over the summer (my mom buys them all the time!) Y’know those black cherries that are sweet and tangey?? That’s exactly what the cherry juice tastes like. My friend told me it tasted so good because the they don’t put half as much preservative crap and sweeteners like they do in the USA - but that still doesn’t explain the apple tea. Most teas are made from dried herbs and leaves. Even if you dried and apple and boiled it in water - it would lose a lot of the natural sweet flavor and basically would NOT taste anything close to a ripe apple - wouldn’t it???
And to end our trip we stopped at The Moonlight, a restaurant. Where my two friends told me a lot of the perks about being in Turkey (basically the SHOPPING). There are a lot of places to see in Turkey, like the mosques (I don’t know if I spelled it right but it’s pronounced as mosks), and all the ancient palaces that are still standing today. There are malls and movie theaters around here that play american movies with Turkish subtitles. There’s a lot of great food (but I hear eventually you’ll catch the “Turkish Tease” basically it’s when you eat food that isn’t cleaned or cooked up to USA standards and because our bodies are used to that, when we eat food not prepared as well we get sick. REAL SICK. I hear that it’s like a 24 hour stomach flu, where you have the worst stomach ache of your entire LIFE for 24 hours, and after that your body gets adjusted and you’re fine). There’s a lot to do and see in Turkey. Not only that, but the American dollar goes pretty far here. Today made me feel a lot better about being stationed in Turkey, it gave me something good to look forward to. I do miss my friends and family and the American culture (well not THAT much) and it kills me to be away from them. But now I feel like there’s so much of Turkey that I want to see and experience and shop in, that my 15 months are just gonna breeze by. All in all today was a very good day. Love you all!
I accomplished a lot today! I like being busy - it keeps me from thinking depressing thoughts, like how alone I am at this base and other miserable stuff. The second I woke up I made a list of things my room needs. It was difficult thinking about the things I needed and the things I already had that TMO (the people who packed all my stuff from my dorm at Travis) was going to bring. I didn’t want to end up buying a whole lotta crap.
Before I could go on my little shopping trip, I made a detour to the Bowling Alley. If you’re thinking I needed to have a quick ‘fix’ by an early game of bowling YOU’RE DEAD WRONG! So wrong! Very wrong! The Bowling Alley is the ONLY public place with wireless internet - so that’s where I needed to go to check my e-mail, live journal, myspace, and see if I could catch anybody on an online messenger. Unfortunately for me the Bowling Alley has VERY BAD food. But at least I was able to catch Shkurygin on - and for an hour and some extra minutes (about the life of my laptop battery) we had a deep talk. It was nice catching up with him. It was too bad I couldn’t find anybody else like my sisters or whatever. Here in Turkey we’re 10 hours ahead in time, so 8 am for me was like almost 11 pm at night for ya’ll on the west coast.
After my battery died I dropped my laptop back in my dorm and went to the BX. Oh by the way - let me tell you a little about Incirlik Air base (that’s right, it’s NOT an AIR FORCE base, just a Turkish air base). The location of my dorm is perfect - it’s close to everything. It’s straight across the street from the gym, the commissary, and the BX. And the hospital/clinic is only a 5 minute walk away. And when you stand at the front entrance of the clinic and look over to the right you can see The Alley - the local Turkish market. Since the first day I saw the buildings that were off base I’ve longed to go and explore, but I knew I couldn’t go out alone. It’s not recommended. And let’s see, there’s also a Turkish BX, and Turkish Café on base.
OKAY - back to my day - at the BX bought bed sheets, pillows, hangers, Brita water pitcher and filter (for FRESH tasting water - not because water on base is dirty), and best of all DISHES and UTENSILS!!!! I know that statement alone is making you think I need to get a life, but I couldn’t help it. I felt like a kid playing house, except it was for real, and for some reason it made me feel happy SO GET OFF MY BACK!!!!! I also found a MONK box set, for those of you who haven’t seen my myspace site, I LOVE MONK!!!! But I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to afford it with everything, but it was the LAST ONE. So I put it in my cart anyway, just in case - by some miracle, I’d be able to afford it. God must’ve heard my prayer, because the price for everything wasn’t TOO bad, and I was able to buy it, but not only that - TODAY I would get my FIRST chance to go off base into The Alley!
When I got back to my room I knocked over to my suite mate’s room because I wanted to use her internet to see if I still had some more money in my bank account. She was there, and when I was using her computer she asked me if I wanted to go off base to get a manicure & pedicure. Even though I’ve never had a manicure or pedicure because I really have no care for it, I really really REALLY wanted to get the heck off this base. And after a fast run over to the commissary and back, me, my suite mate, and her friend, WENT OFF BASE.
The Alley is just a whole street full of stores, restaurants and bars. Our first stop was to Pretty’s Salon. I asked to have my eye brows shaped and for a hair cut. The lady asked me if I wanted my eye brows waxed or threaded (for those of you who are curious about what THREADING is read the paragraph below and for those of you who don’t care skip the paragraph)
Threading: it’s a lot like tweezing - but the person uses a string to pull the hairs out. Sounds impossible - that’s what I thought back in Cali. But the way it works is that the person uses a long piece of ordinary thread and winds it up, and puts it against the skin, and then they pull one end of the string so that the twisted part of the string moves and catches hair. When the string gets caught by the twist it RIPS it out. This is a very painful procedure, but in my opinion the result is a lot more attractive and cleaner then with waxing.
When the lady was done with my eye brows she also did my upper lip (OUCH). Afterwards she washed my hair and trimmed it then blow dried it. Back in the USA for a hair cut it’s about $13.00, but guess how much I paid for having my eye brows shaped, upper lip de-haired, and a hair cut . . . . I only paid SEVEN DOLLARS!!! After the quick trip to the salon (hey there’s also a DIDI salon too J maybe the origin of the name DIDI is Turkish) we browsed all around the shops, rug store, dish store, and other general stores. I know those sound boring, but they weren’t, not in the least. The rug store had the most BEAUTIFUL rugs and the softest. The rugs that were especially beautiful were the traditional Turkish rugs. What was even more appealing was the price of the rugs, for a rug that could fit in my parent’s master bedroom (It was pretty freakin GIGANTIC) was only $250.00. The rug in my living room wasn’t as HALF as good looking and only the quarter of the size and probably costed more than the Turkish rug. . Basically everything the Turkish people make is beautiful and CHEAP.
Another amazing thing that the Turkish people make are their beverages (not the alcoholic ones, but I’m sure if I had the taste for wines and alcohols that I’d find them to be really good too). The apple tea EVERY Turkish restaurant and store offers you tastes EXACTLEY like a ripe apple. Most apple juices in the states don’t even taste like apples! And the cherry juice - tastes EXACTLEY like cherries! The drink reminded me of those cherries farmers sell in baskets for a dollar over the summer (my mom buys them all the time!) Y’know those black cherries that are sweet and tangey?? That’s exactly what the cherry juice tastes like. My friend told me it tasted so good because the they don’t put half as much preservative crap and sweeteners like they do in the USA - but that still doesn’t explain the apple tea. Most teas are made from dried herbs and leaves. Even if you dried and apple and boiled it in water - it would lose a lot of the natural sweet flavor and basically would NOT taste anything close to a ripe apple - wouldn’t it???
And to end our trip we stopped at The Moonlight, a restaurant. Where my two friends told me a lot of the perks about being in Turkey (basically the SHOPPING). There are a lot of places to see in Turkey, like the mosques (I don’t know if I spelled it right but it’s pronounced as mosks), and all the ancient palaces that are still standing today. There are malls and movie theaters around here that play american movies with Turkish subtitles. There’s a lot of great food (but I hear eventually you’ll catch the “Turkish Tease” basically it’s when you eat food that isn’t cleaned or cooked up to USA standards and because our bodies are used to that, when we eat food not prepared as well we get sick. REAL SICK. I hear that it’s like a 24 hour stomach flu, where you have the worst stomach ache of your entire LIFE for 24 hours, and after that your body gets adjusted and you’re fine). There’s a lot to do and see in Turkey. Not only that, but the American dollar goes pretty far here. Today made me feel a lot better about being stationed in Turkey, it gave me something good to look forward to. I do miss my friends and family and the American culture (well not THAT much) and it kills me to be away from them. But now I feel like there’s so much of Turkey that I want to see and experience and shop in, that my 15 months are just gonna breeze by. All in all today was a very good day. Love you all!