(no subject)
Ankara is still frozen. It starts melting during the day, but that nasty high-altitude temperature drop just solidifies it all overnight. Coming back from break just about everybody has slumped into some sort of dismal winter/second term depression. Except for me. I'm managing to stay just perky enough to sort of wierd out my despondent comrades.
Look, I'll be the first to admit that Ankara is pretty bleak. We've taken to calling it the Peoples Republic of Ankara, for obvious reasons. It's mostly made up of grey cubes guarded by soldiers. Okay, the population is 1/4th Ataturk statues. Yeah, we've all reached that uncomfortable five/six month mark where everybody has pretty firmly left life in the sates behind, but are still not quite at home here, but let's quit the whining.
Because really Ankara is beautiful. It's beautiful in a really wierd, surreal way that creeps up on you when you aren't looking. It's hidden in there somewhere between the state water works building and the ground forces high command building. You have to fill out several forms to get there.
This city is a planned bureaucratic center that was built by Turks. It's like somebody loosed a bunch of failed social realist artists on the town with the only caveat being that everything be just a little less threatening than soviet work. It's not like the bird-crescent is really all that unique. Bizzare stuff like this is everywhere. I think the Turkish government really wanted to create a dyastopian 1984-style city but just didn't have the heart to go through with it. So they propped up bird-crescents and left in some bizzare alleyways.
P.S. I also made an ass of myself while speaking to the newly appointed US ambassador to Turkey but I think that's a story for another entry.
Look, I'll be the first to admit that Ankara is pretty bleak. We've taken to calling it the Peoples Republic of Ankara, for obvious reasons. It's mostly made up of grey cubes guarded by soldiers. Okay, the population is 1/4th Ataturk statues. Yeah, we've all reached that uncomfortable five/six month mark where everybody has pretty firmly left life in the sates behind, but are still not quite at home here, but let's quit the whining.
Because really Ankara is beautiful. It's beautiful in a really wierd, surreal way that creeps up on you when you aren't looking. It's hidden in there somewhere between the state water works building and the ground forces high command building. You have to fill out several forms to get there.
This city is a planned bureaucratic center that was built by Turks. It's like somebody loosed a bunch of failed social realist artists on the town with the only caveat being that everything be just a little less threatening than soviet work. It's not like the bird-crescent is really all that unique. Bizzare stuff like this is everywhere. I think the Turkish government really wanted to create a dyastopian 1984-style city but just didn't have the heart to go through with it. So they propped up bird-crescents and left in some bizzare alleyways.
P.S. I also made an ass of myself while speaking to the newly appointed US ambassador to Turkey but I think that's a story for another entry.