(no subject)
Earlier (3 March 2007):
Because I didn't have my camera, and you must know exactly what it looked like, I will attempt to make paintbrushes out of my words.
A small vineyard with a lot of soft, deep soil. A slightly reddish brown color, lighter than coa-coa powder. In the smill vineyard, dark, knobbly windey plants with posts inbetween, leaning on the wire. In rows. And inbetween the rows workers, digging. The old man from there giving us directions on how to get up to the castle ruins on the top of a near mountain. The old man putting us on the right path, explaining how wrong the other path we were on was. In the background of the vineyard that slanted away from us and the two workers in it was an incredible view. A gorgeous little mountain really patchworked with fields and olive groves that turned into clumps of bushes and small, dry forest which were intersected by smooth-looking rock formations. The rock formations looked like sandstone and also looked like they could become Kapadokya-like fairy chimneys in a few centuries. On one side of the sandstone ridge was a Turkish flag, on the right, closer to us, were the remains of an ancient castle. Beyond the patchwork but rocky near mountains were bigger, greener and further mountains. I printed this first photograph in my mind.
View from on top of the castle walls:
Philip and I arrived first at the castle and walked around the perimeter on top of the grassy ruins of the castle walls. In one direction we could see the perfect sheet of farmland that had been leveled so perfectly by thousands of years of use. At the base of the mountains, the groves and rows of crops crinkled and dipped with the mountains until the incline became to sharp or the rocks too hard. Again the patches of trees and the rugged, steep conelike formations jutting and resting above. In another direction a little village tucked into dark green mountains that got big and distant. Behind us the grass and daisy-filled castle insides. Leaving the castle, a heard of goats and their master, all experts at the steep and rocky. The view seemed massive.
After hiking, in the evening, my family took me to a classic hangout restaurant where turks go to eat, drink rakı, and hear live old folk/gypsy music. It was two floors, and to make sure that the audience got an equal share of eating/singing time, the band would spend half an hour downstairs and then switch to the upstairs. There were five musicians, accordian, fiddle, autoharp, ut (a stringed folk instrument), and darbuka (a little hand drum). All of the musicians were at least 50 and their faces were all so classic that if you drew a caricature of them it would just look normal.
At first I was worried because they started out so sober-faced, so routine, so 'another night off the same'. But each time they came upstairs they got wilder, and had the whole audience singing and clapping (which is generally what people here do when they hear songs the know even on radio or tv, it's AMAZİNG) and half of the audience dancing gypsy and traditional moves. They interacted with the audience too:
The old man playing the ut making crazy growly animal noises and scaring people and then breaking face and laughing, and the accordian player who's music-joy I didn't know untile he played solo, and the hawaiian-looking big face big lips autoharp player, with his secret frown-smile and then his whole face just a smile, and the thin sad-featured gypsy fiddler, and the darbuka player with his strong boom leading voice. And when old crazy man and droopy-eyed fiddler came over to our table to get tips, I had one in each ear (inches away) and tried to look back and forth and then just closed my eyes and about died from amazement.
That was last weekend. Now for some updates.
My host family is in America for their first time ever, visiting their daughter in Portland (well, Tigard) Oregon. They'll be there for a month, and while they're gone I'm staying with my Baba's sister Fatma, or Fatma Hala. With her, on the second floor of this apartment building lives her nephew Erkin, and on the fifth floor live Erkin's parents, Nadide Hala and Atilla Enişte. Fatma Hala is the one who I went to Konya with to see the whirling dervish ceremonies, and this is the family that took me to Antalya for New Years. I'm happy to be here, I'm treated just like family, and it's nice to change surroundings.
Because I didn't have my camera, and you must know exactly what it looked like, I will attempt to make paintbrushes out of my words.
A small vineyard with a lot of soft, deep soil. A slightly reddish brown color, lighter than coa-coa powder. In the smill vineyard, dark, knobbly windey plants with posts inbetween, leaning on the wire. In rows. And inbetween the rows workers, digging. The old man from there giving us directions on how to get up to the castle ruins on the top of a near mountain. The old man putting us on the right path, explaining how wrong the other path we were on was. In the background of the vineyard that slanted away from us and the two workers in it was an incredible view. A gorgeous little mountain really patchworked with fields and olive groves that turned into clumps of bushes and small, dry forest which were intersected by smooth-looking rock formations. The rock formations looked like sandstone and also looked like they could become Kapadokya-like fairy chimneys in a few centuries. On one side of the sandstone ridge was a Turkish flag, on the right, closer to us, were the remains of an ancient castle. Beyond the patchwork but rocky near mountains were bigger, greener and further mountains. I printed this first photograph in my mind.
View from on top of the castle walls:
Philip and I arrived first at the castle and walked around the perimeter on top of the grassy ruins of the castle walls. In one direction we could see the perfect sheet of farmland that had been leveled so perfectly by thousands of years of use. At the base of the mountains, the groves and rows of crops crinkled and dipped with the mountains until the incline became to sharp or the rocks too hard. Again the patches of trees and the rugged, steep conelike formations jutting and resting above. In another direction a little village tucked into dark green mountains that got big and distant. Behind us the grass and daisy-filled castle insides. Leaving the castle, a heard of goats and their master, all experts at the steep and rocky. The view seemed massive.
After hiking, in the evening, my family took me to a classic hangout restaurant where turks go to eat, drink rakı, and hear live old folk/gypsy music. It was two floors, and to make sure that the audience got an equal share of eating/singing time, the band would spend half an hour downstairs and then switch to the upstairs. There were five musicians, accordian, fiddle, autoharp, ut (a stringed folk instrument), and darbuka (a little hand drum). All of the musicians were at least 50 and their faces were all so classic that if you drew a caricature of them it would just look normal.
At first I was worried because they started out so sober-faced, so routine, so 'another night off the same'. But each time they came upstairs they got wilder, and had the whole audience singing and clapping (which is generally what people here do when they hear songs the know even on radio or tv, it's AMAZİNG) and half of the audience dancing gypsy and traditional moves. They interacted with the audience too:
The old man playing the ut making crazy growly animal noises and scaring people and then breaking face and laughing, and the accordian player who's music-joy I didn't know untile he played solo, and the hawaiian-looking big face big lips autoharp player, with his secret frown-smile and then his whole face just a smile, and the thin sad-featured gypsy fiddler, and the darbuka player with his strong boom leading voice. And when old crazy man and droopy-eyed fiddler came over to our table to get tips, I had one in each ear (inches away) and tried to look back and forth and then just closed my eyes and about died from amazement.
That was last weekend. Now for some updates.
My host family is in America for their first time ever, visiting their daughter in Portland (well, Tigard) Oregon. They'll be there for a month, and while they're gone I'm staying with my Baba's sister Fatma, or Fatma Hala. With her, on the second floor of this apartment building lives her nephew Erkin, and on the fifth floor live Erkin's parents, Nadide Hala and Atilla Enişte. Fatma Hala is the one who I went to Konya with to see the whirling dervish ceremonies, and this is the family that took me to Antalya for New Years. I'm happy to be here, I'm treated just like family, and it's nice to change surroundings.