To school again

I went to an ELT (English Language Teaching) seminar on Saturday. The venue was a private primary school. It felt good to be in a school again — as teacher :-). In Turkey, I rather avoid schools as state-owned schools are not very appealing to me. But this school is private and has a very friendly atmosphere, the Nilüfer Özel Ilkbahar Ilköğretim Okulu. There are several private schools, or kolej as they are called here, in Bursa. The next two Saturdays, I will have the opportunity to see two other ones who also host ELT seminars. Private schools in Turkey are extremely expensive but there seem to be enough parents who can afford to send their children there.

On my way to the seminar, I thought it's a weekday, because the bus was full with school children. Then I remembered that in Turkey children have to go to dershanes. These are a kind of preparatory schools who prepare children for the many entry or transitional exams they have to take about three times in their lives as students, the last one being the university entry exam. They only exist because the state schools seem not to be able to prepare the kids for these exams. Everybody seems to believe that the kids cannot pass those exams without the help of the derhanes. Which means two things: either the kids go to school twice a day, first to their normal school and in the afternoon to the prep school and do homework for both in the evenings and on weekends. Or they can attend regular school on weekdays and go to the dershane on the weekends, which means they go to school seven days a week!! There are so many chains of dershanes now, that it has become a huge economy. 

I attended the last two years of lise in Turkey. In the second year, I registered at a dershane because everybody else did. I had opted for the 7-day version but after about two months I gave up. It was too much for me. I bought a couple of prep books and studied at home, which was a good decision. I could concentrate on what I had problems with most, had a good time and I passed the university exams with a very good result.

Here is a picture of a state-owned and the private school I went to, guess which is which.

Botanical garden

Today was a beautiful, warm and sunny spring day. Perfect day for a visit of the Botanical Garden! The last time I was there was in 2001. That was also my first time there. I knew where it was but I didn't know how exactly to get there. We went to the main street and after some waiting caught a dolmuş. These are minibuses that don't only stop at bus stations; you can hop on and off where ever you want - on their route. The driver was so kind as to drive us a bit closer to the entrance of the park although it was not on his route. That's one of the nice things about a country like Turkey. People bend rules if it helps (Well, sometimes, it doesn't help but today we were happy about it). 

Most trees are not green yet but, as you can see on the pictures, some trees and plants were blooming. Although Sunday, it was neither crowded nor noisy. Later we found out that most families with kids were in the adjacent Zoo :-). It was so good to be in a park surrounded by trees and plants and hearing the birds chirp. I had missed that so badly. In Germany, I was living in a very green city. I just had to walk out of the door ... 

In the Botanical Garden, you can rent bikes, you can picnic, play table tennis, jog (on special lanes), or just relax watching the scenery. There are cafés, restaurants, and, of course, a mescid, a place where you can pray the Muslim prayers. The Garden is really huge. Every year, there is a tulip festival for which they plant up to 250.000 tulips. I hope I can find out when that is.

By the way, tulip is a word that is Persian in origin and entered English via Turkish. In the original Persian it means "turban" from the shape of the expanded flower. Interestingly, in Turkish, we use this word for a kind of head covering of women and use the word lale for tulips. In Turkey, we even had a lale devri – a "tulip era". In this time, tulips were very fashionable. And if you look at those typcial Turkish plates motives or tiles in some mosques, you can see the tulip has been often used. I can tell you more about that when I have visited the festival.

Anyway, my mom and I decided we will come the Garden once a week. Next time, we will bring some food along and a good book and stay the whole day! I'm already looking forward to it.

Turkish bath

A picture from a traditional hamam. This one is for men. What else did you expect? :-)

Today, my mom and I went to a traditional Turkish bath or hamam (from Arabic) in a historic domed building, and soaked in the hot water, bathed and relaxed. Hope it will help my cold go away. As this hamam was still an old one and hasn't been "modernised" yet, it looks very nostalgic and is inexpensive. We only paid 7 YTL (€3,69) each for as long as we wanted to stay.

Hamams or steam baths exist in many places but in Turkey many of them have natural thermal water. In Bursa, most hamams get their hot water from thermal springs and are thus very healthy (the water is suitable for drinking and bathing). This is not astonishing as our "house mountain" — the Uludağ is a (hopefully) inactive volcano.

Talking about volcanoes, Turkey is a major earthquake zone. And tonight in the news I heard that there was an earthquake in Istanbul today. It was "only" a magnitude of 4.8. When I told my mom, she just said "Ah, yes, there was an earthquake here just now." Well, I knew this could happen anytime before I moved here :-( I will try to console myself with the positive side of it … hot, relaxing spas...

Here is a poem about Bursa's spas by the Ottoman poet Arif:

Those who enter remain
Bathing in the life giving water
Cures the ills of many
At Bursa’s spa.

Helmut von Moltke, a German  military teacher who was in Turkey in the 1830s, wrote in a letter to his father: “I have already told you of the pleasures of the Turkish hamams. In Bursa the water is not artificially heated, but is by nature so hot that at first one cannot believe that one will live to survive immersion in the large, clear pool without being scalded. There was a wonderful view from the terrace of the hamam which we entered and it was so comfortable that we were reluctant to leave.”

A cow in the city

When my sister called me the other day and asked if I wanted milk from the local milkman who had his own cows, I was dumbfounded. Fresh milk from cows in the city? I knew they existed when I was a child but times had changed I thought, and the city has grown. People now buy milk in cartons, which they tell us would be much healthier and more hygienic. I was intrigued and wanted to know more. She said the place was very clean and the owner would go the mountains to collect grass for them. As I like everything natural and I wanted to make my own yoghurt, I immediately ordered some milk. 

I have to say that I don't normally like the smell of milk, especially when it's warm. But this milk smelled wonderful. I made yoghurt of most of it and kept the rest for making hot chocolate.

Yoghurt

I have never understood why anyone would buy one of those yoghurt making machines.

Making yoghurt is so simple:

• Heat up the milk.
  
• Pour the milk into the cup(s) / glasses you want to make the yoghurt in.
  
• Wait until the milk cools down a bit (You can test it with your finger. It should be warm but not burn your finger).
  
• Add a few spoons of natural yoghurt to the milk.
  
• Cover the container with a lid and then with blankets or similar to keep it warm.
  
• After a couple of hours, the yoghurt is ready.

Here is a recipe for a yoghurt dessert:

• Put some yoghurt in small dessert dishes.
  
• Pour some honey on top of the yoghurt.
  
• Sprinkle some coarsely ground walnuts on top of it.
  

Enjoy!

By the way, "yoghurt" is one of the few Turkish words that is used internationally. And if there is something Turkish about me than one of these things is that I like yoghurt a lot.

New city square II

Today, I managed to go to the new City Square and do some window shopping in the mall.

The mall consists of three huge eight-storey buildings of which four are below ground including the car park. With my sister, my nephew and her nephew, we could only go inside one of the buildings and browse through a few shops.

Inside, it's an ordinary mall with many chain shops and well-known brands - though affordable. I was surprised to see some shops I know from Germany - like Tschibo and C&A. So, again, some familiar places. The most striking thing for me was the many cafés, all in different styles. And, Starbucks has arrived in Bursa! When it gets warmer, the cafés will spill out onto the Square and together with the trees and flowers everything will look more colourful.

Unfortunately, I could only take very few pictures. They are not sensational but I wanted to try out this new tool, Gifup :-)

Recycling

In Germany, we had to recycle everything! It was almost too much. We had three different dust bins plus a plastic bag for plastic, metals, etc. Then there were glass containers, clothes containers, special places to hand in chemicals, etc.

Whenever I was on holiday in Turkey, I felt awkward and guilty throwing everything into the same bin. Shortly after I moved here, they started recycling in Bursa. Now, we have a plastic bag for paper, metals and plastic. I am all for recycling is important but I do hope they won't go to such an extreme as in Germany, though.

Things have never been wasted in Turkey. Many people have lived from old "stuff". They have collected paper, old metal, clothes, anything, from the houses and sold it and made a living. You can see them walking through the streets and hear them shouting "Eskici.... eski aliyorum" (eski: old/old things; eskici: a person who deals with old stuff). I don't know what's going to happen to them now.

Original can be found here (together with a poem about an "eskici"): www.dosthane.de/siirlerim/bireskici.html

Listen to an eskici who roams our street (click on the play button below).

Fairs and exhibitions II

Saturday was a day of openings. I was torn between the three fairs I wanted to visit and the opening of the City Square. I decided to go to the fair. After all,  I reasoned, the Square would be there for much longer.

What I liked: 

Visiting the fairs was for free!

You can actually buy books at the book fair. Last year I realised a dream and visited the world's biggest book fair in Frankfurt. I was very excited about it but then I found out that you couldn't actually buy any books at many stands. I bought several books and spent more than I had "planned". One book is about Bursa. It has pictures of Bursa taken around 1900. Very interesting. If you want to have a look inside the book, go to this link and click on the icon below the book cover and leaf through the book: http://tinyurl.com/2wb3nw.

I also liked the fact that the fair wasn't too big and I actually had the opportunity to talk at length with several authors and had two books signed for my nephews (I hope they wont't read this before I give them their books).

What I didn't like:

When I went into the exhibition halls where the book fair was, I thought I smelled cigarette smoke but I quickly discarded that thought. Couldn't be possible I thought. It was possible! Visitors as well as attendants were smoking between all those books!!! How dare they?! I mean, besides me not liking cigarette smoke, what about safety?

New city centre - shopping and meeting place

(Source: www.yenişafak.com.tr)

One of the ugliest places near the centre of Bursa was the "Santral Garaj". Turkish is a phonetic language; so, with a little bit of imagination and knowledge of French you can guess that this means Central Station. This was the hub for bus lines within Bursa and the ones connecting Bursa to other cities. It was an extremely busy and crowded place but very unsightly and it had become too small.

A few years ago, they built the "Terminal" - the new hub for inter-city buses. The Sanral Garaj was then referred to as "Eski Garaj" – "eski" meaning old. It was not suiting a modern city like Bursa. Now, it has been torn down and replaced by a magnificent modern square with shopping centres and places to meet and enjoy oneself.

Today is the official opening of the "City Square" — "Kent Meydanı". It is said that shopping there will be affordable for families with a medium income. They are not targeting the rich.

It's at walking distance from my home, so I might just go there sometimes, to watch the people, sip a cup of tea while reading a magazine…