Mosque

Best moment from yesterday: sitting on the steps with Chris, Kim, Jen and Randle that lead down into the Mosque at Bilkent University and listening to the call to prayer while looking out over the night lights of Ankara. I must say it was so peaceful and made me so amazingly content that is worries me that I have these moments all the time and am just moving too fast to realize that I am having them. I have been able to slow down here, get back to simple things, and simple pleasures; focus on my education, both inside and outside the classroom. It is so nice.

The last day or so has fallen into what I can only assume will be end up being the rhythm of the rest fo our time in Ankara; lecture from 10:00-11:30ish and then a 45min break and then class till 2:00pm (on Tuesday s and Thursday s we will have another lecture at 2:00pm.) After this if we need to, the group heads to the campus market to buy bread, jam and any other necessities for the next couple of days. Then we either catch a taxi or walk about 45mins back to Aysel (the guesthouse we are staying in.) People get on their computers and talk to family members and nap a little bit (or update their blogs) and then those that want to venture out to find dinner do so and some stay at Aysel to sleep and catch up on reading. Yesterday the five of us decided that we would walk over to the other campus in Ankara, Bilkent University, and check out the Mosque. Long flowly skirt adorned and headscarf in hand we took the 10min walk over to the campus and were greeted with a very modern looking mosque that was amazingly stunning in the setting sun. The guards didn’t seem to mind us there (there were a lot of police/ guard looking people walking around or looking at us from towers) and via sign language we figured out that it was okay to take pictures. I think they were very interested/ appreciative of the fact that we all took our shoes off and the women donned headscarves before entering the Mosque. Either way when we went in there was one guard and when we came out there were three. They were very friendly though as we looked around and took some snap shots.

After that we followed the signs to Bilkent Centre which ended up being a shopping mall, which was just fine with us because we wanted to eat dinner. On the slightly ironic side of things we found a “traditional” Chinese food restaurant, and Chris was in our group (Chris is Taiwanese but speaks Mandarin) as well as Kim who speaks Cantonese. So I ended up having sushi in Turkey for dinner. It was a cool experience but I like the sushi better in Ann Arbor.

More later, haven’t finished this post yet, don’t have time right now
~Claire