Hidden Gems

Friday night, after our second week of classes, several of us got together and went out for tea. The place we went was pretty amazing. We started out by going to the city center, the downtown area, with which I’m pretty familiar now. But not familiar enough, apparently. We took a right of the main drag up a slight hill with lights in the middle of the street, towards the copper smith’s bazaar, where we had also been before. But suddenly, for no apparent reason, we took a left into a nondescript doorway, with nothing to suggest what was beyond.

It turned out to be our destination, a lovely open air tea house in a small courtyard, surrounded by very lovely old buildings, and full of pomegranate trees. So before anything else - before even bringing the cay, which is an anamoly in Turkey - they brought a couple armfuls of pomegranate, and the knives to cut them with. The knives quickly became fodder for silly photographs, and they were useful for cutting the pomegranate, too.

Before I came, I had read that backgammon was a popular game in Turkey, but I hadn’t seen it played very often, even though the boards are readily available at any tea house. But this night, a couple of my colleagues did play. I was too busy nursing a melon flavored nargile - that’s hookah, for the Yanks in my audience - to join in.

All in all, it was a lovely evening. We ate some baklava on the way back home, stopped at a park to take more silly photos, and crammed into a bus already too full before the eight or so of us got on. I came home at about midnight, stayed up another hour or so, then got up Saturday morning to play ultimate frisbee, and teach the Turks how to play it. Saturday afternoon has been just a pleasant time of relaxing so far. I even Skyped my dad, but the internet died right in the middle of our conversation. I could stand to do some more lesson planning and dishes, so maybe I’ll use this period of dead internet for that.

But the adventure with tea from last night just goes to show you that taking the slightest turn here can lead to some wonderful things. And it’s those slight turns that make all the frustrations and challenges worthwhile.