Turkish Hamam

I have no pictures to share but I had another great outing today!  Renata promised me last week to take me for my first ever turkish bath today.  So after work this afternoon her, Aunt Bryony and myself went.

All I can say is wow!  First you get almost naked, then you bake in a hot room with hot water and heated marble beds until you "are soft" as Renata says.  Then you go into the sauna until you are really sweaty and hot, then you go and lay flat out on a marble bed and you get scrubbed with sandpaper like mittens, head to toe.  Then buckets of warm water are thrown on top of you.  When you get up you see all kinds of dark pieces of skin that have been scrubbed off your body.  Okay then you jump into a pool of cool almost cold water, Renata chickened out but me and Bryony went right in!  Back into the sauna for a few minutes.

Then they take you back to the marble beds and you get lathered all up with soap, head to toe and then you are massaged, first the backside then the front, head to toe.  Then I had to sit up of all things and she washed my hair and face and massaged them!  By now she's laughing at me because I am so relaxed I'm sliding off the table.  More water gets thrown on top of you to rinse you off.  We wrapped ourselves in big towels and went to sit in an outer room on gold sofas.  We were then served turkish coffee or sage tea and we just relaxed.

All of this fabulous treatment took 2 hours start to finish and cost approximately $18.  I love Turkey.

Christian Women's Conference Antalya

Today is Sunday, at last a day of rest!  We had a very busy week at St. Paul's Cultural Center.  Besides the normal crowd that comes for coffee, cay teas, desserts and lunches in the cafe, we had about 30 women arrive from all over the the world for a 3 day conference.  It was pretty exciting actually.

The week started out really cold weatherwise with very high winds!  Finally on Wednesday afternoon the weather began to change. Here is a picture of the fabulous sky from the balcony just off my bedroom.

I started language lessons with Emel, here she is leaving our meeting room to head back outside.  By her clothing you can tell how cold it has been here!

Turkish is hard because I have nothing to relate it to, with french and spanish there are english similarities.  Not so in turkish so it is all memorization.  Belgin who is the cook and I work together and teach each other words too so I am at least learning a few little things.

On Friday the first day of the conference a woman walked in who Renata knew very well.  She lives 5 hours east of here.  She was carrying a tote bag ( and I am not lying!) that said "Red Rooster Grocery, Sequim, WA" on it!  Renata who could not believe her eyes called me over to meet this lady and find out about Sequim.  It was really strange but anyway her name is Jeri Bidinger and she and her husband have a house in Sunland and they live there 4 months of the year!  She's attended church at DCC many times and wow did we ever get a big hoot out of all that.  I have been telling Renata that I have met people all over the world who know about or know someone who is from Sequim, and now she believes me.

Here's a picture of Jeri and me taken today right after church

On Friday Belgin made Borek (pronounced ber-ek) for lunch.  This is traditional Turkish food, a staple around here.  She let me help her.  She made spinach borek, cheese borek and meat borek.  First Renata and I went to buy the yufka, which is a very thin pastry that is used to wrap the filling up in.  We went to a tiny little shop where it is made fresh daily:

We bought four kilos of it and went to the kitchen where Belgin and I start to work making the borek:

And here they are coming out of the oven, look how proud Belgin is!

Renata's aunt Bryony from Germany arrived early in the week and she is staying here with us.  She plays the piano and Renata the flute.  They spent a lot of time practicing here at the house because they and a couple of other ladies provided music for the conference.  What a sweet atmosphere it made to have them playing Christian music in the evenings.  I took some videos of them but my still pictures didn't turn out so good.  Here's one anyway just for the sake of it. 

And finally after church today Dr. Mark Wilson, a biblical scholar and author led a group of us to the ruins of the city of Perge about a half hour drive from here.  It's an incredible archeaological find, some of it was around when the apostle Paul was in these parts.  It gave me goose bumps to be walking where he walked. 

Here is Jim and me entering the city gate.  The tower just behind my head is part of the city gate that Paul would have walked through.  Diny and Carol from The Netherlands and England respectively, are just to Jim's left.

This was once a very wealthy and important city as you can tell by the picture above and the one below.

In this picture above you can see a channel running right down the middle of this main street of town.  It carried water from the acquifer above all the way down the street for people to use and it flowed finally into the bath houses.  The city of Antalya has made a similar feature on one of the main streets in town.  I'll try to get a picture of that later.

 Here's a picture of me sitting in one of the bath houses.  They had changing rooms one for men and one for the women plus one room for each temperature of water: cold, lukewarm, hot and hottest.  Each room had inlaid marble floors and walls, marble statues plus servants to make sure every guests wish was fulfilled.  Many of these marble artifacts are in the Antalya Museum which I might be going to later this week if Renata gives me a day off!

I have to include this one last story.  We ran into a shepherdess leading her flock out of the ruins.  She was carrying a baby goat that still had the umbilical cord attached!  It was trembling in her arms but it gave us all such a great addition to this wonderful afternoon in the ruins of Perge.  Here is a picture of her with Hanan, a lady I am trying to get to know better, she is from Iraq, married to a Turk and she became a Christian in December just 3 months ago!

Lord bless you all until next time!  I love hearing from home so email me or post a comment on the blog!

talking turkish

Good news!  Starting tomorrow morning I am going to have private turkish language lessons with Emel.  She comes highly recommended as the best turkish teacher in Antalya.  I'll get her picture up soon if she will let me.

We are gearing up for the 2 day women's conference that starts on Friday.  Renata made 2 trips to the airport today picking up the speakers who are arriving from all over Europe.  Plus her and I did a major shopping trip today and tomorrow we will go to the bizarre for all the fresh produce.  We are serving snacks and drinks all day both days, plus 2 lunches and 2 dinners and now she is telling me she wants to serve lunch after church on Sunday too!

It's been pouring rain yesterday and today with really high winds, but the weekend is supposed to be nice.

More pictures coming soon.

Hooray for the weekend!

Today is Saturday thankfully!  It was hard arriving here and going right to work but now we have a couple of quiet days and it feels nice.  Also the weather is beautiful today.  Renata, the mama bird kicked me out of the nest today so I could start getting to know the neighborhood and become more independent of her.  Next week she's going to show me how to walk to St. Paul's and then how to take the bus home if I am just too tired to walk.  Here's a picture of Renata (sitting), Ishay and Belgen discussing next week's menu:

 

So I walked all over the place trying hard not to get run over, pedestrians do not have the right of way and they drive fast!
I met a very nice turkish young man who spoke english his name is Ozgen.  He works in a clothing store I went to.  His brother graduated from Annapolis and now is a captain in the turkish navy he told me very proudly when he learned I was american.  He thought I was german at first!  Someone at the cafe yesterday thought I was french, I like that. 

As of today I can say a few things in turkish: good morning, hello and thank you, I can ask where something or someone is, and I know a few nouns. I'm not breaking any records here!!  How I wish they spoke french or even spanish!!

St. Paul's church has commissioned a stained glass artist to make 7 window panels representing the seven churches found in the book of Revelation.  Jim, who is the pastor has been helping with the design ideas.  Four of the windows are ready and a group of people went to preview them yesterday and I got to be one of them!  Eight of us piled into Jim and Renata's van and off we went, 3 americans, 1 german, 1 turk, 1 brit, 1 korean and 1 brazilian!  Later some danish people joined us.  The artist who's name I think is Mecca is from Finland, again the cultural blend which I love!

Here's a picture of the artist standing next to the windows, sorry she is in the dark, next she's showing us some of her tools and then me sitting and enjoying the windows.

until next time!

Okay I've been here 48 hours now and still haven't really rested, but Renata promises me the next 3 days will be a lighter work load.

To back up just a bit, I arrived weary on Tuesday night, went right to work first thing Wed morning to prepare food for today which was International Women's Day to promote the well being of women in body, soul, mind and spirit.  It's very popular in Europe, the Middle East and other parts of the world where women don't have as many rights and we Americans.

I am living with Jim and Renata Bultema on the 13 and 14th floor of an apt building.  Jim and Renata although born in the US are very international, they speak multiple languages and have very diverse genetics.  I like them alot.  They are health nuts and we eat from the very best ingredients avaliable here.  Also they are just great people!

So below are a few pictures from the event we had today and some of the people I am working with:

this is Belgen the cook, she is

Turkish

Here is the lunch we put together: quiche, tomato salad, lentil meatballs, broccoli salad

Here is Renata teaching line dancing, the women loved it!

This is a picture of the cafe as you walk in the front door and the sign outside the cafe.  A culture blend indeed!  Just some of the countries represented today:  Latvia, The Netherlands, Germany, Phiilipines, Turkey, USA and Russia.  Many of these women are married to Turkish men.  More to come, next week we are having a three day women's conference.

This could be interesting, all the directions are now in Turkish and I kind of know exactly 3 words in that language.  So if this looks weird to any of you, hey give me a break!

I've been in this country not quite 24 hours and I've already fallen love!  The Bultema's are my kind of folks, health nuts, organic food, high quality ingredients in small portions etc!  The food here is amazing, I can't wait to learn more about it.  Belgen is the cook at the cafe, she speaks very little english and my Turkish well see note above on that subject, but we already like each other.  She is a fast learner.  We spent all day together cooking and serving lunch.  She's trying to teach me her language and me teach her mine.  We did a lot of laughing!

I woke up at 6am and opened my curtains right away.  The Torros mountains are across the water, see below.  The apt is surrounded  by terraces so you can get different views from different parts of the house. 

I cooked eggs for breakfast, Jim made fresh squeezed orange juice and really strong coffee.  At 9:30 Renata and I went shopping at the market, see pics below.  Really enjoyable for a foodie like me.

the top picture is artichoke bottoms, they are just coming in season and you can buy them like this already cleaned.  The bottom photo is one produce stand of about 30, I was a little shy taking pics but will try to get bolder.

Met lots of people today, from Finland, the Netherlands, Russia, and even Pam who is from Seabeck Washington, about one hour from Sequim!!

Tomorrow I will try to take more pictures of the lunch we are giving for International Women's Day.  After lunch Renata is going to teach line dancing!  That should be a hoot.

Hey does anybody know how to change the language on this thing ??!!

Here are yet more pictures from Friday's dinner.  It took me one entire week to pull this event off but in the end it was really worth it.  I had a great turnout, my home fellowship group was awesome as "the crew", cleaning, serving and doing dishes.  They really came through for me!  Many thanks to Kathy, Clause, Vic, Julie, Terye, Brian, Doris and Lauren!  And Janet thank you too.  Also thanks to those who helped during the week doing prep work:  Linda, Gail, Terye, Kathy and Marianne.


I can't say enough nor give enough thanks to Irene, John and Kevin for their encouragement, help and support to make it all happen flawlessly.  You guys are the foundation and I think we built something pretty special that people will remember for a long time.

Julie passing the lamb course to Scott and below
friends enjoying one another

At the end of the night after all the expenses had been covered, I had nearly $2000 and over the weekend another $850 came in!!  I am amazed and awed at the generosity of my church family and friends in the Sequim area, you have rocked my world!