The Start

The main impetus for beginning a blog is because my brother just did. The thought had crossed my mind on previous occasions but I had always dismissed it as something 'other' people do. If my brother, going to school less than a few hours from home needs a blog to keep you all updated on his life, I figure that I should do something considering the places I anticipate being over the next few years.

I am on day 45 of my 90 day adventure to Turkey, and have just begun living in Antalya, a city in Southern Turkey. I am here on the suggestion of one of my high school teachers who gave me the contact information for an American couple who run a Christian cultural center here. The Americans at the center handed me over to a Turkish guy with whom I am now living.

I moved into my apartment yesterday. It is on the 3rd floor of a medium size apartment building in Çallı . There are three Turks and a Russian/American living here each with varying degrees of English proficiency. One of the Turks moved into the living room so I could have one of the three bedrooms to myself. None of the rooms are air-conditioned and it gets up to 95F here on most afternoons.

Our modest balcony overlooks a massive round-about intersection with a huge statue of Ataturk in the middle of it, but the view is usually obscured by laundry hanging on the line. The kitchen is a disaster, we have no oven, only a heat pad hooked up to a propane tank sitting next to the fridge. The faucet leaks incessantly and my roommates have no discernible place to collect garbage besides the floor. The only thing in the fridge is water and coke. No one drinks the water out of the tap because it has high levels of lime in it and it will give you kidney stones real quick.

There are 2 "bathrooms" Bathroom A contains a shower with no curtain, a washing machine that looks older than the republic and toilet that is backed up and unusable. Therefore, if I want to use the 'tulavet' I must go to Bathroom B which contains only a sink and a "squatty potty." I also killed a cockroach the size of a small mammal last night before I went to bed on my fold out futon. The advantage to living here is that I get to live with some of the people I am researching, I can learn lots of Turkish, and the rent is going to be less than 100 TL ($70) for the month. The other advantage is that my roommates, in particular a Turkish guy named Vedat, are extremely friendly and helpful.

My only plans for the next month are to try to get into a course at omer, an intensive Turkish study program. I have already learned allot of Turkish from Andrew, my Russian/American roommate.

Today I went to Perge (see Acts 13:13 and Acts 14:26?) with the Krausse family and Andrew. More on that later.