Adventures in Thailand

So we have completed our tour in Ankara and are now back in Virginia doing the whirlwind month known as home leave.  I say whirlwind because we are about to embark on a 2 week trip that will take us from Fredericksburg to Hilton Head to New York City and back.  Then after that we’ll be getting to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for a few days, not to mention Bedford, VA.  It’s been nuts already, and we’ve only been back for a little over a week.   The flight back was awesome.  Mer and I had our first business class experience, and it is amazing.  So comfortable and the food was actually pretty tasty!  It will be hard to fly economy again.   Good thing we don’t have to when we travel to Bangkok.We were sad to leave Ankara mostly because of the friends we had to leave behind.  We also fell in love with Turkey; we had an amazing, eye opening time while we were there.  We’ll always have fond memories of it, because it was our first home after we were married.  On to new things and making more memories in Bangkok!! 

Man, where do I start.  Obviously it’s been a really long time since I last put anything up on this blog.  I guess I’ll start by commenting on the previous post, the one about us going to Pretoria.  We’re not going there anymore.  Instead, we’re on our way to Bangkok, Thailand.

 The short story of what happened is that the position I was assigned to in Pretoria was abolished as a cost-cutting measure, but no one informed the people who put the bid list together.  So it was listed as a possibility, but whoever was assigned there wasn’t going to end up going.  Another shining example of bureaucracy at its finest… 

In order to get us an assignment, my Career Development Officer (CDO) told me he was going to give me a list of posts comparable to Pretoria to choose from.  The problem with that is whose definition of comparable is he going to use?  The region?  Differential? 

He ended up giving us 3 posts to choose from: Bangkok Thailand, Sana’a Yemen, and Luanda Angola.  What would you do?  Meredith and I thought we were going to get 5 or so that were similar, which would have required us to do some research to make our selection.  We were wrong.  I got the email with the choices, and not 10 seconds after reading it, we knew we were going to Thailand.  Some people might like the hardship posts, and every Foreign Service person I’ve talked to has said their best tours have been in small hardship posts.  I don’t deny that and would like to do one of those one day.  In fact, I have to if I want to get promoted.  But you don’t pass on Bangkok.  It’s one of those ‘flagship’ postings, one where people compete furiously to get there.  Had we not taken it now, getting it in the future would have been a tall order.

 We are very excited about Bangkok.  It is one of the great cities of the world, and Thailand a very exotic locale to live in for 2 years.

In other news, I was tenured the other day!  This means that the State Department thinks I can serve effectively for my entire career.  Basically, they think I’m good enough to keep me on.  This is a good thing.

 Check out our Flickr site (link on the right hand side) soon, we’ve been on several trips since the last post on this blog.  We’ve had a ball.

The last thing we need to do before we leave Turkey: visit Istanbul one more time.

The title of this blog will soon change to ‘Adventures in Thailand.’  The Foreign Service is pretty cool…

The past few weeks have been particularly interesting here in Turkey. The government has been brought to its knees after the secular establishment of the country, which is basically the upper class elite, threw up their arms when the ruling party nominated Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as its candidate for the presidency. The reason for their reservations is because of Gul’s previous ties to Islamist parties, not to mention his current conservative party, the AKP. The secularists are afraid that Gul and the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have a hidden Islamic agenda to turn the country into a fundamentalist bastion.

It seems like you can’t go a day with out hearing about Gul and Erdogan’s wives wearing headscarves. After living here for a little over a year, I have learned that to many Turks, Islamic headscarves are a symbol for the fundamentalist Islamic movement. Women in this country are not allowed to wear them in public institutions, which includes schools and government buildings. This is a vestige of the radical (at the time) policies of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He was a rapid modernizer and made the country into what it is today. Since I have been here, it seems like more and more women are electing to wear headscarves, possibly signaling a rise in conservative Islamic views. The fact remains that 98% of the country is Muslim. I can’t help but wonder how we as Americans would view this situation had it happened in our country. Indeed something similar has happened, I’m sure. While we are a secular nation, we try carefully to be sensitive to people’s right to religious freedom, which includes the wearing of religious garments and symbols. But to me, it’s just a scarf! I guess I’m thinking too American-like…

The Turkish military has become the keeper of Ataturk’s secularist legacy, and has defended that legacy several times, staging coups when it felt the secular base of the government was being threatened. A stark and chilling reminder of the military’s power was given when top generals released a statement following the announcement of Gul’s candidacy which said they would defend Turkey’s secularist history if need be. Thankfully, they have backed off and the threat of another coup happening seems to be minimal.

Since Gul’s candidacy was announced, there have been many demonstrations, mostly in Ankara and Istanbul, by the secularists voicing their displeasure at the prospect of having a conservative with Islamist ties as their president. What makes this whole thing so interesting and illogical to me is that the president of this country has very limited power. It’s the Prime Minister who actually runs the country. Why does it matter so much if the President can’t change anything? It is a largely symbolic position and the highest level in the protocol chain. All he does is entertain! (That’s probably not true…)

So where do they stand now? Well, as parliament actually elects the president, the secularists have been boycotting every vote, so there haven’t been enough MPs present to have a valid vote at all. PM Erdogan has been forced to dissolve Parliament and call for early elections, which are scheduled to happen July 22nd instead of November. Erdogan has also announced reforms to the constitution that would let the people elect the president instead of Parliament, and also reforms that would limit the Prime Minister’s term to 5 years, with the option of running for a second term. Also, he wants to change parliamentary terms to 4 years instead of 5. Whether or not those reforms get passed is another question, of course.

So July 22nd is the first day of the future of Turkey, which I think might be a little bumpy in the beginning, but ultimately will turn out just fine. Turkey has come a long way. There’s no way they should give it all up now, just like that.

What a great first post in the Foreign Service!

I don’t know if anyone remembers, but when we got here in January, it snowed for what seemed like 2 months straight. Well, here it is November 5th and we have over 5 inches on the ground….

As many of you know, basketball has always been my favorite sport. I play it as much as I can, (which isn’t as often as I’d like), I root for my hometown team, the Washington Wizards, and the only video game I’ll play is NBA 2K6 on my PlayStation. So when my buddy Kevin told me that he went to a game and met a few Americans who are playing for some Turkish teams here in Ankara, I got pretty excited. Then he got me a free ticket to the next game, which was today.

The arena wasn’t too bad, if in a little disrepair. It was kind of dark in there, not quite as well lit as the arenas and gyms I’m used to from playing back in the states. The teams that were playing were Turk Telekom and Darussafaka. The Turk Telekom team is based in Ankara, so I guess you could consider it our home team. We sat right next to the court, with 2 of the wives of the American players. Apparently, each team is only allowed to have at most 3 American players on their team; the rest must be Turkish. Turk Telekom has 2 Americans: Erwin Dudley, who played Division 1 College ball at Alabama and averaged 15 ppg and 10 rebs. a game his last year there; and Derrick Alston, who played his college ball at Duquesne and was drafted 33rd overall in the 1994 NBA draft by the 76ers. Also sitting with us were a few players from the other team based in Ankara, fresh off of a victory. I chatted with one of them for a bit, his name is Marques Green. He played at St. Bonaventure where one year he averaged 22 ppg and 8 assists a game. Not too shabby! He had scored 31 points in the victory I referred to above, which makes him the league leader. He had some interesting things to say about playing ball overseas. He had played for 2 years in France before coming to Turkey, and surprisingly enough, he says that he likes Turkey a lot more than France. He cited the friendliness of the Turkish people, and that Ankara has a lot more going for it than the little town he played in in France. He also gets paid more in Turkey, mostly because they don’t have to pay any taxes. These guys are set, man. If you have any NBA experience, your salary will go up exponentially. Some guys are making upwards of a million dollars a year. That’s chump change compared to the NBA, but this isn’t the NBA; it’s not nearly as developed a league, and Turkey just isn’t as wealthy as the US. Also, these guys are like us in the Foreign Service – they get their housing paid for, and some of them get cars, too. So that money is almost pure profit. Sounds like a good deal to me…

Anyway, back to the game; it ended up being a blow out – 93 to 71, with Turk Telekom winning. Most of the game the deficit was hovering around 30 points. As far as the style of game, it’s European; lots of guys jacking up 3s whenever they can. Any kind of low post play was provided by the Americans like Erwin Dudley, who comes in at 6′8″ 240 lbs. It was entertaining though. The Turks definitely know how to play, and can stroke those 3s.

I will definitely be going back to see some more games; I want to see Marques Green play; all the things I’ve heard is that he’s the real deal. He’s a point guard, only 5′7″ tall, so he must be lightning quick. He’s also a really nice guy. I also learned from this website http://tblstat.net, that Will Solomon, who played at Clemson while I was there, is on the Fenerbahce team from Istanbul. It’d be cool to see him play here in Ankara at some point. What a small world.

We have a lot of friends here in Ankara who have been in the Foreign Service for a while, and some who have not. Most of these people, just by taking this job, are inherently adventurous and unafraid of new things. So, they take every advantage and travel everywhere they can. In some countries, there’s just not a whole lot to see, or maybe it’s difficult or unsafe to get around. Turkey, however, is so full of interesting, amazing places and things to see, you could almost go somewhere every weekend and still not exhaust everything in the country after your tour ends. Many people at the embassy take advantage of this and go somewhere every weekend. On Monday of every week I hear from somebody about the trip they took over the weekend and how Mer and I need to go to where ever they’ve been.

I have been here for 9 months now, and I feel like I have missed out on going places. I still (I’m embarrassed to say) have yet to get to Istanbul, which so many people just gush about once they’ve been, Meredith included. I’m dying to get there, and I actually have a 3 day weekend coming up where Mer and I could get up there; of course, it’s during the weekend when people are throwing Halloween parties, which are always a blast. I know that Mer wants to go to them, and so do I… but I really want to go to Istanbul. Can you tell I’m frustrated? I know that for people back home, this probably seems like a stupid problem, or maybe even a great problem to have, but man, I’m frustrated with it. There’s too much to see in this country! I was supposed to get to Capadoccia, and then Israel had to go and invade Lebanon, forcing me to cancel my trip there! Arghh!! Winter is on the way, and judging from the last winter, it’s not very easy to get anywhere… I guess we’ll just have to go somewhere every weekend next year…

OK, I’ve vented.. We still have over a year left and will probably get to most places we want to go.. but it’s agony listening to all the places people go every weekend!

Meredith has gone back to the States for 11 days to attend one of her friend’s weddings, leaving me here in our apartment in Ankara to fend for myself.  I like to think that I am not completely helpless, however since we’ve lived in Turkey, with her not working, there’s only so much that I need to do around the house when she’s here.  She has the time and gets most of it done while I’m at work.

I have now assumed charge of our humble abode, and will try to keep it up as well as I can.  She left Friday morning on the eve a 3 day weekend – I got home on Friday after work, and promptly sat my butt down on the couch and started watching tv and drinking beer.  One area in which I will definitely not do very well while Mer’s gone is cooking.  She is a wonderful chef; I only help a little bit here and there.  My dinner on Friday consisted of one frozen chicken burrito.  Man was it good.  I did grill some steaks on the grill last night, which were quite delicious.  I have had my fill of meat for a while…

Of course I’ve been playing around on the computers, playing video games, etc.  The last time Mer left, I took it upon myself to install Ubuntu Linux on our really nice Apple G4 Powerbook; in the process I did something and fried one of the RAM slots.  We had to send it back to the states to get repaired.  I learned my lesson – never mess with your main computer – especially the one that your wife uses all the time   So this time around I’m staying away from the laptop.  I instead installed Linux on my crappy Dell laptop….  This post is quickly turning into a mess – kind of a stream of conciousness dump.  Sorry to anyone who’s reading it.

I have played a few video games as well; I used to be able to play video games non-stop for hours.  Now I can only play maybe one game of basketball or soccer, then I just lose interest.  I guess that it’s a good thing – considering I’m 27 years old and married, and will probably have kids in the next 5 years…  It seems as though my interests have shifted – I now just want to play around on the internet or with computers, doing constructive things.  Can you tell that I’m bored?  This post is a piece of crap.

‘On Golden Pond’ is on AFN Movie right now, I hear it’s not a bad flick….

Note: For whatever reason, I completely forgot about this post and left it unpublished and just found it today, May 9th, 2007.  I am going to finish it as best as I can remember, but I’ll probably forget a lot of stuff…

(This trip was taken in May, 2006, a year ago)

Meredith, Cathy (our neighbor) and I took a long weekend trip to the Black Sea coast of Turkey a few weeks ago. It was spectacular! I don’t know about anyone else, but before I actually saw the Black Sea, the preconception in my head was not a very nice one. I was thinking that the Black Sea was well, black. Meaning dark water, and kind of foreboding. If there’s one thing that living away from home teaches you, it’s that most of your preconceptions are flat out wrong. And man was that the case when we actually laid our eyes upon the Black Sea, which in Turkish is Karadeniz.

The Black Sea is far from black. The water was crystal clear, and turquoise, like the Caribbean. I was shocked. Of course, the water was extremely cold. We drove from Ankara north to a tourist town called Amasra. Amasra was nice, if a bit crowded being that it was a Saturday. Lots of Turks go to Amasra to get away from Istanbul on the weekends. We stayed in an overpriced, if clean hotel for the night; our room was directly adjacent to the elevator shaft, and we had thin walls, so we could hear everything. Amasra has two harbors, and a citadel. It was very picturesque. Anyway, we walked around town a bit and stopped at a pub for afternoon beers. The waiter, who spoke English, asked me where I was from, and assumed I was Russian. I said “America”, and he walked away. Cathy proceeded to tell us that he thought I was a Russian pimp, and Meredith and Cathy were my “girls”. Apparently the Black Sea coast is a huge prostitution center, especially for Russians. The sight of a man traveling with 2 women is an easy assumption of prostitution. We got a big chuckle out of that and continued drinking, of course. That night we ate dinner at a fish restaurant, and were treated to a show by an older Turk. There was some kind of special occasion, and he was singing away most of the night. It was an experience.

The next morning we jumped in the car and took off on treacherous roads towards Cide, which, if we had gone non-stop, would have taken us all of an hour and a half. When I say treacherous roads, I mean mountain driving on narrow roads on the edge of a cliff, with no guard rails and pot holes. And just to keep you on your toes, there are huge trucks and tour busses coming at you and also going the same way, which means you must pass them, because they’re really slow. Another problem driving was that the scenery was so spectacular, it was hard for me to keep my eyes on the road.

 (The rest is written from year-old memories, on May 9th, 2007):

We stopped at an empty beach and laid on the sand for a while, soaking up the sun and dipping our toes into the very cold water.  Then we packed up and kept on driving, winding along.  We stopped at a strange town to get something to eat.  I say strange because it kind of seemed like a ghost town, with only a few people walking around.  We certainly drew attention to ourselves with our big, shiny car.  We parked, wandered around a little bit and found a restaurant that did not smell very good.  It was the kind of place that had the food in a display cabinet, covered in plastic  wrap.  Meredith promptly nixed the idea of eating there, so we left and found a borek place and happily ate until we were full.

 After driving a little further, we found a cool little town that was kind of difficult to get too, but once we figured it out, we were treated to cups of tea on the waterfront, watching men build boats.  I don’t know what the name of the town is, but obviously it is known for its boats.  The people there were very nice, as was the tea!  We got back on the road, and stumbled upon a place that one of our friends had mentioned to us called Gideros. I don’t really think Gideros could be considered a town, but it had a sign on the road, so we took a left and descended very quickly on a very bumpy road to sea level on a picturesque cove where a fish restaurant beckoned us to come down and have a beer.  This turned out to be one of our most favorite memories of Turkey yet; we had intended to only have a few drinks and leave; we didn’t know we would be put to work.  We were sitting on the shore of this cove which was engulfed by small mountains that dropped straight into the water.  The restaurant had a nice arbor above its outdoor seating area, which had plants growing all over it.  They had several types of fish, and I had to try some of them, so I ordered what they thought was best and it came out fried in a tasty batter.  It was sooooo good.  My mouth is watering right now typing this.  Anyway, we were sitting there, having a good time, when the matriarch of the family-run restaurant beckoned me to come with her, down a small set of stairs to the rocky beach.  Cathy confirmed that she wanted me to help her, so I went.  The matriarch’s husband was attempting to pull a water-logged boat away from the incoming tide.  I tried to help, but the boat was just too full.  Luckily, there was a makeshift winch next to the boat.  Meredith and Cathy, who had been back at our table enjoying themselves, felt bad for me (or so they say!) and had decided to come down and check things out.  They were both promptly drafted into turning the winch around to pull the boat up the beach.  So imagine this scene: the husband and I are pulling and pushing this old boat with all our might while Cathy, Meredith and the matriarch are all pushing this winch around and around in circles, slowly lifting the boat out of the tide’s path.  We were all laughing out loud and enjoying every moment.  After we had secured the boat, we were thanked profusely and drove on to our final destination: Cide.

Most of the towns we stopped at on our trip that day were not on the map we had.  They were just too small.  Cide, however, was on the map, but had even less to offer than the small, picturesque towns we discovered.  It is a medium-sized city that feels pretty much empty.  Stoplights were not working, and the entire place seemed to become pretty dark as we drove in that evening, which probably had something to do with there not being any working street lights.  But we found our oasis in the form of our little hotel on the water.  It was a spartan place, for sure, but the people were very friendly.  We sat down to have dinner and started drinking beer.  We had a great Turkish feast and continued to relax and get a little goofy.  It’s anyone’s guess as to how many beers we drank that night…  We had a ball and slept great, waking up to a sunny day and a delicious Turkish breakfast, which prepared us for our long drive back to Ankara.

This post is getting very long, but I cannot end without writing about our experience attempting to follow a Turkish map to get us home.   We figured before we left Ankara in the first place that we would do a big circle, which is what one of our friends had done.  We looked at our map, felt comfortable with our route and left.  Well, it worked out great until we left Cide to get home.  We started going up and up and up into these beautiful mountains, following our map until we got to a town that clearly, according to the map, was past a turn we were supposed to have made.  So we shrugged and turned around, fully expecting to easily find our road.  It was nowhere to be found.  We kept on looking at the map, driving up and down the road where we thought it was supposed to be.  We even stopped and asked these guys (with Cathy’s excellent Turkish skills) where it was.  They didn’t know either.  So after an hour or so of frustration, we threw in the towel and turned back towards Cide, retracing our previous route, still dumbfounded over our phantom road.  We made it back to Ankara tired but happy….