Thursday, June 11Today we skipped school and all went with Brian to TED so we could finally see his school. We rode the service bus to campus just like he's done every day all year, and were introduced to the stops right after his: literally one block and then another block down the road. Amazing that the riders don't just walk to the same spot.
It was great to see the places Brian's been all year. We visited the English Department's faculty room (and saw many of our acquaintances from the year since they all teach English!), Mustafa, Asli, and Brian's office, the library (where Aeden tried to turn off the computers in the lab by pushing whatever buttons he could find), the book and supply store, the main drag of the high school (the "College Street"), and some classrooms and lab spaces.
Aeden even got to play some football with students on College Street:
The students stay in one classroom all day and the teachers move from room to room for the different periods. But the classrooms are virtually undecorated except for the obligatory Ataturk photo. With the bare cement walls (and knowing that the entire campus is surrounded by fences with serpentine wire on the top), it felt a bit like a prison. But the rooms were full of smiling students wanting to meet us as they were wasting time for the last few days of school.
We sat down in the high school director's office for tea and visiting, with Mustafa staying to translate. He asked if Maren wanted something to drink and before I could even say a thing, she had already asked for seftali suyu (peach juice)! Then Lacey piped up with elma cay (apple tea), and I was embarrassed by their forwardness (not just regular tea or water). Well, now I know what to prep them with before next time. The director gave Brian some TED Ankara Koleji gifts and thanked him for his time, not missing a chance to ask if he will be back in Turkey or if the girls want to come back and attend TED. It was a nice little chat and some good closure for the year.
The music director came and said hello and offered to take Lacey to see his room...and she didn't want to ever leave! She was playing the piano happily when we tracked her down, and then when Maren arrived the organ was turned on and the room was full of music. The girls are both talking about how much they want to take piano lessons when we get home (MANY of their friends here play piano)...we'll see if they keep up the enthusiasm.
We went to see Hande in the administration building to meet her finally. She's been the one handling our administrative issues since more than a year ago when the exchange started taking shape. Aeden swiped one of her toys from her desk and he didn't want to give it back when it was time to go...so of course she just gave it to him. He's going to have a rude awakening back in the states when everyone doesn't give him toys wherever he goes.
Then we were off on the service bus to get Lacey back to school for her class picnic. Bus to the taxi stop, taxi to Oasis to drop off Lacey, taxi back to the apartment, short naps (only 1/2 days at Oasis now until the last day of school), taxi back to Oasis to pick up Lacey, then taxi to Panora to meet Brian for lunch. That used to be a horrendous, untouchable logistics nightmare for me. But now "it's nothing" :-)
Brian had never been to Panora yet (a fancy mall kind of out near his school), so we decided to meet there for a late lunch and some wandering time for the afternoon. We managed to have Burger King (Maren and Aeden), Popeye's (Lacey), and Ankara Donercisi (Brian and me) all at once in the food court, and all of the orders turned out correctly. Amazing.
Loco Poco (the toy store) had some little matchbox-sized Wall-E figures so Brian picked some out for Aeden...and the girls loved them too. They drove and flew them through the mall as we wandered around and took in the air conditioning and sights.
After we'd had our fill of Panora we grabbed a taxi home in a downpour of afternoon rain (many afternoons there have been thunder and lightning and brief downpours), and felt even more sketchy about being out on the road.
