Saturday, October 18 "Art Show"
Mustafa took us to see his wife's art on display at an art show and cultural fair put on by the Junior Chamber International Ankara chapter at the TOBB Ekonomi Teknoloji Universitesi. There were booths outside from lots of different countries with sample foods and tourist information, as well as traditional Turkish foods and samples from different companies (like Cola Turka, Sutlac rice pudding cups, bottled water samples, etc.) and live music on the lawn in the center of the courtyard.
Lacey was very excited to see some pastries at the Iran booth that she had tried at school and wanted to have some of those, so Mustafa struck up a conversation with the attendants at the booth while Lacey and Maren sampled the pastries. After we were walking away, one of the attendants ran over to us with DVDs of tourist information about Iran, and ensured us that it was in English. He was very friendly and seemed eager to please. It was a nice encounter to remind us that people are people, even when politics at the international level are not in agreement.
Then the foods at the Moldavia booth caught the eyes of the girls and we tried some there too. It was a beautiful display on very low (18 inches or so) tables of different pastries and dishes. Brian and I agreed that it was wonderful for Mustafa to bring us to the event, as we would not have even known it was happening otherwise, let alone how to get there.
Belma (Mustafa's wife) had a number of paintings on display in an indoor area, along with another artist who does traditional ebru painting. Balma's paintings were very neat to look at from the various years, with different colors from different periods, and all of them engaging. Some sea- and city-scapes, a lighthouse, and many others with brilliant color combinations.
Ayse had told me about "marble painting" and how it was very popular here, so I was excited to see some finished pieces and even more excited to see that the artist was doing demonstrations of the method as well. Lacey and Maren were fascinated, and Aeden even watched on with interest as well. Some photos will best illustrate...
We also got to see a traditional Turkish dessert being prepared and then have some, too! Aeden looked on and played with his current favorite wheeled toy...a BMW SUV from the Carrefour near our house.
We also toured the gym that we have membership to through TED (it is on the college campus where the art show was). It has a swimming pool and the kids area has miniature workout equipment that is the cutest ever...a rowing machine, a treadmill, everything, but in primary colors and about 1/3 size of the norm. So I'm pretty sure we'll be figuring out how to get here on our own.
From there we headed back to Office 1st for more supplies, and then to Real for groceries and shopping. Here we finally found some plastic bowls and cups (porcelain dishes and tile floors make moms nervous!), slippers for the girls, some glass mixing/serving bowls, and all kinds of that stuff. Halfway through, I asked Brian if he had given Aeden a mandarin orange...Aeden was about 1/4 of the way into eating one, peel and all. Well, no, but Aeden had just helped himself. What a crook! We filled our cart and got some produce and frozen foods and were tired out.
In the produce area you gathered the items you wanted and then took them to a scale area where one man tended three deli-style scales which printed the price tags. It was a pretty fluid process and I imagine that having one attendant memorizing PLU codes for produce and running three scales at once could make sense in keeping the checkout lanes (of which there were 30+) moving swiftly. He was very busy and usually had a mob of people gathered around to squeeze their melon or bag of tomatoes onto a scale, just as a Saturday afternoon at the grocery store should be.
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