Ankara city tour and pic-nic

March 16, 2002 - Ankara’s adventure

Beginning from yesterday...
After work I went to Anadolu University to a AIESEC new member presentation. I didn’t understand anything they said at the entire presentation but at the end they asked me a help to talk about myself and my expectations. I talked about how is to be a changing agent but I think they have another idea about this traineeship. There was a guy translating to turkish what I was talking but I’m really sure they didn’t understand anything.

I met the colombian trainee. She is an English teacher here in Eskisehir but sadly she works on Saturdays and will not join us in our weekend trips.
After the presentation I went to Claudia’s house to do something because it was Friday! Eskisehir is a young town but it was too cold outside and I think everybody decided to stay at home. We walked a lot looking for something. We found a techno party in a place that seems to be the city point but we didn’t enter because it was a bit expensive. Finally we decided to come back home, but it was fun anyway.

Today: Wake-up was dificult... the bus leaves to Ankara at 9... we got it without problems and 3 hours later, we were there.

AIESEC Ankara is very nice... it is a house... yelow... at the corner. I checked my e-mails there and we left to a city tour guided by 2 AIESEC’ers I don’t remember the names. We went to Ataturk mausoleum - this man is the national hero because he made a lot of important things. From there to a huge mosque, very nice... I can’t describe. Then, we went to a book store because Claudia wanted to buy something to learn turkish and then, back to the office.

I really wanted a place to dance a bit, have som fun... but we decided to go to a cafe and we stayed there, just talking. After 40 minutes, 2 people came over, one of them Marcia, a brasilian trainee from Curitiba - Paraná. It was enough for us to make a party at the place because I had in my backpack some samba and forró CD’s.

Giving a “brasilian way” I convinced them to put the CDs to play. The rest of the night was only dancing and making them believe that we knew how to dance samba and forró. But I think they were a bit terrifyed because here they don’t dance so close to each other.

After this dancing night we went to an AIESEC’er house to sleep. There, I still had time to try to teach her and Claudia some forró and samba.

There are more adventures tomorrow.

March 17, 2002 - Picnic on the snow??

Second day of adventures in Ankara!
Wake-up early again... 9 am the bus leaves to pic-nic. We paid more than was agreed before, but it is ok... what metters is the party.

Getting there, 1 hour by bus, I saw a white stuff on the ground... I thought it was something like foam. To my surprise it was snow! I saw snow the first time in my life. The first thing I did when I left the bus was to run to this snow and make a snow ball  I took some pictures.

I was very curious to know how was a turkish pic-nic in a place with snow. Well, turk stuff, chicken legs barbecue with bread (of course). When the chicken legs got finished they appear with some snacks and cakes... saved the day!

Here they have some different games.. we played some... but as the time was passing cloder was getting. The temperature was around 5 degrees celcius maximum. Was very hard but I survived and around 5pm we came back to the bus.

From the pic-nic to the bus station... from there to Eskisehir (3 hours by bus). Arriving here at the city a surprise... 2 degrees!! Guys, you know, I’m from Rio... I can’t live with this temperature.

The only thing I did was go home and sleep.

Kisses and hugs to everybody.

Alex