TBHF…

December 21, 2009

Today, I went to the Turkish Ice Hockey Federation (TBHF) to send my transfer card to USA Hockey. We pulled up to the building and I thought it was a house. Tyler and Brittany warned me about the Federation, and to make sure to bring my camera. Of course, it was the one day I forgot it. I look to my left from the driveway and there are two telephone booths. In these two telephone booths are mannequins. The mannequins have hockey gear on, without socks, and only one has a jersey, and they had sticks. It was hilarious, funniest thing ever! Could you imagine going to USA Hockey and seeing two telephone booths with mannequins wearing hockey gear? We walked inside, after ringing the doorbell. I sat down at a desk, while one of the members filled out the papers. I don’t speak Turkish, and Gokturk was the only one who would speak English to me, so it was interesting. All who needed to, signed the paper, then that was it. We just had to wait for USA Hockey to send it back.

The transfer card is needed to process the rest of my paperwork. Without the transfer card, I can’t get my work permit, and without my work permit, I can’t get my player’s card. So this was just the beginning of the process for me to qualify playing here in Turkey. With the transfer card, USA Hockey allows me to play in the TBHF for the 2009-2010 season. Without the transfer card, I cannot play in Turkey, and considering it’s the week of Christmas, we were a little nervous. We had a small window to get everything done. Gokturk asked if I knew anyone at USA Hockey who I could call to get them to sign the paper today. I don’t know anyone, so I said no.

Will my paperwork be processed in time to play our first game?

Just call me a Pro...

December 20, 2009

After the failed attempt to sign my contract on Wednesday, our GM finally had the revised contract for me to sign. I signed in the rink while watching women’s game, less than exciting. Gokturk told me we will stage a real signing at a later date when we have our jerseys and such. But I am officially a professional hockey player!

Will I be a successful professional athlete?

Tourist Day…

December 20, 2009

Today we decided we should check out some historical and tourist spots in Ankara. After all, Turkey is the crossroads of the world and empire after empire conquered it. We took the metro to Ulus, the older part of Ankara. There we saw Roman ruins, the Temple of Augustus and Rome, which now surround the Hacı Bayram Mosque. I was confused as to why this place bustling with Turks and no tourists, then I realized that the mosque is still in use. The mosque was built in the 15^th century, and renovated in the 16^th and 18^th centuries. It looks like it is in great shape from the outside. We didn’t go inside to look because we didn’t want to intrude during prayer time. The mosque and the Roman ruins were interesting, but even more interesting was the lack of information at the ancient sites. Without the guide books, we would have had no idea that we were at such an historical site.

After the temple and mosque, we walked up the road toward the Ankara citadel. On our walk up, we noticed fencing around ruins, what we thought was an Ancient Roman bath. The ruins were littered with beer cans, trash and everything else. We took pictures, and again we were amazed by the absence of signage to notify people what these ruins were. We continued walking up the hill and there was a sign! The sign explained that the ruins were a theatre not a bath house. We read up on it, took more pictures and continued walking. When we had just passed the top of the auditorium, the fencing ended, haha. We easily could have walked down into the ancient theatre walked up and down the seating area, sat down drank a few beers, or anything else without being bothered. This just flabbergasted all of us.

We continued up the hill to a beautiful park at the base of the citadel. It had paths lined with benches and trees on both sides creating a picturesque setting. It was a nice break from the city. While walking around the ruins and then up the hundreds of step, we all had the urge to go to the bathroom. Not a good time or place. The toilets near the citadel were the worst. We walked in, the lights didn’t work and there really wasn’t any natural light because of lack of windows. And to boot, they were Turkish toilets. I know they are not specific to only Turkey, but that is what we call them because they also have normal toilets. Let me explain, a Turkish toilet has two raised platforms to place your feet and then pretty much a hole between the raised foot steps. No light, Turkish toilets, and no toilet paper. Awesome. Oh yeah, and the water didn’t work to wash our hands.

After that traumatizing experience, haha, we continued to walk up more stairs to the citadel. Once we walked past the citadel walls, it’s like we went back a century or two, but still with satellites. It was a little town within the walls. It was quaint, but smelled like burning plastic. We walked to the edge of the walls and climbed them to take a panoramic view of Ankara. It is huge and so spread out; very modern to third world. One view was dilapidated houses on the side of a hill, it was terrible, but the houses with no windows or doors had satellites for their TVs. Looking over the city there was a Ferris wheel lit up surrounded by other amusement park rides, a huge mall, and the blue mosque. It was such a clash of old and new, rich and poor.

We then tried to climb to the “top” of the citadel. From anywhere else below, you see a Turkish flag flying high in the citadel. We were trying to find that. We walked through alleys and streets hopefully headed in the right direction. We found the flag, but it was surrounded by a locked fortification. We continued to walk around to see if we could enter at any point. We found an entrance and started walking in. Then an angry dog started toward us viciously barking. Brittany and I started running. I don’t really like dogs to begin with, so my heart was racing. So we ended up not getting close to the flag, but still took some great pictures.

Will the rest of our touristy adventures be to inconspicuous, have disgusting toilets, and involve ferocious dogs?

Random Encounters…

December 19, 2009

I was on my computer sitting in Shoppe, the internet café we frequent and it also happens to be in the rink. This older man, probably in his fifties, came up to me and started speaking Turkish. I just looked at him confused and said, “I don’t speak Turkish.” He in return said, “I know.” Haha.

He then sat down with me and started to speak perfect English. He was just in Pacifica, California for an extended period of time. Pacifica is twenty minutes south of San Francisco. I don’t know why he was there, but I just moved from SF, so it was quite the coincidence.

This where is gets really funny. He asked about health insurance in California. He had Kaiser Permanente insurance while in the states. I was on my computer and he just jumped right in, asked me to look up and see if he could get their insurance here in Turkey. We were talking so I gave him my full attention, trying not to be rude by continuing my work on the computer. When I gave him my full attention, he would point to my computer and say, you can look it up, please continue looking. So I tried to carry on a conversation while looking up information for him. After a bit, he said I’ll be right back but please continue looking up the information.

I thought it was absolutely hilarious. He was trying to be nice to me, but really just being pushy. After I got the information for him, he said please e-mail me the website so I can e-mail Kaiser and tell them to cover overseas. I e-mailed him; he thanked me. Then he told me he would have his wife drive me around Ankara and left.

How many other random encounters will I have?

Ankara…

December 18, 2009

So since we’ve been here, it has been hard to find exciting things to do. There’s a lot of history here, but other than that, what can young people do to have a good time? All the guide books we’ve read have told us, you only need a day or two to see what Ankara has to offer. Not a very promising thing to read when we’ll be here for about five months. Also last night, we told the Turkish men we went out with that there’s nothing to do here and they got really defensive, but didn’t suggest anything. We were still left to believe that there really isn’t too much going on here until…

One of our teammates, Lola, asked us to go out with her and some friends. We went out a place called “Flat” with one of the Ankara University men’s players, Mattias. At first it was just the four of us, hanging out and talking. Mattias told us that his perception, and probably many others, of the United States is based on Gossip Girl, xoxo. Haha. I saw the show for the first time a day or two before this, so I thought it was hilarious.

Our beer was delivered wonderfully by different servers all dressed as Santa Claus! Everything we associate with Christmas, the Turks associate with New Years, because they don’t celebrate Christmas, as they are Muslim. We had tall and short but all way too skinny to be Santa Claus’s serving us drinks. It was great, they brought us much happiness! After a while, more of Lola’s friends showed up. Mattias, Lola, and all her friends speak English very well. So we drank Efes, a Turkish brand of beer, and hung out speaking English with multiple people rather than our usual two or three.

After Flat, we went to If, a “club” somewhere else in Ankara. At no point during the night, did we know where we were, or where we were going; we were just along for the ride. If was a nice place. After walking through the crowd of smokers on the first level, you descend the stairs to an open room with a bar and stage. Onstage was a band. The band was peculiar. They played American music but sang it in Turkish. I kept on thinking I knew the songs, but when the words were said, I was lost. Lola’s friends were great; they just wanted to make sure we were having a good time. Around three or four, we decided it was time to head home, after an intense night of dancing and attempting to sing. We were so happy to find that Ankara had life!

What other pleasant surprises will we encounter? :)

Reason to celebrate…

December 17, 2009

I woke up two days in a row before 10:30! Reason enough to celebrate.

I ran on the track today! Reason enough to celebrate.

We went for beers and coffee with a club sponsor. Reason enough to celebrate.

We randomly ran into people at the rink who were going out! And this became our real reason, or excuse, to celebrate.

At the rink Brittany and I ran into Ankara University’s two import players, Yannu and Natasha. We were shooting the shit while watching the men’s Police Academy practice. They are friends with the men’s Police players. So after they were done with practice, we all went to the Last Stop for beers. Last Stop is a bar/restaurant not too far from the rink. It ended up being the Police coach, his girlfriend, four of his players, and us four women import players.

It was the most interesting table at which I had ever been. The Police coach and Natasha are from Slovenia, Yannu is from Estonia, all the players and the coach’s girlfriend are from Turkey, and Brittany and I are from the US. All sorts of languages were being spoken. But the one language we all had in common was English, which was the only one Brittany and I understood and spoke. Natasha and the coach would have a side conversation, while the Turks laughed at one end of the table, while the rest of us sat back and listened in confusion and amazement. I’ve never been so close and fully immersed in a ten person conversation with at least three different languages.

After beers, we just had to go for food and çay (pronounced chai), which is tea. They told us, let’s go eat and drink, then we’ll take you home, which was only about five blocks away. We went to a place whose name translates as “cheap cheap.” We started out with mussels. The mussels had rice and other things stuffed in them. You eat them cold with a squeeze of lemon. After the mussels, we had a small appetizer which I have no idea what it was. It looked like ground up food, shaped into little decorative balls. And finally, we had a soup that was broth and meat chunks. It was a milky colored broth, but with the absence of milk. The appearance of the soup’s broth reminded me of the thinned out gravy we had on chipped beef on toast I used to eat growing up. The meat we learned was tongue and meat from the head, but it not brain. The two meats were easily discernable, they were two different colors and two completely distinct tastes. I don’t know which was which, but one was definitely better than the other. After the meal, we enjoyed çay.

The same tea is served across the board in Turkey. Every place I have been, it’s been the same tea served in the same glass. The glass is an hour glass shape without a handle, making it somewhat difficult to drink hot tea. But after such a meal, we sat around for a few cups of çay. Turks don’t have a cup then go their separate ways, they sit and enjoy their çay. In all the guide books we have read, it says that if you accept an invitation to çay, you should be prepared to spend at least an hour. And if you don’t have an hour, then don’t accept. So we sat around drinking our tea into the wee hours of the morning, enjoying the company and trying to learn a word or two in the other languages being spoken.

Will I ever learn enough Turkish to understand a simple conversation?

Contract…

December 16, 2009

Today was going to be the day, the day I signed my contract and officially became a professional athlete! Once Gokturk, our GM, arrived with my contract, we grabbed a jersey to mock professional signings in the states. I was beaming with excited to sign, take pictures, and make everything official. But before the flashing lights commenced, I had to read the contract to make sure I knew what I was getting what I wanted. And here’s the catch, my contract didn’t have the clause stating the club would provide my departure ticket home. All the excitement disappeared. Our improve set up was for nothing. Gokturk would have to return with the amended contract for me to sign on a later date.

When would I make it official? When will I really be a professional?