About Turkey

There are some preconceptions about Turkey that are completely wrong. Due to it's geographical position and main religion, many (or most) people think it's a country with many instability, conflicts and that pet hate towards the people from the west. It couldn't be farther away from the truth. But lets go the data first.

Turkey within the European Union

Area: 783,562 km2	Language: Turkish
Religion: 97% Muslim, 1% Atheist, 0,6% Christians	Population: 75 million
Largest cities: Istanbul, Ankara (capital), Izmir	Ethic groups: 70–75% Turks, 18% Kurds
Currency: Turkish Lira (1€ = 2,30 TL) as of 09/2012	Human Development Index: Hight (92nd of 187) as of  2011

Turkish Provinces

Turkey is located both in Europe (3%, that left part from Istanbul) and Asia - what means you're doing Erasmus in another continent x)

Weather

The coastal areas of Turkey bordering the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea have a temperate Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and mild to cool, wet winters. I came to Izmir in the middle of September and had temperatures around 33ºC during the day and 20ºC during the night - if you come from a northern country prepare yourself for some very hot weeks. In the interior, in Ankara for example, the temperatures are more extreme, with even high values during the day and negative temperatures during the night.

Feeling too hot? What about a trip to Çesme?

Economy and Prices

Judging by the countries around Turkey, I wasn't expecting such a thriving economy as I've seen. Turkey is one of the most powerful word economies being part of the G-20, and one of the few that it's actually growing and not contracting. It seems like every Turkish has the new iPhone or Samsung Galaxy - even though they are more expensive here than in other parts of Europe!

The food is really cheap and you can eat for 5/6 TL in some places. The supermarkets can have really nice promotions (like a bag of chocolate cookies for 1 TL). The main hypermarket here is Kipa (kind of like Tesco in the UK or Continente in Portugal). 

The prices are generally cheaper than in the western part of Europe, except for the milk (and if it's soy milk, oh boy, you'll pay big bucks for that), cereals and alcoholic drinks. Yeah, you read it right! The prices here are stupidly high and if you're a heavy drinker you'll have to bring that extra cash.

Apart from that, everything seems to be cheaper - the bus rides, the domestic flights, the food, the transport, the clothes, etc, etc. One thing you'll have to do is bargain. If you never did that before, you will master the art! 20 TL for a hat? No way, you can have it for 10, just bargain with the salesman. If you just accept the normal price without bargain I think the sellers will think you're not normal!

The people

The Türk are reaaaally nice to foreigners. They will try to help you in what they can, even though they can't understand you and vice-versa. They're very welcoming and will invite you for a cup of tea - a very hot Çay. One sentence that will be very helpfull is "Türkce bilmiyorum" - I don't speak Turkish - it's by far the most useful sentence I've ever learn! Some people will still speak turkish to you even with you saying you can't speak it. When that happens just say yes (evet) to everything, smile and go away x)

They have a great deal of admiration towards Atatürk - literally the father of the Turkish - with pictures and statues of him in every public building, squares and at their houses. But I'll do another post about it.

The Turkish are also very tolerant, specially the ones from big cities - so it's natural so see girls in short skirts or with a cleavage, people from other religions or even transgenders as in many other western countries. 

A very conservative country? Here's transgender in a boat party!

The food

The first thing you should know is that you won't definitely find pork here. Even if you can find, it will be a salami-type of meat, so forget about that amazing beef you like so much. The Turkish cuisine is heavily influenced by the the heritage of Ottoman cuisine - luckily olive oil is the major type of oil used for cooking, which I appreciate since I'm Portuguese.

Simit is a special type of circular bread with sesame seeds you'll see everywhere, generelally for breakfast or lunch. It's quite good actually, the first time I ate it was in a private class and it was offered by the professor (how about that Turkish hospitality!).

Selling Simit on the street

Çay - the Turkish black tea - is consumed in every part of the day, breakfast, after lunch, in the afternoon, evening, after dinner, etc, being traditionally offered to guest. The çay is traditionally offered in small tulip-shaped glasses which are usually held by the rim, in order to save the drinker's fingertips from being burned, as the tea is served boiling hot. Çay is drunken in the same way that the Portuguese and Italians drink their Espressos. The Turkish Coffe (Türk Kahve) is also very popular, consisting in a strong non-filtered cup of coffe. and you'll find people who can read your future in the coffe grounds - your future in the cup and your family's in the saucer.

Çay served in a very distinctive cup - half drunk of course!

Turkish coffe with turkish delights

Wanna know your future?

For the actual meal, you can easily find the tradicional köfte, döner or kebabs anywhere. Rice (pilav) or Bulgur (kind of a special rice) are key ingredients, and you'll find that eating chicken (tavuk) twice a day almost everyday is quite normal. Fish is nowhere to be seen, at least where I'm living (Bornova, Izmir). The eggplant (aubergine) is normally present in every meal, cooked in several kinds of ways. Biber (a kind of peper) is also heavily used. For the salad, cucumber is the key ingredient.

A dish like this costs no more thant 2,5 €. You won't miss chicken since it's everywhere.

Bulgur with beans in a low-cost restaurant

Kumru - traditional sandwich of Çesme.

Yoghurt is also a very important element in Turkish cuisine (the word yoghurt derives from the Turkish word yoğur). Yoghurt can accompany almost all meat dishes (kebabs, köfte), vegetable dishes (especially fried eggplant). In villages, yoghurt is regularly eaten with rice or bread. They eat their yoghurt in the natural way here, which means no sugar and no added flavors. Tough luck! One interesting thing is that they made a special beberage made of yoghurt called Ayran, wich is a cold beverage of yogurt mixed with cold water and sometimes salt, pouring from a fountain-like machine. I haven't tasted it yet, so I won't speak much about it =)

Although it's not a food an more of a cultural habit, the Turkish love to smoke the waterpipe, known as Nargile. It's very normal to go out and see lots of people, old and young, smoking and socializing.

The nargile - whaterpipe

The traffic

It's just crazy. I feared for my life, but it deserves a whole post dedicated to it!