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Identify this Famous Turk... Click for enlargement! To Jim and Peri's Commercial-free CD for Turkish Learning -- now with triple ebook bonus! Also available in Downloadable Broadband Edition Essential Suffixes Printed Book

True Personal Experiences of Travellers to Turkey From Singapore with love... Part 3 -- We make lasting friendships Tea Time in Turkey... Click for enlargement! Miraculously, we could trade information about each other. (They were university students in their early 20s, on their last day out on the beach before their exams. One girl was studying to be a teacher, three guys hoped to become engineers when they graduated, one owns his own business.) We even got to know that Sarımsaklı meant "Garlic Beach" -- though how on earth they managed to communicate that to us, for the life of me, I cannot remember. They invited us for a swim in the sea and we accepted. It was fun even though the Turkish guys were goofing around, jumping onto each other, while my friend and I were pretty shy and quiet and just spoke with each other. Afterwards, we had tea at a café -- and pretty soon it was sunset. Thinking that it was time to go our separate ways we started to motion our goodbyes and said thanks to them. However, they were not so eager to part ways and suggested dinner. Since my group had no plans for dinner, we accepted their invitation -- but we told them first we had to go back to our motel to wash up. However, to ensure that we'd really meet up again it was decided (after a quick discussion among the Turkish youths) that one of them would stay behind with us while the rest woould go back to prepare for dinner -- and we'd all meet up together about an hour later. At the agreed time, the group came to pick us up. All 8 of us squeezed into a car, like sardines in a can. We thought they were taking us to café, or restaurant, for dinner. Never did we imagine, that they had thought to prepare a barbeque for us! In that short time of an hour, they had managed to arrange for a portable barbeque pit, coal, fish to barbeque, tomatoes, onions, peppers and lettuce for making salad, salt, pepper and condiments, and plenty of bread and drinks! They took us to this really dark place, far way from Sarımsaklı I reckon, but I really had no idea where we were. We only had the car's headlamps as a source for light. I remember thinking that if our hosts turned out to be 'bad guys'... out to rob us or harm us... that's it, we were finished -- and we could say güle-güle (good-bye) to our Singaporean homes (how pessimistic I was). Thank God and the heavens, this group was really sincere in their intentions, and we had a great dinner! The fish, it was called çipra balık we were told, was delicious with salt and pepper. The salad was perfect. Most importantly, the company was fantastic. The day that could have been boring and uneventful turned out to be the highlight of our entire trip. This was an example of the famous Turkish hospitality that we've all heard so much about. It was the most wonderful night that I have experienced in my life, ever! A feast fit for royalty! Click for enlargement! Now, back home, we are still in contact with the group via email and MSN Messenger, thanks to modern communications. I even got inspired to learn some Turkish so that I can chat with them online and it looks like their English is improving too. The friendliness and sincerity that our friends showed us convinced us that there are many good people in this world after all (especially in TUrkEY)! It was a day (and a night) that I will remember for the rest of my life. Teşekkürler Baki, Cengiz, Maide, Ibrahim and Nur. Teşekkürler... Return to Part 1 -- On the road to Sarımsaklı... Related: Other Personal Turkish Experiences Language Related Pages: How To Learn Basic Turkish -- A Practical Philosophy for beginners (Found in the 'Introduction to The Whole Earth Catalog of Turkish Movies'.) Why Off-color language is important too... Essential 700 Club pages Pages with sound files 'Tips' for learning/using Turkish Turkish Doubles Troubles 8 Difficulties of Turkish About Translation Software More Language Related Pages: Translating Turkish, the basics Conjunction Celebration Turkish Verbs Essential Idioms, Index Essential Suffixes, Index Sentence Structure, Standard Turkish Pronunciation Turkish Accenting Numbers in Turkish NewsReaders' Dictionary, Index Unrelated fun: Frequently asked questions about Turkey and the Turkish language Turkish Tongue Twisters Turkish for Kids Pop Quiz Politically Incorrect Turkish Humor Internet and Computer Terms Gossipy Turkish Who's Who Turkish Conventional and 'Erotik' Movies, Index The World's Worst Sport With sincere thanks for this personal experience to Norizah Riduan -- a Singaporean with a taste for Turkish Delights... 31 October 2006

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