Skiing in Turkey

                                                                     Skiing in Turkey

My host uncle is a middle school teacher in my city and he plans the school activities and field trips for the classes. He’d talked about this trip to a ski hill for a while and was finally able to get his school to invite me and the other Americans in my city. I haven’t been skiing since last winter and on our way to the mountain I realized how much I missed it and how excited I was to make some turns. Davraz is the name of the mountain and it is near Isparta in the south western part of Turkey. We traveled by chartered bus to the mountain and a bus filled with screaming Turkish middle schoolers can make the trip feel a lot longer than it actually is but it was actually quite entertaining. They acted as most middle schoolers in this country do when they meet us, they scream all the English words they know. They had the opportunity to practice English with us and the whole way up we spent time talking with all the kids. 

As we arrived all the kids including myself where gazing in awe at the snow because we hadn’t seen snow all winter and were surrounded by it at the base of the mountain. It was a great day filled with playing in the snow, skiing, and cooking out a Turkish BBQ with all the students. I wasn’t expecting the skiing to be quite as good as the U.S.  I just assumed Turkey couldn’t have mountains and skiing like the U.S or Europe but I was certainly mistaken. There were three consecutive lifts that went up the mountain and the snow and landscape reminded me of the back bowls in Vail, Colorado except that I would see olive trees on the hill side and Turkish music blasting at the ski lifts.               

 After lunch we headed to a large mountain lake, Eğirdir Gölü, and toured around the famous Island, Yeşil Ada. We walked around the small island and saw an old Byzantine church, fishermen on the lake, and the sun setting over the mountains. We later ate some fresh fish straight from the lake for dinner. The whole evening we took pictures with the kids and answered all their questions about America. We were the first Americans most of the kids had ever met and it makes you realize the importance of what you are telling them about the U.S and yourself. What you say and how you portray yourself to them will provide them with the image of what Americans are for many years to come. This is the true challenge of being an exchange student and Youth Ambassador.