Eskisehir is a medium-sized university town, with all the youth, hipness and kick you'd expect.  Strolling along the riverside promenade that runs through the center of town,  you'll find men holding hands with men, women with women, and occasionally men with women.  Men holding hands with men, you say, it can't be!  Yes, the Turks are quite friendly with each other, and this is just an expression of camaraderie, not necessarily sexual orientation. 

We are on the Anatolian steppes in a high barren plane surrounded by hills, which are slowly becoming snow-covered.  Anadolu University is on the edge of town, about a 15-minute walk from the modern city center and riverwalk promenade.  We live in what is basically worker housing - for the employees of the state university.  It's a nice building, and we have a great view from the fifth floor, but it has a very pedestrian exterior tending toward the more banal side of modernism.  Ditto for the majority of architecture in urban Turkey.

There are a number of other foreign teachers in our building, and they have been warm and welcoming, as have our colleagues and just about everyone else we've met.  There's Jonathan, a Brit, and his Turkish wife Ayse (eye-shuh), and their cute-as-a-button baby Eli Evren, in the picture on the left below.  In the next picture is another Brit, Anita, and her Turkish husband Naci (nah-jee), who was born and raised in Australia.  It's great to hear a Turk speaking in a full-on Aussie accent. That's their kitty Roo, next to them.  Another Brit, Edward, lives two floors below us, and his Turkish girlfriend is named Nihal (nee-hal). A Fourth Brit, Phillip, lives on the top floor with his Turkish wife Tugba (too-bah).  There's also a Maltese guy named Charles, who apparently speaks several languages - but not Turkish.  We're in good company.

The campus is beautiful and well landscaped, but designed more for driving than walking.  Whereas the campuses we're used to in the states are centered around walkways with the cars kept to the perimeter, here the roads define the layout, with the sidewalks just a meter-wide nod to the pedestrian.  When the classes disgorge and the million-footed manswarm hits the pavement, most people walk in the street, and the lucky few on the sidewalk are pinched between shrubbery and oncoming foot traffic.  Still, it's a lot more tranquilo than the city street, and in the evening and on weekends, campus is a serene retreat. 

Our colleagues in the English department are great.  They are all extremely well educated, energetic, hard working, friendly, and fun.  It's really amazing - many of them have never lived abroad, but they speak perfect English.  Bahar, Nesrin and Aynur are pictured below from left to right.  Bahar, whose name means spring, was my contact while I was still in the US, and she's my immediate boss.  All of my bosses and most of my colleagues are women, which is just how I like it. 

There is a local's market in a different location every day of the week, and we've been to a couple of these that are close to campus.  They are huge and densely packed, with vendors selling mostly food, fruits, fish, clothing and housewares.  Like everywhere in Turkey, you see modern, western dressed people mixing with more conservative provincial types, the women with headscarves.  The markets are a great place for us to pick up delicious, cheap fruits, vegetables, olives and cheese, and to practice our pathetic version of Turkish. It's mostly a lot of pointing.

The Turks and I love sweets, so we've patronized many an establishment that caters to the sweet tooth.  The middle picture above is one of the more famous and outstanding patisseries in town.  While Eskisehir does have several modern supermarkets, there are hundreds of little butcher, baker, and cobbler shops along nearly every street in the city, so window shopping is forever fascinating.  As in many other countries outside the US, bread is an essential and liberal element to the Turkish diet.  Purchasing our daily bread has become a ritual, and the local bakeries are always a source of entertainment.  Check out the guy below shoveling wood into the massive tile-covered oven while his friends gape at the camera-toting tourist. 

Odunpazari is the old part of town, which rises on a hill just off the main shopping street.  It boasts a 15th century mosque, crooked cobblestone streets, and colorful old Ottoman houses.  These architectural legacies of the Ottoman Empire are uniquely shaped wooden structures characterized by a projecting upper story.  While more than a few are in wretched disrepair, they are still beautiful to behold, and a stroll through this glorious old neighborhood is like a sojourn in time.