After finishing my first full week here in Turkey, I have seen and done many things I could not have done at home. One thing I saw that surprised me was how close people live to ancient historical sites. On our first weekly field trip, we visited the ruins of the city Selinous, which is right on the outskirts of Gazipaşa. Farmers have fields right next to and on top of these old buildings, and there was even a farmer who had made an office inside the old Roman bathhouse. This is something that you would never see in America because we lack the huge ancient city structures that much of this region is home to.
Another thing I found surprising in my first week here was how cheap everything here is for Americans. My second day here I went to get breakfast, which cost me only about $2 for some fried bread stuffed with sausage and a side of fries. I also bought a five liter water from a grocery store to bring to the dig site that cost less than fifty cents. Even though everything is cheap, because the conversion rate from dollars to lira is roughly $1 to ₺17, I had to do a double take when I was told the price of some things before I remember that the price was in lira.
One thing that I learned was that driving in Turkey is very different from driving in the United States. Traffic laws here are more like traffic suggestions. On the same road, you will see cars driving very slowly as well as cars speeding by. Motorcycles and mopeds like to drive on the sidewalks here too, so you have to be ready to move out of their way. I once even saw someone driving the wrong way down a street because it was quicker to get to their desired turn than turning around further up the road. I don’t think I would want to drive here even if I was given the opportunity.
