Fulbright "Evaluation" Meeting

Most Fulbright grants are for 9 months, and their duration follows a normal school year, from September to May. Because I received an extra grant to learn Turkish for 3 months before the beginning of my full grant, I am staying in Istanbul a little bit longer than many of my compatriots. That being said, in early May all of the Fulbright grantees, the Fulbright office, and various folks from the American embassy and consulate who support our program met together for a final "evaluation" meeting. I am using quotation marks here because our meeting ended up being an all-inclusive three day weekend at a high-end beach resort on the Mediterranean coast, near Antalya. I live a very hard life, I know.

I met up with my friend and fellow Fulbrighter Candace on the flight down from Istanbul to Antalya. Candace is a Classical Archaeologist studying the nature of sacrifice in the Roman world, which to me makes her the coolest person ever, and she asked me to accompany her to the Archaeological Museum in Antalya on our way to our exotic Fulbright vacation. She did not have to convince me too much. Suitcases in hand, we rolled up to the museum. Inside, we saw a lot of really nice marble statuary, sarcophagi, and, coolest of all, the bones of St. Nicholas (above), who, fun fact, lived and died in a village close to Antalya along the Mediterranean. So, bad news kids, I saw irrefutable evidence that Santa Claus is, shall we say, no longer amongst the living.

After our delightful jaunt, Candace and I boarded a minibus, in fact, the very same minibus Jon and I got on to go from Antalya to Olympos, to be dropped off at a small sea-side town called Tekirova. There we checked into the resort, which was, brace yourselves, PIRATE themed!! (right) The attention to detail for the pirate theme was pretty impressive. The reception area was designed as a ship's prow, the staff dressed as all manner of wenches and scallywags, and there was even a live parrot. The resort was a ton of fun, and had a lot of different things to take advantage of, like two pools, a hamam, the beach with a diving raft, watersports, and even a waterslide, which I think was my favorite part. 

The actual meeting part was not so eventful, at least for me. A lot of the English teachers had some great input because it was Fulbright's first year sending them all over Turkey. By comparison, the researchers in Istanbul looked downright boring. We all had a great time reconnecting, and meeting the new American ambassador to Turkey, the honorable Mr. Jeffrey. Lucky guy got the chance to pose with all of the Fulbright ladies at one of our big dinners! (below)