Friday, June 13, 2014

Pre-Turkey Continued 6/13/14

Tonight Jena and I are enjoying a bottle of wine given to us as a wedding gift. For me, it is helping to ward off some of my nervous thoughts about moving to Turkey. I think I was a little overconfident in my last post. Regardless, the wine is tasty--that's about all my palette can tell me. I know it's better than Franzia. Better than Carlo Rossi. Better than Rex Goliath. Better than the derelict bottle from 1971 that Duncan and I found in his father's wine refrigerator. (That stuff was disgusting. Lots of sludge at the bottom. It was strangely sweet, though.) Better than port. Better than grape juice. When it comes down to it, I told Jena that it tasted like a wine that we would have at her parents' house. It has a kind of a spicy flavor and a lingering finish. (I think. What do I know?)

The wine is serving as a nice end to an otherwise busy day. We had nice lunch with my parents in downtown Flagstaff, and then we ran around doing errands in the insufferable tourist traffic. I sold some CDs at Bookmans' (a place that buys used stuff and gives you store credit), and they took some favorite CDs off my hands. Conor Oberst (self-titled), Desaparacidos' first album, and Sonic Youth's "Washing Machine." I'm going to miss the album artwork from "Washing Machine" especially because it's so damn charming. Have a look at it here. When I was a freshman in college, Blaise's mother sent him the "Washing Machine" shirt in red. It was too big for him, although he wore it more and more, the more hipstery he got. Back when he first received it, I asked him if he liked Sonic Youth. He said, "Not really." I checked them out then, and neither did I. Two years later, though, holy crap, I came to my senses, especially after seeing them for free in downtown Salt Lake in 2008. Amazing. One of the best shows I've seen.

I suppose I could say something about Turkey since that's loosely the theme of this blog of mine. I'll say this: The other day I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Stuff You Should Know. What makes this podcast unique is the way the two podcasters speak to one another as if they are good friends who just happen to work together. Their discussions are loose and tangential at times, which make them so much more entertaining than the other podcasts produced by How Stuff Works. It's a lot like Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich on their best days, for anyone who's familiar with Radiolab. In any case, I was listening to the podcast entitled, "How Cave Dwellers Work," and Cappadocia came up. They reiterated some of the history that Dr. Stoller told me after class last semester--that there are manmade underground dwellings that are something like eight stories tall ... or deep ... or whatever. I can't wait to see those. It sounds like Cappadocia is only forty-five minutes from where we'll be living, so Jena and I will be certain to explore the place. Jena wants to take a hot air balloon over the place. She's never been in one before, so I'm happy to do that. (I was fortunate enough to go ballooning twice in Park City, once with the Amicis and once with my parents and grandparents.) Also, there are some incredible looking hotels in Cappadocia in case we ever want to splurge. What I'm trying to say here is that the podcast reinvigorated my excitement about moving to Turkey, and that's the sort of thing I want to happen right now.

So that's it for today. I'm loving the ability to add these links. Awesome!

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