Şalgam Suyu

As an exchange student, I was taught to say yes to everything; to take advantage of every given opportunity and to try EVERYTHING. Basically, the answer is always yes unless I'm putting myself in danger.

So... my host family took me out for dinner last night (as I said in my earlier post) and when I was asked what I wanted to drink, I answered Pepsi because Pepsi is the same in Turkish as in English, and it was the only thing I confidently recognized. My host family all ordered the same bottle of juice.  I knew it was juice because it said "Şalgam Suyu" on the bottle, and "suyu" was one of the few words of Turkish I came to Turkey with.  After we all ate our dinners, there was some "suyu" left over, so my host mom offered me some of it. And, as a proper exchange student, I agreed to try it, while in the meantime thinking in my head, "It says it's juice, but I don't know what Şalgam is, but it's purple, so maybe grape juice? I don't know, it's kinda too red to be grape juice. I'll just try it. I mean, it's juice, it can't be that bad."  I take a sip of the "suyu" and immediately wore the dreaded "EVERYONE CAN TELL I DO NOT LIKE THE TASTE OF WHAT IS IN MY MOUTH" face that everyone tries oh, so hard to hide.  I can usually stomach just about anything, but the whole salty drink mixture doesn't go down too well with me because we don't have salty drinks in the states. (I've actually been seriously thinking if we have salty drinks, and nothing has come up, so if anyone can think of one, let me know!) Nevertheless, my host sister sees my face and says "Salty, huh? I don't know what the English word is, but it tastes like pickles doesn't it? It's a traditional Turkish drink!"

I turned the bottle around, and luckily there were little tiny English ingredients. The first three listed were "Water, black carrots, turnips," then right above the ingredients read "Fermented Carrot Juice." I drank Fermented Carrot Juice for the first time!

Well, I just wrote a few paragraphs on how I had some salty juice, and it seems pretty silly, but over the past two years of Rotary Weekends where all of the outbound, inbound, and rebound exchange students get together once a month, the outbounds' and rebounds' biggest piece of advice is to try everything, even if that means eating a mystery meat and asking what it is once it's already gone. So, having tried this Fermented Carrot Juice, I know now not to order it for myself again, because if I hadn't tried it, I would have had no idea what I was getting myself into. More importantly (this is quite a stretch, and I may regret saying this later...) I was able to dip my foot outside of my comfort zone and try this mystery juice. As I said earlier, I stayed on the safe side and ordered myself a Pepsi, but having every menu handed to me in Turkish, every class in school in Turkish, and nearly everyone around me speaking Turkish, I know I'll have many misunderstandings, but that's what this year is all about.  I'm not in little Hilliard, Ohio anymore, I'm in Turkey, listening to one of the most foreign languages I've ever heard, and although I no longer see myself as completely safe and sheltered, I think everything around me is awesome.

I'm looking forward to all of the "mystery" experiences I'll run into, because that's how I'll learn the most and make the most out of this year. This little incident seems small, but today I went to the pool and I don't even remember the last time I went to the pool back home, yesterday I tried some purple juice, and on Monday I sat down on a plane that would take me over 5,000 miles from my hometown for a year. Seeing where the past three days have taken me and how I've already tried some things I would have turned down at home, I'm so incredibly anxious to see where I'll be a year from now. :)