Famous in Turkey

Today we got up at 7.30 to be ready for 8.30am to have breakfast with the Mayor of Eskisehir. What we didn't realise until we got there was that there would also be a press conference and a lot of camera's for local newspapers.

Famous in Turkey

The Mayors Workplace

 We arrived at the building at around 9am and had to wait until 10am for the press conference to begin. It was supposed to start earlier but a famous Turkish football player died that morning of a heart attack so all the papers were busy with this tragic news. He was only 26! (R.I.P)

Waiting in the sun

Before his speech

When we got into the press conference room, we were shown to a separate table just for us on the side of the room with name and country plates. We sat down and about 20 photographers came at the same time to take pictures of us sitting... very strange feeling!

Francesca and Filipa

Once a lady had introduced the conference, Rui had to give his speech and one of the EVS coordinators translated for the audience members who couldn't speak English.

Then the Mayor began to speak but of course the rest of the presentation/conference was all in Turkish so we just sat around looking a little dumb :P We were also all starving by this point (around 11am) because we hadn't had any breakfast yet!

The Mayor

Once the speeches were over, we had to stand in front of the screen above with the major in the middle and about 30 photographers and video-cameramen took photo's of us. Flashes everywhere and no idea what to do except stand there awkwardly! Definitively feel a bit more sympathy to celebrities who have a go at the paparazzi now as the flashes make your eyes go all funny! So yeah, turns out we are going to be in most of the Cities' papers some time soon. We were all given gift bags and then told we would get a copy of the paper when they are printed :D So awesome haha

We then left the conference room and went downstairs to a restaurant where breakfast was waiting:

Fit for a King/Mayor

The 5 cold chips on the north side of the plate were a bit odd but the honey on Turkish bread was sooooo lush! Especially after 2 breakfasts with just cheese, tomato and bread. I gave my Olives and tomatoes to Andi. We also got given the pink thing in the upper-left corner as a gift. It is made of terracotta and has English and Turkish information about the event on it.
After breakfast, we were taken to another room with big comfy office chairs and were offered yet more Turkish tea (I think the Turkish drink at least 5 cups a day!!) and then the Mayor came in to talk to us all and learn our names and ask us some questions. He used to be a very popular Dentist and now his son has his old job.  He ended the session by saying that his office and heart was always open for us if we wanted to pop in during his office which I thought was very sweet. :)

Rui feeling mighty after his speech

After this meeting with the Mayor we walked to the Terracotta Event Area and had a look around. So far it is still just a lot of building works and rubble but we were told where everything would go and it looks like it will be a really nice and actually quiet big event! There are 5 Turkish artists coming and 5 international ones.

For my father! (He loves graffiti)

After looking around, we had another meeting with just us, Safa and our event-boss (though he says he prefers to be called a friend than a boss - everything here is so informal, it's great) Ozgur. We assigned rolls and finalised who would be doing what during the event. I will be working on the A4 flyers given out every day (one side English, one side Turkish) with Lili and together with Jana and Hudi we are in charge of the blog and magazine production.

Ozgur, Safa and Andi

I was also voted as 'Communicator' which was a term we came up with to mean that if any of the volunteers had a problem they talk to the communicator who, if need be, can speak with Ozgur or Safa so that they are not bothered all the time by smaller problems and also the communicator would communicate between the different groups e.g. go to the photographers when the magazine editors need a photo. The communicator can change every week if we want to but it could also just stay the same for the whole time if either it works or nobody else wants to have a go at it.

(Photo dedicated to Anna Mattes)

Around 2pm we returned back to the apartment and had lunch. Lunch was 3 rolls of couscous and lentil mix (actually tasted soo good) potato salad, two pieces of savory pastry and 1 sweet one. Since then I have been sunbathing outside on the balcony with Arpi and Rui. We have free time now until dinner, 6.30pm, and after that we are all going to an underground bar for some Karaoke (not reaaaaally my kinda thing, but I think it could also be really funny..)

Oh, and here's a video from today including some Turkish music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2LgmorrSFM&feature=youtu.be

Till next time,
Lucy xxo

The 'Facebook Duck Face' by Lili and me