A Very TIT Moment...

We're sitting on the bus to town this afternoon, in the middle of an intersection, and all of a sudden the driver opens the door and starts yelling "gel, gel, gel!" (hard g) (essentially, "come on!") Keep in mind, this is not a dolmuş, but a public Istanbul Metrobus. On runs this kid with a giant water jug (one of the 10 gallon ones), full of some milky-colored liquid. He drops it with the driver, bolts back through the traffic. The driver closes the door and drives us on our merry way. Hallie looks at me: "TIT moment."


Whenever something happens that is just very, inexplicably, Turkey, we say "This is Turkey" or "TIT." I've had an unusual amount of TIT moments recently, making me reflect on my time here, which is shortly coming to an end. I am ready for a temporary change of scenery and pace, and so very excited to see family and friends from whom I've been separated for 4 months, but the thought of boarding a plane in 10 days makes me want to chain myself to a lamp pole in Sarıyer. The weathers getting nicer, my Turkish is getting better, and I finally feel a sense of belonging at Koç, in Sarıyer, and in İstanbul. 


To make matters worse, we had our CIEE farewell dinner Saturday night. We all met (probably the first time since the beginning of the semester that we were all in the same room) at a Meyhane in Taksim for a long night of Rakı, mezes, stories, and dancing. It was fabulous, but a terrible reminder that the semester is over, and we have to return soon. Amy took some wonderful photos.

Everyone in the group submitted superlatives, and the lovely Jennifer and Emily compiled them and presented them during dinner. I won "most likely to be bumped into and apologize for it." Amy thinks I am too nice and cooperative, and has been "working on my meanness" all semester. I get mad at her, but it's certainly not the worst superlative to have! This is Terry, and he won "most likely to be doing something American in Turkey." He and Trae were ordering Dominos the first week. :) Some of my other favorites were Hallie's - "most likely to bet you she'll win" - and Amy's - "most likely to win a nobel prize, then lose it in the airport." Hallie is constantly betting on everything, and usually winning (she'll tell you she never loses, but nobody's perfect... We'll get her one day) and Amy is, although crazy intelligent, slightly lacking in organizational skills and actually lost a shoe in the airport. 

This is Me, Hallie, Akshata and Amy, fondly referred to as HAAM. We've traveled this country and others together, and I could not be more thankful that we found each other. I'll miss these girls next semester, but it's alright because we're already planning a fall reunion in D.C. and Amy WILL be coming to Maine this summer. :) 

Goofy photo! The false mustache phenomenon of 2012 started on the group trip to Ankara, when Jennifer and Emily found some false mustaches at a rest-stop somewhere in Nowhereland, Turkey. They wore them almost the whole bus trip, then made an appearance the last night as we disembarked from the airplane... Lots of stares from confused Turks, but we thought it was hilarious. Anyway, someone brought a few to dinner, and they were passed all around the table. 


After dinner we went out dancing for a while, and just enjoyed the city we've come to love. A few tear-enducing speeches were made, and cards were handed to Kathryn, Koray, and Pınar, the wonderful CIEE staff who made our whole semester possible. 


Once I'm done with finals, I'll do some more reflecting on the experience, but for now I can't really bear to think about it! Sydney's coming on Saturday, and I'll effectively be moving off campus to stay with her in Taksim, then we head home together on Thursday, May 31st. Can't wait to show her my city, but I know with her comes the close of an amazing and enlightening semester, and it just doesn't seem possible. I want to go home, I just desperately don't want to leave. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but it's what I'm feeling. For those of you in the States, I can't wait to see you, and for those of you I've met, you've been amazing, and I can't wait to see you again. 

Ελλάδα (Greece!)

This weekend, I checked off the last item on my international travel bucket list for the semester! I knew it wasn't realistic (time wise or economically) to try and visit everywhere I wanted this semester, so I chose two places that I really wanted to go: Italy and Greece. As you probably know, Hallie and I went to Italy for Spring Break, and then Will, Akshata, Amy and I finally got to Greece last Thursday! It was a short, hot(!), two-day trip, but we packed in a lot. The first day (Friday, as we arrived around 11pm on Thursday) we headed straight to the Acropolis and spent most of the day there. Here it is from the top of the Acropolis Museum.

As you climb up to the top, there are tons of ruins that you walk through. However, they're all dwarfed by the Parthenon and temples found at the summit. Here's the view of Athens from the top.

Here's the classic, touristy Parthenon photo!

These are the goddesses (there's a name for them but I can't quite remember it) that watch over the city. There's another set of them on the other side of the temple.

After you reach the top, you wind your way back down through the Ancient Agora (market), which is now essentially an olive grove with some rocks in it. The olive trees were beautiful, however. Here's one:

Also in the Agora were tons of little creatures. We found a cat and a turtle. Here they are:

Here's the cat with Will, who's trying to coax it over to play. It wouldn't oblige, but was happy to tease him a bit.

There were also thousands of wild Poppies, which always make me think of my grandmother. They were gorgeous and everywhere - I wish there were more like this at home!

After we finished at the Acropolis, we stopped for lunch and then headed to the Acropolis Museum. It is new and absolutely amazing - the best museum I've visited hands-down. It's built on top of uncovered ruins, and has glass floors so that you can see them below the galleries. They've also recreated the relief that ran all the way around the Parthenon from fragments that have been recovered as well as reproductions. It was beautiful! There were no photos allowed, sorry! After, we were off to the remains of the Temple of Zeus. Apparently many of the pillars were overturned during a huge storm many years ago, so this is all that remains.

It was now about 6pm, so we headed back to the hotel to shower, relax for a bit, and figure out the plan for the rest of the day and Saturday. We ended up going to dinner at this cafe called Commerce in the newer part of Athens. It was wonderful, we stayed way too long, but the waiter ended up giving us this whopping piece of cake to split on the house. It was amazingly delicious!

When they starting closing down, we decided it was time to leave, and headed back to the hotel. The next morning was an early one! We caught a 7:30 bus to Delphi for the day, and the bus station was across town. We had a bit of a scare because we rode the metro in, then hopped on a city bus, intending to stop at the bus station stop. However, we missed it, and ended up having to run back from the next station. Luckily we got there just in time, boarded the bus, and quickly fell asleep for the 3 hour ride. We had debated whether or not to make the hike to Delphi, but it was absolutely, unequivocally worth it! Athens is a neat city, but only really for its ruins and history. There isn't much else there, and it isn't a particularly beautiful or clean city. Delphi was the absolute opposite. Everyone we met was nice and willing to help, the area and views were amazing, as evidenced by the photo below:

We spent the day climbing through the temple, gymnasium and city ruins on the cliffside. Here's Amy, Akshata, me and Will:

I can't imagine how difficult it was to originally build these structures. Much like Perugia, you are literally on a mountain side, and these buildings were erected long before the evolution of machinery that could do the work for you.

We arrived back in Athens late that afternoon. Amy and I had to be back to school by Sunday afternoon, so we went online to check in for our flight that was scheduled for early the next morning. However, we logged on to find out that our flight had been cancelled, and we'd been put on a flight Sunday evening. So, we frantically called Turkish Airlines, who easily put us on a flight Saturday night at 9:50... giving us about 4 hours to pack and head to the airport. We arrived with little problem, although we were a little upset that our trip had been cut short. Overall, I would probably not go back to Athens in a hurry, but I'm anxious to go back to Greece and explore the rural areas more! I'd love to make a trip to one of the islands, too - we simply didn't have enough time this trip.


I've loved seeing so many places, but I'm really excited to be on campus for a while. I'm only in Turkey for 24 more days, and I want to enjoy Istanbul and Sarıyer a bit more before I leave!

Ankara, Konya and Brunch on the Black Sea

Last weekend, CIEE made a study trip to Ankara and Konya. It was short, 3 days, but jam-packed. We began on Friday at 7:30am and made the 6 hour drive to Ankara, arriving just after 2. We stopped at a restaurant for Mantı (a lamb-stuffed Turkish noodle with yogurt and spices on top - delicious, but filling) and baklava before heading to our first sight, the Ankara archaeology museum. We saw some neat artifacts, but frankly I think that most of us are pretty ruin-ed out at this point in the semester. I never knew it was possible to have so many ruins in one country. After, we took a walking tour of the Ankara citadel - basically the highest point of the city where there's an old fortress. While also ruins, this was cool for a few reasons: The Turks are hilariously irreverent to the Romans who occupied this land before the Ottomans. Here you can see how Roman ruins have been used to aid in the construction of the city walls. There are chunks of temples, columns, reliefs, etc... that are just used as other bricks - often placed sideways.

I think that the Turks understood our Roman ruin overload, and were aiming for comic relief. We climbed to the top of the fortress walls, to see some beautiful views of the city:

One of the things that I did appreciate was the amount of green in the city. Very unlike the Istanbul I've come to know and love. 

Students had the evening free, so a bunch of us found a student cafe to have dinner and relax in. The next day we woke up and headed immediately to Atatürk's Mausoleum. This was an incredibly unique experience. The compound was HUGE, and filled with Turks of all ages - tons of school trips, tourists, and older people. It become quickly clear that this is somewhere that people make a pilgrimage to, and understandably given the high level of nationalism in Turkey (There's a post on this and a few more observations I've made coming down the pike... bear with me!). When you enter, you walk down this huge walkway with high bushes, shielding the mausoleum itself and the courtyard at the end. It all comes upon you at once, and you are greeted with an overbearing Parthenon-looking building. There are approximately 10 people paid to stand there with huge Turkish flags, waving them around (as you can see in the photo below. 

Only a certain number of people are allowed in the chamber at once, so we had to wait in line. One of the kids in our group, Will (below), made some friends with elementary school kids. Will's Turkish is impeccable for the amount of time that he has spent studying it, and the kids were amused by his ability. The rest of us stood around, smiling at the adorable kids and mumbling the occasional ''evet'' (yes) and tamam (okay). 

When we were finally herded into the chamber, we were greeted with Atatürk's large and empty coffin, as he's buried deep below the surface in Islamic tradition. There's a wreath in front (there's someone standing in front of it in the photo below) that is changed about every 10 minutes, swapped with an identical one made of flowers from different areas of the country. While we were there, they laid the wreath from İzmir. 

We barely had time to stuff a refreshing popsicle into our mouths before heading back to the bus and on to Konya. As I think I mentioned in an earlier post, Konya is the home of Mevlana Rumi, the founder of the Mevlani Order of Sufi Islam. This is the sect that practices via whirling dervish ceremonies. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the practice (as I was before I came to Turkey), the whirling dervishes wear long, white (symbolic) dress robes and caps while spinning in circles in order to make a connection with Allah. They hold one hand palm-up, to symbolize what they are receiving from Allah, and one hand palm-down, to symbolize them passing on their blessings to the people on earth. Atatürk outlawed the Sufi lodges in which these ceremonies are had, through his secularization efforts. The only ceremonies legally allowed now are those put on for tourists in theaters. There are, however, still some hidden lodges that exist. One of the friends of our director had a connection to one of the lodges in Konya, and the leader was willing to host our group during their usual ceremony. Because it's hidden, the bus was not able to bring us up to the building itself. So, we were basically dropped on the side of the road, and hiked through the woods a bit to get there. It was absolutely worth it. When we arrived, we sat down and were given glasses of Turkish tea. The leader then explained the entire ceremony, the symbolism, what it takes to become a dervish, and a bit about Mevlani Sufism, before proceeding with the normal ceremony. We were not allowed to take photos, as this was a religious experience and not a tourist attraction, but here is a youtube video that shows a whirling dervish ceremony. 

What I was unaware of was the fact that this ceremony was an experience both for the dervish and for the onlookers. One woman near where I was sitting was moved to tears by the ceremony. It was really beautiful, and I really appreciated the opportunity to see an authentic Sufi lodge, rather than the ceremonies put on for show in tourist centers. 


The next day we only had one sight on our agenda: Çatalhöyük. It is this large archaeological dig outside of Konya, that has been the origin of some of the most famous cave and wall paintings. Here is a photo of one of the dig sights. I have to be honest, it wasn't the most exciting thing I've ever seen, especially as most of it was covered in sand bags and the interesting parts have been removed. Additionally, the tents that were erected to preserve the sight essentially cut it off from the outside world making it uncomfortable hot and dry inside - I would not be at all surprised if the temperature exceeded 120 degrees Fahrenheit. We had an archaeologist that gave us a tour, however, and he was excited enough for all 23 of us. It's hard not to find it a little interesting when your guide thinks it is the center of the universe. 

After Çatalhöyük, we were headed to the airport. While we were waiting, we played this game called celebrity heads - each person is given a sticky note with a celebrity's name on it, which they stick on their forehead. You are not allowed to look at your own sticky, but everyone can see it, and you try to figure out who you are by asking questions to the other players. It was really fun, and made for great entertainment, I am sure, for the other people at the airport. One of the security guards came over and peeled the sticker off one girls head, looked at it, smirked, stuck it back on, and continued on his way. I'm sure all the little kids were asking their parents, "what are those weird Americans doing?" 


After a short, but bumpy, plane ride, and a longer bus ride, we were finally back at school. It was a great weekend, but I'm glad to be back on campus for a while!


BRUNCH AT KILYOS


May 1st is International Workers' Day, which is celebrated like Labor Day in the US. We had the day off from classes, so we decided to visit one of the Black Sea beaches a little north of school. So, on Tuesday morning, we went to town, picked up our obligatory brunch items - balkaymak, ekmek, karişik meyve suyu, peynir, olives,  jam, and the freshest strawberries (çilekler) I've ever had - and hopped on a dolmuş to Kilyos. When we arrived, we found a great little town, and a long, long beach. The size of it reminded me of Popham at home. Here's our brunch spread:

Here's a photo looking our to the Black Sea. You may not be able to see them very well, but there are about 30 oil tankers hanging out off shore, waiting for their turn to enter the Bosphorus. 

Here's a photo of the town itself. It's cut from a panoramic photo I took, so please excuse the quality... 

It was a great way to spend our day off, although I should have been doing homework... I hope to get back to Kilyos before I leave - it's just very beautiful, and not crowded, like much of the area. Hope everyone back home also had a great week!