"We are ten" - Turkey's Capital

Hello again,

Last weekend was our free weekend and we were thinking about going to the Greek island, Lesbos but then it was more expensive than we expected so as alternative nine of us in the group decided to go to Turkey's capital for the day. Ankara is directly east of Eskisehir as shown on the map below and only took an hour to get to by high-speed train.



We decided to take a train at 8:00 a.m. but the story really begins at 7:20 or 7:25 when Agne woke Qianqian and I up because we were suppose to be ready at 7:30. Needless to say we were quite flustered and I forgot to bring my camera with me (sorry Mom). So then we had to power walk to the train station but we managed to make it.

Our friend Baris was our group leader/translator and took us to all the places he thought we should see. I named this post "we are ten" because he kept counting us throughout the day and said "okay good, we are still ten." After taking a bus from one train station to another and then a taxi to another area we decided to grab some breakfast because we were quite hungry. I got a dish with eggs and sausage pieces, tea, and portaklal suyu (orange juice that's freshly squeezed). I'm a sucker for freshly squeezed orange juice over here because it's just so good! Florida's Natural orange juice back home may claim to be freshly squeezed but they're full of shit. Turkey's got it right when it comes to orange juice.

Any way, it was then time to go to Atatürk tomb which I was really excited about because people LOVE him. As I think I said before, Atatürk is considered the founding father of Turkey because he united Turkey after WWI when Turkey barely  existed because the British, French, Russians, and I'm not sure who else claimed much of the land after the Ottoman Empire collapsed. But Atatürk wasn't having any of that and took over these places to form the Turkey known today. In addition he also made the country more European-like and forced everything to be secular. Pretty much all of the Turkish citizens believe that if he wasn't alive Turkey wouldn't exist today and I'd probably agree with them. Especially after seeing his tomb.

His tomb was giant and on a hill so it could easily be seen in the area. The large area that can be seen below is where his tomb is and he's buried about 25 ft below it.

The surrounding area on the left and right is actually a museum that has a bunch of Atatürk's stuff like clothes, swords, pipes and also has exhibits relating to the wars fought back in the day along with other important people of that time. You entered the museum on the right side and in the middle they showed a video of his casket. The casket was facing towards Mecca, in the middle of an octagon symbolizing something about the Ottoman Empire and there were jars of dirt from all regions of Turkey (at least that's what I got from what I read).

Atatürk died in the most Turkish way possible - he died of cirrhosis of the liver from drinking too much rakı and probably also from smoking too much. Rakı is a very strong alcoholic drink that is mixed with water because it's too strong straight and tastes like black licorice. This drink is unique to Turkey and as Baris would say, "will make you start talking about your ex-girlfriends."

Anyway, we then headed to the downtown area of Ankara, walked around, looked at cheap sunglasses for a long time then eventually took another taxi ride to Atakule Tower. We grabbed some dinner before heading up and ate and had a great view of Ankara.

One of the reasons we chose to go to Ankara was to see the new batman movie in IMAX so after Atakule Tower we took another taxi and subway to get out to a mall and see batman in IMAX. I actually saw batman the night before and loved it in IMAX much more...even though the movie stopped three times because of something about a generator. But one thing about seeing movies in Turkey is that there's always an intermission and at first I really didn't like it but now I like it because it's a nice time for a bathroom break and to stretch your legs.

Last stop was at Baris' friend's place where we had a few drinks, played with their adorable puppies and just hung out for a while. But then the guys wanted to go to a club place so we went there and I actually mostly laid-low but it was still an...interesting night.

Then we took another taxi to the train station, a bus to the train station we had to go to, then took the 7:00 train to get back at 8:00 and we were pooped. 

In other news:

• had a test in transportation today and I hated studying for it but it wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be
• I'm doing my best to make a blog soon about the food in Turkey but I keep forgetting to take pictures of what I eat and also the names of whatever I'm eatting...but I'll get on it! I promise, Mom haha
• Oh, it's Ramadan right now which means a guy with a drum walks down the streets at roughly 3:00 a.m. telling everyone to wake up and eat a lot before the sunrises. I was VERY confused/freaked out the first night this happened because I had no idea what was happening. Even though it's Ramadan though none of our Turkish friends are celebrating it except Noor in our MSU trip is somehow making it happen. Props to him for sure because I don't think I could do it
• And how could I forget? Agne, Qianqian and I had to move out of our apartment and into the one directly above us because our shower in the old one was leaking and causing issues for the new people that moved in below us. I was grumpy about moving but it's fine now.

Oook that was long enough, I'll post something probably after our next weekend trip.

Adios!

"The Sea Won't Let Me Leave"

Hello again,

It's been a while because I've been busy with other stuff but I really don't have too much to say.

Left for Olympos last Thursday night and 11:45 and rode the bus for 8 or so hours to get down to our little bungalow place. The bus ride was kind of okay, of course bumpy at some places, but over all not too bad. I didn't get a little nervous however when we were about 45 minutes out from our destination twisting and turning down the hilly/mountainous area on a bus. But the view was great and the bus driver seemed to have control so it's ok.

Then we got to our place and had a breakfast similar to the one we had in Istanbul but better because the cheese was less strong, they had a Nutella-like spread for bread, hard boiled eggs, and water melon in addition to cucumbers, tomatoes, and olives. And it was only 5 TL while Istanbul's not so awesome breakfast was 9 the first day.

Qianqian and I were lucky and got the key to our bungalow right away so we were able to put our stuff down and head to the beach right away while the other guys went to the beach then had to go back to get situated then come back out to the beach.

The first swim was incredibly nice! A stream entered our little bay area which made the water near the beach a tiny bit cold but it was so refreshing on a hot day. And then when you swam out farther it was still comfortable because it was the temperature of a comfortable pool. So nice. Of course the salt water took a little getting use to for us Michiganders but it was nice.

Qianqian left the beach after I'd say 3 or 4 hours but I continued to stay in my spot until 3:00 or so. I would read a chapter of my book and then when it got too toasty I would sit or swim around in the water and repeat. I loved it because it was incredibly relaxing to just be by myself for a bit. I then decided to look for the boys and found them being their normal goofball selves. Eventually four of us decided to swim out to this giant rock formation thing that was probably 20-25 ft out of the water and jumped off. A ton of fun. Soon enough we were pooped and it was time to get back, shower, and wait for din din.

Dinner consisted of this super tasty chicken soup that we all enjoyed and I don't remember what else besides the bread. By 9:00 we hopped on a bus, hiked a mountain with steps that seemed like would never end and then got to an area where there were flames coming from the ground. I guess natural gas has seeped out of there for years causing those flames and it was pretty cool to see. But what I thought was even more cool was the clear starry night. It was still super hot but it was nice to just chill up there with my friends for a while before we headed back.

Our bungalow place had little huts to hang out in and we decided to drink a and chill a bit more there. Eventually everyone went to bed but Ryan, Ryan, Luke, and I weren't tired and just stayed up talking about random stuff and laughing a ton. Best topic of the night was describing fruit with personalities. For example, we decided that bananas are nice and other fruit are not as nice.

Best part of the night/morning was deciding to go down to see the sunrise on the sea. Incredibly beautiful and  just a nice time in general. There was also a bride and groom there and he was taking pictures of her but then they asked me to take pictures of them. I told them I'm not a great photographer but I think they got some good shots. At some points I even told them to look at each other or I told him to pick her up. Their wedding wasn't that day though, I guess they were just going for the pretty pics.

The four of us then got back and decided to sleep in the huts and got a solid 2 hours at least of sleep. Eventually though the rooster won and I couldn't sleep any more.

Day two we just had breakfast which was then included, took a bus, hopped on a boat and the 15 of us plus Mehmet and three people from the international office had a boat to ourselves and it was beautiful. Wonderfully blue water, awesome scenic mountains/rocks and good company. We stopped four times to a shore so we could hop off, swim around and soak up the sun. Oodles and oodles of fun.

We then got back, had dinner, then I was super tired and recovering from the not as awesome food/all the apple juice I had earlier in the day and called it a night because I didn't want to be miserable on the bus the next day. Most of the other guys though went to some club and had a good time I guess.

Woke up the next morning, did the whole breakfast thing then it was 11:00 - when we were suppose to be on the bus and leave and who haven't we seen up yet? None other than Ryan and Luke. So I go to their bungalow and it took a while to get an answer after all the knocking to see a half-asleep Ryan, the cabinet turned around and corn pops ALL over their bungalow. I had a few questions and pretty much all they could say was, "I don't know what to say, and this place is haunted - there's a pig in our wall." I just went with it and told them it'd be a good idea to be ready in ten minutes.

Eventually the whole crew made it on the bus and we headed home. Made one stop at this little beach area that was kind of cool with some cool ruins because it use to be a port I believe but I just hung out.

On the way back we passed through Antalya and it looked beautiful. I would describe it as the Florida coast times 3.5. I'd like to go back there sometime.

By idk, 9:00 or so we were back and happy to be home.


In other news

• I finished the second Hunger Games book
• Found out that Turkish people have pretty much taken the same class every year throughout their childhood plus two classes in college: "Ataturk's principles and the history of the Turkish Republic." Or something like that. No wonder they're crazy about Turkey and Ataturk. They love Ataturk because they truly believe that without him, Turkey would not exist. I was pretty doubtful at first but after talking to a Turkish friend I think I believe it
• I've started a new daily could of how many times I see Ataturk (his face is everywhere):
• Monday: 4
• Tuesday: 6
• Wednesday: 4 so far
• Bought a watermelon today
• Had a delicious and fresh juice yesterday called Atom
• Decided to just stick around Eskisehir this weekend and probably take a day trip to Ankara (the capitol) on Friday or Saturday because I don't feel like going on a long bus ride nor arranging the whole transportation situation. Plus I want to explore Eskisehir more
• It's officially gotten hot here. 101 today, 102 tomorrow, 96 Friday, then it cools down to the low 90s

Once again I lied that I didn't have much to say...of course I did because I always have more to say than I think I do. Anyway, hope I didn't waste too much of your time and I hope you have a good rest of the day!

My First Turkish Wedding!

Boy oh boy, yesterday was an interesting night.

We had to meet Hakan at 17:40 and pretty much had to power walk to catch the tram then ran to make sure we didn't miss our bus because the next one would've left an hour later. Luckily we made the bus so all was fine.

We found out that Turkish weddings are pretty much just a reception/open house with dancing because it started at 8:00 but people could show up any time. We got there at about 9:00 or 9:30 and Hakan's friend, Gülse, and her friends didn't get there till probably an hour or so later. There didn't seam to be a meal served to the guests, just a few plates of cookies at each table and bottles of pop or juice that people could pour in their glasses when thirsty.

The wedding itself was in a big room above a grocery store that seemed to do weddings all the time. Gülse's dad met us downstairs in the parking lot and insisted on shaking everyone's hand and seemed to be happy that we were there. It was his friend's son's wedding and I guess it wasn't an issue at all that we had no idea who the bride and groom were nor even their names.

So then we were about to walk up the stairs to the wedding and I remember saying, "shit just got real" because I couldn't believe we were actually walking into a wedding of a different culture for people we'll never see again and I suddenly got really nervous. But then we walked in, they found us a table right away and shook a bunch of hands.

Soon enough they played songs I guess just for us and we first tried the whole Turkish dancing and then one song we danced "the American way." It was fun and they seemed to eat it up. Especially the kids. I saw some kids trying to dance like we were so I went and danced with them and they had a smile on their face the entire time - and so did I pretty much the entire night because it was a bunch of fun and an experience I never would've guessed I would've had in my life.

Then we went to sit down because a different dance came on that was more traditional and involved clicking of spoons. While that was happening these two eleven-year old girls who knew about the same amount of English as I knew Turkish (if not less) were insistent on trying to talk with me. It was pretty much them asking Hakan how to say "what's your favorite color?" "your dress is beautiful" "you are beautiful" "how old are you?" and then they would repeat it to me. They were cute but the whole language barrier made it a bit difficult. Then they insisted on taking pictures:

 And then they wanted to take pictures of me...or at least I think they did

 And I had to do a few funny faces so they could play with my camera

 Then I made them join me in the funny pics

Soon enough it was time to go back out there and dance. Turkish dancing is a lot of having your arms out and your chest open while moving your arms kind of up and down and snapping a little. It's hard to explain, I'm sure you could look it up online if you're really curious. Or I could start up some Turkish dance lessons once I get home because I'm pretty much an expert...not really haha

Centerpiece

 At least one, maybe both were the sisters of the two girls.

Oh, and there was a professional photographer that took pictures and printed pictures right away that could be bought for 3 TL. Qianqian bought this one.

 This picture made the wall of selected pics! So I didn't have the opportunity to buy it but thought it was a cool picture. I'm dancing with this girl because random girls, including her, would come up to me and do some sort of motion to teach me how to dance Turkish-ly like this move

They later had a huge cake for the bride and groom to cut but it seemed to be a fake cake because the actual cake was served soon after and we saw it stored in a room later. Then they had to give the gifts to the bride and groom which involved a bunch of people standing in a line presenting their gifts. And after a while we were able to dance one more time.

We eventually got back and wanted to go to karaoke night at Up n Down and that was a bunch of fun. There were many Turkish songs sung but also some known ones and in between people singing they played songs we could dance to more. Our American group pretty much tore it up when it came to dancing which was a ton of fun. Some of the guys then sang a Michael Jackson and soon enough the place was closing. We wanted to sing Bohemian Rhapsody but it either didn't make the list or we were too late in suggesting it.

It was an interesting night and made staying awake in class today pretty difficult.

Leaving for Olympos in 4 hours and I'm looking forward to it! It will be beautiful and relaxing and I'll have pictures to prove it :)

TTFN!

The Sounds of Eskisehir (plus more of course)

I've been waiting to post this blog for a while and I guess today's the day. I've mentioned before that there's some interesting noises in Eskisehir so I'm going to share what this stuff sounds like!

5 Prayers a Day
This prayer isn't specifically from Eskisehir but it sounds similar. Prayers like this are played 5 times a day. I don't really mind them but I guess the guys one the other side of the hall sometimes get annoyed by it because their window must directly face the speakers from whichever mosque it's coming from and the first one is announced at about 4 a.m. or so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2JsQnvs3rc&feature=fvst

The Water Truck
I guess there's one water truck that passes through Eskisehir every day and only has one route so it plays a song while it's moving to let people know that the time to buy water is coming up. I use to be very annoyed by this song and I remember my first Sunday morning here I was super confused why this annoying song was playing so often and so loud so early in the morning but now I actually don't mind it too much. It sucks when it's stuck in my head but I'm kind of thinking of setting it as my ringtone when I get back home haha This video is missing about 5 seconds of the whole song but you get the idea. If the truck's driving for a while it'll be repeated over and over until the truck stops.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeJ1oR5stVg&feature=related

Airplanes
There's an air force base near by and I guess every once in a while they'll fly out and go where ever they have to go but they fly really low to the ground so that sometimes it's so loud there's no way you can talk to your friend who is sitting right next to you. Also not too fun to wake up to in the morning. This video doesn't quite show how loud it actually gets but you get the idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac94dlKRQXI

A Popular Pop Song in Europe

We first found out about this song at Del Mundo a couple weeks ago when a bunch of drunk Norwegians heard this song and started standing on their chairs and dancing and loving this song. Ever since I've heard this song a bunch and its played at least 4-5 times every night at the carnival place that's pretty much just outside my window. I don't think I've mentioned this carnival place yet but it's open every night, plays a bunch of popular songs and you can here many people giggling. I haven't been there yet but one of these days I'll check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8P2pZBJvqw

Sudden Stops of CarsIt's not exactly this bad where cars will spin slightly when they stop but as I mentioned before the Turkish people drive very aggressively here. So every once in a while you can hear cars skreetch because they run into a sticky situation but surprisingly I still haven't witnessed a car accident.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJoicgKy1Xw

IN OTHER NEWS
A friend from my transportation class, Hakan, met up with Ross, Mike, and I earlier this evening to have some baklava and ice cream because I mentioned that I've never had it before and it was delicious. We bought 1 kg of baklava and a bunch of vanilla ice cream and had to put the ice cream on top, let it sit for about five minutes or so to let the ice cream melt for a bit and then ate it and it was very sweet and very good. Baklava is a unique dessert to Turkey and I'd recommend anyone to try it when in Turkey and is very sweet and very good! We also had one piece of another type of dessert similar to baklava because it was also flaky but was even more sweet and also had a strong pistachio taste which I loved. I mentioned to Hakan that back at home pistachios are rare for me because they're so expensive but I love them when I have them and he said that in his home town pistachio trees always pop up by the wind and they're actually a hassle to them because they have to many. I kind of which I had this problem.

And when we were at Hakan's place eating the baklava we met a couple friends of his and discussed American vs. Turkish culture and whatever else and then one of his friends invited us to a Turkish wedding tomorrow at 8 pm! It's her dad's friend's (daughter's?) wedding and I guess the bride has a lot of family in the area but the groom doesn't so we're invited with Hakan's friends and we'll be learning some traditional Turkish dancing. I'm so excited!!!

I'll be sure to keep you posted as to how it goes and we leave for Olympos on Thursday night which I'm really excited about because it's going to be absolutely beautiful! But now it's time to finish two problems for my hydrology homework that I should've finished before writing this blog entry.

Iyi Geceler! (EE geh-jeh-ler)

An Overwhelming but Beautiful City

Well...my Mom's demanding me to blog about my Istanbul trip and I guess a bunch of her friends have liked my blog so this one's for you guys!

We left for Istanbul at 3:00 a.m. Friday morning and found out that staying out till 1 a.m. for a few drinks wasn't necessarily a good idea. By the time I got out of my shower it was 2:10 and only ten minutes before my alarm was suppose to go off. But we all managed to get on the bus and were able to sleep most of the way.

We eventually dropped off our stuff at a hostile called the Sultan's Hostile (or something) and got there earlier than expected so we had some breakfast there thinking it would be free but later found out it costed 9 TL. Which really isn't bad because it's only $5 or so but we just didn't expect it and I'd say we were also a bit cranky.

Soon enough met our tour guide (I'm not sure if anyone found out what his name was) and headed for the Blue Mosque which was only a 5 or so minute walk from our hostile I'd say. Our tour guide took us just inside in the courtyard and talked a lot about Turkey's history. It was kind of fine and all but it was all ready getting very hot, it was mostly stuff we knew about I'd say and he had a slow pace of talking. After waiting in a line for I'd say about 10-15 minutes we walked inside the mosque and it was crazy. I learned about the Blue Mosque in high school and knew it was very beautiful and intricate but my teacher was right- you have to see it in person to really appreciate it. Needless to say I was very impressed and had to walk around in the skirt I brought and wear a scarf around my shoulders but I didn't have to cover my head for whatever reason.

 Inside the very hot courtyard

 I really wish this picture wasn't as blurry because it was crazy stepping inside and seeing everything

Next was the Hagia Sophia which was pretty much "across the street" from the Blue Mosque. Hagia Sophia was built in the mid 500s originally as an Eastern Orthodox church and was later converted to a mosque in the mid 1400s. It's pretty convenient that the direction of Jerusalem and Mecca are only an 8 degree difference from Istanbul so then they only had to shift everything slightly to the right when it was converted into a mosque. But when it was converted into a mosque they covered all of the Christian related symbols as well as the mosaics of Jesus and who ever else in plaster because you're not allowed to have that stuff inside a mosque. When it was converted into a museum in the early 1900s they did their best to uncover the mosaics and whatever else but there is only so much you can do. This is why the decorations look kind of goofy because they couldn't get all the plaster off.

 Only the emperor could go through the big entrance, everyone else had to go through the smaller ones

 Qianqian, me, and Agne

One of the mosaics. I believe it's Mary with baby Jesus and some other guys

Next we saw the Basilica Cistern which was a huge underground area with a bunch of columns that held the water for Istanbul back in the day. It was converted into a museum after the Republic of Turkey was created in 1923 (like the Hagia Sophia). I don't have cool pictures from there because it was pretty dark but there's two columns out of over 50 columns with Medusa's head at the base and I guess it's a mystery as to why they were put there.

One of the two Medusa columns

It was then lunch time and I wanted some sort of seafood and saw seafood spaghetti and had to get it. It was very satisfying and also had some great humus before. So good!

After a bit of a break we headed to the Topkapı Palace which is where a lot of official business occurred back in the day. It's now a museum and had a ton of stuff like Moses's stick, a footprint of Mohamed (his foot was huge), a bunch of weapons, other religious stuff, and a ton of gifts from other countries to the sultan along with other elaborate things that the sultan owned. I couldn't believe how many crazy elaborate gifts were given to the sultan from pretty much every country at the time and I'm sure the sultan rarely used them because he already had a lot of things. I wish I could've taken pictures of all of this but we weren't allowed to take pictures. 

It was then Grand Bazaar time which was an...interesting experience. It's set up like a giant indoor outlet mall and is mostly filled with the same stuff throughout more or less. If you want to find a nice scarf, bowls, glasses, t-shirts, bags, sunglasses, jewlery, gypsi outfits, rugs, or other things that's the place to go. I've had my mind set to get a backgammon board for a couple months now and I'm happy I got one there and I also got a few more gifts that'll be a surprise for the people I bought them for when I get home :) The whole process of buying things in the Grand Bazaar is too much for me. I would first ask how much, they would say a price, I would usually say something around half of it, then they'd go on and on about how it's hand made and worth more, I'd say that's all I would pay and then they would either say yes or no. One place I left and the guy shouted "okay, 25!" when I was a couple stores down from his and then I bought it. But it was annoying walking around because all the men were just saying "come to my beautiful shop," or saying how beautiful Qianqian, Agne, and I were it got old quickly. This is pretty much how everywhere in Istanbul was when it came to stores or restaurants. We were referred to as Charlie's Angels though which was kind of funny because it would kind of work if my hair was red. 

We then went to the Spice Bazaar close by and bought some Turkish delight, tried some tasty apple tea and I was ready to go back to the hostile. It was quite a long day and we all pretty much didn't do anything for the rest of the night. Ross, Vince, Jake and I though decided to grab a beer and go sit by the water at night so we sat on these huge rocks on the water looking at the lights of Istanbul which was a great way to end the day.

Day 2 (sorry this entry is so long and in detail):

We woke up and had the same breakfast as the day before but this time it was free. There were tomato an cucumber slices, some strong cheese, black and green olives, some cereal (which I was happy to have) and of course some bread.

We eventually got on a boat tour that lasted between 1.5 and 2 hours on the Bosphorus Strait which connects Europe and Asia. It was wonderful, relaxing, beautiful, and we really enjoyed it.

Next we had a fish sandwich which was only 5 TL and headed to the Dolmabahçe Palace. We had to wait in a super long line and it was incredibly hot and humid but worth the wait. Once we entered there was a beautiful courtyard and we waited for a tour of inside the palace. We couldn't take pictures but it was very elaborate and beautiful of course. The last part we saw was this giant room painted extremely elaborately and had a 4 ton chandelier in the center. Quite crazy. We left the palace to see a beautiful view of the Boshporus and were amazed. The inside stuff was great and all but I was most jealous of the awesome view of the water with a beautiful courtyard area. 

Man, I thought I was almost done but I forgot we also walked down Istiklal (which means Independence in Turkish I guess) Street which is a long street full of a bunch of shops and some restaurants that Istanbul's known for. My dad gave me a book about Turkey for my birthday and the author was hyping Istiklal Street so I was looking forward to it but I don't think it was hype-worthy. It was cool to see but maybe I was just tired by this point in the day.

We stopped by St. Antoine's church for a bit and then went to Galata Tower. The view from the top was pretty neat. 

It was then time to go home, eat dinner from the top of a restaurant with a beautiful view of the water and the Blue Mosque, freshen up, then head out to the bars back on Istiklal street for Agne's birthday! 

 View from dinner

 Stuffed eggplant - so good!

The birthday girl!

I'm glad Agne was able to come on this Istanbul trip with us because she got screwed over by her advisor last minute by telling her she couldn't go on the 5 day trip she was planning on. We went to this place that played mostly Latin-based music and it was a lot of fun. We all had a great time, had an adventurous taxi ride, had one more beer at the hostile and headed to bead at 4:00 a.m. for about 5 hours of sleep and then slept all the way back to my (temporary) home in Eskisehir and boy, did it feel great to be home. I missed Eskisehir because the food was more expensive in Istanbul and was kind of overwhelming. 

Anyway, that took forever to write so I hope you enjoy it Mom and friends and everyone else! Loving Turkey and looking forward to a relaxing day tomorrow.