Edirne

The exchange dinner turned out really fun. THERE WAS SO MUCH FOOD!!! AND IT WAS ALL SO GOOOOOD!!!!! The Americans made grilled cheese, hot dogs, hamburgers, candies, macaroni and cheese, and... fruit salad. The Germans had some cookies and candies. The Italians made a pot (literally 3-feet in diameter) of spaghetti. The Turks had all kinds of delicious things (especially baklava). I think my favorite though were these fried potato pancake things from the Czech table. The only frustrating thing was how quickly I got full! XO After the dinner the ISS organized shuttles to Taksim to keep partying, which was very impressive considering the crazy party the previous night. We stayed in.

On Sunday I got to go to Edirne, a town on the border with Bulgaria (aka Bulgaristan) that had been capital of the Ottoman Empire for a while, I believe. It was really nice to get out of Koc and Istanbul just for a change. There were really gorgeous mosques here. We also got to briefly participate in a sports parade. I hung out mostly with CIEE-ers, but also spent some time with other international students. We went through the bazaar (bought lots of cheap yarn :D), went to the ruins of the palace, a Balkan War memorial, and a museum of Ottoman medical practices. The museum was kinda weird, but kinda interesting, and there was a woman doing paper marbling that was really cool.

Outside of the really important mosque in Edirne (not a graveyard in the background, a memorial)

At lunch: Tyler, Tim, and Ivy

Another mosque:

One of the memorial stones:

Another mosque: this is the signature of the Ottoman emperors:

Mosque:

The parade:


Climbing the ruins of the palace:

The ruins of the palace:

Another mosque:

Woman doing paper marbling:

She made things like this: