Turkeyless Turkey and Taking Taksim

Since coming back from Bayram vacation I've had some major withdrawal, especially as regards not seeing that group of friends 24/7 anymore (although I still see them all the time). This weekend has started out pretty busy, though, so it feels easier to get back into the rhythm.

Thursday we actually celebrated Thanksgiving! And although there were no Turkish turkeys to be found, it was really wonderful. We just had a potluck with most of the people from CIEE as well as quite a few Erasmus students and a couple Turkish mentors. There was so. much. food.

• 16 chickens
• 4 pans of mashed potatoes
• 60 deviled eggs (part of which was my contribution)
• 2 big bowls of candied carrots
• candied squash
• a huge pan of sweet corn
• 4 pans of apple crumble
• 2 small cheesecakes
• 4 small carrot cakes
• 1/2 a giant chocolate cake
• 1 ladybug cake
• 1 big bowl of homemade caramel popcorn
• 1 big bowl of cooked apples
• 1 small apple pie
• ~30 people to attempt unsuccessfully to eat it all

and that's only what I can remember off the top of my head. Before eating we all held hands around the circle and said what we're thankful for :D

Yesterday CIEE organized a retreat for us. Only about half of the people on the program came. It was interesting. It was lead by our three CIEE staff as well as a psychologist. One of the activities we did was to split into two groups, one of engineers who were going to build a bridge in "Bubbleland" and the other of local "Bubblelanders". As engineers we had to come to Bubbleland and work with the locals to build the bridge (between two chairs using cardboard). However, the Bubblelanders had some very specific social customs and norms, such as specific greetings, and couldn't speak English. Nevertheless, we overcame these difficulties and literally (and figuratively lol yay!) built a bridge. At other points in the day we also thought about our relationship to the abroad experience before coming, over the first few days, at the present, and upon returning home and made collages for each of these four periods. Before going home Nathan Johnson, Ivy and I also waded briefly into the FREEZING Black Sea (the beach was right next to the place where we had the retreat).

For the evening we had some serious going-out-to-Taksim plans. There was also a big double-birthday going on that we were hoping to coincide with at least at some point. We started off the night at Baba Ali for drinks, then went to Riddim to dance but we were literally the only ones on the dance floor. I didn't mind that at all, but my friends had more drink-centered plans than I and weren't happy with the exorbitant prices so we left. At this point we by chance met up with the double-birthday gang and went with them to a club called The Lion (I think). This was fun cause there was a live band playing pop hits like Black Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga. Of course, they weren't nearly as good as the original but it was really fun to hear these super familiar songs with a slightly different sound. This place was REALLY crowded and there were all kinds of Koc exchange students. We went nuts and it was so much fun.

Today, it's just going to be hitting the books :) It will be nice to take it easy. What with Thanksgiving, I really miss home! Much love to everyone.

Bayram Vacation

This is a long'un. I also am so tired I have no sense of grammar or any other writing skills at the moment, so be prepared ;)

Today we just got back from an amazing week-long trip across the Balkans. We didn't have classes in honor of the Bayram holiday. I went with Jonathan Kaeppler, Jonathan Madison, Ivy, Caitlin, and later Tim and his friend Katy to Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Romania. It was a lot of traveling for one week, but I feel like we actually spent a good amount of time in each place. Of course, I'm sure we could have spent a lot more time in each but it didn't feel rushed which was wonderful. As I seem to usually say, probably the best part of the trip was hanging out with everybody. I really love everyone in the group and we had really great dynamics overall. The social atmosphere was laid-back, funny, sassy, affectionate, interested, and generally positive. The whole trip was peppered with really intense discussions covering all kinds of topics including abortion, death penalty, gun control, nature vs. nurture, and women's rights. The discussions themselves were fantastic. Everybody had really intelligent and thoughtful arguments while being really open-minded and flexible. Plus, since we are all different majors (for the most part) and from really different backgrounds there was a lot of diversity in our perspectives. I learned so much from that alone. I also learned a whole lot about the people I was with. I feel so much closer to them now. My perceptions of each of them have changed dramatically over the week.

Here's the break-down:

Sarajevo, Bosnia

I had to leave a day later than the rest of the group due to a midterm, and I definitely had doubts about getting to the hostel from the Sarajevo airport. There weren't any problems, though. That morning, before I got there, the group went on a war tour that sounds like it was fascinating. They saw a lot of important places in the war, including the tunnel used to get food and supplies into the city. Many if not most of the buildings throughout the entire city are still punctured and dented and otherwise damaged from bullets and shrapnel. The city is nestled in a valley and apparently Serbian snipers covered the surrounding hills to attack. So many people died. I really didn't know anything about the Serbian-Bosnian conflict until now. It's so shocking how recent it was, too. Apparently the tour guide was showing the group places where he had been fighting beginning at the age of 16. The owner of our hostel also talked to us about it. He showed us a hole in the dining room table from when some kind of missile had busted through the wall and told us that one day he came home and a car was blown up at his door. People couldn't bury the dead because they would be shot down, even when they tried burying people at night. The hostel owner said, in an interesting change of tone, that things were much simpler during those four years: they only had two things to worry about, finding food and not getting shot. One side of the city had access to water and the other side had access to the tunnel that was the only way to get food and supplies so it was really difficult for everyone to get everything they needed. Also, Jon K mentioned that this was one of the few times that Catholics and Muslims (all Bosnians) united and cooperated in such a way.

Despite the grave suffering that even we couldn't escape 15 years later, the city was really surprisingly pleasant. The surroundings were beautiful as was much of the architecture. We took a hike to see the view and walked over the bridge where Franz Ferdinand was shot to spark WWI. At night we met a group of American students who were studying abroad in Hungary and in Bosnia for the weekend. As we went to several bars, hookah bars, and clubs for the rest of the night they joined us in gradually fewer numbers. They were apparently very religious (attending the same religious college in the States) and I think had qualms about some of our bar-hopping plans.

Mostar, Bosnia and Dubrovnik, Croatia

The next day we woke up late, took the hike, and fell asleep all snuggling together. On Sunday, we rented a car and drove to Mostar. This is a small town close to the Croatian border. It's famous for a bridge that was destroyed during the war and whose renovation was a symbol of recovery. It was a really lovely town with lots of crafts. We had lunch with a great view (and a passionate discussion of abortion). The drive there was incredibly beautiful, through dramatic mountains and beautiful weather:

Here's Mostar and the famous bridge (the town's name refers to the word for bridge in Bosnian [Most]):

At this point we looked at a map and realized we were awfully close to Croatia. So we decided to go, just for dinner. A couple hours and several passport stamps later we found ourselves in Dubrovnik. Since this trip was unplanned, none of us knew what to expect and we were all very surprised. Dubrovnik is centered around a massive citadel that I believe is Ancient Roman. Whether carefully restored or lovingly maintained, it looked incredibly "new", clean, and undamaged. We also only saw the town at night which has given us an interesting perspective on it. There was a gorgeous moonlit view of a couple islands near the castle. Jon M and I also briefly went galavanting through a dense residential area which was beautiful in the way it maintained the architectural theme of white stone and narrow curving alleys:

We got home quite late and knocked out immediately. Here's a shot of our room and our student-standard neatness:

Belgrade, Serbia

The next day was about entirely spent traveling from Sarajevo to Belgrade. In other words, an 8-hour train ride. It was comfortable and we had some more really good (and emotional) discussions (this time mostly about women's rights), but I was pretty antsy and we were all hungry by the end. Clockwise starting at the top left are Jon M, Caitlin, Jon K, and Ivy:

We settled in to our hostel, which was really nice, and walked around the city for a bit. It was already night by this time. Serbian money is quite "small" and we all enjoyed/were really uncomfortable with withdrawing 10,000 (by this point we were referring to all units of currency as "things") things from the ATM. Only equivalent to about $100. That night we met up with Tim and his friend Katy and made plans.

Belgrade:

The next day started with a trip to a citadel and a military museum. This was also really depressing, although informative and interesting after having seen the Bosnian perspective. There were weapons ranging from medieval times to today, but it focused a lot on WWII, complete with descriptions and pictures of atrocities. Jon K made sure to leave a biting comment in the guest book about the museum's failure to even mention the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Here's the group posed on a torpedo, from left Katy, Jon M, Tim, Jon K, Ivy, and Caitlin.

After the museum we went to a traditional restaurant and wandered around the city some more. Having heard multiple times that Belgrade has a wild night life we were determined to go out. We got ready and went to a nice (and still dirt-cheap) restaurant. There, we invited a lone Belgium tourist from another table to join us and soon a Swiss tourist voluntarily also joined. They hung with us for the rest of the night. After eating we went to a club called the French Maid. We went because the Belgian was meeting someone there. So we had no idea what to expect. It was really hard to find. It turned out to be playing Dubstep, something I've never heard before. To me it's like some alternative something with a slow, heavy, sometimes syncopated hip-hop-like beat. It was really intense. Very danceable (I was just krumping the whole time lol), but between the loudness, the epileptic lights, and the fog of cigarette smoke I had major sensory overload. A few of us all had a shot of absinthe together. I hadn't drunk much of anything else, so I didn't even really notice the affect, but we can add it to our list of cultural experiences :)

Transylvania, Romania

The next day we took a shuttle to a Romanian town just past the border and then rented a van which we drove into the depths of Transylvania. The car had a cracked windshield, bald tires, and a cross hanging from the rear-view mirror. The man who gave it to us told us that we shouldn't worry about denting or scratching it, just as long as we don't break anything. That was a first. The journey took us through tiny, dusty towns, past horse-drawn buggies and more prostitutes than I've ever seen, and into a dense and endless tangle of scraggly, bare trees. By 1:30 am we were climbing a dirt road that might have been smoother were it paved with boulders. We weren't really sure where to go because the directions to the hostel weren't exactly clear and we ended up at the bottom of the wrong person's very steep driveway with the van's bald wheels spinning in dusty trenches. Jon and Jon did an admirable job of getting us out and we soon found the place. The hostel was really really nice, in the middle of the mountains and all these farms and rural homes. Here's the dining room:

Part of the advertisement for the hostel was that we got fresh milk every morning since the neighbors had cows. It was my first experience having milk this fresh and it was delicious. Here's the view from the hostel:

That morning we drove over to Bran Castle where The Count Dracula had spent a few nights apparently. I think it wasn't the original, though. It was still cool, a very different type of royal living space than I am used to. Also, with Transylvania's reputation of vampires I was projecting a sense of creepiness onto everything from the extensive woods to the castle. They had some information on vampires and where the myths might come from. Apparently, Dracula (Vlad the Impaler) was famous for literally impaling his enemies, but was actually really appreciated by much of the public because he was on the side of the poor. Here's Bran Castle:

Next we went to Brasov and walked around the square, ate ice cream, soaked in the atmosphere. Afterwards we went back to the hostel and had some wine and more intellectual debates, this time mostly about death penalty. The next day we went to another castle. Here was the view:

For lunch we drove to a restaurant at the top of a high hill with a great view and walked around afterwards. The evening was pretty similar to the previous, just walking around Brasov square and eating pastries and ice cream :D Back at the hostel we spent a couple hours dabbling on the guitar, telling jokes, and chatting with Josef, the owner. He had some really interesting stories about trying to immigrate to Canada 20 or so years ago. He tried to go from Guatemala through Mexico and the USA but despite many many attempts never made it past the middle of the US.

Bucharest, Romania

The next day we drove to the capital. I had no expectations, but was still surprised. This city is derelict. Architecture is dominated by the brownish-gray communist block style, plain, huge, and heavy. The only feature of these buildings to contest the uniformity is the uneven way in which they've become stained. Here and there are nougats of floral detail on artistic facades, but these are still so dirty that they blend into the square background. The streets are highly littered and half of the copious electrical wires hang at eye-level or below. Also, there were many "weed" shops, not at all limited to selling weed. One that we passed had posted prices on the window for "M. Kristal", "M. Powder", Special K, and various other nofunnybusiness drugs. Something was lost in the translation of "drug stores".

We were only in Bucharest for about half a day, and we were fine with that. Lonely Planet warned that the street dogs were the biggest danger of the city. Many of the people we passed on the street were extremely drunk and we even saw a dead body being carried out of a house in sheets. We have no idea what that was about. It was also really cold. Despite the unpleasantness, we walked out into the center for a good couple hours. There were a couple special squares where the revolution started and where many people were run over by tanks. Really depressing. Apparently, the Romanian communist regime had been been so strict and oppressive that the USSR didn't even try and incorporate it. Josef had explained that after the revolution the same personalities were in power, only changing their suits from communist to capitalist.

Home

Getting home was pretty easy and uneventful. It was only a bit bittersweet since it was the end to such an amazing week. I didn't use a computer, phone, ipod, or any other electronic device the entire time and I didn't miss any of it at all because it was so socially satisfying. At the same time, I'm now socially saturated and am definitely enjoying having a bit of time to myself. It seems like the trip lasted a month, we saw so many things and I learned so much. It's really weird to be back and hearing about everyone else's Bayram adventures, which all sound super exciting as well. And of course I didn't do a moment of homework the whole week so I have my work cut out for me :)

--Much love

Ankara

Last weekend CIEE took us to Ankara. Until then, most people had been telling us that it really wasn't all that interesting, etc. etc. But it was really nice, actually, even if not as bustling and dynamic as Istanbul. Partly because of its less-than-ideal rep, not everyone came. I'm really glad I did, though. We took night train to get there. I know my account of the night bus expressed my dislike of it, but for me night trains are a totally different story. As long as I can lie down I don't care much about movement or anything. It was pretty fun anyway. I hung out with Linda and Tyler for a while which was really chill and nice. Then I passed by another compartment with Susannah, Becca, Emily, Raven, Jon K, and a couple bottles of wine. I hung out with them for a bit, very different atmosphere than with Linda and Tyler. I slept fine, if not enough.

After breakfast we went to the parliament, the Grand National Assembly. It was interesting. They told us about all the significances of the architecture and design. For example, the place where the public sits is the highest seating place, indicating the importance of the people. After this we went to a lecture on Turkish politics at a language school. The woman giving the lecture was really nice and cool but something about the lighting and the time of day and the lack of sleep made it really hard to pay attention. Several people dozed off and one even started snoring. One thing that I took away was what she was saying about the women's movement in Turkey and how there are many different factions that are often in opposition in terms of specifics, for example, the controversial headscarf issue.

After lunch we toured the Middle Eastern Technical University, where CIEE used to be based. Some of our group wished CIEE were still based there. It was a really nice day and the campus looked really nice. Plus, the people seemed a lot friendlier than Koc students. The thing about Koc is that its basically the most expensive university in Turkey. So there's a very elite culture there. People are very concerned about brand names, etc. Someone said they saw a maserati on campus lol. METU seemed at superficial glance to have less of this attitude. While on campus we went to another lecture by a big important Turkish sociologist on identity issues. His thesis was that the big dichotomy in Turkey isn't so much between "black" Turks (majority, lower-middle class, more religious) and "white" Turks (rich minority, more secular) but rather between Sunni and Alevi Muslims. Actually, he said that there was no strict dichotomy of any kind and then focused on a religious one. Anyway, I could pay attention for more of this one and it was quite interesting, especially the reactions of the Turks in our group. He was clearly very nationalist/Kemalist/secularist and some of our members and program leaders were frustrated by his bias.

That night we went out. Ultimately we ended up at a club/bar that was actually playing Turkish pop songs instead of American top 40. It was fun to go out clubbing and know that I wasn't in the US.

The next day started off with a trip to Anit Kabir: Ataturk's mausoleum. Oh. My. God. Before going I had imagined that it would be comparable to Lenin's mausoleum in Moscow, which I have seen. Not comparable. It's the difference between someone's personal shrine in the corner of their dorm room and the Vatican. The Turks make it look like Lenin was disrespected by his people. This is as monumentally huge as it is hugely monumental. Combine the Pyramids with the Parthenon, put the result in Central Park, and voila. The property is vast. You start out at these immense statues of people and then walk down a long path, and then you find yourself in a wide courtyard that looks like that of European royal palaces, except made with big yellow stones. To your left is is the Egyptian-Parthenon behemoth. Inside this building is Ataturk's tomb, surrounded by marble and gold mosaics. And there are flowers that are changed to the tune of taps every so often. Next to this is a museum with a lot Ataturk's possessions as well as information about the revolution.

Inside the mausoleum:

Outside the mausoleum:

The best part about it? In line for the museum there were a bunch of school kids who started talking with us. There was a middle school group and a high school group. That was really fun. Here are some of the girls:

After this impressive experience we went to the Ankara Citadel and the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. The museum was really interesting, had all these great artifacts from the Hittites and Romans and I don't even know who else. I really like these pots:

Here's the view of Ankara from the top of the citadel:

There's a small town inside the citadel. It seemed really poor, basically all the locals we saw were begging or selling handicrafts. I don't know what the situation is. We had a really delicious lunch here, including manta which is like ravioli with a yogurt sauce.

Then we went to a town an hour or so outside Ankara called Beypazarı. It was so nice. I really love little towns like this. I love local handicrafts too. I bought some earrings in a typical Turkish style that I love. Also, this town is famous for carrots. It produces 60% of all Turkey's carrots. I had carrot juice and brought home carrot Turkish Delight. Didn't make it to the carrot ice cream, but my friends told me it was good. It's also famous for its Ottoman architecture.

In Beypazarı we went to the "Living Museum". The goal of this museum is to educate the public about Turkish cultural traditions, etc. There was a man who made shadow puppets. We also got to do ebru, the paper marbling we had seen in Edirne. Then, we all took part in a special ritual. You sit next to a table while a woman melts lead over a fire. Then she puts a sheet over your head and pours the molten lead in a bowl of water over your head. Then she takes the sheet off and evaluates how much "evil eye" is focused on you based on the shapes in which the now-solid lead turned out. Evil eye can be any kind of bad thoughts of others directed towards you, including jealousy. She also told some of us things like, "You don't have any evil eye, but you are sad" or "You have a little bit of evil eye, and you have five or six problems". Some of the things she said were weirdly accurate. Some of the things sounded like she'd had too much contact with the lead. After you hear about your evil eye, you eat a pinch of salt for the saltiness (? we would probably say bitterness) of life, a pinch of rice for the richness of life, and a pinch of sugar for the sweetness of life. Then she gives you a piece of your lead for you to carry around or keep in your room. Apparently I don't have any evil eye, and my piece of lead was impossible to break into bits so I got a huge chunk.

After this we went upstairs and the same woman who read our lead told us stories. It was such a nice atmosphere:

Then we went to dinner. There was some delicious rice and meat. And then, because there is a special regional sweet, because it was Becca's birthday, and because it's impossible to refuse baklava, we had three desserts. Omg. Even I couldn't manage. The special regional dessert was really yummy, like crushed nuts in honey sauce or something. I love Turkish dessert philosophy.

From there we hopped on the train back to Istanbul. This time, Ivy, Caitlin, Linda, Kathryn and I hung out and had a really solid girl talk.

Since then I've had a couple exams, nothing too terrible. My Islamic Cities midterm was a bit difficult, but I think it will be alright. Also, I've decided to stay all year!!!!!!!!!! I'm really excited about it. Once I heard that there would be homestays next semester I really felt like it would be worth it to stay. I'm so glad Oxy let me. I had a really strong feeling about it... and then once there was no turning back I started to have doubts. Of course. I was actually expecting too, and I've stopped feeling ambiguous. It's amazing how much this has changed my relationship to what I do now. It's wonderful not to feel the time pressure and I'm really excited about all the experiences I'll get to have. At the same time, it's mind-boggling to think that I won't see home for a whole year. I know it's going to be super weird coming back. I'm hoping that over the summer I can do an internship and/or take a class in Spain to get better at Spanish. We'll see.

Needless to say, knowing that it will be a loooong time til I come home I miss it like CRAZY. Much love to everyone.

Kapadokya

This past weekend I went to Kapadokya (Cappadoccia)!! I went with ISS (International Student Society). It was only 150 lira, about $100, for transportation, food, hamam, and disco so I couldn't really pass it up. All in all, the trip was pretty rushed and since there were over 60 people the organizational challenge somewhat prevented the trip from being all it could be. But I was not about to complain.

Since it was ISS (not CIEE) the 60+ constituents represented a whole bunch of countries. That was probably the best part about the trip, getting to know some non-CIEEers from all over the world. Meanwhile, Kim and Tim from CIEE were also on the trip which was really nice to have as a "base", especially since they're both fantastic and I really enjoy hanging out with them. I hadn't really hung out much with Kim up to this point so it was nice to get to know her better. Here are some more fabulous people I got to know even just a bit better on the trip:

• Nina (Germany)
• Claire (Canada)
• John (Netherlands)
• Eunice (Turkish but lives in Germany)
• Valentina (Italy)
• Abraham (Pakistan)
• Stephanie (Miami)
• Christina (Canada)
• Marina (France)
• Ben (Indiana)
• Jasmine (USA)

Some of these people I basically only met, and there are definitely others not on the list. It was really fun to hang out and get to know some of these people. Also to get a break from the CIEE dynamics (even though I love them). And then I could always kick it with Tim for some familiarity.

Bus ride there

We took overnight buses there and back. Not my cup of tea. I've taken them before, so I was not looking forward to this part of the adventure. Of course, the first few hours are always fun, you talk and meet new people, or watch outside if there is interesting scenery. After a couple hours if you get bored you can listen to music and daydream. By hour 4 or 5, however, when it's way past your bedtime and everything has lost its novelty, the chair quite suddenly starts to feel extraordinarily uncomfortable. This decrease in physical comfort correlates to increase in sleepiness. Soon you reach this horrible point when you are far too tired to stay awake, and simultaneously far too uncomfortable to sleep. All of a sudden your teeth turn to fangs and your skin to scales and your friends are the casualties. And none of the food at any of the rest stops can make it better. And I definitely drooled in front of Eunice on the ride back.

Fortunately, on the way down this experience was minimal because I had the seat next to me at times. The ride was a couple hours longer than it should have been, though, because while stuck in hard core traffic (still in Istanbul) the bus driver came too close to a metal trailer and chipped off the bottom left corner of the bus, including the headlight. As the trailer moved away, it took the left side view mirror with it. So for the remainder of the 13 hour nighttime trip our disproportionately tall tour bus drove through torrential rain and audibly high winds at rebelliously high speeds... missing one headlight and one side view mirror. And the bus driver and his second were smoking the whole time lol. At one point in my comatose stupor of the way-too-early morning I opened my eyes enough to see (ironically) that visibility was about 20 feet through the most incredible fog I've ever seen. Needless to say, it was an adventure before we even got to Kapadokya.

Ceramics

After enjoying a sumptuous breakfast, we went to a ceramics center. The styles were traditional or inspired. We even had a little demonstration of a man creating a vase using a pottery wheel. The patterns were really beautiful. I loved this blue style:

These pitchers are really cool. This is a Hittite form. Servers put their arms through the center hole and rotated the pitcher along their shoulders to pour:

Rock formations

One of the things Kapadokya is most famous for are these crazy, really weird and unique rock formations. A long time ago three volcanoes erupted in the area and covered it with lava. Since then, the stone has become sandstone (forgive me, geologists, if any of this doesn't make sense). Extensive erosion carved out these stone pillars all over the place. Meanwhile, there are pieces of granite in places (like the tops of the pillars) that could not be worn away as easily.

The softness of the sandstone meant that it could easily be carved by humans as well, who made many cave dwellings and churches. The insides of the churches were beautifully painted and frescoed. Even though most of the art was at least partially worn away you could still tell how impressive it had been. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the insides, though.

After wandering around these crazy rocks we headed "home". By this time the lazy drizzle of the afternoon turned into a full on lightning storm, which was great to see over the wide open landscape. We went to a hamam (Turkish bath) at a hotel, which was fun even though it wasn't the real deal per se. There was a REALLY hot pool, a place with faucets to actually wash, and a steam room. Apparently, in really traditional hamams there is a person there to scrub off your last two years-worth of skin as well. People keep telling me that they've never felt so clean in their life. Even though we didn't get the full scrub, it felt great afterwards. We ate dinner and then went to a "disco", which was djed by a couple Koc students. It was a small room and there weren't many people dancing, but the place was furnished with flashing colored lights and a bar so it felt a little more legit. It was also the actual Republic Day, the reason we had a four day weekend, and we got little Turkish flags :). Despite the lack of people I danced from start to finish and had fun. Also, for a little while a Turk was playing traditional rhythms on a dumbek along to Britney Spears and whatever other pop was playing, which was really fun for me.

Unfortunately, this very luxurious hotel was not the one we were staying at. The one we were staying at was surprisingly unclean and unaesthetic (which only added to the feeling of uncleanliness). The bath was industrial size and industrial style: a huge block of dusty marble. The shower was a tube from the pipes. I didn't mind all this really, and ultimately slept fine, it was just kinda funny.

Winery

The next day commenced with a trip to the winery, which is surprising considering the way some people celebrated Republic Day the previous night. Apparently, Kapadokya is famous for its wine. Unfortunately, my naive palette was not able to tell why it was so special based on the samples.

Underground City

This was really cool, probably the best part of this trip. This really was an underground city. Back in the day, lots of Christians escaped to this area to flee persecution. In order to hide they created literal cities underground. It's amazing. It's speculated that there are probably many more than have been found already. Really, it was so weird going down there. There are all these winding, narrow tunnels, some of which you have to double over to get through. Branching off of them are rooms of all sizes, shapes, and apparent functions. People carved arches, windows (from one room to another), doors, shelves, niches, etc. Plus, there are ventilation shafts that extended farther up and down than we could see. I have no idea how a community could actually function in a place like this, but apparently they did. There were even a couple moments when I started to feel slightly claustrophobic, which is really unusual for me. The temperature underground was really stable, in our case much warmer than outside (where, according to my Californian sensibilities, it was freezing).

After this I believe we were meant to hike through the Ihlara Valley and get dinner right next to it. Because of organizational difficulties, we hadn't eaten lunch and everyone was starving so we ate first and by the time we finished it was dark and the Valley was closed. However, through the darkness we could see just enough of the valley to guess that it probably would have been a really awesome hike. Next time.

Bus ride home

From there we set off home. We were now equipped with all the left-side parts of the bus. I sat in the front again, this time with Eunice. It was cool getting to know him. Everything else about the ride was pretty rough, though. I'd barely slept Thursday night and probably only 6 hours on Friday night. So this time I was way more tired and somehow even less able to sleep. Sunrise was great, though :{. Most times when I peered over at the speedometer the needle was at the maximum point, about 120 km/hr, or 100 mph. Nevertheless, we had to stop to switch buses because there was a technical problem with ours and it wouldn't be able to take the hill up to Koc. Needless to say, I slept a lot when I got home.

That night, Nathan, Kathryn and I went down to Sariyer for dinner followed by some wine and a whole tub of ice cream. It was really nice, none of us had been together over the weekend, and there was definitely some bonding. Since then I've had a couple of midterms that I'm hoping went well. Tomorrow we leave again (!), this time for Ankara.

Lots of love to everyone back home!!