Diyarbakır and Mardin

I know it's been a while! Turkey blocked blogger because someone was using it to stream video of a football match, or something like that, and I just figured out how I can access it at my school (which uses the international server yay!). Anyway, I have quite a bit to catch up on.

So, quite a while ago (a month maybe?) I went to Diyarbakir and Mardin with Tyler, Jamie, Ethan, Lewis, Dan, Tim, and Juliayn. These two towns are in the south-east, in the region that is sometimes, and very controversially, referred to as Kurdistan. In fact, Diyarbakir is considered the "capital" of Kurdistan by many Turkish Kurds at least. One of the group mentioned going to Kurdistan in his facebook status and immediately incited a heated status-comment debate involving primarily Turkish students at Koç versus international students at Koç, the former passionately rejecting the use of the term and the latter defending it. One of the nights we were there we spent a couple hours just following the argument as people were posting.

Both towns were really interesting in totally different ways. Diyarbakir was like a culture shock. It really felt like a different country than Istanbul. Not only is this a highly Kurdish area of Turkey, it's also very close to the Syrian border (as well as the Iraqi border) so there is a great deal of Arabic influence in various ways. First of all, the accent is highly influenced by Arabic; at times I even thought some people were speaking Arabic when they were actually speaking Turkish. Also, the landscape, dry, rocky, hilly, yellow, with little vegetation, very well fit some of my associations with a more Middle Eastern climate. Something I really liked about it was that it was way less touristy. Not many people spoke English and walking around felt much more like a legitimate experience of local life. It's more conservative there and there were a lot styles of dress I hadn't seen before. Paricularly, I saw several old women who wore a different style of head scarf and had interesting tatoos on there chins and/or foreheads. Here's the only picture I got of one such woman (but you can't really see the tatoo):

First, we walked around this big market. It was incredibly crowded and all locals. They were selling fresh produce, cheap shoes and clothes, traditional scarves, etc. Then we started exploring the massive walls that run through the town. They were kind of like vertical mazes, somewhat run-down with varyous passageways to the top. There was also evidence of all kinds of shenanigans going on there, including massive homemade water bongs.

While on the walls a group of pre-teen boys started asking us for money and at one point even tried to steal one of our cameras and pick someone else's pocket. It was kinda scary cause we were on the top of an ancient wall. We got down and tried to lose them, but they followed us. It was interesting to see how the boys were communicating with each other through hand signals and whistles. Eventually, we got to a mosque and a very nice man there sensed that something was going on and helped to scare them away. We ended up having tea with him for a bit.

The next day we went to Mardin. It was sooooo beautiful. Old Mardin is a smaller town built on a hillside overlooking a vast exanse of flatland that extends to Syria. This expanse is cultivated and in the atmosphere looks blue-green so that I was constantly thinking it was the sea. What is most striking about Mardin is the architecture. It's dominated by these old buildings that are all the same golden color of sand, blending into the surrounding rocky landscape. They are decorated and carved in gorgeous Arabic styles and patterns, from courtyard arcading to the way the columns are carved.

We did a lot of walking around the city, saw a couple mosques and a monastery that had been converted into an orphaage. It was incredible just to be there, in such a beautiful place. We also ran into a demonstration celebrating the Kurdish new year, Noruz, which was the next day. They were playing traditional music and wearing traditional costumes and waving flags.

It would have been really neat to be able to stay the next day and see the Noruz celebrations, which involve jumping over fire!, but the half of the group I was leaving with had to leave too early. The other half of our group, though, had a really good time joining in the festivities.

So here's a rundown from some of the events from the past week.

First, I got shingles. :((( It started as a couple itchy, tender bumps on my shoulder and then spread to my ear area and didn't go away. I was really freaked out for a bit cause I thought it was some kind of weird bug bite and since I thought there might be bugs in my bed I was having trouble sleeping :P Which is kinda a vicious cycle in the end because shingles is aided by stress. Anyway, I went to hospital a few times and started treatment and now it's all good. I just feel terrible now cause one of my friends has it really bad all of a sudden and I know it's not supposed to be contagious (except to people who haven't had chicken pox, which doesn't apply to her) but I still feel responsible :(

Last weekend started off with a couple of our Iranian friends cooking dinner for Caitlin, Ivy, and me. It was sooo good. It was nice to get a change of cuisine as well. We had some really great and interesting conversations during dinner, talking about gender issues and love and all that. It was interesting to get the perspective from these Iranian guys. Something they said that I thought was really interesting was that although women are required to cover their head when out of the house in Iran, they thought that women in Turkey, where head covering is not required, are much more submissive and cautious of men than in Iran. Of course, it's not just about the head covering but about the conservativeness that the head covering reflects. And then conservativeness in this context is often correlated to gender stratification. They said specifically that they felt that their female peers in Turkey seemed to cringe away from them when they didn't know them and the boys started talking to them, which apparently isn't the case in Iran. I mean, it's hard to tell what this might actually be the result of. Maybe these girls were intimidated by the fact that they were male and foreign. Maybe it's because they don't feel comfortable speaking English with strangers and feel more pressured around men. At any rate, the fact that Turkish girls don't shy away from me when I talk to them probably means that this is a gender issue, but I don't know if we can make the cross-cultural comparison yet :P

Last weekend was Ivy's birthday!! We went all out. The theme was pink (Ivy's favorite color) so everyone had to wear at least something pink. Starting out, Ivy, Caitlin and I got dinner in Taksim (just Pizza Hut lol but it was DELICIOUS), and then we settled into a hostel with Tim, Max, and Paul. We got all dolled up and spent the rest of the night between ESN (Erasmus Student Network bar), K-Box (a karaoke bar where Paul and Max are now soul mates with everyone who works there), and Riddim, which is always a good time for me. During that day I'd made Ivy a not-red red velvet cake, decorated like an armadillo (requires lots of imagination to see it) because that's her favorite cake and favorite animal. So when we got back to the hostel around 5 am we all ate cake :) :

This weekend has started out pretty solid as well. Thursday night we went to a trivia night in Taksim. I contributed to one question (the answer being "Colin Firth") the entire night, but I still enjoyed it a lot and learned some things (that I have since very successfully unlearned). Yesterday during the day CIEE took us to an exhibit at the Sabanci Museum called Treasures of the Ağa Han. I think Ağa Han is just the family that owns all of these beautiful Islamic artifacts. Some were so incredible, especially the Qu'rans. I'm not sure if this is one of the ones we saw, but just so you get an idea of the type:

It was also really cool that the exhibit included works from all over the Islamic world, India, Iran, China, as well as the Ottoman Empire. There was so much creativity, it really made me want to find a script to decorate lol. Maybe I can do Shakespeare's sonnets or something ;) After the exhibit Tyler, Emily, Ethan and I met up with Jamie and Kelsey in Taksim. We got super cheap dinner (small plate of meatballs and potatoes + bottle of water + limitless bread = 3 TL = $1.80) and then went to an INCREDIBLE chocolate cafe (which was WAY more expensive). My blood sugar rose in anticipation just entering the place. They had all different flavors of hot chocolate and way too many incredible desserts. I got coconut hot chocolate and Emily and I split a caramel cheesecake. And the ambiance was so nice, really cozy and they played Ella Fitzgerald and Edith Piaf the whole time. I'm eating all my meals there from now on, btw. Afterwards we went around, had a good time at K-Box but wasn't so much fun at any of the other places. There was an Erasmus party but it was full and somehow we didn't really find anything good. It's alright though. By this point I was in a group with Alanna, Paul, Ethan, and Kelsey, none of whom I know very well so it was a good opportunity to hang out with them. In general that's been a good point to this weekend cause I hung out with newbies on Thursday and yesterday during the day as well.

Tonight I think I'm going to stay in :P Also, my host family is having guests over so that might be a really great opportunity for me to practice Turkish. Other than that I think it would be a good idea to do some homework at some point :D

Winter Voyage: Part 8 of 8: Whelming Europe

I just wanted to put this last post up to sort of have a conclusion for the whole trip. Like I said, I learned so much about so many things, like:

• my specific friends
• people in general and their reactions
• how I react to things and people and social dynamics
• how not all gelato was created equal :(
• WWII and human atrocities
• general European history, the formations of nations and the movement of people
• how much I miss Western food (although I do love Turkish food...)

I think we were expecting this trip to be a lot like the trip we took over fall break, but it was really different. I think that that's really because of the social dynamics. Our fall break was socially lovely, and this one had a lot of tension. Also, it was a bit too long, which I never thought I would say about traveling. I think for these trips where we move around a lot two weeks would be perfect. We were saturated and exhausted by the end. But even though the tension and exhaustion made it often less enjoyable at the moment, it was still fantastic overall and I know that I at least learned a whole lot from even the negative experiences.

At the Milan airport we stocked up on some delicacies endemic to the "Western world", like M&Ms. We got home quite late and I slept in Ivy's roommate's empty bed since I had moved out of my dorm and hadn't moved into my homestay yet. The next day I moved. I am now living a 5-minute dolmus ride away from campus with Rahel, Eytan, and the two-year-old Kayla. The first week back was actually a pretty tough adjustment. Don't get me wrong, my host-family is wonderful. The hardest thing really was getting used to being on campus without everyone from last semester. Plus, we had to adjust to being back in Turkey and not being on the road. Then, even though my host- family is extremely laid-back, accommodating, and easy-going, it's naturally an adjustment to be living with them. Every family has it's own structure and patterns that are taken for granted within it, which means it takes time for me to figure some of them out. Not to mention I haven't lived with a family since high school and since then have been vigorously engrossed in the college-student lifestyle. And I've never lived with a two-year-old. I'm lucky that this one is an adorable sweetheart.

That first week was fortunately CIEE orientation, so there were no classes and us "year-people" got to participate in some of the activities with the new-comers. Some of them are really great. It's too bad that I can't spend more time with them since I'm living off campus :( Since then, classes have started and I'm really enthusiastic about basically all of mine:

• Crime and Deviance (sociology): incredibly interesting, it looks like I'm going to learn a whole lot. Plus our course includes trips to a prison and a mental hospital.
• Turkish Society in Comparative Perspective (sociology): also looks to be really interesting, although our packet of articles for the class is literally 4 cm thick. Hopefully it will help me deepen my understanding of Turkish culture.
• Culture and Behavior (sociology and psychology): this is basically exactly what I want to study later in life. It's soc and psych and cross-cultural. The only thing I would add is a neurological perspective. Also, our teacher, Çiğdem Kağıtçıbaşı, is highly esteemed and respected throughout the academic world. She even has her own Wikipedia page.
• Political Economies of Information and Communication (sociology): I chose this class because the title seemed long enough to denote an interesting course, even though I had no idea what it meant. I think it will be good, though. It's really small and is taught seminar style, which is my style. I really like the teaching style in general in this course. And as it turns out it's in large part about interactions of society and media, which is something I'm really interested in.
• Introduction to Psychology: everyone frowns when I say I'm taking this. It's required for my major and I'm a bit late to take it. It will be quite easy, and I'm okay with that :D

Winter Voyage: Part 7 of 8: Italy

I love Italy so much. There's something about it. Ever since I first visited when I was 14 or 15 I felt attracted to the country in a special way. Although this was my first time in Milan, it had the same pull I felt in other towns. I also hadn't expected Milan to be so overtly beautiful, just because I hear it talked about in terms of its contributions to fashion more often than its contributions to architecture. This is one of the things I love about Italy. There are these millennia-old Roman columns, just hanging out on the street. They've been there for so. long. And then you turn the corner and see this:

This was the duomo of Milan. I fell in love with it. I really wish I could have spent more time just to ogle the exterior walls. You can't see it in this picture but its covered with rich and interesting details, people holding up the columns and so on. To the left of the duomo is a big beautiful archway leading to a vaulted passage. This was lined with all kinds of designers. The center, where two arched passages crossed, was cornered by:

...and:
...and:

...and...wait hold up......

Designer status? Really?

Caitlin, Ivy and I did a bit of self-touring, just walking around the city. This is the palace/castle:

We stayed in a hostel while here, but again made good use of Caitlin's connections to hang out with her friend Matteo. He was really lovely, a bit shy and apparently a true adventurer who loves rock climbing, parkour, and anything else that involves extreme outdoor activity. He showed us around, brought us to a fantastic restaurant, and took us out a couple nights. The last night we went out with him and several of his friends to a club. It was really a local scene, though, which was really fun. The music was crazy, some alternative, some reggae, and then they played the original orchestral Can-Can towards the end. It was a really great time, although some Italian men were making an effort to support certain unfortunate stereotypes of theirs :P That night we went back to Matteo's house, chatted for a bit, and fell asleep around 6 or 7 in the morning. Oof.

So originally we thought we would only be in Milan for a few hours, since it was cheaper to return to Istanbul from Switzerland via Milan. Originally, we thought we would spend the entirety of those few hours in an unabating immersion of Italian cuisine. As it turned out, our changes in plans allowed those few hours to stretch into a few days. I ate pesto fusilli. And spaghetti carbonara. And some kind of incredible gnocchi. And Ivy's leftover pizza. And Matteo made us bolognese. And we had enough gelato to battle global warming. Every gustatory experience was transcendental. There's only one type of Italian food that I'm not upset about having missed:

Winter Voyage: Part 6 of 8: Switzerland

As I mentioned, our time in Zurich was also much more dominated by hanging out with Swiss than by going on tours or to museums. The only tour we took was the one led by our host Kimbal, again a friend of Caitlin's. Although he didn't have much to say about the sights, it was great just to walk around and see it all. This is one of the most expensive streets (in the world??):

It was lined with Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo, and austere Swiss banks. Under our feet here were tons of Swiss gold (clockwise from top-left: Caitlin, Ivy, me):

We made it a point to at least try to see or experience Swiss clocks, Swiss banks, Swiss cheese, Swiss knives, and Swiss chocolate:

This is the lake:

Our last night there Kimbal invited a bunch of his friends over and we had cheese fondue and hung out. We put in a solid, though unsuccessful, effort to get his friend Merlin to yodel for us. It was a fun experience, but it was really too big of a group for us to really connect, I think. In any case it wasn't quite as socially fulfilling as Dublin was.

All in all Zurich was really beautiful. It was also astonishingly clean and orderly. And I loved so many products in the supermarkets (specifically the yogurts and chocolates). Downside? Everything was SO EXPENSIVE. We were so lucky to be able to stay in someone's home here.

Our way out was a train to Italy. We passed through some really beautiful scenery with mountains, lakes, and villages. Next stop? PASTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winter Voyage: Part 5 of 8: Ireland

Upon going to Dublin we parted ways from Emily and met up with Caitlin. This was also where we were dropping Jon off for him to begin his semester studying abroad in Ireland. At this point our style of touring changed significantly. From this point on there was much less sight-seeing and museum-visiting and much more getting in contact with locals and local scenes. This change was partially due to the fact that Jon, the driving force of traditional tourism, was distracted and getting ready to live in Dublin. It was also due to the fact that Caitlin knows people EVERYWHERE. She was president of the exchange club at her high school and is generally a beast at networking so we hung out with a lot of locals from this point on. Of course, on the one hand it would have been nice to have had something of a balance between touring and local experiences for all the countries. But this was a really great time at any rate.

So we spent a lot of time there with a group of Irishmen who were friends of Caitlin's friend. They all went by there last names or some nickname of their last name or a totally random nickname. Caitlin's friend was "Mulls" and his gang included Freely, Foley, and "Snacks" (who happened to be snack-sized). There were others as well but I don't remember their names. Our first night there we hung out with about twice these many people at Snack's house and then went out to a club that played dangerously loud rock. It was a fun scene and Mull's friends were fantastic. The second night we wanted to go out again but our group was drastically reduced due to interfering schedules and people not feeling up for it. So it was me, Caitlin, Freely, and Foley. And another guy who we lost track of for most of the time. It was so much fun. Freely is one of the most charismatic people I've ever met, and seems to embody Irishness in every word and gesture. He even danced jigs at the club we went to. Foley was super sweet and interesting. We started off at a bar called Flannery's (of course). Even though there wasn't a dance floor there was music and Caitlin and I danced the whole time. We couldn't really talk anyway cause it was so loud. Then we went to a club called Coppers. It was crazy inside. I've been in places that were equally crowded (I was consistently in contact with someone or other on all sides :P), but this was different. I've heard tales of Irish drinking habits, but the experience went beyond my expectations. The entire crowd in which I was inextricably enmeshed was swaying the whole time, sometimes together and sometimes in conflicting directions. This made it a bit difficult to dance, but Caitlin and I wouldn't let something like that stop us. And Freely and Foley were great about making sure we weren't taken down by the waves of people. They were such great party partners. They watched out for us, but weren't hitting on us or anything which made everything feel totally comfortable and safe.

Here are some pictures from the bit that we did walk around:

We didn't make it to the Leprechaun Museum. Jon refused :(

Here is Trinity College, where the Book of Kells is (some of my favorite images from Celtic-Christian art). It has a really lovely campus and atmosphere:

Coppers!! (the club):

One of the most exciting things about being in Dublin was that it's an English speaking country. It's amazing how nice it is to be able to specify what you want when buying something, to be able to keep up a conversation with the cab driver, to be able to fully understand directions. However, that doesn't mean we were speaking the same language. Irish accents are ridiculous. And moreover WONDERFUL. And it's not just the vowels and consonants that are different, it's also the music of the language and the slang. The way they say "heart" I swear has several syllables more than when Americans say it. Some things were starting to rub off on us halfway through our time there, although someone told me I sounded like a robot when I tried to imitate it [:[

The last day we had to say goodbye to Jon. It was really sad and I think he was pretty nervous. But it's a great city and hopefully it was the right choice for him.

So, that was supposed to be the last day, but then our flight got cancelled (due to Aer Lingus strikes) and the airline payed our stay at a fancy hotel, dinner and breakfast included. Although it felt like wasted time, we rested and slept a whole lot and I actually think it did us a lot of good.

Winter Voyage: Part 4 of 8: Austria

Austria was the only country where we visited two cities. We started off in Vienna. This was another really lovely city, overwhelmed with beautiful architecture. Also, it started snowing the day we got there, which was fun. This is St. Stephen's Church (it was sooo gorgeous inside and out):

This is the palace (with Emily in the foreground):

We split off for some of the museum-going. Ivy and I went to the Leopold Museum where there was a special exhibit on Klimt. Although I had seen his work before without realizing it, I had never heard of him. I loved it. I really liked how some of his works had really realistic faces on very abstract backgrounds. You can see some of his works here: http://www.iklimt.com/index.html. There was some other art I really liked at this museum, like Schiele. http://www.leopoldmuseum.org/text_en.php?nav=1&id=1.

The next day we went to the music museum which was SO COOL. They covered many different aspects of music. There was a section about the biological bases of hearing and the physical bases of sound, a section on composition, and a section on important Viennese composers (Mozart et. al.). And it was really interactive, so there were sections where you could compose your own "piece" using random sounds, including urban sounds, the sounds of pen on paper, and sneezes. There was even a station where you could conduct the orchestra on a screen with an electronic baton.

Appropriately, that night we went to a Strauss/Mozart concert. It was a cheap concert targeting tourists primarily, but that was honestly perfect for us. It was short, the pieces were short, and there was a bit of opera and dance as well as simple chamber music pieces. I didn't think the dancers were that great, but I thought the musicians were quite good, especially considering the casual setting. The venue was an old very Viennese building, the performance in a big, well-lit room with lots of flowery high-relief molding.

The last museum we went to in Vienna was the Freud Museum. It was in his actual house/place of work. It actually wasn't that great of a museum, unfortunately. It was interesting to see so many artifacts from his life (letters, pictures, and random things like toiletries), but the museum was more biographical than descriptive of his ideas. At the end there was, however, a room with tons of books by and about him. It would have been nice to have been able to spend more time in that library.

While in Vienna we got gelato basically every night. No regrets. We got it at a great gelateria run by flirtatious Italians. I also really enjoyed the DELICIOUS bread rolls and an amazing broccoli gratin I got the first night :DDD

Our last day in Austria we decided to rent a car and drive to Linz (famous for Linzer torts). Linz is right on the Danube:

Our first stop here was to the Ars Electronica Center which was SO INCREDIBLE. O my god there was some unbelievable technology. We started off in a 3D astronomy show that was super realistic. There was a floor on cities with databases for basically anything you would want to know. There were also build-your-own-city interactive stations. There was another floor that more directly covered technology and science. There was this thing (I don't really know how to call it) made up of hanging white plastic ferns and lights. As you moved between the hanging vines they would sense the movement and the ferns would uncoil (to create a slight breeze) and lights would turn on. There was a whole section on eye movement and what it can tell you about the attention of the person. There were activities to show you how your eyes moved when reading or looking at a picture. And while reading the instructions/explanations for the activity the text would scroll automatically according to your eye movement!! Omg, so amazing. http://new.aec.at/news/

After that Ivy and Jon went to explore the churches around the center while Emily and I took a special tram up the hill to Postlingerplatz. There was a church at the top:

and an impressive view:

It was really cold here so we stopped in a cafe and enjoyed some tea. Then we all met back up, had some real Austrian dinner (delicious dumplings for me!!! some with bacon!!!!!) and headed back to Vienna.